Going into her first party conference as leader of the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch faced two challenges. First, to save her faltering leadership, and second, on her own behalf and that of her party, to begin earning the right to be listened to by the British people.
On both counts, she acquitted herself well. She is safe, for now – and her surprise announcement that her government would abolish stamp duty was more than sufficiently bold to command public attention.
As with Sir Keir Starmer the previous week, she saw off a nascent leadership challenge and re-established her authority, albeit contingent on some sign of further progress in next May’s rounds of elections in Scotland, Wales, London and local authorities. Whether the country likes it or not, it is still possible that by this time next year it will have a new prime minister and a new leader of the opposition.
Prickly in media interviews, unreliable at Prime Minister’s Questions and prone to an inexplicable overconfidence that makes her occasional gaffes even worse, she is a good platform performer, and certainly no worse than her perennial stalker Robert Jenrick, who – with his hand stuck up a full-bottomed legal wig – gave a bizarre impression of a music hall ventriloquist the previous day.
Ms Badenoch’s audience heard a little more about her backstory and, despite the constant murmurings, seemed to show her some affection, genuine or not, when she asked them to “stand with me”.
For the Conservatives, a party still reeling from its historic defeat at the general election last year, followed by a further merciless battering by Nigel Farage and Reform UK, it was all anyone could do. In case they had any doubt about the matter, Ms Badenoch told them that people “are still angry with us”.
She certainly gave the activists what they were looking for, including well-turned quips. Stamp duty is indeed – as experts who are far from sympathetic to the Tories agree – a “bad tax”, as she put it. It gums up the property market and, under George Osborne’s time as (Conservative) chancellor, it began to morph into an extremely flawed, almost random wealth tax. It discourages first-time buyers so much that it has had to be periodically slashed, in theatrical fashion, by Mr Osborne’s successors; the thresholds produce anomalies, and it prevents older people from downsizing and freeing up family homes.
In terms of the economic impact more broadly, it hinders mobility of labour and, thus, a more dynamic economy and social mobility. Though far from the most formidable barrier to creating a “property owning democracy”, it has become deeply resented. In pledging to get rid of it, Ms Badenoch has hit upon a measure that is both in tune with the “aspirational” instincts of the Tories’ traditional constituency, and which reminds her party of one of its great historical missions.
Like the plan by the shadow chancellor, Sir Mel Stride, to subsidise first-time buyers with a £5,000 national insurance rebate, the Conservatives are once again fastening onto the upwardly mobile youth vote – which, given their badly ageing base, shows that they may have rediscovered their political mojo.
Ms Badenoch revealed her vote-winner with a certain amount of playful teasing during her peroration, which made the announcement even more dramatic. It was probably the best news the Tories have had since before the pandemic. No wonder it went down well.
Stamp duty was once rather perfunctory, even quaint during the era of (relatively) affordable housing; nowadays, it raises about £15bn – a considerable sum – and is unaffordable even for the middle classes. Ms Badenoch wants to retain it for second and rental homes, which would reduce the cost of abolishing it, and it seems the move would be phased in.
Still, like the rest of the Conservatives’ proposals – not least to reduce public spending by the end of a parliament by £47bn a year, including £23bn lopped off social security – Ms Badenoch lacks a credible plan for what she seeks to do. How will she pay for this? As she often reminds us, she is an engineer, and claims she won’t rush policymaking without creating “blueprints” – but this is exactly what she is doing now.
Unless she can level with the electorate about which sections of society will be affected by her proposals, they will lack a certain plausibility. She risks making the very errors she criticises the Labour government – and, indeed, past Conservative administrations – of committing. Ms Badenoch has not quite strayed into the minefield of unfunded tax cuts that caused the downfall of Liz Truss, and which damaged the Tories’ reputation for economic competence, but she cannot afford to be so ill-prepared for scrutiny as an election approaches. Her “golden rule” of putting deficit reduction first sets the right priority, but it’s not anything like a proper fiscal framework for debt and deficit reduction in relation to national income. It guarantees nothing.
In the Manchester conference hall, Ms Badenoch showed herself at her combative best, and may just have “cut through” to an electorate that is not yet eager to give her party a fair hearing. But, as she said in her previous speech a few days ago, she still has “a mountain to climb”. One good speech with a headline-grabbing policy won’t be enough to close the gap with Reform.
But at least the Conservatives have some political merchandise to tempt the electorate – on the economy, on immigration, on energy bills, on the “family farm tax”, VAT on private school fees, for first-time buyers and homeowners more broadly. The job of claiming the economy and general competence as “their” strong suits is made easier by the missteps taken by the Labour government, as well as Mr Farage’s habitually cavalier attitude to facts and reality.
Some of the promises made by the Conservatives are deeply misguided, others are as yet not fully formed, and they remain near-silent on schools and hospitals. The noises they’ve been making on human rights, race and multiculturalism are deeply disturbing.
With his recent article in The Independent, later delivered as a conference speech at a fringe event, Lord Heseltine was right to haunt them with warnings about their impact. Yet, this rump of a party can at least start to answer that most deadly of questions on the doorstep: “Why should we give you another chance?”
