Early evening summary
Kemi Badenoch has had an awkward start to a party conference that may determine whether or not she can become party leader.
A survey today confirmed that she is the clear favourite amongst party members (see 1.45pm). But Robert Jenrick is the bookmakers’ favourite, because it is assumed that Badenoch will not get enough support from MPs to make the final two.
Voting in the Commons on Wednesday 9 October and Thursday 10 October will decide the two candidates on the ballot for party members, and Badenoch, who had 28 votes in the last ballot, needs to win the support of at least 13 more by 10 October, because with 41, you are guaranteed a slot in the final two. (There are only 121 Tory MPs, so the last three candidates cannot all get 41 or more.)
Badenoch started the day by delivering hard-hitting message on Israel (fully supporting the attack on Lebanon – see 8.40am) and on immigrants (implying they should be excluded if they are not prepared to love Britain – see 8.50am).
But then she appeared to suggest to an interviewer that maternity pay was excessive and, as the backlash mounted, she resorted to issuing two successive statements claiming she had been misreported. In the second statement, via video, she claimed she was not fazed by the row – but she looked as though she was. (See 5.32pm.)
Updated
Sunak urges Tories to abandon backbiting and squabbling
Rishi Sunak ended his speech to Tory members with an appeal for unity.
I do want to finish with one final ask of all of you. Whoever wins this contest, give them your backing.
We must end the division, the backbiting, the squabbling. We mustn’t nurse old grudges, but build new friendships.
We must always remember what unites us, rather than obsessing about where we might differ.
Because we when we turn in on ourselves, we lose, and the country ends up with a Labour government.
And you don’t need somebody else to buy you a pair of designer glasses to see that the shine is coming off Keir Starmer already.
People can see Labour weren’t frank with them at the election, that Labour still believe that Whitehall knows better than you, that Labour are making the wrong choices for our country.
But if we Conservatives are going to get back into office so that we can once more deliver for the British people, then our new leader is going to need your support.
Sunak’s comments reflect the fact that backbiting and feuding have been a constant theme of Tory politics in recent years. YouGov polling out today says voters think the party is preoccupied with itself (see 1.04pm). But arguably, Sunak suffered less from infighting than other leaders. He was the only PM of the last four who was not forced out by Tory MPs.
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Sunak defends Tory record in government, but says: 'We did not get everything right in office'
Rishi Sunak told party members in his speech at a reception that there was a real buzz around the conference. He started with a joke:
It’s such a hot ticket, I’m suprised Keir Starmer has not asked someone to buy him one.
He said he would not be making a proper speech, because he wanted to leave the conference to the leadership candidates. But he said he wanted to thank members for what they do, and he apologised for the defeat.
I am only sorry that your efforts could not deliver the results you deserved.
“It wasn’t you,” a member shouted back. And he said the party had to learn the lessons from defeat:
We did not get everything right in office. No government ever does, and we do now to reflect on that, but we should not forget what we have achieved these last 14 years. We must not and I know we will not let Keir Starmer rewrite history.
Sunak said the last Labour government left a note saying it ran out of money. He said he restored the economy to stability, and brought inflation back on target.
Socalists always run out of other people’s money to spend, he said. He said that was something Lord Alli was already finding out.
Updated
How Badenoch is trying to quell maternity pay controversy
Kemi Badenoch has released a video claiming that she has been misrepresented. In it, she also says that she is not rattled by the controversy over her maternity pay comments – although some may conclude she has released the video precisely because she is rattled.
In the video, she claims to be “really pleased” about how her day has gone. She goes on to say there has been “a lot of misrepresenation about my views on immigration”.
She said:
I have very strong views on immigration. I set them out in my Telegraph piece today.
But what I want people to understand is that we need to win back trust. We need to win back trust, rather than just throwing policy out there.
This seemed to be a response to Robert Jenrick saying her plan for immigration would not work. (See 9.27am.) She added:
And I think people are losing trust because so much of politics is broken.
For instance, there’s a new thing that I’ve been seeing on social media about maternity pay and that I don’t want that. Of course that’s ridiculous. Of course I think maternity pay is important.
But I was answering a different question. A journalist interrupts, and people think that they’ve got a gotcha.
And those sorts of things don’t faze me. People can ask me all the tough questions they want. I will answer them. We need to make sure that we are honest and that we’re not being misrepresented about our view on immigration or maternity pay or whatever.
Great day at conference and enjoyed some robust media conversations. I don’t shy from difficult topics, but I won’t be misrepresented. Of course culture matters but we need to talk about integration.
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) September 29, 2024
Of course maternity pay isn’t excessive…no mother of 3 kids thinks that.
But… pic.twitter.com/LLeB7tuDLq
You can watch Badenoch’s exchange with Kate McCann on Times Radio about maternity pay at 12.42pm. Although Badenoch was keen to steer the conversation on to the topic of regulation, she was directly asked about maternity pay several times by McCann and used the word “excessive” in that context. McCann even asked her to confirm that that that was what she was saying. Badenoch could have clarified at that point in the interview. But she didn’t, and instead talked about how things had “gone too far” in terms of regulation. (Statutory maternity pay is, by definition, set by regulation.)
Politicians often need to clarify what they say in interviews, and generally people are quite understanding when that happens. But this attempt by Badenoch to row back is not particularly convincing because Badenoch does not seem to show any appreciation of the fact that she herself contributed to this misunderstanding (if that is what it was). Instead – as usual – her default defence strategy was to demonise the media.
Recently, Badenoch talked about how she never made gaffes. She told a podcast:
I never have gaffes, or apologising for something that I said, [saying] ‘Oh, that’s not what I meant.’ I never have to clarify, because I think very carefully about what I say.
That boast hasn’t aged well.
Updated
Labour has also put out a statement attacking Kemi Badenoch for her comments about maternity pay. Ellie Reeves, the Labour party chair, said:
It is symptomatic of the Conservative party as a whole that this is the kind of intervention that one of their leadership contenders is coming out with. The Tories and their continuity candidates are completely unserious about the problems they inflicted on the country over 14 years of chaos and decline.
Rishi Sunak is not scheduled to give a speech during the main conference proceedings, even though he is still party leader. But he is hosting what is described as a thank-you reception for party members at 5pm, and we are told he will be giving a speech at that event, at about 5.20pm. It will be his main contribution at the conference.
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Tory chair Richard Fuller says review of election should lead to members getting more say over policies and candidates
Richard Fuller, the Conservative chair, told the conference in his speech that he has ordered a review of what happened at the election that will be more comprehensive than previous ones. He said it would give party members more say over policy making and candidate selection
Describing how it would operate, he said:
The review will be empowered to make recommendations for reform in all aspects of our party and will then oversee the implementation of those recommendations with real accountability on the party leadership to deliver.
The review must equip the party to fight and win elections at all levels.
It must modernise our campaigning.
It must provide the training needed to upskill our activists.
It must expand the voice of members in policy making.
It must enhance the rights of local party members in the candidate selection process.
And much, much more.
In short, the review must revitalise our party and get it back to being the election winning machine it once was.
The review will be chaired by Patrick McLoughlin, a former transport secretary, chief whip and party chair, and outgoing chair of the National Convention, Lord Booth. It will present initial findings on 2 November, when the new leader is being announced.
In a news release, the party said the main themes of the review would be:
1) To determine the reasons for the Conservative party’s long-term performance in all nations and regions.
2) To assess how the party performed against different opposition parties, and how that should inform our future strategies.
3) To analyse how various elements of the campaign strategy (e.g. voter targeting, digital, volunteer engagement, communications/messaging) performed in practice and compared to the underlying plan.
4) To assess the role of the parliamentary party since 2010, and its impact on elections.
5) To assess the motivation, strength and organisation of volunteers and members in the 2024 election.
6) Review the process of composing the manifesto and the impact of policies in the campaign.
7) To make recommendations for change and improvement in every area of the party – the parliamentary party and other elected representatives, the voluntary party, and the professional organisation (including CCHQ).
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As the Telegraph reports, Tom Tugendhat delivered a jibe at Sue Gray, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, when speaking at a fringe meeting. He said:
To be fair to Sue, she’s demonstrated that she really is an impartial civil servant.
I mean, she, after all, brought down one prime minister who was a Conservative, and now she’s working on bringing down another one who happens to be Labour.
I think she’s demonstrating the kind of political balance that we expect for the civil service, destroying political careers, wherever they may be found.
Conservative MPs feel aggrieved that voters did not acknowledge their progress on achieving good water quality during the last election.
Rebecca Smith, the new MP for South West Devon, said her constituents expect rivers and the sea “to be like a swimming pool at times” adding: “You’ve got a whole load of consumers who want to swim but don’t know how bad things were 20 years ago.”
And the shadow environment minister Robbie Moore said he thinks people are angry about sewage pollution because the environment agency gives out too much data on sewage pollution. He explained:
The real challenge has been because there has been so much campaigning on this particular issue that any risk that is highlighted through increased monitoring is deemed by everybody to immediately be a pollution incident, and it absolutely isn’t in most cases, actually.
And therefore I think that comes down to making sure that there is a clarity on what data is being presented, and what is being put into the public domain, by not only the water company, but how regulators, particularly the Environment Agency, are presenting that data. That was something I was trying to raise with the Environment Agency when I was in the department.
Moore also criticised the Labour government over the news, first broken by the Guardian, that ministers plan to cut the farming budget, which pays for cleaning up water, by about £100m a year. He said:
The farming budget is incredibly important, and the rumours of the farming budget being reduced by £100m per annum will have huge negative consequences on the amount of subsidy that is able to be put into the improvement measures that we announced previously and were able to put in place as a Conservative government.
Badenoch team claims 'selective quotes' being used to attack her
Kemi Badenoch’s campaign has claimed her rivals are using “selective quotes” to attack her.
As PA Media reports, a person close to Badenoch’s campaign said that “infighting and internal conflicts helped take our party to an historic defeat” and accused other candidates of seeking to “score political hits”.
The source said:
We need to be better, we need our politics to be better. Kemi obviously supports maternity pay and was making a case for lower regulation – something she always aimed for as business secretary.
For other leadership campaigns to be seeking to use selective quotes from an interview to score political hits, shows they’re still wedded to the old politics and simply aren’t serious about getting back to government.
Badenoch's maternity pay comments show how 'hopelessly out of touch' Tories are, TUC says
Paul Nowak, the TUC general secretary, has issued a statement saying Kemi Badenoch’s comments about maternity pay (see 12.21pm) shows how “hopelessly out of touch” the Tories are. He said:
The Conservative party leadership candidates are hopelessly out of touch and seem to be competing with one another to be the most unkind and nasty.
Maternity pay in the UK is lower than in many other economies - forcing too many mums back from leave early.
The Tories don’t appear to have any solutions for this country. All they have left is performative cruelty and division.
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Andrew Bowie, the shadow energy and net zero minister, is backing Badenoch for leader – but he refused to give a view on whether her comments on maternity pay went too far.
Asked about her remarks at a fringe meeting, he said:
I would not like to be drawn on that without knowing exactly what she has said. I would have to look at Kemi’s comments on maternity leave.
This came after Bowie was told what Badenoch had said.
Bowie also said the next Conservative leader should bring back fracking- the controversial issue which helped bring down the Liz Truss government. He said:
I do support fracking. I represent an oil and gas constituency [West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine] that is dependent in its entirety on the oil and gas industry. The experts will tell you that they are already fracking in the North Sea. I know it isn’t currently party policy to frack but I don’t know what Kemi will do on it.
Jenrick says, if he had to prioritise amongst the armed forces, he would prioritise the Royal Navy. He is particularly worried about the state of the nuclear deterrent.
And that’s the end of this fringe.
Jenrick defends getting cartoon murals covered up at asylum centre
Q: There was a story about you ordering a reception centre for child asylum seekers to cover up welcoming cartoon murals for children. I was uncomfortable reading that. Is the story true?
Jenrick says most of the people at this centre were 16, 17 or 18, or adults posing as children. He wanted to change the way those centres operated so there is “an element of law enforcement”.
But he says people, especially children, should be treated with care and compassion.
The most compassionate thing to do would be to end the business model that allows people smuggling to carry on, he says.
Q: Can you say anything positive about Kemi Badenoch?
Jenrick says Badenoch is a person friend. There is a strong field of candidates, he says.
He says the party needs to come together. He wants the shadow cabinet to be full of the best people in the party.
Jenrick says he would abolish Tory candidates list, so members get more control over selections
Q: The biggest round of applause came when you criticised ex special advisers being parachuted into safe seats. Would you refuse to have these people in your shadow cabinet?
Jenrick says he does not blame the candidates; he blames the system.
He says he wants to get people of real quality to stand as candidates. But he does not want them to feel they are getting “shafted” at the last minute.
He says he would abolish the candidates list – although there would have to be a mechanism to get rid of bad apples. He would leave it to party members.
Jenrick suggests not leaving ECHR increase terrorist risk to UK
Jenrick says, if the UK remains in the European convention on human rights, that will consign the country to having terrorists on its streets in the future.
So the choice is leave or remain (in the ECHR). He is for leave, he says.
There’s a very simple choice on that issue, leave or remain.
I believe if you remain, you can consign this country to years, decades, of terrorists on our streets [and] foreign national offenders.
Jenrick is now taking questions from the audience.
Q: Is immigration the issue from the last election?
No, says Jenrick. He says we are in an age of miss migration, and he claims this will be the biggest issue of our lifetimes. The Tories have to have serious answers, he says.
Having a cap on immigration numbers (his policy) would put a “democratic lock” on immigration, he claims.
Colvile asks about Jenrick going running in a “Hamas are terrorists” hoodie. He does not criticise the sentiment, but he suggests that sort of stunt does not make him relatable to ordinary people.
Jenrick jokes that the top should have said Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorists. He says he has run an energetic campaign, and claims that his social media has been seen by more people than other candidates’.
Q: How would you change the Conservative party? It is very bad at recruiting new members.
Jenrick says the party has disrespected its members for too long. It asks them for money, but not for their views. And he says originally the plan was for leadership candidates to give speeches of just 10 minutes this week. He protested, he says. Now it is 20 minutes. But he says that is still not long enough.
And he says in the past the leadership has always parachuted its favourite candidates into safe seats. He promise that won’t happen if he is leader.
This gets the first round of applause so far.
Jenrick criticises Badenoch's stance on maternity pay, saying it is already at one of lowest levels for OECD countries
Colvile suggests the Tories should be supporting mean-testing the winter fuel payments. He says rish pensioners do not need the money.
Jenrick disagrees. He says some of those who will lose out are not at all wealthy.
Q: What do you feel about maternity pay, and what Kemi Badenoch said?
Jenrick says he does not agree with Badenoch on this.
I don’t agree with Kemi on this one. I am a father of three young daughters. I want to see them get the support that they need when they enter the workplace.
Our maternity pay is among the lowest in the OECD.
I think the Conservative party should be firmly in the side of parents and working mums who are trying to get on.
The Tories should not be focusing on measures that make life harder for working parents, he says.
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Q: How can you reform the NHS when popular support for it is so strong the people wory about tax cuts, because they think those will harm the NHS?
Jenrick says he supports what Wes Streeting says about the need for NHS reform. But he doubts Labour will achieve that. Their revealed preference shows they would rather given in to union demands for higher pay, he says.
Q: Are there are other Labour ideas that you would support?
Jenrick says there will be plenty of Labour ideas to “tear into”.
But the public want serious politicians who address the issues, he says.
He would support Labour on housing. But Labour is cutting housing targets in cities, but raising them hugely elsewhere, he says. He says that is the oppposite of what he would do.
Jenrick says he wants 'small state that works', not 'big state that fails'
Colvile turns to housing. He has repeatedly made the case for more looser planning laws and more housebuidling, and he asks how Jenrick would tackle the nimbyist tendencies in the party.
Jenrick says he would like to see “bold, supply-side reforms”, focused in urban areas. He says he would like to see the biggest programme of densification in urban housing in history.
In Canada the Conservatives are winning the votes of young people, partly because they are in favour of more building.
Q: The OBR has said the share of tax revenue taken by the state will rise from 40% to 60% over the next 50 years. The country faces higher taxes and lower spending. Neither party was honest about this at the election. How do you square the circle?
Jenrick says there are two parts to that.
One is, how do you create a small state that actually works, rather than the current big state that fails?
And the second part is, how do you actually get growth going again in our economy?
Jenrick says there are radical policies that will promote growth.
And, on the size of the state, he says the government has to be “much better than we have in recent years at driving value for money for the taxpayer”.
He says in all his government jobs he has always been a reformer.
Robert Jenrick in Q&A at Centre for Policy Studies fringe
Robert Jenrick is taking part in a Q&A at a fringe meeting organised by the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank. He is being interviewed by the CPS director, Robert Colvile. The venue is packed, but it’s not large. There are probably about 100 people here.
Jenrick is making his opening pitch, and he repeats the point about being rooted in provincial England.
And he says the person who disparaged him as being from the Midlands was quoted in an article by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. She wrote:
Jenrick has impressed plenty of Conservatives with a well organised campaign, (surely he wasn’t planning it before the election I hear you cry?), and the consensus is that he’s outperformed the others in that sense.
Yet a colleague describes him as an “affable boring Midlands bank manager”, while another jibes: “If the country had to draw a Tory, they’d draw him, that’s a problem for our stereotype.”
Badenoch confirms she is not opposed to principle of maternity pay, as row over her 'excessive' claim escalates
Kemi Badenoch has put a post on social media saying she backs the principle of maternity pay. She implies that she has been misquoted – although the controversy is not about her saying it should be abolished, but about her saying it is excessive. (See 12.21pm.)
Contrary to what some have said, I clearly said the burden of regulation on businesses had gone too far… of course I believe in maternity pay! Watch the clip for the truth.
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) September 29, 2024
Back to conference… pic.twitter.com/kGsOpMCSpu
Contrary to what some have said, I clearly said the burden of regulation on businesses had gone too far… of course I believe in maternity pay! Watch the clip for the truth.
Back to conference…
Jenrick, Cleverly and Tugendhat reject Badenoch's stance on maternity pay
Kemi Badenoch’s argument about maternity pay being excessive (see 12.21pm) has been rejected by all three of her leadership rivals, Alex Wickham from Bloomberg reports.
Rob Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat reject Kemi Badenoch’s claims on maternity pay
— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) September 29, 2024
Team Jenrick say he very much disagrees with her remarks
Cleverly camp say it’s for her to defend but he doesn’t support her position
Tugendhat source calls her words a backwards step
Rob Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat reject Kemi Badenoch’s claims on maternity pay
Team Jenrick say he very much disagrees with her remarks
Cleverly camp say it’s for her to defend but he doesn’t support her position
Tugendhat source calls her words a backwards step
Supporters of Kemi Badenoch’s rivals are telling journalists that her maternity pay comments (see 12.21pm) are a serious mistake.
This is from the Sun’s Martina Bet.
A source from a rival camp tells me: "Her mad ideas are the only thing that can send our party's polling even lower. She has got some gall lecturing other women about being lazy. It's a disgrace." https://t.co/4JBI0oYgWB
— Martina Bet (@martinabettt) September 29, 2024
A source from a rival camp tells me: “Her mad ideas are the only thing that can send our party’s polling even lower. She has got some gall lecturing other women about being lazy. It’s a disgrace.”
And this is from the Sun’s Harry Cole.
And they’re off….
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) September 29, 2024
Rival camp responding to Badenoch maternity pay comments to @KateEMcCann this morning:
“This is Kemi’s Andrea Leadsom moment.”
And they’re off….
Rival camp responding to Badenoch maternity pay comments to @KateEMcCann this morning:
“This is Kemi’s Andrea Leadsom moment.”
Andrea Leadsom sabotaged her leadership campaign in 2016 when she told the Times in an interview that she thought having children gave her an advantage over Theresa May because it meant she had more stake in the future.
The campaign group Transparency International UK has welcomed the government’s proposal to change the rules on how ministers have to declare hospitality they have received. (See 10.17am.) Rose Whiffen, senior research officer at the group, said:
We welcome this move to end the two tier system that has meant ministers, those closest to power, are able to provide less information on their hospitality and provide it less frequently than their backbench colleagues.
Key event
Kemi Badenoch remains the clear favourite amongst Tory members to be next leader, according to the latest survey of members from the ConservativeHome website. She has the support of 36% of members, followed by Robert Jenrick on 25%, and James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat both on 13%.
But the bookmakers now have Jenrick as the clear favourite, followed by Badenoch, then Cleverly, with Tugendhat as the outsider. These odds are indicative of an assumption that Badenoch will not make the final two shortlist that goes to the membership ballot.
In his write-up for ConservativeHome, Henry Hill says the fact that Badenoch is continuing to poll very well with members could make it harder for her to make the final two.
As I explained earlier this month , Badenoch’s path to the final round seems fairly narrow – and her very strong numbers may well make it narrower still.
Add together the votes received by Cleverly, Tugendhat, and Mel Stride, and there is more than enough to put a One Nation candidate in the final found. Jenrick, meanwhile, continued to lead the pack after the second round and absent a large bloc of Stride supporters rowing in behind Badenoch) presumably still does.
His lead over Badenoch, at five votes, is not insurmountable. But where would they come from?
Were the Shadow Housing Secretary looking certain to reach the membership round, her support would likely snowball as MPs sought to get in with the winning side. As it stands, however, it isn’t. Right-wing MPs with reservations about Badenoch can take comfort in the evidence that Jenrick is a strong horse for the final vote, while the One Nation wing can (if they remain cohesive) ensure one of their own makes it through and that they face the more beatable than their two possible opponents.
Perhaps something at the Conference will overturn the applecart. If not, the crucial moment seems likely to come after the third round of MP voting, when either Cleverly or Tugendhat is knocked out. Depending on the margins, their supporters may have the choice of putting either the other One Nation challenger or Badenoch in the final.
The ConservativeHome survey of members is seen as a reasonably reliable guide to opinion in the party. It has always accurately forecast the winner, and its results are normally broadly in line with proper opinion polls (which use weighted samples). But, as Mark Pack explained in a recent Substack post, in the two most recent contests the ConHome panel results implied support for the winning candidate (Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss) was higher than it was when the final votes were counted.
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And YouGov has published some new polling on the Conservative party which backs up what Lord Ashcroft is saying. (See 1.01pm.)
As the Conservative conference begins in Birmingham, what terms do Britons pick to describe the party?
— YouGov (@YouGov) September 29, 2024
Only interested in themselves: 56%
Dishonest: 50%
Divided: 44%
Unprofessional: 33%
Should not be near power: 30%
Weak: 26%
Nasty: 24%
The same as the rest: 23%
Has unworkable… pic.twitter.com/Qp7tGgNL7Z
Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory deputy chair who now spends a lot of time on polling and publishing political biographies, has got an article in the Mail on Sunday about research into the election he will be releasing shortly. He says it shows, even with Labour in difficulty, it will be harder for the Conservatives to recover than some of them think. He says:
As in 2015 and 2019, the Conservatives win majorities when they attract previous Labour and Lib Dem voters and others who have never considered themselves part of the right. We found switchers to Labour frustrated about the failure to tackle small boat crossings, just as many of those going to Reform were exasperated at NHS waiting times.
Whichever direction they had scattered, former Tories all over the country told us that at its best the party had stood for stable government, common sense, a realistic understanding of how the world works, and people who work and save and try to do the right thing. This was what has been lost: barely one in ten defectors said they thought the party was on the side of people like them.
Here is the video of Kemi Badenoch talking about maternity pay on Times Radio. (See 12.21pm.)
“There was a time when there wasn't any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”@KemiBadenoch suggests statutory maternity pay is "excessive".@KateEMcCann | @AdamBoultonTABB pic.twitter.com/j21Vaw7nXN
— Times Radio (@TimesRadio) September 29, 2024
Gavin Barwell, who was chief of staff to Theresa May when she was PM, is not impressed by Kemi Badenoch’s comments on maternity pay.
Conservatives are doing really well among younger women already. This ought to help them do even better https://t.co/jJ8AK3XsaV
— Gavin Barwell (@GavinBarwell) September 29, 2024
Conservatives are doing really well among younger women already. This ought to help them do even better
Barwell is, of course, being sarcastic. According to figures in this House of Commons election analysis, Labour had a 37-point lead at the election amongst people in the 25 to 34 age group.
Russell Findlay, who was elected Scottish Conservative leader on Friday, has said that he wants to unite the Scottish party. He told BBC Scotland:
I have got the mandate from the membership to do so.
I want to move forward as one winning team, to get us back winning again by coming up with a proper policy platform rooted in our Conservative values of aspiration and ambition, and showing people across Scotland we understand their concerns and we are on their side.
Badenoch says maternity pay benefits 'excessive'
Kemi Badenoch has said she thinks maternity pay is too high.
In an interview with Times Radio, she was asked if she thought maternity pay was at the right level. She replied:
Maternity pay varies, depending on who you work for. But statutory maternity pay is a function of tax, tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.
Businesses are closing, businesses are not starting in the UK, because they say that the burden of regulation is too high.
When asked to confirm that she thinks maternity pay is excessive, she replied:
I think it’s gone too far the other way, in terms of general business regulation. We need to allow businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of those decisions.
The exact amount of maternity pay, in my view, is neither here nor there. We need to make sure that we are creating an enviroment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their own decisions.
When it was put to her that level of maternity pay was important for people who could not otherwise afford to have a baby, Badenoch said:
We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.
Statutory maternity pay is 90% of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, and then £184 per week, or 90% of average pay, for the next 33 weeks.
Badenoch says she practises what she preaches in this regard. According to Blue Ambition, Michael Ashcroft’s useful and mostly positive biography of Badenoch, when she was head of digital operations at the Spectator, before becoming an MP, and she became pregnant with her second child, she resigned instead of taking maternity leave. “She told me she thought it would be unfair to ask us to keep her job open while she was on maternity leave,” Fraser Nelson, the Spectator editor, is quoted in the book as saying. “She would have been within her rights not to have done that.”
Badenoch might have been helped in making this decision by the fact that her husband is an investment banker.
Updated
Tom Tugendhat has rejected suggestions that he is too posh to be the next Tory leader. (See 11.04am.) When it was put to him on Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that the party did not need another “posh boy leader from a great public school”, Tugendhat replied:
I think the Conservative party needs a leader who can lead, and you can judge me on the decisions my parents made 35 years ago or you can judge me on the decisions I have made for the last 35 years.
I think that decisions I have made for the last 35 years demonstrate the character that you are looking at.
I have chosen consistently to serve our country. I have put myself on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to Harry Cole from the Sun, Tory officials are still saying there is no plan to shorten the leadership contest.
NEW: Tory officials stress there is still no plan to shorten the race despite fresh round of calls.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) September 29, 2024
NEW: Tory officials stress there is still no plan to shorten the race despite fresh round of calls.
Jenrick says Tory leadership contest should end early, so new leader can be in place to oppose 'very harmful' budget
Robert Jenrick told Times Radio he wanted the Tory leadership contest to end early, so the new leader is in post in time for the budget. (See 10.28am.) Asked if he wanted that, he replied:
Yes, absolutely, because I think that the budget coming up is likely to be very harmful to families, to businesses, to investment in this country, and I want to be the one at the dispatch box making that argument.
Badenoch says she does not want leadership contest to end early
Kemi Badenoch told Times Radio she was not backing calls for the end of the Tory leadership contest to be brought forward.
Asked if the contest should end earlier, she replied: “No, it’s fine.”
She also said, if she were to win, she would offer jobs to all three other candidates still in the contest. Asked if that included “even Robert Jenrick”, she replied “even Robert Jenrick”.
The leadership candidates are under orders from party officials to avoid blue-on-blue attacks. But, in so far as there have been personal attacks, they have involved Badenoch and Jenrick, the two favourites. (See 9.27am.)
We have now opened comments.
Jenrick claims he has been subject to snobbery in Tory leadership contest because he's from Midlands
Robert Jenrick, the current favourite in the Tory leadership contest, has claimed that he has been subject to a degree of snobbery in the Tory leadership contest.
Asked if he had encountered snobbery, he said:
I think you do have that sometimes and I’m not ashamed to be described as provincial.
Somebody I think gave a quote to one of the newspapers over the weekend saying that I was from the Midlands. Look, people who come from places like I come from often get subjected to a degree of snobbishness, but that’s water off a duck’s back to me.
Jenrick’s parents grew up working class and he was brought up in the Midlands. He went to a private school, but it was Wolverhampton grammar school, not an elite establishment like St Paul’s school in London (which is where Tom Tugendhat went). Jenrick subsequently went to Cambridge University and worked as a corporate lawyer before becoming an MP.
Jenrick, who is MP for Newark in Nottinghamshire, also said the Tory party should be “the trade union of the working people of this country”. He told Times Radio:
I think the Conservative party is at its best when it’s the trade union of the working people of this country, when it’s representing hard-working people in all parts of our country, particularly the smaller cities and towns that I know well and I’m proud to represent.
In his own interview with Times Radio, Tugendhat said he was not aware of anyone being snobbish about Jenrick.
Boris Johnson says it is 'overwhelmingly likely' Covid virus was created in Chinese laboratory
The Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday have been serialising extracts from Boris Johnson’s memoirs over the past three days, and the latest lead story is what Johnson says in the book about China and Covid. Johnson says he believes a leak from a Chinese laboratory was to blame for the pandemic. As the Mail on Sunday reports, Johnson says:
The awful thing about the whole Covid catastrophe is that it appears to have been entirely man-made, in all its aspects.
It now looks overwhelmingly likely that the mutation was the result of some botched experiment in a Chinese lab.
Some scientists were clearly splicing bits of virus together like the witches in Macbeth – eye of bat and toe of frog – and oops, the frisky little critter jumped out of the test tube and started replicating all over the world.
This is not something Johnson said when he was prime minister, and not something that most western leaders have been willing to say – partly because the evidence for this is not conclusive, but more because saying this would infuriate China.
MAIL ON SUNDAY SCOTLAND: Boris: I’m@now convinced that Covid WAS mads in a Chinese lab #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/xBlQYWx9iQ
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) September 28, 2024
UPDATE: According to a recent article for the New Statesman, “a new study by an international team concludes it is more likely that the virus emerged from wild animals sold at the [Wuhan] market and not from a lab escape”.
Updated
Tom Tugendhat backs calls for contest to end early so new Tory leader elected in time for budget
On Saturday Jason Groves in the Mail said the Conservative party is close to agreeing to bring forward the end date of the Tory leadership contest, so that a new leader is in place for the budget, which is on Wednesday 30 October. By convention, the leader of the opposition replies to budget statements.
Groves said:
Senior Conservatives are in talks about bringing forward the announcement of the party’s new leader by a week from its current date of November 2.
This would allow the leader to take charge in time to respond to Ms Reeves’s ‘parliament-defining’ Budget on October 30 – and help prevent the climax of the contest being buried by the avalanche of news surrounding the US presidential election on November 5.
But it would cut short the time for the final two candidates to appeal to party members.
The plan was mooted in July when the date of the Budget was fixed. At that point, one of the six candidates objected to the idea of being thrust immediately into responding to the Budget, which is regarded as one of the toughest jobs an opposition leader faces.
Senior Tories now plan to push the idea again when the field of four is whittled down to two after this week’s Conservative Party conference.
Both candidates will have to agree for the plan to go ahead, but a source said they would be ‘advised they are making a big mistake if they don’t’.
In an interview with Times Radio this morning, Tom Tugendhat said he was in favour of the contest being brought forward.
He also said, if he were elected leader, he would appoint the three other candidates in the contest now to his shadow cabinet.
Updated
Pat McFadden says Labour will change rules so ministerial hospitality has to be declared in MPs' register
Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, defended Keir Starmer’s record on donations in his interview with Laura Kuenssberg.
He said that the clothes were campaign donations because “presentation, whether we like or not, is part of a campaign”. And he defended the right of MPs to accept tickets to events, saying people wanted to see politicians at events like this.
He also said the current rules on what MPs have to declare in the register of members’ interests were unfair, because opposition MPs and backbenchers have to declare hospitality but ministers don’t (in theory because ministerial hospitality is declared in the register of ministers’ interests). McFadden said Labour would change this rule so all hospitality has to be declared in the MPs’ register.
Duffield says she thinks Starmer has problem working with women
Turning to Labour, Kuenssberg broadcast an interview with Rosie Duffield recorded last night. In it Duffield repeated the reasons for her resignation set out in her letter to Keir Starmer.
Asked if she thought Starmer had a problem working with women, Duffield said she did. She said:
I’m afraid I do, yes [think Starmer has a problem with women]. I mean, I’ve experienced it myself.
Most backbenchers that I’m friends with are women and most of us refer to the men that [surround Starmer] as the lads, you know, and it’s very clear that the lads are in charge.
Duffield also said those “lads” were the ones would had been briefing against her.
Badenoch says NHS should remain free at the point of use for now - but does not rule put system changing eventually
Kuenssberg asks about the NHS, and something Badenoch said in an interview in the Times yesterday. Badenoch told the paper:
I don’t think we are ready for changing the principle of free at the point of use, certainly not immediately. If we are going to reform things like that, I think we need to have a serious cross-party, national conversation.
This implied that Badenoch would favour charging for the NHS at some point.
Q: Should the NHS be free at the point of deliver forever?
Badenoch says:
That is a consensus that we have in this country.
There are many ways to deliver a free at the point of use service that doesn’t require the government to be involved in every aspect.
Q: The Times comment implies that one day you might backing charging for NHS services.
Badenoch says: “It might be that the public decide that.”
Q: But what is your view?
Badenoch says she has given her view. She is not in favour of charging now.
Q: But you might change your mind in the future?
Badenoch says:
I can’t say whether I might change my mind in the future. I am telling you what I think now.
Updated
Q: In your article you complain about immigrants who hate Israel. How do you know that?
Badenoch talks about what she saw on social media, and how upsetting it was to see people rip down posters of the 7 Ocotber victims.
Q: How do you know those were recent immigrants?
Badenoch says she is not saying the only people who hate Israel are immigrants. But she is struck by the number of immigrants who hate Israel.
She says she does not want immigrants coming to the UK bringing with them conflicts from abroad.
Q: Who are you talking about specifically?
Badenoch accuses Kuenssberg of trying to get her to say Muslims. But it is not just Muslims, she says.
At this point the conversation gets testy. Kuenssberg says she is just asking Badenoch to explain and justify what she has said. Badenoch claims she is being clear.
Kemi Badenoch is now being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg.
Kuenssberg starts with another quote from Badenoch’s Sunday Telegraph article. Badenoch said:
Culture is more than cuisine or clothes. It’s also customs which may be at odds with British values. We cannot be naïve and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnichostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. They are not.
Q: Which cultures are less valid than ours?
Badenoch says cultures that believes in child marriage, or that don’t give women equal rights.
She goes on:
I actually think it’s extraordinary that people think that’s an unusual, controversial thing to say.
Of course, not all cultures are equally valid. I don’t believe in cultural relativism. I believe in western values, the principles which have made this country great, and I think that we need to make sure that we continue to abide by those principles, to keep the society that we have now.
Jenrick says Badenoch's alternative to his plan for leaving ECHR 'recipe for infighting and losing public's trust'
Q: Do you agree with Kemi Badenoch that some cultures are less valid than others?
Jenrick says culture matters. But he says he disagres with Badenoch on immigration numbers. He says he thinks you have to have a cap on numbers. And he also says he believes the UK has to leave the European convention on human rights. He says Badenoch is just talking about developing a plan in a few years time, and that’s “a recipe for infighting and for losing the public’s trust”.
Robert Jenrick says he does not accept cutting immigration will limit economic growth
Robert Jenrick, the current favourite in the Tory leadership contest, is being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC.
Q: Is immigration your top priority?
It is, but it is not the only thing that needs to be fixed. Jenrick says the party also failed on the economy and on the NHS. There were “multiple failures”, he says.
He says he has thought deeply about these problems. He says he has a clear plan, particularly on immigration.
Q: Would you be willing to cut immigration even if that hurt the economy?
Jenrick says he does not accept that mass immigration is good for the economy.
Most of the people coming have been low wage, low skill, he says.
Q: People want immigration to fall. But they want enough carersr in the care sectors, and people available to work in bars and restaurants. Would having jobs being vacant be a price worth paying?
Jenrick says he wants parliaement to set a legally binding target for migragtion, “in the tens of thousands, or lower”.
He does not accept that this would hurt the economy. There are millions of people on welfare, he says, implying they could fill the vacancies.
Q: Would you be willing to see jobs go unfilled?
Jenrick says he does not accept that would happen. But if she is asking if he would prioritise this, the answer is yes.
Updated
Tom Tugendhat is next up on Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.
Q: What would you be saying to Israel today if you were Tory leader.
Tugendhat says he would be saying to Iran that it is no time to escalate things. He says its influence is “pernicious”.
Q: Why would they listen to us?
Tugendhat says you have to be tough in action too. He introduced the new National Security Act, he says. He took action to protect journalists in the UK who were at risk from Iran.
Q: Why did the Tories lose?
Tugendhat says they failed to deliver. And they did not draw attention to the success, which is why there was so much focus on infighting.
As a party, they had “lost the trust of the British people”.
Q: You are the most experienced of the four candidates left in the contest. But you are currently joint last with MPs. What is it that they know about you?
Cleverly says he is the candidate most popular with voters at large. And he is best able to win back voters from other parties, he says.
James Cleverly sidesteps questions about whether Israel's attack on Lebanon crossed red line
James Cleverly, the former foreign secretary, is now being interviewed by Trevor Phillips on Sky News.
Phillips starts with the same question he asked Badenoch.
Q: What would you be saying to Israel this morning?
Cleverly says he would say to them what he said to them when he was foreign secretary. He says he would say they have a right to defend themselves, but they have to obey international law.
Cleverly says, now he is no longer in government, he does not have access to the information that he used to get before he made a public judgment.
Q: Have the Israelis crossed a red line?
Cleverly says he is not in government any more, so he has not had a detailed briefing on this.
Q: But we saw what happened. You don’t need a briefing to know if they crossed a red line.
Cleverly says you do need detailed knowledge.
When you’re in a position of leadership, the kind of positions that I have held and I aspire to hold in the future, you have to make your comments based on facts, not just on TV reporting, not just on social media, not just on gut instinct. Any idiot can do that.
When you’re in a position of genuine leadership, you have to base your comments and your decisions on the actual fact.
Updated
Immigrants to UK should 'love this country and uphold its traditions', says Badenoch
In her Sunday Telegraph article Badenoch also said immigrants coming to the UK should love Britain. She said:
I speak as someone from an immigrant background. Being born in the UK was like Charlie Bucket finding a golden ticket in his chocolate bar. I really did win the lottery. I love Britain with the knowledge of how special this country is and how many opportunities it gave me. I also have a hard-nosed view on immigration.
The qualities which make Britain special mean that there will always be more people wanting to come to this country than we can reasonably support. Many of them have no particular interest in the future and success of the UK. It’s just a better place to be. So, as citizens and taxpayers, we must have rules.
We need to demand that those who come here love this country and will maintain and uphold its traditions, not change them. It is not enough that they work hard and avoid crime.
Q: How would you achieve this?
Badenoch replies:
You have to demand it. If you don’t ask people for something, then they’re unlikely to give it. We can’t just assume that people will come into the country and just naturally love it. Other countries demand it. When you move to other countries, they demand that you believe in the place.
Badenoch complains about about too many immigrants 'who hate Israel' coming to UK
In an article for the Sunday Telegraph today Badenoch complains that too many immigrants don’t like Israel. She says:
We cannot be naïve and assume immigrants will automatically abandon ancestral ethnichostilities at the border, or that all cultures are equally valid. They are not. I am struck for example, by the number of recent immigrants to the UK who hate Israel. That sentiment has no place here.
Q: Who are you talking about?
Badenoch says:
People who come from countries where Israel is seen as an enemy.
Q: You are referring to Muslims. Why don’t you say that?
Badenoch says:
It’s not all Muslim immigrants … I’m very careful when I speak. I’ve met many Muslim people who love Israel.
Kemi Badenoch says Israel should be congratulated for attack on Lebanon that killed Hezbollah's leader
Kemi Badenoch is being interviewed on Sky’s Sunday with Trevor Phillips.
Q: If you were party leader, what would you be saying to the Israelis this morning?
Badenoch says she would be congratulating them on the attack that killed Hezbollah’s veteran leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. She says:
I think what they did was extraordinary. Israel is showing that it has moral clarity in dealing with its enemies and the enemies of the west as well.
Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and I think that being able to remove the leader of Hezbollah, as they did, will create more peace in the Middle East.
Q: So you will give Israel a free pass?
Badenoch says it is not about Israel having a free pass. It has the right to defend itself.
Q: So there are no red lines?
Badenoch says there are red lines, laid down by international law. When she was trade secretary, those red lines were not crossed.
The Labour MP Nadia Whittome has posted a message on social media saying good riddance to Rosie Duffield.
No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society.
— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) September 28, 2024
She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.
No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society.
She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.
That prompted this response from Duffield’s friend JK Rowling.
Rosie Duffield was one of the few female Labour politicians with the guts to stand up for vulnerable women and girls, while self-satisfied numbskulls like you fought to give away their rights and spaces.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 28, 2024
TL;DR Keep her name out of your mouth. https://t.co/wGh6wSGCkM
Rosie Duffield was one of the few female Labour politicians with the guts to stand up for vulnerable women and girls, while self-satisfied numbskulls like you fought to give away their rights and spaces.
TL;DR Keep her name out of your mouth.
Labour plays down Rosie Duffield resignation, as she says ‘revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering’
Good morning. It is the first day of the Conservative party conference, and you would expect the news to be dominated by a fierce attack on the Labour leader. It is – but it is not come from any of the four candidates left in the Tory leadership contest (who have been campaigning all summer without saying anything that has engaged the public at large – voters are still not very interested in the party they rejected comprehensively on 4 July.) Instead it has come from Rosie Duffield, who was a Labour MP until early yesterday evening when she resigned the whip via a letter to Keir Starmer published in the Sunday Times.
As resignation letters go, this one’s a belter. Often MPs resign from government, or a a party, citing one particular issue. And it is usual to express some regret, some acknowledgment that the leader/party the MP used to support had at least some redeeming features. But this one is undiluted acid. If any of the Tory leadership candidates had given a speech along these lines, commentators would have regarded it as over the top.
Duffield, who has been MP for Canterbury since 2017 (a surprise win in what had been a safe Tory seat), has been semi-detached from the Starmer leadership for years because, as a gender critical feminist, she has frequently spoken out where she feels trans rights have been taken too far (she is friends with JK Rowling) and she felt ostracised by the parliamentary Labour party, where many MPs regarded her as extreme or reactionary on this issue.
But the letter does not talk about this. Instead she attacks Starmer’s leadership style, accusing him of “heavy-handed management tactics”, ignoring the views of his MPs, cronysim and disrespecting Diane Abbott. But at the heart of the leter is a withering attack on Starmer’s record accepting freebies, which he has defended over the last fortnight whilst also maintaining the two-child benefit cap (a welfare policy that helps push people into child poverty) and the winter fuel payments cut. Duffield says:
Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous. I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.
How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?! The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.
Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of these people can grasp — this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.
You can read the full letter here.
“The sleaze, the nepotism and the apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle has done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party”
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) September 28, 2024
Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield quits Labour pic.twitter.com/nWa49q9gri
And here is Michael Savage’s overnight story, which says there is thought to be no precedent in modern times for an MP resigning the party whip like this so soon after an election.
Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, is doing a media interview round this morning. Speaking to Sky News this morning, he played down the significance of Duffield’s resignation, saying she had been unhappy in the party for a long time.
Pat McFadden on @SkyNews: “I regret Rosie [Duffield] has made this decision. Not a secret she’s been unhappy for a long time….I’m sorry she’s made the decision, I like Rosie,but she’s been unhappy for a long time”
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) September 29, 2024
Pat McFadden on @SkyNews: “I regret Rosie [Duffield] has made this decision. Not a secret she’s been unhappy for a long time….I’m sorry she’s made the decision, I like Rosie,but she’s been unhappy for a long time”
Here is the agenda for the day:
8.30am: All four Conservative leadership candidates – Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat – are interviewed on Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.
9am: Jenrick and Badenoch are interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, is also on, representing Labour.
10am: Tugendhat, Badenoch and Jenrick are all interviewed on Times Radio.
1.30pm: Tugendhat takes part in an Q&A with the Conservative Women’s Organisation.
2pm: Jenrick takes part in a Q&A with at a Centre for Policy Studies fringe
2.30pm: Michael Winstanley, president of the National Conservative Convention (the volunteer wing of the party), opens the conference.
2.45am: Richard Fuller, the Conservative chair, speaks at the conference, opening a session featuring some candidates.
4pm: Russell Findlay, the news Scottish Conservative leader, Andrew RT Davies, the party’s leader in Wales, and Alex Burghart, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, speak in a session on the union.
5pm: Cleverly is interviewed on Times Radio.
We hope to open comments a bit later. 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.
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