'We promised to level up the North and never did - that's why we lost'
The Conservatives were 'absolutely terrible', 'incompetent', lost the trust of the British people and failed to deliver what it promised.
That's why the Tories lost the general election according to the most powerful Conservative in the North of England. Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham on Sunday (September 29), Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen said his party promised 'exactly the right thing' at the previous election in 2019, but accused the government of failing to 'level up' the country.
Lord Houchen has now urged the four contenders hoping to replace Rishi Sunak as the party's leader to explain how they will open up opportunities to those in 'left behind' areas. He told an event organised by the Centre for Policy Studies that he believes the Conservatives can win back traditionally Labour strongholds at the next election.
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But he said the party must first 'reflect properly', acknowledge its failures and rebuild trust. He said: "We won the 2019 election, in my view, because the public saw the administration as different. They saw it as anti-establishment largely as a result of getting Brexit done.
"It absolutely bought into the idea, and I think people underestimate the idea, that levelling up was really bought into in places across the country and red wall areas. Our problem was, we just didn't follow through.
"We promised exactly the right thing in 2019, we just didn't deliver anything. That's actually what caused the result.
"And then not only did we not only deliver what we promised, we did a whole load of other things that actually made it even worse."
Lord Houchen, who is currently the only Conservative metro mayor in the country, described the new government as 'crap'. When asked which other party poses the biggest threat to the Tories, he said: "The only reason that some of the parties, particularly the Lib Dems and Reform have done quite well, is because of our failures, not because of their successes. So we are the biggest problem to our own success at the minute."
However, Lord Houchen argued that political shifts across Western countries, particularly after the pandemic, were also to blame. He said: "We almost walked into this perfect storm of us being absolutely terrible, incompetent, losing the trust of the British people, all of things that have already been set out, with this global macro issue as well that really is a consequence of Covid and the effects that we're still feeling.
"Of all administrations in the Western world in power that are also feeling the effect of that as well, irrespective of how competent or incompetent they've been. And so, I think that really then led to the scale of the result that I don't think anybody really foresaw."
During the event, Lord Houchen also made a plea to the four Conservative leadership candidates. Referring to Boris Johnson's vision of 'levelling up', he said: "I think a pretty good Prime Minister once said, 'talent is equally distributed across the country, but opportunity is not'. You answer that question, you unlock the potential of this country.
"You drag young people from Teeside or Bolton into the Conservative family. And we can do that in a free market, Conservative way.
"But we're not giving that opportunity to people, we're not giving that excuse to people. We didn't over recent years.
"And again, that was one of our downfalls. Because we made that promise of being able to say we're going to address that problem and we never did.
"So if a leadership contender can grab hold of that and articulate the how and create a story in the hearts and minds behind that, then actually there is a story and a way back at the next election. If not, then we'll be asking that question in five years' time and hoping that we'll come back in 10 years' time."