PRITI Patel launched her tilt for Tory leader today by hammering “feeble” Sir Keir Starmer for stripping No10 of a portrait of Margaret Thatcher.
The former Home Secretary also blasted Labour for removing pensioners’ Winter Fuel Payments and distanced herself from her previous support for hanging.
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She also attacked Sir Keir’s plan to ban smoking outside, hitting out: “In my view we need the police on the streets, not in beer gardens.”
Standing in front of a giant picture of herself, the leadership contender delighted true blue activists at a speech near Westminster by teasing the Prime Minister over reports he has removed an oil painting of the former Conservative PM from the state rooms of 10 Downing Street.
She quipped: “If Keir Starmer is looking for a picture to replace Thatcher, he can have this one”, insisting she would be the next “strong female Conservative Prime Minister.”
Dame Priti was also forced to defend her record on migration – after two years in the Home Office that saw rates of legal migration rocket and the small boats crisis explode.
On legal migration she argued it was right for the UK to throw open its borders for Ukrainians fleeting Putin’s bombs and Hong Kongers escaping a clampdown from Communist China.
Despite oveseeing record rates of arrivals, Dame Priti said: “Let me just put some context to everybody here and at home.
“Are we now saying that those NHS workers that came here during the pandemic were not welcome and that we should be sending them back?
“Are we saying we were insincere to the people that came from Hong Kong, the BNOs (British National (Overseas) visa scheme participants), and the Ukrainians when war in Europe took place?
“It is too simple, far too lazy to just speak about numbers without that context.”
On illegal migration, she added: “The sad thing is, we will never know now whether that Rwanda policy will work, because the Government has just torn it up.”
And in a punchy broadside against Sir Keir Starmer, she said the PM’s No 10 speech earlier this week as “one of the most feeble, pitiful and dishonest speeches you will ever hear”.
“Earlier this week, we had the spectacle of a Labour Prime Minister standing in the Rose Garden of Downing Street, delivering one of the most feeble, pitiful and dishonest speeches you will ever hear,” she added.
“He was feeble in his claim to say that he was tough with the trade unions in pay negotiations.
“That was after he immediately rolled over to appease his paymasters at the expense of the British taxpayer.
“He was pitiful to claim that he is locking up criminals after spending years in Parliament voting against tougher prison sentences for violent criminals and sex offenders, and campaigning to block the deportation of dangerous foreign national offenders.
“He was completely dishonest with his complaints and his claims about the British economy that he has inherited, which were clearly made to justify his nasty financial assault on the very people who deserve dignity in their retirement.”
She added: “All we have seen over the last 56 days is a Labour Government of self-service, politics without principle.”
Insisting the Tory party had stopped listening to voters, she vowed to return Conservatives to their “winning ways.”
“The Conservative and Unionist Party is the greatest political party in the world, and I’m proud to stand here today for its leadership.
“Under my leadership, I will bring our party experience and strength, and I will get us back to winning ways.”
She added: “I have heard loud and clear what the British people have had to say, and while we will reflect and learn on the lessons, under my leadership our party will be firmly focused on the future.
“So today, eight weeks on, our attitude will change, and we will draw a line in the sand because it’s time to move on and move forward.
“I’m an optimist with clear goals, and I will revive our party so that we can provide the leadership that our great country needs, because conservativism has not failed.
“Our values and our principles remain as true as ever, and they are still shared by the majority of the public.
“We are a patriotic party, a national party who believes in the union and the matters which concern hard-working people every single day.
“And I will lead us from opposition to government, so that we can serve the British people again and give them back the freedoms and the dignity that Labour will take away from them.
“And to do that, we will work with one team, with one voice, and with a meritocratic team built on our collective skills and experience.”
