We Tories were battered in local elections - here's what we must do no

I fully expected the results would be bad as they were coming off a very high base of success where we made inroads into councils we had not had electoral success in before, yet they were even worse. For Conservative councillors who have worked hard to defend their seats, the fact that Labour had a bad night as well will not placate their sadness and anger at the result. Kemi was right on behalf of the party to apologise for this result, because if we are honest, it was the failure and behaviour of previous Conservative governments that led to this mangling of our position in local government.

For those unnamed Conservative voices who have started to blame for this wipe-out, I shake my head and wonder what they took from this election. If it was that after only six months in post and after the worst election we have suffered last year, leaving us with only 121 MP's, Kemi is to blame, then they have clearly learned nothing. This result was the second tremor after the first quake.

It underscored the level of anger too many Conservative voters still had for the mistakes and failures of the last Conservative government and they haven't forgiven or forgotten.

The everyday experience of too many is that their quality of life has suffered and that they haven't been listened to for a long time. When the law-abiding public see the police chasing people over comments they have made which are perceived to cause offence, they ask why they don't see them on their streets - woke nonsense infecting everything.

Migration has become a never-ending complaint by far too many. People are frustrated about having to watch night after night pictures of the latest illegal asylum seekers crossing the channel.

We promised post Brexit to control migration but we didn't manage to. They watched the courts overturn the will of the government to relocate illegal asylum seekers to yet nothing they felt was done to change that. They shake their heads as they watch asylum seekers being put up in houses and hotel rooms while their children struggle to buy a house.

On their streets, they have been forced to put up with rampant anti-social behaviour. Street gangs dealing drugs making violent criminals out of young boys. Organised shoplifting, where thieves threaten staff and customers alike as they sweep thousands of pounds of goods from the shelves and the police aren't there.

If they are arrested, the courts let them off and they are back on the street's hours later. The other day, one of the shop owners in Chingford was video tackling a shoplifter who had been stealing thousands of pounds of goods.

The shoplifter was let off with a small fine and has since been back on the streets. Anti-social behaviour is not a petty crime, it is a threat to our very way of life

People remember that too much of this happened whilst we were in power. Yes, it's got so much worse under Labour, which is why they did so badly too.

Yet the challenge for Conservatives is to recognise we have a long hard road to seize back that hallmark of common-sense government that puts hard working people's needs first.

This means ridding ourselves of ideology like the mad rush to Net Zero regardless of the spiralling energy costs so we can reduce their bills. As we commemorate VE day and that remarkable generation, who put country first, we need to do the same.

If we want to restore our reputation as a party of government, then as we take the fight to Labour we must, in everything we say or do, show people we are on their side whilst Labour is on their backs. Only then will they be prepared to trust us again.