Kemi Badenoch has argued that the next generation of Conservatives need to be C words. If you’re thinking ‘aren’t they already?‘, we can explain:
I can think of a sixth C https://t.co/LPcvwY7kT9
— Ian Sharp (@gablid) May 31, 2026
Kemi Badenoch — Do you C what she did there?
This latest intervention comes from a Badenoch-penned think piece titled:
This Z-list Labour Parliament is everything that’s wrong with British politics
You don’t have to read between the lines to understand that Badenoch is promising a return to the traditional Tory values of bungs for business and austerity for the masses:
I want men and women who understand that it is not government that creates growth; it is business. That the state should do fewer things but do them well. That economic policy should reward not just effort but risk. We cannot and should not have a zero-risk environment.
They need to be fiscal realists. There are no perfect solutions, only trade-offs. Everything has a cost. There are no free lunches… or free breakfast clubs.
While she targets Labour in the headline, much of the piece is clearly directed at the former colleagues who defected to Reform. Take the offending paragraph:
But that’s not all. I have overhauled the candidate selection process for Tory MPs to search for the next generation. We need candidates with the five Cs: they must be clever, have charisma, communication skills, conviction and, most importantly, be Conservative.
I will not allow people who do not share our beliefs to use the Conservative Party as a vehicle to further their personal ambitions.
On the one hand, she’s right to suggest Tory defectors used the party “as a vehicle to further their personal ambitions”. On the other, this is clearly true of most Tories whether they defected or not.
You could also add far more Cs to the list, including:
‘Braindead wasteland’
Clearly feeling C-ranky, Reform’s Zia Yusuf responded:
The party that gave us Matt Hancock as Health Secretary and Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, and still has the likes of Priti Patel and James “Cleverly” on the front bench wants to claim they’re the party of talent?
The Tory Party is a wasteland of braindead career politicians who will soon learn they’re unemployable in the real world.
Kemi herself has no achievements of note in her career other than hacking Harriet Harman’s website.
It’s understandable why Yusuf would take offence; it’s because he and the rest of Reform’s top politicians are ex-Tories. The fact that they left the Conservative Party doesn’t mean they’re no longer C-words, though. If anything, we’d argue they’re bigger C-words than ever.
Featured image via Leon Neal (Getty Images)
By Willem Moore
From Canary via This RSS Feed.