Early evening summary
Badenoch says up to 10% of civil servants 'very, very bad', adding jokingly they're 'should be in prison bad'
During the Q&A at the Spectator Kemi Badenoch was asked if she approved of term limits for civil servants, an idea proposed by Vivek Ramaswamy when he was running to be the Republican candidate for president in the US.
Badenoch replied:
I don’t want people to get me wrong – I think that civil servants are like everybody else. They come in to do a job, and I’d say about 10% of them are absolutely magnificent.
And the trick to being a good minister is to find the good ones quickly, keep them close and try and get the bad ones out of your department.
There’s about 5 to 10% of them who are very, very bad – you know, should be in prison bad – leaking official secrets, undermining their ministers, agitating - I have some of it in my department – usually union led.
But most of them actually want to do a good job. And the good ones are very frustrated by the bad ones.
The audience laughed when Badenoch used the “should be in prison bad” line, so she was not being 100% serious at this point. But she may not have been entirely frivolous either, and the comments are likely to reignite her feud with the civil service.
As Pippa Crerar reported in a Guardian exclusive in July, Badenoch had a difficult relationship with officials in her department when she was business secretary because some of them thought she was a bully. Pippa wrote:
Kemi Badenoch, the frontrunner to be the next Conservative party leader, has been accused of creating an intimidating atmosphere in the government department she used to run, with some colleagues describing it as toxic, the Guardian can reveal.
At least three officials found her behaviour so traumatising that they felt they had no other choice but to leave, sources claimed.
Updated
Badenoch suggests too many students going to university
Q: What is your view on tuition fees?
Badenoch says she thinks a lot of students are being “sold a pup”. She does not think people should have to have higher debts.
There was meant to be a market, she says, with some universities charging less than others. That has not happened.
She says this is an issue a policy review would have to look at.
Q: So do you oppose Labour’s plan to let tuition fees go up?
Badenoch says the system is broken. She would change it.
If lots of people are going to university, they should be going into graduate jobs.
But lots of them are going into jobs that are not, or did not used to be, graduate jobs. She mentions nurses as an example. They getting a huge amount of debt that they cannot pay off, she says.
She says Labour came into office unprepared for government. The Tories have to start doing their thinking now.
Badenoch ends the event by praising Nelson, saying she does not think the magazine has ever had a better editor.
Q: Should the UK continue to support Ukraine, and allow it to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike Ukraine?
Badenoch says she thinks the UK should support Ukraine as much as it can.
On the missiles, she says she does not know how much difference that would make.
If Ukraine were to lose, that would be a “disaster” for the rest of Europe, she says.
Badenoch is asked about the news that Iran has fired missiles at Israel.
She says 7 October changed everything for her. It was like 9/11. It highlighted that “the bad guys, as I like to call them” think the west has become less serious.
During the cold war, the west was “very muscular”, she says.
She says the government should stop messing around, talking about football regulators and “smoking in gardens”, because issues like this are a “distraction from the real issues we face”.
(That is a jibe at Rishi Sunak’s government as much as Keir Starmer’s. Badenoch voted againt Sunak’s bill to introduce a gradual smoking ban.)
Audience at Spectator fringe opposed to Boris Johnson returning as MP by 3 to 1, show of hands suggests
Nelson says, if a byelection comes up, Boris Johnson might be a candidate. He takes a straw poll of the audience to see if people favour him coming back.
To Nelson’s surprise, the result comes out 3 or 4 to 1 against Johnson returning.
Nelson says, when Johnson’s book comes out, he thinks it will read like a manifesto for Johnson’s return.
Badenoch says she was almost victim of attempt by CCHQ to stitch up selection for favourite candidate
Q: How much freedom should local associations get at byelection, choosing candidates?
Badenoch says at byelections associations normally get a choice over candidates.
She says selections get stitched up more ahead of general elections.
It happened to her, she says. When she was selected as MP for Saffron Walden, before the 2017 election, a No 10 aide (Stephen Parkinson) had been lined up for it. He had been told in advice it was likely to become vacant. She got two days’ notice.
Nelson points out that she had already been rejected by one association at that point. He says that Badenoch was put on the list as the London candidate, already rejected by one association, who was expected to be rejected by Saffron Walden, a rural constituency.
Badenoch says she was 'extremely frustrated' by surprise national service policy announced at election
Badenoch claims we have stopped seeing business as a producing entity. Instead people see it as a random thing that people do that produces tax.
She wants to change that, she says.
But she says she is not talking about policy now. She explains:
We need to end what I call governmentitis, which is this belief that we’re going to be in government very soon.
She criticises the national service policy that was announced in the election. It was thrown out without any preparation, she says.
I was extremely frustrated because I don’t like policy that just floats without being anchored. You haven’t been talking enough about citizenship, you haven’t been talking enough about patriotism. You haven’t been talking enough about belonging, about community.
So just throwing out national service because someone said it in the focus group and it polled well - that it was a policy that nobody really cared about.
The national service policy was also criticised in the confernce hall this morning. See 1.01pm.
Nelson takes a poll in the room to see which candidates people prefer.
Most of the hands that go up are either for Badenoch, or undecided. Very few people say they are backing Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly or Tom Tugendhat.
Badenoch says too many MPs afraid of criticism, and she will 'walk through fire' to get things done
Badenoch says politicians are too afraid of criticism.
Sometimes you have to deal with the stuff now. Sometimes you have to walk through the fire to get to the place that you’re going to, and what I see is actually a lot of MPs just being afraid of not being right, being scared of the mob - the online mob …
I’m prepared to have difficult conversations now, and I don’t care what people say. If we as conservatives buckle every time we get criticism, you’re not going to get anything done.
Nelson puts it to Badenoch that she likes a fight.
Badenoch says she does not choose to have a fight. But if she has to have a fight, she is willing to do that. And she makes sure she wins, she claims.
Nelson says Badenoch claims she was misquoted over the maternity pay issue. But she seems to get misquoted a lot, he says.
Badenoch claims that is what happens to conservatives. She repeats the point about Margaret Thatcher she made in the conference hall yesterday. And she goes on:
Whoever wins this competition is going to get misrepresented or misquoted. It is a conservative thing.
But the difference is that if they are misrepresenting our values, when I am leading, I will make sure that I come up and defend us. I’m not going to apologise to the BBC or the Guardian or any of the leftwing media or press.
Updated
Badenoch says there is also a problem with the goverrnment not doing enough.
She says when she was in office people talked about “announceables”. Those were things that were not real decisions, but just things they could announce.
Badenoch says too many people 'living off government'
Nelson asks about the essay Badenoch released last night. (See 10.24am.)
Badenoch says the average Tory association is full of what she thinks of as the old middle class – people who produce things.
But now the middle class is full of people who work in bureaucracy. She explains:
It’s people who rely on government. It’s not just civil service or people who work as equality, diversity and inclusion instructors. It’s also people who need the government in order to make money.
That happened to me when I worked in banking, I went into tech, building things, and I had to move into compliance, working out regulations, because that’s where the promotions were.
An extreme example of this is a hotelier that I met just after Covid, and I said ‘My daughter working hotels. This must have been the worst time ever.’ And he said, ‘Kemi, I’ve never made so much money in my life. My hotel is full of asylum seekers.’
This is not producing. This is people living off government.
Fraser Nelson starts by saying it is his last public event as the Spectator editor.
He recalls that Badenoch worked as head of digital at the Spectator for a while before she became an MP.
Q: Did working for the Spectator shape you?
Badenoch says she was “already shaped”.
But she took a pay cut to go there. She was in banking before. She took the job because he liked the magazine. It is a luxury product, she says.
Asked how she got on with Andrew Neil (the Spectator publisher), she was she found got on with him fine.
Kemi Badenoch speaks at Spectator fringe
Kemi Badenoch is about to speak at a fringe meeting organised by the Spectator. She is being interviewed by Fraser Nelson, the outgoing editor.
It should be a friendly audience. In Blue Ambition, Lord Ashcroft’s biography of Badenoch, Nelson is quoted as saying that in 2022, when Badenoch first ran for leader, he had to impose a limit on how many positive articles the website could run about her – because so many of his contributors were huge fans.
Nelson is being replaced as Spectator editor by Michael Gove, the former levelling up secretary, who at one point was seen as one of her biggest supporters at the top of government.
The room is packed, and people were queuing at least an hour before to get in.
'Dozens' of asylum seekers would have been sent to Rwanda by now if Tories still in office, Cleverly says
During the Q&A on the conference stage earlier, James Cleverly, the former home secretary, claimed “dozens” of asylum seekers would have been sent to Rwanda by now under the Tory deportation scheme if the election had not been held in the summer.
Asked if the policy would have worked, he said:
I reckon at this point we could have sent dozens of people to Rwanda.
It’s not just about the people that you sent to Rwanda, because ideally you don’t want to be receiving people in the UK and sending them to Rwanda, you want people to stop coming to the UK.
He compared the plan to the success of the agreement with Albania, which saw illegal arrivals from the country drop by 90%.
The deal that we had with Albania … we didn’t need to send very many Albanians back to Albania before the message cut through ‘Don’t waste your time and money trying to get to the UK, because all they do is kick you out again’. That’s what would have happened once we got Rwanda up and running.
Tugendhat ramps up attack on Jenrick over SAS/ECHR claim, suggesting his rival knows 'nothing' about military matters
Tom Tugendhat has escalated his criticism of Robert Jenrick over Jenrick’s claim that human rights law means special forces are having to kill terrorists, not capture them (see 8.46am), suggesting his rival knows “nothing about” sensitive military matters.
Speaking at a fringe event, Tugendhat said:
It is an extremely serious allegation and without very specific examples it would be – I think – irresponsible to [say that] …
If you present a legitimate military threat to the United Kingdom, then we have under the laws of armed conflict today a legal ability and in fact a military capability to conduct operations to keep the British people safe.
I am afraid that is simply a fact, and if you don’t know it please don’t comment on military matters you know nothing about.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, has said that the Conservative party will be on its way out if it is not recovering by the time of the next election.
As Sky News reports, he told the Sky podcast:
What we need to understand is what do the public feel about the Conservative party that made them so determined - and they were determined - to have us out.
They didn’t just desert us. They deserted us with a very clear agenda.
Duncan Smith said the party needed to work out why it lost before it started coming up with new policy.
Asked if there was a way back at the next election, he replied:
There has to be a way back within one parliament, because if we’re not on our way back within one parliament, we’re on our way out.
Q: Would you wear a top saying Hamas are terrorists (as Robert Jenrick did)?
Cleverly replies:
I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said you don’t need to wear a T-shirt to show what your principles are.
Asked if he would support an assisted dying bill, Cleverly says he voted against it last time MPs voted on this (in 2015) because he was worried it would be “the thin end of the wedge”. He says he would not want older people to feel obliged to commit suicide because they were worried about being a burden.
UPDATE: Cleverly said:
On assisted dying, if you want to know where I stand now, look at what I did last time we had a vote on this. I voted against assisted dying not because I’m religious, because I’m not, it’s not a religious point of view, but I know that it is the thin end of the wedge.
And I know that people have seen loved ones suffer and of course it is natural to want to ease their suffering.
But we also know that many particularly older people hate the idea that they are a burden on their family or their society, and I do not want someone killing themselves or being killed because they feel guilty that they are a burden.
They are not a burden. They have been a contributor to society through their life. We owe them a debt of gratitude not a poison pill.
Updated
Cleverly says he is opposed to all-women shortlists. He says using all-women shortlists implies women cannot get selected in competition with men, and he says this suggests it’s a “sexist” party. The Conservative party is not, he says.
Updated
Cleverly backs shortening leadership contest so it's over in time for budget
Cleverly says he thinks the date of the end of the leadership contest should be brought forward so the new leader can respond to the budget. He says the budget will be a defining moment for Labour, and the new leader should be opposing it.
Q: So, if you make the final two, will you go to Richard Fuller, the party chair, to say the contest should be shortened?
Cleverly says it is “when” he makes the final two.
On the basis of what he has said, if he and Robert Jenrick make the final shortlist, the CCHQ will come under strong pressure to have a rethink. Kemi Badenoch, who is not in favour, would no longer be relevant to the decision. (See 2.44pm.)
UPDATE: Cleverly said:
I have already said to the party board that I would prefer that we nibble away a couple of days from the leadership [election] … I want to get at them at the first possible opportunity.
This budget will define this Labour party. If we hit them hard, where it hurts, in their economic incompetence that will be a good starting point for the new leader of the party.
Updated
Cleverly says he backs replacing BBC licence fee with subscription model
Cleverly says he is in favour of changing the BBC licence fee.
He says the BBC should move to a subscription model. It has “a back catalogue of some of the best television in the world”, he says.
UPDATE: Cleverly said:
I had a delegation from the BBC come along to me and say, when I was a new MP, and they did the usual thing: ‘Oh, because of the unique way the BBC is funded ya-ya-ya.’
And I said to them, and I said to them at the time, this was back in 2015, I said ‘if I were you, at the next renegotiation of the licence fee, I would start your planning to become a subscription service.
‘You have a back catalogue of some of the best television in the world’. If Disney and Netflix can make money on the subscription model, the BBC should, because the bottom line is, in the era of streaming services, the tax to watch television is an unsustainable business model.
And that back catalogue of content that we have already paid for, why don’t we make sure that when China obsesses about Peppa Pig – apparently Peppa Pig is very popular in China – and other content, that they pay for it rather than demanding that we pay for it all over again?
Updated
Cleverly says he's not ruling out accepting gifts as opposition leader
Cleverly says he won’t rule out accepting gifts as leader of the opposition.
I will accept gifts every now and then.
He ways the problem with Keir Starmer was not that he accepted gifts, but the hypocrisy. He says:
The problem is not the accepting of gifts, particularly if those gifts are properly declared. The problem is the stench of hypocrisy because whilst [Starmer] was accepting those gifts, he was attacking us for what he did.
James Cleverly attacks the way David Lammy, the foreign secretary, gave a speech at the UN security council in which he referred to his own slave ancestry when attacking Russia. He says:
David Lammy went to the UN security council for a debate about the plight of Ukraine and Ukrainians, who are being brutalized by the Russian oppressors and invaders as we speak. And somehow he made it about him the went on about my ancestors, I get it. He’s very proud of being the first black foreign secretary.
Referring to his support for Brexit, James Cleverly recalls writing to David Cameron when he was a new MP saying Cameron was not getting enough out of the EU from his renegotiation. He says:
It is now very fashionable for everyone to be a Brexiteer, but I was doing it before it was cool.
This is another jibe at Jenrick, who voted remain. Cleverly voted leave.
Cleverly tells Tories 'with me, you know what you get', in jibe at Jenrick's political shifts
Cleverly says, if members elect him as leader, they will know what they are getting.
I do not pretend to be perfect, but with me, you know what you get and what I was, what I am and what I will be is consistent.
I don’t chop and change. I don’t U turn. I don’t flip flop.
If you like it, vote for me.
If you don’t like it, vote for someone else. But the point is, you know where you stand [with me].
This is aimed primarily at Robert Jenrick, who is standing on a rightwing platform that he would never have been associated with two years ago, when Rishi Sunak made him immigration minister in the Home Office supposedly as the mainstream foil to Suella Braverman, the very rightwing home secretary.
Polling suggests a final ballot contest between Cleverly and Jenrick would be very close. (See 9.37am.)
Asked about the timing of the election, Cleverly implies he did not approve of having it in the summer. But he says, by the time Rishi Sunak told people, he had told the king, and it was too late to change it.
Cleverly says at that point he focused on trying to win the election. He also implies some of his rivals were more interested in preparing their leadership bids.
At that point, the die was cast. And from that point, you have a choice. Do you do everything in your power to win the general election. That’s what I did. Or do you start perhaps daydreaming about what might be next, doing preparatory work for a leadership bid?
Asked if that is what some of his rivals were doing, Cleverly says: “You will have to ask them.” But, when Jenrick resigned from the Home Office in December last year, colleagues thought that he was preparing for a future leadership run.
James Cleverly takes part in Q&A on main conference stage
James Cleverly is up now.
Asked why he thinks he is the best candidate, he says:
I am the only one who has run a great office of state. In fact, I’m the only one that has run two great offices of state and delivered in both of them.
I’m the only one who has been chairman of the Conservative party.
I’m the only one who’s been instrumental in winning a general election. I’m the only one who has the experience to deal with people like you, Chopper, the forensic media, and I know that I’m going to be the best advocate for this party, the best spokesman for this party, and the best leader, not only of this party, but of this country.
Jenrick says he would keep the two-child benefit cap. Getting rid of it would be expensive, he says. He says the benefits system must be fair.
Jenrick defends going running in a top saying “Hamas are terrorists”. He complains about Kay Burley from Sky News suggesting he might be inciting people. He says he is not worried about inciting Hamas supporters. They should be arrested, he says.
Tories should be 'obsessed' with NHS reform, Jenrick says
Jenrick said the Tories should be “obsessed” with reforming the NHS. He said:
Our party needs to be obsessed with how we can reform the NHS. Don’t treat it like a religion to be worshipped. Treat it like a public service to be reformed.
Jenrick says he would oppose assisted dying law
Q: Would you vote for assisted dying?
Jenrick says he would allow a free vote, but he thinks he would vote against. He says his grandmother lived with their family. It was a formative experience. He goes on:
She had a very long and terminal illness, a very severe form of emphysema, and the last years of her life were extremely difficult and painful, and it was painful for us to watch.
Now, we never had a conversation, obviously, about what she might have done if we’d lived in a different society with different laws. I understand where the motivation to change the law comes from, and it is a noble one in that sense.
But I am very concerned about the unintended consequences of changing the rule.
A few months ago, just before the general election, I went to Canada to meet the Canadian Conservative party who I take great inspiration from. I think, incidentally, they are the model, really, for what we should be doing as a party.
But one of the things in conversation they spoke about was the very severe unintended consequences that they have experienced from their own [assisted dying law].
And so I would just urge everyone – my parliamentary colleagues, Keir Starmer and the Labour party – to think this through very, very carefully.
Updated
Jenrick says he does not approve of all-women shortlists for candidates. He says that this system does a disservice to women, because it implies they are not selected on merit.
Q: Was there two-tier policing over the summer?
Jenrick says the police gave the appearance of two-tier policing, which was worrying. He goes on:
I worry that the police, at times, are too concerned about community relations than enforcing the law without fear or favour.
And he claims there is two-tier politics. He says some politicians are afraid to discuss Islamist extremism.
Q: You said people should be arrested for shouting “Allahu Akbar”.
Jenrick says context is important. There is nothing wrong with saying that in a peaceful context. But if you shout it in an intimidatory manner, action should be taken, he says.
Updated
Q: Will you remove VAT on private schools if you become PM?
Yes, says Jenrick.
He says his parents were from a working class background and he went to a state primary school. When his grandfather died, his grandmother decided to use the money she inherited to pay for him and his sister to go to a private school. He went to Wolverhampton grammar school. It wasn’t Eton, but it was a good school. His Labour opponent described it as the Eton of Wolverhampton, he says.
Jenrick says, if he makes final ballot, he will demand CCHQ change timetable so new leader elected before budget
Jenrick says it was a “bad decision” to schedule the end of the Tory leadership contest for after the budget, which means the new leader won’t respond to the budget statement in the Commons.
Q: If you make it to the final two, will you go and see Richard Fuller, the party chair, the following morning, and demand that the end of the contest is brought forward.
Jenrick says he will “100%”.
(One reason why CCHQ has not cut short the contest is because not all candidiates are in favour. Kemi Badenoch is the person who has been most critical of the idea of shortening the contest.)
Jenrick says era of Tories having 'five families' factionalism in Commons must end
Jenrick says there were more people in his sixth form at school than there are Conservative MPs now. So the era of “five families” must end. They must unite, and be one Conservative team.
Hope has now finished his questions. He is now reading out questions from members.
Q: How would you be different from previous administrations which have talked right, governed left and been incompetent?
Jenrick says he would like to government as a conservative, and be competent.
Jenrick defeneded his comment in a video released yesterday about special forces killing rather than capturing terrorists because of human rights law. He said:
Our very respected former colleague Ben Wallace, one of the best defence secretaries in modern times, used his first intervention after leaving office to make almost this very point.
He said that he would think it was difficult for the UK, our armed forces, to conduct a similar operation to the one that the United States did to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.
That’s wrong. I don’t want our human rights apparatus to be standing in the way of taking the right operational decisions for our national security and for protecting the lives of the brave men and women who serve in our special forces.
This is what Dominic Grieve, a former Tory attorney general, posted on social media this morning explaining why he thought Jenrick was wrong.
His next argument is even odder. He claims that UKForces are being obliged to kill rather than detain on combat operations because the ECHR requires prisoners to be released.
This is just wrong. The ECHR requires no such thing. Indeed there is a case called Hassan v U.K. at the Court ofHuman Rights that makes clear that the ECHR has to be read alongside the Geneva Conventions and that detention of prisoners taken in combat or suspected of being combatants is allowed.
There was a problem in Afghanistan with detention of suspected combatants due to Afghan law, not the ECHR.
Jenrick says he got Rishi Sunak to agree to tougher immigration policy by threatening to resign
On immigration, Jenrick said he fought hard while he was in government for a tougher line on immigration. And he said that at one he secured changes by threatening to resign. He said:
I think everybody knows I fought pretty darn hard to get the changes.
Without lifting the veil entirely on what happened, the reason that we got the changes [to immigration policy] was because I sat in the prime minister’s office late at night and said to him, I’m not going to continue in this government unless we do this, because it felt was so important to me.
Updated
Jenrick confirms that he gave his daughter Thatcher as a middle name due to his admiration for former PM
Hope asks Jenrick about his daughter’s middle name.
Jenrick confirms that its “Thatcher” – something that Hope knew already, because Jenrick mentioned it in an interview for Hope’s “Chopper’s Political Podcast”. (Chopper is Hope’s nickname.)
But the revelation still provokes a gasp of astonishment. Liz Truss called one of her daughter’s Liberty because she (Truss) is a libertarian. Keir Starmer’s parents called him Keir because they admired Keir Hardie, the Labour party founder. But to have Thatcher as a middle name is a bit more extreme.
Jenrick says he chose the name because of his admiration for the former PM, and because she died the year his daughter was born.
Updated
Jenrick says he will not accept freebies if he becomes Tory leader
Jenrick has a better joke when asked about his family, and whether they want him to stand. He says his daughter has asked if they will get free Taylor Swift tickets if he wins.
Maybe that’s true, and not a joke, but it gets a laugh anyway.
Jenrick says he told his daughter free Taylor Swift tickets were only for Labour leaders.
To his credit, Hope asks Jenrick if he will refuse to accept freebies if he is elected leader. Jenrick did not seem to see this coming, looks momentarily flummoxed, but quickly concludes there is only one answer he can give, and says he will turn them down.
If he does win, it may be an answer he regrets.
Robert Jenrick takes part in Q&A in main conference hall
Robert Jenrick is being interviewed on the main conference stage by Christopher Hope, political editor of GB News. The format is the same as yesterday, when Hope interviewed Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch. He will start by putting questions himself for half an hour, and then ask questions submitted by members.
After the Q&A with Jenrick, Hope will do the same again with James Cleverly.
Jenrick is explaining why he wants to be leader. He starts with a joke about how he said the Tory defeat was the worst since 1832, only to be corrected by Jacob Rees-Mogg who told him it was the worst defeat since 1760. And someone joked Rees-Mogg was probably around then, he says.
Jenrick has told this joke at every event where I’ve seen him speak since Sunday, and given that the leadership candidate events are best attractions, most people must have heard it already. But it gets a small laugh anyway.
Updated
Kemi Badenoch has posted this on social media, quoting an article that Nigel Farage wrote during the 2022 leadership contest in which he praised her stance on immigration. It seems to be a response to the Reform UK leader posting messages on social media at the weekend saying he did not believe a word she said on immigration, or anything.
👇🏾 https://t.co/eXQojLwCiI pic.twitter.com/gzi5SPaa3X
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) October 1, 2024
I preferred Nigel’s earlier work. He used to talk about me as the only one with conviction to tackle illegal and legal immigration.. but since seeing me as the next Conservative leader and a threat to winning back Reform voters, he’s stopped doing so. Oh well
Jenrick right to say human rights law leads to terrorists being killed not detained, Dominic Cummings says
Dominic Cummings, who was Boris Johnson’s chief adviser in No 10 until the two men fell out spectacularly, has posted a message on social media broadly backing what Robet Buckland said about human rights law leading the military to kill terrorist suspects instead of seeking to detail them. Cummings says:
I explained this 2 years ago but obv the media ignored.
It is NOT that there is ‘extra-judicial’ killing.
It’s that the perversities/absurdities of the HRA combined with Gvt legal advice means that in rooms with no phones and decisions to make, ‘drone them’ is sometimes seen as ‘lawful’ but ‘arrest them’ is seen as impractical/unlawful/shitshow - so ‘drone them’ happens.
This is far from the worst such absurdity forced by the HRA.
A worse problem: we do not keep even *convicted* terrorists who MI5 predict will kill again shortly under surveillance because govt ‘legal advice’ is that this is ‘unlawful’ because of terrorists’ ‘right to privacy’ under the ECHR/HRA.
I have sat in the bunker under No10 watching this explained by deep state officials after meetings where the abysmal Buckland went to great lengths *not* to let the PM understand what was happening and why... MPs don’t want to know, the old media haven’t reported these issues - just like the classified nuclear budget multi-tens of billions corrupt-incompetent-horrorshow (which also renders all OBR numbers fake)...
Robert Buckland was justice secretary when Cummings worked in No 10.
I explained this 2 years ago but obv the media ignored.
— Dominic Cummings (@Dominic2306) October 1, 2024
It is NOT that there is 'extra-judicial' killing.
It's that the perversities/absurdities of the HRA combined with Gvt legal advice means that in rooms with no phones and decisions to make, 'drone them' is sometimes seen as… https://t.co/j9VTvC1xbv
Cummings is describing in a more colourful terms the dilemma described by Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, in a Telegraph interview last year. Jenkins was basing his remarks on what Wallace said. Wallace told the Telegraph:
When we have a threat to the UK, this lunacy of being unable to render people across borders or arrest people in countries whose police forces are unacceptable, means that we are more often than not forced into taking lethal action than actually raiding and detaining.
Updated
Ex-defence secretary Grant Shapps says he has seen 'no evidence' to back up Jenrick's claim about SAS killing terrorists
Grant Shapps, the former defence secretary, has said that he has seen “no evidence at all” to back up Robert Jenrick’s claim that special forces have been “killing rather than capturing” terrorists because human rights laws would prevent them being detained. He made the comment in an interview with Matt Chorley from Radio 5 Live.
“It’s not true in the terms of special forces. I have seen no evidence of that at all.”
— Matt Chorley (@MattChorley) October 1, 2024
Former defence secretary Grant Shapps rejects Jenrick’s claim that that British special forces are “killing rather than capturing terrorists”.
More on @bbc5live from 2pm pic.twitter.com/rsPNtJZ7du
“It’s not true in the terms of special forces. I have seen no evidence of that at all.”
Former defence secretary Grant Shapps rejects Jenrick’s claim that that British special forces are “killing rather than capturing terrorists”.
Shapps was defence secretary for about a year before the general election, having held several other cabinet posts in the past.
Updated
Bookmakers have cut their odds on James Cleverly to win the Tory leadership, in a sign that events at Tory conference over the past 48 hours may have helped his chances more than anyone else’s.
Robert Jenrick remains the favourite. But, according to Oddschecker, a betting website, Cleverly’s odds were cut from 10/1 to 5/1 this morning after he attracted a surge of bets at short notice.
Leon Blackman from Oddschecker said:
The Conservative party leadership race has been a two-horse contest between Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch, with both swapping positions as favorites since Rishi Sunak’s departure.
However, James Cleverly has emerged as a serious contender today, with his odds shortening from 10/1 to 5/1 and his bet share rising from 23% to 39%. Meanwhile, Badenoch’s bet share has sharply declined from 33% to 7% and her odds drifting by the minute.
Oddchecker has Jenrick favourite at 4/6, followed by Badenoch at 3/1, Cleverly at 5/1 and Tom Tugendhat at 16/1. That means Jenrick has a 56% implied probability of winning, Badenoch 23%, Cleverly 16% and Tugendhat 6%.
Ladbrokes has reported the same trend. Its spokesperson Alex Apati said:
James Cleverly has emerged as a genuine contender to replace Rishi Sunak over the last 24 hours or so. We wouldn’t be surprised to see him leapfrog Badenoch in the betting by the end of the week.
In a speech in the conference hall this morning a councillor complained about the national service policy announced in a surprise move at the start of the election campaign. Olly Scargill, a councillor from North Tyneside, said this was a wedge issue that alienated younger voters. He said:
I think in the general election some of what we campaigned upon was a wedge issue, wedge issues between young people and older people.
Things like national service was probably designed to play off younger people and older people, and when you’ve got a rising age of Conservative voter it is incredibly unsustainable.
What we need to do I think is we need to find a way to move the party to become more pro-housebuilding. And delivering more credible options for young people who want to be economically secure, and who are aspirational, that is a Conservative, those people should be voting Conservative, but they’re not.
Green party more of threat to Conservatives at local elections than Reform UK, Tory councillors' leader suggests
Green party candidates could be more of a threat to the Tories in next year’s council elections than Reform UK, a senior councillor has said.
Phil Broadhead, who chairs the Conservative Councillors’ Association, told a fringe meeting that Nigel Farage’s party were a challenge, but that Green candidates had also won in “posh Tory areas”.
He said:
We have a lot of issues that are kind of cross-party nowadays, you know, environmental issues, for instance. I know that there are some people that are on the kind of opposite side of it.
But I can tell you, being out there in communities, travelling around the country as we did for the general election, this is a huge issue and actually politically we’re talking a lot about the threats – who knows what the threats might be when they manifest themselves in May - of Reform etc.
I’m more worried about the Greens actually.
In my campaigning at this election, I was going to places as far apart as Bristol and Bury St Edmunds where we have Greens running the council now.
And these are areas that – it’s not because they’re socialists, these are kind of posh Tory areas but people care about these particularly environmental protection issues.
So I think we need to occupy that space and regain it.
At the same meeting the Essex County Council leader Kevin Bentley said that his party had lost a lot of councillors because of infighting at Westminster and that he did not want to hear any more talk of the “five families” – a term used by rebels to refer to the five Tory factions at Wesminster that were coordinating opposition to Rishi Sunak on the Rwanda bill.
Bentley said:
Whoever the winner is, we all get behind them. None of this five families and all that nonsense. I don’t wanna hear it.
All I want to hear about is getting Conservatives into power at the town hall, county hall, parliament or wherever we possibly can, so we all rally around that new leader and no backbiting, no arguments.
Updated
Almost third of Tory voters think it would be good if Reform UK replaced Conservatives as main rightwing party, poll suggests
The More in Common poll also suggests that almost a third of Tory voters think it would be good for Britain if Reform UK were to replace the Conservatives as the main rightwing party.
Reform voters would unsurprisingly like their Party to replace the Tories as the largest right wing party. Perhaps more worryingly Tory voters only think that outcome would be a bad one by a 41-31 margin. pic.twitter.com/Dceg1A0vQ9
— Luke Tryl (@LukeTryl) October 1, 2024
This ought to be encouraging for those Tories who are actively encouraging some sort of pact with Nigel Farage’s party. (See 11.30am.)
But Luke Tryl, the UK director for More in Common, points out that his research also shows that, on some issues, Conservative voters and Reform UK voters have very different views.
But Reform and Conservative voters are not the same thing, on a range of issues Reform voters take a very different stance to Conservative voters, which means you cannot simply add the two groups together. pic.twitter.com/Ttnt2FcB5K
— Luke Tryl (@LukeTryl) October 1, 2024
Voters overall narrowly prefer last Tory government to current Labour one, poll suggests
Voters overall narrowly prefer the last Conservative govenment led by Rishi Sunak to the current one led by Keir Starmer, according to polling by the campaign group More in Common being unveiled at a conference fringe meeting today.
🆕 In a sign of how volatile the electorate are voters are actually slightly more likely to say they preferred the previous Government led by Rishi Sunak than the current Government led by Keir Starmer. Although even more say they don’t know which they prefer. pic.twitter.com/0sT7THAToS
— Luke Tryl (@LukeTryl) October 1, 2024
In a sign of how volatile the electorate are voters are actually slightly more likely to say they preferred the previous Government led by Rishi Sunak than the current Government led by Keir Starmer. Although even more say they don’t know which they prefer.
Luke Tryl, More in Common’s UK director, says this is because, even though Reform UK voters did not vote for Sunak at the election, they overwhelmingly think his government was better than Starmer’s.
Labour & Conservative voters are more likely to say they prefer the respective Governments of their parties. But Reform voters are more likely to say they preferred the last Conservative Government, Lib Dem voters are more split but lean towards preferring the current Government pic.twitter.com/DbWYd4ebgh
— Luke Tryl (@LukeTryl) October 1, 2024
Labour & Conservative voters are more likely to say they prefer the respective Governments of their parties. But Reform voters are more likely to say they preferred the last Conservative Government, Lib Dem voters are more split but lean towards preferring the current Government
Tryl also points out this does not mean Reform UK voters are all desperate to vote Tory again.
But Reform voters preference for the last Government doesn’t mean they’re about to return to the fold Con-Ref switchers are the least likely to say they’ll vote Tory again in this Parliament, only 1 in 10 say they will, compared to 1 in 4 Lib Dem switchers & 1 in 5 Lab switchers pic.twitter.com/4EIhF7foRn
— Luke Tryl (@LukeTryl) October 1, 2024
But Reform voters preference for the last Government doesn’t mean they’re about to return to the fold Con-Ref switchers are the least likely to say they’ll vote Tory again in this Parliament, only 1 in 10 say they will, compared to 1 in 4 Lib Dem switchers & 1 in 5 Lab switchers
More than half Tory members favour merger with Reform UK, according to survey from rightwing PopCon group
Popular Conservatism, or PopCon, has released the results of a survey of party members suggesting more than half of them favour a merger with Reform UK. Some 30% of the respondents said they tended to support the idea, and 23% were strongly in favour. The survey covered 470 members.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, PopCon’s head of communications and a former Brexit party MEP, said:
Every Conservative activist and canvasser knows people who had been Tories, but voted Reform UK in July. It is no surprise our panellists understand that the next leader of the party needs to take action to bring many like-minded voters back to the Tories. Almost three-quarters want a relationship with Reform in order to unite the right.
Rees-Mogg’s brother Jacob has called for the Tories to form an electoral pact with Reform UK.
Popular Conservatism is a rightwing group run by Mark Littlewood, one of Liz Truss’s strongest supporters.
Talking about opinion polls, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the rightwing former business secretary, has told the Telegraph he is not in favour of them. He said:
The answer I was often given by people in government at the time was that lockdowns were very popular.
They were getting 60, 70, 80% popularity ratings in the opinion polls. But you mustn’t believe those opinion polls, they’re basically nonsense.
People want to give the worthy answer. You’ve got to recognise that government by focus group, government by opinion poll, doesn’t work. You need to govern by what you believe in ...
That’s what Margaret Thatcher did and I think we were much too seduced by government by focus group, government by opinion poll.
Tugendhat most popular candidate, Badenoch least popular, with public at large, poll suggests
In party leadership contests sometimes members end up choosing the candidates who is also most popular with the public at large. This is what Labour did in 1994, the Tories in 2005 and Labour in 2020, and generally it turns out to be a sensible move if a party wants to win a general election.
But sometimes the person most popular with members is the person least popular with the the public at large. This happened with Labour in 2015, and with the Conservatives in 2022, and the Tories seem to be doing the same thing again. As the latest YouGov polling suggests, Kemi Badenoch is the members’ favourite, and Tom Tugendhat is their last choice. (See 9.37am.) A recent ConservativeHome survey said the same.
But polling released by Savanta last night suggests that Tugendhat is the most popular candidate with voters overall. Savanta says:
Tom Tugendhat is the most popular Conservative leadership candidate among the wider public (net favourability -4) and 2024 Conservative voters (+32), according to new research from Savanta …
Robert Jenrick (-7) is the second most popular candidate among the public, alongside James Cleverly (-8), the most well-known candidate among public with the lowest proportion of Don’t Know’s (21%). Kemi Badenoch (-11) is the least popular, in research taken before her controversial comments about maternity pay.
Kemi Badenoch has the lowest net favourability of all four Conservative leadership candidates among the public (-11) and 2024 Conservative voters (+23).
— Savanta UK (@Savanta_UK) October 1, 2024
Tom Tugendhat is the most popular candidate among the public (-4) and Conservative voters (+32)
20-22 Sept
2,050 UK adults pic.twitter.com/HlisDyAwnL
An Ipsos poll yesterday also had Tugendhat as the candidate with the best net ratings amongst the public at large.
Choosing a leader unpopular with the public large isn’t always a disastrous move for a party; in 1975 the Conservatives would not have gone for Margaret Thatcher if YouGov had been around and polling figures had been the main consideration. But, more often than not, it is indicative of a party only loosely tethered to what the country as a whole is thinking. And that is a problem for the Conservative party at the moment, as Polly Toynbee argues in her column today.
Badenoch declares war on 'bureaucratic class' and 'safetyism' in essay setting our her political philosophy
Earlier I suggested that, even though Robert Jenrick is more hardline on the ECHR, Kemi Badenoch is the most rightwing candidate in the contest. There is some evidence to support this in a 36-page pamphlet her team released last night, called Conservatism in Crisis. Described as an essay based on a forthcoming book, Your New Rules: Rise of the Bureaucratic Class, it does not seem to be available online, although the foreword, by Badenoch, has been published on ConservativeHome. (Who wrote the rest of the pamphlet is not clear.)
In her foreword, Badenoch argues that the Tories cannot win power again just by being a Brexit party. She explains:
While the general election result this year was disastrous for us, we need to consider a wider problem.
Since 1992, the Conservative party has only won a majority when Brexit was on the ballot paper; in 2015, through a pledge to hold a referendum on the European Union and in 2019, to ‘Get Brexit Done’.
By 2029 we will have not won a majority without this issue in nearly four decades.
So, when people say we just need to deliver policy X or policy Y, and then everything will be fine again, they are kidding us and themselves. This is not just about politics. It is about a wider economic and cultural malaise that has set in across a complacent west that is living off the inheritance built by previous generations.
So, if the party needs a new cause, what should it be? The pamphlet proposes war on the “bureaucratic class”. In a passage explain who these people are, the pamphlet says:
The bureaucratic class derives much of their income, or more widely, their justification, from government, through state spending but also an ever-growing regulatory state. They are very different from the market class of entrepreneurs and general market focused workers.
There is a microeconomic link between the bureaucratic class and the government. The key question in assessing the bureaucratic class is: Does this job primarily relate to providing goods or services in the market or administering rules set by government?
Another way to see the difference is the market orientated class gives people what they want and will pay for, and the bureaucratic class gives people what the bureaucratic class thinks they should want and what government can force or require people to have.
The pamphlet argues that the emergence of the bureaucratic class is linked to the expansion of HR departments, the growth in regulation in the financial sector and the rise of what it calls “safetyism”.
On HR and regulation, it says:
On human resources, in 2001, the ONS recorded 119,000 or so people working as personnel managers. By 2023, this had risen to 221,000, an increase of 86%. This happened at a time when productivity rose at historically low levels of 0.8% a year …
The ratio of regulators to financial services workers had increased from 1:11,000 in 1980 to 1:300 in 2011 and now stands at roughly 1:75. In a single decade, the proportion of Citigroup’s workforce devoted to compliance and risk went from 4% to 15%.
And it describes “safetyism” as an issue in universities. It says:
Safetyism benefits progressive academics, allied student activists, and most of all, the growing army of administrators. In the USA, a staggering 64% of those who work for universities are now not academics or researchers.
The pamphlet concludes:
We are moving to a new politics. The Conservatives have to realise the bureaucratic class and the new progressive ideology are their opponents. The idea that as Labour fails, then simply because a voter has a comfortable middle-class job, they will return to us is false.
There will have to be a new type of politics. To take on the bureaucratic class means to ditch radical environmental politics, unpick identity politics, focus on a strong positive national identity, limit migration, streamline HR, compliance, sustainability, planning, to focus on bringing down the cost of the welfare state and much more.
Peter Walker has more on the report, including Badenoch’s triangle theory of modern politics, in his story here.
Updated
In his interview on the Today programme, when asked to explain why he had gone from being an MP who voted against Brexit to one who is now, not just a supporter of Brexit but an advocate of leaving the European convention on human rights, Robert Jenrick said his values had not changed, but that his policies views had adapted in response to what he had learned.
Jenrick said:
My values haven’t changed, but it’s certainly true that over time the things I have seen in the ministerial jobs that I have done have led me to conclusions that the British state isn’t working in the interests of the British people, and in particular my time at the Home Office where I saw that we were not able to secure our borders and to keep the public safe, which to my mind is the most basic duty of our country.
These are from my colleague Peter Walker, who is at a fringe meeting organised by Popular Conservatism (PopCon), the rightwing group set up by Liz Truss supporters. Peter is not impressed by their strategic acumen.
I’m at a Tory fringe event about how to see off Reform, and already we’re hearing that the solution is - yes, for them to be more right wing on issues like migration, crime, tax, culture wars. The event hasn’t actually been organised by the Lib Dem’s, but it might as well be. pic.twitter.com/KB4zxsbTHB
— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) October 1, 2024
I’m at a Tory fringe event about how to see off Reform, and already we’re hearing that the solution is - yes, for them to be more right wing on issues like migration, crime, tax, culture wars. The event hasn’t actually been organised by the Lib Dem’s, but it might as well be.
It’s worth stressing that this event is a particular strand of Tory thought - it’s organised by the Truss-friendly PopCons - but the wider, “If we’re properly right wing we’ll win again” idea is all over the Tory conference.
Another big conference theme, also echoed at this event, is the implicit idea that Labour are doing so badly in government that the Tories basically just need to get their act together and they’ll win in 2029. Who knows, it *could* happen. But it’s not an actual strategy.
Another speech, by ex-MP Marco Longhi, says Reform only exists because the Tories have given them the space to do so. That’s very arguably a misunderstanding of how populism works. As the ever-hardening of Brexit showed, there will *always* be room to shout, ‘Betrayal!’
This fringe event has now been told that the behaviour of Keir Starmer in government is already “much worse” than that of Boris Johnson. Hmmmmm.
A dose of realism from Marco Longhi - he tells the panel that of the Tories’ 121 MPs, only about 20 share the views at this event. However, he then says a new leader might need to remove the whip from a number of more liberal types, as Boris Johnson did over Brexit.
Jenrick has almost caught up with Badenoch in popularity with Tory members, poll suggests
While Robert Jenrick is under pressure this morning because of his SAS/ECHR comments, there is good news for him in some YouGov polling for Sky News. As Sky reports, it suggests that over the last six weeks Kemi Badenoch’s 18-point lead with Tory members as their favourite for next leader has massively shrunk. Sky’s Sam Coates reports:
Tory members opted for Ms Badenoch by 59% to Mr Jenrick’s 41% six weeks ago - an 18-point lead - if the pair were head to head in the final round.
Now they would choose Ms Badenoch by 52% to Mr Jenrick’s 48%, only a four-point lead, according to the new Sky News poll of 802 Tory members conducted over nine days to Sunday night.
Badenoch is still ahead on this measure. But it seems likely that Badenoch won’t make the final two (that’s why Jenrick is the bookmakers’ favourite, not Badenoch), and if Badenoch is not on the final ballot, the YouGov polling suggests Jenrick would beat any other potential contender.
Why do people think Badenoch won’t make the final two, when voting in the last MPs’ ballot was relatively close (Jenrick 33, Badenoch 28, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat both on 21)?
First, because when MPs vote again next week, the 16 votes for Mel Stride (eliminated) will be up for grabs, and it is assumed they will go for someone more in the One Nation tradition rather than Badenoch, who is arguably the most rightwing candidate in the race (even though she has not adopted the hardest line on immigration and the ECHR).
And, second, it is assumed that Tugendhat (high chance) and Cleverly (low chance) are the candidates most likely to be knocked out in the next vote. That means, because of their politics, it is not thought many of their votes will go to Badenoch when MPs vote for the second time next week, on Thursday, to choose the top two from a list of three.
The YouGov polling also suggests that, if Jenrick and Cleverly are the two names on the final ballot (a reasonable assumption, although no one can say for sure), Jenrick has a narrow lead, but not enough to make the result a foregone conclusion. Coates says:
The polls show Mr Cleverly trailing Mr Jenrick by just four points in the final round. If they are head to head, Mr Jenrick gets 52% and Mr Cleverly 48%. Against Ms Badenoch, the gap is slightly bigger - eight points - with her on 54% and him on 46%.
Mr Tugendhat fares the worst in the final round, according to the polling. He would lose to both Ms Badenoch and Mr Jenrick 58% to 42% - by 16 points.
Coates has put all the final round scenarios from the polling on social media.
Sky News / YouGov Tory members poll
— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) October 1, 2024
20-29 Sept
Final round scenarios
Jenrick 48 - Badenoch 52
Jenrick 52 - Cleverly 48
Jenrick 58 - Tugendhat 42
Badenoch 54 - Cleverly 46
Badenoch 58 - Tugendhat 42
Cleverly 55 - Tugendhat 45 https://t.co/Ww5MS40bO7
This is from Kevin Schofield from HuffPost UK on Robert Jenrick’s Today programme interview. (See 9.08am.)
Pretty clear, having listened to Robert Jenrick's interview with @MishalHusain, that he doesn't have any evidence to back up his claim that the SAS are killing terrorists rather than capturing them because they believe the ECHR will just let them go.
— Kevin Schofield (@KevinASchofield) October 1, 2024
Pretty clear, having listened to Robert Jenrick’s interview with @MishalHusain, that he doesn’t have any evidence to back up his claim that the SAS are killing terrorists rather than capturing them because they believe the ECHR will just let them go.
And this is from my colleague Ben Quinn.
Robert Jenrick almost *more* uncomfortable about being reminded he backed Remain☠️ than the lack of evidence around his claim UK special forces are now killing rather than capturing because of the ECHR#r4today
— Ben Quinn (@BenQuinn75) October 1, 2024
Robert Jenrick almost *more* uncomfortable about being reminded he backed Remain☠️ than the lack of evidence around his claim UK special forces are now killing rather than capturing because of the ECHR#r4today
Jenrick defends claim about SAS killing not capturing terrorists due to ECHR, saying his point 'absolutely correct'
This is what Robert Jenrick told the Today programme this morning when Mishal Husain asked him to defend the line in the video he released yesterday where he said: “Our special forces are killing rather than capturing terrorists because our lawyers tell us that if they’re caught, the European court [of human rights] will set them free.”
Husain asked where this was happening.
In response, Jenrick said he was just reflecting what Ben Wallace told the Telegraph last year. (See 8.46am.) Jenrick said:
The point I was making is one that former defense secretary Ben Wallace has made, which is that our human rights apparatus, including the ECHR [European convention on human rights], is encroaching on the battlefield, and it is impacting the decisions that our generals and military decision makers are taking as to what kind of action is required in these difficult situations.
And I think that’s putting an unnecessary and unfair burden upon them when they should be taking the right decisions for our safety as a country.
Husain said Jenrick says special forces “are killing” not capturing terrorists. She asked again if he thought this was happening now. And, again, Jenrick just referred to what Wallace said. Husain tried again at least a couple more times, but just got the same answer.
When she put it to him that he should have chosen his words more carefully, Jenrick said he did not agree. “The point I was making was absolutely correct,” he said.
Husain also pointed out that, although Jenrick was quoting Wallace to defend his point, Wallace in his Telegraph interview explicitly said he was not calling for the UK to leave the ECHR.
Tory leadership rivals turn on Jenrick over claims SAS ‘killing, not capturing, terrorists’
Good morning. In a leadership contest, sometimes the dynamic changes because one candidate has a postive breakthrough moment (like David Cameron did in 2005, when his passionate, no-notes speech to the Tory conference turned him almost overnight into the favourite). But more often the odds shift because someone has messed up. Kemi Badenoch’s campaign faltered this week after her maternity pay gaffe. And now Robert Jenrick, the bookmakers’ favourite, has also made an error serious enough to cost him support.
Yesterday he released a video claiming that that UK special forces are “killing rather than capturing” terrorists because of fears that European laws would free any detained assailants. As Rajeev Syal, Jessica Elgot and Dan Sabbagh report, he has been condemned for saying this by Labour and by figures in the military.
Now fellow leadership candidates are also piling in, saying that he is wrong and suggesting that his comments are maligning special forces.
In an interview on Sky News this morning, Tom Tugendhat, a former soldier, was asked if he agreed with Jenrick that the SAS were killing rather than capturing people because of human rights laws. Tugendhat replied:
No, I don’t. I think what he said is wrong, and I’m afraid demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of military operations and the law of armed conflict.
I’m extremely concerned that such words should not be seen in any way to encourage people to take any action other than surrender to British forces when asked to do so.
I think he’s wrong, and demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding.
And James Cleverly, the former foreign secretary who has also served in the military, also refused to back Jenrick’s claim. Asked on Sky News if Jenrick was right to say the SAS were acting in this way, Cleverly replied:
You’re going to have to ask Robert to justify that statement.
That’s not something which I have heard, that’s not something which I’m comfortable repeating.
As I say, if Robert is able to justify that, I think he should.
The British military always abide by international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict. We have the the most professional military in the world are military. Our military do not murder people.
Jenrick was on the Today programme this morning where he had a difficult time defending what he said. He would not accept that he was wrong, or that he should have chosen his words more carefully, but when asked repeatedly if he was sure the armed forces were “killing rather than capturing” terrorists now because of human rights law, he just repeatedly referred to a Telegraph interview that Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, gave last year where he said:
When we have a threat to the UK, this lunacy of being unable to render people across borders or arrest people in countries whose police forces are unacceptable, means that we are more often than not forced into taking lethal action than actually raiding and detaining.
I will post more from the Jenrick interview soon.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: The Tory conference opens, with sessions on the main stage covering policing, the future generation and policy.
2pm: Robert Jenrick takes part in a Q&A on the main stage at conference.
2pm: Tom Tugendhat takes part in an conversation event at a fringe organised by Onward. At 3.10pm he will doing the same at a Centre for Policy Studies fringe.
3pm: James Cleverly does his Q&A on the main stage.
5pm: Kemi Badenoch takes part in an in conversation event at a fringe meeting with the outgoing Spectator editor, Fraser Nelson.
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Updated
