Kemi Badenoch has begun her purge of the wets, with Theresa May’s former chief of staff Gavin Barwell finally dumped earlier this week after he spent months moaning about the Tories becoming a “Reform tribute act“. The Tories say all parliamentary candidates need to back plans to scrap net zero and leave the ECHR. A sound move, although it looks like a few bedwetters are still slipping through the cracks…
Jamie Mulhall, a councillor on Derby City Council and one of its “climate champions,” posted that he was “proud to be part of Kemi’s team as an approved Conservative candidate” and ran a 2024 campaign praising the party’s record on cutting emissions. Lucy Trimnell, a councillor recently selected to stand for the Bruton seat on Somerset Council, said she was “honoured to have been accepted onto the candidates list” and has previously argued the UK “shouldn’t need to leave the ECHR” to deport criminals. Dr Daniel Pitt, an advisory board member of the pro-net-zero Conservative Environment Network, welcomed his place on the national candidates list. CEN argued just last year that Conservatives should “lean into” being environmentalists…
Likewise Miranda Jupp, a former chief of staff to Simon Clarke and an approved candidate, previously shared a warning that Badenoch shouldn’t “reject the popular priority of caring for our planet” via Net Zero. Meanwhile the dripping wet ‘pressure group’ Prosper UK – spearheaded by Barwell – continues to insist the party should be a ‘broad church’, which really means it should walk and talk like the LibDems. Badenoch clearly has her work cut out…
UPDATE: Simon Clarke defends his former chief of staff Miranda Jupp, saying she is “like a Saharan breeze of dryness”:
“We need a hard reset of energy policy and to replace the net zero commitment that has run so far ahead of what both available energy technology and our economy can sustain, and I know from many conversations that Miranda agrees.”
Robert Jenrick on the Today programme:
“Can you now give a guarantee to your listeners this morning that no BBC presenter in the future will be exposed as a paedophile, as a number have been in the recent past? No, of course you can’t…”