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Conservative leader Kimmy Badenoch will accuse Chancellor Rachel Reeves of “crazy and bad ideas” on Thursday, while deriding some of the Labor government’s plans for schools as “vandalism” and “worse than rubbish”.
Badenoch will claim that his party, while in government, took a strong stand against proposals to scrap universal winter fuel payments and repeated attempts by Whitehall officials to close inheritance tax loopholes on farms.
Reeves pursued both policies “because he has no idea of his own”, the Tory leader would say.
Labour’s popularity has fallen since taking power last July, with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party beating the Tories in the polls, bolstered by several low-level Conservative defections.
Under Badenoch, the party has refused to propose policies to tackle Labour, saying it would reveal them closer to the next election.
In a speech in central London on Thursday – his second press conference since taking the reins as party leader two and a half months ago – Badenoch will deploy the firebrand language that is fast becoming a signature.
Accusing Labor of failing to adequately plan for government before taking office, he will say: “When you haven’t decided what you’re going to do in opposition, you’ll take whatever you’re given in government. This is why Rachel Reeves announced the crazy and bad idea of taking away winter fuel and taxing family farms.”
Badenoch, a prominent critic of civil service culture, would add: “Those options were presented to us again and again by officials, and we rejected them again and again because they would hurt so many people for so little benefit. “
Ellie Reeves, the Labor chair and the chancellor’s sister, dismissed Badenoch’s planned intervention as “another speech, but no apology for her role in Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-budget which has wrecked the economy”.
He said the Conservatives had “nothing to offer” under Badenoch, arguing that the party “didn’t listen and they didn’t learn”.
Badenoch will also turn his ire on Labour’s education policy, declaring: “The schools bill going through parliament now has one or two bits of protection which could be good. . . The rest is worse than garbage. It is pure vandalism.”
Conservatives have already lashed out at Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for scrapping reforms introduced by the Tories, including giving independence to academies.
The opposition accused the government on Wednesday of backsliding on one element, scrapping a proposal that would have removed academies’ freedom to set teacher pay levels.
However, a Philipson spokesman said it had always been the Government’s plan to allow schools to offer attractive pay to recruit and retain staff.
Accusing Labor of “wasting” its time in opposition, Badenoch will say Sir Keir Starmer’s administration has “announced policy without a plan” and “imposed solutions that are actually making things worse”.
He will try to style himself as a truth-teller who is willing to admit mistakes, outlining an array of mistakes made by the last Tory government he served as business secretary.
Admitting failure would include announcing the UK is leaving the EU before developing a plan for growth outside the bloc and pledging to reduce immigration levels while presiding over growth.
Tory also introduced legislation to reach net zero by 2050, and only after that “we started to think about how we would do that”, he would add.
Sir Ed Davie, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, will also give a keynote speech on Thursday, in which he will call on the government to negotiate a new UK-EU customs union by 2030, arguing that it would allow Britain to “deal with President Trump. Positions of strength, weakness No.”
The long-term ambition to rejoin the EU was in the Lib Dems’ manifesto last summer, although Thursday’s speech was the first time the party gave a specific timeline on rejoining the customs union.
Davy would argue that “the answer cannot be what some – such as the leader of the Conservative Party – want us to do. [and] Go to Trump from a position of weakness, go to him and beg him for the trade deals he’s going to give us.”
He will also criticize Farage’s approach of “scrutinizing Trump and licking his boots”.
