# Kemi Badenoch Has Sound Principles—but We Need Answers Tory leader’s defence of free-market values is timely, but her silence on inflation, ageing and AI suggests a reluctance to confront stark realities. October 7, 2026 • Commentary By [Ryan Bourne](https://www.cato.org/people/ryan-bourne) This article appeared in [*The Times*](https://www.thetimes.com/) on October 7, 2026. Kemi Badenoch wants to rebuild the Conservatives from principles. After a few years in government in which Toryism seemed to mean announcing whichever regulatory ban was welcomed by focus groups, her new booklet, *The Right Way*, feels like a welcome reset. “Policy is critical but it comes last,” it declares. A party needs firm principles and governing methods before attempting diagnosis, let alone policy. Otherwise it will flail around hopelessly. Plenty of the beliefs outlined are welcome rearticulations. Wealth is created by people and businesses, not bestowed by ministers. Governments should establish the conditions for growth rather than routinely direct investment. Regulation brings trade-offs in responsibility and incentives, while often protecting institutions from the consequences of their own errors. Government spending determines the long-term tax burden. There’s much throughout to suggest that Badenoch’s Conservatives will make economics central to policymaking again. Good. I began my career at the conservative Centre for Policy Studies, steeped in old pamphlets articulating nascent Thatcherism, so I’m perhaps an easy audience for these free-market tunes. [Badenoch](https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/kemi-badenoch-moment-future-mltqr26q7)’s booklet is openly modelled on the Conservative Party’s *The Right Approach* of 1976, after all. Yet, while I nodded along often, I was ultimately underwhelmed by the document. In part because, in defining Britain’s problems and her principles for tackling them, it still felt as if Badenoch was playing it safe on some big contentious matters. Tory leader’s defence of free-market values is timely, but her silence on inflation, ageing and AI suggests a reluctance to confront stark realities. I began my career at the conservative Centre for Policy Studies, steeped in old pamphlets articulating nascent Thatcherism, so I’m perhaps an easy audience for these free-market tunes. [Badenoch](https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/kemi-badenoch-moment-future-mltqr26q7)’s booklet is openly modelled on the Conservative Party’s *The Right Approach* of 1976, after all. Yet, while I nodded along often, I was ultimately underwhelmed by the document. In part because, in defining Britain’s problems and her principles for tackling them, it still felt as if Badenoch was playing it safe on some big contentious matters. Badenoch’s diagnosis is that Britain is living off an inheritance it no longer replenishes. Productivity and living standards stagnate, the state borrows beyond its means, energy policy makes production expensive, government cannot deliver on its core tasks, immigration strains integration, regulations obstruct building, common rules and social trust weaken, and defence capabilities decay. Most conservatives would agree with that. Yet the omissions here are telling. Britain has just endured its worst peak inflation since the early 1980s. The party’s 1976 document made conquering inflation the first essential of economic management. “Inflation” doesn’t appear in *The Right Way* at all. Perhaps Badenoch wished to avoid monetary technicalities or seeming to question the [Bank of England’s independence](https://www.thetimes.com/business/economics/article/independent-central-banking-britain-golden-age-over-wmbtpsp0n). Maybe she accepts the self-serving narrative of London’s macroeconomic elites that the post-pandemic inflation owed entirely to external shocks and existing supply constraints, absolving policymakers of their own accommodative role in fuelling excessive nominal demand. Either way, the silence is extraordinary on an issue that, alongside immigration, most angers voters. Badenoch diagnoses the challenge of population ageing, but offers little guidance on the response. She warns of “fewer workers supporting more pensioners” and questions whether existing assumptions about [taxes](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/kemi-badenoch-inheritance-tax-cut-conservative-conference-speech-8pkqvxtvd), welfare, pensions and public services can survive. Yet the booklet never explains how to reconcile her principles of protecting retirement expectations, living within our means and respecting workers’ earnings. She invoked pensioners’ “contribution” in defending [the triple lock](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/katie-lam-pension-triple-lock-conservatives-vkxdz9thb) on Sunday. Yet past contributions need not justify an indefinite ratchet in a pay-as-you-go system financed by current taxpayers. Recognising that the settlement must change leaves us unclear how the Tories will navigate the burdens. [Artificial intelligence](https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/ai-cracks-uk-economy-darren-jones-d3jqcgdrl) receives scant mention either, despite its potentially transformative effects. The document advocates technological experimentation in defence and some automation in policing. But should Britain favour frontier experimentation or Europe’s precautionary approach? Will Badenoch’s Tories allow creative destruction or try to preserve some jobs from AI’s effects? Badenoch’s defence of enterprise implies certain answers. But with Britons gloomy about the technology’s effects on jobs and society, she stayed silent on the implications of her principles. Now, this is the first instalment of principles, not a manifesto. But principles earn their keep by guiding difficult choices. On inflation, ageing and AI, the Conservatives seem reluctant to follow their arguments through when conclusions might unsettle powerful institutions or their own voters. Badenoch certainly deserves credit for articulating her beliefs. The harder task is showing how those beliefs resolve Britain’s toughest problems when the answers upset her base or challenge entrenched power. ##### About the Author [![Ryan Bourne](/sites/cato.org/files/styles/author_picture/public/2021-01/Ryan%20Bourne.jpg?itok=nv8-2r7d)](/people/ryan-bourne) ##### [Ryan Bourne](/people/ryan-bourne) R. Evan Scharf Chair for the Public Understanding of Economics, Cato Institute [ ](https://x.com/MrRBourne) [ ](mailto:rbourne@cato.org)