‘She’s left the playing field!’ Shadow minister faces grilling over Kemi Badenoch as Starmer declares war on Farage

The Prime Minister will not be addressing his Tory counterpart, but instead Reform’s Nigel Farage will be in his crosshairs.

Stephen and co-host Ellie Costello put it to Hollinrake that Starmer’s focus on Reform shows the Conservatives are falling deeper into obscurity after poor local election results and an increasingly bleak picture in the polls.

“The Prime Minister reportedly told his MPs this week that the Tories are finished and Reform is the real opposition”, Ellie said.

“The polls are suggesting he might be right. We had a poll this week putting the Tories in fourth place, behind the Lib Dems.

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“We also had polling for GB News this week putting the Tories in third place.”

Hollinrake responded: “If you look at the local election results, which were not good for us, they were much worse for Labour.Please write at least 4 paragraphs

“That’s still a big problem for us, don’t get me wrong. That was a difficult night for us and the polls aren’t where we want them to be.

“But the polls are a measure of where we’ve been, not where we are going. We suffered a devastating defeat last July and we elected a new leader after a long process, Kemi Badenoch, who was very clear we wanted time to bring forward policies people could rely upon for us to deliver.

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“We had many successes over the last 14 years, there were some fundamental failures, particularly on immigration. We want to make sure we have policies that are deliverable, we’ve been very clear on that.

“I’m very excited about the policies I’ve got within my department on housing, home ownership, levelling up and community cohesion, all those things we’ve been working on I think people will like.

Nigel Farage says the Tories are FINISHED during keynote Reform speech - WATCH

“People will particularly like that these are proper, conservative policies. That’s because Kemi Badenoch is a proper conservative, and so am I.

“She’s also very courageous. When the policies come down the track, people will recognise our party has changed and it has learned from the past.”

Stephen responded: “it’s going to be too little, too late isn’t it? Whether you think Nigel Farage’s policies are fantasy or not, he is setting the national conversation, to which the Prime Minister is diving in.

“Kemi Badenoch, for whatever reason, has left the playing field. We’re not talking about the Conservatives because you’re not part of the national conversation and we don’t know what direction you’re going.”

Hollinrake insisted the Tory leader has not “left the playing field” and she is instead setting the foundations for future success.

He then accused Reform of “rushing out policies to grab headlines”, an approach he says would put the Tories in a bad spot long term.

“Would you like policies that are properly thought through and will make a real difference to people’s lives? That’s what people want”, he said.

“The major currency of politics is trust and we lost trust of the British people. Labour has lost the trust of the British people because they have been completely inept.

“We need to rebuild trust and you do that through proper consideration of your policies, proper formulation of those policies and saying, ‘we will deliver these policies’.”

In a speech later this morning, Starmer is expected to liken Farage to ex-PM Liz Truss and say mortgage costs will rise as a result of Reform’s policies.

It comes after Reform made big gains in the English local elections, solidifying its place as a major challenger to the traditional Tory-Labour orthodoxy in British politics.

A spokesperson for Reform called the PM’s comments a “desperate attack” from a party “behind in the polls”.

Speaking in the north-west of England, Starmer warned of Reform potentially sparking an economic meltdown.

"In opposition we said Liz Truss would crash the economy and leave you to pick up the bill," he is expected to say. "We were right. And we were elected to fix that mess.

"Now in government, we are once again fighting the same fantasy – this time from Nigel Farage.

"Farage is making the exact same bet Liz Truss did. That you can spend tens of billions on tax cuts without a proper way of paying for it. And just like Truss, he is using your family finances, your mortgage, your bills as a gambling chip on his mad experiment. The result will be the same."