Young Conservative gives their views on the Birmingham Hustings

Harvey Whitby, Young Conservative and former Local Election Candidate tells us what he thinks of the Conservative leadership race

Harvey Whitby

As a young Conservative, like most up and down the country, I had initially gone into the hustings supporting Liz Truss. To me she seemed to be the most competent, most trustworthy and most importantly of all, the most likely to win any future election against a Labour party headed by Sir Kier Starmer. 

From the get-go, the crowd at the hustings followed what the polls had shown – a big Liz lead - the entrance to the NEC was bustling with eager Liz truss supporters waving t-shirts and placards at those arriving and directing everyone to a planned photo op with Liz inside, whilst the few Rishi supporters looked solemnly offering what little t-shirts they could get people to take.

Once everyone was inside, the chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, introduced Liz to the stage and from the get go Liz looked very tired, uninspired and robotic in her points, she seemed far to eager to jump to political buzzwords such as “political correctness” and “wokeness” whilst seeming to have very vague points on the crucial issues of the day such as how best to deal with inflation and the rising costs of fuel this winter, with her plan to scrap the national insurance rise which wouldn’t really have that much of an impact on the average person, of who income tax is the biggest blow.

Next came Rishi’s turn and he thundered onto the stage after a mission impossible style campaign video, with what seemed to be one of the biggest cheers of the night, much to my surprise.

 Rishi got stuck right into his plans with heaps more energy than Truss, highlighting his plans to spread opportunity to all with a “world class education”, to level up, get to grip with illegal migration and most importantly his plan on how to deal with the economy, without jumping straight to tax cuts and borrowing.

Later, in the Q&A segment came the most awkward moment of the night, a member of the audience asked Rishi a very emotional question on HS2 which was met with initial sputters of laughter at it being such a touchy subject, including from Rishi himself,  however, the mood quickly changed upon hearing that there had been multiple “compulsory purchase orders” of which the residents hadn’t been paid and were forced to leave their homes. I was very impressed to see how moments later, members of Rishi’s team had gone over to her and took her contact deals, after Rishi had personally offered to help sort out their situation.

Image Credit: Eastern Eye

After the hustings had wrapped I found myself in quite a bizarre place, I had gone into the hustings being dead set on wanting Liz Truss to become the next prime minister, going as far as voting for her upon receiving my ballot, however after seeing how both her and Rishi performed in the hustings on Tuesday I was surprised by how much Rishi had swung me in favour of him and by the large amount of support for Rishi in the audience, which lead me to ponder, could Rishi have the all-powerful “silent majority” in his favour and could we see a potential upset for Liz in the final result come September 5th? Only time will tell.

By Harvey Whitby