We now have the opportunity to begin rebuilding and charting a new course with a new leader. Counting on Labour throwing away their own majority is not enough.

I would urge my colleagues to consider who among the candidates is most likely to lead us to victory in five years’ time.

To me, the answer is clear: Tom Tugendhat. By a considerable margin, Tom is the most popular candidate with the wider public. Tom can win and deliver us victory.

Having lost two-thirds of our Parliamentary seats and hundreds of councillors up and down the country this year, it is time for dispassionate analysis of the reasons so many voters left us or simply stayed at home and to understand the scale of change that will be required to turn the situation around. I fully believe this is possible, but only under decisive, compassionate leadership.

The problem is not that our Conservative offer has been dry or boring or that we have not believed enough in our own ideology.

The problem is that successive governments made promises, but we did not deliver and much of the necessary debate about how we address the big issues of the day was played out in a public psychodrama.

Polling before and throughout the General Election consistently showed that voters like Conservative policies, but did not trust us to deliver on them.

If we are to return to government in five years’ time, if we are to perform well in the Holyrood and Senedd, mayoral and council elections in the meantime, we must remain ruthlessly focussed on re-establishing credibility and our reputation as responsible stewards of government.

Tom is a good and honest man who acts with integrity, which are the qualities which should be most highly prized in a potential leader, given the deficit of trust we currently have with the public.

Tom has dedicated his adult life to public service, in the Commons and in the Army. I have been consistently impressed by his work to keep the United Kingdom together, free, and prosperous.

He is more than qualified to hold Sir Keir Starmer to account, reinvigorate Conservative values and lead us to victory in the next General Election.

As a newly elected Member of Parliament, I am excited by Tom’s vision and optimism for the party and the country.

We will not be able to move forward if we continue relitigating the battles of recent years or if we remain inside the ‘Westminster bubble’.

We must move forward: the alternative is a decade on the political fringes from which we will be powerless to stop Labour inflicting onto the country so much more of the pain we have already witnessed in their short time in office.

I am very proud to endorse Tom as the leader who will take our party forward and provide the people of the United Kingdom with the competent and bold vision for our future they are crying out for.

Sarah Bool is the Conservative MP for South Northamptonshire

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Keir Starmer gives the game away in huge way with freebies decision

After weeks of insisting he’d done nothing wrong by accepting £107,000 worth of freebies – more than two-and-a-half times more than any other MP – Keir Starmer says he’s decided to pay back £6,000 “to restore trust in politics” and because “it’s the right thing to do”. If this bloke was any dumber he’d be inert.

Is he really so dense he doesn’t get that its people like him and his cabinet liggers who’ve helped destroy our trust in politics by being so damn greedy.

Keir Starmer has agreed to pay back some freebies (Image: PA)

As for “doing the right thing”, Starmer wouldn’t know the right thing if it smacked him in the face. Because if it’s right to pay back (some) of the freebies he’s trousered why wasn’t it right a few weeks ago? Why keep saying: “I’ve done nothing wrong” and then say he’ll pay some of it back – a clear admission that what he did WAS wrong.

And if paying back is the right thing to do why not pay the whole lot back not just a piddling £6,000? Because that’s just five per cent of everything he’s trousered in gifts, hospitality, and benefits since 2019.

And if it’s “right”, why isn’t telling all the ministers and MP’s who’ve also been at it – Angela Rayner, David Lammy, Wes Streeting, Brigit Phillipson, Lucy Powell etc – to cough up, too?

No. 10 insiders say he’s leaving it to his top team to decide what they do.

Why? He’s the boss for God’s sake. And if he thinks taking freebies is wrong – he needs to tell them they must repay what they’ve taken. And if they refuse he should sack them and remove them from the temptation to milk the job for personal gain. Because political power cannot be used to feather the nests and enhance the bank accounts of the politicians who rule over us.

But, no, he’s actually told them they can carry on bagging gifts and hospitality – a kamikaze decision because the media will just keep on exposing them and embarrassing his government. Maybe Starmer’s hoping their consciences will force them to do the right thing in which case he really IS certifiable. Rayner and Co have waited too long to get their greedy snouts into the trough and they’re not going to be giving up the perks of power any time soon – even if Starmer does change the rules to make gifts and hospitality more transparent.

Because the fact is those people who cheated with the old rules will find a way to cheat the new ones. And next time Rayner gets caught, she’ll just trot the same tired old tosh about being working class (like that entitles her to be greedy) not understanding that the working classes despise her kind of greed.

What this freebies row has made crystal clear is that we’re being ruled by a bunch of disingenuous, opportunist shysters who will only be transparent when their backs are against the wall. They will deny, deny, deny until the immorality of whatever it is they’ve done is indisputable. That is the essence of this Labour government.

Have you heard one of them say sorry? Nope, all they’ve done is tried to justify why their kids should get free Taylor Swift tickets while other hard working families have to pay for them. These chancers aren’t in politics for the British people, they’re in it for themselves.