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Badenoch Defends Welfare Cuts Ahead of Budget Reply

By Drooid · Oct 21, 2026, 12:18 AM UTC · How we work

Summary

Badenoch Defends Cuts

UK minister Kemi Badenoch delivered a budget reply in Westminster more than a week early.
Badenoch says her welfare cuts equal those Rishi Sunak would have made without an election.
She warns the International Monetary Fund was wrong to praise the government's deficit reduction.
It claims Rachel Reeves implemented £70bn of tax rises.
The piece alleges Labour would propose fictional benefit cuts that would never be enacted.

Summary

Farage Stirs Controversy

Nigel Farage’s speech was booed after he mistakenly mentioned Plymouth and Portsmouth.
Bob Jenrick delivered a brief number that Reform members called a “wrong ’un”.
Farage said riots should spread to the UK to blame leftists, expressing boredom and disappointment.
Farage dismissed racism and financial misconduct stories as isolated, claiming every party contains a few racists.
ITV reported a 70% hit rate of “undesirables,” which Farage said were not statistical outliers.

History

Historical Context

After the 2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition launched an austerity programme targeting £110 billion in spending cuts and tax rises, Chancellor George Osborne pledged to erase the structural deficit by 2015, achieving a roughly 50 percent reduction. The policy’s legacy, cited by Kemi Badenoch and echoed in Nigel Farage’s rhetoric, underpins today’s debates over Labour’s £70 billion tax plan.

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Badenoch Defends Cuts

UK minister Kemi Badenoch delivered a budget reply in Westminster more than a week early.
Badenoch says her welfare cuts equal those Rishi Sunak would have made without an election.
She warns the International Monetary Fund was wrong to praise the government's deficit reduction.
It claims Rachel Reeves implemented £70bn of tax rises.
The piece alleges Labour would propose fictional benefit cuts that would never be enacted.

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