Grant Shapps: Tory manifesto was world's worst
2 min read
Theresa May lost her majority at the general election because she fought it on the “world’s worst manifesto," a Conservative former chairman has said.
Grant Shapps argued the campaign document which contained the so-called ‘dementia tax’ and vowed to end the triple lock on pensions was a “long list of punishments”.
The Welwyn Hatfield MP said if the party failed to learn the lessons from the dismal result it would “never win elections again”.
Mrs May cut her Commons showing by 13 seats at the election earlier this month - leaving her eight seats short of an outright majority.
Some have suggested the public had grown sick of austerity and were galvanised by the list of spending pledges offered by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
But Mr Shapps insisted it was the Tory manifesto pledges - including means testing winter fuel payments and holding a free vote on fox hunting - which swayed voters.
“It’s extraordinarily frustrating - I think we obviously had an unnecessary election and actually the world’s worst manifesto from the world’s oldest political party,” he told Radio 4’s Today programme.
He said it was a manifesto that “sort of unlearned all the lessons of the past”.
“We lost [the election] because we had a programme which simply didn’t stack up and was unpopular,” he continued.
“And if we fail to learn the right lesson from this election then we will find that we never win elections again.”
Asked about Mr Shapps’ damning assessment, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon told Sky News: “In retrospect of course the manifesto did not command the support that it could have...
“Of course we are going to listen and take on board the lessons of the election.”
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