Tories dreadful local election results means MPs must answer one big question

The results of the local elections were very bad for the Conservatives, with the biggest loss of all the elections, the defeat of Andy Street. Andy had been a brilliant Mayor, which even his Labour opponent had to acknowledge.

But as Professor Michael Thresher, Sky News elections analyst and others have pointed out, that bad as it was for the Conservatives, this was by no means a sufficient endorsement for Labour - after all, by this stage in the run to 1997, Blair was much, much further ahead.

The point to take away, is that there are still a huge number of Conservative voters angry with the Conservatives yet still unpersuaded by Labour and Starmer. Most of those previous conservative voters chose not to vote, or to vote in protest, deeply angry and unhappy with what they see as our failure to deliver.

In the few months we have left, to persuade those voters to support the Conservatives again we should listen to Andy Street, "They want confidence in their politicians to deliver. That is the message…"

Delivery it must be. Rishi Sunak now has to deliver on the pledge to stop the boats. The Rwanda deterrence policy can work, just watch illegal migrants fleeing to Ireland, fearful of Rwanda. Those flights need to take off regularly for Rwanda, finally acting as that deterrent.

We should also limit the large numbers of legal migrants coming into the UK. Most are unskilled. As one very successful European Businessman said to me, “The UK is the cheap labour capital of Europe, because too many of your business leaders are short term and don’t invest long term in technology and a highly skilled workforce increasing productivity.” That has to end.

Rishi must also show that we have delivered on the economy. Taxes need to come down further and the Bank must cut interest rates. People need to feel the economic benefits of a low tax economy after so much pain.

We still have far too much European regulation stifling our financial services markets and industry. As recommended in the TIGRR report we need to act boldly to free up our entrepreneurs.

We face a huge and growing threat from those countries fomenting extremism in the UK. At the head of that is Iran, undermining our culture of tolerance and free speech. More must be done to stop this, let’s start by proscribing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, making it illegal to deal with them in the UK. We must confront those who wish us harm.

Despite the bad results it is not over yet. We must clear the decks and recognise that in the next few months nothing else matters but delivering on the public’s priorities.

The only question that matters is are we Conservatives up for the fight?