𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Some people don’t learn. But a few keep on getting better, and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is one of those. After a rocky start, she’s grown into the role of leader of the opposition. And she looks ready to grow into the role of Prime Minister too, if she ever gets the chance. Her common sense response to the murder of Henry Nowak had people across the nation nodding along – even if they weren’t natural Conservatives.

She said: “I don’t want to hear about black lives matter, I don’t want to hear about white lives matter, we all matter. “Enough of this nonsense where we keep separating everybody and splitting people into different groups, we are descending into tribalism.” Naturally. she was horrified by the murder of Henry Nowak, and by the response of police who arrested the victim as he bled to death because the killer had falsely claimed to be a victim of racism. And she recognised that people were angry. But she also said the role of a leader was not to make people even more angry on purpose.

That doesn’t mean she held back from expressing strong views. She said: “We need to stop this racialising of our society. We are multiracial yes, but we need to stop using race as a way of defining laws … Let’s treat everyone equally.”

This was a direct attack on the divisive philosophy that has seen public services, including the police, focusing on race and skin colour.

So-called equality and diversity policies may have been well-meaning. But as Mrs Badenoch said, “pernicious identity politics” had seen the country “going backwards”.

It’s a far cry from the response of Sir Keir Starmer, who expressed his horror at the murder and its aftermath but had little to say about what needs to change.

Kemi Badenoch certainly wants to change things. And she sounds like the sort of person you’d actually want in charge.

I was struck by this previously, when many of our politicians, and much of the media, were growing fascinated by the Netflix drama show Adolesence, about a teenage boy who commits murder.

It wasn’t a documentary. It wasn’t based on a true story. It was a work of fiction, but it was briefly trendy.

Keir Starmer’s response was to call for the TV show to be shown in schools.

Mrs Badenoch, on the other hand, said she hadn’t seen it and “probably won’t”. In a TV interview, she said she didn’t need to watch “a film on Netflix” to understand crime “in the same way I don’t need to watch Casualty to know about the NHS”.

She added: “I have met parents of children who have had those experiences. I have met children who have been victims. I think that is enough for me to go out there, make policy and look at the research.”

Her refusal to follow the herd shocked her BBC interviewers including Naga Munchetty, who told her: “Everyone is talking about it”.

But Mrs Badenoch was the grown-up in TV studio that day, just as she increasingly appears to be the grown-up in the House of Commons.

When you look at the opinion polls, it still seems unlikely that she will ever become Prime Minister. Voters are beginning to like her, but they don’t like the Conservatives.

Even so, it’s growing easier to imagine Mrs Badenoch one day being the grown-up in Number 10.