LONDON — There’s an adult, reasonable response to Kemi Badenoch becoming leader of the Conservative Party, which is all about substance; it’s pleasing that a straight-talking, clear thinker will now be taking on Sir Keir Starmer, the most wittering waffler ever to lead the United Kingdom.

Then there’s an immature reaction, which is all about style; think how even more pinkly over-cooked and priggish Sir Keir will seem, faced with a black woman who, with her braids and gapped teeth, sometimes looks barely old enough to vote.

I feel both. Of course, as a feminist and an anti-racist I’m delighted that Mrs. Badenoch will step up as the fourth female leader of the Conservative Party, as well as the first black leader of a British political party. As someone with a keen sense of spite, I can’t wait to see her in the Commons turn Sir Keir into ten tins of cat-food.

Kemi has earned this. At a time when British politics is as mired in nepotism as showbiz — with Labour, the alleged Peoples Party, the worst offender — her story is both exciting and righteous. Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke was born in 1980 at London; raised in Nigeria, she returned alone to England at the age of 16 to complete her education, working at McDonald’s to support herself.

Our heroine then took a law degree in the evenings and joined the Conservative Party “because it seemed interesting and fun and I wasn’t happy with the way the country was going.” She was elected at the age of 37 as a Conservative MP.

Kemi’s brilliant maiden speech in Parliament started with her recalling “doing homework by candlelight because the state electricity board (in Nigeria) could not provide power…fetching water a mile away in rusty buckets” and ending with praise for Brexit, which she called “the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom.”

Though she has high ideals, there’s something attractively all-too-human about Mrs. Badenoch; a feeling that she might lose her temper at any moment if she has to hear anymore nonsense, be it about Brexit-regret or being non-binary.

Yet her natural gravitas is tempered by mischief; as a youngster, she hacked into a Labour MP’s website and “changed all the stuff in there to say nice things about Tories.” A long-time admirer says, “She would cross the road to bite your ankles, whether you were goading her or not.”

Her marriage to Hamish Badenoch, along with their family of three children, adds to her can-do air of authority. “Kemi has the X Factor, she has the capacity to cut through and communicate — she can bring people together,” said one Tory MP after she declared her intent to run for leader. 

Only four months in, the Labour government is remarkably unpopular, stumbling around in the dark after the most disastrous opening months in living memory, summed up by a poll earlier this week which showed that for the first time in three years the Conservatives have pulled ahead of Labour in public approval ratings.

With that glitchy robotic bonhomie that we have come to know and loathe over the past few months, Prime Minister Starmer extended a stilted welcome to the victorious Mrs. Badenoch. “The first Black leader of a Westminster party is a proud moment for our country,” said Sir Keir.

“I look forward to working with you and your party in the interests of the British people,” the PM added, while one of his members posted on X: “Her election shows that the Tories only care about culture wars.”

It’s true that Mrs. B believes that men can’t be women and that Western culture is preferable to cultures which do not extend equal rights to people of both sexes. In short, she believes what most Brits believe and on which they have been forced to stay silent as the past decade has seen every institution from the Army to the zoos captured by the tyranny of Woke.

Listening to her calm, collected voice, I think of everything that made this country great — from the Blitz to the Beatles to Brexit — and wonder if we might one day remember of what we were proud. If we do, beautiful, bold Kemi Badenoch will — without doubt, in both senses of the phrase — be the next leader of the United Kingdom.