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Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
This is a candidate who tells the truth – even when people don’t want to hear it
As Conservatives, we believe that our magic formula for success rests on free markets, free speech and confidence in our culture and history.
Britain is a small country but we’re brimming with creativity. We respect reason and tolerance. We believe in personal responsibility.
But these fundamental values, which we have fought for as Conservatives, are under threat. A failed consensus has taken hold.
It tells us that our economy should be more statist and centrally planned, that our freedoms should be curtailed lest they cause even minor discomfort to others and that our traditions are not worth our pride.
It tells us our borders should be open, but when it comes to free speech our mouths should be shut.
So it’s not enough for us Conservatives to preach to the converted. But equally, it is a trap to reach for artificially centrist ideas that we don’t agree with for short-term political gain.
Instead, we need, once more, to create a new consensus.
All six of our candidates would be better than Sir Keir Starmer. They’ve spent the summer engaging in a battle of ideas, not of personalities. That’s a credit to all of them.
However, I believe that Kemi Badenoch is the best person to renew our party and country. Time and again, Kemi has shown that she will defend causes which are proven to be right. I first worked with Kemi when she asked me to help her defend Dr Tony Sewell. He is an outstanding educationalist who has spent decades helping some of our most marginalised children overcome the odds stacked against them.
Tony wrote a detailed and well-evidenced report on race, filled with ideas to improve lives. However, his arguments didn’t agree with the prevailing consensus and so the Left decided he must be torn down. He was attacked for daring to be a black man who said that Britain was a model for white majority countries. It would have been easy for Kemi to stay silent, like most people. She didn’t.
When net zero legislation was rushed through Parliament – with a mere 17 minutes of debate – it would have been easy for Kemi to forgo asking questions, like almost every other MP. She didn’t.
And when extreme gender activists were putting vulnerable women and children’s rights at risk, it would have been easy for Kemi to stay quiet like most people. She didn’t.
Because Kemi is not most people. She has the courage and conviction to make the political weather while advancing Conservative causes.
And as Labour’s true intentions are exposed every week that they hold office, we will need someone capable of making compelling arguments.
Sir Keir’s election campaign has got to be one of the least scrutinised in history. How else did he get away with promising to save people £300 on their energy bills when he clearly had no plan to do so? In opposition they talked about growth, in Government they are plotting job-crushing business regulation, cutting infrastructure programmes and research into artificial intelligence, while planning taxes across anything that might generate investment into Britain.
Rachel Reeves is giving more money to the highest paid train drivers in Europe, and less money to our pensioners. Ed Miliband is pursuing an energy policy that will make us poorer, colder and leave us at the mercy of China. Bridget Philipson is clamping down on free speech. And they’re only two months in.
We Conservatives could just wait for the country to get tired of Labour. That, after all, was the Labour Party’s entire strategy when they were in opposition.
But that’s not good enough. We need to be better than they are.
Kemi has too much respect for this country to just sit back and let Labour destroy it. She understands the challenges that modern Britain faces. She won’t reach for the easy answers, she will hunt down the right ones. She tells the truth, even when people don’t want to hear it. And no matter what people throw at her, when she knows she is fighting in the public’s interests – she doesn’t get blown off course.
That’s why I believe that of all our candidates, Kemi is best placed to create a new consensus that can renew our party and our country.