Tories must ‘offer hope’ in face of Reform threat

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has said the Tories must not become a “repository of disenchantment”, but instead be about “offering hope”.

The Tories must position themselves as the party that can “fix problems”, even as Reform UK, currently leading the Conservatives in many polls, was “stealing everyone’s oxygen”, Badenoch said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Badenoch also said that Argentine President Javier Milei, known for lowering his country’s stubborn inflation and ruthless cost-cutting, was the “template” for her leadership.

Responding to a question about whether the UK needed a version of Milei, and whether she was a politician like him, she said: “Yes and yes.”

Badenoch’s interview with the Financial Times comes after she reshuffled her shadow cabinet this…