Kemi Badenoch is facing a backlash after claiming the Covid Partygate row was ‘exaggerated’

Relatives who lost loved ones to Covid have condemned Kemi Badenoch for greeting Boris Johnson as a “great prime minister‘ and claim that the Party gate scandal was “exaggerated”.

The newly elected Tory leader said the story was exaggerated as she claimed the government should not have fined people for ‘everyday activities’ during the lockdown.

Lobby Akinnola, a spokesperson for the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice, who lost his father during the pandemictold The independent Ms Badenoch’s comment was “cruel and highlights how distant politicians can be from the people they represent”.

Mr Akinola said: “Badenoch’s firm adherence to this perspective that betraying the nation’s trust is not a problem only reinforces the need for the nation’s security to be enshrined in policy, rather than dependent on who happens to be sitting in the seat. power when crisis strikes.

“Her praise for Johnson runs counter to the evidence heard in the COVID inquiry and makes it all the more important that the incumbent government implements the recommendations of the inquiry’s Module 1 report.”

I speak to the BBC Sunday with Laura KuenssbergMs Badenoch had said: “I thought Boris Johnson was a great Prime Minister but there were some serious issues that were not being resolved and I think the public during that tenure thought we were not speaking for them or looking out for them, we were sitting into it yourself.

“Some of those things I think were perception issues, a lot of the things that happened around Partygate were not the reason why I resigned.

“I thought it was exaggerated. For example, we should not have drawn up fixed penalty notices. Then we would not be following our principles.”

The comments sparked a furious response, with the Labor Party saying they “added to the damage for families across Britain who were adhering to the rules and missing the deaths of loved ones and family funerals while her colleagues partied in Downing Street ”.

Labor leader Ellie Reeves said: “The leader may have changed, but on her first day in office Kemi Badenoch has proven that the Tories have not listened and have not learned.”

And the Liberal Democrats said it was “clear the Conservative Party has learned nothing from the years of shame and scandal under their watch”.

Lib Dem Cabinet Office spokesperson Sarah Olney said: “Kemi Badenoch’s comments are an insult to those who lost family members during the pandemic while Boris Johnson partied and lied.

“On day one of the job she already showed that she is completely out of touch with the audience.”

The row came a day after Ms Badenoch was picked by Tory members to succeed Rishi Sunak. She called on the party to “be honest” about its mistakes in government and unite behind her.

And it came like The independent revealed that Mrs Badenoch has a rape joke on her personal Facebook page in 2008.

The blunders expose why many saw it as a risk to choose Ms Badenoch as leader of the party, with the former business secretary often generating uncomfortable headlines for the Conservatives.

She takes over the Conservatives as the party recorded its first poll lead over Labor since the Partygate scandal broke in December 2021, with BMG Research finding the Tories on 29 percent of the vote, compared to Sir Keir’s party on 28 percent.

But a YouGov poll published ahead of the result found that four in 10 voters had an unfavorable view of Ms Badenoch, including 29 per cent of Conservative voters, while Britons were more likely to think Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer was a would be a better prime minister.

Elsewhere in the interview, Ms Badenoch vowed to reverse Labour’s decision to impose VAT on private schools if voted to power. She described it as a “tax on aspirations” that would not raise money.

When it was suggested this would mean money being taken from state schools, she said: “At the moment, certainly until Labor came in, we didn’t have this tax, so no money is being taken away from state schools.”

But Ms Badenoch was less willing to be drawn on whether she would reverse the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions if it meant taking money away from the NHS.

She said: ‘I don’t accept the premise of that question. We (the Conservatives) haven’t done those things to increase funding for the NHS, so it’s not a binary suggestion that not doing this means less money for the NHS.”