Badenoch claims of Tory air defence plan we havent called it Iron Dome – despite phrase in press release – UK politics live

Ed Balls and Susanna Reid are presenting.

Q: Will you cut inheritance tax? You have called it immoral.

Badenoch says she has called it too high. But she won't announce cuts until she has found the money to fund them.

She was very moved by what farmers told her about the impact of inheritance tax, she says.

Q: So you might cut it, rather than abolish it. Or raise the threshold at which it is paid. The government is expected to raise £15bn from it by 2030.

Badenoch says she does not accept all those figures.

She says the country is getting poorer. She says she was surprised Andy Burnham did not talk about the economy in his speech.

Kemi Badenoch is now on ITV's Good Morning Britain.

Talking about Jeffrey Archer, she mentions again the text she got from him yesterday. She says that he often texted in the morning when he was reading the papers. She says he always ended his texts “NRN†– no reply needed.

Badenoch recalls again getting a text message from Jeffrey Archer yesterday.

She says he was one of the people who supported her even before she became leader. She says the people like that are the people she treasures most.

He always had a funny story and sometimes – it's a shame, because he had disappearing messages on – when he felt people were being critical of me, he'd say quite rude things about [them], which made me which made me laugh.

I'm going to miss him very much.

Asked about his legacy, Badenoch says:

I think his legacy is more in his writing, probably, than in Conservative politics.

He was part of the Conservative family. We were a very fond of him.

I think we wish he was better behaved. I think his family probably felt the impact of that more than more than we did.

But it was a sign that he was someone who people liked so much that, even after he'd been in tricky situations, he kept being given further chances.

Q: Do you agree with Jeffrey Archer that politics has become too tribal?

Badenoch says politics is very tribal now. People live in echo chambers.

But she says she thinks people can unite around common sense.

Q: People don't agree with you on welfare cuts?

Badenoch says the UK is not a country of welfare. People believe in work. The Conservatives are for people who think that, she says.

She says the Tories won in Aberdeen South by attracting voters who were not natural Conservatives.

Q: Are you ruling out coalitions?

Badenoch says the problems of the last government started with the coalition. People had voted Conservative, but they did not get a Conservative government.

She says she wants to ensure that does not happen again.

Reform UK peopl are “not our kind of peopleâ€, she says. She says they don't have high standards.

Q: What would you do in the event of a hung parliament? Would you work with Reform UK?

Badenoch says he does not accept the premise of the question. It is not about uniting the right. It is about uniting the country, she says.

She says even the trade unions agree with her about drilling in the North Sea.

Badenoch says Andy Burnham is not taking tough decisions.

Q: You say he should call an election. But you are polling even lower than you were in 2024. If there is an election now, you won't be able to turn it round.

Badenoch says people look at who the leader is.

Winning the election is the start, not the end, she says.

She says Labour took office but did not know what it wanted to do. She won't do that, she says.

She says she has a strong team, a plan, and it's “all about common senseâ€.

Q: You are more popular in the polls than your party? Why has that not helped your party?

Badenoch says people still blame the party for what the last government did. She claims people know who is in her shadow cabinet.

Q: Do they?

They do, Badenoch insists.

Kemi Badenoch is on the Today programme now. Anna Foster is interviewing.

Foster starts by asking about the “Britannia Shieldâ€. Badenoch says that is what they have called it. Foster says in the press released they referred to it as a version of an Iron Dome.

Badenoch says what they are proposing is not like the Israeli version.

Q: £1bn a year won't get you anywhere close to what you are suggesting here?

Badenoch says they are designing something for the UK.

Q: So why call it the Iron Dome?

Badenoch says Foster will have to ask the papers about that. She says the Tories are calling it a Britannia Shield.

Asked about cutting inheritance tax, Badenoch told Times Radio:

Even though I want to cut inheritance tax – I've given speeches about how I think it is a very bad tax – I've been particularly influenced by what we've seen over the last couple of years, farmers taking their lives because of them …

But we have to find the money to pay for it. What we're not doing is just cutting taxes willy nilly. We need to find the savings.

On the missile defence plan, McCann asked Badenoch if this was about protecting the whole of the UK, or just protecting critical infrastructure.

Badenoch replied:

I think you are splitting hairs here.

Critical national infrastructure protects the entire country. If we lose even one thing, the entire country is in, is in a real problem.

I don't want to have a semantic argument. I have put out a description of something which should protect our country and which should make us safer.