Kemi Badenoch has not yet got the measure of Andy Burnham. She senses weakness on the issues of defence and welfare spending, which is why she delivered a speech today to set out her party’s plan to spend more on defence, paid for by cuts to welfare. But she has not yet made a successful case against the new prime minister.
She is right that Mr Burnham’s policies are not as well defined as they should be. But in their first head-to-head clashes in the House of Commons this week, there was more common ground between them than she admitted.
