Letwin predicts “good chance” of general election victory
Senior frontbencher Oliver Letwin today maintained that the Conservatives have a “good chance” of winning the next general election.
The Shadow Chancellor firmly rejected suggestions that the party is resigned to defeat, and described Michael Howard as the “best leader” the Conservatives could have.
Mr Letwin faced uncomfortable questions about the strength of the Party during a press briefing at which he attempted to “explode myths” about Gordon Brown’s planned civil service job cuts.
Mr Howard’s leadership has been questioned after the Conservatives came in third in the recent by-elections, and he has also been criticised on his handling of the Butler Report. At the weekend the Conservative Party’s co-chairman, Dr Liam Fox, admitted that Michael Howard’s assertion that he would not vote for military action in Iraq knowing about intelligence failures made things “tactically difficult”.
The party leader was accused of political opportunism by the Government and Liberal Democrats, and of trying to jump on the anti-war bandwagon.
A Populus poll for the News of the World at the weekend said that the Conservatives are tied on 28 per cent of the vote with the Liberal Democrats, and indicated that Tony Blair is considered to have done well in the traditionally Tory strengths of law and order and the economy.
When asked if the Conservatives had accepted that they had lost the next general election and were now concentrating on redesigning the party, Mr Letwin said: “I absolutely accept nothing of the sort.”
Arguing that he had some “street cred” on the subject, given his previous candid comments on the Conservatives Party’s chances in elections, the Shadow Chancellor observed that the political climate was “more uncertain, more open than at any time of the recent past”.
He went so far as to say that he was confident they have a “good chance of winning the next election”.
In fact, Mr Letwin argued that the Conservatives “have to win the next election” in order to slim down a Government that is becoming increasingly expensive.
“We need a government that is slimmer and more effective”, he said.
When asked why, if the party was in such good shape, some of his colleagues were questioning Mr Howard’s leadership, Mr Letwin maintained that “nobody in the Conservative Party is in the slightest doubt that we have the best leader”.
He stated that Mr Howard would “lead us in the next general election and to success”.
