Conservative Party Conference LATEST: Leadership candidates prepare for opening speeches as Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch battle for Tory crown

A YouGov poll has suggested that the polls are tightening and that the commanding lead Kemi Badenoch enjoys among Conservative activists has sharply diminished.

The survey found the former Business Secretary is now just three points ahead of Jenrick, down from 18 points in July, to 27 and 24 points respectively.

James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat are tied at 16 points each, but with 17 percent of activists still unsure who they would most like to be leader, the race is up for grabs.

Previously, we brought you an update on the row engulfing the Conservative party conference over a video accusing the SAS of killing terrorists rather than detaining them.

Watch Tom Tugendhat’s full comments here:

The final four Conservative leadership hopefuls will make their grand presentations to the party faithful today.

All the candidates are giving speeches as the conference in Birmingham concludes, and the race seems too close to call.

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are seen as the favorites after topping the MPs’ vote. But Badenoch has been struggling to quell a dispute over the suggestion that maternity pay is “excessive”.

And Jenrick is facing a furious backlash from his rivals over a campaign video in which he claimed British forces were killing terrorists rather than capturing them to circumvent European human rights rules.

Former security minister Tom Tugendhat, another candidate, replied that Jenrick “knows nothing” about sensitive military issues.

Kemi Badenoch has said people who want to move to the UK need to be “very committed”, adding that the country is “not a bedroom”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today program about immigration, Ms Badenoch said: “What we did previously was just go outside the Home Office to look at people coming in and out, but we have to make sure that when people come to This country is people who come to contribute and also want the success of our country.

Of course there will be others that will be passing through, like student visas for example, but if people want to stay here, we live in a time where you have to be very committed: we are not a dormitory, we are not a sponge.

I am someone who came to this country at 16 years old and I did it wanting to be here, wanting to be from here, so culture matters.

James Cleverly has suggested he would commit to scrapping stamp duty if elected leader to help the economy “prosper”.

Asked if he would commit to cutting the tax, the former Conservative minister told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that stamp duty “stagnates the market”.

He added: ‘At the last general election my party, the Conservative Party, was criticized by the Labor Party for imposing too much tax.

“If we don’t start reducing taxes, we will suffocate the economy and ultimately we will not be able to prosper as a country.”

Asked whether Liz Truss had explored the measure during her brief tenure as first minister, Mr Cleverly replied: “Her argument is that because one of my predecessors proposed it, we can never propose it.”

‘That’s why we now have the highest tax burden since the war. Higher than many of our international competitors and high enough that the Labor Party felt freed to criticize us.’

Tom Tugendhat has said the use of images of a British soldier in Afghanistan who died shortly afterwards in a controversial video by his rival Robert Jenrick is “disturbing”.

Jenrick had already sparked controversy with the video, in which he claimed that British troops are “killing” terrorists instead of arresting them due to ECHR bureaucracy.

Tugendhat said the claims were fundamentally “false” and told BBC Newsnight that the clip featured a friend of his who was murdered shortly after the footage was taken.

He said: “What is particularly disturbing is that the video uses a fragment of footage from some of the people I served with, one of whom died shortly after the film was taken in an accident.”

And he cannot defend himself against the accusation made against him. These are images of a soldier in northern Afghanistan around 2002.

He added that he would “delete the video.”

All eyes are on the Conservative leadership candidates this morning as they prepare for keynote speeches later this morning.

Rivals Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch will take to the stage from 10.45am and give 20-minute speeches to MPs and party members.

After the conference, a final round of voting by MPs will narrow the field to two candidates, before members elect the new leader.

Good morning and welcome to MailOnline’s live blog as the final day of the Conservative Party conference begins.

We’ll bring you the latest updates from Birmingham as the leadership candidates make their final speech to party members.