Kemi Badenoch’s first 100 days will mark the last gasp of Thatcherism

Like Margaret Thatcher – who, 50 years ago today, knocked Ted Heath out of the running to lead the Conservatives in opposition – Kemi Badenoch was a shocking choice for the party’s frontwoman, says John Rentoul

The Conservative leader was safe, according to The Guardian 50 years ago this morning. Its headline read: “Buoyant Heath looks set for a clear lead.” A few hours later, the world was turned upside down. Margaret Thatcher, the upstart challenger, had beaten Ted Heath by 130 votes to 119.

She was three votes short of a majority of Tory MPs, because Hugh Fraser, a third candidate, had picked up 16 votes. That meant there would have to be a second round of voting a week later. Heath, deeply affronted by his rebuff, withdrew from the contest immediately, and the Tory party’s strange leadership rules allowed other candidates to enter the race at this stage, meaning that Thatcher would have to face off against William Whitelaw, Geoffrey Howe, Jim Prior and John Peyton.

The election was all but over, however, because Thatcher had had the courage to strike, while the men in suits had held back.

For the five decades since, Thatcher’s personality has loomed over the Tory party. She shaped its view of itself, and of Europe – although she came late to Euroscepticism – but above all, of the nature of leadership. Every Tory prime minister since has defined themselves in relation to her.

John Major was a kinder, gentler face of her policies as he tried to manage the split on Europe that she had opened up. David Cameron disowned her: “There is such a thing as society; it’s just not the same thing as the state.” Theresa May was hailed as a new Iron Lady, but turned out to be made of less stern stuff.

Boris Johnson preferred to invoke Winston Churchill, but his supporters thought he was completing the work of “the Leaderene” – a nickname afforded to Thatcher by one of her cabinet ministers – when he took us out of the EU. Then we had the explicit tribute acts: Liz Truss claimed to be returning to the Thatcherite virtue of low taxes, while Rishi Sunak, who had been inspired by Thatcher at school – he was 10 when she was pushed out of office – preferred to emphasise a more historically accurate version of Thatcherism, putting up taxes to balance the books before trying to deliver tax cuts.

Kemi Badenoch – who marks her 100th day as party leader next week – is the same age as Sunak. At school in Nigeria, she admired Thatcher from a distance. “Whenever I was told I couldn’t do something because I was a girl, I would just say two words: Margaret Thatcher. And there was nothing they could say in response to that,” she has said.

More than any of her predecessors as Tory leader, according to her supporters, she embodies the character as well as the values of the semi-mythical figure who still haunts the party’s imagination. Like Thatcher, she is as keen to observe conventions as to rewrite them. It was for Badenoch that the King this week revived a tradition, dormant for two decades, whereby the monarch invites the leader of the opposition to Buckingham Palace for a formal, one-on-one introduction.

Also like Thatcher, Badenoch was, by virtue of who she is, a shocking choice for the leadership. In Thatcher’s case, it was because she was a woman; in Badenoch’s case, it was because she is a Black woman. Each of them refused to be treated differently because of their difference, yet each also managed to trade on that difference to confound expectations. (In passing, it is extraordinary to note that, in those 50 years, the Labour Party has been led exclusively by white men.)

There are other parallels. Like Thatcher, Badenoch served loyally in a Tory government while, she claims, disagreeing with central assumptions of its policy. Like Thatcher, Badenoch is light on policy specifics while projecting a clear view of personal responsibility that requires less of a role for the state.

The context today is different: in the 1970s, Britain was coming to a point when a new economic approach was needed, whereas it is not clear that, even after what will by then have been five years of Labour government, people in 2029 will be crying out for a smaller state. Badenoch’s instinct for personal responsibility, meanwhile, will only get her into trouble – for wanting to cut maternity pay, for example, or for sounding as if she thinks the state pension is too generous.

The context is different in another critical respect: back then, although the Heath government was thought to have failed, everyone assumed that the next phase of opposition to the Labour Party would come from within the Tory party – that it would be time for the free-market ideas of Keith Joseph, which had briefly been tried by Heath, to be tried again. Today, Badenoch faces a challenge from Nigel Farage, who is seeking to replace the Tory party from the outside.

I wonder if Badenoch’s leadership is the last gasp of Thatcherism, in that it may be the last time that the party will be led by someone who was politically conscious while the Iron Lady herself was prime minister – even if Badenoch was only 10 at the time. If Badenoch succeeds, like Thatcher, against the condescension of those who assume she will fail, she will earn the right to define herself in her own terms.