Conservative Party has ‘great opportunity’ despite local election losses and infighting, says Grant Shapps
The Tories have a “great opportunity” with a mood of “steely determination”, cabinet minister Grant Shapps has told Sky News, despite a local election drubbing and party infighting.
Speaking on the Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, the energy secretary also said he “completely and fundamentally” disagreed that the Conservatives cannot come back and win.
Former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg also played down the recent council losses and said local elections results were often bad for the incumbent government, arguing people should “not read too much” into them.
Meanwhile, Labour has branded the ruling party as “demoralised” and “full of internal conflicts and battles”.
It comes after former home secretary Priti Patel led criticism of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at a conference over the weekend, blaming the “centre of the party” for the recent local elections defeats.
She said the Tories “would not have seen over 1,000 of our friends and colleagues lose their seats” if centrists had “spent more time with us, listening, engaging”.
Anger at the council losses has been further fuelled by the decision to scale back post-Brexit plans to scrap EU laws.
Pressed over the feeling in the party over its current woes, Mr Shapps said: “Of course we have a great opportunity because we know that we’re buzzing with ideas, we’ve got a lot of energy to get things done still, but of course there are many, many challenges facing the country – and by the way they’d be facing whoever, whomever was in power at this point in time.
“I think we’ve got the ideas, but also the practical solutions – not to say, there aren’t many challenges along the way.
“I think that the mood is one of steely determination, I think… we know that there’s a job to do, that we’re on the side of the British people.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Tory election losses ‘moment of reflection’
Brushing aside criticism levelled by Ms Patel, Mr Shapps said: “I simply don’t agree… we still have more councillors in place than they [Labour’s Blair/Brown] would have done during the same point of the electoral cycle.
“So this idea that there’s something written in the stars, that somehow we cannot come back and win from our particular position at the moment, I completely and fundamentally disagree with.
“Actually people realise this country has gone through some pretty difficult times and of course we won’t have got everything right, but we have managed to steer the country through it, roll out vaccines or provide up to half of people’s typical energy bill this winter… Rishi Sunak actually has stabilised the party.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Conservatives seem ‘demoralised’
Mr Rees-Mogg said: “It’s obviously difficult when a party has been in office for 13 years, but Rishi Sunak has been getting on with business.
“Local election results are often bad for incumbent governments.
“They were bad for Tony Blair and he then went on to win majorities. They were terrible for Margaret Thatcher, who then went on to win very big majorities.
“So I wouldn’t read too much into local elections.”
Read more:
Johnson considered sending Sunak ‘foul-mouthed video’
Is this a new dawn for Labour?
He also said it was a mistake to get rid of Mr Johnson, but deposing Mr Sunak would be an “even bigger mistake”.
Mr Rees-Mogg said: “The Tory party would be toast if we change leader again… but that doesn’t mean we agree with him on every policy.”
Labour frontbencher Jonathan Reynolds told Ridge: “I am not an objective observer of the Conservative Party, but I think it seems quite demoralised and as ever, you know, full of internal conflicts and battles.
“I look at Conservative MPs and I think to be honest, many of them are looking perhaps to a post-election period in the succession and who might take over. But look, we can’t be distracted by that.”
Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcasts
He added: “The scale of the challenge therefore for Labour, it’s not just turning around an economy that hasn’t functioned very well for 13 years, it’s the complete reform and delivery of public services in a way where the need, the scale, of that, I don’t think has ever been greater.
“What we saw in those local elections was the Conservative Party rejected and people choosing Labour over the Conservatives, but we know we’ve got more to do.
“None of us are complacent, we’ve got to get that message across of our ambition, of the hope, we want to deliver back to the country, and why these specific policies that we’ve got deserve a hearing and that they are the answers to the problems.
“We know we’ve got more to do, but I don’t accept the case that we’re not putting forward specific policies.”
This is the highest stakes diplomacy via social media.
The American president just posted on his Truth Social platform: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding.
“He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers.
“Our patience is wearing thin. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Israel-Iran live: Trump says US knows where Iran’s supreme leader is ‘hiding’
It was followed minutes later by “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”
In real-time, we are witnessing Donald Trump’s extreme version of maximum pressure diplomacy.
He’d probably call it the ‘art of the deal’, but bunker busters are the tool, and it comes with such huge consequences, intended and unintended, known and unknown.
Read more:
The bunker buster bomb which could destroy Iran’s nuclear ambitions
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Nuclear sites targeted in Iran
There is intentional ambiguity in the president’s messaging. His assumption is that he can apply his ‘art of the deal’ strategy to a deeply ideological geopolitical challenge.
It’s all playing out publicly. Overnight, the New York Times, via two of its best-sourced reporters, had been told that Mr Trump is weighing whether to use B-2 aircraft to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.
Meanwhile, Axios was reporting that a meeting is possible between Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
The reporting came just as Mr Trump warned “everyone in Tehran to evacuate”. The nuclear sites being threatened with bunker busters are not in Tehran, but Trump’s words are designed to stoke tension, to confuse and to apply intense pressure.
His actions are too. He left the G7 in Canada early and asked his teams to gather in the White House Situation Room.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Trump: ‘I want an end, not a ceasefire’
This is a game of smoke, mirrors, brinkmanship and – maybe – bluff. In Tehran, what’s left of the leadership is watching and reading closely as they consider what’s next.
Maybe the Supreme Leader and his regime’s days are numbered. Things remain very unpredictable.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
From history, though, regime change, even when it comes with a plan – and there is certainly not one here, spells civil war and from that comes a refugee crisis.
These are truly tense and chaotic times.
World
Ukraine war: 14 killed as Russian missile and drone attacks strike Kyiv – including American citizen
Russian missile and drone attacks have killed 14 people in Kyiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials.
A 62-year-old US citizen who suffered shrapnel wounds is among the dead.
At least 99 others were wounded in strikes that hollowed out a residential building and destroyed dozens of apartments.
Pic: AP
Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Images show a firefighter was among those hurt, with injured residents evacuated from their homes.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as “one of the most terrifying attacks on Kyiv” – and said Russian forces had fired 440 drones and 32 missiles as civilians slept in their homes.
“[Putin] wants the war to go on,” he said. “It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it.”
Pic: AP
Ukraine’s interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said 27 locations across the capital have been hit – including educational institutions and critical infrastructure.
He claimed the attack, in the early hours of Tuesday morning, was one of the largest on the capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Drones swarmed over the city, with an air raid alert remaining in force for seven hours.
One person was killed and 17 others injured as a result of separate Russian drone strikes in the port city of Odesa.
Pic: Reuters
It comes as the G7 summit in Canada continues, which Ukraine’s leader is expected to attend.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to hold talks with Donald Trump – but the president has announced he is unexpectedly returning to Washington because of tensions in the Middle East.
Ukraine’s foreign minister says Moscow’s decision to attack Kyiv during the summit is a signal of disrespect to the US.
Moscow has launched a record number of drones and missiles in recent weeks, and says the attacks are in retaliation for a Ukrainian operation that targeted warplanes in airbases deep within Russian territory.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko says fires broke out in two of the city’s districts as a result of debris from drones shot down by the nation’s air defences.
Read more from Sky News:
New episodes of The Wargame podcast released
US-UK trade deal is ‘done’, Donald Trump says
Pic: AP
On X, Ukraine’s foreign ministry wrote: “Russia’s campaign of terror against civilians continues. Its war against Ukraine escalates with increased brutality.
“The only way to stop Russia is tighter pressure – through sanctions, more defence support for Ukraine, and limiting Russia’s ability to keep sowing war.”
Olena Lapyshnak, who lived in one of the destroyed buildings, said: “It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life. I can only curse the Russians, that’s all I can say. They shouldn’t exist in this world.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike