Kemi Badenoch appeared to compare Nigel Farage to a pig as she addressed delegates at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.

In a speech that seemed to skirt around the threat posed by Reform UK, the Tory leader mentioned Mr Farage in the same breath as she referenced a quote by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw.

Mrs Badenoch said: “Whether it’s Starmer, Farage, Corbyn or Davey, all these men are shaking the same magic money tree following the same, failed playbook.

“No plan for growth. No honesty about the scale of the challenges. And it always leads to the same result: More government, more taxes, more debt.”

She added: “It’s irresponsible, it’s cynical, and it’s why Britain needs Conservatives back in charge.

“But we can’t beat them, simply by attacking them.

“As George Bernard Shaw said: ‘Never wrestle with a pig…You both get dirty….and the pig likes it’.”

Mrs Badenoch’s speech, which lasted nearly 45 minutes, revealed plans to axe the climate change act, end rip-off university courses, cut down the civil service, clamp down on benefits, scrap taxes on family farms, fix Britain’s broken immigration model, and finally, in her biggest announcement to date, abolish stamp duty.

She said: “Stamp duty is a bad tax.

“We must free up our housing market, because a society where no one can afford to buy or move is a society where social mobility is dead.”

Stamp duty land tax generated an estimated £13.9billion in the last financial year, with a significant portion of this amount attributed to additional homes and other buildings.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has estimated that abolishing stamp duty on primary residences will cost around £4.5billion.

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But, claiming that the Chancellor Rachel Reeves was planning a significant increase in stamp duty, the Conservatives said they had “cautiously” estimated that the policy would cost £9billion.

The Tory leader pledged to impose a “golden rule” on her budget plans, spending only half of any savings made through spending cuts, with the rest going to reduce the deficit.

She said she would cut student numbers, saving £3billion that would then be spent on doubling the apprenticeship budget.

Mrs Badenoch insisted she could meet this promise while sticking to her new “golden rule”, saying this was the “fiscally prudent” thing to do.

Her address brought to a close a conference that had been overshadowed by questions about her leadership and the threat from Reform UK.

The day before her speech, Nigel Farage’s party announced 20 councillors had defected from the Tories, while a poll published by More in Common on Wednesday showed the Conservatives continue to languish in third place.

Insisting that the Tories were the only ones who could “meet the test of our generation”, she thanked members for “standing by” the party, before adding that the Conservatives were “fizzing with ideas”.

Although Nigel Farage is yet to react directly to the speak, Reform UK’s chairman wrote on X: “Kemi Badenoch’s speech was like watching the arsonists lecture all of us on fire safety. 14 years of Tory chaos now they want applause for promising to fix the mess they created.”