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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 Tory conference with a number of missteps on maternity pay and suggesting some civil servants should go to prison, but her speech to close a four-day trial of strength for the leadership contenders appeared to woo Tory members.
The back-back speeches have also confirmed that former home secretary James Cleverly is a contender as MPs prepare to whittle down the number 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 speeches was less helpful for the frontrunner Robert Jenrick, who ploughed ahead as the candidate of the right but came into the final speeches with a sore throat and 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 which failed to inspire the audience in the hall.
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 at their conference in Birmingham: “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 started off with an apology to the party for MPs letting them all down and bringing about their historic worst 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 the party’s conference in Birmingham.
Mr Jenrick explained why he wanted to create The New Conservative Party. He also revealed plans to switch the aid budget to fund spending 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 de-industrialising our great country.”
Mr Tugendhat returned to his military background as a leader who “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 Wednesday next week MPs will have reduced the candidates to two for party members to choose from. Voting closes on 31 October with the result of who replaces Rishi Sunak announced on 2 November.
But while the speeches left one impression in the conference hall, it was a different tale outside the conference hall 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 that he will make it into 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 delivery on cutting net migration.
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.”
