THE Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has finally admitted that the Conservatives were not prepared for the snap general election - the one that they decided to call.
When the Tories called the snap general election earlier this year they were leading in the polls by double digits. By the time the campaign was over Theresa May had lost her majority in the House of Commons, ultimately relying on a deal with the DUP to keep her in power.
In an interview with House magazine, conducted by former Tory leader Michael Howard, May revealed where it went wrong, stating: “There weren’t the links with the centre that there should have been. That’s one of the issues we need to look at.”
She continued that the fact it was a snap election had an impact "because by definition in a snap election you’ve not been able to prepare people for it. So out there people have to work quite quickly to put their local campaigns together, and you do get slightly more of a central approach.
“We need to look at that very carefully, and to make sure we get the connection between what people want to do locally and the central campaign.”
Despite choosing to hold the snap election, May claims that the party did not have time to prepare, resulting in a very centralised campaign.
May also claimed that she had been unable to get across her plan for the country, though she did not address that this could be because of how stage-managed the campaign was and her refusal to do debates.
She said: ”When I came into Downing Street I stood on the steps and I set out my platform for the future. That didn’t come through in the election. The sense of a country that works for everyone, and the way that I wanted to take that forward. I think that was one issue.”
May also claims that young voters overwhelmingly supporting the Labour party contributed to the loss of Conservative seats. She claims that younger generations have forgotten “the importance of free markets, of sound management of the economy, of global trade”.
She continued: “As somebody who was heavily involved in the pre-1997 Conservative government, so much work was done to get that message across, of the importance of free markets, of sound management of the economy, of global trade. And sadly we do see that that message has been lost.
“I think in a sense we thought those arguments were done and dusted. That everybody understood it. That we didn’t have to go back to them. I think now we see we do have to go back to them.
“We’ve got to make that case all over again, because there is a generation who have grown up in a different environment and perhaps haven’t seen the problems that can occur when you don’t believe in free markets and sound management of the economy.”
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