It’s time to get behind the Prime Minister

It is often said, and usually true – the party of government rarely performs well in local elections.

I hate seeing hard-working Conservative colleagues lose their seats, and it was especially sad to see Andy Street just miss out.

When Andy first won his mayoralty in 2017, with a majority of 3,000, we were 21 points ahead of Labour. Given that the polls show a different position now, he shouldn’t have stood a chance. That he fought to a knife-edge loss shows how well he led and how hard we fought in the West Midlands.

While Labour made some gains, they have failed to romp to victory, falling well short of the 350 predicted gains. This week, the voters made one thing clear – there is no surge in love for Sir Keir Starmer.

There’s no better example of Labour’s failure to cut through than Tees Valley, even after Sir Keir packed every train from London to Darlington with the shadow Cabinet.

But come polling day, residents decisively backed local champion Ben Houchen to serve another term. When he first won in 2017, when we were 21 points ahead nationally, Ben won with a majority of 2,000. This week, he won by almost 19,000.

And even in London, Susan Hall defied the polls – she was 22 points behind on Tuesday – to lose by just 11 points.

Ultimately, Sadiq Khan squeaked through thanks to scaremongering and hyperbole. While he attacked the Chief Rabbi, Wes Streeting branded all Conservative voters “white supremacists”, a rather reckless ratcheting up of the rhetoric even from where Angela Rayner called us all “scum”.

Labour did not perform anything like the opinion polls suggested. Based on actual votes, the respected psephologists Rallings and Thrasher put them nine points ahead. That’s 32 seats short of a parliamentary majority in a general election.

We know what that would mean – Sir Keir unable to govern on his own. He be held to ransom by the 50-odd hard-Left anti-Israel Labour MPs who would happily abolish the monarchy, scrap our nuclear deterrent and turn our Armed Forces into a peace corps.

He would be forced to take the knee to a kaleidoscope coalition of the every minor and nationalist party across the UK, including the SNP, Lib Dems, Greens, SDLP, Alba, Alliance, Plaid Cymru – and very possibly George Galloway and Jeremy Corbyn – on every single parliamentary vote.

Another thing was clear from these elections. Reform UK, yet again, failed to have any meaningful electoral success. They won two councillors out of 2,600 seats up for grabs. They came fourth in the Manchester mayoralty, fourth in Ashfield (Notts), and fifth in London, where they lost their £10,000 deposit.

Undoubtedly, Conservatives lost some votes to Reform in areas where they did stand, but all this ultimately did was allow Labour to nudge through and win.

Labour are hiding what they would do in office, with little policy and no meaningful plan. Imagine what they’d look like clambering into Government on the backs of their pals in every minor party you can shake a stick at.

Having campaigned up and down the country as Conservative Party chairman, there are two clear messages I hear on every doorstep. Firstly, there’s no enthusiasm for Sir Keir and Labour, and secondly, the public has had enough of infighting.

It is incumbent on me to communicate this message from voters to my colleagues – leave sniping from the sidelines to Sir Keir, get behind our Prime Minister and make the case for our party to our country.

Because when we concentrate on talking about what we’ve done, what we’re doing and what we’re going to do, we will win. Just ask Ben Houchen.

Richard Holden is the chairman of the Conservative Party and MP for North West Durham