General election: David TC Davies admits Conservative party errors

Problems on campaign

David TC Davies is a political bruiser – he loves campaigning and is no stranger to robust exchanges. While there was plenty of fighting talk about how he still had plenty of “zing”, I still detected an honesty I haven’t heard from him so far in the campaign about the problems they are facing from D-Day to gambling.

Immigration

With the Conservative manifesto pledging to cut migration, Mr Davies came up with a punchy aspiration of bringing net migration down. I pressed him on whether that would mean higher costs to pay for British workers in areas like care and he seemed fairly relaxed, saying it would pay for itself in the long run.

All about tax

We know it is a central plank of the Tory campaign and he left us in no doubt. He was well briefed on the economic arguments and the range of benefits, as he sees it, of a lower tax regime under a Conservative argument. If there is a path to victory, it felt to me that he believes taxation is the way to do it.

Devolution

Pointing out failures in the record of the Labour Welsh government is a go-to argument for the Welsh secretary. But he didn’t fall back on problems with the delivery of public services as much as I was expecting. It felt like the bigger focus for him – today at least – was tax and the economy.

Sunak the man

You don’t often hear this, but there was a very personal tribute to Rishi Sunak about the warmth of his personality. After a bruising week following D-Day, Mr Davies responded to a question by feeling the need to stress the prime minister had a middle-class rather than a hugely privileged background.

Personality has become a huge part of the campaign, the accusation that the prime minister is out of touch has clearly stung.