Is Kemi Badenoch too brutal for her own good?

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1:03Jon Sopel:This is a global production. Kemi Badenok started off, I thought, with brutal efficiency in the attacks that she launched. And then I think we were all watching it and started to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable. Is this going too far? He tweeted, there were gasps amongst us reporters in the press gallery at the sheer brutality of Kemi Badenock's attack on the Labour cabinet. Reeves' face was once again, it was a face that was trying not to cry. Kemi Badenock looks like she wears hobnail boots and is tough as nails and all the rest of it. And it's the hard woman of the Conservative Party who's taking the fight to Labour.

1:40Jon Sopel:And so for her supporters, her backbenchers, that looks good. and if you're Bridget Philipson and you've been called a spiteful class warrior maybe you wear that badge and think well there might be good that comes to me. Spiteful class warrior actually I don't think is a big problem. I've heard worse on the floor of the House of Commons and honestly I don't think Bridget Philipson will mind a bit. What happens to somebody who brings dignity to the office? They get turfed out by their own because frankly they're not electoral magic, They're not electoral gold dust. Dignity is a bit of a kind of like the loser's prize now.

2:14You know, you've done dignity. Well done. But yeah, fuck off. We still don't want you. Hands up if you think the education secretary is doing a good job. Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job, Mr Speaker. Even she doesn't think she's doing a good job. Just, oh, someone did. Someone did. Just for those, for those who raised their hands, the two people who raised their hands, Yesterday, a poll found that zero percent of teachers think the education secretary is doing a good job. Zero percent. She taxed private schools to pay for more teachers. But the number of teachers has gone down. It turns out appointing a spiteful class warrior as education secretary was a disaster.

3:05Jon Sopel:Traitors, spiteful class warriors. That was Kemi Badenok at Prime Minister's Questions today, earning a rare rebuke from the Speaker about the sort of language being used in our politics today. It was blunt. It was brutal. But was it bullying? Is this just what politics sounds like today? Or has it gone too far? Welcome to the News Agents.

3:36The News Agents.

3:37Jon Sopel:It's John. It's Maitlis. It's Lewis. And watching Prime Minister's questions, there was always going to be an added interest today. The first Prime Minister's questions, since Keir Starmer announced that he was resigning as Labour Party leader and that Andy Burnham is almost certain to take over from him. Kemi Badenok started off, I thought, with brutal efficiency in the attacks that she launched on the government, on the Labour back benches. And then I think we were all watching it and started to feel a tiny bit uncomfortable about, is this going too far? And, you know, to Emily, what you just said, is it bullying?

4:15Jon Sopel:And at which point, while we were thinking that, debating it, upstood the Speaker to warn MPs about the language they're using. First quarter of this year... Sorry, Prime Minister. can I just say let us think about the language we're using I think that'll be the first to leave can I just say think about the language we're using because when we leave this chamber don't be surprised when constituents feel they can use the same language against each other let us show a little bit more decorum and respect to each other so that was as John said the speaker rebuking Kemi Badenoch for her comments. And indeed, I know some of our colleagues in the press gallery, including GB News' Christopher Hope, echoing just how shocking at least some people in the chamber found it.

5:09He tweeted, there were gasps amongst us reporters in the press gallery. I mean, they've seen a few parliamentary sessions that have got, you know, pretty brutal over the years. At the sheer brutality of Kemi Badenoch's attack on the Labour cabinet and putative successor Andy Burnham at PMQs today. This wasn't the end of it. it has been reported. Jess Elgott from The Guardian saying that MPs have told her that Bridget Philipson and Liz Kendall, the science secretary, confronted Kemi Badenock about her language at PMQs after the session in the gallery where she called Philipson spiteful, which Kendall said was outrageous.

5:47Badenock is reported to have replied, I'm never going to stop talking about how spiteful you are. Philipson then hit back at Badenock saying the public are going to find out who you really are. So this bad blood, this acrimonious exchange developing after the session as well. And it is also being reported that Labour MPs want to complain officially to the Speaker about some of that language, talking about the Gestapo, talking about traitors and so on. It is not the first time that Kemmy Badenock has shown, let's put it more charitably, some steel at PMQ But it's clearly the moment at which Labour MPs feel most exposed to it.

6:27Look, let's put this in context. Kemi Baden-Ock fired a few straight arrows, frankly, at a party that probably is feeling pretty queasy about the way that they have behaved over the last 48 hours. There were very few people who stood outside number 10 or number 11, including the Chancellor herself, when the Prime Minister was making his speech. There were 200 or more MPs in that selfie that Andy Burnham took when he arrived at Westminster Hall for his, I mean, swearing in, but virtual coronation. And so I think what Kemi Badenok did in PMQs today was go for the jugular. She did not shy away from saying what I think many people around the country are thinking, which is that Keir Starmer has stepped down partly as a result of some terrible policies on behalf of his chancellor.

7:21and that actually it was not a particularly edifying spectacle for his own chancellor, not even to be outside sort of waving him off or being at least part of a farewell team when she'd stood beside him and had that job so prominently for the last two years. And if you walked up to the set, which I did, I actually walked towards the television set. But Reeves' face was once again a picture of somebody who was... Well, it was a face that was trying not to cry. I think, you know, we were asking ourselves, because we have seen her in tears in the Commons last time because she thought that Keir Starmer was about to fire her, to sack her, quite frankly.

8:05And we were trying to work out whether she was sort of holding her face in that grimace because she was angry at Kemi Baden-Lock's words or contorted because it was quite hard to get away from the truth of what she was saying or just, you know, coming to the reality that maybe her time as Chancellor is very much up, which is a pretty excruciating thing to have to sit through publicly. And I think the point is that that Kemi Badenot was kind of frankly hitting where it hurt as far as Reeves was going. But once she turned on Philipson, it started to have that sort of edge of mean girls because suddenly you've got sort of, what, two prominent Labour women in a row and two sort of working class women in a row and you're just going from one to the other without even a pause.

8:53Now, what she said about Philipson was, there are fewer teachers on your watch than when you came in. We fact checked that. That is true, right? So it's not that what she's saying is so shocking, but it sort of created an atmosphere that she was just kind of like going through,

9:11Jon Sopel:popping them off, right? I wonder whether at the end of this what you're left with is it being a net win-win. Because Kemi Baden-Ock looks like she wears hobnail boots and is tough as nails and all the rest of it. And is the hard woman of the Conservative Party who's taking the fight to Labour. And so for her supporters, her backbenchers, that looks good. And if you're Bridget Phillipson and you've been called a spiteful class warrior, maybe you wear that badge and think well there might be good that comes to me the deplorable me badge the deplorable me badge exactly and so they they all come out of it thinking yeah it's a bit of a net win i've got there i don't know i mean that's a very cynical view but they look the house of commons you know it was bombed in the second world war and churchill insisted that it wasn't redesigned when it was rebuilt he wanted it to remain the cockpit of debate of bear pit where people really looked at each other across the...

10:08Jon Sopel:A sword's length away. A sword's length apart, so that you felt that it was almost one-on-one combat taking place a sword lengths apart. I think that spiteful class warrior, actually, I don't think is a big problem. I've heard worse on the floor of the House of Commons. And honestly, I don't think Bridget Phillipson will mind a bit. I think that she has... I think what Kemmy Baynock has just done is cemented Bridget Phillipson's place in the next cabinet. because the best thing that you can be... Honestly, she'll get it on... You say, John, wear that badge. I wouldn't be surprised if she literally wears that badge, literally puts it on a badge because remember what Kemi Bainock is talking about there.

10:45She's talking about one of the most popular policies within the parliamentary Labour Party and actually within the public, which is levying VAT on private schools. Now, Kemi Bainock might not like that and I'm sure it's probably cost maybe the old Conservative MP a few quid as a result of it and maybe they don't like that very much and they've been against it from the start. Fine. But Bridget Philipson will wear that with pride. I think that there are other remarks, though, about that policy from Kemi Badenock, which she didn't say on the floor of the Commons. But when Badenock is talking about Gestapo, which she did with an interview with Tim Shipman the other day and Spectator in relation to that VAT policy.

11:19I think, you know, Winston Churchill will tell you this because he did this back in 1945. Maybe it's just a good idea not to bring the Gestapo into anything with regards to, you know, British political life, particularly VAT on private schools. I don't think the Nazis had a particular policy with regards to value-added tax on private schools. Godwin's Law in a nutshell, isn't it? It's like, how quickly can you get to a Nazi analogy from something completely unrelated to anything to do with the Second World War? Yeah, I'm not sure that Himmler had that many views on whether British school kids, British parents should be paying VAT on sending their kids to Marlborough College or whatever it happens to be.

11:56but anyway I do think that it is true to say that with regards to Badenow I actually quite like a pugnature style in the commons and I do think part of her shtick clearly I think actually possibly one of the reasons she's polling pretty well at the moment is that she does have and is cultivating this sort of aura of strength and being brusque and no bullshit and just sort of telling it how it is I do think you could make an argument to say that clearly the danger of that is that it goes too far and there is quite a long history now of her speaking let's let's put it um put it this way rather firmly about certain issues which has caused a backlash i mean people might remember during the 2024 leadership contest conservative leadership contest she said that she thought that between five to ten percent of civil servants should be in prison she was accused during her period as a cabinet minister there had been some suggestions that she had a rather bullying type of behavior towards her officials she suggested that her critics internally were covering up their own failures, gross incompetence.

12:55I tell you what all this makes me think is that and it's quite interesting, you know, the media gets blamed a lot for what is happening in politics. And it's quite interesting to sort of go into the bear pit, as you call it, and say, no, no, this is how politicians are actually speaking to and about each other. This is leave us out of this. But what strikes me and all those examples you've just given, Lewis, I think tell a story of somebody who is frankly terminally online and who is writing and indeed speaking to be clipped up. And that is the thing that's absolutely sort of gets me like if if the chamber is meant to be a place of proper debate, if it's actually meant to be a place where you argue on your feet and you actually sort of put policies or put ideas or put challenges to your opposition, which are then responded.

13:44That feels like a healthier place to be than somebody who comes with a few set lines or a few set tweets and just wants the virality of it. She's always felt like she's a deeply online politician. The way that she speaks, the way that she acts, she is very much a politician of the 2020s. And I think, you know, that way that online political culture is, which does sort of brook no dissent and which is extremely direct and just sort of cultivated, everything cultivated, that sort of snark, that snarkiness. You can hear it in the way that she interacts. But you can hear it as a sort of political trail video, can't you?

14:20You can hear them sort of using her interjections and sort of showing you what has happened. I mean, it feels very curated in a way, even though I'm sure she would argue it's just common sense and it's telling it like it is.

14:32Jon Sopel:I agree with that. But, you know, you go back to the Commons where debates on policy would happen. when there is a debate on policy in the house of commons the second reading of the whatever bill the place is empty because no one is interested in that they come in for prime minister's questions they want to see a punch-up they want to get written up on x or wherever it happens to be so that they get a good review of their performance in the comments we've just opened the news agents with that exactly who won pmqs yeah and i just think that you know so maybe she's smart maybe she's just being smart about the way you play modern politics which is to come out with ready made quotes and clips that will play well on x or insta or facebook or wherever it happens to be i mean my my question i suppose is is does she go too far is it does it tilt into that question of whether it's bullying or whether it's mean girls or whether it's just plain unpleasant that you You just think, oh, I mean, you know, I mean, when when Norman Tebbit was kind of right by Thatcher, Norman Tebbit did the boot boy stuff, the Chinkford skinhead.

15:40Jon Sopel:He put the boot into all these politicians. That just sort of rose above some of that. Whereas Kelly Badenock has taken it upon herself to be the boot person as well. And maybe we're just shocked because it's a female voicing it. Whereas, frankly, male politicians have patronised and booted female politicians for decades. Yeah, and that is also a good question. Are we kind of going, you know, to getting an attack of the vapours? Well, to your point, Kemi Baden-Ock is seeing her highest favourability to date, according to YouGov, which is 31%. Now, I'm not pretending it was as a result of what she said an hour ago in the Commons.

16:17this will go back to her win in Aberdeen South, the by-election of the weekend. This will go back to presumably how she handled some of the earlier debates that we were having around Henry Novak and around the sort of, you know, prime ministerial delicacies, I think, of how Keir Starmer resigned. But it is interesting that whatever she is doing or has done in, let's say, the last 10 days appears to be working. So she will take sucker from that.

16:46Jon Sopel:I question whether today's PMQ's performance helps her in that area. I think that I know for a fact that, you know, some of the people that are advising her about how she needs to kind of shape the leadership and get the party in the direction. It's going loved the way she reacted towards Henry Novak and thought it was very smart politics. Thinking about, you know, the way they fought Aberdeen South and concentrating on the government's energy policies and the shortcomings there. That was all very smart. And I think that they worry. about nastiness and coming over as a sort of you know as you say snarky always snarky i've actually think generally speaking um she uh look she has her own style and it's sort of i i don't actually think it's a huge problem in the comments really um and i think that i think there is one exception though i don't mind the class traitor stuff or the you know class warrior stuff as i said i think philipson will be very very content with that absolutely fine particularly given that andy Burnham will be choosing his cabinet.

17:44And Starmer was very complimentary about her as well. I do think there is one category of word which is complicated. And this is something which we hear in politics more and more which is treachery and betrayal. Betrayal is a really dangerous word I think in politics. The sort of stab in the back stuff. Now in fairness to Badenock she was talking about members of the cabinet betraying and being traitors to Starmer. It's hard to think of another word for what happened to Starmer in the past week. Well, perhaps, but it is a word which, you know, it is being invoked consistently, particularly by the populist right.

18:17And I would just say, and I suspect it might be that word more than spiteful that got Hoyle's ears pricked up. Because let's not forget that, you know, we've had two MPs killed in this country. We've had we've just gone past the 10th anniversary of Joe Cox's murder. and let's not forget the circumstances in which she was killed by a neo-nazi with loads and loads of material at his home basically about this idea that britain was being betrayed and everything like that so i'm not saying that badenock is invoking that there and it's the it's it's far more subtle but i do think the language of betrayal in politics has a very very long pedigree and i think senior politicians have to be careful about invoking it in any circumstances really because we know that there are people out there who hear something different to that which they might intend.

19:06I mean, over the Boris Johnson years, it was the Brexit betrayal. Yes. It was the one that was used constantly in the Commons to suggest anyone who didn't follow his steps was somehow letting the country down, not patriotic. I would say, though, I think there is a huge amount of hypocrisy in all this, because the one thing that we have all sort of lauded Keir Starmer for is restoring dignity to the office. You know, bringing back this sense of high office being sort of reputationally sound. And everyone said, yes, you know, he's restored dignity. He's sort of put us back in terms of good relations.

19:40What happens to somebody who brings dignity to the office? They get turfed out by their own because, frankly, they're not electoral magic. They're not electoral gold dust. Now, I understand why that happens. I'm not naive enough to say, you know, oh, I don't know why they did that or why they got rid of him. You know, we've been over that for weeks. but it does seem to me that dignity is a bit of a kind of like the loser's prize now you know you've done dignity well done but yeah fuck off we still don't want you and so i do i do think there's a hypocrisy between saying oh we're dying to get back to discourse we're dying to get back to civilized language we're dying to have this wonderful warm sane comfortable place but actually

20:20Jon Sopel:don't dare lose yes don't dare lose yeah look i think they're there unless it's a debate that has gone on for years and years and years that people say they want a calmer more moderate prime minister's questions no they don't they want they want the spectacle there's you know there's a reason why there it's shown live on tv most days you know most weeks when there's prime minister's questions on because you know it's a bit of theater that is utterly alien to american politics there's no nothing like it anywhere you know in the american political scene and yet we have this as part of our politics and it is a confrontational politics you are the leader of the opposition it's an official uh post in the you know in the constitution and you are there to oppose and you're there to kind of and if you're not going to score political points on a day when the prime minister has been felled by his own party i mean for god's sake when are you well i mean there was one um there was one fundamental truth that however she expressed it but he not was right about right which is that um yes they loved you if they liked him so much Why has he resigned this week?

21:21Which is fundamentally true. And Badenock's spokesperson has apparently told lobby journalists, even while we've been sat here, saying that Kemi Badenock will absolutely not apologise for the language she used during PMQs. Spokesperson said that he thought Badenock had been nice to Keir Starmer. I tell you, with friends like that, who needs enemies? In the chamber. And she felt sorry for him. He said there was very little aimed at the Prime Minister himself. This was about a cabinet which has let him down, about a group of Labour MPs who have let him down, and now they've got rid of him. One interesting sort of thing for the future, of course, is how Andy Burnham and Badenock face off at PMQs, because there you have potentially two very contrasting and very different styles.

21:59I think we could say box office. Well, I don't know. Well, yes, yes, maybe. I mean, look, but the thing is, in a way, Starmer and Badenock were sort of a similar-ish sort of temperament in the sense that Starmer would try and batter her like a lawyer with sort of facts and this, that and the other and kind of match her at some of her, maybe not match her invective, but match that kind of the sort of approach that she has. How long does Burnham's more sort of come by our all come with me kind of like approach, which is like let's work across party and I'm much more gentle and I'm placed, not politics.

22:27How long does that last? How long does that shtick last in the adversarial bear pit that is PMQ against a leader of the opposition who is more adversarial and more pugnacious than most? It'd be a very interesting spectacle. He was the one who said, I mean, years ago and obviously it never happened. But when he was health secretary, he was the one who said we need to find a cross party solution to social care. Now, good luck. Well, that's what I mean. There will be millions of people in this country who say I would like nothing more than to bang politicians heads together till the parties can work together to deliver, you know, a proper defence plan, a proper social care plan, a proper safeguarding children plan.

23:03and I mean I don't think you can argue that that kind of language makes you know makes working together out of reach but it it does suggest that we're not really at a place where we are going to sort of work in a rainbow coalition.

23:19Jon Sopel:I think the question about how does Kimmy Badenock approach Andy Burnham is a really interesting one and I also think how does Andy Burnham approach her you know on the US edition we've been talking about you know the influence of Zoran Mamdani on American politics and how there is this optimism and there is this hope and joy and pleasure in what he's doing. And that's kind of very hard to bat against. I mean, obviously, Kevin Bader will come and say, well, but look at the latest unemployment figures or look at the latest growth figures and whatever else. But, you know, Andy Burnham, if he keeps that bit of, you know authenticity as the kind of nice fellow with a smile on his face and i thought i wonder i think kemi might find that a very difficult thing i've just been um hearing from one of the advisors to her pmq's sessions i said did she go too far no exclamation mark she's had to put up with his kids condescending patronizing sanctimonious lectures as we all have for two years so there was a sense I guess in that of like right it's finally coming out.

24:25You're done I'm here. Well we had a little glimpse of what Bader not might say or think about Burnham because she did have something to say about Burnham of course didn't she at the very end where she said he's been let down that's Keir Starmer by backbenchers who don't understand that government is about tough choices. He's U-turned again and again and again to appease them and now they've abandoned him. What for? A pair of eyelashes and a black t-shirt. So Kemi I think starting as she means to go on with the Bade Knock Burnham contest. I mean, that is actually quite flattering. Whereas if you start painting him as the guy who led the heist, the guy who, you know, led a coup on his own leader.

25:02Yeah, but the public wanted it. Yeah, but I'm just saying you're back to the argument or the narrative of betrayal then. You betrayed your own party for what? You know, that's clear ground where the opposition will probably land. As she's still doing with Ed Miliband versus his brother in the election.

25:18Jon Sopel:I think if she just goes on the line of black t-shirt and eyelashes he's okay i think she's underestimating him somewhat given what he's you know given the political operation that has been unfolding over the past few weeks some of which we've seen in the past week and you know the make-a-feel by-election but there has been going on longer than this andy burnham is not to be underestimated many politicians would kill for those eyelashes.