Isabel Hardman

Kemi Badenoch is being followed around the Tory party conference by her own comments about maternity pay. She had to explain what she was on about again when she had her main stage interview in the Birmingham hall this afternoon, telling Chris Hope that ‘I think maternity pay is quite important’, and that she was ‘answering a different question’ about business regulation. She then compared the row to the way Margaret Thatcher’s Women’s Own magazine comments about ‘there is no such thing as society’ were ‘cut down into a soundbite that was used to attack her’. She added: When you are a leader, when you are a conservative, when you are making the argument for conservative principles, your opponents are going to try and turn it into something else.

The first row of Tory conference has, unsurprisingly, involved Kemi Badenoch. The leadership contender was on Times Radio this morning where she was making a point about business regulation and ended up suggesting that maternity pay in this country was ‘excessive’. Here is a transcript of her exchange with Kate McCann: KM: Do you think we’ve got the right levels of maternity pay at the moment? KB: So, maternity pay varies depending on who you work for, but it is a function, whereas statutory maternity pay, it is a function of tax, tax comes from people who are working, we are taking from one group of people and giving to another, this in my view is excessive.

Keir Starmer has moved on rather quickly from Labour conference, pitching up in New York to tell Israel that it can use ‘no more excuses’ and must allow more aid into Gaza. In his speech to the UN General Assembly, the Prime Minister also called for an immediate ceasefire, and said there needed to be a ‘credible and irreversible path to a viable Palestinian state alongside a safe and secure state of Israel’. He added: ‘That is the only way to provide security and justice to both Israelis and Palestinians.’ He also turned on Russia, saying he didn’t know how the country could ‘show its face in the building’.

Have you learned anything about this Labour government from the conference speeches so far? Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ address to the hall in Liverpool this lunchtime was an announcement-free zone, and the same is true of all the other ministers who have got up to speak so far. All of them have followed the same format: attack the Tories and say things were so much worse when Labour came into office than expected, then move onto listing what the government is doing in very general terms, and then appeal to the party to work with the minister to get this done.

What is Keir Starmer wearing, how much is it worth and who paid for it? That’s normally a question only asked of female politicians, or prime ministers’ wives, but thanks to the Labour leader’s love of a freebie, his own fashion choices are going to be one of the hot topics at Labour Party conference. Unlike the scrutiny of women’s clothes, though, which normally leads Reiss to sell out of whichever dress turned up on the conference stage that week, Starmer’s outfits are causing a rush to judgement, not a rush to the tills.  One of the opening questions from interviewers will surely be ‘where is your suit from and who paid for it?

Does Keir Starmer want to use Lord Darzi’s report on the NHS today merely as the latest ‘shocking’ piece of evidence of Tory mess, or will it actually lead to meaningful reform?  The Prime Minister suggested he wanted to do both in his speech this morning. Yes, he ran through how things were much worse than anyone, even Darzi, a renowned surgeon who has worked in the NHS for decades, imagined. But he also included several phrases designed to show that he is serious about changing the health service – and about the battles he will have to fight to get there.  He told the audience at the King’s Fund that ‘I haven’t come here just to set out this appalling inheritance, though it is really important that we know it and properly understand it in detail.

Neither Keir Starmer nor Rishi Sunak were very good at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Though Starmer didn’t get his own job title wrong this time, he did still speak as though he was the leader of the opposition attacking the Conservatives in government, rather like he’s the guy in charge. Sunak decided to punch the bruise on the winter fuel payment and then make a handbrake turn to British farming, which left the Prime Minister a little discombobulated, as he clearly hadn’t prepared anything on that subject. But he was unable to talk about one of the biggest issues of the week, which was the mass early release of prisoners, because he knew that trying to scrutinise the government on this would just lead to the Conservatives being blamed all the more.

Before coming into government, Keir Starmer would use his battles with the unions, particularly Unite, as a way of defining himself against the parts of the Labour movement resistant to change. His speech to the Trades Union Congress this morning was more about suggesting that the unions could be part of that change. I say ‘could’. Parts of the speech made it clear that Starmer still thinks some union bosses need to face up to reality. He told the hall in Brighton that ‘I do have to make clear from a place of respect that this government will not risk its mandate for economic stability under any circumstances. And with tough decisions on the horizon, pay will inevitably be shaped by that.

Who was Rachel Reeves more worried about tonight when she addressed the Parliamentary Labour party? The Labour MPs who will rebel against the government tomorrow in the vote on restricting winter fuel payment to those on pension credit – or the ones who are staying loyal? No one spoke out against the cut when the Chancellor spoke this evening, but others have made their displeasure clear in broadcasts, or by signing the early-day motion calling for the government to U-turn. Reeves told the party: ‘I understand the decision that this government have made on winter fuel is a difficult decision. I’m not immune to the arguments that many in this room have made. We considered those when the decision was made.