Meet Hamish (Mr Kemi Badenoch) — the domestic god

H amish Alexander Badenoch was born at St Teresa’s, a small Catholic hospital in Wimbledon, in 1979. A year later at the same maternity unit another mother was giving birth to a girl, Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke. In many ways these two babies’ childhoods couldn’t have been more different and yet together they have reinvigorated the dying Tory party. “Kemi” returned with her mother to Nigeria and was brought up in Lagos with machetes at school, power strikes and civil unrest. She returned to England in the 1990s at 16 with just £100 to live with a family friend, worked part-time in Wimbledon’s McDonald’s cleaning lavatories and “flipping burgers”, before reading software engineering at Sussex University. Most commented 1 Where’s Marie Curie? GCSE science ‘fails to credit women’ Science 232 comments 2 US withdraws diplomats from Saudi Arabia amid deadly Houthi attacks US news 202 comments 3 Alan Thornett obituary: union leader nicknamed ‘the Mole’ Obituaries 97 comments 4 MI5 spied on NHS founder Nye Bevan for decades History 87 comments 5 Times letters: Failure to protect the elderly in care homes Letters to the Editor 64 comments Meanwhile “Ham” grew up with a father from the Highlands of Scotland and an Irish mother in a large house in a leafier part of Wimbledon, playing tennis and cricket. After becoming head boy at Ampleforth College, the Roman Catholic public school run by monks, he read history at Cambridge University. Top stories 1 Tripsnacking? Finally a travel trend I can get on board with Advice Their lives nearly crossed several times, Hamish worked for a period in Africa when Kemi came to London, first as a journalist in Malawi, then as a management consultant in Nigeria, before running an Avis car hire franchise in Kenya. While Kemi was determined to leave the instability of Nigeria, he loved the African continent. Hamish Badenoch reacts as his wife is elected leader of the Conservative Party next to the runner-up, Robert Jenrick Times photographer richard pohle They almost met at The Spectator. Hamish, bookish, considered and thoughtful, worked for the magazine, which he read avidly, for a short period under Boris Johnson’s bacchanalian editorship, while Kemi — outspoken, passionate and fiery — arrived from Coutts bank as head of digital under Fraser Nelson’s editorship. Advertisement By that time Hamish had already left to work first for Barclays and then Deutsche Bank, introducing hybrid-working across 43,000 employees in 14 countries and becoming a managing director. “He was highly collegiate, supportive and conscientious,” says a colleague. Kemi Badenoch woos Middle England back to the ‘no-nonsense’ centre ground “Their personalities couldn’t be more different, but it was as though they were destined to meet,” says a family friend. And they finally did, through their Tory activism. Hamish’s future bride was fighting for a Labour seat. The bespectacled Hamish, who had recently moved into the same street as her, started giving her a lift in his car when she was Tory candidate in Dulwich and West Norwood in the 2010 general election. Top stories 1 High street banks are on borrowed time Saving & Investing 2 Belgium’s most stylish autumn weekend break — and it’s not Bruges Belgium When they first got to know each other, he wrote in his only piece for The Spectator, “there was a degree of mutual suspicion. She was the upstart insurgent, I was the besuited Tory ex-public schoolboy. But she was desperate for activists and made me her campaign manager. We did spend a lot of time together. I recall one of my desperate chat-up lines: I told her she possessed the ‘greatest political mind of her generation’.” The couple at the Conservative Party conference earlier this month Getty images She later told The Times in an interview, “It wasn’t love at first sight. Hamish and I became friends, and it took off from there. He helped me deliver my leaflets. When I had tough times, he was always there.” By the end of the campaign they were going out; in 2012 they married, with Kemi taking his surname, at Farm Street, a Catholic church in Mayfair. Their first dance was to Love Is All Around , by Wet Wet Wet, says a friend. It was followed by a traditional Nigerian ceremony in Lagos. Advertisement As Kemi said, “I have the Tory party to thank for my husband.” Politics had finally brought them together. Hamish, a Merton councillor, also had political ambitions and was the more obvious traditional candidate. In 2015 he fought the SDLP-held seat of Foyle in Northern Ireland for the Conservatives. He came seventh out of seven candidates, polling just 132 votes, and lost his deposit. It was to be expected but the mild-mannered Tory didn’t stand for parliament again. The couple have always had very different political views. Hamish explained that he grew up in the party’s One Nation tradition and was a “wet” on pretty much everything. You can see Kemi’s eyebrows being scraped off the ceiling. “Nothing about her is ever ‘damp’,” an aide says. “She’s unashamedly right-wing, she even hates damp bread.” In 2016 the couple were on different sides in the EU referendum: she was pro-Brexit, he campaigned vigorously for Remain. Lord Ashcroft in his book about the Tory leader quoted a friend saying: “Anyone who claims she doesn’t understand the One Nation wing of the party is reminded that she wakes up beside a Remainer every morning.” Kemi jokes about it in speeches to constituencies, admitting that her husband once tried to hand her a Remain leaflet when she was walking home from work. Advertisement But they need each other. As David Cameron sought more diverse candidates, she became MP for Saffron Walden (now North West Essex) in 2017; Hamish threw himself behind her career. “It was typical Hamish, he’s low-ego and modest, pragmatic, but self-assured, hard to dislike,” says one of his friends. “He realised their best chance was together.” Meanwhile, when she became the vice-chairman of candidates for the Conservatives, Kemi admitted, “The first thing I did was I threw my husband off the list because I didn’t think it would look good if I was chair of candidates and he was applying for seats. I recognised that there was a potential conflict of interest there.” He didn’t take it personally, saying, “My political ambitions ended when I was booted off the candidates list — by Kemi. I am pleased she did: being an MP is a gruelling business.” He has always been her greatest advocate, there at the heart of the discussion around their kitchen table as to whether she should run in her first 2022 leadership bid. She was still a novice MP, with no website, no campaign video and a low profile. He took time off from the bank, joking that he should change his email auto-reply to “I am currently out of the office as my wife is standing to become prime minister”. After years of messy Toryism, Kemi Badenoch is a true Conservative He reviewed her speeches, tapped up supporters, gave moral support and even advised her what to wear for her debates. She came fourth but he loved the campaign as much as she did, calling it “exciting, exhilarating, exhausting, terrifying”. When Kemi finally became opposition leader in 2024 she thanked him in her victory speech. Rarely emotional, she choked when she said she couldn’t have done it “without you being with me every step of the way”. Advertisement The MPs and activists in the room cheered because they knew she was right. “She’s always right,” a girlfriend says. “They are a double act: yin and yang. He is calm, empathetic, emollient, a team player, happy to compromise over everything to make stuff happen. She can be brutal, antagonistic and demanding but drives stuff through.” The historian and the engineer are a highly effective partnership. A Tory aide explains: “He is vital to the project, the most important person in the room alongside Kemi, conciliatory where she is pugilistic, keeping everyone together, pivotal to her success. “No one can change Kemi’s mind once she has made a decision about an issue. She’s not looking to him for a manifesto of ideas, but he’s her biggest fan, he knows how to promote her and get her views across. People come to him when they can’t get through to Kemi. And he always has faith in her, even when she was tanking in the polls when she was first leader.” Another friend suggests: “Hamish knows he has married a brilliant Icarus and his job is to ensure she doesn’t go too close to the sun.” Hamish, 47, recently gave up his high-powered career at Deutsche Bank to put her political ambitions first, instead balancing consulting work with family life and the Conservative Party. “He believes in her and is convinced she has a shot for the best job in Britain,” says a fellow school dad. He has no formal title, but one shadow cabinet minister calls him a “mentor and coach” to Kemi, 46. He still helps with everything from speeches to fundraising in constituencies, dining with donors and coaching candidates. Advertisement He has also done much of the childcare. The couple had their first child in 2013, their second in 2017 and their third in 2019, when Kemi posted on Instagram, “THANK YOU to my wonderful husband and beautiful children who don’t see as much of me as me as they should (even during maternity leave) because of the job I chose. I am a very lucky woman indeed!’’ Her girlfriends agree she lucked out. Hamish, they say, is a domestic god, a phenomenal cook and much tidier than his wife. “He cures his own meat and fish, makes his own haggis for Burns Night and learnt to braid his daughters’ hair. Kemi sometimes washes up if she’s not going through thousands of emails,” one says. “He takes the children to school, oversees homework and clubs and worries about their education. Kemi’s less bothered about where the children go; she thinks she’s turned out OK without posh schools.” Most of their friends remain outside politics, and weekends are spent in wellies in the Essex constituency or ferrying their children to playdates and sports rather than socialising at A-list events, but Hamish will don his black tie or Barbour when required. Politics newsletter Get our daily insider’s guide to Westminster, plus a rundown of PMQs every Wednesday. Sign up with one click You’ve successfully signed up to the Politics newsletter Explore our newsletters An error occurred. Please use the link below. Politics newsletter Explore our newsletters “He’s old-school establishment. He brushes up well,” says an Oxfordshire donor. David Ross, the co-founder of Carphone Warehouse and a Tory peer, says: “He never seeks the limelight, he’s hugely discreet and happy to be in the background. But he has astute political judgment and he’s fun, he doesn’t take himself too seriously and he takes pleasure in Kemi’s success when she meets supporters.” He also defends her against any detractors. Hamish’s role model is not Denis Thatcher. He doesn’t want to become an endearing eccentric, with a “Dear Hamish’-style column in Private Eye; he won’t be playing golf in Pringle sweaters. Nor is he like Cherie Blair, who was determined to pursue her career throughout her time in “the goldfish bowl”. Or like Philip May, another Tory activist turned PM’s spouse, whose job, according to his wife, was to put out the bins. After Kemi won her seat in the 2017 election, May convened a meeting of the “Denis Club” for husbands of female Tory MPs. “Being an MP’s spouse,” he told Hamish, “is the best of both worlds: 10 per cent of the pressure, 90 per cent of the fun.” Hamish appears to have taken this to heart. He is most likely to say, “They tell you never to meet your political heroes. I am married to mine, she’s brilliant, beautiful and brave.” She’s most likely to say, “Thank you,