Kemi Badenoch has declined to criticise the shadow minister who said there are “no-go zones” in Luton where “white people won’t go”.

Asked about the comments by Blake Stephenson, a Home Office spokesperson, Badenoch told ITV News:

Blake Stevenson is a very sensible MP. He’s put out a lot of good stuff on immigration.

If he is saying there are no go zones, he will have a reason for that and I’m sure that he can explain it. So I’m very happy to stand by him.

Kemi Badenoch has claimed that the Conservative party has changed under her leadership because she is now “captain … coach [and] owner” of the team.

In an interview with GB News, asked why voters should believe that the Conservative party is different from the one they rejected, she replied:

We are under new management. Your viewers will know that sometimes you have a football team that’s disappointing. There’s a new captain, there’s a new coach, there’s a new owner, effectively, which is all me.

And I’ve got a great team around me. I’ve got a new team of people. We’re changing our policies. We know we got things wrong. You know, immigration was too high.

Kemi Badenoch has said the UK should allow the US to use the Diego Garcia military base in the Chagos Islands for bombing missions whenever they want

In an interview with GB News, asked if the UK should allow the jointly-run base to be used “for any bombing missions by US bombers”, she replied: “Yes.”

She went on:

Why is the US removing its bombers [from RAF Fairford]. I am worried that they think that we’re not a serious country. We’re not taking defence seriously. The government has to focus on defence.

While the UK has normally allowed the US to use Diego Garcia when it it wants to dispatch long-range bombers from the base, sometimes it hasn’t. At the start of the Iran war this year, Keir Starmer refused permission, on the grounds that Donald Trump’s attack was not authorised under international law. Trump was furious.

In 1973 Edward Heath did the same when the US wanted help for an intervention in the Yom Kippur war.

Kemi Badenoch has said that, in the event of a hung parliament, she would rather fight a second election than form a pact with Reform UK.

Speaking to Sky News, she said she would not do a deal with Nigel Farage’s party before an election.

Asked what would happen after an election, if no party had an overall majority, she replied:

If there is a hung parliament, then we can have another election. We had this in 1974. It’s not about, do a deal with Reform or don’t be in government. In 1974, there were two elections. I believe that the public will see who is serious and who is not.

Asked to confirm that she would rather have a second election than go into coalition with Reform U, she said:

I would rather have another election, yes.

Kemi Badenoch has said that Andy Burnham should stop trying to be “everybody’s boyfriend”.

In her interview with Beth Rigby from Sky, Badenoch was asked to accept that Burnham was good at connecting emotionally with the public. She implied that was not important.

She told Rigby:

The job is about running the country. He’s not applying to be everybody’s boyfriend.

He is applying to be, or rather he is, in the job where he needs to make sure that we are protected, that we have money, that we can look after ourselves and we’re not bankrupt. That’s what I want to see from him.

Kemi Badenoch has insisted the Tories’ annual conference is “buzzing” after facing ridicule over empty seats in the main hall.

As the Press Association reports, Badenoch said “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about” when questioned over jokes about turnout made by political opponents and commentators including Jeremy Clarkson. (See 11.18am.)

Asked whether Clarkson’s observation had been embarrassing, Badenoch told Channel 5 News:

I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. This conference is buzzing.

We have many more people than last year. I saw Jeremy Clarkson, I saw Jeremy Clarkson’s event – people were standing up, you could barely see him.

There were loud cheers. I was at a Young Conservatives event last night where you could barely get in. It was absolutely heaving.

Kemi Badenoch has rejected claims that cutting inheritance tax would mostly benefit the very wealthy.

With speculation rising that she will announce a cut to inheritance tax in her speech tomorrow, Badenoch has had a series of questions on this from broadcasters.

Sky’s Beth Rigby put it to Badenoch that, given only one in 20 estates pays inheritance tax, this would be a cut for the rich.

Badenoch did not accept this. She said:

Inheritance tax right now has dragged in a lot of people who weren’t covered before …

The wealthiest people don’t pay it, they have all these trusts and so on. It really affects the middle class.

The Tories have pledged to halve employer national insurance on jobs worked by young people if they win the next election, the Press Association reports. PA says:

The flat rate would be slashed from 15% to 7.5% for workers aged 21 to 24 at an estimated cost of £2.3bn, the Conservatives said.

Kemi Badenoch insisted the plan was “fiscally credible” as party officials said they would publish a “savings plan” setting out how it would be funded on Wednesday.

They said the move would put tens of thousands of young people in jobs, meaning that many claiming out-of-work benefits would instead contribute taxes to the exchequer.

The “static” cost of the policy has been calculated as £3.25bn, which officials estimate would fall to a “dynamic” cost of £2.3bn in 2029-30 once extra tax receipts and lower universal credit spending were counted.

In a series of broadcast interviews, Badenoch said there was a “graduate recruitment crisis” that needed to be fixed as she faced questions about why the rate would be left the same for most employees.

“We are being fiscally credible. We find savings and then we spend it. If I could afford to cut it for everybody, I promise you that I would. But young people have a much worse problem than everybody else,” she told the BBC.

Under party proposals for a “tough love” approach to unemployed under-25s announced last week, young people would be barred from going straight from school on to benefits if the Tories returned to power.

People aged 16-24 who have not worked continuously for six months would be unable to claim universal credit, the Conservatives said.

Explaining the policy, the Conservative party said:

Employer’s national insurance is a tax on jobs, yet Labour have imposed a £25bn increase which has hit young workers the hardest. Earnings above £50,270 would still face the standard rate, so the cut goes to the starter jobs where young people get their first break.

It smooths the cliff edge which currently exists – at age 21 employer national insurance goes from zero to the full rate. Halving the jobs tax for young people costs £2.3bn and is fully funded from the Conservative savings plan to be published in full on Wednesday.

Halving the rate for 21- to 24-year-olds would let a business keep an average of £1,545 for every young worker. At 2026-27 thresholds, halving the rate would save an employer £1,125 a year on a 21 to 24-year-old earning £20,000. £1,484 on one working full time on the national living wage, £1,875 on one earning £30,000 and £2,625 on one earning £40,000. The savings hit £3,395 for every young worker earning £50,270 or more, the point at which the standard rate resumes. A firm employing ten young graduates on £30,000 would keep £18,750 a year.

This announcement also means the Tories will be announcing cuts worth at least £2.3bn tomorrow, with savings likely to come from welfare.

Steven Morris is a Guardian reporter covering Wales.

Welsh ministers have announced ambitious – and expensive - plans to tackle two notorious traffic bottlenecks by building a new bridge and widening a road tunnel.

The government, led by Plaid Cymru, wants to create a third crossing of the Menai Strait in north Wales, which separates the island of Ynys Môn (Anglesey) from the mainland. The price for the new crossing is put at about £750 million.

It is also planning to get to grips with the M4 around Newport in south Wales, which is often snarled up with traffic.

Proposals there include expanding the Brynglas Tunnels from two to three lanes each way, which might cost £1.7bn.

In addition, junctions into and out of the city could be closed to cut down traffic using the M4 for short journeys.

The government has not said where the money is coming from but will look at all options, including, for example, asking for help from the UK government for funds as both schemes are important for Britain as a whole.

The deputy minister for transport, Mark Hooper, said:

We will carry out an 18-month study to consider a range of road-based solutions for the M4 around Newport. People on Ynys Môn and across the north of Wales have waited a long time for greater certainty about the future of the crossings.

Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary, told the conference that Britain was “in deep trouble” because of the number of working-age adults on benefits.

She said:

We’re spending £170bn a year on working age welfare, two and a half times more than we spend on defence. And that’s paying for the benefits of six million people who are not working. Conference, six million!

We must, of course, look after people too sick to disabled to work. We’re a civilised society. We’re compassionate. We want a safety net to be there for people in desperate need.

But that’s not six million people. It’s simply not true that one in seven people of working age in this country is unable to work. Adam Smith wrote that the nation’s prosperity depends on the share of its people in useful work. By that measure, we are in deep trouble.

Whately also said that at the last conference she had her team had already identified cuts that would save £23bn.

But now she had found “billions more savings that mean we can cut taxes and our economy can grow”, she said.

At the Tory conference Tom Tugendhat’s speech was followed by a Q&A with the leading global historian, Sir Niall Ferguson. Many of Ferguson’s books have been about war and he told the audience that he was attending a Tory conference for the first time because he wanted to spread the message that “there is only one responsible party when it comes to national security, and it is the Conservative party”.

Ferguson also told the conference that a third world war was possible. He said:

I don’t think it’s alarmist to say that we may be on a path to another world war, because remember how the world wars began? There were regional wars before they broke out in the Balkans before 1914. And then there were wars before the war of 1939, wars in Asia, civil war in Spain. Germany’s rise didn’t begin in 1939. It began with the reoccupation of the Rhineland.

We must remember the lessons that our grandparents – and in the case of younger people here, our great-grandparents – had to learn through bitter experience. We never again want to have to see British kids in air raid shelters.

But you have to learn history’s most fundamental lesson: if you want peace, prepare for war.

Robert Jenrick, the former Tory who is now Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, has criticised Kemi Badenoch for suggesting the Tories would not reverse legislating getting rid of the pensions triple lock in its current form. (See 11.31am.)

In a statement, he said:

How can Kemi Badenoch not be willing to reverse Burnham’s plot to cut the state pension? British pensioners have paid in their entire lives and deserve more than a betrayal stitched up in Westminster.

Reform will make different choices so we can put British pensioners first. Instead of cutting pensions, we will cut wasteful spending on foreign aid, migrant welfare and net zero subsidies.

Even if we’re the only party prepared to defend it, we will go into the next election with a rock-solid pledge to keep the triple lock.

Jenrick may have been partly incentivised to attack Badenoch over this by the fact that the Tories have made him a hate figure at this conference. In the spoof Bayeux tapestry on display at the conference, there are multiple depictions of Jenrick as a diminished and humiliated figure.

Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, has accused Ed Miliband of putting virtue signalling ahead of keeping Britain safe.

In his speech to the conference, Tugendhat said:

We have a foreign secretary [Ed Miliband] who thinks that the right thing to do is to shake hands with the Iranian foreign minister at the same time as the Iranian government is planning to attack the United Kingdom.

We think, as Conservatives, we think that’s wrong.

We think it is wrong to have a man in the Foreign Office who ties our energy to China instead of deepening and strengthening our union by tapping resources from the North Sea now.

We think it is wrong to have a foreign secretary who chooses to virtue signal over intelligence sharing in a way that will keep Britons safe, because that isn’t serving the British people, that is serving his personal agenda.

Tugendhat was referring to Miliband’s decision to impose sanctions on Israel in relation to West Bank settlements.

He went on:

Let’s be absolutely clear, [Miliband is] not putting Britain first. He’s sacrificing Britain’s future.

Tugendhat joked that, given Andy Burnham’s propensity to change his mind, the Tories would probably be up against David Miliband in the Foreign Office soon. “At least there’s one Miliband who knows his foreign policy,” he added.

The National Education Union has accused Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, of giving a “culture wars” speech and launching a “shocking” attack on teachers.

In a response to Trott’s speech, which included an explicit attack on the NEU and a proposal to legislate to stop union activists bringing politics into the classroom (see 1.13pm), Daniel Kebede, the NEU president, said:

This was such a disappointing and cheap speech ill befitting a politician wanting to by secretary of state for education. Laura Trott had the chance today to talk about the real problems in our schools, such as funding cuts and class sizes. She chose not to. This speech chases tabloid headlines but it does not offer any coherent or joined up vision for education or a positive future for our children.

Many people at the Conservative party conference are school governors and local councillors. They set budgets that don’t add up. They witness families wait months for learning support their children are entitled to …

The slurs about hard-working teachers in this speech are shocking. Teachers already follow the law on impartiality in teaching. Parents can already see what their children learn and have high respect for the teachers they know. Forcing schools to hand over every worksheet on demand would bury teachers in paperwork.

This is a policy imported from Trump’s culture wars. When Virginia’s governor set up a line for parents to report teachers, people used it to praise them, and it closed within months. We have also seen in this country what happens when campaigns target individual teachers. Trott’s plan would put teachers at risk and drive more of them out of the profession.

Labour is claiming that The Right Way, the mini-book published by Kemi Badenoch this week setting out her political philosophy, shows that the Tories are not committed to the minimum wage.

In the book, Badenoch says:

Britain took the wrong way in the late 1990s when Labour governments came to believe that prosperity could be mandated by ministers. If wages were too low, ministers could mandate them higher and if investment was insufficient, they could direct savings.

The Tories have supported the minimum wage since it was introduced by Tony Blair’s government. But, commenting on Badenoch’s words, Bridget Phillipson, the Labour chair, said they showed that at heart the Tories do not support the idea.

It’s the same old Tories. They never learn. The Conservatives opposed the minimum wage when Labour introduced it, and they’re still opposed to it now.

Kemi Badenoch is the latest in a long line of failed Tory leaders who are determined to see workers made worse off. When so many people across Britain are struggling with the cost of living, it’s about as tin eared as you can get.

Kemi Badenoch needs to explain why she is so unhappy that workers were paid a minimum of £3.60 per hour – or does she think they should be paid less than that now?

Reform UK will use an open primary to choose a candidate to take on Kemi Badenoch in her North West Essex constituency, the Telegraph is reporting.

At the last election Badenoch had a majority of just 2,610 over Labour. Reform UK was in third place. But the party does well in Essex, and Nigel Farage has claimed it could beat Badenoch in her own seat.

In his Telegraph story, Daniel Martin says:

The local [Reform UK] branch will choose the three finalists, with the final choice put to everyone in the constituency who wants to vote after a special hustings chaired by Mr Farage.

It would echo the open primaries held in a number of US states, which allow residents to vote for their favourite Democrat and Republican candidates even if they are not registered as party members.

Normally parties just let local members select local candidates. Open primaries in theory allow them to choose candidates who might have a wider appeal to voters who have previously supported other parties.

David Cameron experimented with open primaries before the 2010 election. In two seats – Totnes and Gosport – the party sent ballot papers to every voter in the constituency giving them the chance to help pick the Tory candidate. In other seats, anyone who attended an open meeting was allowed to take part in the selection vote.

But the Tories did not repeat the experiment in later electons. The candidate selected for Totnes, Sarah Wollaston, turned out to be quite independent-minded, and she eventually left the Tories, first for Change UK and then the Liberal Democrats.

Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, may have been speaking to a minuscule audience in the hall earlier (see 11.18am), but she gave a long speech that covered quite a lot of ground. Here are the main points.

• Trott said the Tories would legislate to stop teaching unions bringing politics into the classroom. She spoke at length about pupils being exposed to unsuitable political content in the classroom and she said:

Today I’m launching Our Pledge to Parents which lays out my commitment to mums and dads. I will keep political activism out of the classroom.

And she singled out teaching unions for particular criticism.

We’ll properly enforce the rules on political impartiality for teachers and guest speakers.

And we’ll create a specific law around trade unions involved in education.

They must not bring politics into schools.

• She claimed that pupils were being exposed to unsuitable ideas in the classroom.

Children as young as seven are being told they have white privilege.

Pupils are learning that a woman can have a penis, a man can be pregnant, and sex is assigned at birth.

Some have been told to rewrite negative headlines on migration to make them more positive.

And others have been taught that Britain is a racist country.

This is fiction being presented as fact ….

This is part of a trend of complex, controversial, contested issues being boiled down, laced with political bias and delivered in a place that children trust; schools.

• She particularly criticised the Schools of Sanctuary network.

If anyone has an agenda, it’s a network called Schools of Sanctuary.

Now you might not have heard of it, but it has now signed up over a thousand sixth forms, secondary schools, primary schools, even nurseries,

All calling themselves schools of sanctuaries for refugees.

The vision schools are signing up to is that the UK will be a place of welcome for all.

Except it’s more nuanced than that isn’t it?

We can’t welcome all migrants.

We don’t want to welcome all migrants, certainly not dangerous criminals.

Yet that is the simplistic political narrative they push on our children.

But when I wrote to the former education secretary [Bridget Phillipson] about this blatant political activism, do you know what she did?

Absolutely nothing.

• She also condemned the role played by the National Education Union, England’s largest teaching union, in schools.

What do you think they debate when the NEU, that’s the National Education Union, get together?

The merits of teaching Latin perhaps?

The value of coding in maths?

The latest developments in pedagogy?

No.

Their recent resolutions include:

Defending the right to protest, opposing UK defence spending and embedding their own LGBT+ teaching materials in schools.

Friends, this doesn’t sound like a professional body that cares about teaching pupils.

It sounds like a campaigning organisation bent on politicising education.

And it is deeply entwined with politics, extreme politics.

Several NEU officials happen to also be directors of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

• She said there was too much antisemitism in schools.

Parents … are being left with an impossible choice.

Sending their children to mainstream schools where Jewish children are heckled, bullied, singled out, or send them to Jewish schools, with prison-like securitywhere they’re under constant threat from outside.

• She said under the Tories state schools would not be allowed to force young girls to wear the hijab. Referring to this story, she said:

You might have heard about the school in Barnet making the hijab part of the uniform for girls as young as 7.

Conference, be absolutely clear, we would not allow that under a future Conservative government.

• She said the Tories and Labour had fundamentally different approaches to education.

Lucy Powell [the education secretary] says, education should be about what you can do, and not what you can’t.

We say, education is all about what you can’t do.

That is what you go to school for.

To learn the things you don’t yet know.

We are poles apart on what we believe.

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, has suggested that, when the Tories talked about setting up an “Iron Dome”, they were just using it as a generic term for missile defence – like describing a vacuum cleaner as a Hoover. They were not talking about the Israeli version, he claimed.

In an attempt to clear up the confusion caused by the Tories first saying they were proposing an Israeli-type Iron Dome, before Kemi Badenoch later said that wasn’t the plan (see 7.59am), Cartlidge told the Press Association:

The phrase ‘iron dome’ has come to be used a bit like the word ‘Hoover’ to generically refer to missile defence systems – and this is clearly a missile defence system.

Is it the exact same iron dome as Israel? No.

The Israeli iron dome is a short-range system. It’s to do with very near threats from the likes of Hezbollah.

It was actually originally designed for artillery and very unsophisticated weaponry, whereas what we’re talking about, Britannia Shield, is a bespoke UK system.

It’s just, if you speak to the media and the public, if you say ‘iron dome’, they at least know roughly what you’re talking about.

In her interview with Times Radio this morning, Kemi Badenoch hinted that, if Labour has legislated to make the pensions triple lock less generous by the time of the next election, a future Tory government would not reverse that.

In his party conference speech last week, Andy Burnham said he wanted to change the triple lock uprating mechanism from 2030, with the savings used to part fund his plans to set up a National Care Service. The government later said it would legislate for this before the election.

The Tories are committed to the pensions triple lock in its current form. But, asked if she would repeal any legislation passed making it less generous, Badenoch replied:

I have said that the triple lock is our policy and it remains our policy. I don’t think going after pensioners is the right thing when there are loads of people who can work, who won’t work.

When we are going to reverse Labour’s policies, I say we are going to reverse their policies.

I have said that we are keeping this policy, but if they take that money and they spend it on something that we can’t get it back from, then it would be difficult for me.

What I’m not going to do is lie to your listeners just so I can get votes. I tell the truth and I say the triple lock is our policy and we’re keeping it.

But what I’m not going to do is to say something when I don’t know what the situation would be about what Labour has done with that money. We have to be very careful.

Laura Trott, the education secretary, has given a speech at the conference. This morning the events are on the main stage, which is the smaller venue. This afternoon events are in the larger symphony hall.

Trott’s speech was largely a long rant about supposed political correctness excesses in schools, with pupils being told that white people are privileged, women can have penises, Britain is racist etc. She said the Tories would “keep political activism out of the classroom”.

Trott is now taking part in a panel discussion including the Telegraph journalist and GB News presenter Camilla Tominey. Tominey is no leftie, but even she seemed to think Trott had laid it on a bit too thick. Tominey said that, following the supreme court judgment, she thought children were no longer being told women can have penises.

There aren’t many people watching – either in the hall or on YouTube, where there is a live feed.

But the Labour press office is tuning in. It has just posted this picture of the event on social media with the heading “People disguised as chairs latest” – a reference to a joke told by Jeremy Clarkson yesterday, when he was sarcastically commenting on how good it was to see so many people in the audience for his Tory conference session.

According to the Conservatives, a Tory government would fund the plan for a £1bn-a-year “Britannia Shield” with some of the money from the extra £10bn a year it would raise for defence.

Last month, the Tories published details of how that £10bn a year would be funded. Some £8bn of that would come from cuts to benefits – £4bn from cutting housing benefit, £3bn from reimposing the two-child benefit cap, and £1bn from the Motability scheme funding cars for disabled people.

The housing benefit cuts would partly be achieved by cutting local housing allowance (LHA) rates, which determine how much people can receive in housing benefit. The Tories have briefed that LHA rates would be set at 10th percentile of local market rates, not the 30th percentile.

The cuts would also involve social sector rents being cut.

Kemi Badenoch was asked earlier (see 7.59am) about General Sir Richard Barrons, the retired former head of Joint Forces Command, saying an Iron Dome-style missile defence system would cost up to £100bn.

Barrons gave these figures to the Commons defence committee in evidence in July on the defence investment plan (Dip). This is what he said when asked about what was missing from the Dip.

The subject of integrated air and missile defence also links to the absolutely vital point that gets lost so often: the defence investment plan is the articulation of the SDR [strategic defence review] – it is the things that made the cut for the money available. Given the legacy holes in defence, there is at least another half of the iceberg that never made it into the DIP, because it was not even remotely affordable. There is a £60 billion to £80 billion hole in defence infrastructure—falling down airfields, ports, housing, the Reserve Forces’ and Cadets’ Associations. Most of that is not in the DIP, because it just could not get into the cut.

Integrated air and missile defence is the iconic thing that did not make into the review. There is about £1 billion in the DIP for it, and that buys improved command and control – you’ll know better that you’re going to be hit by a missile – some improvements for the Air Force ability to shoot down cruise missiles, and some improvements to the Type 45 so that it has a better capability against ballistic missiles.

Many people in the country assume there is a sort of iron dome over at least London, and that is not even remotely there. Even if you embrace the extraordinary technological change that some companies are producing in low-cost kills, whether directed energy weapons, DragonFire or cheaper missiles like Cambridge Aerospace and that kind of thing, the cost of an iron dome at entry level is probably £80 billion over 10 years—entry level. The IAMD [integrated air and missile defence] of my dreams is probably £120 billion over 10 years. But we got £1 billion, because it sits in that bit of the iceberg that never got to be remotely affordable. We should not kid ourselves that if we have an argument about the margins of the DIP, we are somehow fixing defence. That is just not true.

Kemi Badenoch is now on GB News.

Talking about the Tory plans for a “Britannia Shield”, she says:

It is not an Iron Dome like what Israel has. It is not something used to cover the entire country.

This is her final interview from the morning round, and it ends with Badenoch, even more firmly then before, quashing the line that the Conservatives were using in a news release (see 7.59am) sent out less than 24 hours ago.

In her interview on Times Radio earlier, Kemi Badenoch said she had been reading about how some “heritage brands” recovered after losing their reputation for tips that might help the Tories.

She said:

I’ve been reading a lot about heritage brands that lost their way. And it always happens when the brand stops looking after its core customers and starts doing things that are off-brand. And it takes some time to recover from that.

But that is what I’m doing. Refreshing the brand. I’m glad that I’m doing well. I know that people have started listening to the Conservative party again. I want them to start buying.

Balls asks Badenoch about Suella Braverman telling ITV last week that she never considers herself of English ethnicity.

Q: How do you feel about that?

Badenoch says she does not understand why people are policing others’ identity.

I don’t understand why all of a sudden some people are policing other people’s identity?

I think identity is something very personal. If that’s how [Braverman] feels about herself, I think that’s fine.

But what I’m worried about is politicians running around telling some people that they’re not English.

I remember when I was younger watching English footballers, black and white. I can’t imagine people pointing to the black footballers and saying, ‘Well, you’re not really, really English.’

I think we need we need to be very careful with this, sort of conversation.

She says, on gender, she thinks men are men and women are different.

But identity is different. Her children are half white, half black.

Q: But isn’t Braverman saying that black footballers playing for England are not English?

Badenoch says Braverman must speak for herself. She says she personally would not say those footballers are not English.

Q: Do you think Kemi Badenoch would be welcome as a migrant to the UK today?

Badenoch says when she was born in England in 1980 thinks were very different. Two years later the rules were changed. (Badenoch gave British citizenship because she was born in the country, but that rule changed.”

Badenoch recalls again getting a text message from Jeffrey Archer yesterday.

She says he was one of the people who supported her even before she became leader. She says the people like that are the people she treasures most.

He always had a funny story and sometimes – it’s a shame, because he had disappearing messages on – when he felt people were being critical of me, he’d say quite rude things about [them], which made me which made me laugh.

I’m going to miss him very much.

Asked about his legacy, Badenoch says:

I think his legacy is more in his writing, probably, than in Conservative politics.

He was part of the Conservative family. We were a very fond of him.

I think we wish he was better behaved. I think his family probably felt the impact of that more than more than we did.

But it was a sign that he was someone who people liked so much that, even after he’d been in tricky situations, he kept being given further chances.

Kemi Badenoch is on the Today programme now. Anna Foster is interviewing.

Foster starts by asking about the “Britannia Shield”. Badenoch says that is what they have called it. Foster says in the press released they referred to it as a version of an Iron Dome.

Badenoch says what they are proposing is not like the Israeli version.

Q: £1bn a year won’t get you anywhere close to what you are suggesting here?

Badenoch says they are designing something for the UK.

Q: So why call it the Iron Dome?

Badenoch says Foster will have to ask the papers about that. She says the Tories are calling it a Britannia Shield.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

You’ll have to speak to the newspapers about that. I called it the Britannia Shield.

But we are explaining to people that missile defence systems are things that we need right now. The Iron Dome is one type, and we want people to understand what we’re talking about, we haven’t said that we are replicating that.

And the money that we are spending, £1bn a year over 10 years, should be able to deliver this.

On the missile defence plan, McCann asked Badenoch if this was about protecting the whole of the UK, or just protecting critical infrastructure.

Badenoch replied:

I think you are splitting hairs here.

Critical national infrastructure protects the entire country. If we lose even one thing, the entire country is in, is in a real problem.

I don’t want to have a semantic argument. I have put out a description of something which should protect our country and which should make us safer.

Q: You say your Iron Dome will protect the whole of the UK, and bases abroad. But Sir Richard Barrons, the former general, has said that a proper air defence like this would cost up to £100bn.

Badenoch says Barrons is referring to an Israel-style Iron Dome.

She says she is referring to something different. She says the UK should be able to defend itself from, for example, someone on a boat firing a drone at the system.

Q: But it is nothing like Israel’s Iron Dome. It is a gimmick, isn’t it?

Badenoch replied:

It’s not going to be exactly like the Iron Dome. We haven’t called it an Iron Dome.

But, in fact, they did. This is what they sent out to journalists yesterday.

Q: Would you like to see Penny Mordaunt selected as a Tory candidate?

(At the weekend Mordaunt, the former cabinet minister who lost her seat at the election, revealed she has been approved for the candidates list, which means she can apply to be a candidate in a Tory seat.)

Badenoch says it is not up to her to decide; local parties choose their candidates, she says.

She says she wants “serious people” committed to public service as MPs.

Q: Do you want to see her selected?

Badenoch says Mordaunt was a “fantastic MP”. She says she was sorry she lost her seat, and is glad she wants to stand again.

But former MPs won’t get special treatment when candidates are being selected, she says. She says she wants candidate selection to be a “meritocracy”.

Q: You are going to cut inheritance tax, aren’t you?

Badenoch says everyone knows she would like to do that. She has said that before.

But she won’t announce that unless she has found the money to pay for it.

Q: Will you have found the money by the time you give your speech tomorrow?

Badenoch tells Kay he will have to wait.

Jon Kay is interviewing Badenoch.

He puts it to her that the UK would need a very different missile defence system from Israel. Israel is under threat from short-range missiles, he says.

Badenoch says it is not just missiles that threaten the UK; drones are a threat too.

Q: Would £10bn be enough to pay for it?

Badenoch says it can be done. The £10bn would be spent over 10 years, she says. She says the UK needs to be protected.

Kemi Badenoch is on BBC Breakfast.

They start by asking about the death of Jeffrey Archer, and Badenoch says she got a message from him only yesterday morning. He said: “Great outfit, great speech, no need to reply.”

Badenoch says Archer was “a great communicator” and a “great storyteller”, and someone who believed in Conservatism.

Here is our story about his death.

The Liberal Democrats have dismissed the Tory plan for a “Britannia Shield” as “Truss-style fantasy economics”. They say the Conservatives would only get a “Patchwork Dome” with the £10bn they plan to spend on the project.

James MacCleary, the Lib Dem defence spokesperson, said:

Once again the Conservatives are indulging in Truss-style fantasy economics. £10bn would not even touch the sides for a complete UK-wide ‘Iron Dome’. They either need to review their dodgy sums or come clean about which parts of the country their Patchwork Dome wouldn’t cover.

Let’s not forget this is the party that hollowed out our armed forces for a decade, and whose disgraceful plan to fill the defence-spending black hole is based on targeted cuts to the poorest and most vulnerable children. You do not make Britain safer by pushing families into poverty.

This is what the Conservatives are saying about why the UK needs a “Britannia Shield” (their name for what they describe as a version of the “Iron Dome”), and who it would work.

The announcement comes as the threat of missile and drone attack against Britain and our allies continues to grow. Russia bombards Ukraine daily with ever more advanced drones and missiles, and they were behind a drone attack on Leipzig airport in August. Drones launched by Iranian proxies have hit our RAF base in Cyprus, and when Iran fired missiles at the Chagos islands earlier this year, it was the US who stepped in to launch interceptors. Nato allies, especially in the Baltic States, are suffering ever greater numbers of drone incursions and western intelligence agencies have warned that Russia could attack a Nato country by 2030.

We live in an increasingly dangerous and unpredictable world, where threats to the UK and our allies are growing in scale and complexity, yet Britain remains dangerously exposed. A report in November 2025 by the defence select committee warned that, compared to European allies investing heavily in integrated air and missile defence, the UK has “next to nothing”.

The Conservatives will close this dangerous capability gap by committing up to £10 billion over ten years. We will deliver a minimal deployable capability within our first term in office, with the remaining investment focused on expanding and strengthening the system over time.

Britannia Shield will have three key components:

SENSE: New advanced radar systems, to detect incoming missiles and drones.

DECIDE: Upgraded command and control systems to integrate information from across Britain’s defences and rapidly identify the most effective response.

EFFECT: New interceptor missiles, counter-drone capabilities, and significantly larger missile stockpiles to defeat incoming threats.

Good morning. Kemi Badenoch is doing a round of interviews this morning at the Conservative conference, and she will be talking about her plans for the UK to have its own version of Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defence system. That phrase is not just journalists’ hype; it has come from the first line of the party’s press release, which says the party has plans for a “new integrated air and missile defence system to protect Britain from attack – in essence, a British ‘Iron Dome’.”

Here is our story by Jessica Elgot and Dan Sabbagh.

And this is what Badenoch is saying about it.

The first duty of government is to defend the country and keep people safe. Labour are failing that basic test.

The world will not wait for Britain to get ready. War has returned to Europe. Missiles and drones are transforming warfare in the Middle East. Cheap weapons can now threaten cities, military bases and critical infrastructure in ways that would have sounded like science fiction a generation ago.

If a missile or drone is launched at Britain, we do not get a second chance to wish we had prepared.

The Tories say their plan would cost £1bn a year over 10 years, and that the money would come from the plan they announced last month to raise defence spending by £10bn a year. Almost half the money for this would come from cuts to housing benefit.

Here is the agenda for the day.

7.30am: Kemi Badenoch begins a round of media interviews, starting with BBC Breakfast.

9.45am: The morning session of the Conservative party conference opens, with speeches from Katie Lam, the shadow housing secretary, then Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary (at 10.30am) and Rebecca Paul, the shadow culture secretary (at noon).

2pm: The afternoon session starts, with speeches from Alex Burghart, the deputy leader, Tom Tugendhat, the shadow foreign secretary, James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, and Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretary.

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