The Tory leader showed the Chancellor has different options, but few are taking her party seriously.
Kemi Badenoch got in ahead of John Healey’s first Budget as Chancellor to deliver a speech about how she would slash public spending to grow the economy.
Predicting that Labour will increase tax and spend, the Leader of the Opposition presented the Tories as a tax-cutting alternative.
Mrs Badenoch said: “Living within our means does not mean raising taxes. It means cutting spending. All raising taxes does is kill growth. Businesses close, people lose their jobs, the whole country gets poorer.
“The way to grow our economy is not to spend more taxpayers' money. It is by giving taxpayers their money back.”
This will appeal to many voters. Lots of people feel they are getting taxed a lot each month but are not getting enough back in return.
Mrs Badenoch repeated that welfare should be cut to fund defence. She warned against taxing banks, something which has been floated as potential option in the Budget and would probably be popular with the public.
She wants to cut national insurance for under 25s, reduce business rates for the high street, reverse national insurance, scrap stamp duty and scrap inheritance tax for homes.
Long gone are the days of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak raising National Insurance to pay for social care reform, forking out billions of pounds as part of the Levelling Up Fund, freezing the personal allowance and income tax thresholds, and increasing corporation tax.
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This was a return to old-school low tax, low spend Conservatism.
It is very different from Labour, which seems unlikely to reduce public spending in next week’s Budget, and appears more financially prudent than Reform.
Mrs Badenoch is tapping into what usually makes the Conservatives popular: economic competence and letting people keep their hard-earned cash.
Her issue is still whether anyone will believe that her after the Tories’ 14 years in office.
Can her party credibly claim to be serious about reducing public spending when it increased the national tax burden to its highest level since the 1960s?
How can it claim to be the party of cutting welfare continues to shy away from any attempt to reform the pensions triple lock?
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Mrs Badenoch still can’t avoid questions about Liz Truss, who has a new book called ‘Bank Job’, out next week. No prizes for whoever she blames for her government collapsing
Making Andrew Griffith - who defended Ms Truss’ unfunded tax cuts and was in the Treasury during the disastrous mini-Budget - Shadow Chancellor means the questions will continue.
She also did not set out how many public services would be funded if so many taxes are slashed. That doesn’t exactly suggest fiscal responsibility.
What she has managed to do, though, is set out a different stall for the country.
It may not have been a barnstorming speech, and may have had little news, but it showed that there are different options for the Chancellor.
Her issue is that there is currently no suggestion that the public is taking her party - or any proposals they put forward - seriously.