2:19PM
Jenrick: Tories can’t ever let the British public down again “If we are lucky enough to get back into government in the future, I never want to let down the British public again. If we are given a second chance, we won’t be given a third chance.
“So a party like ours has to stand for ending illegal migration and the only way to do that is get rid of this arsenal of laws that are used by illegal migrants to frustrate their removal from our country.
“You can’t ignore the European court, you can’t reform the court, it has 46 member states from Iceland to Hungary to Andorra, you name it, it requires unanimity to do so. It is a fantasy. It is in essence leave or remain. I’m for leave.”
2:16PM
Robert Jenrick: Illegal migration doing immense harm to Britain Christopher Hope told Robert Jenrick he “contributed” to the election defeat in July by resigning.
Mr Jenrick said he was always a “team player” and served under five prime ministers, developing a reputation as “immensely loyal” to the Conservative Party.
“If you know that something is in the national interest, you know you have to take a stand for it. I came to the conviction that illegal migration was doing immense harm to our country. Not everybody sees that. It’s not their hotels being taken over by illegal migrants, it’s not their kids who are being knocked off social housing lists…
“I saw those places and I don’t want it to be the country that my children and grandchildren grow up in.”
2:13PM
Robert Jenrick: I couldn’t just ‘stay and fight’ in Sunak’s cabinet Asked about his resignation from Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, Mr Jenrick said: “The decision was a very sad one for me. I was a very good friend of the prime minister, Rishi, and it’s never easy to walk away in that sense. But I did feel it was the right thing to do.
“I felt very strongly about and that was because I didn’t want to be just another minister who makes and breaks promises. And I felt that if I’d gone along with the Rwanda Bill as it was at the time, I would have had to look my colleagues in parliament in the eye and all of you, members of this party, and tell you that black was white… that I knew it was a good bill when I knew it was a bad bill.
“And that was wrong for me as an individual, wrong for our party. And I don’t want our party to keep making and breaking promises on things that matter so much to this country. That is immensely damaging to this party and immensely damaging to trust in politics.”
Asked by Christopher Hope why he didn’t “stay and fight”, he replied: “We had to have the strengthened version of the Rwanda policy that I knew we needed. Ultimately I’m afraid to say the government, the prime minister, the cabinet were not willing to do that.
“I cannot predict what that might have meant for the general election, but I can confidently say it would have been a hell of a lot better than it was.”
2:11PM
Jenrick: ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ labels are tired Robert Jenrick was asked where he positioned himself in the Tory Party.
“People speak of me as on the Right of the party, but I don’t think that characterisation, those labels are very accurate of anyone, frankly. I think they’re a bit tired. What I’m interested in is the common ground.
Geoff Pugh “The centre ground is just trying to find unhappy consensus. I want to find the [common] ground. The issues I’ve campaigned on, certainly very prominently in the last year or so, like immigration, crime, extremism, defence, I would argue these are not Left or Right.
“These are issues that millions of our fellow countrymen and women care about. And this exactly what the Conservative Party should stand for in the country.”
2:07PM
Jenrick: I would turn down freebies Robert Jenrick was asked whether his family was ready for the scrutiny he would face.
“I’ve got three young girls and they have all been reading the papers, reading the news. And one of them said to me the other day does this mean we’re going to get free tickets to Taylor Swift? And I said to Sophia, no that’s only for leaders of the Labour Party.”
Asked whether he would turn down free gifts, Mr Jenrick said: “Yes, I will.”
2:04PM
Jenrick: Tories can’t stay as the stale status quo Asked why he wanted to be leader, Robert Jenrick said: “I think our party has just suffered its worst-ever electoral defeat, the worst since 1832.
“We’ve just suffered this terrible defeat and I think when a party suffers a defeat like that, when it’s been rejected by the electorate, you can’t continue with the stale status quo that we’ve been. You’ve got to change. I stand for change.
“I want to change the offer of our party to the public, I want to change the operation of our party. I believe I have a diagnosis of what’s gone wrong, I believe I’ve set that out quite clearly, and I believe I’ve got a very clear sense of where I want to take this party, where I want to take the country.”
Mr Jenrick admitted he did not know whether he was going to retain his seat of Newark, adding: “I did feel after the election it is incumbent of my generation of Conservative Members of Parliament to step up.”
2:02PM
Here comes Jenrick Robert Jenrick received a significant round of applause as he sat down with Christopher Hope for his Q&A.
1:37PM
Andy Street suggests he lost because of Reform Andy Street has suggested he lost the West Midlands mayoral election because of Reform UK, writes Jacob Freedland.
The former chief executive of John Lewis had been the mayor of the West Midlands since 2017 but was narrowly defeated by Labour in May.
After the May election Richard Tice, the then leader of Reform, told Times Radio: “We stopped Andy Street from winning in the West Midlands. We’re delighted by that”.
Recalling the defeat at a Conservative fringe panel, Mr Street said: “Do not misunderstand their purpose: they wanted me to lose, so let’s nail that one down first of all. They have to be defeated.”
1:20PM
What time are the Tory leadership hopefuls speaking? 1:10PM
Tugendhat: Jenrick’s comments risk putting our soldiers in danger Tom Tugendhat has once again criticised Robert Jenrick’s claim that the Armed Forces are “killing rather than detaining terrorists” because of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Mr Tugendhat was asked by The News Agents podcast whether he agreed with his fellow Tory leadership hopeful.
He replied: “No I don’t, and I’m afraid I’m extremely concerned about the use of language that suggests that it is appropriate to resist arrest and not surrender to the British Armed Forces when you’re asked to do so.
“That risks making life much more dangerous for our soldiers. I also think it’s inappropriate to comment about Special Forces operations and I will not be doing that.”
12:57PM
Andy Street: ‘One or more’ leadership contenders not authentic Andy Street, the former mayor of the West Midlands, has accused “one or more” of the leadership contenders of being inauthentic, writes Jacob Freedland.
Discussing what personal qualities make for good leaders at a panel organised by Conservative Home, Mr Street said “authenticity” is essential.
He told the panel: “What I think needs to be revealed at this conference is who is genuinely authentic? With whom do you actually get what you see? Who is confident enough in their own position to be themselves? Authenticity is the word that sums it up.”
Asked by Lord Houchen, mayor of Tees Valley, if he thought that “one or more of the leadership contenders are being inauthentic”, Mr Street said: “yes”.
12:53PM
Backlash to Jenrick’s ‘killing rather than capturing terrorists’ remarks Robert Jenrick has been criticised by his Tory leadership rivals over his claim special forces are “killing rather than capturing terrorists”.
James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, said: “You’re going to have to ask Robert to justify that statement. That’s not something which I have heard. That’s not something which I’m comfortable kind of repeating.
“The British military always abide by international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict. We have, I was about to say some of the most… no, we have the most professional military in the world. Our military do not murder people.”
Asked whether he agreed with the claim, Tom Tugendhat, the shadow security minister, told Sky News: “No, I don’t. I think what he said is wrong and I’m afraid demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of military operations and the law of armed conflict.
12:20PM
Minimum wage harming British businesses, suggests Badenoch Kemi Badenoch has suggested that the minimum wage is harmful to British businesses.
The Tory leadership candidate signalled that the rules on minimum pay and maternity leave are “overburdening” firms, together with too much tax and regulation.
She claimed there was a cafe in her own constituency of North West Essex that had closed down because its owner could not afford to pay her staff the minimum wage or grant them leave to have children.
My colleague Amy Gibbons has more here
12:11PM
Rees-Mogg: Sunak’s part in Johnson’s downfall helped doom us to defeat Rishi Sunak’s part in the downfall of Boris helped doom the Conservatives to defeat, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.
The former business secretary argued Mr Sunak’s decision to resign as Mr Johnson’s chancellor in the wake of the Chris Pincher scandal was “a stupid thing to do”.
Asked if he blamed Mr Sunak for the general election defeat, Sir Jacob told The Telegraph’s The Daily T podcast: “I’m not entirely blaming it on him because the party, through the idiocy of going through all those leaders, had got itself into a lunatic situation that people didn’t know what they were going to vote for.
Kamal Ahmed and Tim Stanley interviewing Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg Geoff Pugh “They were going to vote for Rishi Sunak but who were they going to vote for the day after? We were changing our leaders in the way that some people change their shirts.
“We were changing too often and we treated the electorate with contempt. And Rishi must bear his responsibility for that because he wanted to get rid of Boris which was a stupid thing to do, it was a terrible mistake.”
11:48AM
Cates: Tories put pensioners before families Miriam Cates has said the Conservatives prioritised pensioners and the triple lock over families, Genevieve Holl-Allen writes.
The former Tory MP said that politicians needed to explain how the state pension works to older people, who believed they have “a pot of money with their name on it”.
Asked about whether the Tories spent time and money on policies for the over-65s to the detriment of families, Mrs Cates said: “Yes.”
“We don’t need to debate about the triple lock but the fact that that was a key policy and yet we froze income tax thresholds which has obviously been really difficult for families. So many families have been pushed into the higher rate threshold now because of frozen thresholds.
She added: “The marginal tax rates for families especially with one income … (makes it) impossible for families to save up for anything, to take themselves out of poverty. So yes, we have. We’ve spent all our money, we do spend all our money on pensions. Half our welfare bill is pensions.”
11:47AM
Children’s Commissioner: Young people like Reform because of TikTok The Children’s Commissioner for England has said children and young people support Reform UK because they “like watching Nigel Farage on TikTok”, writes Genevieve Holl-Allen.
Dame Rachel de Souza told a fringe event at Conservative Party Conference that children’s “political education” was “massively wanting”, with young people not knowing who the Prime Minister is.
She told a fringe event: “What we also found was that their political education, if you like, was massively wanting.
“If I had a group of children and young people in here now, and this is fairly recent just in the past year or so, and I said to them, ‘Who is the Prime Minister?’ There was a bit of recognition for Boris, I got Barack Obama… It is actually quite serious.
“If I had a group of children in here, a load of them would say ‘we support Reform because we like watching Nigel Farage on TikTok’ so we’re not communicating with the younger children as we need to.
“And we’re getting into these old debates about supporting the old, supporting the young, actually the Opposition and the Conservative Party needs to be communicating with everybody.”
11:37AM
We may have global warming but we will adapt, says Rees-Mogg Asked by Kamal Ahmed “climate change matters, doesn’t it?”, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg replied “why?”
“What difference are we going to make?” Sir Jacob said. “Even the IPCC admits that the evidence for extreme events being climate change-related is not there, that the hurricanes and the typhoons are much the same as they’ve ever been.
“Look at the famines that we had in the 16th century when the rainfall didn’t come or it came too heavily. Or look at the 19th century and what goes on with the Corn Laws… We have had these variations in climate which we have coped with. We may have global warming, which will lead to more variations in climate, and then we adapt.
“And we work out how we deal with what is happening. We may find start growing champagne in Sussex… If all of us switched off our central heating, sent our cars to the crushers, wore the same clothes for the 30 years, it would not make a blind difference to emissions. We’re one per cent of emissions. We may historically be responsible for more, that’s too late.”
11:32AM
Rees-Mogg: Tory leadership contest not focusing on economy or net zero enough Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said “any one of the four” leadership hopefuls would make a “respectable leader of the Conservative Party”.
“They are good people, they are different… They’re in campaign mode, so they’re all inevitably trying to say things that appeal to as many people as possible.
“I think we are talking much too much about the immigration and not enough about the economy and net zero. They actually come together because net zero is bankrupting us.
“And if we carry on with a deficit of five per cent and we dance in the streets when the OECD says we’re going to get growth of one per cent, that is the way to bankrupt us.”
11:29AM
Badenoch wrong to ‘dismiss’ Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg praised Kemi Badenoch as a charismatic politician who said “interesting things”.
But he added: “I think to say Nigel Farage is not a serious politician ignores the evidence. We would not have had Brexit without Nigel.
“Without the success he made of the UK Independence Party, of the Brexit Party, of pushing us down to our lowest share of the vote in the 2019 European elections in our history, going back to Queen Anne, our worst result ever.
“We would not have got the referendum in the first place, which David Cameron offered to neutralise Ukip, to neutralise Nigel, we would not have won the referendum because we would not have appealed to the Labour voters who eventually came over to us who Nigel appealed to… He crystallised the opposition to Theresa May and that vote in 2019.
“He hasn’t done it just because he swigs beer and smokes fags. He’s done it because he is a formidable figure… It’s a mistake to dismiss him.”
11:20AM
Rees-Mogg: Why should anyone trust us on immigration? Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Daily T podcast: “Why should anyone trust is in the country, anyone, trust us on immigration after our appalling failure from 2010 to 2024?
“We promised tens of thousands in the 2010 manifesto, which we knew was a lie actually because we knew we had no control over EU migration. Perhaps lie is harsh, lie is often too harsh.
“It was a deliberate attempt to point people in the wrong direction because I think there was small print pointing out free movement. We completely failed after Covid for explicable reasons, but not ones that voters are impressed with.
“We had 1.4 million people net come in in the two years to June 2023. We can say the most wonderful things and people will think Nigel will do it properly and we won’t because we’ve failed before. So I don’t think trying to steal our clothes back from Reform is likely to work.
“We need to show we are changing by recognising that Reform is real and trying to bring them into a tent. That may mean that some people may leave the tent in the other direction, but that is something we must accept because we are the Conservative Party, and not the Liberal Democrat mark two party.”
11:18AM
Reform voters ‘good, sensible people’, says Rees-Mogg Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Reform voters are good, sensible people. I heard from people who came to help me with the election campaign that they’d gone into Central Office to help the telephone campaigning operation.
“And they’d rung people in Clacton and they’d rung Tory members and the Tory members were all voting for Nigel Farage.
“These aren’t wild, silly people, they are good, solid British citizens who wanted to vote for a party that was going to do something they cared about.
“Are we saying as I think David Cameron that they’re all ‘fruitloops and Looney Tunes’, I’ll paraphrase? If we are we’re stupid. Reform did not take our votes. We have no right to those four million votes. We have to win people at every election and Reform is a powerful reality.
“The idea that Nigel Farage, who is one of the most capable and charismatic campaigners, is going to disappear in a puff of smoke from one of his Malboro Lights seems highly improbable.”
11:14AM
Jacob Rees-Mogg: Sunak must take share of election blame Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was asked if he blamed Rishi Sunak for the general election defeat.
“I’m not entirely blaming it on him because the party, through the idiocy of going through all those leaders, had got itself into a lunatic situation that people didn’t know what they were going to vote for.
“They were going to vote for Rishi Sunak but who were they going to vote for the day after? We were changing our leaders in the way that some people change their shirts.
“We were changing too often and we treated the electorate with contempt. And Rishi must bear his responsibility for that because he wanted to get rid of Boris which was a stupid thing to do, it was a terrible mistake.”
11:13AM
Miriam Cates: Tories have ‘completely’ undermined marriage Miriam Cates has claimed the Tories “completely” undermined marriage with the introduction of no-fault divorce, writes Genevieve Holl-Allen.
The former Conservative MP said that there was “something magic” about marriage which improved a couple’s outcomes compared to cohabiting relationships.
She told a fringe event on the Conservatives and family: “Conservatives introduced no-fault divorce, completely undermining the basis of marriage and whatever you think about marriage, there’s something magic about it and the outcomes for married relationships are completely different to cohabiting relationships”
11:10AM
Rees-Mogg: Seals got in the way of my energy secretary plans Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg urged a “reformation of the constitution prior to where it was prior to Blair’s vandalism”.
“The current system is that ministers suggest something and then they’re told they can’t do it,” he said.
“I in my brief sojourn as secretary of state for energy wanted to approve a power station on waste. Because our waste goes off to Denmark or somewhere, I thought why don’t we do it in the UK.
“The planning application was there. And I was told I couldn’t do it because we would lose on judicial review because the applicants had not considered properly, this will upset you greatly, the consequences to the common seal. Now the thing about the common seal is that there’s lots of them… All I could do was delay.
“You are so heavily [limited] in decision making.”
11:06AM
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg: We were too influenced by focus groups The Conservatives were too influenced by focus groups and opinion polls in government, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg said.
“The answer I was often given by people in government at the time was that lockdowns were very popular,”
“They were getting 60, 70, 80 per cent popularity ratings in the opinion polls. But you mustn’t believe those opinion polls, they’re basically nonsense.
“People want to give the worthy answer. You’ve got to recognise that government by focus group, government by opinion poll, doesn’t work. You need to govern by what you believe in…
“That’s what Margaret Thatcher did and I think we were much too seduced by government by focus group, government by opinion poll.”
11:03AM
Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg: We were in hock to the Blob Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Daily T: “I think I’d start by giving a word of thanks, because the people here are the people carrying on the Conservative Party, even when it was clear we were losing… You’re the ones who wore the shoe leather and have done so not just in the last election but in many previous elections.
“And yes, an apology is due as well. We were not a conservative government, certainly by the end of it… We did not do the radical conservative things that actually were needed to give growth to the economy.”
Asked if he believed the Tories were “socialist” or just became sidetracked, Sir Jacob replied: “There was a leak of a cabinet meeting, a shocking thing, it didn’t come from me I can tell you that much, where the then minister for Brexit opportunities referred to the socialist chancellor.
“I was very concerned when we were doing things like putting up taxes. We put National Insurance up, that was a terrible thing to do… I’m not sure my ‘socialist’ comment was fair. I think it was Blobism, ministers going into their departments and being taken in by the very seductive British establishment and then following the conventional thinking, which is conventionally wrong.”
10:43AM
Sue Gray took free football tickets in latest Labour gifts row Sue Gray enjoyed hundreds of pounds worth of Premier League hospitality tickets and a free trip to a networking summit in the Highlands, The Telegraph can reveal.
Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff received matchday hospitality tickets to the north London derby at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in April and another Premier League football match at the same venue a month before.
She is among several top Labour staffers to benefit from “freebies” with others accepting free tickets to the Wimbledon Ladies final, the Brit Awards, and other top-flight football matches.
Neil Johnston has the story
10:15AM
More people now prefer Sunak government to Starmer’s, poll finds More people now prefer Rishi Sunak’s government to Sir Keir Starmer’s administration, a poll has found.
A survey by think tank More in Common shows the Labour Government is already less liked than the previous Tory one, despite taking power less than three months ago.
The poll of 2,080 adults showed that 31 per cent preferred Mr Sunak’s government, while 29 per cent preferred the current one.
It comes after a rocky start to Sir Keir’s time in Downing Street amid a series of rows over clothing donations by Lord Alli, a millionaire Labour peer, and cuts to winter fuel payments.
You can read the full story here
10:02AM
Final two candidates to take part in GB News event The final two Tory leadership candidates will take part in a special television programme later this month.
The finalists in the race to replace Rishi Sunak, who will be chosen after two further rounds of MP voting next week, are set to appear on GB News on Oct 17 in front of an audience of Tory members.
Michael Booker, the editorial director of GB News, said: “We are delighted to be broadcasting this hugely important moment where the country gets to see the final two candidates explain why they should be leader.
“It will be a fascinating evening and pivotal for the future of the Conservative Party – and the UK.”
9:58AM
Everybody misses Boris, says Tory Chief Whip Asked if he missed Boris Johnson, Stuart Andrew, the Conservative Party’s Chief Whip, replied: “I’m not getting in on any of the conversations about who should be the candidates.
“You know I have to be impartial. I’m really pleased that we have got four excellent candidates.”
When pressed on if he missed Mr Johnson, Mr Andrew said: “I’ve got four brilliant candidates to choose from. I’m happy with that.”
Challenged again, he replied: “Everybody misses him.”
9:51AM
Robert Jenrick rules out merger with Reform Robert Jenrick was asked how big a threat Reform is to the Conservatives, and if he would bring Mr Farage into the party.
“I see Reform as a symptom, not a cause,” he told Good Morning Britain. “It exists in its current state because my party failed to deliver on some of the big issues like immigration.
“So the answer is not to merge with Reform or ape Reform, although I don’t denigrate it because I’m not going to denigrate the millions of people who vote for it.
“What I want to do is have very serious and clear answers to those big issues.”
Mr Jenrick said a five-figure cap on net migration was “the only way we can look the British public in the eye”.
9:37AM
Migrants could be in hotels for three more years Migrants could be housed in hotels for up to three more years because of the asylum backlog, it has been reported.
Since winning the election Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and other ministers have realised that clearing the backlog will take longer than they had hoped, The Times reported.
The Labour Party had pledged to clear it and “end asylum hotels” but a Whitehall source told the newspaper that the it is “much worse than we thought”.
Read the full story here
9:28AM
I can’t get a teaching job because of wokery, suggests Gullis A former Conservative MP said he is unable to get a job in teaching because of his political views.
Jonathan Gullis, who was a teacher before he entered Parliament in 2019, said he believed he had failed to get an interview for a teaching role because most people in the teaching profession treat Tories with “disdain”.
Jonathan Gullis was one of the most prominent members of the 2019 intake of Tory MPs and rose to become a deputy chairman of the party Jeff Gilbert Mr Gullis was elected the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North as part of Boris Johnson’s 2019 landslide, but lost his seat in July.
Before he entered the Commons he worked as a teacher at a number of schools, including the Fairfax Academy in Sutton Coldfield, north of Birmingham.
Daniel Martin, our Deputy Political Editor, has the story
9:04AM
Dorries suggests she won’t hold back on Tory leadership race 9:00AM
Nothing has changed in my values, says Jenrick Robert Jenrick insisted his “values haven’t changed” after originally supporting Remain in the 2016 European Union referendum.
“I got behind the democratic decision of the people of this country,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Speaking about what many perceive as his significant shift to the Right in recent years, Mr Jenrick said: “My values haven’t changed, but it’s certainly true that over time the things I have seen in the ministerial jobs that I have done have led me to conclusions that the British state isn’t working in the interests of the British people.
“And in particular my time at the Home Office where I saw that we were not able to secure our borders and to keep the public safe, which to my mind is the most basic duty of our country.”
8:57AM
Ready for Rees-Mogg? Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading Brexiteer and former business secretary, will be speaking to our very own Kamal Ahmed on The Daily T podcast at 11am.
Sir Jacob lost his seat at the July general election and was one of the most vocal critics of Rishi Sunak’s leadership while the Tories were still in office.
We will be covering every moment on this live blog, and you will be able to watch a stream of the conversation at the top.
8:50AM
Britons suffer slump in living standards as migration nears record high Britons have suffered a slump in living standards, official data shows, as a surge in net migration wiped out any gains from economic growth.
So-called real GDP per head shrank by 0.3pc between April and June compared with a year earlier, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, suggesting living standards have slid backwards as the population grew.
It comes after net migration hit a near-record 685,000 last year.
Experts said the figures meant the population was growing faster than the economy, underlining the challenges facing Rachel Reeves ahead of her maiden Budget.
Eir Nolsøe has the full story here
8:24AM
Cleverly: Reform deal would ‘mortgage’ the Tory Party James Cleverly has declared that he will not “mortgage” the Conservative Party’s success for “short term popularity” through a deal or merger with Reform UK, writes Genevieve Holl-Allen.
The Conservative leadership candidate said that the party’s history was “glorious” and it had an “amazing future”.
He told a fringe event last night: “Would I merge with Reform? No. No. No mergers, no deals, we don’t do that. We’re the Conservative Party.”
“This is the party that has done so much good, provided clean water, provided education, we wrote the blueprint for the NHS… This is a glorious party with a glorious history, and an amazing future.
“And I’m not going to mortgage that to try and buy some short term popularity or electoral gain that I don’t think would come about.”
8:20AM
ECHR could stop us killing the next Bin Laden, warns Jenrick Britain’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) could stop it killing the next Osama bin Laden, Robert Jenrick has warned.
Mr Jenrick made the comments as he took part in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on the third day of Tory conference in Birmingham.
He said: “It troubles me that if our special forces, our military were faced with the question of could we take out an individual such as Osama Bin Laden, that has posed such a danger to our people and those of our allies, that we might not be able to do that because of our continued membership of the ECHR.
“And it demonstrates to me why it’s important to leave the ECHR.”
Mr Jenrick also likened ECHR membership to Brexit by saying there was a clear “leave or remain” choice when it came to the convention.
8:06AM
Cleverly urges caution over setting migration target James Cleverly was pressed on his criticism of Rishi Sunak’s “stop the boats” slogan.
“The ambition is right and unambiguous, which I completely get, but we didn’t deliver.
“When we are ejected from government by the British people because we set a target and we didn’t hit the target, we shouldn’t just slip into habit of doing the same again.
“So we need to be much more clear about how we do these just set these targets. When you’re kicked out of government, you need to listen to the British people.”
8:04AM
Cleverly: We never should have locked young people down James Cleverly was asked if he would commit to never locking Britain down after his criticisms of the pandemic response.
The Tory leadership hopeful replied: “The fact is, if there were a pandemic, you know, bubonic plague, or something catastrophic and terrible like that, you have to make decisions based on the facst of the time.
“But what we do know is that our reaction to the particular nature of coronavirus was too extreme. People who we now know were at low risk, and actually, we had a fairly good indication at the time were at low risk, particularly young, fit people, did not need to be locked down.
“We did huge amounts of mental health damage. Sadly, we locked abuse victims away with their abusers. There are cost decisions and in the Covid period, I think collectively we looked at the risks of Covid but I don’t think we probably balanced that with the risks of our response.”
7:47AM
Liz Truss: Too many Tories went ‘woke’ to win votes
7:44AM
Tugendhat: I’m very pleased Hezbollah is being ‘knocked out’ Tom Tugendhat was asked about events overnight in Lebanon.
“I’m extremely worried. I’m extremely worried for my friends in Lebanon. I’m worried for my friends in Beirut and Bekaa and other places.
“But I’m also very conscious that what Lebanese Hezbollah has done to that beautiful country is utterly horrific. It’s an Iranian-backed militia that is engaged in child trafficking and is one of the biggest drug dealers in the entire world.
“Its handling of Captagon, a drug produced often in Syria around the Middle East, has enriched themselves and left millions in absolute misery, and they are a vile and evil terrorist regime.
“So you’ll forgive me. I’m deeply sympathetic to and really feel for the Lebanese friends of mine. I’m very pleased that Hezbollah is being knocked out.”
Mr Tugendhat said he could not give a “straight answer” on whether he supported Israel’s incursion because he did not know what their military targets were.
7:41AM
Tugendhat: I can’t guarantee I’d restore winter fuel payments Tom Tugendhat insisted it would not be “honest” for him to promise to restore winter fuel payments.
“I think what we’ve got to do is make sure that we’re supporting the dignity of old people,” he told LBC.
“I’m not going to write a budget for four years’ time, Nick, and you know that it wouldn’t be honest of me to do so.
“I’m not going to promise to restore trust and then immediately undermine it by making promises that have fought and based on a budget that we haven’t been able to write, there’s not any way we can write at this stage.
“But what I will do is I will stand by the promise that Conservatives have made for 14 years, looking after old people and the vulnerable and making sure we support them in difficult times. Because winter fuel payments are an example of that.”
7:36AM
Tom Tugendhat: This is a Government of ‘self-service’ Tom Tugendhat said his leadership campaign message “is a simple one – we need to restore trust in politics”.
“I’m standing because I’m going to offer the leadership that gets a grip on the party and helps us get back to serving the British people,” he told LBC’s Nick Ferrari.
Justin Tallis “Because look at the last 12 weeks, frankly, Nick, you’ve seen a Government not interested in service, but-self service. You’ve seen that it simply has absolutely no grip on itself, let alone on the country and it’s already costing people.
“Look at what Rachel Reeves has done by threatening and warning of worse times to come. Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have put off investment and convinced people not to spend money, and they’re already having an economic impact on Britain. And I can tell you, Nick, it’s not a good one.”
7:26AM
What’s happening at Tory Conference today? For the second day in a row the excitement in the main conference hall will start from 2pm, with Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly facing a question-and-answer session in which they will take questions from the Tory faithful.
Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch, whose Q&A sessions were yesterday, are both taking part in their own ‘in conversation with’ events on the fringe.
Mr Tugendhat will sit down with think tanks Onward (2pm) and the Centre for Policy Studies (3.10pm), while Mrs Badenoch is in conversation with The Spectator (5pm).
Elsewhere Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, will be live in conversation with The Telegraph’s The Daily T podcast from 11am.
And at 1.30pm Michael Gove will share his thoughts on whether there is a path back to power for the Tories by 2029.
7:20AM
Jenrick closes on Badenoch in members’ poll Robert Jenrick has surged to within four points of Kemi Badenoch in a head-to-head poll of Conservative members.
The former immigration minister was 18 points behind the shadow housing secretary among the Tory faithful six weeks ago.
But a new YouGov poll suggests it is Mr Jenrick with the momentum as the annual Conservative Party Conference enters its penultimate day.
When asked to choose between the two frontrunners, 52 per cent of Tory members preferred Mrs Badenoch while 48 per cent backed her main rival.
7:11AM
Badenoch: ‘A little bit of adversity’ in life is good for mental health Kemi Badenoch has claimed that “a little bit of adversity” in life is good for mental health, writes Genevieve Holl-Allen.
The Conservative leadership candidate said that not having “adversity” to overcome “is actually very bad for the human spirit”.
Speaking at a hustings event last night, Ms Badenoch said:“The mental health crisis that we’ve been facing in the country is something that a lot of people talk about but I don’t think we’ve really got to the roots of.
“It is not a function of income, many of the people with the most severe mental health crises actually live very comfortable lifestyles, some people call it ‘affluenza’.
“That it’s just not being able to feel a need to do anything that is actually very bad for the human spirit. That we all need to have a little bit of adversity to help us cope. Those who don’t have any actually do badly.”
7:04AM
Good morning Dominic Penna here, The Telegraph’s Political Correspondent, guiding you through the penultimate day of the annual Conservative Party Conference.