Badenoch Runs UK Tory Leadership Campaign From Currency Guru’s Home
(Bloomberg) -- Kemi Badenoch is running her Tory leadership campaign from the house of a wealthy donor, despite the Conservative Party’s criticism of UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer for using a top Labour fund-raiser’s flat during the general election campaign.
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The former business secretary is using the London property of Neil Record, a veteran of the City’s currency-trading scene, as a base of operations during her bid to become leader, Record told Bloomberg. She hasn’t yet declared the support on the financial interests register for Members of Parliament, although she has logged one £10,000 ($13,300) gift from him. A spokesman for Badenoch suggested she had done nothing wrong.
The arrangement undercuts the Conservative Party’s efforts in recent days to attack Starmer for his use of Labour lord and donor Waheed Alli’s flat in the capital in the run-up to the July 4 general election. Starmer had said he used the apartment so his son could study for secondary school exams.
Badenoch, 44, is one of four candidates to lead the party, and came second to former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick in the last vote among MPs, with former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat tied for third. Once the clear favorite to win the contest, she’s still narrowly favored to win a vote among the party grassroots if she makes the final two-person runoff when Tory MPs narrow the candidates down next week.
The Conservative Party has seized on Starmer’s freebie woes to help rebuild support after Labour’s landslide election win. The party issued a press release last week listing “questions for Starmer over use of Lord Alli’s penthouse.” In a post on X, it contrasted the premier’s use of the flat with his decision to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners.
Starmer has has also been criticized for receiving thousands of pounds worth of clothes from Alli. Asked by a caller on an LBC radio show last month whether she had accepted any gifts, Badenoch said she had, but that politicians needed to be careful of “hypocrisy” when taking donations — an area in which Labour had “failed.”
Record, 71, is the former chairman of think-tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, and founded one of the UK’s earliest specialist currency managers, Record Currency Management, in 1983. He remained chairman of the firm — now Record Financial Group — until stepping down in 2023.
Badenoch declared her donation from Record on July 8, saying it was “in support of my campaign for the leadership,” according to the register of interests. Record said that sum didn’t include use of the house and that he didn’t subsidize any clothing for the candidate.
Record added that Badenoch’s team had asked the Conservative Party whether they needed to declare that, and were told they didn’t since he owned the property outright and no one from the team had been sleeping there. A party spokesman said that its advice applied to an internal log tracking how much leadership candidates have received, and that it didn’t advise on the separate parliamentary register.
Asked whether a declaration was needed, a spokesman for Badenoch declined to give a yes or no answer, saying only that Record’s property was residential, not an office. He didn’t respond when asked how long the property had been used during the campaign, for which nominations opened on July 24. Registry rules state members must include the “provision of office space,” and any change in registrable interests should be notified within 28 days.
The Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards declined to clarify whether the regulations also applied to residential properties used as office space, or comment on whether Badenoch should have already declared the use of Record’s house.
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Record told Bloomberg that he first met Badenoch through the IEA and said she had told him over lunch about a year ago that she harbored leadership ambitions. At the time, she didn’t wish to unseat the incumbent, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. He said Badenoch had “stardust,” comparing her to 1980s Tory premier Margaret Thatcher.
“When I speak to her one-on-one I feel I’m talking to a serious individual with a listening ear, charm and style,” he said. “I only met Mrs. Thatcher once, but it felt the same.”
--With assistance from Stuart Biggs, Alex Morales and Alex Wickham.
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