Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch spoke directly to GB News viewers today, as she promised “Britain is not broken it just needs change”.
Olivia Utley asked Mrs Badenoch today: “The emails and comments we get from GB News viewers, they say that from where they’re sitting, with high crime, uncontrolled immigration, and an NHS that doesn’t work, Britain looks broken. Are they wrong?”
Mrs Badenoch responded: “Britain is not broken beyond repair. But there are a lot of things that aren’t working.
“We have a plan to fix them, but what we’re not doing is just pointing out, “Oh, this is broken, that’s broken.” A lot of the people pointing that out don’t have plans to fix it.
“Some of them were even the ones who broke things in the first place and have now run away, pretending it had nothing to do with them.
“The people in my party, the people who want to fix these things, under my leadership, and guided by Conservative principles and values, we are getting there. That’s why we’ve been able to announce a lot of great policies that I know your viewers will love.
“Leaving the ECHR, controlling our borders, scrapping business rates on the high street, who’s out there fighting for jobs?
“Who’s out there fighting for farmers? Who’s out there fighting for veterans?
“It’s Conservatives, day in and day out. Meanwhile, all the other people are spending their time on telly talking about everything that’s wrong.
“They’re not actually doing the work that’s going to fix the problem.”
Mrs Badenoch also addressed the defection of Suella Braverman to Reform UK earlier this week.
The Conservatives released a statement after the news broke, which they later retracted, that that included the line: “The Conservatives did all we could to look after Suella’s mental health, but she was clearly very unhappy.”
Addressing this Mrs Badenoch told GB News: “It was a mistake that was sent out in error. It should not have been said at all. As soon as I found out, I had it retracted, and the person who sent it out has been spoken to.
“These are not the sort of things that represent the values of my party, and changing the culture of the party is something that we are actively doing.
“Occasionally, people will get things wrong, but I want people to see that when we do something wrong, we acknowledge it, we say sorry, and we try to fix it.
“Keir Starmer, by contrast, doesn’t think he does anything wrong.”