Politics
Kemi Badenoch faces backlash after comments on ‘excessive’ maternity pay – as it happened | Politics
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.
Key events
Early evening summary
Sunak urges Tories to abandon backbiting and squabbling Sunak defends Tory record in government, but says: ‘We did not get everything right in office’
How Badenoch is trying to quell maternity pay controversy
Tory chair Richard Fuller says review of election should lead to members getting more say over policies and candidates
Badenoch team claims ‘selective quotes’ being used to attack her Badenoch’s maternity pay comments show how ‘hopelessly out of touch’ Tories are, TUC says
Jenrick defends getting cartoon murals covered up at asylum centre
Jenrick says he would abolish Tory candidates list, so members get more control over selections
Jenrick suggests not leaving ECHR increase terrorist risk to UK Jenrick criticises Badenoch’s stance on maternity pay, saying it is already at one of lowest levels for OECD countries
Jenrick says he wants ‘small state that works’, not ‘big state that fails’
Robert Jenrick in Q&A at Centre for Policy Studies fringe
Badenoch confirms she is not opposed to principle of maternity pay, as row over her ‘excessive’ claim escalates Jenrick, Cleverly and Tugendhat reject Badenoch’s stance on maternity pay
Badenoch says maternity pay benefits ‘excessive’
Jenrick says Tory leadership contest should end early, so new leader can be in place to oppose ‘very harmful’ budget
Badenoch says she does not want leadership contest to end early Jenrick claims he has been subject to snobbery in Tory leadership contest because he’s from Midlands
Boris Johnson says it is ‘overwhelmingly likely’ Covid virus was created in Chinese laboratory
Tom Tugendhat backs calls for contest to end early so new Tory leader elected in time for budget
Pat McFadden says Labour will change rules so ministerial hospitality has to be declared in MPs’ register Duffield says she thinks Starmer has problem working with women
Badenoch says NHS should remain free at the point of use for now – but does not rule put system changing eventually
Jenrick says Badenoch’s alternative to his plan for leaving ECHR ‘recipe for infighting and losing public’s trust’
Robert Jenrick says he does not accept cutting immigration will limit economic growth James Cleverly sidesteps questions about whether Israel’s attack on Lebanon crossed red line
Immigrants to UK should ‘love this country and uphold its traditions’, says Badenoch
Badenoch complains about about too many immigrants ‘who hate Israel’ coming to UK
Kemi Badenoch says Israel should be congratulated for attack on Lebanon that killed Hezbollah’s leader Labour plays down Rosie Duffield resignation, as she says ‘revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering’
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.)
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.
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.
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. 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. 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. 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).
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. Helena Horton 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.
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. 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.
Early evening summary
Sunak urges Tories to abandon backbiting and squabbling
Sunak defends Tory record in government, but says: ‘We did not get everything right in office’
How Badenoch is trying to quell maternity pay controversy
Tory chair Richard Fuller says review of election should lead to members getting more say over policies and candidates
Badenoch team claims ‘selective quotes’ being used to attack her
Badenoch’s maternity pay comments show how ‘hopelessly out of touch’ Tories are, TUC says
Politics
Reeves confirms Budget spending deals struck with all departments
Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she has now reached spending settlements with all government departments ahead of her much-anticipated Budget on 30 October.
It comes after reports of Treasury rows with multiple departments over the expected scale of spending cuts.
Reeves told BBC Radio 5’s Matt Chorley she had struck deals with all her cabinet colleagues – and in line with tradition, popped all balloons put up in the Treasury to represent each department’s funding agreement.
While sympathising with “the mess” her colleagues had inherited, Reeves insisted departments needed to find savings to balance the budget.
In recent Budgets, chancellors have adopted the tradition of hanging balloons in the office of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury to represent spending deals that must be negotiated with government departments.
As settlements are reached, the balloons are popped.
In the exclusive interview, Reeves said: “There are no balloons left in the Chief Secretary’s office – the balloons have been burst.”
In the run-up to the Budget there have been growing reports of unease in the Cabinet over the spending cuts needed to meet the Treasury’s target of finding £40bn of savings.
Sky News reported that the Treasury missed its initial 16 October deadline to finalise all major Budget measures for submission to spending watchdog the Office of Budget Responsibility ahead of the Budget.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner who runs the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, as well as Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Transport Secretary Louise Haigh have all been reported as writing to Sir Keir Starmer to complain about the scale of cuts their departments were facing.
Haigh has since told the BBC she did not write a letter, but had been having Budget negotiations with the Treasury “in the normal way”.
Addressing reports colleagues had gone over her head to take their concerns about budget cuts directly to the prime minister, Reeves said, “I wouldn’t believe everything you read” in the media.
But she went on to say it was “perfectly reasonable that Cabinet colleagues set out their case – both to me as chancellor and to the prime minister, about the scale of the challenges that they find in their departments”.
“I’m very sympathetic towards the mess that my colleagues have inherited”, Reeves said.
“But any additional money, in the end, it has to be paid for either by taking money from other departments or raising taxes.”
Taxes on ‘working people’
The Labour manifesto promised not to raise income tax rates, national insurance or VAT to protect “working people”.
Labour also campaigned on a pledge not to “return to austerity” – the programme of deep spending cuts and tax hikes aimed at reducing the UK’s budget deficit pursued by the 2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.
“All of those things mean that we do need to find additional money,” Reeves said.
Reeves admitted this meant she was considering tweaks to “other taxes to ensure the sums add up”.
“We were clear during the election campaign, you can’t undo 14 years of damage in one Budget or in just a few months,” she said.
“It is going to take time to rebuild our public services to ensure that working people are better off and to fix the foundations of our economy and our society as well.”
As she looks to balance the first Labour Budget in 14 years, Reeves admitted she speaks to several major political figures.
“I speak to Gordon regularly – I also speak to Tony Blair regularly,” she said.
She also maintains a “good relationship” with her predecessor Jeremy Hunt, regularly messaging the Conservative shadow chancellor.
“I may not be particularly impressed with the state of the public finances that he left me, but I do recognise that after Kwasi Kwarteng, he had a tough job to do as well,” she said.
The one person she wishes she could “pick up the phone to now” is Alistair Darling, the last Labour chancellor to deliver a Budget – who died last year aged 70.
Lord Darling served in cabinet for 13 years under both Blair and Brown, and was best known as the chancellor who steered the UK through the 2008 financial crisis.
“I hope that he would be proud of what I’m doing as the next Labour chancellor after him,” she said.
Reeves spoke about her pride at being the first female chancellor in the role’s 800-year history.
Becoming chancellor was “beyond what a girl like me, from the ordinary background that I came from, could have ever dreamed of,” Reeves said.
Now in her “dream job”, Reeves said, “one of the wonderful things in the first few months of doing this job is to meet female finance ministers from around the world” – such as US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian finance minister.
“I take a lot of inspiration from those amazing women and so many others,” Reeves said.
Politics
Trump accuses UK’s Labour Party of ‘foreign interference’
Donald Trump’s campaign has filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against the UK’s Labour Party, accusing it of “blatant foreign interference” in the US election in aid of the Harris-Walz campaign.
The complaint cites media reports about contact between Labour and the Harris campaign, as well as apparent volunteering efforts, arguing that this amounts to illegal “contributions”.
The BBC understands that Labour activists campaigning in the US presidential election are doing so in a personal capacity.
The Labour Party has not issued an official response.
Specifically, the complaint cites newspaper reporting that Labour-linked individuals have travelled to the US to campaign for Harris.
That reporting, the complaint alleges, creates a “reasonable inference that the Labour Party has made, and the Harris campaign has accepted, illegal foreign national contributions.”
The letter refers to Washington Post reporting that communications were exchanged between the parties and that senior officials have met in private.
Additionally, the complaint cites a social media post on LinkedIn in which a Labour staff member said that “nearly 100” current and former party members will be headed to battleground states in the US.
The post, from Labour Party head of operations Sofia Patel, added that 10 “spots” are available and that “we will sort your housing”.
It appears to have since been deleted.
The complaint makes comparisons to an international programme in 2016 in which the Australian Labor Party, or ALP, sent delegates to help with Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
In that instance, however, the ALP paid for flights and daily stipends. The party and the campaign were each handed down civil penalties of $14,500.
Labour activists’ trips were not organised or funded by the party, it is understood from party officials.
Foreign nationals are permitted to serve as campaign volunteers as long as they are not compensated, according to FEC rules.
It is considered normal for party officials from the UK to be in contact with counterparts in the US.
It also has taken place previously between the UK’s Conservative Party and US Republicans.
The BBC has contacted the Harris-Walz campaign for comment.
Politics
Starmer warns Russia attacks in Ukraine risk global food security
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has warned that Russia is stepping up attacks on Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea – delaying the export of agricultural produce, including aid intended for Palestinians caught up in the conflict with Israel.
During several days of strikes in early October, Russian weapons hit at least four cargo ships, including one reportedly carrying 6,000 tonnes of corn.
Sir Keir said that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was willing “to gamble on global food security in his attempts to force Ukraine into submission”.
The prime minister’s remarks came as he travels to the Pacific Island of Samoa for a meeting of Commonwealth heads of government.
During several days of strikes, Russian missile strikes on the Odesa region hit a Panamanian-registered ship and a Palau-flagged cargo ship were also attacked, killing one person on-board.
Several people in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia were injured as 29 homes were destroyed and pictures released by regional officials show a giant crater in the mud, with bricks and wood strewn all around.
A wave of strikes on Ukraine’s Black Sea ports coincided with a European tour by President Volodymyr Zelensky – who visited leaders in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin.
But Sir Keir pointed out the increasing number of Russian attacks coincided with harvest season.
Despite the war, Ukraine is still a significant supplier of agricultural goods.
But British intelligence suggests a growth in what officials call Russian “risk appetite” when attacking Ukrainian ports – with grain ships becoming what is described as “collateral damage” in Russia’s campaign.
Sir Keir said the “indiscriminate attacks” were “harming millions of vulnerable people across Africa, Asia and the Middle East”.
According to Ukrainian figures, more than 20 civilian ships have now been damaged in Russian attacks since the start of the war in 2022.
Grain silos and other port infrastructure have been badly damaged too.
However, Ukraine has succeeded in creating a maritime corridor to ensure the safety of grain exports, after Moscow pulled out of a Black Sea grain deal last year.
Some 962,000 tonnes of grain were exported in the first ten days of October, according to the agriculture ministry in Kyiv – double the volume shipped in the same period last year.
Speaking to journalists travelling with him to Samoa, Sir Keir said Russia’s recent recruitment of troops from North Korea was “an embarrassing and desperate act.
On Tuesday, the British government announced that it would give Ukraine an extra £2.26bn using the profits from Russian assets held in Europe.
The one-off payment is an addition to £3bn already pledged by the government to fund Ukraine’s war effort.
So far, the UK has given more than £12bn in military aid and has promised to match that level of support in the future.
Announcing the funding, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said it showed the UK’s support for Ukraine was “unwavering and will remain for as long as it takes”.
Politics
Kemi Badenoch hits back at Robert Jenrick’s ‘disrespectful’ jibe
Kemi Badenoch has hit back at her Tory leadership rival Robert Jenrick’s claim that her decision not to set out detailed policies was “disrespectful” to the party’s membership.
Speaking to Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, Badenoch said she would not use that word about another candidate and that everyone had “their own campaign approach”.
“If this was a general election, yes, it would be wrong to be standing with no policies. This is not a general election,” she told Nick Robinson.
She added: “He [Jenrick] doesn’t know what he’s going to be standing on in four years’ time.”
Jenrick stood by his criticism in an interview with BBC Radio 5’s Matt Chorley.
“Kemi and I disagree on this point. I believe you have to start with principles and values, but I think that is not enough. You also have to have policies.”
He argued that the public were “deeply sceptical” of politicians and the best way to win them back was to set out policies and “lay out the trade-offs”.
“The age of policy-free politics is over,” he said, adding that it was “wrong” to ask party members to support you “on the basis of a plan for tomorrow”.
During the leadership campaign, Jenrick has said he wants to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, encourage housebuilding and oppose Labour’s plans on reaching net-zero carbon emissions.
Defending her approach, Badenoch said the party members know what her principles are. She said she would take time to design policies adding: “We have time, we don’t need to rush.”
She said she did not want to make promises “unless I know how I am going to deliver it”.
Earlier in the week, Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour: “I think it’s disrespectful to the members and the public to ask for their votes without saying where you stand on the big issues facing our country today.”
Conservative Party members are currently voting between the two candidates and a result is due on 2 November.
Unlike her rival, Badenoch has not done many media appearances, however in a wide-ranging interview she spoke to Nick Robinson about her thoughts on net-zero, immigration and Covid lockdowns.
On the environment, she said she was a “net-zero sceptic” but not “a climate change sceptic”.
She said she did not want to do something “because it looks good” and “before we figured out how to do it”.
She pointed to speeches she had made in Parliament on subject asking: “Lot’s of schoolchildren will be very happy, but where is the plan?”
She added: “Is net-zero a solution or is it a slogan… I am not sure we have properly thought that through.”
On immigration, she said “numbers matter but culture matters more”.
For several years, Conservative politicians have promised to get down the numbers coming into the country, but immigration has continued to rise, hitting record levels in 2022.
Badenoch said there should be a cap on numbers but it was also important to ensure those arriving “love British culture”.
Asked how the government should decide this, Badenoch said it was important to establish from which countries “successful migrants” were coming from.
“We should be getting to a point where we can say we’re happy to take more from countries A, B and C and for countries X, Y and Z, we’re going to have stricter rules.”
During the coronavirus pandemic, Badenoch was a Treasury minister. She said she would not apologise for spending “a lot” during Covid but added: “I think we just overran it to the point where it made inflation worse than it needed to be.”
She also said she thought the government “overdid it in terms of the length of lockdown”.
“There was a King Canute sort of situation. I thought that we were trying to do too much, that this was where government was overstretching itself and we weren’t trusting people enough.
“The biggest thing I hated was the fixed penalty notices.”
The notices were issued by the police to people who breached Covid rules, resulting in fines of between £200 and £10,000.
Both Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the prime minister and chancellor during the pandemic, were issued with fines for breaching the regulations.
Badenoch said: “If Boris did not bring in those fixed penalty notices, he would not have had the Partygate scandal, certainly not to the extent that it was… he got caught in a trap that he had set for himself.”
She said Conservatives had “strayed away” from their principles of freedom.
Asked about her own leadership style, Badenoch said she aspired to be a “fun” leader and would try to bring some “humour” and “light-heartedness” to her approach.
“I think that we’ve been very gloomy. We’re not the gloomy party. We are actually quite an optimistic and fun party and I want to bring that out.”
Reflecting on her own background, she compared finding out that she was a British citizen to “finding out that you’d won the lottery”.
Badenoch explained that because she was born in Nigeria, a Commonwealth country, before a 1983 rule change, she qualified to be British – something she only found out when she was 14 years old.
She said there was a “very unpleasant sort of ethno-nationalist anti-Kemi wing” who called her an “anchor baby” – a term used in the United States to refer to people who ensure their children are born in the country in order to gain residency.
Badenoch was born in the UK because her mother had come to get medical care at a private hospital, but she said that is not why she qualifies as a British citizen.
Politics
‘Extreme wealth’ tax demanded by cross-party MPs
A dozen Labour MPs have joined a cross-party call for an “extreme wealth” tax in this month’s Budget.
The MPs have written to chancellor Rachel Reeves to demand a new 2% tax on assets worth more than £10m, which they claim could raise £24 billion per year.
The left wing Labour MPs and two Labour peers have joined forces with MPs suspended by Sir Keir Starmer, including former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, and former leader Jeremy Corybn, who was elected as an independent.
The call is also backed by the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the SDLP, Alliance and one Liberal Democrat MP.
The Labour Party has been asked for comment.
The chancellor is finalising details of her first Budget, to be announced on Wednesday 30 October. Government sources have told the BBC this will include tax rises and spending cuts to the value of £40bn.
In their letter to Reeves, the 30 MPs and peers say an extreme wealth tax is needed as billionaire wealth has increased by almost £150bn in only two years, between 2020 and 2022, but revenue from wealth taxes has remained stagnant at around 3.4%.
One of the MPs, Zarah Sultana, who represents Coventry South, flagged Oxfam research showing the richest 1% of Britons hold more wealth than 70% of the UK population.
“Austerity is, and always has been, a political choice,” she said. “It is grossly unfair that children and pensioners are being pushed into poverty while billionaire wealth continues to grow.
“We urgently need wealth taxes to rebalance power, fund essential public services and build a society where the needs of the many take precedence over the greed of a few.”
Reeves told the party’s autumn conference there would be “no return to austerity” under this government and promised a boost to government investment, designed to kickstart growth.
The MPs are also asking Reeves to equalise capital gains tax (CGT) and income tax rates in her budget.
They say this would “rectify unfairness in the tax system, where working people are subject to proportionately higher rates of tax”, and raise £16.7bn per year.
At the election, Labour promised not to increase taxes on “working people”, covering VAT (value added tax), income tax or National Insurance (NI), which limits the levers the chancellor can pull to bring cash in.
However, there has been speculation Reeves could increase CGT – charged on profits from the sale of assets like second homes – and also freeze the income tax threshold beyond 2028, potentially dragging more workers into the higher tax bands.
Sir Keir Starmer also did not rule out a National Insurance increase for employers in a BBC interview last week.
Reeves has already taken one unpopular decision, to remove winter fuel payments from 10m wealthier pensioners, which led to a rebellion by seven Labour MPs.
Sultana is one of five MPs who signed the wealth tax letter and who are currently suspended from the Labour Party for voting against the winter fuel payment cuts.
Some observers also wonder if the rebels, who were suspended for six months in July, may decide to team up with Corbyn’s independent group in January rather than re-join Labour.
The Labour rebels have teamed up with four of the smaller Westminster parties, including Wales’ Plaid Cymru and Northern Ireland’s SDLP and Alliance groups, plus all four Green Party MPs.
Green co-leader Carla Denyer called on Reeves to reconsider Labour’s decision to ditch its £28bn green investment pledge earlier this year, and invest more in public sevices.
“We cannot afford to have another government of spending cuts and economic hardship,” she said.
“Labour’s first Budget must take a resolute step to ensure that those with extreme, unprecedented levels of wealth help foot the bill.”
Politics
Sinn Féin leaders correct age of teen texted by senator on record
Michelle O’Neill has corrected the record at Stormont regarding the age of the teenage boy who received inappropriate texts from the former Irish Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile.
On Monday, the first minister and Sinn Féin deputy leader told the Northern Ireland Assembly that party membership files said the boy was 17 at the time.
But the young person had said he was 16 years old.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has also corrected the record officially in the Dáil (lower house of Irish parliament).
On Tuesday, O’Neill told the assembly she “fully accepted” the age and wanted to correct the information on the record.
She said it was her understanding that the young person was 17 based on the information he had provided in his application to join Sinn Féin.
She also repeated her apology to him saying she was “absolutely so sorry for the hurt caused” by the party’s statement issued following Mr Ó Donnghaile’s resignation in December 2023.
O’Neill had been facing calls to return to the assembly after the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) submitted an urgent question.
She is also being asked to return to Stormont’s executive office committee on Wednesday for further questioning, but this has not yet been confirmed.
McDonald came to the Dáil on Tuesday to correct the record in which she previously stated the young person was 16 and apologised for her words.
“I have now written to the young person and his mother offering a full, unequivocal and sincere apology,” she said.
“What happened to this young person was wrong, Niall Ó Donnghaile’s behaviour was unacceptable, utterly inappropriate, and no young person should have experienced that.”
McDonald apologises
The Sinn Féin leader also said she was “very sorry” for the hurt the words in her statement following Mr Ó Donnghaile’s resignation.
“That was never, ever my intention, and I apologize to that young person,” she added.
McDonald said it was her understanding the teenager was 17 years old at the time of the incident “because of the information provided on his application, formally applied to join Ográ Sinn Fein, that information was wrong,” Ms McDonald said.
“The young person themselves have made clear that he was in fact 16 at the time, so I want to correct the Dáil record to reflect that he was in fact 16 years of age when the text was sent.”
How did we get here?
Sinn Féin has faced criticism over the last week for its handling of the suspension and resignation of Mr Ó Donnghaile.
Mr Ó Donnghaile, a former Belfast lord mayor, was suspended by Sinn Féin over the issue but the party allowed him to resign on health grounds in 2023 without revealing the complaint against him.
Calls for clarity on the teenager’s age came following a Sunday Independent article where the boy said he was 16 at the time the texts were sent and not 17 as McDonald and O’Neill had previously said.
The message is believed to have been personal in nature but not sexually explicit.
The party has also been questioned over its safeguarding policies after two former press officers gave references to former colleague and convicted child sex offender Michael McMonagle.
On Monday, it emerged that a Sinn Féin employee had resigned after admitting involvement in an incident where a portrait of former DUP lord mayor Lord Browne was damaged.
Speaking at Stormont on Tuesday, the first minister said the employee was “immediately suspended” and the police have been notified.
On Monday evening, McDonald said Sinn Féin accepted the boy’s own account that he was 16 at the time.
“The person knows their age so obviously Michelle [O’Neill] is right, the party records did indicate that he was 17, it was on his application form for membership,” McDonald said.
“But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that we respond fully to the young person in question and what matters is that the Dáil record is accurate and I will attend to both of those matters tomorrow.”
A Sinn Féin spokesperson said the party record of the boy’s age was “based on the date of birth that [he] provided on his membership documents at the time”.
The spokesperson said it had “since emerged” that the boy was 16 years old.
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