Kemi Badenoch dismissed the Tory donor racism row as “trivia” during an interview on LBC on Monday, 18 March. Speaking to Nick Ferrari, the business secretary commented on the ongoing conversation regarding Frank Hester’s alleged remarks about Diane Abbott. “We need to get to a place where we stop chasing people around and looking everywhere for the racism... We’ve been talking about this for well over a week now,” Ms Badenoch said. Mr Hester, who gave the Conservative party £10m in 2023, allegedly made derogatory comments about Ms Abbott during a 2019 company meeting, suggesting she “should be shot”.