POLITICO takes you through the top seven most memorable moments from this year’s bash.
Kemi Badenoch slams maternity pay, denies she slammed maternity pay
Leadership frontrunner Kemi Badenoch got some attention she didn’t go looking for when she questioned whether maternity pay in the U.K. was “excessive” — then decided to beef with the media about whether or not she’d actually said that in the first place.
Badenoch was asked directly by Times Radio on Sunday: “Do you think we’ve got the right level of maternity pay at the moment?”
Rather than a simple “yes,” Badenoch responded: “Maternity pay varies depending on who you work for, but it is a function — where it’s statutory maternity pay — a function of tax. Tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This in my view is excessive.”
Her fellow leadership contenders — in particular, top challenger Robert Jenrick — quickly seized on the comments and flaunted their own non-stop support for working mums. Badenoch was forced to clarify her arguments on X, saying “of course maternity pay isn’t excessive … no mother of three kids thinks that.”
Badenoch, no stranger to fights with the media, also opened up a new front — accusing Times Radio of interrupting her when she was in fact trying to make a very reasonable point about regulatory burdens on business.