Ex-Tory minister warns against ‘predictable responses’ to Corbyn’s message

Jeremy Corbyn’s message on health, social care and the cost of living “may resonate with millions of workers” and “predictable responses just won’t cut it with public”, an ex-Tory minister has warned.

Former education minister Robert Halfon praised the Labour Party for identifying the “real anguish that people face in their day-to-day lives” and challenged his party to come up with a passionate response.

Mr Halfon, who chairs the Commons education committee, called on Theresa May to return to her July 2016 Downing Street pledge to tackle the burning injustices in society.

Mr Halfon, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s PM programme, said: “I think that they (Labour) are identifying real anguish that people face in their day-to-day lives, whether it is do with the cost of living, whether it is to do with the cost of childcare, whether it is health issues in terms of the NHS or social care.

“It doesn’t mean I agree with the solutions, but I think that some of what they say resonates, they seem to say that we’re standing up for the little guy, our party needs to be seen as the workers’ party, we need to be the party for addressing burning social injustice.”

Mr Halfon said a lot of the Conservative messages on these issues were being lost “in the fog of Brexit”.

He added: “Sometimes we come over as very technocratic and when we identify things, we start going on about charging a Mctax if people buy milkshakes at McDonald’s, this is not what addressing social injustice is all about.

“We need to answer big problems such as affordable housing, our skills needs, we should offer a guaranteed apprenticeship to every single young person over the age of 16, there are deep social inequalities.

“I do believe that there are Conservative answers to these but we have to talk about them with a passion, with a vision and present ourselves as the party of the ladder of opportunity.”