All you missed in the Tory leadership speeches: Badenoch dubbed ‘arrogant’, Cleverly wants party to be ‘normal’

Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly has urged his party to “be more normal” and take inspiration from US president Ronald Reagan.

Making his leadership campaign speech at the annual Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, Cleverly opened his address from behind a lectern with an apology to the public.

The former home and foreign secretary said: “We’re currently in opposition but we don’t exist to be in opposition. We’re in politics to serve the British people and to make their lives better.

“We need to get back on track but before we can do that there’s something we need to say: sorry. Sorry on behalf of the Conservative parliamentary party, who let you down.

“And we have to be better, much better. And under my leadership, we will.”

Cleverly added: “The British people are never wrong. The British people told us to go and srt ourselves out. Let’s not make them tell us again.”

The Tory MP for Braintree, in Essex, told conference his “political hero” was President Ronald Reagan, adding: “He knew what optimism was even in the depths of the Cold War.

“He made Americans want to vote for a Conservative, not reluctantly, but with enthusiasm.

“Let’s be more like Reagan. Let’s be enthusiastic, relatable, positive, optimistic. Let’s be more normal. Let’s sell the benefits of Conservatism with a smile.”

He stressed that Conservatives should be proud of their record in office, and claimed Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage “were two sides of the same coin” – both thinking life was better either before the UK joined the EU, or left it.

Cleverly’s speech came after fellow ‘One Nation’ candidate Tom Tugendhat, who told the audience: “We need to face the truth. Many who share our values did not vote for us.”

The former security minister and leadership hopeful vowed: “I will defeat Labour and lead us back to power in five years time.

We all know that this country can’t afford Labour. You can’t afford Labour, I can’t afford Labour, Lord Alli can’t afford Labour… they are the most venal and vindictive administration in decades.”

Tugendhat pledged: “My mission is to win the next general election and I have never failed a mission yet.”

On taxation, he added: “We will deliver and we can bring down taxes but not if we treat these symptoms separately, that is a prescription managed economy.” 

Taking to the stage in a dark suit and Tory blue tie, Tugendhat spoke without a lectern.

The former soldier focused his video message – which had a slicker audio and production quality than Cleverly’s – on asking members if they wanted a “Conservative in opposition, or a Conservative in Downing Street”?

Former business secretary Kemi Badenoch delivered her speech focused around the theme and slogan of her leadership campaign, Renewal 2030, and said she wanted to make the 2030s a “golden decade” of “growth that most people can feel”.

Asking why the party was no longer in government, she stressed that “we stopped acting like Conservatives… we spoke right and governed left”.

On net zero, she said she was “not a climate change sceptic”, but opposed to setting a target with “no plan on how to meet it”, which she said prompted “addiction to state subsidy”.

Badenoch – who secured an endorsement from Tory grandee David Davis MP following her speech – said the Conservatives “did not defend capitalism”. She stated: “Capitalism does not mean corporatism. It does not mean monopolies. It means free markets and competition.

“We didn’t always protect those principles. Like Labour we raised taxes on business: corporation tax, capital gains tax, we taxed dividends, and we regulated like Labour.

“So instead of encouraging people to start and grow a business it got harder and harder.”

The former business and trade secretary argued for the Tories to “be the party of wealth creation”, saying: “Wealth is not a dirty word… we should defend it and encourage it.”

She also pledged, if elected leader, to begin a “comprehensive plan to reprogramme the British state” which she said would “consider every aspect of what the state does and why”.

Government should “get out of the way” of business, and not “think it knows better”, while being “the servant of the market, not its master,” Badenoch stressed.

“It needs to protect fair play and proper competition but the wealth of the country comes from the people who work in it, not the people who live off it.”

“We will take the shackles off the economy so that it can fly and take the country with it.”

Robert Jenrick, who is Badenoch’s rival for the right-leaning share of the MPs and members vote, presented himself as an heir to Margaret Thatcher, who he called “one of my heroines”.

Britain was “broken in the 1970s”, he said: “Industries were crippled, councils were bankrupt, hope was gone. Then, as now, a new Labour government, so fresh but already so stale.”

The Tories were “broken too”, he added, saying of Baroness Thatcher: “Her Conservative Party reversed Britain’s decline and it did so by backing people like my mum and dad.”

Jenrick said he wanted to remodel the party so it was a “pressure group for Britain’s hard-working majority” and said the Tories need to create a “new Conservative Party”.

He added: “We’ve just suffered our worst-ever electoral defeat. We lost more seats and we won fewer votes than any government ever. It was a comprehensive defeat, and it needs a comprehensive rethink.”

The former migration minister’s speech saw him set out the five changes he wanted to see, which were: to “secure our borders”; to “take a stand” on net zero; to “get Britain building again”; to create a “small state that actually works”; and to “stand for our nation and culture”.

But both Badenoch and Jenrick’s campaigns have struggled during conference, after she was criticised for her comments over maternity, and he received pushback, including from Tugendhat, for claiming British special forces were “killing rather than capturing terrorists”.

The speeches came as research by pollsters Savanta revealed their findings from asking around 2,000 UK adults to describe the four candidates in one word.

Most people said they were “unsure” about Cleverly, Jenrick and Tugendhat – while Badenoch’s most commonly associated word was “arrogant”.

Bookies Star Sports found Cleverly’s odds had improved from 3/1 to 15/8, with the contender now “breathing down the neck” of rival Jenrick following a “well-received speech”.

Badenoch remained the third favourite, they added, while Tugendhat’s chances had dropped to 40/1 from 16/1, after his speech.

Political analyst William Kedjanyi said “none of the quartet had made a decisive step” closer to victory, but stressed Cleverly had come off well and secured “strong polling by YouGov.

Labour’s Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons, said the Tory conference had been a “chaotic and divisive mess” and claimed all the party “have to offer is more of the same”. 

She stressed: “They have learnt nothing from their abysmal defeat at the general election. [The] Tory leadership contenders are out of touch with what matters to the British people.”

And Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper called it an “undignified rave to the bottom” and added: “To call this contest scraping the bottom of the barrel would be an insult to barrels… all four of them are failed former Conservative ministers.”