The case of Austrian sex offender Josef Fritzl caused Kemi Badenoch to lose her faith in God, the Conservative leader has revealed. In a BBC interview, Mrs Badenoch said the horrific 2008 case fundamentally changed her religious beliefs.
The Conservative leader explained she was "never that religious" while growing up but "believed there was a God" and "would have defined myself as a Christian apologist". Her maternal grandfather was a Methodist minister.
Fritzl case sparked crisis of faith
Mrs Badenoch said she became obsessed with reading about Fritzl, who imprisoned and repeatedly raped his daughter Elisabeth in his basement over 24 years. She couldn't stop reading Elisabeth's account of how she prayed every day to be rescued.
"I was praying for all sorts of stupid things and I was getting my prayers answered," Mrs Badenoch said. "I was praying to have good grades, my hair should grow longer, and I would pray for the bus to come on time so I wouldn't miss something."
Questions over answered prayers
She questioned why her trivial prayers were answered while Elisabeth's desperate pleas for rescue went unanswered for decades. "It's like, why were those prayers answered and not this woman's prayers? And it just, it was like someone blew out a candle," she said.
Despite rejecting God, Mrs Badenoch insisted she remained a "cultural Christian" who wanted to "protect certain things because I think the world that we have in the UK is very much built on many Christian values".
Leadership tenure going 'well'
During the interview, due to be broadcast on Thursday evening, Mrs Badenoch said her tenure as Conservative leader was going "well". She emphasised her job was to "make sure that people can see that we are the only party on the centre-right".
In an apparent dig at Nigel Farage's Reform UK, she declared: "There are pretenders. We're the only party on the centre-right, and we're the only ones who still believe in values like living within our means, personal responsibility, making sure that the government is not getting involved in everything so it can focus on the things it needs to look at, like securing our borders."
Working class credentials defended
Mrs Badenoch defended previous comments about her McDonald's job making her working class. "I had to work to live. That, for me, is what being working class is. It's the lifestyle that you have. You have to work, to survive," she said.
She also argued that overprotective parents had created a generation lacking "resilience" to deal with life's problems. Responding to figures suggesting a quarter of people aged 16-24 said they had a mental disorder, Mrs Badenoch said: "I think they think they have a mental disorder, I don't think they all have a mental disorder."
Mental health and work focus
She added: "I'm not a medical expert so it is not my expertise on exactly what we need to do to get them into work, but we should be trying to get them into work." The comments reflect her broader focus on personal responsibility and getting young people into employment.
(PA) Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
