“I will not hesitate to defend myself,” Kemi Badenoch, the Business Secretary, somewhat superfluously warned the House, after launching a ferocious attack on Henry Staunton, the sacked Post Office Chairman, because of what he had told The Sunday Times.
Until Badenoch arrived at the Despatch Box, the mood in the House was torpid. Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Chancellor, had just pretended to feel insulted that Jeremy Hunt, the actual Chancellor of the Exchequer, had not turned up to answer her question about Britain going into recession.
She had to make do with Bim Afolami, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who smiled, insisted he was “perfectly entitled to answer on behalf of the department”, and repeated over and over again in a friendly tone that Labour “have got no plan”, so are the true threat to national prosperity,
The House grew sleepy, but then, suddenly, Badenoch was at the Despatch Box, and launched her attack, in the course of which she denounced Staunton for making “a blatant attempt to seek revenge following dismissal”.
Staunton has claimed he was told to stall on paying compensation to sub-postmasters. Badenoch said “there is no evidence whatever that this is true”: on the contrary, the Government has “done everything it can to speed up compensation payments”, and “for Henry Staunton to suggest otherwise is a disgrace”.
She also accused Staunton of failing “to properly consult the Post Office Board”, and said there were allegations against him on “serious matters such as bullying”.
Badenoch’s insistence that attack is the best form of defence makes for a much more invigorating spectacle than we would have got from the kind of minister who habitually takes refuge in tactful understatement in order to damp things down and avoid a stand-up row.
In the Commons Press Gallery, there is a growing recognition that her fighting spirit would make her a marvellously entertaining Prime Minister.
Not that Badenoch was oblivious to the desirability of finding and keeping allies on the other side of the House. She welcomed the “tone” of the response from Jonathan Reynolds, the Shadow Business Secretary.
Reynolds had warned that “people’s faith in government…is hanging by a thread”: an assertion which prompted some of us to reflect that a large proportion of the public long ago lost any faith in government.
But although Reynolds observed that “we do now have two completely contradictory accounts” of what happened, he did not take the further step of casting doubt on Badenoch’s account.
Kevan Jones (Lab, North Durham) observed that “she’s accused Henry Staunton of lying” and said the only way “we can judge that she is telling the truth is if we have all the information out there”.
Badenoch condemned him for engaging in “political point-scoring”, and also told him, for he had ventured to criticise her use of Twitter, “Maybe he should get off Twitter!”
She revealed she had asked Sky News, and The Daily Mail, not to use the story that Staunton was going to be sacked (which to her vast annoyance had been leaked to them) until she had been able to tell him.
Throughout these exchanges, Badenoch maintained an air not just of injured innocence but of sovereign command. Her strength is as the strength of ten because her heart is pure.