The new Tory leader has rushed in to praise Trump and call for a US-UK trade deal that would devastate British farmers

• Tom Baldwin is the author of Keir Starmer, The Biography

The only time I have met Kemi Badenoch was in a television studio a few months ago when she shamed me into a stumbling apology. We were part of a panel discussing her plan to bar transgender people from entering female-only spaces. And the then equalities minister had, for once, gone out of her way to emphasise the need for a reasoned debate on this bitterly contested issue. So how, I asked, could she then justify a Conservative advert that day claiming Keir Starmer didn’t know “what a woman is”?

Badenoch replied with words that would chill the blood of anyone with vaguely progressive instincts. “Please don’t point at me like that, I find it unnecessarily aggressive,” she said. “Err … sorry,” I muttered, “there are some strong feelings on this.” Fair enough. Middle-aged white men like me really should have learned by now to keep their fingers under control.

Tom Baldwin is the author of Keir Starmer, The Biography

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