64% of Tory members want pact with Reform UK, and 46% support full merger, poll suggests
Andrew Rosindell is not alone in wanting a pact with Reform UK. (See 4.59am.) According to new polling by YouGov, almost two thirds of members want a pact, and almost half of them would support a full merger.
Poll of Tory members Photograph: YouGov
The same poll found that half of members want Kemi Badenoch to be replaced as Tory leader before the next election, while 46% want her to stay on.
Polling of Tory members Photograph: YouGovShare
Key events
5h ago
Early evening summary
6h ago
John Glen, Badenoch’s PPS, floats case for cutting pensions tax relief for high earners
6h ago
64% of Tory members want pact with Reform UK, and 46% support full merger, poll suggests
6h ago
Ulster Unionist leader criticises Badenoch’s proposal to leave ECHR
6h ago
Reform UK defends record of its Doge unit after report says cost-cutting won’t stop Kent raising council tax
7h ago
Andrew Rosindell calls for pact with Reform UK, saying many Tories like him will lose their seats without one
7h ago
Former Tory Brexit secretary David Davis says he does not support ECHR withdrawal
7h ago
Philp plays down concerns proposed Tory removals force will adopt ‘heavy-handed’ tactics used by Trump’s Ice
8h ago
Helen Whately, shadow work and pensions secretary, suggests term ‘disabled’ being applied too widely if 25% of people qualify
8h ago
No 10 says claims government interference led to collapse of Chinese spying case ‘all untrue’
9h ago
Tories would reverse measures in employment rights bill, shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith says
9h ago
Former minister Tom Tugendhat says pension triple lock part of ‘Ponzi scheme’ economic system biased against the young
10h ago
James Cleverly says Israeli minister’s decision to host Tommy Robinson ‘foolish’
10h ago
CBI and BCC welcome Tory plan for 100% business rates relief for high street firms
10h ago
‘Contradictory nonsense’ – Friends of Earth and other environment groups criticise Tory energy plans
11h ago
Shadow minister Katie Lam suggests settled status EU nationals should be included in proposed Tory benefit ban for foreigners
11h ago
Tories say most of money from plans to cut spending by £47bn will be used for deficit reduction
12h ago
How Tories says their jobs bonus plan will work
12h ago
Tories unveil plan to cut energy bills by £165 per year on average by cutting carbon tax and renewables obligation subsidy
13h ago
Stride says Tories would abolish business rates for shops and pubs on high streets
13h ago
Stride says Tories would introduce £5,000 ‘first job bonus’ tax cut for young people, for housing or savings
13h ago
Stride claims Reform UK are ‘party of more spending and more debt’
14h ago
Stride claims Tory party will never give up supporting business
14h ago
Minister backs Gary Neville over concerns about flags being used in ‘negative fashion’, while Stride says he disagrees
14h ago
Stride says Tories are ‘deeply deluded’ if they think new leader is solution to party’s problems
15h ago
Tories say people denied benefits in UK can return to home countries
15h ago
Is Kemi Badenoch leading a Tory party on the brink of extinction?
15h ago
Stride defends plan to slash overseas aid spending to 0.1% of national income, lowest level on record
15h ago
How Tories say they could cut £23bn from welfare budget
16h ago
Tories claim they could save £47bn by slashing welfare, overseas aid and civil service
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Early evening summary
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
A Thatcher mug on sale at the Tory conference. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PAShare
James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, attacked Sadiq Khan’s housing record as London mayor in his speech to the conference this afternoon.
Since 2010, Conservatives have delivered 2.5m homes – a million of those in the last parliament alone.
Last year in the south-east of England, and the east of England, Conservative-run regions, about 2.5 new homes were built per thousand people.
In London, run by Labour for the best part of a decade, 0.5 homes per thousand.
And so, what do those figures mean, for real people, for ordinary hard-working Londoners?
In 1980, the average London home cost £25,000, and that was about four times the average national salary.
Today, the average London house costs over £500,000.
And that is fifteen times the average salary.
That is Sadiq Khan’s record of failure.
We should not, and we cannot, and we must not accept it.
There is speculation that Cleverly may put himself forward as the Tory candidate for London mayor at the next election, in 2028.
James Cleverly addressing the conference today. Photograph: James McCauley/ShutterstockShare
Updated at 19.06 CEST
Matt Chorley from the BBC has written an excellent long read on what Tory MPs are saying in private about Kemi Badenoch and her prospects. It includes this wonderful anecdote.
In recent weeks, stung by criticism that she was aloof from her MPs, Badenoch has begun inviting in small groups for lunch. Well, platters of shop-bought sandwiches.
When I pointed out to one invitee that Badenoch famously declared last year that she hated sandwiches (in line with just 1% of the British public), they replied “oh no, the MPs had sandwiches, Kemi had something hot brought in”.
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John Glen, Badenoch’s PPS, floats case for cutting pensions tax relief for high earners
Phillip Inman
Phillip Inman is a senior Guardian economics writer.
John Glen, Kemi Badenoch’s bag carrier (parliamentary private secretary), has raised the prospect of the Conservative party taking away pension subsidies from better off taxpayers.
Glen, who joked that his appointment in July as PPS had turned him into a slave, said there was a case to answer when the public finances were constrained and the level of pension subsidy had reached £50bn.
At a fringe meeting, Glen, who sits on the Commons Treasury committee, said:
We spend £40bn to £50bn on tax relief and £15bn to £20bn goes to people who pay the higher rates of tax. We need to have an honest discussion about what the overall burden of tax should be.
We have a system that is based on pension savings being exempt on entry and exempt on accumulation but taxed on exit. What we need to do is ask wha we can afford and what is fair.
It is not the party’s policy to have a single rate. There would obviously be an opportunity to change the rate.
But philosophically, the question is about the role of the state. There are lots of people receiving 40% relief and building penion pots that are much more than securing just a reasonable pot alongside their triple lock pension. The question is, are there better ways to spend that money?
Government pension subsidies are based on tax relief, which means those that pay the highest rates of tax gain the most from tax relief.
A flat rate subsidy of 25% or 30% would increase the subsidy for standard rate taxpayers while cutting it for those who pay higher rates of tax.
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64% of Tory members want pact with Reform UK, and 46% support full merger, poll suggests
Andrew Rosindell is not alone in wanting a pact with Reform UK. (See 4.59am.) According to new polling by YouGov, almost two thirds of members want a pact, and almost half of them would support a full merger.
Poll of Tory members Photograph: YouGov
The same poll found that half of members want Kemi Badenoch to be replaced as Tory leader before the next election, while 46% want her to stay on.
Polling of Tory members Photograph: YouGovShare
Ulster Unionist leader criticises Badenoch’s proposal to leave ECHR
Lisa O’Carroll
Lisa O’Carroll is a senior Guardian correspondent.
The Ulster Unionist party has condemned Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch’s intention to leave the ECHR if she is voted into power.
The UUP helped negotiate Good Friday agreement peace deal which is undermined by the convention.
Mike Nesbitt, the UUP leader, said:
The Ulster Unionist party negotiated the 1998 agreement. Any suggestion of the UK leaving the ECHR, as suggested by Ms Badenoch, would cut across the principles of that agreement, which guarantees access to the ECHR in law, a point the Conservative leader has said herself would be a point of ‘particular challenge’.
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Reform UK defends record of its Doge unit after report says cost-cutting won’t stop Kent raising council tax
Reform UK has reject claims that its efforts to find savings in Kent council have been disappointing.
Referring to a story in the Financial Times today (see 7.59am), Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said:
Reform’s pledge to slash millions from Kent Council’s budget has turned out to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.
Just like his idol Elon Musk, Zia Yusuf has spectacularly failed to deliver what Doge promised. It turns out cribbing the notes of dodgy American tech billionaires is no way to run a council.
But a Reform UK spokesperson insisted the party’s Dolge (Department of Local Government Efficiency) was having an impact. The spokesperson said:
Our team in Kent county council have already done some fantastic work to clean up the mess left by the Kent Conservatives and reduce the county council’s debt by £66m in their first five months in office. The majority of that has come from savings as a result of their Dolge unit.
This includes implementing a ‘no more borrowing’ policy which will reduce their debt by a further £33m by March 2026, scrapping KCC’s net zero renewable energy Programme to save £32m over 4 years and stopping the move to a new council building which has avoided an additional £14bn of borrowing.
Referring to reports that Kent is likely to raise council tax by 5%, the maximum amount, a Reform source argued that most councils were expected to do that and claimed that not raising council tax could lead to an authority losing government grant money.
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Andrew Rosindell calls for pact with Reform UK, saying many Tories like him will lose their seats without one
The Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell has called for his party to form a pact with Reform UK to defeat Labour at the election.
In an interview with GB News, Rosindell said:
Our electoral system can’t accommodate two parties that are broadly conservative. That means a divide in the vote and the calamity of another Labour government for five years, or even worse, a Labour government propped up by Liberal Democrats, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SNP, fruit and nut, and whoever else is around to prop Keir Starmer up in office. No, thank you.
I would much rather see people of like mind on the right of centre to work together … We need to get everyone working together to rescue our country from the disaster of this left-wing socialist government.
Rosindell, who represents Romford, said, without a pact, many Tory MPs, including him, faced defeat at the election.
I’m worried about many of my colleagues who will not come back as MPs, including me. At the moment my seat would almost certainly go to Reform. I think the whole of Essex would go Reform.
Asked if he would stay with the Tories or defect to Reform before the electon, Rosindell said he wanted both parties “to think about what’s best for our country”.
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At the Politico fringe, Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, was asked by Dan Bloom the Theresa May question – what was the naughtiest thing he hads ever done? His answer was more interesting than hers.
Philp replied:
When I was a student at University at Oxford in the 1990s, OJ Simpson, remember him, came to speak at the Oxford Union, and he there was no press.
So I was very enterprising. I smuggled a load of recording equipment into the place, before the security cordon went up, recorded the entire thing, retrieved the recording devices afterwards, and then sold the recordings to various American news stations for a decent amount of money, in cash.
And I sold it simultaneously to ABC, NBC and CBS, all of whom thought they were getting it exclusively.
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Former Tory Brexit secretary David Davis says he does not support ECHR withdrawal
Randeep Ramesh
Randeep Ramesh is the Guardian’s chief leader writer.
David Davis, the Tory former Brexit secretary, has told a fringe meeting at the party conference that he is opposed to the party’s decision to leave the European convention on human rights.
Speaking to the Guardian, Davis, who is one of most prominent libertarians in the party, Davis said:
I don’t trust any British government – Conservative Labour, coalition – to have entirely clean hands on civil liberties, torture and rendition, surveillance, 90 days detention without charge, all these things. And parliament is getting weaker and weaker. So that’s why I want to have some external agency.
Davis said he was also concerned about the problems withdrawal from the ECHR would create in Northern Ireland.
It won’t destroy [the Belfast/Good Friday agreement] but it will cause issues and it will force a renegotiation with the Irish demanding things. On European trade policy, it would give the option to the Europeans of withdrawing certain aspects.
Davis also believes that that efforts being made by several European countries to reform the ECHR, including the Labour government in Britain, may lead to changes.
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Philp plays down concerns proposed Tory removals force will adopt ‘heavy-handed’ tactics used by Trump’s Ice
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has played down concerns that the Trump-style removals force proposed by the party will adopt some of the thuggish and lawless tactics used by Ice (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), its US counterpart.
Speaking at a fringe meeting at the conference, where he was being interviewed by Politico’s Dan Bloom, Philp said:
There are some examples in the US where they have clearly used tactics that are too heavy handed, and people families have been separated. We don’t advocate that sort of approach.
We do advocate zero tolerance for illegal immigration and anyone entering this country illegally, no matter what their purported excuse, will get removed within a week.
Philp told the same meeting there was another area where he would like to see the UK move closer to the US model. In the US there are thousands of government jobs which an incoming president can give to political appointees. In the UK the civil service in independent, and cabinet ministers are only allowed to bring in a handful of political appointee (special advisers, or “spads”) to help them. Philp said he would like to see this number increased.
I could imagine a few dozen people [as party political advisers] coming into a big department would make quite a big difference to ministers’ ability to get things done.
Chris Philp at the Tory conference yesterday. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PAShare
Helen Whately, shadow work and pensions secretary, suggests term ‘disabled’ being applied too widely if 25% of people qualify
Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has suggested the term “disabled” is being over-used if it applies to around a quarter of people.
She made the claim in her speech in which she defended the Tory plan to cut benefits – which the party now says could save £23bn a year. (See 8.09am.)
She said:
We are here because we know we have a really important job to do – if not us, who?
But millions of people right now, are sitting on the sofa at home.
Millions have got themselves a sick note from the GP and signed onto sickness benefits with just a form and a phone call.
Millions are getting benefits for anxiety and ADHD, along with a free Motability car.
TikTok videos tell you how – and some people even pay for VIP services to boost their chances of a successful benefits claim.
Yes, there are people with serious illnesses and disabilities,
But one in four people now describe themselves as disabled, so what does the term even mean?
In claiming that the term disabled is used too widely, Whately is just echoing an argument made by Kemi Badenoch, who made a very similar comment earlier this year.
There is an explanation for the ‘one in four’ figure (24%, to be precise) in this DWP report. It is based on the definition of disabled in the Equality Act, which says a person is considered to have a disability if they have a physical or mental impairment that has ‘substantial’ and ‘long term’ negative effects on their ability to do normal daily activities.
In her speech, Whately also claimed she had a “common sense” plan to cut welfare spending.
I’ve got my common sense plan for savings.
Fix the ‘sick note’ system, bring back face-to-face assessments, end sickness benefits for low level mental health problems, stop the abuse of Motability, and put British citizens first in our benefits system – just living here is not a reason to get money from taxpayers.
And that’s not all.
We will change our sickness benefit system, so it helps those who really need help and stops turning people into victims.
We will make the benefits cap do what it should, so that families on benefits aren’t better off than those in work.
And we’ll tackle the massive hike in housing benefit.
All that gives you billions of savings off the benefits bill.
Helen Whately speaking to the Tory conference. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPAShareHelena Horton
Helena Horton is a Guardan environment reporter.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, has been accused of a Reform UK-style anti-business measure by experts.
She has pledged to scrap the the renewables obligation (RO) scheme, under which many wind farms receive fixed subsidies for 15–20 years. (See 11.27am.)
Coutinho referred to these subsidies as “the biggest racket going”, adding:
Our energy system is not here to prop up the profits of multi-million-pound wind developers at billpayers’ expense. It’s here to deliver cheap, reliable energy for the country.
However, one of the reasons the UK has historically been a favourable place to invest is its strong contract law, meaning that when a business signs a contract it knows the terms will be honoured.
Ripping up existing agreements would run contrary to this.
Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said:
If what is being proposed is to terminate contracts with renewable energy suppliers under the renewables obligation, unless there is an alternative in place, this kind of policy instability, akin to what Reform has proposed, would deter investors not just in renewables, but across the board from investing in the UK. This uncertainty would make financing more risky pushing up costs of investment, making everything in turn more expensive.
Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform, faced criticism from business leaders when he proposed a similar policy, to scrap the contracts for difference scheme under which renewables companies agree a price per megawatt hour for their power.
Even the wind power sceptic energy analyst Kathryn Porter, who writes for the Telegraph, has said that cancelling existing schemes would dent investor confidence.
New analysis has also found that renewables including wind power cut electricity prices by up to a quarter in the last year.
ShareConservative members trying to get into an Onward fringe event with James Cleverly at the conference this morning. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The GuardianShare
No 10 says claims government interference led to collapse of Chinese spying case ‘all untrue’
Claims that government interference led to the collapse of a major Chinese spying case are “all untrue”, Downing Street has insisted. PA Media reports:
Ministers also retain confidence in England and Wales’ chief prosecutor following the case, according to No 10, as he based his work around the previous Conservative government’s policy on China.
The case against Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry was dropped on 15 September, sparking criticism from Downing Street and MPs from across both sides of the political aisle.
The decision reportedly came after senior Whitehall mandarins met to discuss the trial, including national security adviser Jonathan Powell and the Foreign Office’s top civil servant Sir Oliver Robbins, according to the Sunday Times.
In order to prove the case under the Official Secrets Act, prosecutors would have had to show the defendants were acting for an “enemy”.
But Powell reportedly revealed the government’s evidence would be based on the national security strategy, which does not use that term to describe China, so it could not be used in court.
“The suggestion that the government withheld evidence, withdrew witnesses, or restricted the ability of witnesses to draw on particular bits of evidence are all untrue,” the PM’s press secretary told reporters at a lobby briefing this morning.
Among those who have heavily criticised the collapse of the case are the Tories, who have said ministers now have serious questions to answer.
But sources within government said evidence in the case had to relate to the period when the alleged incidents took place – between 2021 and 2023 – when the Conservatives were in power.
Senior Tory figures at the time – including the party’s current leader, Kemi Badenoch – did not refer to China as an enemy, only as a “challenge”, informing the evidence.
Stephen Parkinson, chief prosecutor in England and Wales, had said the CPS had determined the proceedings had to be stopped because of an “evidential failure”.
Downing Street was asked if the prime minister remained confident in Parkinson’s ability to do the job.
“Yes. It is obviously for the CPS to take decisions on the evidential threshold which they take cases forward, and they obviously judged that that threshold was met at the time,” a spokesperson said.
“It’s obviously up to them to keep that under review and to take their own decisions. But very clearly, the government’s evidence did not materially change, not least because it was based on the previous government’s policy, and previous governments’ policy can’t change.”
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