Defeated Tory candidates turn on CCHQ for ‘lack of leaflets and support’

Ousted Tory MPs have attacked Rishi Sunak and Conservative Campaign Headquarters for a “disastrous” election campaign that failed to support candidates.

One former MP said they had been left waiting for days for delayed leaflets to arrive in the middle of the campaign, while Mr Sunak’s decision to go early with the election has been widely panned.

After suffering the worst defeat in the party’s modern history, a post-mortem is in full swing among both Tory MPs who survived and those who lost their seats.

While much of the debate is focused on the party’s record over the last 14 years, there is intense criticism of Mr Sunak and CCHQ’s management of the election’s ‘short’ campaign.

‘CCHQ was not ready’

One MP who lost their seat said: “It was clear that CCHQ was not ready. There was a severe lack of support, particularly around digital.

“There was no money – it felt like – at CCHQ on digital and then no digital support. It was like, ‘do it yourself’.”

The ex-MP also said there had been a “major load of complaints” about the distribution of election literature to candidates.

“People ordered leaflets and it took seven to 10 days for those leaflets to arrive in the middle of the campaign,” they said. “You were delayed by days, by a week, in terms of what you wanted to do.”

They added that the party was outgunned in terms of election mailshots by Labour.

“There was just not enough national direct mail,” they said. “Labour was pumping direct mail out galore and we weren’t.”

Mr Sunak’s decision to call the election for July rather than holding on until the autumn is a common source of complaint.

Tom Hunt, who lost his Ipswich seat, said: “I don’t think it was the right decision to call the election.

“The key explainer as to why we did as badly as we did was the rise of Reform – Farage’s decision to come back. And of course, all of that was driven by immigration.

“Calling an election before you can demonstrate significant progress on immigration wasn’t the right thing to do.”

An MP who lost their seat agreed: “I still do not understand the logic about that. We’ve missed out on interest rate cuts, Labour will be the beneficiaries. We didn’t get a flight off to Rwanda, so we couldn’t honestly look voters in the eyes and be taken seriously that we had a deterrent that actually worked.”

Another ousted MP said that it had been a “disastrous campaign” and echoed the claim that CCHQ was not ready.

Referencing a chaotic scramble for seats and Tory chairman Richard Holden being imposed on Basildon and Billericay at the 11th hour on a one-person shortlist, they said: “If there is a vague chance of an early election we should have selected a lot more candidates, our party chair should have had a seat.”

Basildon and Billericay was viewed as a comparatively safe seat, although in the event Mr Holden was only able to clinch it by 20 votes.

The “chicken run” to the seat was deplored by other candidates. Another MP who lost their seat condemned “undemocratic selections which really sidelined local associations and trampled upon their rights”.

Of Mr Holden, they said: “It will forever damage him politically. It will shape people’s views of him for the rest of his political career.

“If you’re seen to behave in that self-serving and duplicitous way, it tends to have a way of coming back to bite you in the a—.”

While Mr Sunak has received significant criticism, some MPs were still willing to offer him qualified support.

One former Cabinet minister who managed to survive said that he had been lumbered with first “the political legacy” of Boris Johnson – including most notably the partygate scandal – “and then Liz Truss’s stupidity”.

“He was given a poison chalice that was full to the brim,” they said.

An MP who was defeated said: “I think it’s easy to point the finger at Rishi. The truth is, the moment Boris went it was highly unlikely we would win. But then ultimately and honestly, Liz Truss absolutely destroyed the Conservative Party brand which meant it was always going to be difficult for Rishi to turn that corner.”

Writing for The Telegraph, the election guru Prof Sir John Curtice said: “The timeline of party support during the last parliament points very firmly to what led many voters to want to call time on the Conservative regime.

“The first cause was ‘partygate’... the second cause was Liz Truss’ ‘fiscal event’.”

Sir John said the Tories would “never regain voters’ trust and confidence unless and until it has restored its reputation for integrity and competence”.