Tory leader Kemi Badenoch tore apart new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood with a hilarious one-word quip during her annual conference speech. Ms Badenoch was delivering a make-or-break speech as she battles to keep the top job, amid concerns about the party’s poll ratings.
Taking on the Labour government, Ms Badenoch took particular aim at the new Home Secretary, mocking her and warning she is far less hard-line that she would have voters believe. Ms Badenoch told conference-goers: “Just look at Shabana Mahmood, the new Home Secretary. She’s trying to convince us that she’s tough.
“Right… I remember when she tried to stop foreign criminals being deported. I remember she lay down on the ground in front of a Sainsbury’s protesting because they were selling food from Israel.
“So forgive me if I treat this newfound tough image with a little bit of scepticism.”
Ms Badenoch also tore into Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves, slamming the Chancellor’s record.
The Tory leader quipped: “Rachel Reeves likes to congratulate herself for ‘breaking the glass ceiling. What she’s really broken is our economy!
“Attacking those who work hard, destroying business confidence, forcing wealth creators to leave the country, piling debt onto our children.
“We know that in her November budget of doom she will give us all something to cry about!”
She joked that because of Angela Rayner’s union-written employment rights bill, she may be remembered as one of the last people in Britain to ever be legally sacked.
Turning to Nigel Farage and Reform UK, Ms Badenoch warned the Tories that they “can’t beat them simply by attacking them”.
“As George Bernard Shaw said, never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it!”
The swipes at political rivals came alongside a policy-packed speech in which Ms Badenoch made a major surprise announcement pledging to abolish stamp duty altogether.
