On Monday 2 September, Kemi Badenoch officially launched her Conservative Party leadership bid. To tease that she put out a video on Twitter and it was as serious as you’d expect. Instead of focusing on something trivial such as actual policies, Badenoch decided to once again attempt to take aim at Doctor Who legend David Tennant.
Badenoch’s unhealthy obsession with Tennant (and trans people)
The campaign teaser opens with a TV being turned on and Tennant saying:
until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist anymore, I don’t wish ill of her I just wish her to shut up.
Tomorrow, I launch my @renewal2030 campaign to be the next leader of our great Conservative Party.
Join me at 11.00am, here on X! pic.twitter.com/yAalIDVM9M
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) September 1, 2024
This is strange for two reasons. 1) his speech wasn’t televised (well until the right blew it up) and 2) it’s very ridiculously obvious how much this has been clipped from a much larger clip, namely because it makes no sense.
At the end of June the beloved actor and LGBTQ+ ally made an offhand comment at an awards show about Badenoch. The former business secretary had previously spent the month wanging on about what a woman is whilst failing to explain how she’d ban trans people from single sex wards, because she couldn’t just say ‘genital inspections’, presumably.
What did the good Doctor actually say?
So here’s what Tennant actually said whilst accepting his British LGBT ally award
If I’m honest I’m a little depressed by the fact that acknowledging that everyone has the right to be who they wanna be and live their life how they wanna live it as long as they’re not hurting anyone else should merit any kind of special award or special mention because its common sense isn’t it? It is human decency, we shouldn’t live in a world where that is worth remarking on.
He then made an off hand remark:
However, until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist anymore, I don’t wish ill of her I just wish her to shut up.
As explained by Dawn Butler in the Metro, which is also something that made sense to any other rational person:
Yes, he was clumsy to suggest he wants to live in a world where she doesn’t exist, but his further clarification made it clear to me that it was simply her politics that he wished did not exist.
Tennant concluded:
Whilst we do live in this world I am honoured to receive this, I am thrilled to be here and to be a part of this night!, pride is very important in our house its a family affair we’ve got skin in the game so this event tonight thrills me.
In the aftermath of this comment Badenoch and the then-PM Sunak decided to spend a whole week of their campaign attempting to turn the British public against David Tennant.
Yes, Doctor bloody Who. The man who for many of us was a huge part of our lives for our formative years. The man who will always be beloved for not only playing the voice of reason in the universe but for at times being the real-life sense we all need too.
No, please – do just shut up
But back to Kemi’s campaign video, she followed up the definitely full clip with:
No I will not shut up when you have that type of cultural establishment trying to keep conservatives down you need someone like me who’s not Afraid of doctor who or whoever and who’s going to take the fight to them and not let them try and keep us down.
Just so we’re clear here, it’s a TV actor from Scotland who’s the establishment, not someone who literally served in the Tory cabinet and is now running for Tory leader.
As Tennant said at the time, his family have skin in the game. One of his and wife Georgia’s children is nonbinary and because the Tennants are thoroughly good people they of course support their kid.
Of course the image of parents supporting their child no matter their gender enrages these cunts. They want to portray that parents are terrified of their children being brainwashed so of course that lot all decided the Tennants must be the ones doing the brainwashing.
I dunno man, I spent far too fucking long reading Glinner’s tweets about this and I’m still none the wiser.
Now, you may not be a Whovian like me – so lemme explain.
Badenoch is the one on the ‘idiot’s lantern’, not Tennant
The doctor is the good guy who wants to make the world a better place. He’s indiscriminate on who he takes down, daleks and British prime ministers alike. We root for him. We don’t root for people who want to fight him.
So that makes Kemi what? That’s right! The villain. And it’s a role she’s seemingly happy to portray.
Whilst I was writing this, Badenoch was giving her proper speech announcing her leadership bid, and it made as much sense as trying to reignite a feud with a beloved TV star. In it she referenced WWII, said the Conservatives acted like Labour, and took boring swipes at Robert Jenrick. Most dangerously though, she said Reform MPs aren’t the problem:
When everyone was worried about the election of Reform MPs, I was far far more worried about the 5 new MPs elected on the back of sectarian, Islamist politics- alien ideas which have no place here.
Because here’s the thing.
The doctor is fictional. Much like this “trans ideology” threat that right-wing weirdos like Badenoch are obsessed with. But what isn’t fictional is the fact that people like her want to wipe out anything that’s different. They will make anyone they can their bogeyman so that the British public don’t look at who’d really doing the damage – the rich in power.
And y’know what? Tennant is also a rich and powerful person, but unlike them he uses his influence to make the world a better place.
People like Tennant terrify Badenoch and her ilk so much because he’s everything they will never be – respected.
So good luck trying to turn us all against the man who was so good he played the best character EVER twice. You’ve more chance of us supporting the Daleks than you.
Featured image via the Canary
