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Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will accuse Chancellor Rachel Reeves of spreading “crazy and bad ideas” on Thursday, deriding some of the Labor government's plans for schools as “vandalism” and “worse than rubbish”.
Badenoch will claim that her party, when in government, stood firm against repeated attempts by Whitehall officials to push through proposals to scrap the universal winter fuel payment and close loopholes in farm inheritance tax.
Reeves is promoting both policies “because she has no ideas of her own”, the Tory leader will say.
While Labour's popularity has fallen since taking office last July, the Conservatives have been overtaken in the polls by Nigel Farage's British Reform Party, boosted by several low-profile Conservative defections.
Under Badenoch, the party refused to offer anti-Labour policies, saying they would reveal them closer to the next election.
In a speech in central London on Thursday – only her second press conference since taking over as party leader two and a half months ago – Badenoch deploys the fiery language that is fast becoming a signature.
Accusing Labor of not doing enough government planning before coming to office, he will say: “If you don't decide what you're going to do in opposition, you're going to accept whatever they give you in government. That's why Rachel Reeves announced crazy and bad ideas to take away winter fuel and tax family farms.”
Badenoch, a well-known critic of civil service culture, adds: “These options have been presented to us time and time again by officials and we have rejected them time and time again because they would hurt so many people for so little benefit.” .”
Ellie Reeves, the Labor leader and the chancellor's sister, dismissed Badenoch's planned intervention as “another speech but no apology for her role in Liz Truss's disastrous mini-budget which wrecked the economy”.
She said the Conservatives had “nothing to offer” under Badenoch, arguing that the party had “not listened and learned”.
Badenoch also takes issue with Labour's education policy, declaring: “The Education Bill now going through Parliament has one or two safeguards which may be good . . . the rest is worse than garbage. It's pure vandalism.”
The Conservatives have already criticized Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson for rolling back reforms introduced by the Conservatives, including granting freedoms to academies.
The opposition party accused the government of backtracking on one element on Wednesday, scrapping a proposal that would have removed academies' freedom to set teacher pay.
But a spokesman for Phillipson said the government's plan had always been to allow schools to offer attractive salary offers to recruit and retain staff.
Badenoch claims Labor has been “wasting” time in opposition and will say Sir Keir Starmer's administration has “announced policies without a plan” and is still “prescribing solutions that actually make things worse”.
She will seek to style herself as a truth-teller who is willing to admit mistakes and outline a series of mistakes made by the last Tory government she served in, including as business secretary.
The admission of failure will include announcing that the UK will leave the EU before coming up with a plan for growth outside the bloc and vowing to reduce levels of migration while presiding over its increase.
The Tories have also legislated to reach net zero by 2050 and only then have we “started to think about how we're going to do it”, he adds.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey will also deliver a keynote speech on Thursday in which he will call on the government to negotiate a new UK-EU customs union by 2030, saying it will allow Britain to “deal with President Trump from a position of strength, not weakness”. .
The long-term ambition to rejoin the EU was in the Lib Dems manifesto last summer, although Thursday's speech will be the first time the party has given a concrete timetable for rejoining the customs union.
Davey will argue that “the answer cannot be to do what some – like the leader of the Conservative Party – want us to do. [and] approach Trump from a position of weakness, go to him hat in hand and beg for whatever trade deal he gives us”.
He will also criticize Farage's “bowing down to Trump and licking his boots” approach.
