Badenoch declares herself a classic old-school Conservative

Kemi Badenoch has declared herself a classic old-school Conservative as she opens her party's annual conference with a string of policy pledges and a 100-page statement on her guiding principles. I believe in common sense, people working hard and being rewarded for that effort, she told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg. She added that welfare should be a safety net, not a lifestyle.

The Tory leader is trying to ensure her party stands out in a crowded political field. The Conservatives are trailing Labour and Reform UK in the opinion polls and have yet to recover from their historic defeat at the 2024 general election. Badenoch, whose personal poll ratings are higher than those of her party, has characterised the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, as a grumpy grandpa, and told Laura Kuenssberg that the Labour leader, Andy Burnham, is the cheesy uncle who does all the dad jokes. She described herself as a no-nonsense mum.

Asked whether her plan for benefit cuts and a massive increase in prison places amounted to a return to the nasty party of the past, she said: It's the common sense party. That's what we're doing. And, quite frankly, if we were doing so well the old way, then why did we have such a terrible issue in 2024?

In her essay The Right Way — a deliberate echo of an essay written by Margaret Thatcher in 1976 entitled The Right Approach — Badenoch says the last Conservative government failed because it did not know what it stood for. Despite the party's rhetoric during its 14 years in power, she said, we did little to reverse the structural changes Labour had made which took the country in the wrong direction. The result was that the state grew by stealth.

The essay says the next Conservative government will have one central principle: business, not government, creates growth. The Tories would achieve growth through tax cuts, cutting red tape and reducing the size of the civil service back to pre-pandemic levels, according to the essay. It adds that what is really missing from politics and government today is people prepared to say no. Political parties now need to recruit those who have the stomach to say no to good causes when the resources simply are not there to do everything.

As their conference gets under way in Birmingham, the Conservatives have pledged to end a childcare cliff edge, which currently means parents earning more than £100,000 do not qualify for the entitlement. The party has also promised to deliver 50,000 new prison places by slashing the overseas aid budget to £1bn a year in a bid to end the early release of offenders. Over the 14 years the Conservatives were in power, around 500 net prison places were created, a figure that takes into account 14,142 added in existing and new jails, set against 13,660 lost mainly to dilapidation and closures.

Speaking in the main conference hall, Badenoch sought to make the case that the party had moved on from 2024 and outlined her expectation that the next few days in Birmingham would be a chance for members to discuss their ideas. We're going to be having debates, we're going to have arguments, they are going to be fun, she said. We're going to challenge each other and afterwards we're still going to be a united party.

During a question and answer session, Badenoch focused on different topics covered in her essay, including citizenship and how communities need to operate on trust. She said the UK is not a dormitory, it is not a hotel, before speaking about how British culture means something. To applause in the well-attended hall, Badenoch said: I don't want lots of little ghettos of separatist communities where they are recreating the place they come from — that will ruin the United Kingdom.

Responding, the Labour Party chair, Bridget Phillipson, said the Tory Party is stuck in the past and remains completely out of touch with what people across Britain want to see. Last week Andy Burnham set out a plan to bring back hope to Britain, she said. Kemi Badenoch wants to drag our country back to a politics that let so many people down over the past 40 years.