'Early election by December', Badenoch suggests as she slams Labour on Chagos deal and welfare
Kemi Badenoch thinks a general election could come as soon as December - as she says that Andy Burnham is a "gambler" and may "fancy his chances" at winning a majority.
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The Conservative leader made the prediction while taking questions from LBC callers as part of a Call Kemi phone-in, hosted by Iain Dale.
When questioned about her plans for welfare budgets, Mrs Badenoch confirmed she thinks a Christmas election is in the offing this year.
She said: "I think it's this December... I think Andy Burnham is a gambler. I think he might fancy his chances."
She then quipped that the Conservatives also fancy their chances in a hypothetical poll.
Mrs Badenoch criticised Mr Burnham over his perceived flip-flopping on the controversial handover of the Chagos Islands.
After his meeting with President Trump, Burnham's cabinet have appeared to accept the deal will not progress.
The Conservative leader said: "What Andy Burnham said yesterday was very interesting. In the morning, he said that he wanted to bring back that terrible Chagos deal, the one where they're giving British territory to Mauritius and paying £35 billion for it.
"And then he had the meeting with President Trump and then said, oh, actually, maybe it's not really a good deal. And then by the evening, he's looking at how he's going to withdraw from it.
"That's three different positions in one day. I mean, that's our Prime Minister. So I don't know what he believes now because he said three different things."
She also savaged Labour's record on welfare spending.
Challenged by a caller about whether or not she would take away benefits from disabled people who cannot work, Mrs Badenoch said: "Well, I'm not trying to get people who are severely disabled back to work. I'm trying to get people who can work who are not working, working back to work.
"The number of people who can work and aren't working is shameful, and what they're doing is actually making the support that's available for you actually less. People who can work who don't work are taking away from those who need the support. They're costing taxpayers money.
"We're actually borrowing, you know, to pay benefits. That's our children's money we're spending.
"So the kind of conditions that we're looking at clamping down on are conditions that you can work with—anxiety, ADHD, these might be difficult things for the individual, but they shouldn't stop people from working.
"We've seen an explosion in the number of people who are claiming to have these conditions, sometimes with no face-to-face—in fact, most of the time with no face-to-face assessment—and we can't afford it.
"We are—I think when we left government, there were 2,000 new people each day claiming out-of-work benefits. That number is now 5,000 new people each day. It's just not sustainable."
"So we want to make sure that we keep the benefit system as what it should be, a safety net for those who need it, for those who can't work, and the elderly as well who can't work, not a lifestyle for people who don't want to work."