#kemi-badenoch

#kemi-badenoch

As the Conservative leader was being interviewed on ITV about her party's plans to cut interest rates for some student loans, Lewis, the campaigner and finance expert, marched on to the set to announce that he completely disagreed. Ed Balls, who had been interviewing Badenoch for Good Morning Britain, had challenged Badenoch on whether the Tory plan would help only former students in the highest-paying jobs.

the Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella's mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy

It is never ideal in politics to have a senior colleague defect, hurling insults as they depart, but as the dust settles on Robert Jenrick's move to Reform UK, many of the remaining Conservative MPs agree on one thing: it has left Kemi Badenoch stronger. Historically, the party has suffered from two weaknesses: too many people trying to bring down the leader, and not enough leaders getting rid of those people, one shadow minister said. Hopefully now we're all pulling in the same direction.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

A lot of people are coming out saying he did say those things. He should just apologise. If he just said: You know, I was a kid, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. It was wrong. People shouldn't speak like that,' this would all have gone away. And that's the problem. It's not that he's racist, that he doesn't care.

We need to listen to what businesses are saying. It's not government ministers that create jobs, it's business that creates jobs. We need to make sure that we set the minimum wage at a good level but we also need to make sure that their other burdens, their business rates, their corporation taxes, all of the things they do - the endless regulation, the employment rights bill: they're just sick and tired of so much happening. Let's lighten that burden.

Lex Greensill has accused Kemi Badenoch of interfering in an insolvency case for political ends as the last Conservative government sought to protect David Cameron from scrutiny for his involvement in a lobbying scandal. The financier, whose companies paid Cameron millions of pounds, claimed that the current Tory leader used her former ministerial position as business secretary to restructure an inquiry into his activities.

"Labour talk about fairness with the language of Robin Hood. They think those that have taken from those that don't have. They talk about those with the broadest shoulders never worrying about the limit of what those shoulders can bear. They talk about fairness for 'working people', but they can't define what a working person is! They think that what they're doing is righteous, but they're wrong. What they're doing is making everyone poorer."

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

Of course, Kemi might argue that she has proved the doubters wrong. She has become leader of the Tory party, after all. Though that's not the job it used to be. A small party becoming ever smaller. Where no sensible person really wants to be leader anyway. But credit where credit's due Kemi is the living embodiment of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground.

You could argue that prime minister's questions is no longer fit for purpose. Indeed, that it never really has been. Just a theatre showcase for some performance politics where few answers are ever extracted from the prime minister. To which you might now add that the Tories are not the real opposition. So Kemi Badenoch is essentially an impostor. Sometime over the summer the mantle of official opposition passed to Reform UK. So it really should be Nigel Farage, not Kemi, asking the questions.