There’s been a lot of talk in politics recently about “Western values”.
Just last week, the new US vice president JD Vance spoke about the “crisis” in the West and accused European governments of retreating from their values.
He said Europe was determined to ignore voter concerns on migration and said free speech was in retreat.
Today an alliance of politicians, leaders, thinkers, and even YouTubers congregated in east London at the “Alliance for Responsible Citizenship” conference to discuss the future of right wing politics and Kemi Badenoch was given the keynote speech.
The problem is, she’s competing with Nigel Farage to be the most compelling figure on the right, and according to various polling, is seemingly losing that battle.
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The leader of the Conservatives used her speech to say it was only her party who could be the guardian of Western civilization, and even compared herself to Donald Trump.
But when I caught up with her later, she was more hazy on how much money we should be spending on defence.
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Ms Badenoch said the Tories had looked into increasing the current expenditure from around 2.3% of national income to 3% – but there wasn’t enough money to do so.
She said: “I remember being in cabinet, seeing if we could get to 3% by 2030, and we could not make it work because we were paying so much in debt and so much on welfare.
“We’ve got to rewire our economy so we can look after our country.”
The Tories pledged before last year’s election to hit 2.5% by 2030.
Discussing this target, Ms Badenoch admitted: “At the moment, we can’t afford to do much more. We have got to change our economy around.”
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She also seemed unconcerned by Mr Trump’s intervention in the Ukraine war – another major issue the Tory party would ordinarily seize on.
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When I asked her about Trump’s decision to engage with Vladimir Putin so early on and potentially cut out Ukraine in future negotiations, she said: “Let’s see what happens.”
She welcomed Mr Trump’s attempts to “end the war”, but insisted her party remained “strong supporters of Ukraine”.
“What I’m not going to do is rush to a judgment,” the Tory leader added.
“Nothing has actually been settled.”
