Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the Tory party, has stated that the Partygate scandal was “overblown” and that Boris Johnson was a “great” prime minister.
Ms. Badenoch suggested, in her first major interview since winning the contest to replace Rishi Sunak, that the issue was actually with the Covid fines. Mr. Johnson was the first sitting PM to be sanctioned by the police when it was discovered that he had broken his own Covid rules while he was in No. 10.
Ms. Badenoch stated on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “Despite being among the dozens who resigned from his government in July 2022.” He impressed me as a prime minister.
However, “there were some serious issues that were not being resolved,” and “I think that during that tenure the public thought that we were in it for ourselves and were not speaking for them or looking out for them.”
She continued, ” I believe that some of those things were misperceptions, and many of the events surrounding Partygate were not the reason I resigned. I thought it was exaggerated. For instance, we should not have issued notices of fixed penalties. That was our breaking our own rules.
She went on to say that the general public was “not wrong to be upset about partygate,” but she said: We should not have criminalized everyday activities in the manner that we did, which was the issue.
“People going out for walks, all of them having fixed penalty notices, that was what ended up creating a trap for Boris Johnson,” On X, Paul Waugh, a Labour MP for Rochdale, responded: Is it true that the Conservatives haven’t learned anything?
Ms. Badenoch, on the other hand, insisted that she wanted to “draw a line” in the Tories’ issues. She stated: We have suffered a historic defeat in an election. Given where we are right now, it will not be helpful to simply go over each and every incident.
She responded when asked about the 49-day PM Liz Truss’s “recklessness”: The purpose of my presence here is to discuss my plans for leading the Conservative Party. We could conduct a post-mortem on each and every Prime Minister over the course of the past 14 years, but I don’t think that would be very helpful.”
Ms. Badenoch also stated in her first important interview that she would overturn Labour’s decision to impose VAT on private school tuition. When asked if she would change Labour’s policy on private schools, she stated: I certainly would.
“And the reason why it won’t raise any money is because it is a tax on aspiration.”
She responded, “When it was suggested that this would involve taking money from state schools: We did not have this tax at the moment, certainly not prior to Labour’s election, so it does not deprive state schools of funds.
“This is not what is taking place, and we also observe that there is a knock-on effect with the requirement to enroll more students in state schools.
“However, at its core, that is a tax on aspiration. Yes, that is the kind of thing about which I can very easily say that we would not do that because it is wrong and against our principles to tax education.
Ellie Reeves, the Labour Party’s Chair, stated: Kemi Badenoch’s dismissal of Partygate as “overblown” will be insulting to the families in Britain who followed the rules and missed funerals and deaths of loved ones while her coworkers partied in Downing Street.
“After promising unfunded tax breaks for private schools, Kemi Badenoch must explain where the cuts to state schools will hit—it’s no wonder she refused to condemn Liz Truss, whose Mini Budget crashed the economy.
“The leader may have changed, but Kemi Badenoch has proven three times on her first day in the job that the Tories haven’t listened and haven’t learned,”