Tories ‘only alternative to chaos and disarray’, says May

THERESA May has said the Conservatives are the only party capable of standing up for “ordinary working people” as she accused Labour of abandoning the political centre ground to pursue its “ideological obsessions”.

Launching the Tory campaign for the May local elections, the Prime Minister denounced Labour for “betraying” the Jewish community by letting Ken Livingstone “off the hook” over allegations of anti-Semitism.

Speaking in Calverton village hall in Nottinghamshire, she said the Conservatives were now the one party in the UK which had put itself “unashamedly at the service of ordinary, working people”.

“As we leave the EU, our Conservative Government will act to protect and indeed to enhance workers’ rights, and guarantee that in a modern, flexible economy people are properly protected at work,” she said.

Mrs May used her speech to frame the local elections as a choice between the competence of Conservative councils and the “chaos and disarray” of the rest.

She said the Liberal Democrats were only interested in securing a second EU referendum, Ukip were too divided to stand up for ordinary people, while the SNP and Plaid Cymru offered “divisive, tunnelvision nationalisms”.

She said the decision that Mr Livingstone could remain a member of the Labour Party after claiming Hitler had supported Zionism showed the extent to which it had moved away from the centre ground

“These local elections present a clear and informative choice,” she said. “The competence of a strong Conservative council, focused on the priorities of local people, keeping local taxes down and delivering high-quality local services.

“Or the chaos and disarray of the rest, political parties motivated not by what is best for local areas, but what is best for their own partisan political interest...

“A Labour Party totally out of touch with the concerns of the British people, which ignores the priorities of local communities and instead indulges its own ideological obsessions. A Labour Party which just this week revealed the depths to which it has now sunk, betraying the Jewish community in our country by letting Ken Livingstone off the hook

“It could not be clearer that the Labour Party is now a long way away from the common centre ground of British politics today.”