THE head of Theresa May’s policy forum has warned her the Tories risk being seen as “a narrow party of nostalgia, hard Brexit, public sector austerity and lazy privilege”.
In a letter in September, obtained by The House magazine, Tory MP George Freeman warned Mrs May she needed to “move fast” to show she had learned from the snap election which cost her party their majority in June.
In his letter, the Mid-Norfolk MP wrote: “We are now in a new battle of ideas which is reshaping 21st century politics.
“We need to move fast to show that the Conservative Party has learnt the lessons of the last election and is serious about intellectual, organisational and cultural renewal.
“If we allow ourselves to be defined as a narrow party of nostalgia, hard Brexit, public sector austerity and lazy privilege we risk alienating ourselves from a new generation of voters.”
Mr Freeman, who was life sciences minister under David Cameron, lost his cabinet post when Mrs May came to power.
Asked whether Mrs May shared his concern about how the Tories might be seen, a spokesman said: “No. The Government has a broad and ambitious programme domestically and internationally, delivering on important issues.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here