Yahoo News Why Carol Vorderman wants to turn the Tories into 'rubble'
Countdown legend Carol Vorderman has called for the Tories to be wiped out at the General Election.
The TV star turned political activist said the Conservative Party needed to be punished over economic failure, PPE profiteering and Partygate. She added: “They just lie and lie and gaslight.”
In an exclusive interview with our sister paper, the Daily Record, Carol said she wants the Tories to be punished for their record over the last 14 years. She said she hoped the party would lose seats as part of her UK-wide drive to turn the Tories into “rubble”.
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Carol is a key backer of stopthetories.vote, a group set up to promote tactical voting to get rid of Conservative MPs on July 4. Their website offers voters the chance to find the best option for ensuring a Tory candidate does not get elected.
Carol said: “It’s not just tactical voting. It is coordinated tactical voting. That’s what Stop The Tories is.”
“I’m a Welsh woman,” she added. “They’re certainly going to get chucked out of Wales.”
Asked for her message to people who are considering voting tactically, she said: “I would say go on the website and you will see. The purpose behind it is what we say on the tin. This is about stopping the Tories."
She added: “This is a statistical way of co-ordinated tactical voting in order to reduce them to rubble.”
Carol, 63, explained her hostility to the Tories, saying: “Because of the last 14 years and the lies, particularly since Boris Johnson became prime minister.”
She reeled off a list of Tory scandals, including the so-called VIP lane for PPE Covid contracts which enriched Conservative supporters. She continued: “That was the ultimate in profiteering and people don’t forget that.”
Carol is acutely aware of the case of peer Michelle Mone, who admitted lying about her links to PPE Medro, which was awarded millions during the pandemic.
She said: “I’m limited in what I can tell you because I’ve written it in my book, so I have to keep some headlines back! I think it is terrible but she isn’t alone.”
Carol argues Partygate is another reason to despatch the Tories to the wilderness. She said: “We were locked in our houses and we had to obey the rules. It wasn’t just Partygate, it was all the hiding of Partygate, it was all the lying of Partygate.
“It was even Johnson who had two police fines lying to Parliament and saying he hadn’t lied to Parliament.”
On the separate Tory scandal of senior party figures betting on the election date, she said: “It’s unimaginable. I think they’re so privileged and so detached and they have been so cossetted by a right-wing media that they cannot comprehend the visceral emotion that the public feel towards them.
“This is the only time in five years that we have a chance to tell them what we really think. So that’s why I want to eviscerate them.”
Asked if she believed the Conservative government had acted in a corrupt way, she replied: “Patently so.” Carol said the Tories had become “progressively worse” over the years after going “off the rails” with Brexit. She said: “The majority of people who voted for Brexit now say they wouldn’t if it was put to them again.”
Opinion polls show the Tories winning fewer than 100 seats and Carol wants to push them into third place
She said: “I would like them to go under the Lib Dems. Then you would have centre/centre-left voices and even in terms of media you won’t hear those right-wing voices to the same degree. It gives us a chance as a country to take a breath and to listen to other noises.”
Carol does not say how she will vote but she was positive about Labour Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves and plans for a Covid corruption commissioner.
“I’d love that job!” she joked, but added: “I don’t think I have the experience in police work and so on that would be necessary.”
She also had kind words for Labour leader Keir Starmer, who may be prime minister next month, if polls are to be believed.
Carol said: “He does give me hope. I am politically independent, by the way. I have voted for everybody in my time – Green, Lib Dem, Tory, Labour. I hope he is ruthless.”
She added: “I think his moral compass comes from a much better place than Sunak, Truss, Johnson, Cameron and all the others. I think he understands [people from] normal backgrounds far more than the rest of them.”
The maths genius also spoke of her Countdown career and her surprise at becoming a political campaigner later in life.
She said: “Richard Whiteley [the late host] wouldn’t have spoken to me for a year, because he was very much a Tory. I’ve always been interested in politics but as a woman and as a single parent your life takes over.
“So when you are the breadwinner, you’re the single parent and you’re also looking after your elderly mother, it takes most of the time.”
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