Tories must not just rely on London-based researchers
Do not repeat mistakes of past, MP warns Boris
THE Conservative party must avoid the mistakes of the past, such as cutting police numbers, if it hopes to keep the support of working class voters in the North and Midlands, Boris Johnson has been warned.
Eddie Hughes, the Conservative MP for Walsall North, said there had been a tendency to listen to Londonbased researchers, instead of listening to people in regions such as the Midlands.
And this led to mistakes such as cutting police numbers and cutting nursing bursaries, he said.
But Conservatives could follow up their general election victory, which saw them make gains in traditional Labour-voting areas, by becoming “a truly One Nation party, as the new voice of ordinary people.”
Mr Hughes said: “We must rise to the challenge of this blue-collar Conservative revolution – and, crucially, not make the mistake of trying to govern in a London bubble.”
He warned: “In the past we have taken decisions that might seem logical to calculator-wielding administrators, but in fact have catastrophic consequences. Take our poor decision to cut nurse bursaries: this has reduced opportunities for our local workforce to find employment in the NHS, while hurting the delivery of services we need.”
And he added: “When elected in 2017, I argued that police cuts had gone too far.
“It cannot be right that in mid-afternoon, burglars had got so brazen that they could break windows with bricks and hold a mother and her children hostage in their kitchen while they were robbed. I had countless cases like this.”
Mr Hughes said:
“As a
party, we need to be better at listening to the priorities of Tory constituents, rather than deciding what these are from the Westminster bubble, relying on centralised research carried out by Downing Street policy wonks.”
He also called on the party to look at ways of making the education system fairer, and pointed out that data from Oxford and Cambridge universities showed that only 6 per cent of students come from the West Midlands, while 50 per cent from London and the South East.