Kemi Badenoch has started appointing her top team as the new Tory leader insists she can defeat Labour at the next election.
Ms Badenoch has made Priti Patel shadow foreign secretary in a stunning comeback for the former Cabinet minister, while Mel Stride becomes shadow chancellor.
She also tonight named her defeated rival Robert Jenrick, who she beat in the final round of the Conservative leadership contest, as shadow justice secretary.
Earlier, the new leader handed her ally Laura Trott the job of shadow education secretary.
This came in time for Ms Trott to appear in the House of Commons to grill the Government over their hiking of university tuition fees this afternoon.
A source said both Ms Patel and Mr Stride are ‘experienced MPs’ who stood in the leadership contest ‘represent different wings of the Conservative Party’.
They argued that the appointments ‘demonstrated Kemi’s desire to unite’.
A friend of Ms Patel told MailOnline it was a ‘great’ appointment. ‘They’ve been chatting a fair bit and see eye-to-eye on a lot,’ they said.
Rebecca Harris was made chief whip last night – often the first post filled to help with the practicalities.
Nigel Huddleston and Lord Dominic Johnson have been made joint party chairs.
But Ms Badenoch’s task is made trickier by having a paltry 121 Tory MPs to draw on – and big beasts announcing that they will not serve on the front bench.
Kemi Badenoch has started appointing her top team as the new Tory leader signals she is ready for street fighting with Labour
Ms Badenoch named her defeated rival Robert Jenrick, who she beat in the final round of the Conservative leadership contest, as shadow justice secretary
The new Tory leader made Priti Patel shadow foreign secretary in a stunning comeback for the former Cabinet minister
Mel Stride has becomes shadow chancellor in the reshuffle tonight
Laura Trott was handed the job of shadow education secretary in time to grill the Government in the Commons this afternoon
In an address to CCHQ staff this morning, Ms Badenoch said the first challenge for the party will be winning back council seats at local elections.
She is also understood to have said the party can turn their situation around in one term.
She stressed that the party needs to start with principles such as freedom of speech and personal responsibility, before laying out detailed policies.
Ms Trott will be joined by Tory former minister Neil O’Brien as a shadow education minister.
Shadow home secretary James Cleverly has also revealed he will not seek a job, saying he did not want to be ‘boxed back into a narrow band’ after being ‘liberated’ by his own leadership bid.
Mr Cleverly was seen as the favourite to take over from Rishi Sunak until his shock eviction in the final round of voting by MPs last month.
The decision to step aside will fuel speculation that he is positioning for another tilt should Ms Badenoch crash and burn.
Ex-Cabinet minister John Glen is also expected to take a step back.
Former Deputy PM Oliver Dowden announced his own departure from the Tory senior team in his final clash with counterpart Angela Rayner last month.
His valedictory tone fuelled rumours that he could even step down from the Commons, with ex-Cabinet veteran Grant Shapps said to be eyeing a comeback at a by-election.
However, Mr Sunak has moved to quash similar speculation about his own intentions, laughing off claims he is planning to move to California and become a tech executive.
In his final appearance at PMQs last week he said: ‘I’m happy to confirm reports that I will now be spending more time in the greatest place on earth where the scenery is indeed worthy of a movie set, and everyone is a character.
‘That’s right, if anyone needs me, I will be in Yorkshire.’
Former environment secretary Steve Barclay said he will not be seeking a job on the front bench.
Ms Badenoch was declared the winner of the long-running battle to succeed Mr Sunak on Saturday.
However, questions have been raised about her mandate after turnout was relatively low and her margin of victory was smaller than previous leaders.
Appearing on the BBC yesterday, Ms Badenoch took a swipe at Rachel Reeves for boasting about being the first woman Chancellor.
She said the achievement was breaking a ‘very low glass ceiling’, pointing out that women had been PM.
Ms Badenoch also committed to putting business first as leader.
‘As a country we are getting poorer, we are getting older, we are being out-competed by many other competitor countries, and we need to look at how we can reorganise our economy to be fit for the future, not just doing what we always used to,’ she said.
Ms Badenoch was declared the winner of the long-running battle to succeed Rishi Sunak, seeing off a challenge from Mr Jenrick
James Cleverly has ruled out serving on the new leader’s front bench
Shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt has also declared he will be taking a break from frontline politics
‘And I think that there is an exciting challenge there. I’m very optimistic about what we can do.
‘But simply just saying things and making promises to the whole country without knowing how you’re going to deliver them, as we did on Brexit, as we did on net zero, I don’t think is building trust.’
But the Tory leader denied that reducing the tax burden mean reducing public services.
‘If we start from the assumption that we can just tax and borrow our way through, we will keep getting poorer, and that is what has been happening,’ she said.
‘And we were a part of that, so when you ask what we did wrong, these were some of the things that I think that we got wrong.
‘I think the tax burden was too high under the Conservatives. That doesn’t mean that we have to cut public services, it means that we have to look at how we are delivering public services, and a lot of what government does is not even public services.’
Pressed on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme what had gone wrong with Boris Johnson’s government, Ms Badenoch said: ‘I thought he was a great prime minister, but there were some serious issues that were not being resolved and I think that during that tenure the public thought that we were not speaking for them or looking out for them, we were in it for ourselves.
‘Some of those things I think were perception issues, a lot of the stuff that happened around partygate was not why I resigned.
‘I thought that it was overblown. We should not have created fixed penalty notices, for example. That was us not going with our principles.’
Stressing that the public was ‘not wrong to be upset about Partygate’, she said: ‘The problem was that we should not have criminalised every day activities the way that we did.
‘People going out for walks, all of them having fixed penalty notices, that was what ended up creating a trap for Boris Johnson.’
Ms Badenoch said Britain needs fundamental change to stop getting ‘poorer’.
‘I think that there are hard truths not just for my party, but for the whole country,’ she said.
