Video: Kemi Badenoch dismisses Partygate furore in first TV interview as Tory leader

Kemi Badenoch calls Partygate furore 'overblown' in first TV interview as Tory leaderSunday with Laura Kuenssberg, BBC

Transcript

00:00Some of those things I think were perception issues. A lot of the stuff that happened around Partygate was not why I resigned.

00:06I thought that it was overblown. We should not have created fixed penalty notices, for example.

00:11That was us not going with our principles.

00:14And then when we had the issue with the Chris Pincher scandal, when ministers were sent out to say things that were not true,

00:20that was when I decided that these things had gone too far.

00:23So it was partly for you about the truth. Were the public wrong to be upset about Partygate? You say it was overblown.

00:28No, they were not wrong to be upset about Partygate.

00:32The problem was that we should not have criminalised everyday activities the way that we did.

00:38People going out for walks, all of them having fixed penalty notices.

00:42That was what ended up creating a trap for Boris Johnson.

00:45But wasn't the problem that people in government didn't obey the rules?

00:49Yes, that's right. People in government didn't obey the rules, but they were not MPs.

00:54They were often staffers, and I think that the way that we had created those regulations ended up entrapping...

01:00The Prime Minister and the Chancellor both got fines. It wasn't just people who worked for them.

01:03Indeed. But, as we saw with those events, when people see the full story of what actually happened,

01:10they understand that problems were created because of the way that we had created the regulations.