'We're the good guys,' Badenoch says, as she tries to revive her leadership bid

Kemi Badenoch will seek to revive her Tory leadership fortunes by positioning herself as the intellectual heavyweight candidate who can tell the party hard truths, publishing a 22,000-word essay on her diagnosis of the challenge for Conservatism.

- Jessica Elgot

She launched the treatise last night after her first appearance on the main stage of the conference in Birmingham, where she said the public do not know what the party stands for.

The shadow housing secretary, whose campaign at conference has been dogged by missteps over maternity pay, told attendees: "As Conservatives we've allowed too many people to tell us who we are. We've allowed too many people to portray us as the bad guys. Labour are in, everybody can see they're the bad guys. We're the good guys."

She defended the decision-criticised by other candidates - to let the contest run beyond the 30 October budget, saying the former leader, Rishi Sunak, and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, were best placed to respond, not the new leader.

"We have a prime minister who's never been in the Treasury," said Badenoch. "We have a leader of the opposition who used to be chancellor. We have a shadow chancellor who knows that [Treasury] building inside out. We can do this. It's not about who's becoming leader a few days later. It is about us using all of the talents within our party."