The Conservatives have a mountain to climb if they are to win the General Election, Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride has said.
He told GB News: “What we're really determined to do in this election…is really to focus on the critical issues in this election.
“On the one hand, we are a party that has taken this country through some of its darkest hours when it came to Covid. That shrank the economy by 10 per cent overnight.
“Protecting jobs through furlough, which Rishi Sunak did as Chancellor at that time, to bring inflation down because of that war between Russia and Ukraine falling from over 11 per cent now back down to normal levels, 2.3 per cent, growing the economy.
“We've got the fastest growth now this quarter, equal fastest in the G7, ten consecutive months of growing real wages. These are the successes that we're bringing through now that we can capitalise on to give people a secure financial future.
“Now the Labour Party is the alternative and what we saw in this debate the other night was simply a leader in Keir Starmer, who has no plan, has no answers, wants to dwell on the past and how tough things have been in the past. We all know that but [he] has no plan for the future.
“And that's the simple choice that is now facing the British people.”
He added: “We appear to be around 20 per cent behind in the polls, but I think that [debate] showed was once people concentrate on the arguments and the points that I've just made, then things start to move more in our direction.
“But, look, I'm not in any way saying we don't have a mountain to climb, of course we do. We are some way behind.
“We have seen, incidentally, in general elections where people have been quite a long way behind - you'll remember 2017 when my party actually had a very substantial lead which sadly then got eroded very quickly as the election approached.
“I think far from everything being pre-determined, I think there is everything to fight for and that's why I and my colleagues are fighting for every single vote up and down the country.”
WATCH ABOVE.
