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Kemi Badenoch once opened up about how the shocking case of Josef Fritzl had a profound impact on her life, a new biography has claimed.
The favourite to win the Tory leadership contest reacted in horror when it was discovered in 2008 that Fritzl had imprisoned and raped his daughter in a secret basement for 24 years.
Badenoch, who grew up in a Methodist household, later told a colleague that the revelations had such a profound effect on her that “something in my mind just switched” and she stopped believing in God.
From 1984 until his arrest in 2008, Josef Fritzl imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in his cellar in a small town outside of Vienna. With his wife and neighbours completely unaware of his gruesome crimes, he repeatedly raped Elisabeth and fathered seven children with her in the windowless dungeon, even raising three of them in the house above.
Michael Ashcroft’s new biography of Badenoch, “Blue Ambition,” alleges that the former Business and Trade secretary lost her faith in God after learning of the prayers Elisabeth Fritzl made to be rescued during her years in captivity. In a conversation with a Conservative colleague after Fritzl’s arrest, Badenoch came to the conclusion that “there is no God. If there was, he would have answered her prayers before mine.”
Despite no longer believing “in a higher power,” Badenoch said that she “will always have respect for faith” and described herself as a “cultural Christian.”
She served as minister of state for faith from September 2021 to July 2022, and met with the Pope in the Vatican as well as Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni during her time in the position.
Beyond her faith, Ashcroft’s tell-all biography of the Conservative leadership contender recounts a story in which Badenoch was slapped at an Oxford Town Hall meeting in 2006 whilst defending David Cameron, before she gave chase and pulled her assaulter back by the hair.
Badenoch is vying to defeat Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, James Cleverly and Mel Stride to become the next Tory leader. After nominations closed yesterday, Conservative MPs will now whittle down the six candidates to two over the summer and Party conference season, before Party members will vote to decide Rishi Sunak’s successor at the end of October.
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