Tory MPs losing their nerve because of dire polls, says Jeremy Hunt

Tory MPs are “losing their nerve” because of the party’s poor polling, the Chancellor has said.

Jeremy Hunt told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme the Conservatives were becoming divided because of Labour’s consistent poll lead.

On Thursday, Ben Houchen, the Tory mayor of Tees Valley, warned that “the public do not vote for parties who are not united”.

Asked how confidence he is about retaining his seat at the next election, Mr Hunt said: “My seat is a marginal seat and I will fight it very hard and put everything I can into winning it.

“But let me just say, in terms of Ben Houchen, what he said was divided parties don’t win elections and we need to pull together as a Conservative Party.

“I think that when you see we are behind in the polls, unfortunately some colleagues do lose their nerve. But the vast majority of parliamentary colleagues understand a very simple truth, which is that people vote for Conservative governments because they trust us to take tough and difficult decisions in the long term interests of the economy. They can see that we have done that.”

The Conservatives suffered bruising local and mayoral election results last week, with Lord Houchen’s re-election a rare bright spot.

On Wednesday, the party was rocked by Natalie Elphicke’s shock defection to Labour, with the MP for Dover having previously been a prominent voice on the Tory Right.

Labour has enjoyed a clear lead in the polls since December 2021, when revelations began to emerge about rule-breaking parties in Downing Street during the pandemic.

A YouGov poll released on Thursday – the first since the local and mayoral elections last week – found that Labour had a 30-point lead over the Tories. The 18 per cent figure for Rishi Sunak’s party in the poll was the lowest of his premiership to date.

The Prime Minister has previously dismissed the significance of poor polling, saying in February: “The only one that matters is the one when the general election comes.”