[Ammi]

Lunch breaks are for wimps, says Kemi Badenoch…

Kemi Badenoch has said lunch breaks are “for wimps”.

The Conservative leader revealed she brings in food to the office and eats while getting on with her work because “there is no time”.

She used a line from Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko when explaining that she does not spend time away from her desk for a midday meal.

Gekko, played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film set in the world of New York corporate finance, famously declared: “Lunch is for wimps.” He was also known for the quote: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”

Mrs Badenoch also declared that she did not believe that sandwiches were a “real food” and that she “would not touch bread if it’s moist”.

Her revelations come after she was criticised during the summer for not attending hustings to spend time with her family.

Criticism over children

Christopher Chope, a Tory MP, sparked controversy when he said she was “too preoccupied with her children” to be leader of the opposition.

Asked about her down time since becoming leader, Mrs Badenoch told The Spectator: “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.”

The Conservative Party leader, who worked at The Spectator before leaving in 2016, also revealed some of her lunch preferences, expressing a distaste for sandwiches.

In her interview with the magazine’s new editor, Michael Gove, and Katy Balls, its political editor, she said: “Sometimes I will get a steak... I’m not a sandwich person.

“I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast. I will not touch bread if it’s moist.”

Mrs Badenoch became the leader of the Tories in November, after a lengthy leadership contest in which she ultimately beat her nearest rival Robert Jenrick, now her shadow justice secretary.

She put the embrace of capitalism at the centre of her pitch, and said that it should no longer be considered a “dirty word”.

The former business secretary became embroiled in a row over whether or not maternity pay was set at the right level for businesses, after suggesting that it was “excessive”.

Mrs Badenoch is said to have quit her job at The Spectator in 2016 because she felt it would be “unfair” to keep the post open while she went on maternity leave to have her second child.

She also joked during the interview for the Christmas edition of the Spectator that anybody who puts decorations up before 1 December “should be fined”.

“That’s my ban!” she added.

The Tory leader went on to criticise Sir Keir Starmer for revealing that he might watch Love Actually over the festive period, as she believed that the film has “quite a lot of dark undertones”.

“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 said, adding that she prefers watching Die Hard.

https://uk.yahoo.com/news/kemi-baden...100933336.html