Early evening summary
Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch have both used Q&A sessions in the main conference hall to address perceived weaknesses with their leadership campaigns. Both were well received by party members, on a day when none of the four candidates made an obvious error, or said anything significantly new and likely to reshape the contest. Tugendhat, who is seen as having most chance of being voted out in the next MPs’ ballot, forcefully dismissed claims that he lacked the right experience to be Conservative leader. (See 2.29pm.) Badenoch sought to draw a line under her maternity pay gaffe yesterday by suggesting that she has now joined Margaret Thatcher in the ranks of Tory leaders whose words have been misrepresented by opponents. (See 3.35pm.) Badenoch also defended her claim that she was working class when she worked in McDonalds in south London as teenager, saying that the description was fair because she was poor at the time and sometimes went hungry. (See 3.23pm.) A recent biography gives a slightly different impression, saying that although Badenoch was short of money at this point, she did not need to get a job. (See 4,53pm.) Tomorrow Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly get the main hall Q&A treatment. Both have been doing fringe meetings today, with Jenrick saying the Tories must commit to leaving the ECHR “or die” (see 8.23am), and Cleverly saying it was a mistake for Rishi Sunak to promise to “stop the boats (see 5.44pm).
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Jenrick says Liz Truss's mini-budget 'cack-handed, careless and unconservative'
Senior Conservatives have been reluctant to criticise Liz Truss directly over her mini-budget at this conference, even though it had a terrible impact on the party’s poll rating. But Robert Jenrick has gone further than most others in an interview with ITV’s Peston being broadcast tonight. Asked about the mini-budget, he said:
I think that the mini budget in particular did great harm to our reputation for sound management of the public finances - it was cack-handed, it was careless and it was unconservative and that is part of my mission now, to rebuild our reputation for sound management of the public finances and reclaim the mantle for low tax and pro growth.
What maternity row? - Badenoch rejects claim maternity pay gaffe damaged her campaign
Kemi Badenoch has denied suggestions that her maternity pay gaffe was damaging to her campaign.
When Emily Maitlis from the News Agents podcast asked her if the “maternity row” had damaged her, Badenoch hit back, saying:
I don’t know what maternity row you are talking about.
I’ve given a statement and said that maternity pay is important.
If people want to have a confected row, they’re well within their rights to do that.
But I am having a serious conversation in this party about the existential crisis that faces us.
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Cleverly says it was mistake for Sunak to say he would 'stop the boats' because that was 'unachievable target'
James Cleverly has said that Rishi Sunak’s decision to say that he would “stop the boats” was a mistake.
Speaking at a fringe meeting, he said:
I think the phrase stop the boats was an error.
It distilled a very, very complicated and challenging problem into a soundbite.
The implication – not the implication, I suppose the self-imposed yardstick – was even one boat was a failure, and that was an unachievable target.
Tugendhat calls for net migration to be capped at 100,000, while Badenoch says cap needed 'that cannot be manipulated'
During the Q&A in the conference hall this afternoon, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch both talked about the need for a cap on immigration. But, while Tugendhat called for a very firm limit, Badenoch implied she wanted more flexibility.
Tugendhat said he believed in a firm net migration limit of 100,000 people coming in to the UK each year. In the past Tory ministers backed a cap in theory, but demanded exemptions. He said:
Secretaries of state need to own their record. I got deeply frustrated with this pledge that you and I constantly heard and I made because I meant it, of up to 100,000.
“(You) then hear secretaries of state saying ‘Yeah, no I get that, but my department is an exception. My department is different. My department’s not the same as others. Oh no, I get the cap, but not for me.’
Well I’m afraid that’s not how government works. You’ve got to actually mean it. And I’m afraid when secretaries of state say ‘trade will suffer, health will suffer, foreign relations will suffer, we won’t get the builders in to housing’, well that’s not the answer.
You’ve got to train people, you’ve got to inspire apprenticeships, you’ve got to put a cap on degrees, you have got to make sure that what you’re actually doing is helping people to fill those spaces.”
Badenoch said she thought a cap was necessary, but that it would have to be cleverly designed. She explained:
I think there will need to be a cap, but we also need to design a system that means the cap cannot be manipulated.
So you won’t hear me say, I promise to have a cap and it’s going to be this number. It’s very easy to create a cap, we saw this with the point migration system.
If you have a cap and you have lots of the wrong people coming in, or worse good people leaving our country – good people leaving our country is great for net migration stats – migration stats shouldn’t just be about the numbers, it should be about who is coming in, who is leaving, why that is happening, otherwise we are talking to the letter not the spirit of lowering immigration.
Jenrick says he does not understand why Tory HQ didn't ensure next leader in place in time for budget
Robert Jenrick has renewed his call for the Tory leadership contest to be shortened. At a fringe meeting this afternoon he said:
[I told CCHQ] 100%, whether it’s me or somebody else, the next leader of this party needs to be stood at the dispatch box making the argument to Rachel Reeves, holding her to account.
I do not know for the life of me why this decision has been made.
It’s very kind of Rishi [Sunak] to agree to do this, but I think it should be the next leader of our party who’s making that argument.
Here is video of Kemi Badenoch telling the conference she lived a working class life when she come to London as a teenager from Nigeria. (See 3.23pm.)
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What Badenoch's biographer said about why she worked in McDonald's as a teenager
In her Q&A in the conference hall Kemi Badenoch said she described herself as working class when she arrived in London as a teenager because, although she had had a middle class life in Nigeria, in London she was poor. (See 3.23pm.) The description of this period of her life in Blue Ambition, Lord Ashcroft’s biography of her, broadly backs up this account, although it also claims she did not have to work at this point. It says:
“Most of the time I was out of the house because I was working,” remembers Dr [Abiola Tilley Gyado, a friend of Badenoch’s parents’, who had a house on the outskirts of Wimbledon where Badenoch was staying]. “I had some responsibility for health programmes in my organisation so I travelled a lot.” This left Badenoch with time on her hands, sometimes rattling around the house alone, so she took a part-time job preparing food at McDonald’s in Wimbledon town centre. Never having eaten a hamburger before, Badenoch couldn’t believe her luck in being able to enjoy them free of charge as a perk. “She worked there at weekends and in the holidays,” Dr Gyado says. “It wasn’t what she had to do. I didn’t ask her for money for rent or food. It was her choice to work hard.” With this small income, Badenoch sometimes went out to the theatre. Otherwise she would be at home studying, writing letters to her family, reading or watching television. The idea of frequenting London’s pubs and clubs did not occur to her and she had few friends with whom to socialise.
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As PA Media reports, Simon Case was appointed cabinet secretary by Boris Johnson in September 2020. PA says:
Evidence at the UK Covid inquiry revealed he was often exasperated by the administration.
He said he found Johnson’s style of working “very frustrating” and described his day-to-day administration as “dysfunctional”.
In July 2020, before he became cabinet secretary, Case said: “I’ve never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country.”
He also described Mr Johnson and his inner circle as “basically feral” and suggested that Carrie, Johnson’s partner at the time, now his wife, was “the real person in charge” in No 10.
Case had previously worked as private secretary to the then Duke of Cambridge, the current Prince of Wales.
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Case says he hopes civil servants will remain 'servants of others', leaving party politics to politicians
In a message to colleagues announcing his decision to stand down at the end of the year, Simon Case said he hoped civil servants would in future remain “servants of others”, leaving party politics to politicians. He said:
Those who choose public service deserve thanks for the choice they have made, whether that service be in politics, the civil service, the armed forces, the emergency services, our National Health Service, local government and beyond. I have seen truly motivated people doing remarkable things in the pursuit of their nations’ and communities’ interests through a pandemic, wars, a change of reign, economic emergencies and unprecedented demand for modern public services. I have seen so very many colleagues committed to their purpose, displaying tenacity and ingenuity, whilst sacrificing their own personal interests for others.
As the civil service continues its journey forwards, I hope those who make up our number now and in the future can continue the pursuit of that necessary balance of continuity and change. The world is changing fast and so must the civil service. The global context, the relentless evolution of technology, increasing public expectations of the services they consume and many more factors require us to keep adapting.
At the same time, the core values of our United Kingdom have not changed and so I hope that the civil service will hold onto its fundamental purpose and values in the never-ending task of serving the government of the day and, through them, the people of our country. We must remain servants of others. We should resist the temptation to become the arbiters of, or participants in, legitimate democratic debate, leaving party politics to politicians and demonstrating our enduring and profound belief in democracy through the service of the elected government of the day.
Case says decision to stand down 'solely to do with my health', and nothing else
This is what Simon Case has said about his resignation.
This morning, I informed the prime minister of my intention to step down as cabinet secretary and head of the civil service at the end of the year.
As many of you know, I have been undergoing medical treatment for a neurological condition over the last 18 months and, whilst the spirit remains willing, the body is not. It is a shame that I feel I have to spell this out, but my decision is solely to do with my health and nothing to do with anything else.
He said the prime minister would appoint his successor following a “full, open and transparent process which will be run by the First Civil Service Commissioner,” adding:
It has been an honour to serve two sovereigns, four prime ministers and over 120 cabinet ministers in this role.
There have been far more ups than downs along the way and by far the greatest highlight has been the privilege of working with so many remarkable public servants, across the length and breadth of our country, in our overseas posts and with counterparts from our close allies and partners around the world.
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Simon Case says he will stand down as cabinet secretary at end of year on health grounds
Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, has announced he will stand down at the end of the year on health grounds, saying “whilst the spirit remains willing, the body is not”.
This announcement is has been expected for a while, and it will be welcomed by Labour figures who believe that he has not been an effective cabinet secretary, particularly because his relations with Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, are strained.
The announcement means Starmer can now activate the process of choosing a successor.
Badenoch says, if she becomes PM, she will remove VAT on private school fees.
Badenoch says the saddest moment of her career came when she had to resign from Boris Johnson’s government. She says she loved him. She defended him over the wallpaer controversy. She thought he was being unfairly hounded over Partygate. But it got to the point where ministers were being send out to say things that were untrue. It was important to show the public the party had integrity, she says.
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Badenoch says Tories will look 'not serious' if they change timetable for leadership contest
Q: Should we bring forward the date the contest ends?
Badenoch says the party have set the date and should stick with it. If they keep changing their mind, they will look “not serious”. She says she does not accept the argument that the new leader needs to reply to the budget.
We have a prime minister who’s never been in the Treasury. We have a leader of the opposition who used to be chancellor. We have a shadow chancellor who knows that building [the Treasury] inside out. We can do this. It’s not about who’s becoming leader a few days later. It is about us using all of the talents within our party.
Hope is now on quickfire.
Q: Drink with Boris Johnson or David Cameron?
Badenoch says she has not had a drink with either of them. Both, she says, to see how the interact.
Badenoch says she wants 'colour of skin to be no more significant than colour of hair'
Asked how it would feel to be the first black Tory leader, Badenoch said:
I don’t know, I’ve never done it before. I’m sure it’ll be interesting but I am somebody who wants the colour of skin to be no more significant than the colour of our hair or the colour of our eyes.
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Badenoch says the Conservatives should apologise to voters for not reducing immigration.
Badenoch says she will work with Reform UK in parliament, but won't agree electoral pact
Badenoch says she does not favour having an elected party chair. But she thinks CCHQ needs reform.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
I am always prepared to work with any other party that wants to help us deliver our agenda. I think that’s fine in parliament, but in an election, no.
At the next election we have to be the centre right option. If we split that vote, we are going to be out of power for another five years and Labour will destroy this country.
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Badenoch says she is not in favour of an electoral pact with Reform UK. She wants the Conservative party to be the centre-right option at the election.
Badenoch compares herself to Thatcher as she claims opponents deliberately misrepresented maternity pay remark
Hope asks Badenoch about her comments about maternity pay yesterday, and suggests voters will think the Tories want to cut it. Badenoch implies she was deliberately misrepresented.
She says Margaret Thatcher is well known for saying ‘There is no such thing as society”, even though the full quote shows that she was stressing the importance of people acting collectively. [Thatcher said: “Who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”]
Badenoch says that is a good example of how a reply “got cut down into a sound bite that was used to attack her”. She suggests the same thing happened to her.
When you are a leader, when you are a Conservative, when you are making the argument for Conservative principles, your opponents are going to try and turn it into something else. We need to decide who’s going to be leader of the party, not the left, not the Guardian, not the BBC, just Conservatives.
In fact, Badenoch was not misrepresented yesterday. She did say that maternity pay was excessive, although she later clarified that this was not her considered view.
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Badenoch restates claim that, when she came to UK from Nigeria, she became working class
Q: Will you redefine what it is to be Tory?
Badenoch says her mission is about restating Conservatism, not redefining it. She says they all believe in personal responsibility.
Q: What did you mean when you told me on my podcast they working in McDonalds made you working class?
Badenoch replies:
It wasn’t working at McDonald’s that made me working class. It was an example of how I had become working class.
I wasn’t working there as a weekend job or part time. That was my job. I was going to college, part-time, going to an FE college, and I had left Nigeria, where I’d had a middle class life, driven to school every day, and the first time I ever went on a bus was in this country. But I couldn’t even afford bus money most of the time. I had to walk everywhere.
Sometimes I was hungry. I was on my own. I had a place to live, but I had to do everything myself at a very young age. If that is not working class, I didn’t know what working classes is.
The working classes are the people who have to work for a living, otherwise they will be in trouble. They are people who don’t necessarily have big savings or a family that can look after them.
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Badenoch takes part in Q&A in conference hall
The Tugendhat Q&A is over, and Christopher Hope is now interviewing Kemi Badenoch.
Q: When did you decide that you could be leader?
Badenoch says she stood in 2022 and did better than expected. After that contest, she thought she could win in a future contest.
Q: Are your family in favour of this?
Badenoch says her husband is fully supportive. Her mother does not understand why she is doing this. She says others are in between.
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Tories will lead campaigns against onshore wind infrastructure, former minister says
Voters do not understand how much the last government did on the environment and decarbonising the energy system, the Tory MP and former energy minister Graham Stuart told a fringe meeting.
He said:
Three or four people out of 10 over the last few years saw the UK as doing more than other countries to tackle climate change, and polling showed that 50% of the population consistently said we weren’t spending enough on reducing emissions. Given our records, the fact that we didn’t promote that among the people who care about this was problematic.
He praised Labour for lifting the onshore wind ban but said the Conservatives would be opposing onshore energy infrastructure.
He said:
We now have a government which has made in my view some correct early moves, like getting rid of the effective moratorium on onshore wind - that was always mad to do that – and we’ve got onshore wind back.
But it seems to want to take an approach to developing the infrastructure which is sticking its fingers in its ears and screaming and not listening and railroading everyone.
If you do that, from pylons to solar to other energy, you’re going to get a massive backlash, and we, inevitably in opposition, are going to be championing that and using that for a great deal of local electoral advantages.
Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho accuses Labour of 'lying' about being able to cut energy bills by £300
The shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho accused Ed Miliband, her opposite number, of “lying” to the electorate about their energy bills.
Speaking at a fringe meeting, she said:
One of the difficulties Labour are having is they spent an election campaign promising they’d save people £300 off their energy bills and now they are in power they cannot repeat that claim as it is not based on anything.
Emma Pinchbeck, the CEO of Energy UK, was also on the panel and agreed it was unwise to make claims about energy bills, particularly as the renewables which drive down bills are still being built and connected to the grid.
Pinchbeck acknowledged it will be a “crunchy decade for energy bills”.
Coutinho added that it was foolish of Miliband and Labour to focus so much on wind and solar for their plans to decarbonise the grid and said we should wait and try and develop technologies such as nuclear fusion “to sell around the world”.
She also claimed the British public do not put environmental concerns above other worries, adding:
We need to be very careful when we talk about that the public care about because predominantly they care about cheap energy. Renewables are not cheap in all circumstances. My view is that you have to prioritise cheap energy in your country.
Tugendhat says he feels “deeply, deeply, deeply uncomfortable” about proposals to legislate for assisted dying. He says he was alarmed by reports from Canada, where assisted dying is allowed, of a veteran with PTSD being unable to access medical treatment and being told to consider suicide instead as an option.
Asked if he would vote against the bill, Tugendhat says he would want to read it first, but he says it is “immensely unlikely” that he would back it.
Tugendhat says he does not support all-women shortlists. He says they would “belittle” MPs like Kemi Badenoch by making it look as if they did not get into parliament on their own merits.
Tugendhat says he thinks Ed Miliband’s plans to tackle net zero are “completely rubbish”. He says:
Every single project he’s got is designed to make electricity and power more expensive, harder to get, and to make us more vulnerable to foreign dictators ….
He’s creating a public sector entity to compete against the private sector and to therefore make bills more expensive. Completely insane.
Q: Do you think we are in a climate emergency?
Tugendhat says he does not accept that term.
Q: Boris Johnson or David Cameron?
Tugendhat says both, but that they are different people.
When Hope says that is a boring answer, Tugendhat says “Boris for a night out, let’s be honest.”
Q: Starmer or Blair?
Tugendhat says:
God, neither. Can you imagine having them both there. Being preached at by one, being patronised. God, it would be torture.
[That sounds his most phoney answer so far. Tugendhat has a serious interest in security, Starmer’s specialist subject, and geopolitics, Blair’s specialist subject. In reality, he would probably get on fine with them both.]
Q: Will you recommission a new Royal Yacht [a Hope obsession]?
Tugendhat says he loves the idea.
Q: Would you restore the winter fuel payments?
Tugendhat says he does not approve of the cut. He would ensure dignity in old age.
But he cannot say what he would put in a budget in four years’ time.
Q: Would you scrap Labour’s ban on new grammar schools?
Yes.
Q: Would you get rid of the top rate of income tax?
Tugendhat says he will not write a budget now.
Q: Are you a nimby, yimby or a banana?
Tugendhat asks what a banana is.
Hope says it is ‘build absolutely nothing anywhere’.
Tugendhat says, yellow and disgusuting, it must be Lib Dem.
That gets a big round of applause.
Q: How do you defend voting remain in the Brexit referendum?
Tugendhat says he does not need to defend that. It is in the past. He has always accepted the result.
Q: Would you let the UK become closer to the EU?
Tugendhat says he will always defend UK sovereignty.
Q: Would you give Boris Johnson a job in the shadow cabinet?
Tugendhat praises Johnson for two things in particular: for standing up for Ukraine, and for appointing a vaccine taskforce, using the private sector, to find a vaccine as soon as the Covid pandemic struck.
Q: Would you like to see him come back in a byelection?
Tugendhat says he is not going to interfer in candidate selections. But if Johnsonn wants to stand, and members want to have him as a candidate, that is fine, he says.
Updated
Tugendhat dismisses call for electoral pact with Reform UK
Q: Do you favour an electoral deal with Reform UK? [See 2.04pm.]
Tugendhat says he wants to reform the Conservative party, not turn it into Reform UK.
Tugendhat bats away question about having least ministerial experience by stressing his combat record
Q: You have less ministerial experience than the other candidates. You were security minister for two years. Is that a worry?
Channel Ronald Reagan’s famous answer to a question about his age, Tugendhat (a former soldier, and a former chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee) says:
I’m not going to hold against anybody their inexperience in combat or their inexperience in foreign affairs …
I won’t hold against them, the areas where they didn’t serve our country and didn’t put their lives on the line. They have served in other ways, and I think we should respect that.
Tugendhat says he proud of his record as a minister.
I’ll stand on [my record]. Mine is two years keeping this country safe, introducing the National Security Act, arresting and charging more Russian and Chinese agents in the previous decade, and reforming areas of our intelligence and security services and I’m never going to tell you about [ie, highly secret stuff].
Tugendhat apologises to members for how infighting at Westminster let them down at election
Tugendhat says he has a message for members about the general election.
It wasn’t this party that failed, it wasn’t the ideas that failed. It was the centre that failed, and we need to own that.
And so from my perspective, let me just say to all of you, I’m sorry, the infighting in Westminster, the chaos in Westminster, and then the campaign, they will let you down.
Updated
Q: Are you a wet?
Tugendhat objects to that term. He says Hope is using the language of the Conservative party’s enemies. Conservatives should be united, he says.
He says he refused to vote for an increase in national insurance, and he voted against vaccine passports.
UPDATE: This is what Tugendhat said about opposing tax rises.
We don’t do it because we worship high or low taxes. It’s because we believe in freedom.
The reason we think taxes should be lower is because we think individuals are better when they are freer, when they’re able to make the decisions over their own lives, and when they’re able to put their effort and their energy into the projects, and the ideas that they think will work.
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Tom Tugendhat takes part in Q&A on main conference stage
Talking of GB News, Christopher Hope, the GB News political editor, has just arrived on stage at the conference. Hope has been asked by the Tories to host the Q&A sessions with all four leadership questions.
He says he will be asking “tough questions” but not “gotcha questions”. (Kemi Badenoch will approve.)
He says he will be asking questions for half an hour, and then taking questions from the audience for half an hour.
The first hour is devoted to Tom Tugendhat. Then Kemi Badenoch is up.
The other two candidates are getting the Chopper treatment (Chopper is Hope’s nickname, which he uses in the title for his podcast).
Tugendhat is on the platform too and, after a bit of small talk, Hope asks what Tugendhat learned from his time in the army.
Tugendhat says he has devoted his life to service, and protecting his country.
Q: Were you a spy?
Tugendhat says he was a uniformed intelligence officer.
Q: On the internet there are claims you were a spy?
Tugendhat says there are a lot of things on the internet.
Updated
Tories should form electoral pact with Reform UK, standing down where Farage might beat Labour, Jacob Rees-Mogg says
The Conservative party should form an electoral part with Reform UK, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, has said.
According to a report by Amy Gibbons for the Telegraph, Rees-Mogg, who lost his seat at the election, said that there are almost 100 seats won by Labour where Reform UK came second at the election. Rees-Mogg said:
What should we do? Well, let’s for once model ourselves on David Cameron and make a big generous offer ...
What if we were to say at the next election, as we did to the liberal unionists, we will not oppose Reform in those 98 seats? I would certainly be open to that as a real opportunity to Reform to win seats from Labour.”
I think it would help us, it will help them. And we will not win if we do not reunite.
All four Tory leadership have said they are focused on winning back voters from Reform UK, rather than doing a deal with Nigel Farage’s party, and so there seems little chance of Rees-Mogg’s idea being adopted in the near future. But a survey of Tory members in July found that more than a third of them were in favour of an electoral pact with Reform UK.
Rees-Mogg is one of the Tories most aligned with Reform UK. He and Farage are both leading presenters on GB News.
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Robert Jenrick seems to have won the backing of the European Research Group, which represents hardline, pro-Brexit Tory MPs, Sky News reports.
At a fringe meeting this morning, John Redwood and Bill Cash, two ex-MPs who were leading figures in the group, said they felt the last government had failed to take advantage of the opportunities provided by Brexit. But Jenrick could turn things round, they said, according to Sky.
UK business confidence has dropped to its lowest level since the general election, as firms grow more pessimistic about the economic outlook, Graeme Wearden reports.
Why Truss thinks Tories would have done better at election if she had stayed as PM and leader
This is what Liz Truss said at the Telegraph fringe to explain why she said she thought the Tories would have done better at the election if she had stayed on as leader and PM. (See 12.51pm.)
When asked to explain why she thought she would have done better than Sunak, Truss replied:
Because when I was when I was in No 10, Reform was polling at 3%. By the time we got to the election, I think they got 18% because we promised change that we didn’t deliver.
[Reform UK hit 18% in at least one poll during the campaign, but in the election itself they got 14%.]
Of course, without the support of the parliamentary party, it was very, very difficult for me to get my changes through. And if you have people in the parliamentary party saying ‘It’s Liz Truss’s fault this has happened, not the Bank of London’s fault’, which is what people did and are still doing, it is very difficult for me to deliver that change.
But if the mini-budget had been allowed to succeed, we’d have lower corporation tax, bringing more companies into this country, not relocating to Ireland. We’d have duty free shoppers coming to London, rather than being diverted to Paris or Milan.
We’d have got on with fracking. One of the biggest reasons this country is stagnant is our high energy prices, which are now four times what they are in the United States. By now, fracking would be taking place in Britain, and I think they would have a serious impact with all those competitiveness.
Truss says she does not know yet if she will seek re-election to parliament
Q: What books would you recommend to turn a young person rightwing?
Truss recommends With No Apologies, Barry Goldwater’s memoir.
Q: Will you try to return to parliament?
Truss says she is still thinking about that.
But she says she is not going to give up on the ideological fight.
Stanley asks the audience if they want her back. They applaud to indicate they do – but not with massive enthusiasm.
Truss says the establishment used to be conservative, but now it is liberal left. But the Conservative party has not acknowledged that, she says.
Q: Why are there so few conservatives in academia?
Truss says conservatives stopped getting tenure.
She says they used to be viewed as a curiosity in academia. Now they are being hounded out.
She says the UK should follow Trump’s policy, and defund universities if they exclude rightwing voices.
Updated
Truss accuses the media of failing to scrutinise the Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey properly. She says he failed on inflation. But journalists don’t cover this, she claims. “What on earth is the British media doing with its time?”
Truss wins applause from Tory activists by saying 'Trump might win' when asked to give them good news
Stanley says Truss is being very gloomy. Is there anything she can say to cheer them up.
Truss replies: “Trump might win.”
This gets the first proper round of applause from the audience.
Truss says the left have been winning the arguments globally. She goes on:
Trump winning in America will be a sign that the tide is turning because at present we have Keir Starmer in London, we’ve got socialists in Australia, Canada, America, France, Germany. We need to start turning the tide the other way. And this will be the first domino …
Trump is anti establishment. Yes, the Davos World Economic Forum elite do not like Donald Trump, and I take that as a good sign.
Stanley points out that the US courts don’t like Trump much either. He says he sympathises with her views, but other people will think supporting Trump like this is weird.
Truss says his record in office was a good one.
His foreign policy was much better. He held Iran to account. He took action on Ukraine and Russia in a way that Obama hadn’t. Yes, he was much tougher on China, but domestically, he did all the things that unleashed the American economy, supply side reforms, regulatory reforms, tax cuts, fracking, building oil pipelines. He made the American economy successful, and that is what Biden has been riding off despite some of his poorer economic policies.
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Q: Do you think any of the Conservative leadership candidates agree with your analysis?
Truss says she thinks the candidates have been “Panglossian”.
So far, I haven’t seen any of the candidates really acknowledge how bad things are in the country as a whole, and frankly, for the Conservative party.
Getting rid of Boris Johnson as leader was 'very stupid move', says Truss
Q: Do you think you could have won the election?
Truss says she thinks it would have been very difficult for the Tories to win the election.
I think our best chance of winning would have been to have kept Boris. I think it was a very stupid move by some of my colleagues that undermine Boris, and they still haven’t admitted that.
Truss claims Tories would have done better at election if she had stayed as PM than they did under Sunak
Q: If you had stayed on and fought the election, do you think you would have done better than Rishi Sunak?
Truss replies: “Yes, I do.”
But, she says, without the support of Tory MPs, it was hard for her to get her changes thought.
And even people in the party were blaming her mini-budget for the problems with the economy.
UPDATE: See 1.41pm for the quote from Truss explaining why she thinks she would have done better than Sunak.
Updated
Truss says she lost her seat because of Reform UK
Truss says the key divide in British politics is between people who want change, and people who don’t.
And the Conservative party is divided on this too.
Labour represent the establishment, she says. She says Rachel Reeves used to work for the Bank of England, and Keir Starmer is a former official, as DPP.
She says she lost her seat because Reform UK did very well in her seat. But she does not think people in her seat want a Labour MP. They want change. There were two parties offering change, and Labour came through the middle, she says.
Reform came third in her seat, with 9,958 votes. Truss got 11,217, and the Labour candidate who won got 11,847.
Truss says Labour blaming her mini-budget for tough choices it has to take is 'economic illiteracy'
Q: Labour says they need to impose cuts or put up taxes because of your legacy?
Truss says that argument is “economic illiteracy”.
She says taxes were at a 70-year high when she became PM. She tried to change that round, but her mini-budget was not implemented because of opposition from establishment organisations.
She says a Bank of England report earlier this year said two thirds of the spike in the gilt market after the mini-budget was due to the Bank failing to regulate the pensions investment market.
But people do not acknowledge that, he says.
Tim Stanley says he shares Truss’s analysis. But he says many Tories don’t. How do you respond to that.
Truss puts her arms in the air, smiles and says she does not know what to say about the 2017 election (which May messed up). She says she does not want to get into a slanging match with May.
Q: Do you support any of what Labour are doing to build more houses?
Truss says there is only one Labour policy she supports – decriminalising not paying your TV licences.
On housing, she says Labour is cutting the housing target for London.
They’re not dealing with the basic problem, which is the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act, which essentially nationalized land. They’re not dealing with that. They’re tinkering. And what I know is that they will not take on the environmental lobby who caused so much of the problems …
They’re not going to take those people. They’re not going to take on the affordable housing lobby, which puts lots of costs, again, on people seeking to build new houses.
So I have no hope that their planning reforms will amount to anything.
The Liz Truss event is starting, and Tim Stanley starts by asking if Britain is heading into socialism.
Truss says we are already in socialism.
She says state spending was at 45% of GDP, equivalent to what it was in the 1970s. This was the cumulative effect of Blairite and Brownite policies, he says.
But she says the Tories are responsible too. They failed to challenge this orthodoxy.
The country is moving in the wrong direction, he claims.
Cleverly says Tories need to stop 'behaving like bloody children' to win back voters
James Cleverly has said The Tories need to stop “behaving like bloody children” in order to win back voters.
At a fringe meeting, he was asked what one policy he would prioritise in order to win back voters.
He replied that earning trust was more important, telling the audience:
The first thing we need to do is win back the trust and support of the voters. We behaved appallingly.
Asked how the party could do this, he replied: “Um, stop behaving like bloody children.”
Liz Truss to speak at Tory conference in Telegraph-hosted Q&A fringe event
Liz Truss is about to speak at the Tory conference. Two years ago she was here as PM and party leader. Now she is not even an MP, having lost her South West Norfok seat, where she had a 26,000 majority, in one of Labour’s most dramatic wins on election night.
This is her only scheduled appearance at the Birmingham conference. She is not speaking in the main hall, but she is a fringe organised by the Daily Telegraph where she is being interviewed by Tim Stanley, the Telegraph’s parliamentary sketchwriter.
There was a long queue to get in and the venue, one of the biggest halls in the centre, seating maybe around 400 people, is full.
Businessman says he's behind £75,000 donation to Jenrick queried by Labour
A prominent businessman has named himself as the source of a £75,000 donation to Robert Jenrick amid transparency concerns over the ultimate origin of the funds, PA Media reports. PA says:
Entrepreneur Phillip Ullmann said he gave the money to the Conservative party leadership frontrunner through Spott Fitness, a fitness coaching app provider which he said is “part of my family’s group of businesses”.
However, Ullmann’s name does not currently appear on the list of people with significant control in Spott Fitness at Companies House, leaving a question mark over his formal links to the organisation.
Labour has demanded an investigation into the origin of the money after Mr Jenrick received three donations of £25,000 from the business in July. [See 8.33am.]
In a statement on Monday, Ullmann said he wanted to avoid suggestions that he is “hiding anything” and insisted he understands the importance of transparency surrounding political donations.
“I’ve been a successful businessman over the years. But in recent times I’ve become concerned about the grave challenges facing the UK and the rest of the world,” he said.
“I tried, unsuccessfully, to make some of that right by changing my businesses into social enterprises. But I’ve come to see that we need huge political change.”
He said he has been “giving to figures of a broadly communitarian bent for several years”, including Labour peer Maurice Glasman, Tory MPs John Hayes and Danny Kruger, the New Conservatives, and the New Social Covenant Unit.
Ullmann added: “I also wanted to back Robert Jenrick whose serious solutions to big challenges – including on migration – appeal to me. I don’t agree with him on everything but broadly we are aligned.
“I chose to give the money from Spott Fitness, a company which is part of my family’s group of businesses. It’s a phenomenal company that’s using tech to improve people’s health and will be a hugely successful business.
“But I don’t want there to be any suggestion at all that I’m hiding anything and I understand the importance of donor transparency. So I’m happy to confirm my connection to Spott. I love my country, I was born and raised in the UK, and have always paid tax and lived here.
“I’m going to continue to set out my ideas for changing the world and our financial system and am always happy to meet with people and set out my ideas in this space.”
Badenoch is now taking part in quickfire round.
Q: Netflix or a good book?
Netflix, says Badenoch. She says she wishes she had time for a good book.
Q: Beach holiday or hiking holiday?
Beach holiday, says Badenoch.
Q: Audio book or podcast?
Badenoch says there are too many podcasts. But she does not listen to audio books, so it would be podcasts. But she likes short ones. She mentions the Spectator’s Coffee House Shots.
And that’s the end of that fringe.
Q: I remember the sense of inspiration I had as a 14-year-old in 1979, when Margaret Thatcher took over. I am inspired today by what you have said. I love the fact that you speak your mind. But can you win over younger people?
Badenoch says the Tories were in government for 14 years. Young people cannot remember what Labour was like. They lost some votes just from the “general fatigue” of being in government. They need to speak more about the future.
Q: What would you do to improve the birthrate?
Badenoch says someone asked a more blunt version of this question; what would she do to encourage more people to have sex?
She says yesterday she was asked about maternity pay. Things like maternity pay are good for encouraging people to start families.
Housing is an issue too, she says.
She says people are scared about having families. They worry if they can afford them, and what the birth process will be like, and what will happen to their bodies.
She says having a family is probably the most meaningful thing people will do.
She says there is a deep conversation to be had about this.
Badenoch rejects claim her immigration policy depends on reforming EHCR
Q: Why do you think you can reform the European convention on human rights when previous attempts have failed?
Badenoch says she does not think you can reform it.
That is not where she would start with in terms of having an immigration policy.
She thinks leaving the ECHR would lead to wrangling with bodies like the House of Lords, as you had with Brexit.
There are countries in the ECHR that are deporting 70% of people. In the UK, it is 10%. That shows the ECHR is not the problem, she says.
She says one problem is the staff in the Home Office. They do not support tough policies. Some of them would be better off working for Amnesty.
But if it proves necessary to leave the ECHR, she would back leaving.
Q: Do you think people who voted Reform think the diversity agenda is going too far?
Badenoch says people voted Reform because they did not see enough “authentic conservatism” from the Tories.
She says tax and immigration were the top issues for this group.
She says she does not think people are pushing back against having a diverse society. A multi-ethnic society is now a given, she says.
Badenoch is now taking questions from the audience.
Q: My son has just started secondary school. I am worried about how sexualised the RHSE curriculum has become.
Badenoch says there is more sexualised content than before. The last government tried to address this.
She was sent something with materials for children than included fisting. That should not be in material for children.
Exterior organisations produce material used by schools. Schools should look at this.
And parents should have the right to see this material, she says. (In fact, they already do.)
Badenoch says her life has no meaning without her family.
Childcare is phenomenally expensive, she says – even for people on high incomes.
As for policy, she says it is important to start with values. She will not throw out policy now.
If you fix families, you improve things in other areas, she says. Many people are in prison because of their family background.
But government cannot do everything, she says. She says government regulation should not be the solution to all problems. “We have to unleash the talents of the people themselves.”
Badenoch says the Tory party has sounded “too technical”.
It needs to talk about issues that matter to people.
But the Conservative party also need to offer fun if it wants members. She says she met her huband through the party. “Join the party and get a date.”
She says she always makes her own meetings family-friendly. And that means more people come, including men. She says issues that people describe as women’s issues are often parents’ issues.
Badenoch says the Tories fought the 2019 election on the platform of getting Brexit done.
But once Brexit was done, the party starting arguing, because people did not agree on issues like housing and Covid, she says.
She says the party needs a “safe space” where they can debate and decide policy. After that, they need to unite behind it, she says.
Tory members 'very angry' with their MPs because of their 'squabbling', says Badenoch
Q: What have you learned during the campaign talking to members?
Badenoch says she has learned that members are “very angry”, she says.
I’ve learned that the members are very angry. Members are angry with national politicians because they got tired of seeing us squabbling, inviting disagreements, and they don’t want to see that anymore.
Q: How will you help women in politics?
Badenoch says barriers for participation in politics are different for women than for men.
She says men are “pushing through the door”. But women need to be asked, she says.
She says she also wants to make life easier for people in public life. She says not enough has been done to tackle abuse in public life.
(When Badenoch ran for Tory leader in 2022, one of her proposals was for the police to focus more on crime and “not waste time and resources worrying about hurt feelings online”.)
Badenoch says she is someone who can 'cut through' at a time when it is hard for Tories to be heard
Kemi Badenoch starts with a short speech about her campaign.
She says it is called Renewal 2030, not Kemi for leader, because she thinks this is an existential moment for the party.
She thougth they 2020s were going to be a great decade for the party. They had a brilliant leader. But things did not work out, she says.
She says voters will not vote for the party they kicked out. To win, the party has to change.
That is why her campaign is about renewing everything.
The party will need a leader who can “cut through at a time when it is very difficult to be heard”, she says.
Kemi Badenoch will shortly be speaking at the Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe shortly.
Earlier, in an interview, Richard Fuller, the Tory chair, said Badenoch’s decision to clarify what she meant she she was asked about maternity pay yesterday. Fuller said:
We all say things at certain times in the pressure of the moment where perhaps we need to clarify later.
I think it’s a sign of maturity for each of the candidates that they’re able to set out their store about what they want to see as the future of the party and, from time to time, that will require clarification. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
We don’t want a whole generation of glib politicians who are just fantastic in the moment, but don’t think through long term what their answers to questions should be.
Jenrick is now taking quickfire questions.
Q: Invesment in public transport or roads?
Jenrick says both are important. But he says the Conservative party “has to be on the side of motorists, because it is a London-centric view that people have good quality public transport”.
Jenrick floats case for amending laws like Human Rights Act or Equality Act
Q: Are you worried about decisions being outsourced to officials, quangos and third-party experts. Being a councillor feels like accountability without responsibility. How would you change that?
Jenrick says this will get worse. Labour is creating more quangos and bodies like this – “Great British Energy, Great British Railways, the National Wealth Fund, you name it.” And these bodies will be staffed by people of a leftwing or liberal mindset.
He says quangos were set up with good intentions.
But now they need to be cut back, he says.
And he says the Tories should have cut back things like the Climate Change Act, the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.
He says there is a case for something like a Great Reform Act that would review this network of law. He says many of theses laws have “noble aims”, but they constrain what ministers can do. He goes on:
And so I think we should think about. Should some of these go? Should they be amended? Can they be improved? And that that would be a major reform that we could bring in as soon as possible.
Q: You are backing a British bill of rights. But we tried that before, and Dominic Raab’s plan did not work?
Jenrick says the problem last time was that the UK was going to remain in the ECHR. Leaving the ECHR would make all the difference, he says.
He says the Tories could also use this to “strengthen rights in some areas that we Conservatives care a great deal about, freedom of speech, for example, property rights, freedom of religion”.
Jenrick says Tories should take inspiration from recovery of Conservatives in Canada
Jenrick says the Tories should take inspiration from the recovery of the Conservative party in Canada. He says:
And I want to do that. And I take a lot of inspiration from our sister party in Canada, and just before the election was called, I went to meet them, and there you see a party which does not resile from traditional conservative values. They campaign on virtually the same issues that I do, immigration, lower taxes, building homes for young people, crime – we would probably add in the NHS – but similar issues.
But through great social media, really good communication, they’re able to explain them to a broad audience of people, including younger people, and they are now beating super woke Justin Trudeau with the 20-somethings, the 30-somethings, the 40-somethings, and appear to be on the cusp of winning an election.
Q: What do you mean by change? And how can the Tories appeal to people who defected to the Lib Dems?
Jenrick claims the electorate is not as divided as people think. Voters have three big concerns: the economy, immigration and the NHS.
As a party, the Tories did not do enough to deliver on those issues.
He says the party needs to improve its offer on those issues. If it can, it can win back voters who went to Reform UK on the right, and who went to Labour and the Lib Dems on the left.
He calls for a cap on immigration numbers, in the tens of thousands, and the revival of the Rwanda policy to deal with illegal immigration.
In the autumn of 2022, the party lost its reputation for sound financial management, he says. (He is referring to Liz Truss, but does not name her.)
On Reform UK, he says it is “a sympton not a cause”. It exists because the Tories did not deliver on immigration. The Tories must show they are under new management, he says. But they should “persuade, not provoke people”.
Jenrick says he was at the Conservative party conferene in 2005 when David Cameron impressed members with a passionate, no-notes speech, which led to him overtaking David Davis, who until then had been the favourite in leadership contest.
But Jenrick claims at the time he wondered why it had taken the party eight years to choose an election winner like Cameron.
Jenrick speaks at Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe
Robert Jenrick is speaking at a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe at the conference. He starts by saying the CWO is the world’s oldest female political organisation linked to a party.
He says he is reluctant to talk about men’s issues and women’s issues. But there are things the party does need to do to ensure it appeals to women, he says.
He says the party could hope for Labout to fail. But he wants the Conservative party to change.
In office, it achieved much, he says. But it must acknowledge its failures. It did not control the borders and lower taxes.
If the Tories accept their failings, and listen to the public, they can rebuild people’s trust.
He stands for change, he says.
Jenrick claims Badenoch's 'leave or amend' approach to ECHR won't work
Robert Jenrick has used a campaign rally just outside the Conservative conference to paint the issue of migration in highly stark terms, saying his party will “die” if it does not commit to quitting the European convention on human rights. (See 8.23am.)
Speaking to supporters in a studio theatre at Birmingham Rep, Jenrick repeated his styling of the issue in Brexit terms, saying the choice was between the “leave” of leaving the ECHR or “remain” of staying in it, and that this was a chance to “get migration done”.
He again criticised opponents like Kemi Badenoch who have said they would first seek to change the way the convention works. He said:
This is more than just, ‘leave or amend’ – frankly, our party doesn’t have a future unless we take a stand and fix this problem. It’s leave or die for our party – I’m for leave.
Asked by reporters afterwards if this was not a bit hyperbolic, Jenrick rejected this. He said. “If we don’t take a stand on fixing illegal migration, restoring sovereignty to our people and our parliament, there isn’t a future for the Conservative party,” he insisted.
At the rally, which at times resembled a general election event with the crowd of placard-holding supporters standing behind Jenrick in the half-full hall, he took several swipes at party officials for not allowing him and the other leadership candidates more of a chance to speak inside the conference.
He also repeatedly placed the issue of leaving the ECHR as connected to crime and terrorism, saying that the country was not able to be safe if it could not deport overseas nationals convicted of serious offences who blocked their removal via the convention.
Asked if he was more explicitly linking migration and crime or terrorism, as done by Donald Trump, Jenrick rejected this.
Foreign national offenders in our country,who we have struggled to deport because of our membership of the European Convention on Human Rights – that’s the issue I was raising.
Hunt says it is essential for Tories to win back younger voters
Jeremy Hunt ended his Q&A with Daniel Finkelstein by saying the Tories had to win back younger voters. He said:
What is the biggest challenge we face as a party?
Our biggest strategic challenge is the fact that the average age above which you are more likely to vote Conservative than Labour is now over 60.
If we are the party of aspiration, we have to have a message for 30-somethings, 40-somethings, starting out on their life, who are prepared to work hard, who are conservatives to their fingertips, in their values, in the way they lead their lives, in their belief in all the things that all of us believe in.
We have to have a message that appeals to them.
So I would say, as we rebuild our trust with the British people, a litmus test of whether we are on track is whether we are starting to do things that rebuild confidence, trust and excitement amongst those generations, because they’re not just the future of the country, they’re the future of our party as well.
This chart, from a More in Common election analysis, illustrates the point Hunt was making about the crossover point, the age at which people are more likely to vote Tory than Labour. More in Common says it was 62 at the last election. In 2019 it was 39.
Jeremy Hunt claims welfare reform will become 'untouchable' for Labour because of winter fuel payments cut backlash
Q: Do you accept claims from groups like the Resolution Foundation that any party would find it hard to cut tax now?
Hunt says cutting taxes would be a challenge. But he says countries with lower tax have higher growth.
He says he is worried that welfare reform will now be “untouchable” for the Labour partly because of the backlash to the decision to cut the winter fuel payments.
My worry about the last 12 weeks is Labour have got themselves so badly burnt with the mess they’ve got into over winter fuel allowance that welfare reform will now become untouchable for them.
If they worried about a battle with the Labour party on benefits paid to pensioners, including wealthier pensioners, you can imagine what a challenge it would be to cut the bill for working-age disabled people, which is due to increase by £25bn a year over the next five years. It’s a huge, huge increase.
He says the bill for benefits for working age disabled people is due to increase by £25bn over the next five years. That is an area where there is a crucial need for reform, he says. But he claims Labour will not address this.
Updated
Hunt claims economy, and government's fiscal position, much better than Labour says
Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, is speaking at the conference hall now. He is being interviewed by Daniel Finkelstein, the Times columnist and Tory peer.
Hunt says Rachel Reeves’ claim that the Tories left the worst economic inheritance since the war is one of “the biggest lies” told by Labour.
He says he would have died to have had the legacy Reeves had when he took over.
He says a Freedom of Information Act inquiry by the Financial Times recently showed the Treasury was unwilling to justify its claim that there is a £22bn black hole in the public finances.
UPDATE: Asked if he agreed with Labour’s claim that the state of the economy will get worse before it gets better, Hunt said:
They will get worse if Labour makes catastrophic mistakes in the budget and hikes up tax in a way that destroys growth.
I think one of the biggest lies we’ve had since Labour came to office is this nonsense about having the worst economic inheritance since the second world war …
You don’t have to take my word for it, I mean just read this week’s Economist where there’s an article saying that [Reeves] could have actually not have a black hole of £22bn but a surplus of £39bn.
Hunt was referring to this Economist article. Here is an extract.
The reality is more nuanced. The Tories did plenty to mute growth and muddle the public finances. But Ms Reeves has more wriggle room than she has let on. The constraints she faces on tax are largely self-imposed. Even the £22bn black hole is something of a mirage. Perhaps around half was truly unforeseeable: troubling cost overruns on the asylum system and more. But, as one-offs, these don’t affect Britain’s fiscal position much. The other half—pay bumps for public-sector workers—will have a fiscal impact but were no surprise …
Jeremy Hunt, Ms Reeves’s predecessor, left Britain with £8.9bn in “fiscal headroom”, the amount of borrowing permitted before the government violates its fiscal rules. Since then gilt yields have fallen, growth has been strong-ish and another fiscal year has passed, which rolls the five-year target on by another year. That should push Britain’s fiscal headroom up once the OBR updates its forecasts. Capital Economics, a consultancy, reckons it will hit £22bn.
With tweaks, that headroom could rise further still. One sensible move would be to exclude the Bank of England’s losses from quantitative easing from the definition of public debt used for the fiscal rules. Doing so would push headroom up by another £17bn, to £39bn.
Updated
Nigel Farage tells Tories not to believe what Jenrick and Badenoch say about immigration
Talking of Nigel Farage, yesterday the Reform UK leader posted a thread on social media attacking the two favourites to be next Tory leader. He said Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch cannot be trusted on immigration.
Conservative Party Conference begins in earnest tomorrow.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) September 29, 2024
Until now, I have refrained from intervening in the upcoming leadership election — but the time has come.
[THREAD]
Conservative Party Conference begins in earnest tomorrow.
Until now, I have refrained from intervening in the upcoming leadership election — but the time has come.
Kemi Badenoch has spent weeks positioning herself as tough on immigration.
But in 2018 she campaigned in Parliament to increase legal migration, and was the biggest champion for students bringing in dependents.
I don’t believe a word that she says on anything.
Formerly a man that believed in nothing, Robert Jenrick now pitches himself as the great hardliner.
This is almost certainly done for political gain and not out of conviction. He will divide the party.
I doubt that Jenrick will last long if he wins.
The Conservative Party is split down the middle and the brand is completely broken.
Why are Farage’s views relevant? Because, if they had the option, a large number of Tory members would probably vote for him as leader. According to a survey of members by ConservativeHome carried out after the election in July, 36% of members favour an electoral pact with Reform UK at the next election, 12% favour a full merger, and only half of them would rule out any form of deal or pact.
Updated
Jenrick rated lower than other candidates on having what it takes to be good PM, poll suggests
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, is backed by more voters as having the qualities needed to be a good prime minister than any of the four Tory leadership candidates, according to new polling by Ipsos reported in the Standard.
But voters are also far more likely to say Farage does not have the qualities needed to be a good PM than any of the Tory candidates, the same polling shows.
Looking at net scores on this measure (those who say they would be a good PM, minus those who say they would not), Farage does worse than all the Tory leadership candidates – although the only one, Tom Tugendhat, has a big lead over him.
According to the Ipsos figures, Farage has 24% of people saying he would be a good PM, 62% saying he wouldn’t, giving him a net score of -38.
Robert Jenrick is the next worse on this measure. Some 10% think he would be good, 47% say he wouldn’t, giving him a net score of -37.
Kemi Badenoch’s ratings are similar. Som 11% think she would be good, 45% say she wouldn’t, giving her a net score of -34.
James Cleverly has most positive support of the four leadership candidates, with 15% saying he would be a good PM. But 46% say he wouldn’t, making a net score of -31.
Tom Tugendhat has 12% of people saying he would be good. But, perhaps because he is less well known than the others, only 37% say he would be a bad PM, making a net score of -25.
Tory chair Richard Fuller says contest won't be cut short to allow new leader to be in place for budget
Richard Fuller, the Conservative party chair, has ruled out changing the timetable for the leadership contest so the new leader can be in place in time for the budget on Wednesday 30 October.
Yesterday Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat both said they wanted the end date brought forward. Kemi Badenoch has said she is happy with the schedule already agreed.
It has been reported that senior figures in the party are talking about cutting the time allocated for the members’ ballot, so the new leader can respond to the budget.
But Fuller told BBC Breakfast today the timetable would not change. He said:
We had this debate some months ago. I think we had a very long discussion between the voluntary party and the 1922 Committee, which represents MPs.
The 1922 Committee wanted a longer campaign. They wanted to have four candidates here at conference.
And the logistics of that mean that when we whittle it down to two and it goes to the members, there’s a period of time for the members to vote, and my job is to make sure that members have enough time to get their ballot papers and return their ballot papers, and that’s why we ended up with the time frame we have.
Asked if that meant “no change”, Fuller replied: “No change.”
Labour calls for inquiry into donations worth £75,000 to Jenrick's campaign
Labour has called for an investigation into £75,000 of donations to Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick, saying it had “serious concerns” about where the money originally came from, PA Media reports. PA says:
Jenrick, the frontrunner for the Conservative leadership, received three donations of £25,000 in July from The Spott Fitness, a fitness coaching app provider.
As first reported by the Tortoise news website, the company’s latest accounts show it has no employees, has never made a profit and has more than £300,000 of debts, and in January it registered a loan from Centrovalli, a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The ownership of companies registered in the British Virgin Islands is not made public, leading Labour to question where the money donated to Jenrick ultimately came from.
Party chair Ellie Reeves said in a letter to the Electoral Commission: “Donations to MPs must come from sources registered in the UK. It is clear that Mr Jenrick has serious questions to answer about the origin of these funds and their legality.”
A source close to Jenrick’s campaign dismissed Labour’s request as “nonsense”, saying it served to “prove who Labour fear the most”.
Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Jenrick insisted no laws had been broken. He said: “As I understand it, this is a fitness company that operates in the UK. It’s a perfectly legal and valid donation under British law and we’ve set it out in the public domain in the way that one does with donations.”
Updated
Jenrick tells Tory conference it’s ‘leave or die’ as he ramps up calls for UK to leave ECHR
Good morning. The Conservative party conference is essentially a four-day hustings event this year, but there are hustings within hustings and some of the most important are the Q&As taking place on the main conference stage. This afternoon Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat are up; tomorrow it’s Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly.
There is not a lot of non-leadership action at the conference, but today we’re also getting Liz Truss, the former PM, and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor she brought in to repair the damage caused by her mini-budget. It will be interesting to see what sort of reception Truss gets. The conference slogan is “review and rebuild”, and yesterday there was a session in the conference hall devoted to the general election. But, when talking about why they lost, there are almost no Tories willing to admit the obvious – which is that between 2019 and 2022 and party gave up governing properly and instead decided to stage a ‘Who can be the worst prime minister ever?’ contest, and that as a result its poll ratings dropped like a stone. None of the four leadership candidates are addressing this.
But this morning Jenrick, the bookmakers’ favourite in the contest, is talking about the European convention on human rights. He is the only candidate firmly committed to withdrawal and he has got a new slogan to publicise this. Co-opting the spirit of Brexit, he is telling members it’s leave or remain. (Jenrick, of course, voted remain in 2016; at that point he was a Cameroon centrist, not a rightwing Brexiter.)
In a story for the Daily Telegraph, Ben Riley-Smith has extracts from what Jenrick will say on this at a rally this morning. Jenrick will tell Tories that it’s not just leave or remain; it is leave or die for the party.
Our party’s survival rests on restoring our credibility on immigration. If we continue to duck and dance around this question our party has no future.
Despite what others might falsely claim, we’ve never had a legal cap on legal migration. Unless we introduce one – where no visas will be issued unless net migration is in the tens of thousands or lower – we will be powerless to end the cycle of broken promises. Anyone who is not prepared to commit to a specific cap just doesn’t understand the depth of public anger.
I am not prepared to gamble the house on some five-year review process that may or may not see us doing what is obviously necessary. I have a plan ready now: leave the ECHR and introduce a legally binding cap on legal migration.
The choice is clear, it’s leave or remain. In fact it’s more than that – it is leave or die. If we don’t do this now, we’ll never restore the public’s trust and there’s every chance that Reform will grow and grow and condemn us to obscurity.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Robert Jenrick is due to speak at a conference rally.
9.30am: Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, takes part in a Q&A on the conference stage.
9.50am: Members debates take place, covering immigration, free speech, housebuilding and the economy. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, is speaking.
10.30am: Jenrick takes part in a Q&A at a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe. At 11.15 Kemi Badenoch is taking part in a Q&A.
10.45am: Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, takes part in a Q&A at an IPPR North and Onward fringe.
11am: Jenrick speaks at a European Research Group fringe.
12.30pm: Liz Truss, the former PM, takes part in a Q&A at a fringe meeting.
2pm: Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat take part in a Q&A on the conference stage.
2pm: James Cleverly takes part in a Q&A at a a Conservative Women’s Organisation fringe.
3pm: Cleverly takes part in a Q&A at on Onward fringe.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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