Tory leadership rivals make pitch to members at party conference – UK politics live | Politics

Here is our story on the leadership hustings. Jessica Elgot and Kiran Stacey report:

James Cleverly has seized the momentum in the Conservative leadership contest, calling on his party to be “more normal” after a tumultuous few days for his two main rivals, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick.

In a speech on the final day of the Tory conference in which he apologised to the membership and the country for the failings of the parliamentary party, he said victory would come again when the Conservatives were “enthusiastic, relatable, positive, optimistic, let’s be more normal”.

But despite days of difficult headlines, Badenoch, the shadow housing secretary, received a rapturous reception in the hall for her attacks on net zero and identity politics. She closed the conference on Wednesday with a speech taking on her critics and promising to “tell the truth”.

The former business secretary said: “I grew up in a place where fear was everywhere. Listening as you hear your neighbours scream, as they are being burgled and beaten … When you’ve experienced that kind of fear, you’re not worried about being attacked on Twitter.”

The Kemi Badenoch campaign has released a statement from David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, saying he is now endorsing her. Davis said:

Kemi understands, as Margaret Thatcher did, that Conservatives must be address the everyday problems that people face. We should not say only what is fashionable or make endless promises which we cannot deliver, but carefully build radical policies which will revitalise Britain’s confidence, freedom and prosperity.

As an engineer, with clear conservative principles and a willingness to speak the truth, Kemi is the leader who can deliver that.

Kemi’s speech today was the conference speech of a leader.

It always takes a while to work out the full impact of a political speech. There is the instant response from people who have heard it in the hall, then people read it again, watch how it is refracted through the social media, find out how the focus groups and the polls respond, and after a few days a settled consensus emerges. At this point it does not feel as if there was a standout winner, but James Cleverly was probably the candidate who did most to outperform expectations.

Here is my take on the four speeches.

Tom Tugendhat: Tugendhat arrived at the conference as the underdog, he has avoided any gaffes, but that was probably not a speech that will do enough to lift him in the rankings. Having a military record tends to help in politics, but it will only get you so far, and in the speech he was relatively light on how he would change policy, or the party.

James Cleverly: Cleverly has probably had the best conference, in that nothing has really gone wrong for him, and of the four speakers he easily came across as the warmest, most engaging and nicest. Starting with an apology was a good move. Despite his references to change, he is arguably the most status quo candidate, but that might make him a safe choice for MPs, and members. His speech was the most optimistic, and the best written.

Robert Jenrick: Jenrick has been favourite in the contest for a while, and that is unlikely to change, but that was not a speech that will consolidate his lead. He is offering the clearest policy on immigration, and the ECHR. But he does not convey 100% authenticity (speeches are a good test of this – with the Thatcher, and Labour-bashing passages, it felt he was trying a little too hard) and his policy platform felt a just a little too ‘ChatGPT, Write a speech that will please the Telegraph’.

Kemi Badenoch: There is no doubt about Badenoch’s authenticity, but that could be a problem too. What she is offering is extreme – the entire recasting of the state, Tory Leninism, perhaps a better speech for a Reform UK leadership contest than a Tory one. As a speaker, she was compelling, and she had more change to offer than any of her rivals, but to a lot of people she will come over as harsh and aggressive, and there must be Tory members who will worry where her plan to dismantle parts of the state will end up. (Badenoch is confident talking about principles, but whenever anyone gets on to what this might mean in practice – cutting maternity pay, cutting the minimum wage etc – she shies away.) Badenoch referenced Keith Joseph, a hero for some Tories, but others will remember that his own bid for the leadership in 1975 was cut short after he floated ideas that colleagues viewed as crackers.

Badenoch says she wants to “rewrite the rules of the game”. He explains:

If I become leader, we will immediately begin a,once in a generation undertaking, the sort of project not attempted since the days of Keith Joseph in the 1970s, a comprehensive plan to reprogram the British state, to reboot the British economy … one that goes far beyond the relationship with the EU or the ECHR, a plan that considers every aspect of what the state does and why it does it …

A plan built on the principles and priorities of our nation, a plan that looks at our international agreements, at the Human Rights Act, the Equality Act, at judicial review and judicial activism, at the Treasury and the Bank of England, at devolutions and quango, at the civil service and the health service. At how we use power to give power to the British people.

We will rewire, reboot and reprogram. Nothing is more exciting to me. I am an engineer, and engineers do not hide from the truth.

Badenoch says she has been fighting identity politics all her life. And she goes on:

Like the 1970s we face a battle of ideas against the left and its desire for ever greater social and economic control.

It is socialism returned socialism in a suit.

The British public knows that socialism doesn’t work. They know.

But you can give it a new label. You can sneak it in. You can promote class warfare under the banner of equality.

You can take freedom and choice away from families by telling them that Ofsted inspection reports are unfair.

If you call communism, environmentalism, you can close down businesses, block the roads and stop people going to work.

This new politics has made us afraid, afraid to defend the people who need us, like young Conservatives. They tell me they are afraid to share their politics with other students, because they will be attacked that they are marked down by lecturers because of their beliefs. We have let young Conservatives down.

Badenoch says the Tories stopped acting like Conservatives.

Net zero is a good example, she says.

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.