Tory leader a snapback to right

The election of Kemi Badenoch (birth name Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke), 44, a black woman with a Nigerian Yoruba tribal background, to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader of Britain’s Conservatives should signal the start, at last, of the party’s recovery from the devastating defeat it suffered at the hands of Labour in July.

With Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s bumbling new government already surrounded by scandal and polls giving the Conservatives their first lead over Labour for three years, the timing of Ms Badenoch’s emergence at the helm of what claims to be the world’s oldest political party, founded in the 1830s, could not be more propitious.

Unlikely though she may appear as the leader of a party noted for its small-C conservatism and stiff-upper-lip stuffiness, Ms Badenoch is, as The Times noted, “a conviction politician with signs of the political clear-sightedness needed to revive the Tories’ sunken fortunes. She is a high-risk but potentially high-reward choice.”

A combative right-winger whose hero as a young schoolgirl in Nigeria was Margaret Thatcher, Ms Badenoch has been quick to praise Boris Johnson as a “great prime minister” and dismiss the “partygate” scandal that led to his dismissal as “overblown”. That should do much to help rebuild party unity after the dismal failure of his successor, Mr Sunak, to save the party from electoral catastrophe.

The electoral challenge Ms Badenoch confronts is daunting but not hopeless. Labour’s missteps and unforced errors in the short time it has been in power have illustrated how volatile political fortunes can be.