(Image: Jacob King)
THE Conservatives seem a united party at the moment, content that in Kemi Badenoch they have a leader taking them in the right direction.
After her speech at the end of the party conference, that direction seems to be fairly and squarely back to traditional Conservative grounds as the party tries to woo back the voters who have drifted off to Reform.
One of the most powerful parts of her speech was her refusal to “unite the right” and do a deal with Reform. For the Conservatives, this makes sound sense as the party has to be attractive in its own right rather than because of its bedfellows. However, this opens the possibility that the right-of-centre vote will split, letting in Labour.
She had to try to sound tough on immigration but it was good to see her not go dog-whistling on the subject. Instead, she sounded as if the economy was the number one issue of a majority of voters, which is probably correct.
It led her back to those traditional Conservative grounds, of cutting welfare and using the savings to cut tax.
But not cut the tax of poorer people, as Reform has promised with its pledge to raise the Income Tax starting threshold to £15,000, but through cutting Inheritance Tax, which currently only the largest five per cent of estates pay. Inheritance Tax is a Tory totem – George Osborne when shadow chancellor in 2007 offered the same pledge – but will it wash in the “red wall” seats that Boris Johnson once won?
Similarly, the pledge to give free childcare to all parents, even when one earns more than £100,000-a-year, might be popular in the traditional Tory shires but how well will it go down in the North East, where on average 30 per cent of children still grow up in relative poverty with some parts – notably in Middlesbrough where this has been a factor in the breakdown of law and order – touching 44 per cent?