𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The Tories really need to go back to school. That’s if their flagship tax policy is anything to go by. According to Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch – speaking at the Tory conference on October 7 – “nobody will ever pay inheritance tax on their family home”, and couples will be able to leave an additional £1m tax free. Basically, a win for 2% of UK households.

Currently, inheritance tax of 40% is paid when someone’s estate exceeds £325k. When a person dies, they can transfer the tax-free allowance to a spouse or partner, increasing the combined threshold for a couple to £650k. On top of that, individuals can get a transferable allowance for a family home of £175k each when it is left to children or descendants. At present anyway therefore, most married couples can potentially leave £1m without paying inheritance tax.

The Conservatives would increase the £325k threshold to £500k and exempt a family home from inheritance tax. Yet just 2% of houses – the majority in London – will benefit from this plan. Or as Reform shadow chancellor Robert Jenrick argued: “The Tory Party is looking after its own in Kensington, Reform is looking after the country.”

Is this how the Conservatives think they win back Reform voters? Or maybe the Tories are trying to win back southern Lib Dems? Let’s face it, after 14 years of failure the Tories probably don’t know where they stand on anything anymore.

Badenoch’s latest gimmick also represents another big U-turn from the Tory leader. In 2021, she announced – as Boris Johnson’s Treasury Minister – inheritance tax thresholds would be frozen, raking in £3bn from estates and dragging thousands of extra families into paying tax. And now this!

But should we be shocked at yet another volte face?

Badenoch was Minister for Equalities from 2020–22 and was responsible for such things as the Equality Act and equality policy. Yet she now proposes abolishing the Public Sector Equality Duty, arguing it has been used to promote “divisive agendas”.

As a Tory minister, Badenoch was part of the government which presided over sky high levels of immigration. Yet she now advocates for a cap on immigration and attacked the previous Tory government’s record – a government she cheerfully served in. It gets better: in 2018 Badenoch even supported looser immigration controls.

As Business Secretary meanwhile, Badenoch stopped automatic scrapping of EU-derived laws, despite pressure from Tory Eurosceptics. She said at the time she was a Conservative, not an “arsonist”. Yet she subsequently criticised aspects of the Tory government’s Brexit record and repositioned the Conservative party on the issue.

Badenoch did not simply change her mind on all this. She was a senior minister in the very Conservative government whose record she now uses as evidence that Conservatives need to change.

Again, Badenoch now says the Conservatives got it “wrong” on immigration and argues for a much stricter system. But she isn’t an outsider criticising a government on whose backbenches she once sat. She was a senior minister throughout much of the period.

She did not resign, and unlike the likes of Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, has not jumped ship to Reform and expressed genuine remorse for what the Tories did.

On net zero, while Business Secretary in 2024, Badenoch defended the government’s decarbonisation policy and said: “This House voted to reach net zero by 2050.” She defended the decarbonisation of Port Talbot steelmaking as part of that process. Now apparently, she’s a critic of net zero.

Badenoch is asking voters to trust her to fix the very problems caused by a government she happily served in. In certain cases, she was the minister responsible. This is the case on immigration and equality policy, and when it comes to immigration and the ECHR, voters will ask why the Tories didn’t fix all this last time and why Badenoch has U-turned so many times.

Put simply, if this is a habit, and given the dismal record of the last Conservative regime, could voters really trust Badenoch as PM to follow through on all her latest promises?

By contrast to the Conservatives’ latest gimmick, Reform has said it will abolish inheritance tax, but it is not a top priority. Instead, Robert Jenrick said he would raise the tax-free personal allowance to £15k, funded by £80bn in spending cuts.

As Jenrick argued: “While the Tory Party is offering handouts to multi-millionaires, Reform will give everyone a £500 tax cut by raising the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000.”

Is this what we can expect from the Tories then? U-turns and spin. Frankly if voters want a low immigration, tough-on-crime, low tax government, why not vote for the real deal in Nigel Farage and Reform than plump for a pale imitation in Badenoch’s Conservatives.