Kemi Badenoch warns Labour will fail as she launches Tory bid

The Tory leadership battle gathered pace today as favourite Kemi Badenoch formally launched her bid.

Ms Badenoch laid out a small-state vision for the party, insisting that government must ‘do less but better’. She also cautioned that the Conservatives must be ready when Labour ‘fail’ and ‘run out of other people’s money’.

Playing up her combative reputation, Ms Badenoch joked that she ‘does do charm sometimes’. 

Hopefuls are stepping up their campaigns with MPs set to whittle the field down from half a dozen to four over the next fortnight.

Former home secretary James Cleverly is laying out his goal of abolishing stamp duty – designed to appeal to the party rank and file.

Allies of Robert Jenrick have been boasting that he is ‘nailed on’ to make the final two being put to a ballot of activists.  

But the contest still has until November 2 to run, with complaints that the Conservatives are focused on infighting while Labour pushes through a slew of controversial policies. 

Ms Badenoch accused Sir Keir Starmer‘s administration of ‘trying to pull the wool over the eyes’ of voters on a raft of issues.

Ms Badenoch said the previous government’s mistake was that it ‘talked right but governed left’.

The shadow communities secretary told the packed room of journalists and supporters that ‘a government that tries to do everything will likely end up achieving nothing’.

‘This was one of our mistakes,’ she said. ‘We talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour.

‘Government should do fewer things, but what it does, it should do with brilliance.’

She said the public is already ‘yearning for something better’ after less than 60 days of Sir Keir in Downing Street.

Ms Badenoch took aim at Labour for being ‘dishonest’ about the state of the UK finances, having signed off more than £10billion in public sector pay hikes.

She slammed them for stripping up to 10million pensioners of their winter fuel payments and for the civil service appointments ‘cronyism’ row engulfing the party.

She said: ‘The British people are yearning for something better, and this Labour Government is not it.

‘They have no ideas. At best they are re-announcing things we have already done.’

At his own event, Mr Cleverly is set to argue for a smaller state that does ‘fewer things very well, not everything badly’.

Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Mr Cleverly said stamp duty is a ‘bad tax’ and should be axed to help people on to the housing ladder.

MPs will hold their first round of voting on Wednesday, with the candidate with the least support knocked out.

Six MPs are battling it out to take over from Rishi Sunak.

Robert Jenrick launched his campaign a month ago, but gave another speech in London yesterday in which he warned Labour was preparing ‘a declaration of war on the middle classes’ in next month’s Budget. 

Ms Patel launched her campaign on Friday and Mr Tugendhat will do so tomorrow.

However, Mel Stride – seen by many as struggling to stay in the race – is expected to wait until after the first round of voting.  

But she will acknowledge that the Conservatives can’t ‘just sit around pointing out how terrible Labour are’, adding: ‘We have to focus on renewal. The renewal of our party, our politics, and our thinking.’

Mr Cleverly will say: ‘An unstable world, global migration, and a crisis of confidence in capitalism.

‘We must get our act together as a party to provide the Conservative solutions to these problems. The solutions of the Left don’t and won’t work.

‘That means being honest and realistic about the role of the state. About what it should and can do, and what it should not and can not.

‘The state should focus on doing fewer things very well, not everything badly.’