Conservative leadership favourite Kemi Badenoch is the victim of Whitehall dirty tricks in a bid to knock her out of the contest, it is feared.
The former Business Secretary and bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Rishi Sunak warned last weekend that she was braced for the release of a so-called ‘dirty dossier’ to try to undermine her campaign.
And so in the last week The Guardian, house journal of the Labour Party, has published two negative articles about the mother-of-three, which, it is claimed, have been briefed by ‘senior sources’ at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) which she ran as Secretary of State for 17 months until the election.
But, the Mail can reveal, an official statement that was prepared, clearing the 44-year-old MP for North West Essex of any abuse of the ministerial code, mysteriously did not see the light of day.
Now questions are being asked as to why. Has, perhaps, she got Labour already rattled?
The first Guardian piece alleged that as Business Secretary, Mrs Badenoch created an ‘intimidating’ atmosphere which was so ‘toxic’ three senior officials felt pushed out by her ‘bullying and traumatising’ behaviour.
Two days later she was in the dock again, charged with asking officials to pay for a flight to Dallas to join her family on holiday from Mexico where she was representing the government on official business.
The Dallas flight would have cost the taxpayer less than the return flight to London from Mexico. The request was blocked.
Mrs Badenoch is accused in the same article of asking her taxpayer-funded Tory special advisers (the new government has Labour Party advisers funded the same way) to pack her suitcase for overseas trips and to buy presents for family and friends.
The source also said she ordered the driver of her ministerial car to take her to the gym twice a week before starting work.
Both articles were written by Pippa Crerar, the Guardian political editor who wrote a series of articles about ‘Partygate’ which helped bring down Boris Johnson when she was at the Daily Mirror.
In response to The Guardian’s second story a statement was prepared by the DBT which cleared its former minister.
The statement was approved by Gareth Davies, the most senior civil servant at the department, and shared, as a courtesy, with Ms Badenoch before it went to No 10 for rubber stamping.
The statement, a copy of which was passed to the Mail, said: ‘There was no breach of the ministerial code by the previous Secretary of State.
The ministerial code is clear that ministers can use cars for work, official travel, when using time in the car to work and where there is a security concern.
‘Ministers regularly check with their Permanent Secretary/private office for advice on what’s appropriate within the ministerial code so proper process is followed – as it was in this case.
Private offices sometimes support ministers with ad hoc personal requests especially when there is pressing official business.’ And so the one-time McDonald’s worker, of which she is proud of being, was in the clear.
But that wording never made it into the public domain as instead a second statement was given to The Guardian which said: ‘The department takes both the ministerial code and civil service code seriously, to ensure they are followed at all times.
‘The ministerial code is clear that ministers can use cars for work, official travel, and where there is a security concern. It is normal for permanent secretaries to advise what is appropriate within the ministerial code so proper process is followed.’
The Tories smell a rat. Why did the new statement no longer carry the important message that Ms Badenoch had not breached the ministerial code?
Did someone at No 10 intervene? Or at the powerful Cabinet Office?
Questions from the Mail have not received a satisfying answer. The Cabinet Office insists it is a matter for the DBT. ‘It’s their statement,’ said a spokesman.
A DBT spokesman said: ‘A factual response was provided by the department in the usual way.’ Challenged why the statement was changed and by whom, the spokesman said: ‘We have nothing to add beyond the statement provided to you this afternoon.’
In the last Conservative Home league table of favoured Cabinet ministers to take over the party, Ms Badenoch enjoyed a commanding lead over the other candidates.
Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, was next best in the league table, but some 30 points behind. Former Home Secretary James Cleverley was 43 points behind.
Lord Mandelson, an architect of New Labour, writing in The Spectator, said he had seen Badenoch at an official dinner: ‘She is not afraid to speak her mind (although an occasional filter might be handy), or to call out the sort of wokery many voters dislike.’