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Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will accuse chancellor Rachel Reeves on Thursday of putting forward “crazy and bad ideas”, deriding some of the Labor government’s school plans as “vandalism” and “worse than rubbish”.
Badenoch will claim that while in government her party has stood firm against repeated attempts by Whitehall officials to push through proposals to scrap the blanket winter fuel payment and close loopholes in farm inheritance tax.
Reeves pursued both policies “because she has no ideas of her own”, the Tory leader will say.
While Labour’s popularity has fallen since taking office last July, the Tories have been overtaken in the polls by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, which has been bolstered by several low-level Conservative defections.
Under Badenoch, the party refused to offer anti-Labour policies, saying it would reveal them closer to the next election.
In a speech in central London on Thursday – only her second press conference since taking over as party leader two and a half months ago – Badenoch will use the fiery language she is fast becoming recognisable.
Accusing Labor of failing to adequately plan the government before taking office, she will say: “When you haven’t worked out what you’re going to do in opposition, you’re going to accept whatever they give you in government. That’s why Rachel Reeves announced the crazy and bad ideas of stealing winter fuel and taxing family farms.”
Badenoch, a prominent critic of civil service culture, will add: “These options have been presented to us time and time again by officials, and we have rejected them time and time again because they would hurt so many people for so little benefit.”
Ellie Reeves, the Labor leader and the chancellor’s sister, dismissed Badenoch’s planned intervention as “another speech but no apology for her role in Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget that crashed the economy”.
She said the Conservatives had “nothing to offer” under Badenoch, claiming the party “didn’t listen and didn’t learn”.
Badenoch will also turn his anger on Labour’s education policy, declaring: “The schools bill now going through parliament has one or two parts about safeguarding that could be good. . . the rest is worse than garbage. It’s pure vandalism.”
The Conservatives have already lashed out at Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for canceling reforms introduced by the Tories, including giving freedoms to academies.
The opposition party accused the government of abandoning one element on Wednesday, rejecting a proposal to end academies’ freedom to set teacher pay levels.
However, a spokesman for Phillipson said the government’s plan had always been to allow schools to offer attractive salary offers to recruit and retain staff.
Claiming Labor has “wasted” its time in opposition, Badenoch will say Sir Keir Starmer’s administration has “announced policies without a plan” and continues to “prescribe solutions that actually make things worse”.
She will seek to style herself as a truth-teller who is willing to admit mistakes, outlining a series of mistakes made by the last Tory government she was in, including as business secretary.
The admission of failure will include announcing that the UK will leave the EU before devising a plan for growth outside the bloc and pledging to reduce migration levels while presiding over the increase.
The Tories have also introduced legislation to net zero by 2050, and only after that “we started to think about how we are going to do it”, he added.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey will also deliver an opening speech on Thursday, in which he will call on the government to negotiate a new UK-EU customs union by 2030, arguing that this would allow the UK to “deal with President Trump from a position of strength, not weakness”.
The long-term ambition of rejoining the EU was in the Lib Dems manifesto last summer, although Thursday’s speech will be the first time the party has given a concrete timetable for rejoining the customs union.
Davey will argue that “the answer cannot be to do what some – like the leader of the Conservative Party – want us to do [and] approach Trump from a position of weakness, go to him hat in hand and beg for whatever trade deal he gives us”.
He will also criticize Farage’s approach of “licking Trump and licking his boots”.
