Badenoch to ‘get better’ at media and PMQs, says Stride, as he backs her as leader – UK politics live
Q: Do you think the Conservative party should change its leadership election rules to stop the members choosing another Liz Truss?
Stride says he does not want to comment on that process.
But he says Kemi Badenoch is the best person to deliver the thoughtful style of leadership and politics that he has been calling for. (See 11.23am.)
He says:
If you look at the nature of the challenge and the approach to it that I have set out, which is deep thought through through time and thoughfulness, she is the person to lead us.
She will get better through time at the media. She will get better through time at dispatch box though PMQs, just as Margaret Thatcher, when she became leader in ‘75 , was often criticised for everything from her hair to the clothes she wore to the pitch of her voice to heaven knows what else, in the end, she got it together, and Kemi will do absolutely that.
What she is doing behind the scenes is leading a shadow cabinet that is united, and our party has not been united in that way for a very long time.
And she is going to drive through the process with me and others, so that we come to the right conclusions.
Stride was referring to the many criticisms of Badenoch’s performance (which explain why Henry Hill, deputy editor of the ConservativeHome website, said in a recent Guardian article that Tories assume she will face a leadership challenge.)
Stride probably intended these remarks to be helpful. But Badenoch may not view them quite like that.
