From punchng.com/half-truths-many-lies-fact-checking-kemi-badenoch/?amp
Here’s an extract:
Claim 1
According to Ms Badenoch…
“I grew up in a poor country, and I watched my relatively wealthy family become poorer and poorer despite working harder and harder as their money disappeared with inflation. I came back to the UK at age 16 with my father’s last £100 in the hope of a better life …”
Findings
“Multiple sources revealed that Kemi spent her early years in Lagos, Nigeria, where she attended the International School Lagos, a private institution, and graduated in 1996 before returning permanently to the United Kingdom at 16.
In a tweet dated January 22, 2025, a Lagos-based tax consultant, Kayode Okunola, accused Badenoch of distorting her family’s history to fit a narrative of hardship.
“Dear @KemiBadenoch, stop lying about your background. You were never from a poor family! Your grandmother, ‘Iya Ondo,’ was a prominent lace and damask merchant on Kosoko Street in Balogun Market. Your mum was a professor at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Your dad owned his clinic, your uncle was a dentist, and your aunt was among the Nigerian students recruited from the USA to the Central Bank of Nigeria,” Okunola wrote.
“If you were poor, what happened to the rest of us who prayed to come from families like yours? Your claims mock the memories of those who genuinely struggled without the opportunities your privileged upbringing afforded you. Please stop!” he added.
In an interview with Sunday PUNCH, Okunola further shed light on the privileged status of Kemi’s family.
He said, “I knew her family well. My family and the Adegokes attended the same church—St. John’s Anglican Church, Aroloya, Lagos Island. Her grandmother, ‘Iya Ondo,’ was a renowned figure in Balogun Market, selling premium fabrics, which weren’t for poor people. Her father owned Iwosan Hospital in Surulere, and her mother was a prominent figure in the Physiology Department at the University of Lagos.
“In those days, only a select few could afford private schools like the International School Lagos, where Kemi studied. It was a school for the children of professors and the elite. Most of us attended government schools. Kemi’s claims of poverty are simply untrue. Her narrative misrepresents her background and mocks the struggles of genuinely underprivileged Nigerians.”
Well, well!
LizzieDrip
The media is apparently spending a great deal of time going through historical CVs, LinkedIns etc of Labour MPs.
I wonder how much time has been similarly devoted to those of Tory & Reform MPs🤔
They spent endless time digging for dirt on Tory MPs before. If they missed the opportunity to look at Tory or other CVs, I’m sure they’ll make up for it now.
Saying somebody else did it too won’t make RR’s or KB’s actions any more acceptable.
"Saying somebody else did it too won’t make RR’s or KB’s actions any more acceptable."
I'm glad you wrote that Mollygo. I agree wholeheartedly. "Everybody does it" has never been an excuse for poor behaviour and sounds like the kind of thing a toddler comes out with.
I welcome the investigation of PM’s CV’s along with any other spuriousclaims they may or may not have made, as long as it is all MPs regardless of their political affiliation.
I doubt Badenoch will survive as Tory leader given her abysmal performance thus far.
Grantanow
I doubt Badenoch will survive as Tory leader given her abysmal performance thus far.
I can’t think of anyone who could take over from her either.
I wonder how many MPs would be left of any party if all the proven liars were sacked. It’s a joke really that these people are ‘leaders’. Difficult to actually respect and take what they say at face value. Everyone lies at times but these people seem to have made a fine art of it.
I find it amusing that people are getting so wound up about cv’s and yet there is little or no mention of the revelations in the new book by that man who was chief whip ( I think) for the last government.
Just a small excerpt. “February 26
A Times journo is sniffing round a story in which one of our MPs (Mark Menzies, Fylde) has allegedly managed to acquire thousands of pounds from a campaign account to pay two dodgy blackmailers who were holding him hostage in the middle of the night (not another one).
The elderly lady who had control of the association's campaign account thinks it was a loan and the MP in question believes it to be a donation. Either way, it smells fishy. CCHQ starts an investigation. The story involved a lot of money, and I am quite certain the intention of donors and members was not for the cash to be used like this.“
I wondered whether anyone else had spotted it Maybee
Tory MP in Bayswater brothel with 'KGB agent', 12 naked women and CCTV in desperate call to Chief Whip
Yes, its for real:
www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/tory-mp-brothel-london-kgb-chief-whip-simon-hart-b1212029.html
I must say I wondered what would have been made of it should it have been a Labour MP - hit the headlines!
MayBee70 and Wyllow3 if I remember correctly there was at least one thread on this when it was in the news.
“November 3
Breakfast for the new whips' office with the PM in the cabinet room.
We have instantly been handed ongoing troubling cases of claims made against serving MPs.
The first is a longstanding case of multiple alleged rapes and coercive control by an MP against two women on the parliamentary estate.
In a separate case, it looks like the CPS is considering charging a separate former MP with child sex offences.”
“November 24
The phone rings at 2.45am from a 2019'er, clearly pissed but just about coherent: “Hi, chief. Hope I haven't woken you.” (It's 2.45am, FFS.)
Me: “What's up?”
Him: “I'm stuck in a brothel in Bayswater and I've run out of money.”
Me: “Go on…”
Him: “I met a woman as I left the Carlton Club who offered me a drink, but I now think she is a KGB agent. She wants £500 and has left me in a room with 12 naked women and a CCTV.”
Me: “Give me a few moments and I will call you back.”
Bloody hell, this is a mess. I ring Spad [special adviser] Emma. She offers to leave her house and go personally to Bayswater on an extraction mission.
I suggest not (she sounded rather disappointed).
Instead, we devise a plan to send a taxi, extract our man, return him to the safety of his own hotel. I go back to sleep.
4.10am. Phone rings again.
Me: “Are you back safely?”
Him: “Yes, but you will never guess what happened next.” (The truest thing he said all evening.)
Me: “Go on…”
Him: “Well, I slipped out of the room and saw the taxi Emma ordered across the road, so I legged it over and jumped in. However, it turned out it was a different taxi being driven by an Afghan agent called Ahmed.”
Me: “So…”
Him: “Well, he demanded £3,000 for a blow job.”
Me: “And?”
Him: “I legged it back to the hotel and locked the door.”
GrannyGravy13
MayBee70 and Wyllow3 if I remember correctly there was at least one thread on this when it was in the news.
True. But it doesn’t seem to have captured the media’s attention in the way the few bits of mud that they’ve been able to dig up about current Labour MP’s has. I do think we need to remember why Labour are in power now ie we had a government unfit to govern over quite a period of time. Thank goodness Starmers cv is so transparent because the media have been trying to find something bad they can publish about him after their failed attempt at donkey gate.
As an aside I read that after Brexit, Johnson quietly issued thousands upon thousands of visas to Asian and African people because he knew that if he hadn’t done so many of our institutions would have collapsed.
Johnson - the liar in chief!
Ehen in despair, always bring out Boris.
Labour are in power now for the same reason that they lost power to the Conservatives in 2010.
The electorate choose the party they think will do better than the current one.
In 2017 and 2019, they weren’t convinced Labour would be better.
In 2024 they were.
Unless Conservatives get a more convincing leader, Labour are likely to succeed at the next election too, but the memories will all be about the glasses, the suit, the council house and the WFA.
They’ve reduced hospital waiting times. Increased massively the number of NHS dental appointments. Stopped the strikes. Are rebuilding our damaged relationship with Europe. Pity that things like that don’t make headline news.
Mollygo
Labour are in power now for the same reason that they lost power to the Conservatives in 2010.
The electorate choose the party they think will do better than the current one.
In 2017 and 2019, they weren’t convinced Labour would be better.
In 2024 they were.
Unless Conservatives get a more convincing leader, Labour are likely to succeed at the next election too, but the memories will all be about the glasses, the suit, the council house and the WFA.
Council houses? You mean selling them all off and not rebuilding new ones?
MayBee70 I would add to your list that Labour's response to the riots was swift and effective.
Churchview
MayBee70 I would add to your list that Labour's response to the riots was swift and effective.
I think they’re bringing in legislation to protect rental tenants, too?
Council houses? You mean selling them all off and not rebuilding new ones?
Yes.
But I also meant that Labour did nothing to stop it when Tony Blair took over and Angela took advantage of that offer.
Wasn’t she an unmarried mother at the time ( not sure of the timescale)? Principles or not I think most people wouldn’t turn down an opportunity to make our lives better if we weren’t breaking the law. And the smear campaign against her was awful
“In March 2024, a former Conservative Party deputy chairman, Michael Ashcroft, alleged that Rayner had misled tax officials in the sale of her council house in 2015.[85][86] Rayner said that she had done nothing wrong, and declined to publish her tax records or tax advice. Greater Manchester Police said they found no evidence that any offence had been committed. At the request of Conservative MP James Daly, the police agreed to review their decision not to investigate.[87] The police confirmed in April 2024 that they had opened an investigation into the allegations.[88][89] A poll by the research consultancy Savanta indicated that 56% of Labour voters and 26% of Tory voters thought the allegations were a smear campaign by the Conservative Party.[90] Rayner subsequently said that she would "do the right thing and step down" if she were found to have broken the law.[91][92] Later that month, Greater Manchester Police and Stockport Council both said that they would take no action against Rayner.[93][94] Rayner was also cleared by HM Revenue and Customs, which concluded that she did not owe any capital gains tax and thus no action would be taken.[95][96] Rayner welcomed the announcement, and said the Conservatives had used "desperate tactics" against her”.
So she obviously didn’t see anything wrong about having a council house that had been bought and selling it, regardless of whether it was against the law.
I don’t blame her for not seeing buying and selling council houses as wrong. Hundreds of people did.
Mollygo
So she obviously didn’t see anything wrong about having a council house that had been bought and selling it, regardless of whether it was against the law.
I don’t blame her for not seeing buying and selling council houses as wrong. Hundreds of people did.
But she hadn't broken the law.
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