Kemi Badenoch vows to abolish stamp duty in conference speech

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, famous and faithful, an all-star cast are ready to play the ultimate game of deceit and betrayal in the BBC's first celebrity version of the Traitors reality TV show. Welcome. But don't get comfortable. This game doesn't care who you are. In here, your glamorous lives count for nothing.

0:56Most of you will be murdered. Sorry about that.

1:08But first, today, Kemi Badenok has vowed to abolish stamp duty for homebuyers as she laid out Tory plans for immigration and tax in her keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. Here's what she had to say. Conference stamp duty is a bad tax. It is an unconservative tax. The last Conservative government cut stamp duty for thousands of homebuyers. But now we must go further. We must free up our housing market because a society where no one can afford to buy or move is a society where social mobility is dead. So I have looked at the stamp duty thresholds to see where we can change them.

1:54I have looked at the rates you have to pay to see if we can lower them. I have decided that we can't because that simply wouldn't be enough. Conference, the next Conservative government will abolish stamp duty on your own. The embattled Tory leader thanked party members for standing by her amid dire poll ratings and said the Conservative Party is up for the fight, adding that they will commit to a new economic golden rule designed to cut government borrowing and taxes. She said a Tory administration would also ban doctors from going on strike and cut£47 billion of spending by restricting welfare and shrinking the civil service.

2:40She confirmed plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and deport 150 ,000 people a year because she said the UK had become addicted to migration. The Tories have sought to put a stronger economy and stronger borders at the centre of their agenda as they seek to regain ground from reform. It comes as a more in common poll ahead of Badenock's speech, found Nigel Farage's Reform UK had reached a new high of 13 points, with voters and the Conservatives trailing behind in third place. Joining us now is The Standards' Chief Political Correspondent, Rachel Burford. Rachel, you've just heard Kemi Badenok's speech.

3:23What did you make of it? I think the general consensus is she did quite well. Kemi Badenok has faced a lot of criticism. This speech was, I think, really about kind of reassuring her critics that she can lead them, despite floundering poll ratings. There was a lot of policy announcements in there, something which when she first became leader, she vowed she wouldn't be doing for a few years. So she's changed act on that and put sort of policy change really at the forefront of her kind of campaign. There were a lot of policies announced in the speech and some of them had been trailed. But there was one surprise one, wasn't there?

3:57A Conservative government would abolish stamp duty for homebuyers. That will be a particularly popular policy for a lot of people, a lot of voters. And a lot of organisations were coming out after the speech as well and saying, you know, this is a great idea. However, we're yet to get the details on it, whether it would apply to all homebuyers, whether it would apply to people perhaps purchasing a second property. There's a lot of details that need to be ironed out before everyone gets too excited about it. And obviously, an election is a long way off. It certainly puts a little bit of pressure on Rachel Reeves ahead of the budget because stamp duty is quite a controversial tax.

4:32You know, you've got especially for first time buyers, particularly in the south eastern London, where properties are more expensive, People that are looking to buy their first home, it's usually going to go over the stamp duty threshold. And people that are stretching themselves to buy the most expensive thing they will ever purchase in their lives are then lumped with quite a substantial amount of tax they've got to come up with as well as a deposit. That will be a particularly popular policy, I think. There were other ones as well. She said that the Tory administration would ban doctors from going on strike.

5:00It would cut£47 billion by restricting welfare and shrinking the civil service. party had previously confirmed plans to leave the European Convention on Human Rights and deport 150 ,000 people a year. Kemi Badenoch said that the UK had become addicted to migration and industrial action in the NHS had kept waiting lists high for far too long. She said the Tories had made life better for so many. What do you make of that? She sort of alluded to the fact that the Conservatives had steered the country through its darkest days. There's been a lot of talk about Margaret Thatcher and not the Conservative prime ministers that followed her.

5:36Pictures of Margaret Thatcher everywhere. They've got her clothes on display. There's big posters of her everywhere in the conference hall. Temi Badenoch is trying to lead into that. You know, she's the next sort of Thatcher-esque leader. There are a lot of Tories here that do talk about the way that Margaret Thatcher revitalized the country when she came in by privatizing public services and things like that. Obviously, there are policies that she did introduce that we are still seeing the effects of today, Things like selling off the council housing. But yeah, that is what I think she was alluding to, how the Conservative Party in the 1980s steered the country through.

6:11She said in the 1940s, our test was to defeat fascism and ensure victory of freedom. And in the 1980s, it was to banish socialism and deliver prosperity. And then she just sort of missed out, you know, David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Theresa May. David Cameron announced the Brexit referendum. Theresa May attempted to sort of get us through that referendum. Boris Johnson then did come up with this Brexit deal and then obviously steered the country through the pandemic as well. But that was sort of missed out. And she just sort of said, in the 2020s, our test is to restore a strong economy, secure our borders and rebuild Britain's strength.

6:43She's very much ignored several leaders that came before her, including many of them that were prime minister, and just sort of talks about Thatcher and the Second World War government. I mean, literally, Thatcher is everywhere at this conference. I mean, you would think if you were just a sort of an alien landing at the Conservative Party conference that she was the leader before Kemi Bainot. And then there were the international comparisons as well. Tell us more. Yeah, so she compares the UK, what the UK has done in the last few years to the successes of Poland and China, a country she mentioned.

7:17She said while Britain was defining what a woman is, China was building five nuclear reactors. And then she said our country is addicted to migration and finds itself in a state where it has potholes that have been around for so long, people are holding birthday parties for them. I think what's interesting about that is obviously the new Labour government have not been in power very long. It's just over a year and there was 14 years of a Conservative government before that. So Conservative and a coalition with the Lib Dems. It's a very interesting one. She's talking about all the successes that China and other countries in Europe have had.

7:49They were building things at a very large and quick rate compared to Britain. They were doing that during the times that the Tories were in power. Let's go to a break. Coming up in part two, what you need to know ahead of the first series of Celebrity Traitors, which kicks off tonight. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

8:17Welcome back. Maybe I have got a dark side. I'm here to win. I don't know what beasts lie within me. I'm gonna fight till the death. Oh my God! Players, welcome to the Highlands. Oh my goodness. The castle! There it is. Now I know out in the real world you're very important and successful. But here, there is no special treatment. Traitors remain undetected and murder the faithful. Is this an alliance? Faithful, you must hunt down the traitors I want to win, I'm not going to lie, I want to win Oh God This is life or death, isn't it? Me too Go forth and murder That's quite a twist I have selected my traitors Tomorrow the killing spree begins This is the Celebrity Traitors This week the long-awaited Celebrity Traitors will be debuting on BBC One giving us the chance to see celebs like Alan Carr, Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry and Paloma Faith duke it out in the castle.

9:26If you're not already familiar with the premise, it's simple. 19 celebrities will enter the famous castle in the hills of Scotland. Three of those celebrities will be secretly made into traitors, tasked with murdering the rest of the cast without getting found out. The remaining cast, dubbed the Faithfuls, have the chance to get rid of those traitors by banishing those they think are guilty in a roundtable vote at the end of every day. It's set to be as nail-biting as ever, and this time around the prize money is going to charity. The first episode of Celebrity Traitors airs tonight at 9pm on BBC One iPlayer, with the following episodes airing on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

10:07The Standards video team took to the streets today to find out what members of the public had to say. We think Tom Daley, we want him to win and we think he's going to be a really good faithful. But he could be quite a good traitor as well. I think he's just so nice. Because you would never expect him. That's a good one. Yeah, and he'll be really good at the challenges because he's quite like... Yeah, I don't know the concept of it, but I think he's going to win. We want him to win. We think that Nico is going to be a really good traitor if he gets picked, just because we've watched the beta squad videos and stuff and he's got really like cheeky and like very devious personality.

10:40So I think Stephen Fry will be a traitor. Well, no, I hope he's going to be a traitor. And I think he'll make a great traitor because he's really smart and I think he'll be able to really work the room and do a great job at it. And joining us now is The Standards commissioning editor and culture writer Vicky Jessup. Vicky, you've already seen the show. What was your first impression? Yes, so I can't reveal too much about the celebrity traitors on Pain of Death. I can say it is very good fun. And from the looks of it, you know, the celebrities have signed up to this show because they're mega fans.

11:10I think it's probably like the main reason they could get such good names like Stephen Fry, Celia Imri. So I think it stands to reason that the BBC will probably give them a kind of authentic traitors-y experience, let's say. So the castle, the challenges, obviously there'll be traitors. But apart from that, as for what the challenges are, we are still in the dark. There are a lot of big celeb names. Remind us who they are. So there are 19 celebs of kind of varying levels of celebrity, let's say. But yeah, like you say, there are some pretty big names there. We've got Stephen Fry, National Treasure, Celia Imry, Paloma Faith, Tom Daly, Claire Boulding, Charlotte Church, Alan Carr, Jonathan Ross.

11:48The kind of list does go on. And there's also some comedians there. We've got Joe Wilkinson and Lucy Beaumont. We've got Kat Burns. Yeah, there's a good mix of people there, I think, and a good mix of kind of abilities, more cerebral people. but then we've got kind of like former England rugby player, Joe Marla as well. Will it be as addictive as the original hit series, do you think? I think the risk is you're playing with celebrities. I imagine there'll be egos on set, like that could disrupt the game. For instance, you know, if someone doesn't want to do a challenge, if they feel like potentially they're not getting enough screen time, they want to get special treatment.

12:20But then on the flip side, if everyone plays ball, you know, like I said, I think people genuinely are massive fans of this show. Cat Burns, the singer, a huge fan of the traitors and apparently lobby like really hard to be considered as a player the series if everyone plays along i think it could supercharge the format because obviously the traitors is so much fun already i think celebs to the mix and watching your favorite celebs kind of betray and backstab and unravel why do you think the show has proven so popular i think it's a mix of things it's well presented obviously we have claudia with her iconic outfits there's a good mix of kind of psychological gameplay challenges drama it's really camp as well which i think kind of helps it's very over the top you have these moments kind of like diane had to walk to her own funeral and be buried in season two it loves plot twists and the moment in season one where tom stands up at the breakfast table and declares that alex is his girlfriend and all the contestants are shocked it's done a relatively good job of keeping the format fresh, introducing these kind of new little twists or new elements each series, which keep people engaged.

13:23The casting has always been great on the show. You know, we had uber villain Paul as well in series two. And we had Harry who kind of snuck his way and strategised his way to victory. I think the result is television gold. Any predictions on who will win? There are a couple of dark horses here, I think. Obviously, I think it will be most fun and people will know the big names like Stephen Fry. And I think that will be fun watching him kind of placed in a situation that's clearly like not scripted it's not a press conference it's not really something that's under his control at all but in terms of potential winners i think kat burns is kind of an obvious one because she is a traitors super fan she releases videos on her socials kind of dissecting traitors gameplay and talks about it a lot so i think she like will have the strategy down and there are a couple of lower list celebs which i'm sure they would appreciate me referring to them as but there's nico omelana and ruth cod so nico is a YouTuber who kind of made his name doing pranks and sneaking into things like boxing matches and running for London Mayor and Ruth Codd is an actor.

14:21While they may be known by some of the audience, they probably aren't known by the bigger names, which means they can fly under the radar in a way those bigger names probably can't. Although, who knows, Celia Imrie might have a hidden devious side to her. So I take it you'll be tuning in? Absolutely, yes. Yeah, I'm a big Traitors fan. So I'm excited to see how they shake up the formula for this one.

14:45and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you'd like to get in touch please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here tomorrow at 5pm we'll see you then