In July, the Conservative Party suffered its worst defeat in modern history. We lost this election not because of Labour’s strengths, but because we lost the trust of the public.
I know from so many conversations on the doorsteps during the election people were not voting for us as we had made promises we did not keep.
In Government we achieved a great deal – we transformed school standards, reformed welfare, and delivered the best vaccine programme in the world – but those accomplishments were drowned out by not doing what we said we would in key areas and demonstrating conduct below the standards we should have upheld.
And the end result was – and is – an electorate which does not trust us to keep our promises. In this leadership contest, we have the responsibility to choose a new leader and the opportunity to choose how we want to move forward.
I believe that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are politically weak and unable to deliver for the public. We can win the next General Election.
I want to see us return to government in five years’ time and I’m certain my colleagues feel the same way. But it is not inevitable we will return to government in five years, no matter how weak Labour’s offering is. We have to be better.
To win back the trust of the British people and win in 2029, we need to do things differently, and we need to start now.
To do that we need a decisive break with the past, and we need a leader who can return us to the core values that our country rightly expects from its politicians.
A leader who will serve the British people. A leader who will lead on the basis of core Conservative values shared up and down the country. A leader who will act on those principles to drive real and lasting change throughout the country.
Tom Tugendhat is the candidate in this leadership contest who can deliver the change we need and ensure we don’t find ourselves still in opposition in five years time.
We need a Conservative Revolution that will unleash a high wage, high skilled, low migration economy. Deliver greater investment in technologies, and provide greater choice in education and healthcare.
That will ensure lower taxes, less regulation, and more risk. Tom is the candidate with a vision that will transform our country for the better, and will deliver happiness and prosperity for the British people.
Tom has spent his life in service to our country. He is rightly proud of the United Kingdom, and optimistic about what we can achieve at home and in the wider world. Tom believes – as do I – that politics is about making people’s lives better, not playing games or self-interest.
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That attitude will be central to our efforts to convince voters to trust us with the responsibility of governing once again. It is the single biggest challenge the Conservative Party faces today, and if we do not fix this it will not matter which other problems we solve.
We have now been colleagues in the Commons for five years, and I have always been impressed by Tom’s willingness to stick to his principles. This indicates the sort of leader he would be: fair, honest, and decisive. This is precisely the leadership we need right now, and the leadership the country deserves.
Tom would do an exceptionally good job of holding Labour to account over the course of this Parliament and will, I hope, have the opportunity to be a great prime minister.
The country cannot afford our party being consigned to a decade of opposition allowing Labour to ram through its tax rising and left wing agenda.
We live in a time of global discord with a need for strong leadership. I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting Tom’s leadership campaign so that we can win back public trust and win so we can govern based on Conservative values.