Badenoch to call Labour policies ‘vandalism’ in firebrand speech

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Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will accuse chancellor Rachel Reeves on Thursday of rolling out “mad and bad ideas”, while deriding some of the Labour government’s plan on schools as “vandalism” and “worse than garbage”.

Badenoch will claim that her party, while in government, stood firm against repeated attempts by Whitehall officials to push proposals to cancel the universal winter fuel payment and close inheritance tax loopholes on farms.

Reeves has pursued both policies “because she has no ideas of her own”, the Tory leader will say.

While Labour’s popularity has collapsed since taking office last July, the Tories have been overtaken in the polls by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which has been bolstered by several low-level Conservative defections.

Under Badenoch, the party has refused to offer policies to counter Labour, saying they will reveal them closer to the next election.

In a speech in central London on Thursday — only her second press conference since taking the reins as party leader two-and-a-half months ago — Badenoch will deploy firebrand language that is fast becoming a signature.

Accusing Labour of failing to adequately plan for government before taking office, she will say: “When you haven’t worked out what you’re going to do in opposition, you will accept whatever you’re given in government. That’s why Rachel Reeves announced mad and bad ideas on snatching winter fuel and taxing family farms.”

Badenoch, a noted critic of the culture of the Civil Service, will add: “Those options were presented to us, time and time again by officials, and we rejected them time and time again because they would hurt so many people for so little benefit.”

Ellie Reeves, Labour chair and the chancellor’s sister, dismissed Badenoch’s planned intervention as “another speech, but no apology for her role in Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-Budget that crashed the economy”.

She said the Conservatives under Badenoch have “nothing to offer”, arguing that the party “haven’t listened and they haven’t learned”.

Badenoch will also turn her ire on Labour’s education policies, declaring: “The schools bill going through parliament now has one or two bits on safeguarding that may be good . . . the rest of it is worse than garbage. It is pure vandalism.”

The Conservatives have already lashed out against education secretary Bridget Phillipson for cancelling reforms introduced by the Tories including granting freedoms to academies.

The opposition party accused the government of backtracking on one element on Wednesday, scrapping a proposal that would have removed academies’ freedom to set teachers’ pay levels.

However, a spokesperson for Phillipson said it was always the government’s plan to allow schools to offer attractive pay offers to recruit and retain staff.

Alleging that Labour “wasted” its time in opposition, Badenoch will say Sir Keir Starmer’s administration has “announced policy without a plan” and keeps “prescribing solutions that are actually making things worse”.

She will seek to style herself as a truth-teller who is willing to admit mistakes, outlining an array of errors made by the last Tory government in which she served, including as business secretary.

The admissions of failure will include announcing the UK would leave the EU before devising a plan for growth outside the bloc and vowing to lower migration levels while presiding over an increase.

The Tories also legislated to reach net zero by 2050, and only afterwards “did we start thinking about how we would do that”, she will add.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey will also deliver a keynote speech on Thursday, in which he will call on the government to negotiate a new UK-EU customs union by 2030, arguing this would allow Britain to “deal with President Trump from a position of strength, not weakness”.

A long-term ambition to rejoin the EU was in the Lib Dems’ manifesto last summer, though Thursday’s speech will be the first time the party has given a specific timeline on rejoining the customs union.

Davey will argue that the “answer cannot be to do what some — like the Leader of the Conservative party — would have us do [and] approach Trump from a position of weakness, go to him cap in hand and beg for whatever trade deal he’ll give us”.

He will also criticise Farage’s approach of “fawning over Trump and licking his boots”.