Tories mull next steps after general election drubbing

Miriam Cates, who saw her 7,210 majority in Penistone and Stocksbridge overturned by Labour, said she thought the Conservatives were capable of winning back “small C conservatives” who had opted to back Reform UK.

“Our vote didn’t go to Labour,” she told Today, adding “our voters were lost to Reform,” with lots of other Conservative voters “staying at home”.

She added that a “key difference” between MPs to resolve as they seek to rebuild the party would be to decide where they stand on the economy.

Adding that “free market liberalism” had served primarily to enrich London and the South East, she warned against offering voters “reheated Thatcherism”.

Former minister Tobias Ellwood, who was swept aside in Bournemouth East, said the party should “take time to regroup” after its defeat.

He added that “awful lots of homework” were now required to work out where the party would position itself on the political spectrum.

He cautioned against wanting to “leap” into finding another leader quickly, adding that this was likely to see “wannabe future leaders” appealing to the party’s activist base, who since 1998 have had a role in choosing the leader.

The man who introduced that system, William Hague, has also warned against trying to “rush the choice of a new leader,” writing in the Times, external that a mistake for the party “could be fatal”.

He said he would like the party to wait until after its autumn conference in October before choosing Mr Sunak’s successor, even if it required an interim leader.