Kemi Badenoch has officially unveiled her Shadow Cabinet ahead of its inaugural meeting today, and it’s a staggering show of loyalty—20 out of 25 appointments were her supporters during the race. Only two, Victoria Atkins and Ed Argar, threw their lot in with Robert Jenrick, while three former leadership rivals—Jenrick, Mel Stride, and Priti Patel—managed to snag a spot. Tom Tugendhat, on the other hand, was left out in the cold, though his allies claim he chose the backbenches of his own accord…
It was slim pickings for Kemi, having to choose 21% of the Tory MPs to fill her Shadow Cabinet – all with an eye on avoiding the Tory big beasts who helped secure the party’s disastrous electoral defeat. Still, only five members have been MPs since 2010, while four were elected in the 2019 wave. Meanwhile, the Shadow Cabinet is only just on the pro-Brexit side, with 14 ministers firmly in the pro-Leave camp and 11 who backed Remain in 2016. Guido gives you a breakdown of when the MPs were first elected, alongside their 2016 EU stance:
Enough to unite the party?
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”