Kemi Badenoch: 'Lunch breaks are for wimps and sandwiches are not real food'

12 December 2024, 10:28 | Updated: 12 December 2024, 13:02

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said 'lunch breaks are for wimps'
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said 'lunch breaks are for wimps'. Picture: Alamy

By Jacob Paul

Lunch breaks are for wimps, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has declared.

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Ms Badenoch has claimed that she brings lunch in to eat while working because there is “no time” for a pause.

“What’s decompressing, what’s that? What’s a lunch break? Lunch is for wimps.

“I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. There’s no time,” she said.

In the same interview, Ms Badenoch argued that sandwiches are not “not real food” and that she sometimes chooses to eat a steak instead.

"I will not touch bread if it's moist," she added.

The Tory leader later attacked Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for saying that he might watch Love Actually over Christmas, adding that she prefers watching Die Hard over the festive period.

Read more: 'He taps into British frustrations': James Cleverly fires warning shot at Kemi Badenoch over Farage's threat to Tories

Read more: Haigh resignation a 'marked contrast' from Tories, says Starmer as Badenoch grills PM over fraud offence

Bruce Willis In 'Die Hard' - a Christmas favourite for Kemi
Bruce Willis In 'Die Hard' - a Christmas favourite for Kemi. Picture: Getty

“There is a British prime minister who’s messing around and is not doing the foreign policy properly, people are cheating and there is a lot going on there if you move away from the smiley, happy, cheesy stuff,” she told The Spectator. 

In an interview with LBC on Wednesday, former Home Secretary James Cleverly warned that Ms Badenoch should to underestimate Reform UK’s Nigel Farage.

It comes as Reform surges ahead in the polls, over taking Labour for the first time earlier this week. 

“He’s very good at tapping into frustrations and very, very good at amplifying some of the genuine concerns that are experienced by the British people,” Mr Cleverly said. 

He urged Ms Badenoch, who along with Robert Jenrick surprisingly knocked Mr Cleverly out of the Tory leadership race in October, to come up with genuine solutions to the country’s problems instead of simply criticising Labour. 

In Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s questions, Ms Badenoch focussed her questions on immigration, slamming Sir Keir for not including a pledge to cut immigration as one of his six milestones announced last week. 

“He has launched, yet again, many new targets, six milestones, five missions, but why was cutting migration not a priority.”

Sir Keir hit back by likening the Tory leader’s attack to an “arsonist complaining about the people trying to put the fire out,” pointing to the last Conservative government’s record on immigration.