“I’ve already mentioned London,” says the Party Chairman. “Look at Wales. Patients almost twice as likely to be on the NHS waiting list as in England. What about Birmingham? A Council that spent time thinking up woke street names instead of looking after its finances.”
Oddly, my one regret about my time as a councillor was not joining the Planning Committee sooner, which I ended up enjoying serving on for the past few years.
Glory marches elsewhere alongside great successes, but true honour lies in the thankless fights.
As Conservatives, we know the Liberal Democrats are the party of opportunism. But we can’t take for granted that local people know this too.
Next year, we have all-out elections due to local boundary changes. We’re preparing for some very interesting results.
None of them are seemingly interested in the day-to-day running of local government and policy delivery. They ignore their duty to the local community.
Losses of £46 million from a failing energy supply company is just one reason eople are rightly complaining about paying more in Council Tax for less in diminishing or poorly performing public services.
Rotherham Council spends tens of millions into grandiose white elephant projects while allowing residents to fall behind.
We went hard on the risk of a Labour takeover and that Wirral would be a one Party state and on the Liverpool road to ruin.
His university-educated opponents will view him as a relic of the past. I see his refusal to stay on message as the shape of things to come.
Still far too few Conservative campaigns make effective use of Surveys, VoteSource, Connect Calling and Campaign Toolkit – or of the advice and expertise of our professional and highly effective Area Campaign Managers.
Our message here was a notably and noticeably positive one. Did that make it more difficult to get across?
We must fully include, trust, and listen, to those local leaders from the voluntary party who know exactly how to win on their doorstep.
Whoever is selected by members will have to strike the right balance – securing a high turnout among reliably Conservative voters in reliably Conservative areas, combined with outreach tightly focused on middle-age, middle earners, and topped off by neutralizing Labour’s advantage among highly-educated voters.
All election campaigns boil down to either “safety first” or “time for a change”. So if he isn’t meeting his five pledges, Sunak must give voters a reason to fear taking a chance on Labour.