By james art 
In her first media appearance since winning the Tory leadership election, Ms Badenoch said the UK was getting poorer and older and was being “overtaken” by other countries.
She said on the BBC’s Sunday program with Laura Kuensberg: “We need to look at how we can reorganize our economy to be fit for the future, not just do what we’ve always been used to.
“And I think there’s an exciting challenge. I am very optimistic about what we can do.
“But just saying things and making promises to the whole country without knowing how you’re going to deliver them, like we did with Brexit, like we did with net zero, I don’t think that builds trust.”
Speaking after her victory over Robert Jerrick on Saturday, Ms Badenoch said the Conservatives needed to be “honest” about the mistakes they made in government, but on Sunday she refused to be drawn into a “post-mortem” examination of any of her predecessors.
However, she argued that the previous government raised taxes and borrowing too high, while insisting that reversing this would not mean cutting public services.
She said: “I think the tax burden was too high under the Conservatives.
“That doesn’t mean we have to cut public services, it means we have to look at how we deliver public services, and a lot of what the government does isn’t even a public service.”
Asked about specific taxes, she pledged to reverse Labour’s decision to impose VAT on private schools if she came to power, describing it as an “aspirational tax” that would not raise money.
When it was suggested this would involve taking money from state schools, she said: “At the moment, certainly until Labor came in, we didn’t have that tax, so it doesn’t take money away from state schools.”
But Ms Badenoch was less inclined to be drawn on whether she would reverse the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions if it meant taking money away from the NHS.
She said: “I don’t accept the premise of this question. We (the Conservatives) didn’t do these things to increase funding for the NHS, so it’s not a binary proposition that if you don’t do this it means less money for the NHS.
Arguing that the tax hike was “incoherent” from an economic point of view, she admitted that with just 121 MPs, the Conservatives “won’t be able to oppose anything in terms of passing legislation”.
She added: “What we can do is make the case for why we think what they’re doing is wrong, and I make that case that raising tax in this way, whether it’s employer NI or elsewhere, it will not grow our economy.”
Labor leader Ellie Reeves criticized Ms Badenoch’s comments on VAT, saying she “needs to explain where state school cuts will hit after promising unfunded tax relief for private schools”.
“No wonder he refused to condemn Liz Truss, whose mini-budget crashed the economy,” she said.
“The leader may have changed, but on her first day in the job, Kemi Badenoch has proved three times that the Tories haven’t listened and they haven’t learned.”