Gail’s boss backs Badenoch to be Tory leader

Kemi understands how societies become prosperous and can articulate that

By Luke Johnson, 19th October 2024

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The Conservative Party leadership contest seems to have been heavily focused on immigration and human rights law. These are certainly vital matters for our democracy and security. I think both candidates understand the need to bring down the current unsustainable levels of migration and to take back control of our borders.

What matters to me is who has a wider agenda beyond the issue of migration. In this leadership election, business and economic policy has been less discussed, but as the Labour Government pursues wealth-destroying policies, there is a pressing need for an Opposition leader who understands how societies become prosperous.

For me, one candidate has this understanding and can articulate it. And that is former business and trade secretary Kemi Badenoch. She has spoken and written compellingly about the value of entrepreneurship and the need for risk-taking. As an engineer who has worked in tech, she understands we must revive and re-energise the British economy.

I was interested to read the pamphlet that her campaign published this month on the Rise of the Bureaucratic Class. I wrote about this issue frequently – the remorseless advance of the administrative state, the productivity-sapping rise of functions such as compliance, HR and legal departments while core activities such as production, engineering and research and development have declined.

The UK and other Western economies are increasingly sluggish and dysfunctional. This is more than about Brexit: much of the wider West is barely growing and there has been a shift away from genuine innovation and rising living standards.

Kemi is right to observe that in Britain today, “more and more jobs are related not to providing goods and services in the marketplace, but are instead focused around administering government rules.”

In her 2022 leadership campaign, she was already talking about the need to stop funding low-quality degrees and steer young people towards work or acquiring useful skills. And she has been one of the few voices of reason questioning the costs of our dash to net zero. She understands we cannot simply add ever more state burdens.

She is also right that tackling the growth of the state needs a structural rethink from first principles. Releasing our economy from the grip of the bureaucratic state will need courageous leadership. Kemi is prepared to stand up for what she knows is right even when the Left attacks and smears her.

Labour’s imposing majority allows them to pursue the kinds of catastrophic anti-growth policies we are already seeing. We will see higher taxes and greater regulation because that is what the Labour Party is hardwired to deliver.

Despite all this, it will be difficult for the Conservative Party to get a hearing with voters. It will take a brave and articulate leader to make the unfashionable case for the government to do less, to take on vested interests, and to roll back regulation.

The Conservative Party was rightly heavily punished at the polls in July and has a huge task ahead of it to rebuild trust. But the future prosperity of this country depends on having an effective party in Parliament to defend free enterprise, markets, choice, competition and business. And that’s why I hope Kemi Badenoch becomes leader of the Conservative Party.

Luke Johnson is chairman of Gail’s Bakery and the former chairman of the Pizza Express restaurant chain

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