In a wide-ranging interview, Badenoch spoke about learning on the job, including thinking of Prime Minister’s Questions “like a panto” rather than a cross-examination.
The Conservative leader admitted she initially spent a day preparing arguments and statistics, only to find that people were not following what she was saying.
No matter how much she prepared, Badenoch said Sir Keir Starmer would simply dismiss her points as “rubbish”.
“I just thought this isn’t working,” she said.
“It is more theatre than it is a prosecution or interrogation.”
“It is the nature of British politics that we will have a panto” while political debate in other countries will have other “culturally appropriate analogies”, she argued.
Focusing instead on one thing during PMQs and “peeling it back like layers of an onion” had allowed her better scrutinise the prime minister.