Latest updates: Oliver Dowden’s comments come as the IFS says tax rises are the ‘new normal’ for governments amid ongoing spending pressures
- Patel’s plans to process asylum seekers abroad facing Tory rebellion
- Ofcom revokes UK broadcasting licence of Kremlin-backed RT TV channel
- Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
Oliver Dowden also used his Telegraph interview to say that he wants more people from working-class parts of the country to stand as Conservative candidates.
He also wants would-be candidates to be subject to “political conviction” tests, the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope reports. Hope says candidates will have to pass four tests covering “sound Conservative disposition, good judgement, integrity and life experience”.
Thatcher, hard work, aspiration, getting on with life. I’ve never believed the Conservative party stood for knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Equally important to conservatism is the ‘c’ in conservatism preserving the things that we cherish.
If they’re saying that somebody who was born in Ukraine or born in Russia but is now a British citizen and utterly despises what Putin is doing to Ukraine is somehow precluded from participating in our national life because of their nationality at birth.
Would they say that about somebody that was born in India? Would they say that about somebody that was born in Pakistan? Labour needs to think carefully about that.
