Badenoch says husband frustrated by claims she is ‘preoccupied’ with children
The Tory leadership hopeful added that her husband Hamish has ‘worries’ about her safety.
Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has described her husband as “frustrated” with how she is being portrayed after a Conservative colleague described her as “preoccupied” with her children.
The shadow minister described her husband Hamish as “the one looking after the children” in an interview with the BBC, and also said that he “worries” about her safety.
Ms Badenoch is competing with Robert Jenrick to secure the support of Conservative members in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as party leader.
In an interview with the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast, the North West Essex MP said her spouse is “probably more frustrated than anyone else because he sees me being portrayed in a way that he simply doesn’t recognise”.
Pushed further on what she meant, Ms Badenoch said: “You would have heard the comments about ‘oh she spends too much time looking after her children’ and he’s thinking ‘I’m the one looking after the children. What are you talking about? Which of course he is.
“Yesterday night he couldn’t come to a reception with me because he had to look after the children and so on.”
Ms Badenoch said her partner also believes she gets “unfair criticism” and “worries about (her) safety”, as she described the impact as “quite tough”.
Last week, veteran Conservative MP Sir Christopher Chope – who is supporting Mr Jenrick in the leadership contest – said that the mother-of-three was “preoccupied” with her children, telling ITV that “you can’t spend all your time with your family” while leader of the opposition.
Mr Jenrick has distanced himself from the comments that were made on ITV’s The Last Word programme.
Sir Christopher told the programme last week: “Much as I like Kemi, I think she’s preoccupied with her own children, quite understandably.
“But I think Robert’s children are a bit older, and I think that it’s important that whoever leads the opposition has got an immense amount of time and energy.”
The winner of the Conservative leadership contest is due to be announced at the start of November.
