Kemi Badenoch takes fight to Andy Burnham with heartfelt conference speech

0:03The Telegraph. After Andy Burnham's socialist schmaltzfest, there was everything at stake as Kemi Badenoch addressed the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham and gave her punchiest, most personal speech yet. More prison places, lower inheritance tax and don't pick on my mixed race kids. This was Kemi's bid for the soul of Britain. I am optimistic because we have learned from our mistakes. We are going the right way. We are ready to fight for our values, ready to win the argument, ready to govern, ready to get Britain working again. Tim, we've just come out of the symphony hall and appropriately, I think Kimmy Bade not just sang all the right notes for this Tory crowd.

0:54OK. Well, first of all, let's just deal with the tone of it. We have said, haven't we, repeatedly, that it's all very well coming out with Thatcherite rhetoric. You've got to have a heart and you've got to have a soul. And I had written a column actually last weekend saying, we need to hear more from you as a woman, as a mother, as a British Nigerian. And what I thought was interesting about the tone that she struck today, She was smiley, she was hopeful, but she was very personal about who she is and what she stands for. So we've had this whole debate all week, haven't we, about ethno-nationalism.

1:31You've had a lot of stick on social media for merely pointing out that there is something to be proud of in a black woman leading the Conservative Party. And she massively leant into that. Let's just hear what she said about her race and, crucially, the race of her own children. I don't want to live in a country run by people who threaten journalists, who call veterans traitors, and debate whether my mixed-race children are English. I don't want to explain to my son, when we're watching our brilliant England team play football, that some people don't think our black players are English. What we've just heard is in stark contrast to the tone at the beginning of the conference, which was about a document called The Right Way, in which she laid out her philosophical foundations for how she wants to govern.

2:18All very well and good. Lots of people would agree with what's in it. But as we had speech after speech, Andrew Griffith, very dull. Tom Tudon had good, worthy, but none of this stuff really set the place on fire. Behind the scenes, people were saying, when is she going to show us her? Yes. And the reason for that is because Andy Burnham has thrown down the personal gauntlet. Yes. In his conference speech, he said, I'm doing what I do because it's personal. I want to, remember he said, I want to build a Britain that my late father would be proud of. So we were saying to people at various parties, come on, let us see Cammy.

2:58Yes. Because we know with all these attacks upon her that there's got to be a part of her that wants to reply to them. And she's in two minds between she obviously wants to defend her family, but she also believes in a colorblind politics. She doesn't want individuals to be defined by their race. So the last thing she wants to do is come out and say, let's talk about my race. But there's a feeling that reform has made the subject unavoidable. And this is because Suella Braverman went on Question Time and said that while she identifies as British, she doesn't think she's English because her heritage is obviously Indian.

3:34And I think to be fair to Suella, that's because she was asked about it. Yes. And that is a view that many British people take, which is that there is a distinct English ethnicity and there is an umbrella British nationality. And indeed, you debated this with Jacob Bruce on Monday. It's angels on the head of a pin. Yeah. But that's not the only element of what people are privately dubbing reform's Nigerian strategy. It's also about proxies on social media coming out and saying, you can't trust the Tories to be tough on immigration because they are led by an immigrant. Yes. That's the very unsubtle coding that's going on.

4:15And it's not just the reform adjacent thing. It's a restore adjacent thing. Yeah. And so what she has done is directly responded to that, making it about her personally, but also a principle that what differentiates conservatism from nationalism is we don't do race. Yes. And of course, it was a restatement of her pride in being British. Yes. And she has spoken. She's spoken her maiden speech 2017 about coming here from Nigeria, what that experience was like, what it was like growing up under a socialist government, couldn't get any water, had to go and fetch water from a borehole in rusty buckets, doing homework by candlelight.

4:57Listen, she wasn't as nostalgic as that. She wasn't doing a burn in sort of taking us through a journey of her childhood. And what I found interesting about her approach, Tim, is she was letting us know that she is both a compassionate conservative and a woman and a mother by referencing. And it was a very moving moment and actually brought a tear to quite a few eyes in the house when she talked about the victims of Valde Calicane, the Nottingham killer, the victims of Axel Ruder Cabana, the Southport killer, and repeatedly referencing Henry Novak. Let's just have a listen to that moment. This year, I have been meeting the parents of those children who didn't come back home.

5:35The family of Henry Novak, 18 years old, handcuffed by the police in his dying moments as his murderer stood over him, accusing him of racism. The lack of common sense and compassion shown to Henry in his final moments was a shocking failure by the state. I met the parents of Barnaby Webber and Grace O'Malley Kumar. Grace's father, Sandroy, is sitting here today. Their children...

6:27Thank you.

6:49along with Ian Coates by a psychopath that authorities had multiple opportunities to stop but didn't because they were afraid to. These are different kinds of failure but in each case institutions that were meant to protect people failed. It is devastating for families and it keeps happening again and again and again. It's not just Henry, it's not just Grace or Barnaby, it's those little girls who were killed in Southport, it's the Manchester Arena bombing. When a child dies, a family is changed forever. Now, Grace O'Malley Kumar, who was one of Calicane's victims, her father, Dr Sanjoy Kumar, who, along with Barnaby Webber's family and the family of Ian Coates, have campaigned relentlessly to get the state to accept its multiple failings.

7:41He was in the audience and it was a moving moment because he, of course, quite understandably, welled up and needed to wipe the tears from his eyes. So I just thought that let us know a little bit more about a woman who has largely kept her emotions under wraps, I think. And we've seen a very British display of compassion and sympathy in the last couple of weeks because neither Andy Burnham nor Kemi Badenock has broken down. You don't want a leader who cannot actually continue at the podium and has to be led away gently by someone. But you do want someone who can, in that very restrained English way, signal to the people at home, I'm not just saying this because I believe this will win votes.

8:23I'm saying this because this keeps me up at night and it affects me personally. And you had commented, didn't you, to somebody as we were coming out of the hall who had been involved in the writing of the speech? That's correct. I bumped into someone who is actually one of Kemi's speechwriters and he said, did you like it? And I said, I thought it was a very good speech. And I said, there were a couple of chin wobble moments in it. And he said, those are the bits that Kemi insisted upon drafting herself. I would add to that her reference to Geoffrey Archer. I thought she personally moved when talking about Geoffrey Archer, who died a couple of days ago, because he had just messaged her after her Sunday speech to say, nice speech and nice outfit.

9:00I will be interested to see, by the way, if there's the same criticism of Kemi's deployment of emotion in this speech as there was a criticism of Andy Burnham's use of emotion, because there were some unpleasant remarks made about Andy Burnham mentioning his late father along the lines of, why is that relevant? And your father had dementia, so he doesn't know what he wants anyway. And I'd just be curious to know if there's a double standard. I hope that people are sensitive and sympathetic to people of all stripes, regardless of how they vote. But just go back slightly to the point about race.

9:38another line that stood out for me, another chemi theme, is she said that Burnham is, quote, promising a better yesterday, I'm promising a better tomorrow. And isn't that really interesting, that the left is leaning into nostalgia? Yes. Whereas this, although it was a conservative with classic traditional themes, wasn't really. It was far more forward-looking. And it was about saying, don't get lost in mythical memories of the past. Yes. And that's partly, you know, what the racial debate is about. And I'll address this very briefly because one thing I said at one fringe meeting was cut out and put online and has done the rounds and I've gone viral.

10:20Basically for saying that racism is bad. Yes, quite. And the point I was trying to make is the country has changed. It's changed because of policy decisions, some of which were very, very wrong. And because people feel they've lost control of their borders and of their society. They're angry, legitimately angry at politicians. And they want to see control brought back to their borders. I sympathize with that. But the country has changed. You are not going to reverse that. No. And my point was that I am pleased to see that the right accepts that change and has changed with it, because it would be retrogressive and immoral to try to reverse what has happened.

11:05And the fact that Kemi Bader-Nock is a Nigerian Briton with a Scottish husband and mixed race kids speaks to me because it was only afterwards I had made those comments that I suddenly remembered. I have Asian godchildren. Yes. Right. The product of an Englishman marrying a Bangladeshi. Yes. And being received into the Catholic Church. So within my own family and lots of people's families, possibly even a majority of people now, the look of the family has changed. Yes. And we're fine with that. Now, we're not in favor of institutions artificially trying to misrepresent the public. This is the complaint about too many black people on television.

11:47The point of that is we don't like being lied to and we don't like feeling like we're being engineered into being a society different from what we are. But we have changed and it's incumbent upon politicians, journalism and art and business to reflect the society that they seek to serve. And I think it's an exciting moment in our history that the right is led by a black woman who reflects that changing country. And this is the difference with the left. She ain't going around saying, I'm black, I'm black, I'm black. No, she's not. She's not making you look that right. She doesn't want special treatment.

12:26No, that's right. She wants to be given the chance to compete as fairly as other people. And someone's going to have to look reform in the eye as well as restore and say, do you really want to look like you're saying she can't run this country or can't be trusted? Yes. Because she's a person of colour. And also, by the way, make your mind up. If you're going to say, well, I don't mind immigrants, provided they pay into the country and they support society. Yeah. And they embrace British values. Well, here's one doing it. Yeah, exactly. So if one of them does it and then you say, I don't care, she's not really English.

13:02That means that all along you were lying. Yes. You didn't really care if someone contributed to this country. You just didn't like black people. That's right. And I don't care if that's on the left or the right, if it's about Jews or it's about people of colour. I don't care. That's an immoral position. And I don't wish to be in a coalition with that kind of person. OK, well, we'll look forward to getting trolled again by racists. Having said that, it was striking how she got a standing ovation for saying, I will not unite with those elements of the Reform Party who she feels reflect that. I think it was interesting that she just singled out Reform and didn't mention Restore at all.

13:40Maybe that was tactical because she doesn't want to give them the kind of oxygen of publicity. She doesn't think Rupert Lowe's party is significant enough. You have to question that on the Tory right. Someone in reform messaged me and said, this is all well and good, but why has she been pally with Rupert Lowe? That's a reasonable question for reform. I've made that point. Why did they give him that select committee position? I think internally, the Conservatives say because we thought he'd vote along our lines. And also it's a kind of better the devil you know situation, but I have described it in the past.

14:10Column is like basically inviting the crocodile to dinner who wants to gobble you up. She said we have had an export boom of drama queens. That was a good joke. Shall we listen to her telling that joke? It was a good one. In 2024, voters gave their verdict on the rows, the plots and the infighting. Remember all that drama? That's gone. The Conservatives have had an export boom.

14:47We have had an export boom of drama queens going to reform.

14:56And whenever speakers have been attacking reform, they have singled out Rob Jenrick. They have. Which is so interesting because in some of the fringes where people have been raising this question of do we want to unite with the right, the vibe that we've been getting is yes, but not him. Not with Robert Jenrick. It's really, it's really, yeah, but it's really specifically, not just we won't do an electoral pact with, but if Rob Jenner came back tomorrow in sackcloth and ashes and said, please let me back into the party, they would not let him in. Because the disagreement with him is not just policy, like it is with Danny Kruger.

15:32They regard him as personally treacherous. She also wanted to draw a distinction between the Conservatives and reform on two different levels. I think one level was, I'm trying to give you a message of hope, whereas reform is saying everything's broken, the country's going to the dogs. She was trying to be quite uplifting and quite optimistic, which I thought was one thought. And it was interesting that she made that comment, let's listen to it, about public sector workers, which isn't necessarily something you'd expect a Conservative leader to say. Some people talk as if the public sector are the enemy.

16:06They are not. There are real jobs in the public sector, adding value to society. Doctors helping people get better. Soldiers keeping our country safe. Badass teachers like Catherine Burblesingh fighting to give disadvantaged children a better education.

16:30Conference, these are our people too. And we will always back them. But Camilla, is that something you might say if you were trying to reach out to Lib Dem voters? I think it's something you might say if you're trying to reach out to any voters you can find anywhere in the country. Right, because we were like doctors and... Well, this is the thing as well. I wrote this down. She's gambling on voters thinking Labour is worse than the last Tory government. Yeah. Which I know is a fairly simple proposition to write down, but that's what she's doing here. She's basically trying to say to the country, listen, he set out his vision.

16:59He wants to take us back to the 1970s. You've got a choice now. My party has made mistakes. She acknowledged them. She admitted to them. But as she's often said, it's under new management.

17:21There were shades, actually, of William Hague's common sense revolution in that. Come with me and I'll give you back your country. She mentioned common sense multiple times. Yes. So this was basically about saying, we're here, we're sensible, we're conservatives, we're the only ones who can really clear up this mess, so come with me. Now, the question is going to beat him whether anyone's listening. Obviously, we're in the hall and we're listening. We're surrounded by true Tories who lapped it up. Is there going to be cut through with the country? Well, let's mention some of the policies, because what was striking was the consumerist vibe of this.

17:56In fact, she compared the Tory party to Marks and Spencers. M &S is a brand that has been around for 100 years. Not so long ago, critics said they were a bit stuffy and stuck in the past. Some were even questioning whether the brand would survive. Do you see where I'm going with this conference?

18:23But now M &S is back in fashion. Great looks at affordable prices. They have adapted their style for today's market and people are flooding back, including me, as you've probably noticed this week. Just like M &S.

18:47But just like M &S, we must learn from our mistakes, win back trust, make people feel good about our party again. So she was wearing Marcus and Spencer. There was a flashback there to Maggie Thatcher, who liked to wear aqua scutum, which is sort of the dress of the middle classes that the upper middle classes all thought was terribly gauche. Yes. I was glad she avoided any reference to sort of the Tory party feeling like a comfortable pair of underpants. I mean, that would have been too much. But she gave us an example of how she will help consumers is, well, if we can get energy prices down, that means a pensioner can afford to go out for a meal and they can go to a good restaurant because we've cut the taxes.

19:26It means that people can open businesses. This wasn't lofty political rhetoric, was it? It was quite down to where she mentioned other things about planning applications being stopped by bats and nukes. This was pound in your pocket type stuff. I think in these three conferences, we've seen the battle lines drawn when it comes to the cost of living crisis. Labour is saying we will help the very poor with welfare giveaways, be it free lunches in schools or the cap on bus fares. The reformer saying we will help the working class with tax cuts on income tax so that you keep more of the money that you earn.

20:00And the Tories, I feel, I mean, they would say they're doing all of the above, but it does feel as though it's very much aimed at middle class consumers. Yes. I mean, it's a kind of appeal to the professional classes in a way. Having said that, with the reference to public sector workers, I mean, we'd been challenging some of the Tories here over this. Let's remove the cliff edge on childcare when a couple earns more than 100 grand. But then as somebody pointed out, well, we're saying people who earn more than 50 grand each. So we're not talking about the super rich. I mean, she made a very funny joke about billionaires have left the country.

20:30So there's no point pandering to them, which I thought was quite well observed. Yeah. And of course, the capitalist dream is always that someday you will become someone who earns 100 ,000. Yes. And so you want a flourishing middle class in part as a point of aspiration. So people can think, that's what I'm working towards. And the problem with the cost of housing, cost of energy, and that point about the childcare cliff edge, is it's becoming hard to live the middle class dream that our parents built. Because once you get there, you're clobbered by taxes and costs. I thought it was also clever.

21:01I mean, Thatcher famously said, the facts of life are conservative. I think that she was trying to say with that kind of tripartite announcement on no stamp duty, a reduction in IHT, completely removing it from the family home, but applying it to other inheritance. And indeed, the suggestion that she made with regard to not going along with the mansion tax. She basically saying that conservatism begins at home. And it actually played into the conversations we had with the young conservatives, who when we addressed the room and said, who here wants to own their own home and start a family? Yes.

21:34All put their very young hands up. But they're very odd people. Very precious, intellectual, gifted. They're very odd. I know, but that whole kind of thing about a gentleman or lady's home is their castle. Yes, of course. If you can't appeal to people owning their own home and keeping more of their earnings at a Conservative Party conference, where are you going to come out with this rhetoric? That's what it's always been about, from ending rationing to buying your own council house. And the point about inheritance tax, see, that's interesting because we've been discussing can they cut through.

22:05She stepped back from complete abolition. She didn't quite go there. Her argument being, I can't afford that, so I'm not going to make a promise that I can't afford to keep. Well, wasn't that also a clear blue line between her and Trussonomics? Yes, it was. Yes, very good point. I'm not going to write checks that we can't cash. But having said that, the giveaway is so generous to people that it almost sounds as though she has abolished income inheritance tax. Yeah, maybe that's good politics. You get to keep your family home and you get to keep up to a million pounds. I'd be fascinated to see the numbers on that, how much that cost them.

22:36Well, somebody said yesterday, didn't they? In fact, we interviewed Andrew Griffith and it's going out on our YouTube channel. and he said that tax only raises 1 % of all tax revenue, inheritance tax in general. It all adds up. From a political perspective, I think the statistic is one in 10 are on the hook for it, but one in five think they're on the hook for it. And therefore, even if it doesn't affect you directly, you think it might have affected you and therefore you're being given something you might not have lost. So I think it's probably good politics to be fair. Also, why doesn't she want to make the highest cost tax offer that she can.

23:12It's because, as she said, she still wants to spend money on some things. And that includes 50 ,000 new prison places, which she says is the largest expansion of the estate in history. And also Britannia's Shield, which is going to cost 10 billion pounds and has this complex radar and missile system, which is going to keep us safe. I guess from Russia. I'm not entirely sold on that one because it's modeled on, it's basically a camp spin on Israel's Iron Dome. Why is it camp? Well, it's Britannia's Shield, because I just instantly thought of Penny Morden standing with a massive Wonder Woman style shield at the White Cliffs of Dover going saying, no further.

23:47No, that's right. But Israel is surrounded by countries that fire rockets into it. It just hasn't happened to Britain for a very long time. And I'm not entirely sold on its necessity. You know, this is all great. And these are great ideas. You do have to bear in mind that probably none of them will be enacted unless she pulls off a miracle and becomes the next prime minister. Because let's be honest, the polling is still not great. Let's have a look at that. We had the opinion poll, which suggested that Labour was on 30 % and the Tories were on 17%. I think that was pretty punchy and a bit of an outlier.

24:17We've basically got Labour, according to YouGov, on around 27%. We've got reform on about 25%. And we've got the Tories once again on 20%. Yeah, I know. Well, according to YouGov polling, when asked how much, if at all, do you think the Conservative Party has changed since Kemi Beidnacht became leader? 7 % of Britons say a great deal. 23 % say a fair amount. 33 % say not very much. And 13 % say not at all. So only about a third of voters say that she's made a big difference. No, but there could be a worse result. They could turn around and say who. What you do find, though... We're not doing that now, are we?

24:52No, that's true. Well, hey, I kind of come back to one of the compelling magnetic appeals of the British-Nigerian leader is that you notice her. She starts a conversation. Which one we have to move on from very quickly. I know, I know. But she does start a conversation. She joked about that, didn't she? She said, in case anyone hasn't noticed, I'm black, which was actually quite funny. But if you look at the polling, what you tend to find is reform has a ceiling. Yes. Whereas there's slightly more openness among swing voters towards going back towards the Tories. And we've been hearing, you and I, from pollsters and focus group people, a really surprising thing, which is that the next election is going to be in large part about stopping Nigel Farage.

25:34And that means in seats across, say, Kent and Essex, which are right now predicted to go for reform, a lot of Labour voters are going to be thinking, who do I vote for to stop Nigel? And that's probably going to mean the Tories. Yes. So she's not just pitching to Lib Dem people here. She's also got to keep her politics centrist and... Sensible. Sensible enough. that Labour voters can hold their nose and say, I'll back her just to stop him. Also, to conclude, my thought was, it was unashamedly conservative. But what I quite liked about it is this rhetoric around fighting. Now, it wasn't quite Penny Mordaunt.

26:16What was that pillar phrase that she kept? Stand up and fight. We stand up and we fight. But she basically said, we are in the fight of our lives politically for the future of this country. and she gave the distinct impression that she's up for the fight and that she's actually a bit of a scrapper. And I think that will inspire a degree of confidence. You know, she gave the impression of a strong woman, I thought, in that speech. Yeah, yeah. While this was all going on, the Reform Party's internal investigation has cleared their own members without any wrongdoing. So that's Dan Jukes and James Orr.

26:51Right, in the alleged attempt to get donations from an American. That's not going to put the matter to bed. The police have their own investigation. You'll be amused to hear it doesn't hinge on whether or not reform clears its own members. And indeed, she made a joke about that, about potentially people ending up behind bars. She did. She also spoke to the fact that today is October the 7th. Yes. Now, as we speak, there probably is a march going on in London right now. Disgraceful in my mind, but yeah. And it comes off the back of last week, a motion at the Green Conference. Zionism is racism, which seems to have shocked even Green Party members.

27:31Yes, and the chance was taken to task by Danny Finkelstein on Newsnight, and she looked ashamed of her party. We have an election, a by-election in Holborn, Keir Starmer's old seat, Thursday, tomorrow. We're going to do a reaction to that on Friday. Everyone's predicting, I don't know if this is guaranteed, but everyone's predicting that Labour will win it against Polanski, who is running there, in which case if he loses, This could mean that his leadership is challenged because people might say, you've embarrassed us now and you've also lost. So the gamble of gambling everything on winning anti-Israel votes has not paid off in that seat.

28:06Be careful what you wish for. Arise Motten Ali. Yeah, well, that's true. The deputy leader. And of course, Labour, they're selected a lady of Somali origin, who was a refugee herself, which also drew some unpleasant stuff online from people saying, is this the kind of person who you want representing you in Parliament? I'm just saying all of this because it's really striking that we want to talk about socialism and capitalism and the size of the state. But I feel increasingly we're being dragged into conversations about ethnicity and race and they're becoming hard to ignore. Yes. And people are going to have to take a stand.

28:43Yes, they are. There are red lines that cannot be crossed, which is why you haven't crossed them. I haven't crossed them. The Telegraph won't cross them. And neither will Kemi Badenock. I also think, by the way, from the perspective of the British public, I mean, to bring the conversation full circle and talk about going back to the 70s. You know, people in this country think we've made so much progress on this. Yeah. OK, we've become far more colour bland than we ever were. And we're now in a situation where people are questioning whether they're English or British on the basis of the colour of their skin.

29:12And as I experienced yesterday when I did an event with the Shadow Education Secretary, Laura Trott, I spoke to a mum there, hounding Jewish kids out of their schools and throwing rocks at their buses. What have we come to? So I think it's perfectly relevant to be raising these issues, very serious issues this week, and frankly, taking a bloody solid stand against them. And that change in attitudes which has taken place is presented to us by some people as brainwashing, as if there has been a project to change our minds about things. Well, it's a mixture of evolving experience and actually appealing to British decency.

29:53I do think there is something in the spirit of the country that spent so much money trying to eliminate the slave trade. there's something inherent in the British spirit that we don't boss people around and judge them on the basis of prejudice I'd like to think this is not just something which has come down by government diktat it's arisen naturally from the hearts and souls of British people who are on the whole pretty good eggs Agreed Right, we're going to hot-foot it back to London and we'll be back in the studio tomorrow 5pm

30:31Thank you.