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Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch will accuse Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Thursday of putting forward “crazy, bad ideas”, while deriding some of the Labor government’s plans for schools as “vandalism” and “worse than rubbish”.
Badenoch will claim that her party, while in government, stood firm against repeated attempts by Whitehall officials to push through proposals to scrap universal winter fuel payments and close inheritance tax loopholes on farms.
Reeves pursued both policies “because she had no ideas of her own,” as the Conservative leader would say.
While Labour’s popularity has collapsed since he took office last July, the Conservative Party has outperformed Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party in opinion polls, which has been boosted by a number of low-level defections from the Conservative Party.
Under Badenoch, the party refused to present policies to confront the Labor Party, saying it would reveal them closer to the next election.
In a speech in central London on Thursday – only her second press conference since taking the reins as party leader two-and-a-half months ago – Badenoch will use controversial language that has quickly become her signature.
When she accuses Labor of failing to properly plan for government before taking office, she will say: “When you haven’t decided what you’re going to do in opposition, you’ll accept whatever you’re given in government. That’s why Rachel Reeves has come out with crazy, bad ideas about… Grabbing winter fuel and taxing family farms.
Badenoch, a prominent critic of civil service culture, will add: “We have been offered these options time and time again by officials, and we have repeatedly rejected them because they would hurt too many people for too little benefit.” “.
Ellie Reeves, the leader of the Labor Party and the chancellor’s sister, dismissed Badenoch’s planned intervention as “another speech, but one that does not include an apology for her role in Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget that collapsed the economy.”
She said that the conservatives under Badenoch “had nothing to offer,” considering that the party “did not listen and did not learn.”
Badenoch will also vent her anger at Labour’s education policies, declaring: “The schools bill going through Parliament now has one or two safeguarding clauses which might be good… the rest of it is worse than rubbish. It’s pure vandalism.”
The Conservatives have already criticized Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for scrapping reforms introduced by the Conservatives including granting freedoms to female academics.
The opposition party accused the government of backing down on one element on Wednesday, as it scrapped a proposal that would have removed academies’ freedom to set teachers’ pay levels.
However, a spokesman for Phillipson said it was always the government’s plan to allow schools to make attractive salary offers to recruit and retain staff.
Claiming that Labor has “wasted” its time in opposition, Badenoch will say that Sir Keir Starmer’s administration has “announced policy without a plan” and continues to “prescribe solutions that actually make things worse”.
May will seek to portray herself as honest and willing to admit mistakes, while outlining a range of mistakes made by the last Conservative government in which she served, including as business secretary.
Acknowledgments of failure will include announcing that the UK will leave the EU before setting out a plan to grow outside the bloc and pledging to reduce immigration levels while overseeing an increase.
The Conservative Party also passed legislation to reach net zero by 2050, and only after that “we started thinking about how to do that,” she added.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey will also give a keynote speech on Thursday, calling on the government to negotiate a new customs union between the UK and the EU by 2030, arguing that this would allow Britain to “deal with President Trump from a position of strength rather than weakness”.
The long-term ambition to join the EU was present in the Lib Dems’ manifesto last summer, although Thursday’s speech will be the first time the party has offered a concrete timetable on returning to the customs union.
Davie will argue that “the answer cannot be to do what some – like the Tory leader – want us to do.” [and] “Approach Trump from a position of weakness, go to him and ask for any trade deal he will offer us.”
He will also criticize Farage’s approach of “fawning over Trump and licking his boots”.