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it was Simon of course who back in January warned that under Rishi sunak the Tores were heading for a catastrophic smashing defeat and when he was criticized he replied that nobody likes the man who points out the iceberg ahead well I put it to him the iceberg got them all in the end I look back on that article in January and I think in Broad terms what I argued then sadly turned out to be true I take absolutely no pleasure in that I'm a victim of it myself and I obviously very consciously impact all this on my team and on my constituency supported me uh and on The Wider conservative cause which I love very deeply but uh we are now where we are I think in some ways what matters less now is the personalities of what happened over the last couple of years uh the underlying issues on the other hand matter very much and I think uh we're going to have to as a party do some very deep thinking to respond to this and I really want to come on to the underlying issues in a moment but I can't let this opportunity pass without asking you what you candidly and genuinely thought about the campaign the conservative party fought I think it was a uh a pretty good disaster and uh the the the causes of that were complex right and and not all of those by any means sit with uh rushy sunak and and the people in in number 10 around him I you know now that this is all over I think I can say what I I honestly feel which is that uh he is a very good man and a very talented administrator but he's not a natural campaigning politician it's not very good at the politics bit I think so and I say that with genuinely no ill will I'm at peace with what happened and I am the first to recognize that I and others also carry responsibility for some of what happened over the last few years and I'm not in any way putting myself on a pedestal here of sort of aristotlean wisdom uh that I got everything right because I didn't uh the campaign failed to connect with the public I think in truth we failed to make make a positive offer to voters some of the issues that we talked about were at best marginal and clearly we were hampered and I saw this on the ground myself just by the Colossal imbalance in financial Firepower that was deployed so in a seat like mine labor were putting out National spend products at a rate of five or six to one what we were able to put out and what about the timing of the election I didn't argue against uh a a de election I I I I I I read the the reasoning behind the decision to go in July very much as being connected to Small Boat Crossings and a fundamental lack of confidence that the Rwanda plan would in fact uh work and that was one of the reasons why I and others had argued earlier this year that we should do more to disapply the ECR uh in connection with the Rwanda scheme so as to make it more certain rather than less that we would get those flights off I read it and as I say I have no inside knowledge that uh the government wanted to go before the plan was tested before uh had didn't work in case it didn't work that that I think must have been at least part of the rationale and what are the things you said things did not connect with the public or at least marginal to what the public were thinking what were you thinking of I think I mean a classic example was that our first policy announcement was national service which was out of a clear blue sky uh wasn't something which anyone had ever spoken to me about on on the doorstep uh didn't sit well with me and I know a number of conservatives who believe in individual Freedom uh and just felt like we were talking past the public rather than to them and whilst I completely accept lots of people want Civic engagement to be a theme of our national conversation I don't think that was what I would have led into the campaign uh with and you know we didn't have compelling answers on the Public Services or on house building or on lots of the things which I think think really matter and whilst I don't think labor in any way set out a compelling perspectus I mean they their mvar strategy continued to the very end uh given where we were at the start of the campaign we had to make up the ground and it was incumbent on us I think to do more you mentioned labor there I listened to Rachel Reeves the new Chancellor of the exer today and I find it quite an eerie experience in some respects she was talking about growth growth growth growth being the absolute primary focus of the government about the need for house building about need for unblocking about the need for building onshore wind farms and all the rest and I thought I've heard this stuff before this sounds a bit Liz trust this sounds a bit Simon Clark well I have to say I had a slight Out of Body Experience today because whilst clearly there are massive differences between how the chancellor approaches these questions and how I would uh I also think that some of what she said in her speech today was right and important and I've been a strong advocate for growth I think that that fundamental Insight of uh what Liz talked about was absolutely right if if even if the execution was wrong and I think when it comes to these questions there are now really important issues for the conservative party to face up to here house prices are now at their most expensive relative to earnings since 1876 they're about nine times average earnings now in the 1990s that was about four times so there has been a massive problem with our house building industry a lack of frankly the ability uh to produce sufficient land Supply if we resist what the government is setting out here I worry it's going to put us in a very bad place with the voters because actually we do need to sort this are you saying that part of what Rachel Reeves said today is a speech you could have given it is and uh I'm sure she wouldn't be particularly happy to hear me say that and uh it doesn't sit particularly comfortably with me but look I I I do think that as we move forward through this Parliament we're going to have to recognize that whilst we got lots of things right as a government over the last 14 years and I would defend education and welfare reform and honoring brexit to the to the last ditch I do think we got house building badly wrong and I look at some of the by-election campaigns that we fought in mid bedfordshire or Selby over the last year which were almost explicitly on a nimi ticket and in a country where if you look at the breakdown of who voted for who younger voters and indeed middle-aged voters completely deserted the conservative party not to have an answer to s house prices and rent must be a factor in why we've done so badly and actually done badly in areas which have traditionally been very strong for us in the South let's turn to the Future because you've mentioned uh Nigel farage and reform and you've mentioned brexit in terms of where the Tory party goes next is it not the case that you first of all have to decide whether you want to uh oppose and fight nigal farage or Embrace Nigel farage I think we have to address the issues that farage is talking about and uh you know I it's not really for me to determine now who should or shouldn't be in the conservative party uh but I do think that immigration was an enormous issue on the doorsteps in my constituency and the widespread perception that even if I was tough enough on the subject my party wasn't was really uh an hour by hour not just a day byday exp experience so I think we have to address it I think we do need clearer answers in particular on uh actually legal migration as much as on illegal Mig ation because clearly the one although it's much smaller distorts the other uh and I think that we we are going to have to to tackle this I I've read some colleagues saying that the countries move to the left and we should follow them I completely disagree with that the party the party actually needs to reflect the mood of the country which on immigration is certainly on the center ride and could you see Nigel farage coming back into the conservative family I could I mean I think that is a complex question uh because he has also attacked that uh conservative family and it doesn't sit particularly well with me that someone who's talked about destroying us uh should be part of part of that but equally do we need in some way to reunify the center ride yes if you look at what happened in this election it's effectively the inverse of 1983 where labor and the sdp split uh the center left and allowed Mrs Thatcher an enormous majority uh we now find ourselves on the other other side of that and there is no way forward for the conservative party that doesn't satisfactorily address the the legitimate concerns of millions of center right voters that we simply weren't credible on public service reform on the economy on tax and on immigration and that needs to be laid alongside the existing challenges I've already mentioned around house building and I think the environment because I think one of the least sensible things that Rie sunak did as leader was to put us into a position where we were making out that the green transition is a bad thing for Britain and a bad thing for the economy on tside we are demonstrating week in and week out that is not the case and actually all the jobs uh in my part of the world are in those green technologies and onore wind certainly uh and will now happily be one of them I suspect you know what I'm going to ask you next you don't have a vote in the leadership campaign as an MP anymore but you have a vote possibly as a local member when that moment comes is there a candidate at the moment that you think yes that looks like person for me well we haven't got the Full Slate of candidates and I think uh it's very important that we don't rush this election but we do need someone who I think has thoughtful answers to these questions and uh someone who can set out a very coherent philosophical explanation of what it is to be a conservative why conservatism has better answers to some of the country's challenges than socialism and this is the most leftwing government probably since uh since the 70s uh in terms of how that progresses naturally uh people like K Bok Rob jenrich are more to my taste than than than some of the other candidates in the field but I don't prejudge that question I think critically uh we need to let uh the the country hear the argument and the Parliamentary party obviously have a vital screening role in that process uh for me though it does need to be someone who can really unpack at a a a deeper level than a short contest will allow what why what went wrong so a lot of thought a lot of conversation to be had you say a longer campaign uh do you think Rishi should stay there as the leader while that unfolds and how long do you think they should take to resolve well I think again uh that's not a question which I have a direct say but I I would like to see uh Rich cak day as leader for uh the duration of that period it seems to be the cleanest solution that he should uh if he's not willing to or able to which would be understandable sorry what is that period I I think it should run probably until after conference I think we I think uh we should be looking here at a a contest culminating in November or December so as to allow uh meaningful discussion and not just in westmin but in the wider country uh about what it is that we're going to do and who's going to lead us in that mission so if if if Richi isn't able to do that and as I say that would be completely understandable under the circumstances someone else I think could be asked to deputize to hold the fort the the reality is 5 years in opposition is a very long time and there is no rush I think uh it's much more important we get the answer right it is a very long time you did pretty well in terms of vote share in your constituency you still lost to Labor uh do you want to come back into politics are you going to try and get back in again I suspect so I mean you can never see round corners and uh I'm you know I'm not going to say definitively today what's going to happen in three or four years time but I love Westminster and more importantly I I love what Westminster represents the Battle of ideas I believe obviously very deeply in you know the things that I've talked about for the last seven years and uh I I hope to return I I think the uh the truth is it is going to require all people of Goodwill on the center ride to try and rescue the Tor party because this is a very very difficult time and I don't think anyone be under any Illusions as to the scale of the challenge we Face Simon Clark peering into a misty future you've been very candid thank you so much for coming on thank you Andrew