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Louise Thomas
Editor
Kemi Badenoch put her faltering leadership campaign back on track with a powerful speech to end the Tory conference.
The former business secretary has had a difficult conference with missteps on maternity pay and her suggestion that some civil servants “should be in prison”, but her speech to close a four-day trial of strength for the leadership contenders appeared to woo Tory members.
The back-to-back speeches in Birmingham also confirmed that former home secretary James Cleverly is a contender, as MPs prepare to whittle the field down to two next week.
His speech received the loudest cheers as he appeared to take on criticisms that his affable nature hides a man who stands for very little.
Instead, Mr Cleverly addressed head on his philosophy as a Conservative and what he would do to win back power for the battered Tory party.
The final day went less well for frontrunner Robert Jenrick, who ploughed ahead as the candidate of the right but battled a sore throat and delivered jokes about Labour which failed to get many laughs.
Meanwhile, Tom Tugendhat, who is vying with Mr Cleverly to be the candidate of the party’s centrists, gave a solid speech that failed to rouse the audience.
Near the end, there were awkward laughs when he said: “My friends I get it, you have had enough and so have I.”
In her speech, Ms Badenoch went back to her childhood growing up in Nigeria to explain why she is a Conservative.
She said: “I was born here, but I grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. You cannot understand it unless you’ve lived it, triple-checking that all the doors and windows are locked, waking up in the night at every sound, listening as you hear your neighbours scream, as they are being burgled and beaten and wondering if your home will be next.
“When you’ve experienced that kind of fear, you’re not worried about being attacked on Twitter.”
On “Conservative principles”, Ms Badenoch said: “I am a Conservative because I have seen what happens when a country loses sight of those principles.”
In another pitch to the right, she also outed herself as a net zero sceptic
Ms Badenoch told delegates and activists: “We set a target with no plan on how to meet it, just so politicians could say we were the first country to do so.
“Now we have a net zero strategy addicted to state subsidy, making energy more expensive and hurting our economy.
“I am not a climate-change sceptic but I am a net zero sceptic. I did not become an MP to deliver an agenda set by Ed Miliband.”
Mr Cleverly, who went second, started slowly but used his political hero Ronald Reagan as inspiration for a vision of “conservativism with a smile”.
But he began with an apology to the party, on behalf of MPs, for letting them down and bringing about their worst-ever election defeat.
Mr Cleverly urged Tory members to be “more normal” and “sell conservatism with a smile”, as he made his leadership bid at the party’s conference.
As part of his pitch to members, the former minister claimed he was the candidate who is “feared the most” by other party leaders and pledged to scrap “bad taxes” such as stamp duty.
Mr Cleverly also ruled out any deals or mergers with Reform UK, branding the party a “pale imitation” of the Tories.
“Let’s be enthusiastic, relatable, positive, optimistic. Let’s be more normal,” he told those gathered.
Mr Jenrick explained why he wanted to create a new Conservative Party. He also revealed plans to switch the aid budget to fund the spending of 3 per cent of GDP on defence.
Mr Jenrick said he wants to remodel the party so it is a “pressure group for Britain’s hard-working majority”.
He took aim at “mad targets, the carbon budgets” which he said were “driving the mad policies” on net zero.
“I say that, with our new Conservative Party, we will stand for cutting emissions but we will never do it on the backs of working people and by further deindustrialising our great country.”
Mr Tugendhat referenced his military background in his leadership pitch and said he “knows when a Labour government does not have your back.”
He said: "If you went to Reform, I want to show you the Conservative values that we share. If you went to the Lib Dems I want you to see the opportunities that only we can deliver.
"If you went to Labour I want to show you why freedom, not state control, is how we build. If you stayed at home, I want to make you proud to vote Conservative again."
By next Wednesday, Tory MPs will have decided which two candidates to put forward to party members. Voting closes on 31 October with the successor to Rishi Sunak announced on 2 November.
But while the speeches left one impression in the conference hall, it was a different tale outside when all the candidates but one, Ms Badenoch, took questions in media huddles.
Ms Badenoch instead sent out four of her supporting MPs to take questions from the press.
Asked repeatedly where the former business secretary was, and why she wasn’t speaking to the press, Badenoch-backer Chris Philp said she had already done “lots of interviews with journalists”.
The Tory leadership contender was mobbed by reporters as she left the conference centre, but still refused to answer questions.
When asked how confident he is of making it to the final two, Mr Cleverly said: “Throughout the party conference I’ve been getting commitments from additional MPs who hadn’t voted for me before, so my support is building. People have sensed I can communicate effectively, I can lead from the front and I can enthuse our party.”
Asked how he will do things differently to the last Conservative government, given he held such a prominent role, Mr Cleverly pointed out that all four candidates had jobs in the previous administration, adding: “We all have to justify our own actions.”
He also said he was proud of his personal record in government, pointing to the fall in net migration on his watch.
There was a confident performance by Mr Tugendhat too as he was asked about his speech.
Mr Jenrick though was prickly and gave short answers.
Asked whether he is concerned that his campaign is losing momentum, Mr Jenrick responded: “Of course not, why would you ask that?”
“That’s not my impression, we’ve had a great conference.”
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