CONSERVATIVE leader Kemi Bandenoch has claimed that support for the party is recovering because voters have become disenchanted with the Labour government.
During Britain’s Newsroom on GB News, she said: “What we’re seeing is that people are listening to us again. We suffered a historic defeat last year, and oppositions have taken 14 years, 13 years, 18 years to come back. We’re going to do this in four years, so there’s still a long way to go.
“But what we are seeing is that many people are interested in what the Conservatives have to say, because they can see that they’re getting poorer under Labour.”
On Nigel Farage saying the Tories cannot be trusted, she said: “I think he is worried. On the same day when he’s trying to recruit as many former Conservatives as possible, he’s saying, ‘don’t trust the Tories’. It can’t be both things at the same time.
“I think it’s a very confused message, but I’m not really interested in what he’s saying. I think the fact that he chose to attack us at a time when it’s Labour that’s on the ropes, it’s the Chancellor who’s in the dock, they are making everyone in our country poorer, apart from people on benefits. And Nigel Farage thinks the most important thing to do is to attack me. That is not serious.
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“We right now as a country need to get serious and get a grip. We are getting poorer. We’re living beyond our means. We are the only party, the Conservatives, who are interested in fiscal responsibility, and I think that people can see that, and that’s why they’re paying more attention.”
Asked about the proposal to scrap Stamp Duty, she said: “I am talking about it with every single opportunity…we are making sure that people know what our policies are. But there is a lot that is going on. And right now, the big problem with the Budget is that working people are being taxed to the hilt to pay for benefits.
“That was a budget for benefits. Rachel Reeves is using everyone else’s money in order to save her job, bribe her back benches so they don’t get rid of her. That is the wrong way around. She should be losing her job, and everyone else should be keeping theirs.
“I’m at a business right now where they talked about what the last Budget did to them. The jobs tax meant that they had to sack people. We need aspirational, positive policies like abolishing Stamp Duty. So thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk about it.
“The other thing that people are talking about is revitalising the high streets. We want to scrap business rates for most of the high streets if they’re under £110,000 pounds…retail, hospitality, leisure, that’s pubs, shops, cafes, restaurants, we would scrap their business rates.”
She said she was opposed to scrapping jury trials: “It is not the answer. The answer is to just get a grip. They don’t know how to do anything. Everything that this government touches is a shambles, whether it’s borders, whether it’s prisons, whether it’s taxes, they’re U-turning all over the place. On the grooming gangs national inquiry, the U-turn, now they can’t find someone to do it.
“On winter fuel payments, they said they were going to take it away, then they decided to give it back. They are all over the place. This is just another example. We have a bunch of people who were not ready for government.
“They told people whatever they wanted to hear. Now they’ve got into government, they don’t know how to run things. And this is why I am trying to distinguish myself from all of the other parties, Labour, Lib Dems, Reform, they all talk a good game. How do you make sure things work?
“They don’t know. We are doing the hard work in opposition to make sure that we are ready in four years’ time, when everybody is going to be doing all they can to kick out this Labour government.”
Responding to a suggestion that the Conservatives were not very good in government either, Badenoch said: “Well, we won four elections in a row, so I think that people saw something that they were voting for. And I’m not here to pretend that everything was perfect. It certainly wasn’t.
“There were a lot of arguments about which direction to go to. Miriam will know a lot about that, but what I’m trying to do is make sure people understand what we stand for.
“Now I’m very proud of my own personal record in government. There was a lot of stuff that I did as Business Secretary, as the Equalities Minister, that stood the test of time, and I can say that I did the right thing. I’m in charge now. The party is now under my leadership, not the previous people.
“I don’t have a time machine to go back and fix some of the things that went wrong. But when it came to things like cutting the deficit, we did that all the way to the pandemic. If any other party, Labour, Lib Dems, Reform, had been in charge during the pandemic, this country would have been bankrupted.
“We saved the country during that time. I am proud of it. We didn’t get everything right. And we’re going to show people that we can earn their trust, that we are worthy of their trust. We’re not expecting everybody to rush back overnight. We are working hard to make sure we can win the trust of the British people.”
