Andrew Griffith: The economy is terrain the Conservatives can win on

Andrew Griffith MP is Shadow Secretary of State for Business & Trade and Conservative MP for Arundel & South Downs.

The Labour Party is not lucky with their selection of Chancellors.

The last occupant of Number 11 to have to resign for leaking a budget was a Labour chancellor, Hugh Dalton.

Amidst the chaos of the last weeks nonsensical briefings and then denials it is worth recalling his crime: to make a mere off-the-cuff remark to a journalist on budget day itself as he walked into the chamber.

Given the current propensity for newspapers to shamelessly accept industrial quantities of kites flown by treasury spinners weeks in advance of budget day, perhaps a posthumous pardon for Hugh Dalton might be in order.

His biographer Ben Pimlott characterised him as irascible, given to poor judgment and lacking administrative talent. How lucky that history doesn’t repeat itself!

Whilst the Westminster bubble can be forgiven for another week of forward-looking speculation about the Budget, the actual instrument dials of the economy right now are looking pretty sick.

Remember Keir Starmer’s invocation that “growth is the defining mission of my government”? Echoed ad nauseum like a speak-your-weight machine by Rachel Reeves. Well, that’s not going well. Last week we learned that GDP growth in September fell once again to 0.1 per cent.

We also learned from the ONS data that over the last year 180,000 people have lost their jobs. That’s more than the capacity of Twickenham and Wembley stadium combined. And it’s getting worse with jobs now disappearing at the rate of 1,000 per day. The rate of unemployment has reached five per cent having been falling when Labour came to office, and it has gone up practically every month since. No coincidence.

And finally, data on business confidence and manufacturing production remained firmly in negative territory. If market confidence in the current team was all that was keeping Starmer in Downing Street, let’s just say that after Friday’s closing gilt prices and the FTSE100 index falling, Wes Streeting might be placing a large curtain order soon.

Whilst Labour twist and turn, there is the clearest of clear blue water between the government and the Conservative alternative than there has been for more than a generation.

Unlike Labour’s vicious infighting, we are a collaborative team, working in concert to deliver a stronger economy: Helen Whately laying out billions of savings in welfare spending, Claire Coutinho’s plan for cheaper energy and Mel Stride last week rightly tearing up woke diversity rules in the financial sector.

Businessmen and women who gave up on previous Conservative governments and even many who supported Labour in 2024 are now keen to hear more or are already firmly back in our camp.

Under new management – and willing to acknowledge errors made when previous leaders strayed from true conservative principles – Kemi and I face record demand to speak to business events for an opposition this early in any parliament.

Upcoming budget tax rises aside, if there is one measure that epitomises the gulf between government and opposition, it is the governments ‘Bill for Unemployment’ which consists of 330 close-typed pages of back to the 1970’s style legislation.

More and longer strikes, a union ‘right to roam’ in private businesses, a charter for vexatious and expensive claims to the employment tribunal and a recipe to destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, it will be immensely damaging to the economy. More than 700,000 people aged 16 to 24 are unemployed today and this Bill virtually guarantees a ‘Generation Jobless’ where every household will know a child, niece, nephew or grandchild unable to find work.

The Bill is back in the House of Lords today and rather than accept moderate compromises with crossbench support, Labour is using their ‘Commons majority as a battering ram to force it through in the face of opposition from every business group, the Tony Blair Institute and even that ‘finishing school for lefties: the Resolution Foundation. Others will judge how other parties acquit themselves on their claimed support for business, but on the detailed opposition to this enormous Bill it is Conservative MPs and peers who have been doing the heavy lifting.

I believe that the defining issue of the next general election will be the economy.

This should be the terrain of our choosing and on which we can win.  We understand why people get up in the morning to put their time, energy and capital on the line – taking risk to create growth for the economy and wealth and greater self-reliance from the state for themselves and their families.

With a frontbench with strong business experience, under new management, and with candidates who have themselves been entrepeneurs or in business, we are building the policies and plans to help us win.