Badenoch launches ‘The Right Way’ as Tories open Birmingham conference on an election footing
The Conservative leader declared her party the home of “common sense” and unveiled a 95-page policy booklet setting out tax cuts, a smaller state and 50,000 new prison places, as senior Tories talked openly of a possible snap election.
Kemi Badenoch opened the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Sunday with a pledge to make the Tories the party of “common sense”, launching a 95-page policy booklet, The Right Way, that sets out how she says a future Conservative government would govern.
Taking the stage at the ICC on the opening day of the four-day gathering, which runs until Wednesday, Badenoch hailed Birmingham as “the city of a thousand trades built by entrepreneurs, small businesses and family firms”, and told delegates: “Birmingham can and will be Conservative again.” She also praised the Jewellery Quarter, recently awarded World Craft City status, saying its businesses “deserve a lot better than Labour are giving them”.
The booklet argues that “business, not government, creates growth”, and sets out a programme of tax cuts, reduced regulation and a civil service cut back to pre-pandemic levels. Badenoch declared herself a “classic old school Conservative” in an interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg to mark the conference.
Birmingham can and will be Conservative again.Kemi Badenoch, Conservative Party conference, 4 October 2026
Among the headline pledges trailed ahead of the conference is an end to the £100,000 childcare “cliff edge”: any parent employed for at least 16 hours a week would qualify for 30 hours of funded care a week, ending a rule under which a single parent earning a pound over the threshold loses the entire entitlement. Party officials put the cost at £700 million a year, funded by cutting headcount in arm’s-length public bodies such as Arts Council England and the Environment Agency, with NHS organisations excluded.
Unveiling the pledge during a visit to the Wendy House Day Nursery in Wythall, Birmingham, with the shadow education secretary, Laura Trott, Badenoch called the current rules “absurd” and a disincentive to work more. “Conservatives believe that you shouldn’t be punished for working more, but this childcare cliff edge does exactly that,” she said. “No one should be turning down a promotion or a pay rise because they literally cannot afford to earn more.”
The other big pre-conference pledge is 50,000 new prison places, funded in part by cutting the overseas aid budget to £1 billion a year, which the party says would end the early release of offenders. Badenoch acknowledged her party’s record in power, when the prison estate grew by a net of around 500 places once closures and dilapidation were taken into account. Labour’s chair, Bridget Phillipson, called the proposals “just not credible from a party who left our criminal justice system at breaking point”.
The conference has been run on an election footing, with senior Tories presenting the package as proof the party could hit the ground running amid talk of a possible snap election. Badenoch hinted she was open to cutting inheritance tax if it were fiscally responsible, calling the move “morally right” in a Sunday Times interview, while insisting the party would keep the pensions triple lock despite senior colleagues questioning its sustainability. The wider programme includes ditching legally binding net zero targets and backing more North Sea oil and gas.
On the party’s right flank, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage mocked the Tories’ poll ratings in a social media post: “A year ago, the Conservatives were polling at 17 per cent. Today? Still 17 per cent.” The post came as Reform released an attack video about Badenoch’s past, which drew a community note clarifying that she had not claimed to be Nigeria’s national chess champion.
Labour dismissed the Tory platform outright. Phillipson said the party was “stuck in the past and remains completely out of touch with what people across Britain want to see”, adding: “Last week Andy Burnham set out a plan to bring back hope to Britain. Kemi Badenoch wants to drag our country back to a politics that let so many people down over the past 40 years.”
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