Conservative MPs are going to make life for Prime Minister Liz Truss as difficult as their Labour counterparts did for Jeremy Corbyn when he was their leader, political columnist and broadcaster Ayesha Hazarika told the region’s business leaders last night.
Speaking at the South West CBI’s annual dinner, she predicted the political waters would get even choppier over coming months as the Tory Party descended into factional fighting.
Ayesha, a stand-up comic turned Westminster commentator, said different groups were now jostling for position in the party following the economic fallout from Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget and the disastrous party conference.
One group was defending Liz Truss, another was looking to re-instate former PM Boris Johnson in 10 Downing Street while yet another was reaching out to former Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.
“Liz Truss makes you look back fondly to Theresa May,” she joked. “[Tory MPs] are going to make life very difficult for her in the same way it was for Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. At the conference everybody was talking about Boris.”
She said next May’s local elections could provide a flash point for a move against Ms Truss if the Conservatives – who have been trailing Labour in recent opinion polls by as much as 33 points – did badly.
She said there was also a view in the party that rather than have another leadership contest, a senior figure could be appointed to the role as a stabilising figure.
“Could that be Boris? Or will they be ready for Rishi?” she said.
Having attended the party conferences for many years, she also said the difference between the recent Labour and Conservative gatherings was huge.
“The Labour conference was always like an episode of EastEnders,” she said.
“It was like ‘Leave her Jeremy. She’s not worth it’. People were fighting in the bars.
“It wasn’t like that this time. It was eerily calm. The Tory conference this year was more like Apocalypse Now!”
Despite Labour’s commanding lead in the polls, Ayesha – who worked for senior figures in the party including Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband – pointed out to the 300 senior business figures at the event that Labour was starting from a low base.
“Even if Keir Starmer gets the same swing as Tony Blair did in 1997 he will still only have a working majority of one,” she said.
“And don’t ever underestimate Labour’s ability to lose elections.”
The dinner, at the Bristol City Centre Marriott Hotel, was the first staged for three years due to the pandemic.
