Kemi Badenoch has announced her shadow cabinet following her victory over Robert Jenrick in the Tory leadership race.
She said the line-up “draws on the talents of people from across the Conservative Party, based on meritocracy and with a breadth of experience and perspective”.
But critics are already pointing to the chequered past of some of those handed top posts in the new regime.
They include Priti Patel, the new shadow foreign secretary, who was effectively sacked from the cabinet exactly seven years ago by then PM Theresa May for holding secret meetings with Israeli officials.
Embarrassingly for Patel, who was the international development secretary, she was ordered to fly home from Africa by May, who then told her to tender her resignation.
She admitted her “actions fell below the high standards that are expected” of a cabinet minister.
Despite that humiliation, Patel eventually returned to the cabinet in 2019 as home secretary under Boris Johnson, but once again her time in office was overshadowed by controversy.
She was accused of bullying by Home Office permanent secretary Sir Philip Rutnam.
That led to an investigation which upheld the complaint against her, although Johnson decided to stand by his close ally.
Meanwhile, new shadow chancellor Mel Stride is already under pressure after it emerged he previously called for maternity rights to be reduced to help British businesses.
Writing on the ConservativeHome website in 2012, he questioned rules which allow maternity leave of up to 52 weeks for new mothers.
“Under these circumstances not only do employers have to struggle with filling jobs on a temporary basis for lengthy periods but they also often face considerable uncertainty as to how long the actual period of absence will be,” Stride said.
He said that watering down some of those rights would “provide a massive shot in the arm for British business and entrepreneurship”.
Those remarks echo comments made by Badenoch herself during the Tory leadership race, in which she appeared to say maternity pay was “excessive”.
She said: “We need tohave more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”
Badenoch later insisted that she supported maternity pay and had been making a comment about the burdens placed on businesses.
Unsurprisingly, Labour have been quick to highlight both Stride and and Badenoch’s views.
This Labour Government is extending maternity rights for women.
— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) November 4, 2024
Kemi Badenoch and Mel Stride should be honest about what rights they’d take away from parents. pic.twitter.com/3q2n6xrLpW
Critics have also pointed out that Jenrick, who has been appointed shadow justice secretary, backs leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, a policy which Badenoch has refused to endorse.
A Labour source told HuffPost UK: “The shadow justice secretary wants to leave the ECHR and the leader of the opposition doesn’t. That is absolutely mad.”
Liberal Democrat Cabinet Office spokesperson Sarah Olney said: “This cabinet of contradictions is a recipe for yet more Conservative chaos. How can they claim to be able to hold this new government to account when they have just as many disagreements with each other?
“From a shadow justice secretary who wants to leave the ECHR to a shadow foreign secretary who had to resign for holding undisclosed meetings, this shadow cabinet has more than a whiff of impropriety.”
