Rosie Duffield launches Starmer attack as Kemi Badenoch defends Israel migrant claim – UK politics live

The Conservative Party conference is set to kick off in Birmingham at 2.30pm, with the leadership contest taking centre stage in the coming days.

On Monday, candidates Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch will field questions from party members on the main stage, while James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick will do the same on Tuesday.

Wednesday morning will feature speeches from all candidates as they vie for support.

Following the conference, MPs will narrow the field to two candidates on 9 and 10 October.

Conservative Party members will then cast their votes, with the winner expected to be announced on 2 November.

Donors and businesses are turning their backs on the Tories for Labour and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the party enters its conference with question marks over its finances.

Insiders have told The Independent that a number of red flags have been raised in preparation for the first annual conference since the historically poor general election defeat in July.

Our political editor David Maddox has the full story:

Voters gave up on the Conservatives’ “bickering”, James Cleverly has said during his campaign to become the party’s leader.

The shadow home secretary, who first became a minister during Theresa May’s premiership, claimed as soon as his party had named a new prime minister, “there were people within the party who set about removing them”.

After David Cameron’s resignation following the 2016 Brexit referendum, four Conservative MPs served as prime minister – Mrs May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.

The shortest among their terms in office was Ms Truss’s, who stayed in Number 10 for fewer than 50 days.

Speaking to Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Mr Cleverly said: “Look, when the voters tell you something, you should listen.

“The British voters told us not that they wanted a Labour government, in fact, in many instances they told us they didn’t want a Labour government.

“But what they did tell us is they wanted us out of office. And we have got to listen to that. We have got to respond to that.

“There’s no point getting angry with the voters. We certainly shouldn’t imply or say that they were wrong. Voters are never wrong.

“Sometimes politics is brutal but it’s beautiful.”

Kemi Badenoch has labelled the current statutory maternity pay as “excessive” and called for greater personal responsibility.

In an interview with Times Radio, she highlighted the variation in maternity pay based on employment but claimed that statutory maternity pay is fundamentally tied to taxation.

She added: “Tax comes from people who are working, we’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.

“Businesses are closing. Businesses are not starting in the UK, because they say that the burden of regulation is too high.”

Put to her that she is saying maternity pay is “excessive”, Ms Badenoch said: “I think it’s gone too far, too far the other way, in terms of general business regulation, we need to allow businesses, especially small businesses, to make more of their own decisions.

“The exact amount of maternity pay, in my view, is neither here nor there. We need to make sure that we are creating an environment where people can work and people can have more freedom to make their individual decisions.”

She added: “We need to have more personal responsibility. There was a time when there wasn’t any maternity pay and people were having more babies.”

Robert Jenrick squirmed as he was challenged over his past support for Donald Trump, saying it is “natural” for a Conservative to lean towards Republican candidates.

The Tory leadership contest frontrunner was noticeably uncomfortable when the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg challenged him over his past support for the bombastic ex-US president.

He avoided using Trump’s name when repeatedly asked the question instead reverting to historic links between the Tories and Republicans in the US.

Our political correspondent Millie Cooke has the full story:

Rishi Sunak has urged Conservatives to rally behind whoever is elected as the new leader.

The former prime minister emphasised the importance of unity for the party’s future.

In an op-ed for the House magazine, his first significant statement since the general election, Mr Sunak described the upcoming annual conference as a “unique opportunity to debate and reflect” on the direction of the Conservative Party.

He added: “Just as importantly for many going, it will also be one to catch up with old friends and make new ones.

“We, the Conservative Party, are a family and, once this contest is over, we must come together to support our new leader.”

In a mesage to party members and MPs, past and present, he said: “This will be my last conference as leader, and I want to thank everyone in the party for their support. I will always be sorry that I could not deliver the results that everyone’s efforts deserved, but I will always be grateful for everyone’s hard work and commitment.”

When asked if she would welcome Rosie Duffield to the Conservative party, Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch expressed admiration for the Labour critic but clarified that she is “not a Conservative”.

“Rosie Duffield is an amazing person. Whenever people ask me whoever’s the Labour person you like most, I always say Rosie,” Ms Badenoch told Times Radio. “She fights for her beliefs, she’s passionate, she’s principled. She’s not a Conservative.”

On the abuse Ms Duffield has received in recent weeks and since handing in her resignation, the shadow business secretary said: “I’ve offered moral support where I can. She’s had abuse from her own side, which is the worse thing.”

Boris Johnson has said that he believes a leak from a Chinese laboratory was the “likely” cause of the pandemic.

The former prime minister told the Daily Mail: “The awful thing about the whole Covid catastrophe is that it appears to have been entirely man-made, in all its aspects.

“It now looks overwhelmingly likely that the mutation was the result of some botched experiment in a Chinese lab.

“Some scientists were clearly splicing bits of virus together like the witches in Macbeth – eye of bat and toe of frog – and oops, the frisky little critter jumped out of the test tube and started replicating all over the world.”