Politics used to be about persuasion. The first job of any political leader was to convince as many people, from as many different walks of life as possible, that their vision for the country was the right one.
Kemi Badenoch sees things rather differently. For the frontrunner in the Conservative leadership contest, politics is no longer about persuading people, but about dividing them.
This can be seen most clearly in a remarkable document recently put together by her campaign.
In it Badenoch endorses an alternative view, which sees politics as not being about winning over the maximum number of people, but instead being about writing off a huge chunk of the country as her “opponents”.
In doing so she sets up our national politics for a new and dangerous turn for the worse.