Afternoon summary
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has opened her party’s conference by publishing a short book setting out her political philosophy. As the Press Association reports, a major line of thought throughout Badenoch’s new political bible appears to be that government should not spread its resources too thinly, but should be strong in the areas in which “the state is required”: defence, borders, public order, the rule of law and essential infrastructure. Badenoch told the conference:
There is always an emergency. There is always a good reason to spend government money or time on something, but we don’t have unlimited resources. Government is about making tough choices, deciding how you will spread your resources, what you are going to focus your time on.
The “fundamental analysis” at the heart of the document is that government needs to create the conditions for economic growth, and then get out of the way to allow businesses “the freedom to grow our economy”, the Tory leader added.
Damian Green, the former first secretary of state, has told a fringe meeting that revising the pensions triple lock to make it less generous makes sense. He said:
The mechanical straitjacket of the traditional triple lock seems to me no longer desirable.
And, of course, you have to look at the consequences for the public finances for everything we’re discussing - as we have a population more and more skewed towards those receiving the state pension, then it will become inexorably more expensive.
So tax cuts, or desirable spending on, which I’m sure people in this room would like, on things like defence, become that much more difficult [if the triple lock stays].
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Adrian Ramsay, the former co-leader of the Greens, has issued this statement about today’s vote.
I am deeply saddened the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion has passed. It doesn’t reflect Green principles or my own view.
The Green Party has long supported the principle of self-determination, and I stand by our 2024 manifesto commitment of equal rights of Israelis and Palestinians.
Zarah Sultana, the Your Party MP, agrees with Green party activists about Zionism. She has posted this on social media.
Zionism is racism
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Community Security Trust and Jewish Leadership Council wrote a joint letter to the Green party before today’s vote saying that, if the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion were to pass, the party would place itself “on the extreme margins of democratic politics”.
The Lib Dem MP Tim Farron says Green party members unhappy about the ‘Zionism is racism’ vote are welcome to join his party.
That the antisemitic entryists who have captured the Green Party, are being antisemitic, is no surprise. That the Party Leader skipped this vote and failed to use his authority to argue against them, is an astonishing act of weakness. Real Greens are welcome in the Lib Dems…
Tories claim Green party's 'Zionism is racism' vote shows it's 'toxic to its core'
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has issued this statement on behalf of the Conservative party about the Greens’ ‘Zionism is racism’ vote. He said:
British Jews should not have to disclaim a belief in Jewish self-determination and the existence of Israel in order to be accepted by a British political party.
One look beneath the surface of Zack Polanski’s Green party shows a party toxic to its core. It is clear the Green party cannot bring itself to stand unambiguously against those who hate Jews.
Here is some more on the Green party vote from journalists and commentators.
From the Guardian’s Jessica Elgot
It’s hard to see how the Green party’s motion today will avoid an investigation by the EHRC, given Labour was previously found in breach.
From Adam Ramsay, the writer, journalist and Green party member
My brother just rang with a basic point: if you take the subjectivity of marginalised people seriously, then you have to accept the right of Palestinians to name the oppression they experience. Once we do that, it’s clear that Zionism is racism.
From Lee Harpin from Jewish News
Senior party sources now admitted the Greens have been a plunged into chaos. Polanski and MPs way too late and weak in trying to oppose Zionism motion. New policy puts GPEW totally out of step with policy on ME elsewhere in Europe
Here is the text of the Green party’s motion.
This is from Paul Ovenden, the former director of political strategy for Keir Starmer in No 10, on the Green party’s vote.
Last week, the Green Party were offered the biggest opportunity they’ve ever had, in the shape of electoral reform. Today, they’ve made it impossible for them to be accommodated in any administration.
The Green party has sent out an updated news release saying that the statement issued by the five MPs earlier saying is there “no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people” has now also been endorsed by Zack Polanski, the Green leader, and Rachel Millward and Mothin Ali, the two co-deputy leaders.
Earlier I described the statement as the five MPs implicitly disassociating themselves from the motion. (See 3.53pm.) Given that Ali has now backed it, it would be fair to conclude any implict criticism is quite well hidden; Ali was in favour of the motion.
This is from Daniel Sugerman, deputy editor of Jewish News, on the statement issued this afternoon by the five Green party MPs.
This is like saying “we will never tolerate fire” as your house goes up in flames behind you.
Rachel Millward, the co-deputy leader of the Green party, has issued this statement about the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion. She was opposed to it.
Updated
David Wolfson, the Tory peer and shadow attorney general, has written an open letter to the two Green members of the House of Lords (Jenny Jones and Natalie Bennett) urging them to publicly condemn the Zionism motion passed by their party conference. He says:
British Jews are your neighbours, fellow citizens and parliamentary colleagues. We should not have to disclaim a belief in Jewish self-determination in order to avoid being branded racist by a British political party.
All 5 Green MPs issue statement implicitly disassociating them from 'Zionism is racism' motion
The five Green party MPs – Ellie Chowns, Adrian Ramsay, Siân Berry, Carla Denyer and Hannah Spencer – have issued a joint statement insisting that there is “no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people”. It will be seen as an attempt to disassociate themselves from the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion their conference has just passed.
The statement says:
As Green MPs, we will always uphold universal human rights.
We will never tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment.
We will continue to stand in opposition to genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and the illegal occupation.
We will continue to call out the heinous crimes of the Netanyahu government.
And we will continue to work to ensure that the Green party is an anti-racist party in every way.
We know there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people.
Greens' Zionism motion 'antisemitic in formulation and intention', says Progressive Judaism
The Movement for Progressive Judaism, which is one of the main Jewish denominations in the UK, has issued a statement condemning the Green party’s vote. It is from its co-leaders, Rabbi Charley Baginsky and Rabbi Josh Levy.
Here is an extract.
The Movement for Progressive Judaism condemns the Green Party’s adoption of the motion ‘Zionism is Racism’. The motion is antisemitic in its formulation and intention. By adopting it, the Green Party has made antisemitism party policy and become a racist party.
Jewish self-determination is a right. Declaring it racist is an attack on Jews. The Green party has chosen to brand Jews who hold this belief as racists and make their equal participation in the party conditional on renouncing it.
The Green party would not presume to tell other minorities what their identity means and then use that definition to exclude them. Jews are entitled to the same respect. The party cannot impose its own meaning on a central part of Jewish identity, declare it racist and demand that Jews renounce it.
Israeli foreign ministry condemns Green party vote as 'stain on history of UK'
The Israeli foreign ministry has issued a statement condemning the Green party in the light of today’s vote, Tom Scotson from the Sun reports.
In the statement, the foreign ministry said:
The shocking resolution adopted today legitimises armed struggle, calls for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” - meaning the destruction of the State of Israel - and labels as “racist” the aspiration of the Jewish people for self-determination.
This goes far beyond the boundaries of legitimate political debate. As long as this resolution remains in place, it will stand as a stain on the history of the United Kingdom.
Green spokesperson says party remains opposed to racism 'in all its forms' after Zionism vote
Commenting on the conference vote, a Green party spokesperson said:
This has been a serious and deeply felt debate within our membership. Our members value the ability to bring forward and decide party policy, and conference has now made its decision.
The Green party is an anti-racist party and has consistently opposed the illegal occupation of both Palestinian and Syrian land, called for an end to arms sales to the Israeli government and spoken out fearlessly about the devastating situation in Gaza and the West Bank.
Those positions remain central to our approach. So too does our deeply-held commitment to equality, justice and human rights for all, and opposition to racism in all its forms.
Here is Peter Walker’s story on the Green party conference vote on ‘Zionism is racism’.
Related: Green party votes to adopt policy that equates Zionism with racism
Here are some more comments from journalists about the Green party’s conference vote.
From Jack Parker at Sky News
Lots of members were speaking to genuinely seem torn over how they voted - consensus is the debate was handled sensitively in the hall
One member tells me she expects the party to be EXPELLED from the European Greens if the motion passes, as she expected it will
European Greens have a commitment to equality and non-discrimination in their charter
BREAKING: Green Party adopts Zionism is Racism motion 1022 votes for, 813 votes against
Landmark moment in British politics as Greens formally declare themselves an anti-Zionist party
From Sabrina Miller
The Greens have PASSED Zionism is Racism
1022 votes for
813 against
Result met with cheers and waving of Palestinian flags.
Miller has posted this video of reaction at the conference.
From Faye Brown at Sky News
The Zionism is Racism motion has officially passed by 1022-813 votes, and 10 spoiled ballots. That’s a tiny fraction of the overall membership of the Greens which stands at ~230k.
Lee Harpin from Jewish News has posted on social media footage of some Green party activists celebrating the passing of the ‘Zionism is racism’ vote.
Green activists pass 'Zionism is racism' conference motion
Green party activists have passed the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion at their conference, Peter Walker reports.
Greens for Palestine say their “Zionism is racism” motion has passed at Green conference. This could be a big problem for the party, not least as four of the party’s five MPs have spoken out strongly against it, while Zack Polanski has (sort of) endorsed it. Some, not all, Jewish members worried.
I’m told by a delegate is has passed - 1,022 votes for the motion, 813 against. While the Greens love their direct democracy model, it does mean policy risks being set by the small minority who can be arsed to (and can afford to) go to conference.
The shadow cabinet minister to speak at the Tory conference today was Alex Burghart, the deputy leader. He claimed the Conservatives were the only party fully committed to the UK union.
He said:
In the 1970s, our predecessors had to find a way out of the mess that Labour had made, and they started with our principles.
If we do that again, we can rescue the whole of the United Kingdom. We can begin to rebuild national unity around a common desire for prosperity.
We are the only party that can do that. We are the only party that consistently stands up for the union. Labour won’t do it. They are the architects of devolve and forget. We are the only party that will not let the separatists off the hook.
Tories criticised for proposing to cut UK aid spending to £1bn a year, in line with Reform UK's policy
On Friday night, ahead of the conference, the Tories announced what they described as “a radical plan to build 50,000 new, additional prison places”. They said they would spend £2bn a year on the programme, which would increase jail capacity by more than 50%.
Explaining how they would fund the plans, the Conservative party said some of the money would come from cutting the aid budget by £2.5bn a year. It said:
We will save a further £2.5bn a year, on top of plans announced at Conservative conference 2025, by taking the aid budget down to £1bn a year. We will reduce the DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport department] budget by £1bn a year, unwinding a £700m increase planned by Labour, and making further savings from wasteful spending so taxpayers’ money is always protected. We will save half a billion a year by cutting the Cabinet Office Communications Consultancy spend. Labour are spending large sums on PR including highly questionable spend on social media ‘influencers’. Much of this is not good value for taxpayers.
Last year the Tories announced that they would cut the aid spending by £7bn a year. The party has already said how it would spend those savings. These latest cuts would go even further, reducing overall aid spending to just £1bn. In 2023 it was £15bn.
This is another example (see 9am) of the Conservatives copying a Reform UK policy. Nigel Farage says his party would cap overseas aid spending at £1bn.
Commenting on the cuts, Romilly Greenhill, CEO of Bond, a network representing aid charities, said:
The Conservative party’s short term decision to cut UK aid to solve fiscal and domestic pressures is a false economy - that would leave us all, at home and abroad, paying a higher price down the line. We would be left unable to fight the global threats of conflict, disease and climate crisis that drive extreme poverty and inequality, increase insecurity and push up costs for communities in the UK and across the world.
This decision would also irreparably damage the UK’s reputation and credibility, leaving us isolated at a moment where strong international partnerships and cooperation are more important than ever.
In Birmingham, the main Conservative party proceedings are just getting underway. They start with the national anthem.
One of the highlights of the Tory conference is a spoof Bayeux Tapestry on display in the exhibition hall. Called the Birmingham Tapestry, it features Kemi Badenoch as the victor, with joke references to some of her opponents. This morning it was the most popular exhibit at the conference.
Here are three of the events it chronicles.
How 'Zionism is racism' motion has split Green party
Aletha Adu is a Guardian political correspondent.
Splits in the Green party over the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion being debated today have gone right to the top of the party.
Green party co-deputy leader Mothin Ali said he would “absolutely” support the proposals, which would declare the Green party anti-Zionist and state that Zionism should be treated as a form of racism.
But his fellow deputy leader, Rachel Millward, has described the proposals in their unamended form as “problematic” and said she would not support them without changes intended to protect Jewish members.
Zack Polanski, who left on Friday afternoon to campaign in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, has sought to steer a path between the competing sides.
Polanski, who is Jewish and describes himself as anti-Zionist, has angered some senior Green colleagues by backing amendments including protections intended to ensure Jewish members are not treated differently because they belong to institutions or synagogues that identify as Zionist.
Speaking to the Guardian shortly after his leader’s speech on Friday, Polanski said the debate over Zionism was “not my priority”. He has also sought to move the argument away from defining Zionism and towards what he regards as concrete action on Israel and Palestine.
The motion has attracted significant support among the party’s rapidly expanding membership. Ali said his support was rooted in the proposals’ references to genocide, ethnic cleansing and ethno-nationalism. He said:
It talks about genocide, it talks about ethnic cleansing, it talks about ethno-nationalism. Anyone who believes in that, I think that is a racist ideology.
Millward has taken a markedly different position, stressing that the proposals originated with members rather than the leadership. “This didn’t come from leadership, it’s not part of a strategic direction,” she said, adding that there were “a lot of different opinions” within the party.
Other senior Greens, including Caroline Lucas, the former leader, and Adrian Ramsay and Carla Denyer, both former co-leaders, have also said they oppose the proposals. (See 8.42am.)
One senior Green, who declined to take a position before seeing the final wording and amendments, said they were proud that such a contentious proposal was being considered alongside 148 others, describing this as part of being a “mass movement party”.
They stressed that any vote would not necessarily represent the end of the party’s discussions on Zionism and Israel and Palestine.
Supporters hope the proposals could eventually make the Greens what some members describe as the “western world’s first major anti-Zionist party”.
The party’s Jewish membership is itself divided. Jewish Greens has declined to take an official position after surveying its members.
Of the 108 respondents who answered its question on political identity, 81% said they did not identify as Zionist. However, 53% agreed that passing the proposals could make discrimination against Jews within the Green party more likely, while 68% expressed concern about the potential impact on the party’s electoral prospects.
Updated
Badenoch likened to Thatcher by supporters as she sets out her core beliefs
According to the Conservative party, these are the core principles set out in Kemi Badenoch’s The Right Way document setting out her philosophy. The party says:
At the heart of The Right Way are a series of principles which will guide the next Conservative government:
-Wealth must be created before it can be distributed
-Freedom requires responsibility
-Rules need consequences or they will be flouted
-A government should be judged on what it achieves, not what it intended
-It should be strong where only the state can act, and restrained where people are better placed to decide for themselves
Like any author with a book to plug, Badenoch has been soliciting positive quotes from celebrity figures likely to praise it. In their news release, the Tories have published glowing endorsements for the document from three rightwing historians (Andrew Roberts, Niall Ferguson and Robert Tombs), the former Tory cabinet minister Peter Lilley, the political philosopher John Gray and the Times columnist Juliet Samuel.
Many of them implicitly or explicitly compare Badenoch to Margaret Thatcher. For example, this is from Roberts.
Kemi Badenoch has laid down the gauntlet with this concise, hard-hitting and well-researched book, with its unmistakeable echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s own personal set of beliefs. Underlying political philosophies have historically always mattered much more than mere day-to-day policy-making, because they show which politicians have a star to guide by, and thus the capacity for true statesmanship. With this book - clearly the product of profound thought - Ms Badenoch has set out the battle lines between the open, entrepreneurial economics of the future and Mr Burnham’s collectivist economics of the 1970s.
And this is from Lilley, who served in cabinet under Thatcher.
The Right Way is an immensely important document – as crucial as was Margaret Thatcher’s The Right Approach, as a stepping stone to government equipped to achieve national renewal.
This is from Megan Kenyon at the New Statesman, who is covering the ‘Zionism is racism’ debate at the Green party’s conference.
Green Party members are currently debating the zionism is racism motion in Brighton’s conference centre.
I understand the Green Party’s leader in Parliament Ellie Chowns is currently speaking against the motion on behalf of all the party’s MPs
Tories say lifting earnings cap for free childcare would cost £700m, funded by quango job cuts
In her interview on the BBC this morning, Kemi Badenoch played down the costs of her proposal to lift the earnings cap on parents eligible to claim free childcare. Asked if it was right that people earning more than £1m a year should benefit, she said the number of parents in this category with small children was negligible. (See 9.20am.)
Badenoch may be right about this, but that does not mean her policy is necessarily cheap. According to the Tories, it would cost £700m per year.
In a briefing, they point out that the free childcare policy can be worth as much as £20,000 per child in some areas.
This is how the Conservative party explains its costing.
The policy is estimated to cost £700 million per year, based on analysis from the Centre for the Analysis of Taxation of the cost of removing the cliff edge for free childcare hours. The policy announced today includes removing the cliff edge for tax-free childcare as well, meaning slightly higher costs than those cited by CenTax. (CenTax, Removing the £100,000 childcare cliff-edge: Impacts and cost of reform, 10 September 2026, link).
Other analysis has estimated that the behavioural response to the policy could be sufficient to actually make it net revenue neutral or even a small revenue raising policy. Modelling by the Centre for British Progress estimated that the policy could increase overall receipts by between £130m and £425m in 2029-30. We have cautiously taken a more conservative approach and assume a net fiscal cost. (Centre for British Progress, Rates and wrongs: fixing UK tax cliff edges and tapers, 25 March 2026, link).
The Tories say they would pay for this by cutting the number of officials working for quangos. The party is already committed to cutting the size of the civil service back down to what it was at the time of the Brexit vote in 2016, and it has already banked the money it would save from this. Now it says cutting quango staff numbers to 2016 levels would save £1.6bn by 2029-30. In line with the party’s “golden rule” for deficit reduction, half of this would go towards cutting debt, and the other half would fund the childcare pledge.
Justice secretary Alex Norris unable to say how many prisoners released early have been tagged
Alex Norris, the justice secretary, has been unable to say how many prisoners freed early from jail have been tagged, the Press Association reports. PA says:
Officials said there was a presumption that all criminals released early would be fitted with GPS tags, but Norris said it was “too soon” to have the numbers.
The first wave of releases began on Thursday, with nearly 5,000 prisoners set to be freed in stages over the next year as the Sentencing Act 2026 comes into force.
Asked how many of those released so far had been tagged, Norris told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “I don’t have that figure today, it only happened on Thursday.
“You know, there can be a bit of a lag.
“We don’t have that number. But you know, we’re very candid about who’s leaving prison and when they do.”
Asked if he knew if released domestic abusers have been tagged or not, he said: “It would be too soon to know that, as it was only on Thursday.
“We’ve been talking to every victim to to offer them the chance to say what controls they’d like to see over that individual.”
He added: “I’m well aware of the past in tagging. Over the last year, performance has increased significantly.”
Here is the latest from the Green party conference, and the debate on the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion. This is from Lee Harpin from Jewish News.
So, currently a card vote taking place inside the hall on a motion that calls for toning down of some of the language of the Zionism motion in terms of what sort of solution should be found for Palestinians. Then Sam Alston of Jewish Greens will address the conference arguing the case for the passing of an amendment on safeguarding UK Jews.
David Gauke says Badenoch wrong to say contributory principle makes ditching pensions triple lock unreasonable
In her interview with Laura Kuenssberg, Kemi Badenoch argued that it would be wrong to get rid of the current version of the pensions triple lock because pensioners had contributed to the welfare system. (See 9.43am.)
She has used this line before. In posts on social media yesterday, David Gauke, the former Tory justice secretary, explained why he thought this argument was bogus.
The “contribution” argument on the triple lock is a poor. For a start, it is very hard for anyone living during their working life not to meet the contributory requirements. And in any event, this entitles you to receive a pension, not to uprating under a specific formula.
Anyone paying taxes/“making a contribution” from 1980 to 2011 did so in a period when pensions rose in line with inflation. No one can claim that they “contributed” over this period in the expectation that the state pension would rise in accordance with the triple lock.
The benefits system does to a limited extent reward people who have contributed more to the system through national insurance. Some politicians have argued that the contributory principle should be beefed up. If this is what Kemi Badenoch favours, then ironically she is aligning herself with Keir Starmer, who briefly explored this idea when he was in opposition. ThinkLabour, a Starmerite thinktank, also published a paper on the topic last year.
This is from Lee Harpin from Jewish News, who is at the Green party conference in Brighton but not allowed into the hall for the policy debate on the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion. The Greens always restrict the sessions debating policy to party members.
Inside the Brighton Centre we are now in the farcical situation whereby the hugely controversial debate on whether Zionism is racism is taking place at Greens conference. But the media is banned from covering it inside. It’s a members only thing apparently.
Greens express concern that, despite Labour's U-turn, some suspects will still lose right to jury trial
The Greens have also described the Labour U-turn on limiting access to jury trials as a victory for their campaigning. (See 8.22am.) But they are concerned that, even under the new proposals announced today, some suspects who can currently opt for a jury trial will lose that right.
Siân Berry, the Green party’s home affairs spokesperson, said:
This is a victory for justice and fairness, and is yet another concession from the prime minister to Green pressure - as Zack said at conference: ‘vote Green and watch Labour move.’
Greens in parliament argued so hard for these clauses to be removed from the courts and tribunals bill, and my proposals to preserve jury trials and the freedom of juries to acquit, were voted down time and time again in the public bill committee I sat on. Finally, Labour has seen sense.
However we need urgent clarification from the Government on the crucial issue of precisely which cases may still have the right to jury trial removed by a judge who is given what the government calls ‘a final say’. If the reference to ‘relatively minor cases’ means all either-way offences, this still potentially removes the right to trial by jury from all protest cases and all cases of alleged theft. This would remain a major erosion of the right to jury trial through the back door.
In interviews this morning, Alex Norris, the justice secretary, has said he will give full details of the changes he is making to the bill when the Commons returns after the conference recess.
Badenoch publishes The Right Way, 100-page guide to her political philosophy
Kemi Badenoch has published a 100-page guide to her political philosophy. It is called The Right Way, and it is in part modelled on a pamphlet published by the Tories soon after Margaret Thatcher became leader in the 1970s. That one was called The Right Approach and drafted by Keith Joseph.
In her foreword, Badenoch says that the 30,000-word booklet is not a policy document; it is a statement of principle.
She explains.
In February 2026, the former head of MI6, Sir Alex Younger, addressed the Conservative parliamentary party. When I interviewed him on stage, he started with a warning: once you are in government, there is no time to construct first principles. If you have not worked out how you think before the crises arrive, you end up reacting to them one by one.
This is where the last Conservative governments went wrong, before they went wrong about anything else. We do not intend to make this mistake again. The Right Way is our answer to the challenge the now late Sir Alex Younger posed.
Good government enters office knowing how it thinks. A manifesto full of suggested policies for current, visible problems is not enough. Many problems a government ends up dealing with are not known at the time of the election. What is essential for success is a settled way of approaching the problems nobody predicted, how to recognise trade-offs, what government should do itself, what it should leave alone, and how to decide when circumstances, and indeed the world, change.
In her interview with the Times yesterday, Kemi Badenoch said she regarded Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, as a “grumpy grandpa”.
Asked what equivalent label she would apply to Andy Burnham and to herself, Badenoch told Laura Kuenssberg:
Andy Burnham is the cheesy uncle. I think he’s the cheesy uncle who does all the dad jokes. And what am I? Someone else has to do that. It’s very difficult.
Pressed to give an answer, she replied:
They probably see me, you know, as the no-nonsense mum. No nonsense, [that’s] probably me.
Badenoch defends arguing cheating significant problem in benefits system
Kemi Badenoch repeatedly claims the benefits system is being abused. But, when Laura Kuensseberg asked her how many people she thought were cheating the system, she did not give a figure.
Badenoch replied:
I don’t have exact figures for you, but what we have seen is an explosion in the number of people who are claiming for low-level, conditions … ADHD, anxiety. These are conditions that work would actually help them with. We are seeing because of the stopping of face-to-face assessments during Covid for understandable reasons.
People have worked out how to game the system. I don’t believe that that’s right.
When Kuenssberg pressed her again for an estimate, Badenoch could not give one. But she said her team would supply Kuenssberg with a figure later.
Kuenssberg said that, if Badenoch was talking about benefit claims being bogus, people were entitled to know if she was talking about a tiny number, or 20/30%.
Badenoch replied:
I’ll give you I’ll give you one statistic, which I saw the other day; that the increase in disability claimants has been higher in the UK than it has been in Ukraine where they’re actually at war. That cannot be possible.
We have now one in four people in our population self-reporting as disabled. That cannot be right. Something is going wrong.
Later, in the live section of the programme after the pre-recorded interview, Kuenssberg said the Tories had not given her a figure for the number of people supposedly cheating the benefits system. But she said they said almost £10bn is lost through fraud or error, and that nearly 7% of universal credit (UC) claims are fraudulent.
That is a reference to these figures from the Department for Work and Pensions. They show that fraud in the UC system was actually higher under the last government – but that can be traced back to a high spike during Covid.
Badenoch says current triple lock 'right policy' - but declines to say Tories will always keep it
In her BBC interview, Kemi Badenoch was asked if she could say she would never change the pensions triple lock. Laura Kuenssberg asked her if she could say she would never touch it.
Badenoch did not quite give that assurance. Instead, she replied:
The triple lock is our policy. We believe that this is the right policy for pensioners. That is what we have planned, that is what we have promised.
There is nothing that has happened that has made me change my mind. That is our policy.
Given that Andy Burnham has said that he wants to legislate to end the pensions triple lock before the next election, it is possible that the choice for Badenoch when that election happens won’t be whether or not to keep the triple lock, but whether or not to restore it to the more generous version it was before Burnham amended it.
In her interview, Badenoch also suggested that more has to be done to protect politicians. Asked about the man accused of murdering Ann Widdecombe being charged with planning a terror act against Nigel Farage, Badenoch said:
A man, an ex-IRA member, has pled guilty to threatening to kill me and he was sending messages not just to me, but also to my family members.
I just think that whether it’s Nigel Farage or even Keir Starmer who had his home firebombed, that there is a threat to politicians that is increasing and we just need to crack down on this.
Let’s build the prison spaces so that we can put people who are making these threats and threatening politicians. But what I want the public to know is that my priority really is their safety.
Badenoch rejects claims Tories regaining 'nasty party' reputation, saying they're 'common sense party'
In her BBC interview, Badenoch rejected suggestions that the Tories were regaining their “nasty party” reputation under her leadership.
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?
I am a classic old-school Conservative. I believe in common sense: people working hard and being rewarded for that effort.
We look after those who can’t look after themselves. Welfare should be a safety net, not a lifestyle. But this is an amazing country and I want us to look to the future and see what we can do, not just hark back to the past.
Badenoch also said her values were timeless.
Personal responsibility is not a 1980s idea. These are the things that keep us going and we need that, the principles are timeless.
Badenoch claims pensions triple lock should stay because pensioners 'have contributed'
On Friday the Times revealed that Katie Lam, the communities secretary, told a meeting in private earlier this year that the state pension system needs a fundamental overhaul.
Speaking in June, when she was a frontbencher but not yet in the shadow cabinet, Lam was asked at a meeting with activists if she thought the pensions triple lock was sustainable. She replied:
Ultimately I think what we will need in the end is an entirely new pension system.
I mean, a baby that is born today has a 20% chance of living to be 100 and I don’t think we can fund one in five people half of their lives, you know, for the first 20 and the last 30 years. But obviously if you are 90 you probably can’t go out and get a job right, so I think you have to be realistic about how you would taper that and bring that in across the population.
I just think the whole system as it stands can’t stand for very much longer.
Asked about Lam’s comments, Badenoch said her shadow minister was right to say what mattered was growth. She went on:
The fact is, the triple lock and pensions are things that people have contributed to.
Conservatives believe that if you have contributed, then you deserve to get your state pension.
What we don’t want to see is people going after the elderly, chasing after vulnerable and disabled people, and then the extremely large cohort of people who can work, who are not working, [being] left alone [ie, not having their benefits cut].
Badenoch claims spending on pensions triple lock just 'ledger on budget line'
In a further exchange, Badenoch said that spending on the pensions triple lock was just “a ledger on the budget line”.
Kuenssberg said Badenoch was wrong to dismiss it like that. State spending on pensions was £177bn, she said.
Badenoch claims rising costs of pensions triple lock would not be problem if economy growing more quickly
Badenoch gave a similar answer when Kuenssberg asked her to defend her support for the pensions triple lock.
She said she accepted there were “good people” on both sides of the argument about keeping or changing the triple lock. But she said, as party leader, she had decided the Tories would stick with it. She went on:
The reason why is because what is going wrong in our economy is not lots of elderly people earning £10,000, £12,000 a year on the state pension. It is the huge number of people who can work, who don’t work.
Kuenssberg said 55% of welfare spending is now going on pensions, and that in 2017, when Badenoch was first elected, the Tories were promising to change the triple lock.
Badenoch replied:
We’ve had different policies at different times. We go with what the leader does. I am the leader now and what I am saying is that our economy is not growing. Changing and moving around the triple lock does not create growth.
In fact, if we were growing at 2 or 3%, nobody would be talking about the triple lock.
When Laura Kuenssberg asked Badenoch whether it was a good use of public money to spend it on subsidising childcare for “incredibly wealthy” people, Badenoch switched the subject to the amount spent on benefits for people not working She replied:
This policy is about people at that cliff edge. What is not a good use of taxpayers money is paying thousands and thousands of people who can work, not to work.
Badenoch says Tories want to have policies 'for everybody' as she defends plan to let people earning £1m to get free childcare
Kemi Badenoch recorded her interview with Laura Kuenssberg yesterday. It is playing out on the programme now.
In it, Badenoch defended her plan to extend free childcare to high earners. (See 9.08am.)
She said:
What we want to see is that people who work harder don’t get punished for doing so. If you earn £100 a pound over £100,000, you could lose £10,000, £20,000 worth of childcare. And we don’t want people to stop working because of that.
Asked if she would be happy for someone earning £1m to be able to get free childcare, Badenoch said it did not matter what people were earning.
But she said the policy was aimed at people caught by the cliff edge.
The kind of people that we’re really targeting [might be] a deputy headteacher who wants to become a head teacher. She goes from £85,000 to £110,000. She’s got three kids. All of a sudden she’s losing tens of thousands of pounds.
Asked why the Tories were not proposing a means test, so the very rich would not qualify, Badenoch said:
I believe that the number of people who have very small children who are earning tens of millions of pounds is negligible.
But she also said she wanted the Tory conference to show that the party had “policies for everybody, whether you don’t earn, whether you earn a little, whether you’re an a bit, whether you earn a lot”.
She went on:
We want everyone in this country to know that if you are out there working, the Conservative party has got a plan for you.
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Tories propose lifting ban on parents with earnings above £100,000 getting free childcare
Overnight the Conservatives have also announced a proposal to end a childcare “cliff edge”, which currently means parents earning more than £100,000 do not qualify for the entitlement, the Press Association reports. PA says:
All parents working 16 or more hours a week would be eligible to get 30 hours of free care a week under the Tories’ proposals.
The policy is estimated to cost £700m a year, which party officials say could be funded by cutting the number of public servants at arms-length bodies.
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Suella Braverman accuses Tories of 'tacky immitation' after they back her call for student loan system to exclude foreigners
Overnight the Conservative party announced that they would save £900m a year by stopping people getting student loans if they are not UK nationals.
In a news release explaining this, the party said:
Around 20% of student loans now go to non-UK nationals, up from about 10% in 2015. We will end this access for non-EU nationals. While those with EU settled status (EUSS) have protected rights, we will end new claims for this status, which is being abused. There is no good reason why the Home Office are continuing to wave through new applications, and yet in the past 12 months alone, around 66,000 completely new applicants gained residency via this scheme, five years after the deadline.
So we will stop new EUSS claims and tighten access to student loans as part of our wider tightening of student loan access. Expected losses on student loans score as public spending, and repayment rates for non-UK borrowers are lower than for UK nationals. We estimate that by cutting student loans for non-EU nationals we will save around £900m.
This is more or less exactly the same as the policy announced by Suella Braverman, the Reform UK education spokesperson, in April.
Last night she posted this on social media.
It does make me smile when I see Kemi and the Tories copy Reform’s policies…
But cheap and tacky imitations always let you down.
Stick with the real McCoy.
Vote Reform.
Former Green co-leader Carla Denyer urges activists to reject 'Zionism is racism' motion, saying it would alienate many Jews
Carla Denyer, the former Green party co-leader, has urged activists to reject the ‘Zionism is racism’ motion due to be debated by the party this morning. She issued a long statement last night. She says:
If this motion passes as written, I am concerned that elected Greens will be forced to spend our time and energy debating and defending definitions, at the expense of focussing on the essential actions that only we can take to make things materially better for people in Palestine.
I also worry that the current wording risks alienating a significant proportion of Jewish people, including those who vehemently disagree with the Israeli government; support boycott, divestment and sanctions; and are strong advocates for Palestinian rights.
Peter Beaumont has a good explainer here looking at the issues behind this debate.
Related: What is Zionism and why do some critics describe it as racist?
And here is Jonathan Freedland’s column from yesterday explaining why he thinks the motion shows “a deep ignorance of what the word Zionism means and the sheer range of people who identify with it”.
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Conservatives claim ‘major victory’ as Tory conference begins after Labour scraps plans to curb jury trials
Good morning. Anthony Seldon recently published the latest in his long and invaluable series of inside stories of premierships, Sunak at 10, and he gave it the subtitle “The last Conservative prime minister?” When the book was being planned in the early days of Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of the Conservative party, it did look as though the Tories might be finished as a party of government. But now Seldon, and his co-author Tom Egerton, aren’t so sure. Their book concludes: “At the time of writing in July 2026 … the Tory party still needs to engage in a process of deep self-reflection to understand why it failed in government, and tore itself so destructively apart, if it is ever to regain power. But at this point in time we believe it is unlikely that Sunak will have been the last Tory prime minister.”
That is a victory, of sorts, for Badenoch. For most of last year there were doubts that she would still be leader by the time of the next election. But she gave a successful party conference speech, her response to the budget was much admired, and her personal approval ratings with Tory members and right-leaning voters shot up. After two years as opposition leader, Iain Duncan Smith was booted out. Two years in, Badenoch’s position as leader is safe and it is even conceivable that she could stay on if the Conservatives were to lose the next election (in part because any Tories who favour a radically different policy approach are being purged from the candidates list).
But that does not mean Badenoch’s leadership is going well. At the last election the Conservatives won 24.4% of the GB vote. According to the Politico poll of polls, they have been consistently polling below that since the end of 2024 and they are currently on 19%.
The Conservative conference starts today and, explaining her strategy in an interview in the Times, Badenoch said: “Last year was about telling the party who I was. Now the party is going to be showing the country who we are: a strong team of people who actually like each other.” The Tories have already announced quite a lot of conference-related policy.
But she has not got the news space all to herself. It is the final day of the Green party’s conference in Brighton and this morning activists are expected to debate their ‘Zionism is racism’ motion. The proposal has split the party, and critics claim that it is antisemitic. Whatever happens, it will affect how the Green party is seen.
And this morning Labour has announced a major U-turn – abandoning most of the Keir Starmer/David Lammy plans to restrict access to jury trials. Haroon Siddique has the story here.
Related: Ministers drop plans to cut jury trials in England and Wales after outcry
In the past, there was an unofficial ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that the government did not make big news announcements during the opposition party’s conference. But that era (like two-party politics) is over, and Alex Norris, the justice secretary, has successfully kept Badenoch off the top of this morning’s news cycle.
Still, the Tories can claim this as a victory. This is from Nick Timothy, the shadow justice secretary.
This is a major victory for everyone who fought to defend trial by jury, and Conservatives led that fight from day one. Labour has been forced to abandon its central attack on jury trials in the crown court.
But Timothy also claimed the U-turn did not go far enough.
Labour are restricting juries by the back door, scrapping the right to elect one and dumping those cases on magistrates whose backlog is at a record high.
Nearly 81,000 cases are stuck in the crown court, yet there is no commitment to get courts sitting more often, but Labour did find the time to write into law a review of how its reforms treat people of different backgrounds.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Alex Norris, the justice secretary, is interviewed on Sky’s Sunday with Helen Lewis.
9am: Kemi Badenoch is interviewed on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. (The interview has been pre-recorded.) Norris is being interviewed too.
Morning: The Green party debates the controversial ‘Zionism is racism’ motion on the final day of its conference this morning.
2pm: John Belsley, president of the National Conservative Convention, opens the proceedings at the Tory conference in Birmingham. The session is on the theme of “resisting separatism” and the speakers include Alex Burghart, the deputy leader and shadow Northern Ireland secretary; Mims Davies, shadow Welsh secretary; Harriet Cross, shadow Scottish secretary; Darren Millar, leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd; and Russell Findlay, the Scottish leader.
Mid afternoon: Badenoch delivers her opening speech to the conference.
4pm: James Cleverly, who wants to be the Tory candidate for London mayor in 2028, is speaking at a fringe event.
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