‘They don’t know how to govern!’

Asked by Britain’s Newsroom host Sophie Reaper if she agrees that the postponement is for Labour to “allow for the devolution to be done properly”, Mrs Badenoch disagreed.

She said: “I disagree, I think it is a scandal. This is yet another example of Labour not being ready for Government.

“This reorganisation is taking too long. I’ve been a local government minister and there have been situations where you needed to postpone a year, so we’ll have an extra year just so that we can be ready. This is now out of control.”

Hitting out at Labour for “denying Britons democracy”, the Tory leader added: “They need to have these elections, and they should not be denying people democracy.”

Quizzed by host Andrew Pierce on whether she feels the move is due to the Government “running scared” of Reform and the Tories, Mrs Badenoch said: “Well, they’re certainly running scared of a resurgent Tory party.

“Don’t get me wrong, we’ve still got a long way to go, but people are understanding what we stand for better. I’m taking the message out there.

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“But this is Labour, it’s probably more that they have just been a shambles, just like they’ve been in shambles with the last Budget, with everything that they have charged. These people don’t know how to govern.

“They came in off the back of us doing badly, rather than a groundswell of support for themselves. They weren’t ready, and now we see they’re making a hash of local Government reorganisation as well.”

Grilled by Sophie on the reports of a Reform-Tory merger and whether it would “actually happen”, Mrs Badenoch immediately shut down the question.

She told GB News: “I keep getting asked this and I say no each time – no, no, no, no. People need to understand what we stand for. We had a coalition with Liberal Democrats 2010 to 2015, look how that turned out. People felt that we weren’t Conservative enough.

“I’m not going into coalition with a party that wants to spend more on welfare. We are the party of fiscal responsibility. Labour, Lib Dems, Reform, Greens, Plaid, SNP, they all want to spend more on welfare. They’re all living in a fantasy land.”

The Tory leader stated: “We are living beyond our means. There’s only one party that’s going to get control of our economy and make sure that we actually grow, rather than we just become a country of benefits, that’s not right.”

Questioned on her post-Budget takedown with the Chancellor, Mrs Badenoch criticised Rachel Reeves and argued that “most of the country would agree” with what she said at the despatch box.

Mrs Badenoch explained: “She is someone who’s path never really crossed with mine. The first time I think she ever said a word to me was that the despatch box at last year’s Budget, where she was quite rude about me, and this time I got a chance to say how I thought she was doing the job, and I think most of the country agreed with me.

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“She’s doing a terrible job, and I was speaking for a lot of people out there, farmers in particular. I started that PMQs before the Budget talking about farmers, how they are having their businesses ruined, having their lives ruined.

“Go speak to the oil and gas industry, people are losing their jobs every day under Labour. I’ve said it before, my job is not to provide emotional support to the Chancellor, my job is to hold the Government to account, and I am doing my job.”

She concluded: “That half hour leak before the Budget was not the problem, I already knew what was in the Budget before I sat down, because Rachel Reeves had been briefing it three months before. That’s the issue.

“In 1947, a Chancellor resigned because they gave a line about what was in the Budget in passing as they walked out of the building, that’s how serious this is, and we have had a serious drop in standards in our country where people think that anything goes.”