When it rains for the Tories, it pours. Now Tees Valley’s Conservative mayor Ben Houchen has hit out at his party’s leadership – just 24 hours after yet another Tory MP defected to Labour. The re-elected Conservative mayor this morning admitted the path to Tory electoral victory is ‘getting narrower by the day’ before adding, in more bad news for poor Rishi Sunak, that ‘ultimately it all rests on the shoulders of the leader.’ Talk about trouble in paradise…
In a series of damning remarks made during an interview on BBC Radio Tees today, Houchen seemed rather downcast on the topic of his party’s prospects. ‘Things don’t look great for the Conservative party at the moment,’ he told the station. But while admitting that ‘all responsibility goes back to the top’, the Tees Valley mayor had some home truths for his parliamentary colleagues:
There are lots of people who are involved in the problems with the Conservative party. It’s a bit of chaos at the minute, right, isn’t it? There’s lots of people fighting with each other in the Conservative party, there are defections going on and ultimately the public do not vote for parties who are not united and are not presenting a united front and also aren’t talking to the public.
If they’re fighting with each other like rats in a sack instead of saying to the public “this is what we’re going to do for you”, that doesn’t win elections. Obviously, it ultimately lies with Rishi but there are lots of people that need to get their act together, stop messing about and start talking to the public about what they can offer them, rather than just fighting with each other.
Oo er. That’s them told. And after today’s polling for the Times that shows Labour now has a 30-point lead on the Tories – the biggest since the Truss era – Houchen will be rather hoping his party’s MPs listen. It’s do or die…
Listen to the clip here:
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