Kevin Hollinrake: We know which side we are on. We know who and what we fight for. You’ll see that next week

Kevin Hollinrake MP, is Chairman of the Conservative Party.

The last Conservative government made mistakes. I will be the first to hold my hands up to that.

But I will also say that we delivered Brexit, cut the deficit every year till the pandemic, reformed education to give the next generation the best start in life, got 4 million more people into work, created the conditions for 1.1 million more businesses to open, secured trade deals with 73 countries, cushioned the blow of Covid.

We faced crises, we made hard calls, and we never hid from the people.

Keir Starmer thought he could coast.

He thought he could offer no vision, no courage, no plan, and survive by saying only that he was not the Conservatives. That illusion has shattered. What Britain has received is scandal, sleaze, and collapse. Ministers resigning in disgrace, advisers walking away in disgust, an economy on the brink of crisis. The rot spreads through Downing Street and Starmer cannot control it.

Angela Rayner was Starmer’s deputy, his fixer, his enforcer. She built her career shouting about standards and ethics. But when it came to her own conduct, she thought the rules were for others. After relentless Parliamentary Questions, letters, and pressure, the truth emerged. Rayner had dodged £40,000 in stamp duty. Labour tried to bury it, she tried to bluff it, but the truth broke through. She cheated and she dodged, but more than that she betrayed the standards she made her name demanding of others.

That hypocrisy is what cuts deepest.

She was not alone. Their homelessness minister forced to resign after evicting tenants from her own property while legislating to ban evictions. A health minister, Andrew Gwynne, disgraced by racist and sexist abuse. An anti-corruption minister driven out under the cloud of family ties to corruption abroad. One by one they fall.

What makes these scandals so corrosive is the message it sends. If those in charge of housing, homelessness, and corruption treat their own offices as shields for private advantage, every policy is tainted by the suspicion that it was written not for the people it claims to serve, hollowing out faith that politics can ever be about service.

Since the election, Labour’s ranks have been collapsing in disgrace. Steph Driver, Starmer’s own head of communications, walked away last week. Matt Faulding, the supposed glue of the operation, heading for the door. And Paul Ovenden, Director of Strategy, forced out after appalling and degrading messages about Diane Abbott came to light. These are the people meant to hold the government together, to steer its message, to give it direction. When they go, the machine stops working, and with Starmer at the helm I don’t have a great deal of faith he can survive without them.

And while the faces fall, the shadows rise. Peter Mandelson. The godfather of Labour spin, twice disgraced, dragged back into public life by Keir Starmer. Kemi told the Prime Minister to sack him as Britain’s Ambassador to Washington. Starmer refused, said he had “confidence” in him. And now Mandelson has gone in disgrace. The disturbing connections between Mandelson and the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein resurfaced. His own words, calling Epstein his “best pal”. He was entirely unfit to represent Britain abroad. Yet Starmer chose to ignore it, placing Mandelson in the most sensitive diplomatic post we have, all at the urging of his Chief of Staff. And at the very moment Russia was probing NATO airspace and the West’s security was on the line, Britain’s Ambassador in Washington was consumed with clinging to his own political survival.

Anyone could see Mandelson’s position was untenable. Anyone but Starmer. Once again, his judgement failed. And while Mandelson may be gone, the questions remain. The Prime Minister’s judgement – or those around him – is in question.

Then there is Morgan McSweeney, the strategist Starmer cannot live without, caught in the scandal of £700,000 undeclared donations. Leaked letters, evasions, excuses collapsing by the day. Watchdogs circling, the stench growing stronger. Yet Starmer clings to him, because without McSweeney’s machine his flailing leadership crumbles. The whole thing makes you question who is really in charge.

People deserve better than stunts and sleaze. They deserve honesty, stability, leadership. Labour offers none. But I can assure you, the Conservative Party will continue relentlessly to expose it day after day, week after week.

And now Labour has gathered for their party conference. They will roll out the stage management, parade slogans, read lines off autocues while the house burns behind them. But the truth cannot be hidden under stage lights, as the resignations pile up, the scandals burn on. The divisions already cut deep. Andy Burnham takes the interviews Starmer should be giving. Talk of policy U-turns, whispers of leadership challenges, MPs already panicking that they will be one-termers. As Burnham circles, as ministers collapse, Labour are a government on borrowed time.

While the government collapses in on itself, Rachel Reeves is staring down a multi-billion-pound black hole in the public finances. They cannot get growth up, they cannot get inflation down, they cannot get unemployment under control. And as chaos engulfs Downing Street, record numbers of illegal crossings continue in the Channel. This matters because when ministers are consumed with their own survival, they are not fighting for British families. When Starmer is patching over scandals, he is not fixing the economy. When the Cabinet is at war with itself, Britain is left leaderless in the face of global threats. Labour’s scandals damage the country. Families face higher bills, higher taxes, ID cards no one asked for, endless gimmicks written for headlines not households.

Key to this moment is that a truth is cutting through, only the Conservatives will balance the books. Matthew Syed recently put it well, but he is not a lone voice. Across politics, business, and the media more voices are recognising the same thing. They recognise that Labour and Reform are both selling the same illusion. More spending, more giveaways, more fantasy.

The public can see it too, they know Britain is living on borrowed money. The promises of endless handouts results in debt our children will be forced to repay. Serious people, sensible people, are turning back to the Conservatives because they know we are the only party willing to speak honestly about the scale of the challenge and the hard choices that come with it.

There is a growing hunger for seriousness. For a government that levels with people about the bills on the table, that lives within its means, that understands prosperity cannot be built on overdrafts and press releases. That is the ground the Conservative Party stand on.

To be a Conservative is to believe in belonging to our family, to our neighbourhood, to our country. Society as a living inheritance we are bound to protect. That belief gives shape to our politics. Lower taxes as a recognition that people, not governments, know best how to shape their lives. Secure borders in preserving the trust and solidarity that make a nation possible. And stability in public life is not dull routine, but the condition that allows ordinary people to plan, build, and hope.

So, as Labour drowns in scandal, the Conservative Party meets for our own conference this coming weekend, and this year’s Conservative Party Conference is a real renewal of Britain. It is a reminder that politics is not just about the struggle for office but about the deeper question of what binds us together as a nation. Conservatism has always answered that question by pointing to the things we love and wish to preserve whether that’s our communities, our institutions, or our way of life.

But it is also about learning from the past and forging a new future.

We have done the hard work in opposition to hold this government to account. To hold them accountable for their disastrous policies, to call out their hypocrisy, and to highlight their sleaze and scandal. The results of those efforts speak for themselves.

But we have also spent our time doing the serious, real work to understand the fundamental problems our country faces – and unlike other parties like Reform who trot out press releases with no substance behind them – to develop credible plans and solutions. Conference is our chance to show this hard work, and these serious plans to the country.

So, conference is not only about exposing Labour’s failures. It is about setting out the path ahead and proving once again that the Conservative Party is the right choice for Britain. We know which side we are on. We know who and what we fight for.

And in the weeks and months ahead, we will take that fight into every town, every city, every community, standing up for the people of this country and standing firm for the future of our nation.