Politics

Kemi Badenoch has just completed her leadership launch. Although she is an outside bet, her campaign has been building momentum after Michael Gove endorsed her and she came a narrow second in a ConHome poll on who should be the next Tory leader. The launch saw her try to put the flesh on the bones of her pitch to MPs – which so far has been dominated by identity politics. In a flick to her position on culture wars, the toilets at the venue had paper signs put on them so they weren’t gender neutral. In her speech, Badenoch was all too happy to put clear blue water between herself

War and famine in Ukraine and inflation and rising bills at home. These are tough times in Britain and abroad: the winning candidate for the Tory leadership will have to be able to really deal with the big issues. But, er, not every MP in the running is keen to focus on such themes. Kemi Badenoch, the surprise star in this contest, has taken a rather different approach, preferring instead to dive head-first into the culture war. And so it was in that spirit that the Badenoch campaign sought to make something of a stunt out of the facilities at their official launch this morning. Camilla Turner, the Telegraph journalist,

Suella Braverman’s welfare tirade exemplifies the current Tory pandering to baby boomer myths about social spending and moral decay. Interviewed by ITV News on Monday, the leadership candidate said: I think we spend too much on welfare. There are too many people in this country who are of working age, who are of good health, and who are choosing to rely on benefits, on taxpayers’ money, on your money, my money, to get by. I don’t think there’s enough rigour. Universal Credit’s been a brilliant thing in stamping out the culture of dependency but there’s further we can go, there’s more we can do. Since I’m about to be very critical, let’s