Badenoch began her parliamentary career when she won the Essex seat of Saffron Walden for the Conservatives in 2017.
Asked how she managed to convince local Conservatives to select her as their candidate despite having no links to the area, she said: “They tell me that I was funny, I was very honest, I wasn’t trying to be something I wasn’t.”
“I started off by saying I could pretend that my family has been here since, you know, the Battle of Hastings, but I don’t think anyone here would believe me – and they just burst out laughing.
“They said later on that this is someone who’s just herself. And Essex is like that.
“Essex is very much my personality – I call myself an Essex girl.”
She said her father, who died in 2022 a few months before she ran for the first time for the Conservative leadership, was proud that she had gone into politics telling her: “I know you’re going to go all the way.”
By contrast, she said her mother was “tearing her hair out” when Badenoch embarked on a political career.
“She was like, why would you do this… you’ve got a good job… why do you want to go into this horrible career.
“She had a very, very dim view of politicians thinking they were all out for themselves… so I think part of what I’m trying to do now in politics is to prove to her that politicians can be good people.”
