'Tories must win everyone back - not just reform' Tom Tugendhat
Tory leadership contender and Tonbridge MP Tom Tugendhat has delivered a speech at Chatham FC's home ground as part of his pitch to local members to take on the top job.
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00:00At Chatham Town's ground today, making his pitch to Conservative members.
00:05Tom Tugendhat is in the line-up to be the next Tory leader.
00:08He's been across Kent today, trying to score more support.
00:12Kicking off in what was one of the county's safest Conservative seats
00:16till the general election, where Labour booted his party out.
00:20What we need to do is we need to be bringing back Tory voters from all parts.
00:24Of course we need those who chose reform to come back.
00:27We also need those who chose Labour or the Lib Dems or those who stayed away to come back.
00:31What we need to do is offer a proper Conservative agenda
00:34that makes sure that we are investing in people.
00:37And that means investing in belonging, investing in place
00:40and giving people that sense of identity, that pride in our community that is so important.
00:45The Shadow Security Minister said he has a record of delivering
00:48and that a revolutionary change is needed within the party.
00:51But for lifelong Conservative members,
00:54what direction do they think their party needs to go in?
00:57I believe that a lot of the outcome of the recent election
01:01was because people didn't understand what we stand for,
01:04which is small government, low taxation.
01:08Some of the actions that have been taken in the last couple of years
01:11dealing with instances such as the pandemic, for example,
01:17they weren't necessarily our traditional policies that were employed to deal with that.
01:21And this is where we have to get back to core values.
01:25However, members won't get a vote till MPs whittle the six Tory hopefuls down to two.
01:30If the Tunbridge MP wins the contest,
01:33his chance to become Prime Minister won't likely be till 2029.
01:38Well, we've got four years of opposition, which is appalling,
01:41but we've got four years of Labour overspending,
01:44under-delivering that we're going to have to correct for.
01:46So I'm not going to be making commitments on what changes need to be done
01:49because I'm sure that Labour will be damaging so much between now and then.
01:52It's hard to predict.
01:54His party might have been relegated from the government earlier this year,
01:58but a Kent Tory hopeful believes he has what it takes
02:01to gain Conservative promotion back to number 10 once more.
02:06Gabriel Morris in Chatham.