Who are Kemi Badenoch and husband Hamish (pictured)? (Picture: Mark Thomas/Shutterstock)
Kemi Badenoch has been announced as the leader of the Conservative Party – but who is the new top Tory?
Badenoch has taken over as the new Tory leader following the disaster general election result for the party which lost 251 seats.
Months after the tumultuous election, Badenoch won the leadership race with 53,806 votes, beating rival Robert Jenrick by 12,418 votes and becoming the first Black woman to lead a major UK party.
She described her party’s task as ‘tough but simple’ as it is now in the opposition.
Badenoch and Hamish were spotted together at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham (Picture: Henry Nicholls/AFP)
Now all eyes are on the 44-year-old who was not a clear favourite to win the leadership race.
But she has managed to become the favourite of the Tory grassroots after positioning herself as an anti-woke politician firmly on the right with controversial views on LGBT+ rights, immigration and colonialism.
We look inside the private life of the Badenoch and those close to her.
Where was Kemi Badenoch born?
Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch was born on January 2, 1980, in Wimbledon, southwest London.
She is one of three children born to her Nigerian Yoruba parents – a GP and a professor of physiology.
Her professor mother’s work took the family to the United States and Kemi grew up both in the US and Lagos, Nigeria.
After her A-levels at Phoenix College in Morden, south London, Badenoch worked at a McDonald’s before studying computer science at the University of Sussex.
She went on to work in the IT sector before completing a law LLB degree in 2009 and working in the financial services and consultancy sector, including at Coutts and a brief stint at The Spectator as a digital director.
Who is Kemi Badenoch married to?
You could get away with not knowing the name of the Tory leader’s husband as he has largely stayed out of the limelight – until now.
Hamish Badenoch met Kemi when he was a Conservative activist in the Dulwich and West Norwood Tory association, which led to their friendship and his becoming her campaign manager.
Badenoch pictured leaving her south London home after she launched her leadership bid in September (Picture: Peter MacDiarmid/REX/Shutterstock)
Hamish has been likened to Margaret Thatcher’s husband Denis who offered to give lifts to young Thatcher during her campaigns in the early 1950s.
Hamish, who lived near Badenoch in Herne Hill, offered to ‘pick her up and drop her off when we had meetings,’ a source in the Dulwich and West Norwood Tory association told in Lord Ashcroft’s biography.
What does Kemi Badenoch’s husband do?
Before the pair met, Hamish had worked overseas as a journalist in Malawi, a consultant in Nigeria and as the CEO of Avis car hire in Kenya, according to his LinkedIn profile.
He was educated at a Catholic boarding school run by monks – the Ampleforth College – …read more
Source:: Metro
