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Robert Jenrick in Q&A at Centre for Policy Studies fringe
Robert Jenrick is taking part in a Q&A at a fringe meeting organised by the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank. He is being interviewed by the CPS director, Robert Colvile. The venue is packed, but it’s not large. There are probably about 100 people here.
Jenrick is making his opening pitch, and he repeats the point about being rooted in provincial England.
And he says the person who disparaged him as being from the Midlands was quoted in an article by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. She wrote:
Jenrick has impressed plenty of Conservatives with a well organised campaign, (surely he wasn’t planning it before the election I hear you cry?), and the consensus is that he’s outperformed the others in that sense.
Yet a colleague describes him as an “affable boring Midlands bank manager”, while another jibes: “If the country had to draw a Tory, they’d draw him, that’s a problem for our stereotype.”
Key events
Jenrick says he wants ‘small state that works’, not ‘big state that fails’
Colvile turns to housing. He has repeatedly made the case for more looser planning laws and more housebuidling, and he asks how Jenrick would tackle the nimbyist tendencies in the party.
Jenrick says he would like to see “bold, supply-side reforms”, focused in urban areas. He says he would like to see the biggest programme of densification in urban housing in history.
In Canada the Conservatives are winning the votes of young people, partly because they are in favour of more building.
Q: The OBR has said the share of tax revenue taken by the state will rise from 40% to 60% over the next 50 years. The country faces higher taxes and lower spending. Neither party was honest about this at the election. How do you square the circle?
Jenrick says there are two parts to that.
One is, how do you create a small state that actually works, rather than the current big state that fails?
And the second part is, how do you actually get growth going again in our economy?
Jenrick says there are radical policies that will promote growth.
And, on the size of the state, he says the government has to be “much better than we have in recent years at driving value for money for the taxpayer”.
He says in all his government jobs he has always been a reformer.
Robert Jenrick in Q&A at Centre for Policy Studies fringe
Robert Jenrick is taking part in a Q&A at a fringe meeting organised by the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank. He is being interviewed by the CPS director, Robert Colvile. The venue is packed, but it’s not large. There are probably about 100 people here.
Jenrick is making his opening pitch, and he repeats the point about being rooted in provincial England.
And he says the person who disparaged him as being from the Midlands was quoted in an article by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg. She wrote:
Jenrick has impressed plenty of Conservatives with a well organised campaign, (surely he wasn’t planning it before the election I hear you cry?), and the consensus is that he’s outperformed the others in that sense.
Yet a colleague describes him as an “affable boring Midlands bank manager”, while another jibes: “If the country had to draw a Tory, they’d draw him, that’s a problem for our stereotype.”
Badenoch confirms she is not opposed to principle of maternity pay, as row over her ‘excessive’ claim escalates
Kemi Badenoch has put a post on social media saying she backs the principle of maternity pay. She implies that she has been misquoted – although the controversy is not about her saying it should be abolished, but about her saying it is excessive. (See 12.21pm.)
Contrary to what some have said, I clearly said the burden of regulation on businesses had gone too far… of course I believe in maternity pay! Watch the clip for the truth.
Back to conference… pic.twitter.com/kGsOpMCSpu
— Kemi Badenoch (@KemiBadenoch) September 29, 2024
Contrary to what some have said, I clearly said the burden of regulation on businesses had gone too far… of course I believe in maternity pay! Watch the clip for the truth.
Back to conference…
Jenrick, Cleverly and Tugendhat reject Badenoch’s stance on maternity pay
Kemi Badenoch’s argument about maternity pay being excessive (see 12.21pm) has been rejected by all three of her leadership rivals, Alex Wickham from Bloomberg reports.
Rob Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat reject Kemi Badenoch’s claims on maternity pay
Team Jenrick say he very much disagrees with her remarks
Cleverly camp say it’s for her to defend but he doesn’t support her position
Tugendhat source calls her words a backwards step
— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) September 29, 2024
Rob Jenrick, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat reject Kemi Badenoch’s claims on maternity pay
Team Jenrick say he very much disagrees with her remarks
Cleverly camp say it’s for her to defend but he doesn’t support her position
Tugendhat source calls her words a backwards step
Supporters of Kemi Badenoch’s rivals are telling journalists that her maternity pay comments (see 12.21pm) are a serious mistake.
This is from the Sun’s Martina Bet.
A source from a rival camp tells me: “Her mad ideas are the only thing that can send our party’s polling even lower. She has got some gall lecturing other women about being lazy. It’s a disgrace.” https://t.co/4JBI0oYgWB
— Martina Bet (@martinabettt) September 29, 2024
A source from a rival camp tells me: “Her mad ideas are the only thing that can send our party’s polling even lower. She has got some gall lecturing other women about being lazy. It’s a disgrace.”
And this is from the Sun’s Harry Cole.
And they’re off….
Rival camp responding to Badenoch maternity pay comments to @KateEMcCann this morning:
“This is Kemi’s Andrea Leadsom moment.”
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) September 29, 2024
And they’re off….
Rival camp responding to Badenoch maternity pay comments to @KateEMcCann this morning:
“This is Kemi’s Andrea Leadsom moment.”
Andrea Leadsom sabotaged her leadership campaign in 2016 when she told the Times in an interview that she thought having children gave her an advantage over Theresa May because it meant she had more stake in the future.
The campaign group Transparency International UK has welcomed the government’s proposal to change the rules on how ministers have to declare hospitality they have received. (See 10.17am.) Rose Whiffen, senior research officer at the group, said:
We welcome this move to end the two tier system that has meant ministers, those closest to power, are able to provide less information on their hospitality and provide it less frequently than their backbench colleagues.
Kemi Badenoch remains the clear favourite amongst Tory members to be next leader, according to the latest survey of members from the ConservativeHome website. She has the support of 36% of members, followed by Robert Jenrick on 25%, and James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat both on 13%.
But the bookmakers now have Jenrick as the clear favourite, followed by Badenoch, then Cleverly, with Tugendhat as the outsider. These odds are indicative of an assumption that Badenoch will not make the final two shortlist that goes to the membership ballot.
In his write-up for ConservativeHome, Henry Hill says the fact that Badenoch is continuing to poll very well with members could make it harder for her to make the final two.
As I explained earlier this month , Badenoch’s path to the final round seems fairly narrow – and her very strong numbers may well make it narrower still.
Add together the votes received by Cleverly, Tugendhat, and Mel Stride, and there is more than enough to put a One Nation candidate in the final found. Jenrick, meanwhile, continued to lead the pack after the second round and absent a large bloc of Stride supporters rowing in behind Badenoch) presumably still does.
His lead over Badenoch, at five votes, is not insurmountable. But where would they come from?
Were the Shadow Housing Secretary looking certain to reach the membership round, her support would likely snowball as MPs sought to get in with the winning side. As it stands, however, it isn’t. Right-wing MPs with reservations about Badenoch can take comfort in the evidence that Jenrick is a strong horse for the final vote, while the One Nation wing can (if they remain cohesive) ensure one of their own makes it through and that they face the more beatable than their two possible opponents.
Perhaps something at the Conference will overturn the applecart. If not, the crucial moment seems likely to come after the third round of MP voting, when either Cleverly or Tugendhat is knocked out. Depending on the margins, their supporters may have the choice of putting either the other One Nation challenger or Badenoch in the final.
The ConservativeHome survey of members is seen as a reasonably reliable guide to opinion in the party. It has always accurately forecast the winner, and its results are normally broadly in line with proper opinion polls (which use weighted samples). But, as Mark Pack explained in a recent Substack post, in the two most recent contests the ConHome panel results implied support for the winning candidate (Boris Johnson, then Liz Truss) was higher than it was when the final votes were counted.
And YouGov has published some new polling on the Conservative party which backs up what Lord Ashcroft is saying. (See 1.01pm.)
As the Conservative conference begins in Birmingham, what terms do Britons pick to describe the party?
Only interested in themselves: 56%
Dishonest: 50%
Divided: 44%
Unprofessional: 33%
Should not be near power: 30%
Weak: 26%
Nasty: 24%
The same as the rest: 23%
Has unworkable… pic.twitter.com/Qp7tGgNL7Z— YouGov (@YouGov) September 29, 2024
Lord Ashcroft, the former Tory deputy chair who now spends a lot of time on polling and publishing political biographies, has got an article in the Mail on Sunday about research into the election he will be releasing shortly. He says it shows, even with Labour in difficulty, it will be harder for the Conservatives to recover than some of them think. He says:
As in 2015 and 2019, the Conservatives win majorities when they attract previous Labour and Lib Dem voters and others who have never considered themselves part of the right. We found switchers to Labour frustrated about the failure to tackle small boat crossings, just as many of those going to Reform were exasperated at NHS waiting times.
Whichever direction they had scattered, former Tories all over the country told us that at its best the party had stood for stable government, common sense, a realistic understanding of how the world works, and people who work and save and try to do the right thing. This was what has been lost: barely one in ten defectors said they thought the party was on the side of people like them.
Here is the video of Kemi Badenoch talking about maternity pay on Times Radio. (See 12.21pm.)
Gavin Barwell, who was chief of staff to Theresa May when she was PM, is not impressed by Kemi Badenoch’s comments on maternity pay.
Conservatives are doing really well among younger women already. This ought to help them do even better
Barwell is, of course, being sarcastic. According to figures in this House of Commons election analysis, Labour had a 37-point lead at the election amongst people in the 25 to 34 age group.
Russell Findlay, who was elected Scottish Conservative leader on Friday, has said that he wants to unite the Scottish party. He told BBC Scotland:
I have got the mandate from the membership to do so.
I want to move forward as one winning team, to get us back winning again by coming up with a proper policy platform rooted in our Conservative values of aspiration and ambition, and showing people across Scotland we understand their concerns and we are on their side.
Badenoch says maternity pay benefits ‘excessive’
Kemi Badenoch has said she thinks maternity pay is too high.
In an interview with Times Radio, she was asked if she thought maternity pay was at the right level. She replied:
Maternity pay varies, depending on who you work for. But statutory maternity pay is a function of tax, tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.
Businesses are closing, businesses are not starting in the UK, because they say that the burden of regulation is too high.
When asked to confirm that she thinks maternity pay is excessive, she replied:
I think it’s gone too far the other way, in terms of general business regulation. We need to allow businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of those decisions.
The exact amount of maternity pay, in my view, is neither here nor there. We need to make sure that we are creating an enviroment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their own decisions.
When it was put to her that level of maternity pay was important for people who could not otherwise afford to have a baby, Badenoch said:
We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.
Statutory maternity pay is 90% of average weekly earnings for the first six weeks, and then £184 per week, or 90% of average pay, for the next 33 weeks.
Badenoch says she practises what she preaches in this regard. According to Blue Ambition, Michael Ashcroft’s useful and mostly positive biography of Badenoch, when she was head of digital operations at the Spectator, before becoming an MP, and she became pregnant with her second child, she resigned instead of taking maternity leave. “She told me she thought it would be unfair to ask us to keep her job open while she was on maternity leave,” Fraser Nelson, the Spectator editor, is quoted in the book as saying. “She would have been within her rights not to have done that.”
Badenoch might have been helped in making this decision by the fact that her husband is an investment banker.
Tom Tugendhat has rejected suggestions that he is too posh to be the next Tory leader. (See 11.04am.) When it was put to him on Sky’s Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips that the party did not need another “posh boy leader from a great public school”, Tugendhat replied:
I think the Conservative party needs a leader who can lead, and you can judge me on the decisions my parents made 35 years ago or you can judge me on the decisions I have made for the last 35 years.
I think that decisions I have made for the last 35 years demonstrate the character that you are looking at.
I have chosen consistently to serve our country. I have put myself on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to Harry Cole from the Sun, Tory officials are still saying there is no plan to shorten the leadership contest.
NEW: Tory officials stress there is still no plan to shorten the race despite fresh round of calls.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) September 29, 2024
NEW: Tory officials stress there is still no plan to shorten the race despite fresh round of calls.
Jenrick says Tory leadership contest should end early, so new leader can be in place to oppose ‘very harmful’ budget
Robert Jenrick told Times Radio he wanted the Tory leadership contest to end early, so the new leader is in post in time for the budget. (See 10.28am.) Asked if he wanted that, he replied:
Yes, absolutely, because I think that the budget coming up is likely to be very harmful to families, to businesses, to investment in this country, and I want to be the one at the dispatch box making that argument.
Badenoch says she does not want leadership contest to end early
Kemi Badenoch told Times Radio she was not backing calls for the end of the Tory leadership contest to be brought forward.
Asked if the contest should end earlier, she replied: “No, it’s fine.”
She also said, if she were to win, she would offer jobs to all three other candidates still in the contest. Asked if that included “even Robert Jenrick”, she replied “even Robert Jenrick”.
The leadership candidates are under orders from party officials to avoid blue-on-blue attacks. But, in so far as there have been personal attacks, they have involved Badenoch and Jenrick, the two favourites. (See 9.27am.)