UK

The Liberal Democrats are set to win more seats than the Conservatives due to the electoral system, if polling stays the same, polling expert Sir John Curtice has said.The polling expert told a fringe panel at the Conservative party conference in Manchester that the party needed to make it to “base camp” before they could even think about climbing the electoral “Himalayas” of getting back into government.Recent YouGov polling showed the Liberal Democrats on 15 points, one behind Kemi Badenoch’s party on 16. Reform led on 29%.Addressing Tory members at the event run by thinktank Demos, Sir John said: “The Liberal Democrat vote is now much more geographically concentrated than your vote, and the electoral system is now treating you like it treated the Liberal Democrats.“And so the Liberal Democrats are just behind you in the polls, they are going to almost undoubtedly win more seats than you.”Sir John Curtice issued the warning to the Tories after leader Kemi Badenoch addressed the conference on Sunday More

Kemi Badenoch has been warned that she has a death wish for the Conservative Party with her new hard-right policies of mass deportations and potential withdrawal from an international treaty on human rights.The warning from former Tory attorney general Dominic Grieve came as Ms Badenoch made the move to the right in a bid to reverse her party’s decline in the face of the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.As the Conservative Party conference in Manchester opened yesterday, the party’s leader confirmed that she would withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if she won the next general election.The policy came with an added pledge of deporting 150,000 foreign criminals and illegal immigrants a year with no clear detail on where they would be sent.Badenoch at the Tory party conference in Manchester on Sunday More

Attendees at the Conservative Party conference could be forgiven for forgetting who their leader is, as Kemi Badenoch’s face is not the most prominent in the Manchester exhibition centre. Instead, the main hall is plastered with pictures of Margaret Thatcher as the party harks back to its days under the Iron Lady’s leadership.The merchandise stall is flogging mugs, Christmas baubles and bottles of whisky bearing Thatcher’s face as the Conservatives celebrate what would have been her 100th birthday. Despite the milestone, the prominence of Thatcher makes the absence of Ms Badenoch all the more stark. After polling guru Sir John Curtice said the Tory leader has failed to make an impression on the country, it is the sign of a party unsure of itself, clinging to a bygone era in which it had a strong, unwavering leader. The Tory conference is dominated by Margaret Thatcher More

The home secretary has refused to describe China as an “enemy of the UK” as she insisted there was no ministerial interference in the collapse of a Chinese espionage case.Shabana Mahmood said she was “very disappointed” that the trial of Christopher Berry, 33, and Chris Cash, 30, a former parliamentary researcher, did not go ahead, as she was grilled over whether there was any influence from government advisers over the decision. Both men had denied the allegations.The Sunday Times reported that Sir Keir Starmer’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell met with other senior Whitehall mandarins, including the foreign office’s top civil servant Sir Oliver Robbins, to discuss the case early last month, days before the charges against the pair were dropped on 15 September.In order to prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, prosecutors would have had to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy” – but Mr Powell reportedly revealed the government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which does not use that term to describe China.The Sunday Times reported this meant Matthew Collins, the deputy national security adviser due to give evidence for the prosecution, would be unable to say Beijing was an enemy.Christopher Berry (left) and former parliamentary researcher Christopher Cash (right) who had denied the Chinese spying allegations More

Kemi Badenoch Unable To Say Where 150,000 Migrants A Year Will Go Once They Are DeportedKemi Badenoch has admitted the Tories have a “mountain to climb” as she closed her first conference speech as party leader.The Conservative leader spoke at the opening of the Tory party’s four-day conference in Manchester on Sunday afternoon. She described the Conservatives as the party that will “strengthen our borders, restore our sovereignty and rebuild our prosperity”.On the eve of the event, she unveiled plans for a special task force, called the “Removals Force” to deport 750,000 illegal immigrants from the UK.Now speaking on stage, she said: “To me and the shadow cabinet, the resulting policy decision is also clear. We must leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act.“I want you to know that the next Conservative manifesto will contain our commitment to leave. Leaving the convention is a necessary step but it is not enough on its own to achieve our goals.”She added: “This is the only way to end spurious claims from immigrants with spurious lawyers and excuses. This is the only way to allow the next British government, a Conservative government, to deliver a British borders plan in full.” Badenoch admits Tories have ‘mountain to climb’ as she ends speechKemi Badenoch has admitted the Tories have a “mountain to climb” as she closed her first conference speech as party leader.She told attendees: “This is a party under new leadership with a renewed purpose – we have listened, we have learned, and we have changed.”She described the Conservatives as the party that willl “strengthen our borders, restore our sovereignty and rebuild our prosperity”.She concluded her speech by saying: “Yes, we have a mountain to climb, but we have a song on our hearts, and we are up for the fight.”Tara Cobham5 October 2025 15:50Badenoch: Labour and Reform are ‘two sides of the same coin’The Independent’s political correspondent Millie Cooke reports:Labour and Reform are “two sides of the same coin”, Kemi Badenoch has argued, claiming neither of the two parties offer “the leadership that Britain deserves”.”You will have seen last week both Labour and Reform shouting at one another, trading insults instead of solutions. One flings around the word racist and will not be realistic about what is going wrong. The other whips up outrage, offering simplistic answers that will fall apart on first contact with reality. That is not serious politics”, the Tory leader said on Sunday.”Neither of those parties offers the leadership that Britain deserves. The truth, is that Labour and Reform are two sides of the same coin.”Both deal in grievance, both divide our country into tribes and labels. Both practice identity politics which will destroy our country. And I am saying no – no to division and no to identity politics.”Tara Cobham5 October 2025 15:37Badenoch insists leaving ECHR is ‘necessary step’ for ‘British border plan’Kemi Badenoch is outlining her pledge to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) if the Conservative Party get into power at the next general election.The Tory leader told attendees at their party conference: “We must leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act.”She described it as a “necessary step”, claiming it is “the only way to allow a British government, a British Conservative government, to deliver a British border plan”.And she claimed doing so “would not mean that we lose any of the rights we cherish”.Tara Cobham5 October 2025 15:30Badenoch takes aim at Truss in promise to ‘learn from mistakes’The Independent’s political correspondent Millie Cooke reports:Kemi Badenoch has taken aim at previous Tory governments in her address to the Tory party conference in Manchester, saying: “Our mistakes on the economy and on immigration lost us the trust and confidence of the public”.She told party members that the public “won’t listen to us again until we show them we have learnt from our mistakes and changed”, adding: “We’ve got to do this and weve got to do this properly.”She continued: “What have we learnt? That you can’t have a budget that has £150bn of spending giveaways and billions more in tax cuts without saying where the money is coming from. We have to show we have learnt from the policy mistake of letting bureaucrats decide the immigration system. We failed to bring the numbers down and stop the boats, lets be honest, that happened on our watch. Yes we tried, but put simply, we didn’t achieve enough.”After years of responsible and effective government, our mistakes on the economy and on immigration lost us the trust and confidence of the public.”Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch delivers her opening speech on the first day of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on Sunday More

When Nigel Farage kicked off the party conference season for Reform in Birmingham he joked to party members: “It’s not all about me.”He pointed a line of 11 Reform UK football shirts with the names of leading party members on them, insisting “we are not a one man band, we are a full team”. Except when it came to buying one of those shirts, the only one available was the one with Farage’s name on the back.But with Farage propelling Reform to new heights in the polls, the traditional main political parties have taken it all to heart and decided that their conferences should be about them too.Farage has a lot to smile about More

Angela Rayner is facing questions after her taxpayer-funded bodyguards were seen helping her partner move belongings into her second home. The former deputy prime minister, who quit Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet after underpaying stamp duty on the purchase of a seaside flat, was accused of wasting public money. Pictures published in the Mail on Sunday showed two close-protection officers helping the former Labour MP Sam Tarry, Ms Rayner’s boyfriend, move bags and boxes in a BMW X5 between their two homes.Angela Rayner is facing questions over the use of her personal security detail More