We Tories were battered in local elections - here's what we must do no

It was always expected that last Thursday would be a very difficult election for the Conservative Party. Coming off a very successful election the last time these seats were up and given our terrible drubbing last year in the General election. Notwithstanding that, for hardworking Conservative councillors who were defending their seats, it will have been a huge blow, not made any easier by the fact that Labour had a bad night as well.

Little if any of the blame falls on the shoulders of the councillors, rather it should sit on the shoulders of the Westminster Party, our appalling behaviour when were in government and our failure to deliver on our post Brexit promises. Reform made gains because of the abiding memory of our failure to deliver what we promised.

To those few Conservatives now briefing journalists that another leadership election is the answer I say, if after four leadership elections and utter disarray amongst MP's over the last five years, another leadership election is what they believe the public voted for, then they are deluded.

This election result was frankly the second signific tremor after the first devastating political earthquake last year. It underscored the level of anger too many Conservative voters still had for our mistakes and failures.Not to mention the terrible behaviour of too many Conservative MPsat times appearing to care more for their careers than the lives of those they were sent to serve.Conservative voters haven't forgotten.

That's because everyday experience of many is that their quality of life has suffered and that they haven't been listened to for a long time. When the law-abiding public see the police hounding people over comments, they have made which are perceived to cause offence, they rightly ask why they aren't they visible on their streets,instead of paying homage to woke nonsense.

Worse, migration has become a never-ending complaint by far too many. People are frustrated about the having to watch night after night pictures of the latest illegal asylum seekers crossing the channel. Remember we promised post Brexit to control migration but we didn't manage to. They watched the courts overturn the will of the government to re-locate illegal asylum seekers to Rwanda yet nothing they feel was done to change that. They shake their

heads as they watch asylum seekers being put up in houses and hotel rooms while their children struggle to rent or buy a house.

On their streets, they have been forced to put up with rampant anti-social behaviour. Street gangs dealing drugs making violent criminals out of young boys. Organised shop lifting, where thieves threaten staff and customers alike as they sweep thousands of pounds of goods from the shelves and the police aren't there and the courts let them off.

The other day, one of the shop owners in Chingford, was videotackling a shoplifter who had been stealing, thousands of pounds of goods. The shoplifter was let off with a small fine and has since been back on the streets. Anti -social behaviour is not a petty crime, it is a threat to our very way of life and should be treated as such.

The point is that people remember that too much of this happened on our watch.

Yes, it's got so much worse under Labour as they tax businesses, take winter fuel off pensioners and release prisoners back onto the streets.

Yet to deal with Reform as well as Labour, we have to re-acquire thatConservative hallmark of common-sense government puttinghard working people's needs first. We must take action to rid ourselves of ideology like the mad rush to Net Zero and cut peoplesspiralling energy costs.While we've made a start on grooming gangs and women's safe spaces,there remains much, much more to do.

As we commemorate VE day and that remarkable generation, who put country first, we need to do the same. If we want to restore our reputation as a party of government, then as we take the fight to Labour, we must, in everything we say or do, show people we are on their side whilst Labour is on their backs. Only then will they be prepared to trust us again.