In case you feared that the onslaught of political essays by wannabe (and current) prime ministers was beginning to dry up, fear not! Kemi Badenoch has entered the debate with her own riposte to the Labour boys. In a letter published by the Times, the Tory leader declares that Sir Tony Blair’s legacy is a country ‘run by HR’. She also lambasts the former prime minister for introducing the Human Rights Act and paving the way for net-zero diktats.
Turning her ire to the current crop of Labour leadership contenders, Badenoch describes the race to prove who has the stronger socialist credentials as ‘embarrassing’ and warns that the party has embarked on a battle to ‘test to destruction all the left-wing ideas that were mothballed in 1979’.
Labour’s shadow leadership contest and its ensuing splurge of polemics, of course, rumble on alongside the ongoing by-election campaigns in Makerfield. Yesterday, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper took time away from her cabinet role to campaign for a man seeking to stab her boss in the front. Labour also engaged in some interesting comms tactics, with the party trumpeting a fresh revelation about Reform’s candidate Robert Kenyon: he used to vote for the main left-wing party. Taking the attack story in his stride, the ‘plucky plumber’ responded: ‘The media are now attacking me because I voted Labour in the past. So did thousands of us in Makerfield until you let us all down. Reform is now the party giving real people a voice.’
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer isn’t giving up on trying to save his premiership just yet. The Spectator can exclusively reveal that the Prime Minister is planning a major intervention on electricity, to be announced in the coming weeks. More specifically, Starmer is looking to impose a ‘rush to electrification’ scheme aimed at moving masses of households off gas in a rapid timeframe. The Prime Minister will look to seize on the Iran war and its impact on energy bills to bring the public onside as he announces a rapid national dash from gas to the grid.
Such enthusiasm for major and swift change appears more lacking, however, when it comes to the defence investment plan, which is still struggling to break free from the chains of Whitehall bean counters. Further debate and discussion on MoD spending will take place on Monday at The Spectator’s defence summit in Westminster. Speakers include shadow defence secretary James Cartlidge, Tanmanjeet Singh, chair of the Defence Committee, and Reform MP Danny Kruger. This will be Reform’s first major intervention on the topic, with the party having previously faced criticism for lacking policies in the foreign affairs and defence space.
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