Badenoch 'confident' she will lead Tories into next election

Kemi Badenoch has said she is "confident" she will lead the Conservatives into the next election despite the party suffering its worst-ever performance at last week's local poll

Ms Badenoch downplayed suggestions of a leadership challenge after her party lost control of all 18 councils they had been in charge of that were up for election, as well as 677 councillors.

In the aftermath of the result, there have been questions over whether the Conservative Party could opt to change their leader once again to bring about a reversal in fortunes.

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Asked what her message was to those criticising her, Ms Badenoch said: "There are always talks of leadership challenges, but we need to focus on the message that the public gave, and that is that they are not yet ready to trust Conservatives.

"My heart goes out to all of those Conservative councillors who lost their seats. We lost control of a lot of councils where we were delivering better services for lower taxes. This was not their fault, but it is because of the record that we had after 14 years, a lot of people still do not trust the Conservative brand, and it is my job as leader of the opposition to change that."

Asked whether she was confident she would be Conservative leader by the next election, she replied: "Yes, I am confident, but what I really want to do is make sure that I'm delivering for the people of this country. There is so much that is going wrong.

"Our economy is not improving; growth has halved, inflation is up, unemployment is up. Who's going to fix that? It's the Conservatives. We are the only credible alternative."

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Pressed on whether she did anything "wrong" in the campaign, she said: "We do need to change as quickly as possible.

"We have some time, but we don't have much time - but that is what I'm doing."

The Tory leader said she was "changing" the party to be "tougher on immigration" and cited policies such as reducing the fast track for British citizenship.

She added: "But we also need to make sure that we don't just make announcements without a plan."