Kemi Badenoch suggests all six Tory leadership candidates could get jobs in her shadow cabinet

Published

9 months ago

October 28, 2024

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Kemi Badenoch has suggested she will offer all six candidates in the Tory leadership race a job in her shadow cabinet if she is elected leader.

The Tory leadership hopeful, who is competing against Robert Jenrick to become the next head of the Tory party, said she “did not know” if they would like the roles she would give them and that she has not yet made them any offers.

The current shadow housing secretary – who served as business secretary when the Conservatives were in power – dodged questions over whether she wanted to be prime minister, saying her ultimate ambition was to “make the country more Conservative” to deliver “better growth” and a “better life” for everyone.

She told the Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge: “I don’t think it’s about wanting to be prime minister.

Politics latest: Furious Speaker gives chancellor a telling off just two days before budget

“I think it’s not an award. It’s not like winning a competition. It’s actually a very serious job that requires a lot of sacrifice.”

Acknowledging the potential downsides of the job, including the toll it could take on her family life, Ms Badenoch said the role of prime minister “changes your life forever. It changes the life of your family. So I’m very, very wary of saying, ‘Well, I want to be prime minister’.”

She added: “I am very well aware of how life could change, for the worse in, in many circumstances. But I also worry even more about the direction of the country and what will happen unless we can turn things around.”

Ms Badenoch is widely seen as the favourite to succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader following the party’s worst ever general election result in July.

The race between herself and Mr Jenrick, a former immigration minister, has become increasingly acrimonious after her opponent claimed the party would “die” under her leadership.

It came after Ms Badenoch launched an attack on Mr Jenrick’s “integrity”, suggesting she was a better fit for the top job as she had never been sacked because of a “whiff of impropriety”.

The comments, made to The Telegraph newspaper, appeared to be a dig at Mr Jenrick’s involvement in a planning dispute when he was housing secretary in 2020 – a position he was later sacked from by Boris Johnson.

However, Ms Badenoch was challenged about her own integrity after she admitted that she had hacked the website of Baroness Harman in 2008 and added a picture of former prime minister Boris Johnson.

Ms Badenoch responded by telling Ridge that she acknowledged she had committed a “summary offence” akin to a speeding ticket and that “I do like playing pranks… I have humour”.

The former minister admitted that while it was “very amusing at the time” before she was an MP herself, now that she was in parliament she has seen the “hassle” MPs receive.

Giving an insight into her character, Ms Badenoch said she was no “wallflower” and described herself as “blunt”, “forthright” and “confident”.

She also addressed some of the negative stereotyping she had received, including accusations that she was “aggressive” as well as “lazy”.

But she said wanted to avoid making accusations of racism and misogyny because she wanted to “believe the best in everybody”.

Looking ahead to this week’s budget, where the state of the country’s public services will dominate the conversation, Ms Badenoch said she did not believe the UK was “earning enough for the public services that the country wants”.

“Right now, we’re paying more on debt interest than we’re spending on defence,” she said.

“We’re not earning enough in order to cover our costs, and we need to rewire the state and the system in order to deliver what people want.”

Regarding the funding of the NHS, she said “everything should be on the table for discussion”.

She also hit out at some recent policies floated by the Labour government, including a ban on smoking in pub gardens and plans for a football regulator – with the previous Tory government kickstarting plans for the latter.

“I think that the state does infantilise a lot of things,” she said.

“Do we really need to ban smoking in pub gardens? Do we really need a football regulator?

“These things are micro, on their own – but the cumulative impact of everything that the state is doing, I think is too much.

“A lot of these things are not public services. We keep creating more bureaucracy, more regulation. And yet the public services are not improving.”

She continued: “I think that’s one of the things that we as a party got wrong – we, the Conservatives, follow this model.

“It’s what I call the Blairite sort of third way model. And maybe it worked in 1997 – but it does not work now.”

The party membership vote will close at 5pm on Thursday 31 October and the winner will be announced on Saturday 2 November.

Politics

£100m border security boost – as govt vows ‘major crackdown’ on people smuggling gangs

Published

1 hour ago

August 4, 2025

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£100m border security boost - as govt vows 'major crackdown' on people smuggling gangs

The government has vowed to push for a “major new crackdown” on people smuggling gangs with a £100m cash boost for border security.

The investment will support the pilot of the new “one in, one out” returns agreement between the UK and France, and other efforts to crack down on small boat crossings.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said this new funding will “strengthen” the government’s “serious and comprehensive plan” to dismantle the business model of criminal gangs smuggling migrants across the Channel.

But the Conservatives have claimed the cash injection will make “no real difference”, with shadow home secretary Chris Philp branding the move a Labour “gimmick” and a “desperate grab for headlines”.

The funding will pay for up to 300 new National Crime Agency (NCA) officials, “state-of-the art” detection technology and new equipment to “smash the networks putting lives at risk in the Channel”, ministers say.

It will also allow the Border Security Command, the NCA, the police and other law enforcement agency partners to “strengthen investigations targeting smuggling kingpins and disrupt their operations across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond”.

The new investment comes as official figures show more than 25,000 people have arrived on small boats so far in 2025 – a record for this point in the year.

Ms Cooper said: “In the last 12 months, we have set the foundations for this new and much stronger law enforcement approach – establishing the new Border Security Command, strengthening the National Crime Agency and UK police operations, increasing Immigration Enforcement, introducing new counter terror style powers in our Border Security Bill, and establishing cooperation agreements with Europol and other countries.

“Now this additional funding will strengthen every aspect of our plan, and will turbo-charge the ability of our law enforcement agencies to track the gangs and bring them down, working with our partners overseas, and using state-of-the-art technology and equipment.

“Alongside our new agreements with France, this will help us drive forward our Plan for Change commitments to protect the UK’s border security and restore order to our immigration system.”

The £100m investment will also support new powers to be introduced when the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill becomes law, the Home Office said.

This includes the introduction of a UK-wide offence to criminalise the creation and publication of online material that promotes a breach of immigration law, such as the advertisement of small boat crossings on social media.

Research suggests about 80% of migrants arriving to the UK by small boat used internet platforms during their journey – including to contact agents linked to smuggling gangs.

While it is already illegal to assist illegal immigration, ministers hope the creation of a new offence will give police more powers and disrupt business models.

Mr Philp accused the Labour government of having “no serious plan, just excuses, while ruthless criminal gangs flood our borders with illegal immigrants”.

He said: “The British public deserves real action, not empty slogans and tinkering at the edges.”

Politics

More children from Gaza to be brought to UK for urgent medical treatment

Published

10 hours ago

August 3, 2025

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More children from Gaza to be brought to UK for urgent medical treatment

Efforts to bring Gazan children to the UK for urgent medical treatment are set to be accelerated under new government plans.

Under the scheme, reportedly set to be announced within weeks, more injured and sick children will be treated by specialists in the NHS “where that is the best option for their care”.

It has been suggested that up to 300 children could arrive in the UK from Gaza.

A parent or guardian will accompany each child, as well as siblings if necessary, and the Home Office will carry out biometric and security checks before travel, the Sunday Times has reported.

It is understood this will happen “in parallel” with an initiative by Project Pure Hope, a group set up to bring sick and injured Gazan children to the UK privately for treatment.

A government spokesperson said: “We are taking forward plans to evacuate more children from Gaza who require urgent medical care, including bringing them to the UK for specialist treatment where that is the best option for their care.”

More than 50,000 children are estimated to have been killed or injured in Gaza since October 2023, according to Unicef.

So far, three children have arrived in the UK for medical treatment with the help of the charity Project Pure Hope.

Around 5,000 have been evacuated in total, with the majority going to Egypt and Gulf countries.

Sir Keir Starmer said last week that the UK was “urgently accelerating” efforts to bring children over for treatment.

The government has also pledged another £1m to help the World Health Organisation in Egypt provide medical support to evacuated Gazans.

The prime minister told the Mirror: “I know the British people are sickened by what is happening.

“The images of starvation and desperation in Gaza are utterly horrifying. We are urgently accelerating efforts to evacuate children from Gaza who need critical medical assistance – bringing more Palestinian children to the UK for specialist medical treatment.”

Around 100 MPs have signed a letter urging the government to fast track the scheme.

Labour MP Stella Creasy, who co-ordinated the letter, said: “The commitment we all share to help these children remains absolute and urgent – with every day, more are harmed or die, making the need to overcome any barriers to increasing the support we give them imperative.

“We stand ready to support whatever it takes to make this happen and ask for your urgent response.”

Meanwhile, Project Pure Hope has been campaigning for months to create a scheme which would allow for the evacuation of 30 to 50 children.

The charity has raised the money to bring the children and their families to the UK, and cover their medical costs, privately.

Politics

The token is dead, long live the token

Published

10 hours ago

August 3, 2025

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The token is dead, long live the token

Crypto tokens have failed retail investors through insider concentration and poor design. Regulation and tokenized real-world assets offer hope for revival.