𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rachel Reeves should resign as Chancellor or be sacked if she breaks Labour’s promise not to hike income tax, National Insurance or VAT, according to Shadow Business and Trade Secretary Andrew Griffith. He warns that if she reneges on her manifesto pledge her credibility will be shredded and she will have no option but to go.

This key ally of Kemi Badenoch sees two key threats to Britain on the horizon – the Chancellor’s November 26 Budget and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s “devastating” raft of measures to overhaul workers’ rights and bolster trade unions which is on the verge of becoming law.

Mr Griffith, who served as the chief operating officer of Sky before entering politics, claims businesses are warning him the measures in the Employment Rights Bill could push the country into recession.

“I’m very sad to say but this will take us from being one of the more flexible labour markets in Europe to one of the least,” he says. “It will deter business from hiring.”

The 54-year-old father of two remembers the power blackouts of the 1970s and fears the landmark legislation will unleash a new era of industrial strife in a country already battling economic stagnation.

“Day by day,” he says, “everybody under the age of 50 who never saw applied socialism in practice is having a first-hand life lesson on what it looks like to be led by a terribly, terribly dogmatic government that, when it has a plan at all, is to take us backwards, not forwards.”

He arrives for the interview with a mug illustrated with a mocked-up poster for a horror movie called “Job Killers”. It features the face of Ms Reeves alongside Angela Rayner – who has left the Government after not paying the full amount of stamp duty – and his former opposite number Jonathan Reynolds, who was moved from his role as Business Secretary to Chief Whip in the reshuffle.

“We got rid of two out of three,” Mr Griffith says, before quoting from the Meatloaf song Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad.

He hopes the Chancellor will avoid breaking the manifesto promise on tax but is no doubt of the consequences if she pushes ahead with a wildly controversial raid.

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor, he says, will “have been proven to have lied time after time after time by putting up taxes”. Her “credibility will be shot through” and “she should resign or she should be removed”.

He describes her shock hike in employers’ National Insurance contributions as an act of “self-harm” which has already resulted in “hundreds of thousands of jobs lost”.

Claiming the workers’ rights legislation will enable trade unions to “recolonise the private sector” and will add billions to companies’ costs, he says: “Businesses tell me that this could be the thing that tips us into recession.”

Born in 1971, Mr Griffith was an ardent Conservative by the age of 14 and wants Britain to avoid a repeat of the worst industrial turmoil of his birth decade.

Describing the impact on families, he says: “You know, you had an early tea, your lights went off and you finished your homework by candlelight.”

Margaret Thatcher remains a core source of inspiration as he works for a Conservative comeback.

“She deployed a set of strategies to get Britain growing again,” he says. “She took hold of the economy, grabbed it by its neck and pointed it back in the right direction after a period of stasis under both Conservative and Labour governments in the 1970s.”

He was among the strongest early supporters of Mrs Badenoch. She impressed him with her willingness to fight for conservative principles during the last chapter of Tory Government.

Mr Griffith admits he was not “happy with the direction of travel” on a range of issues including plans for a new football regulator, the “generational smoking ban” and “socialist legislation on renters’ reform”.

“I’d seen Kemi up close and personal advocating for conservative principles even when there was no advantage to her,” he says.” And so, when she stood for leader, I was very quickly out of the blocks as somebody who saw the need for our Conservative party to be led back to core conservative territory – that’s the ground on which history teaches us we can win.”

Winning a majority will involve doing more than demolishing support for Labour. The Tories will also have to win back voters who now say they will vote for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

“I don’t spend a lot time talking about Reform but I do see that the Conservative Party is on the journey back,” he insists. He urges people working in business today to not just join the party but to become MPs and “help this country get things done”.

If the economy does not start growing again, he warns, people will not see a “better future for their children” and will “start to lose faith in democracy”.

He looks at the G7 and – with the exception of the United States – sees a group of “slow-growing, slightly corpulent” economies. Britain should be more ambitious for the next generation, he argues and compare itself with the world’s fastest-growing countries.

It is a frustration that the Republic of Ireland is far above the UK in GDP per capita rankings, and he argues the “clock speed” of the UK economy is slowed down by an excess of regulations.

He blasts a legal system which is “world class” at creating “impedances to getting things done” and warns: “You cannot have a credible, growing private sector when our energy prices are up to four times higher than point to point competitors.”

Despite these challenges, he speaks with the optimism of someone who has enjoyed business success and is convinced the fortunes of countries can be turned around. Pointing to predictions that once-Communist Poland is on course to eclipse the UK in the prosperity stakes, he says: “Aside from the fact that that’s a terrible indictment of the United Kingdom, that shows that no matter how bad these socialists [are], you can do it, you can escape, you can go back and reclaim your country and be proud again.”

The son of a computer salesman, he grew up in Bromley, went to a comprehensive school and was the first in his family to go university. He has clear ideas about how the confidence which has propelled his career can be instilled in schoolchildren today.

He urges schools to “stop worshipping” environmental activist Greta Thunberg.

“The history of humankind is that we have worked together to overcome challenges,” he says. “We’ve used our knowledge, our science base, our human ingenuity, and yes, the role of private capital and the private sector and business to solve these problems.

“So, if you think there’s problems in society, get stuck in and help solve them. Don’t just constantly be prophets of doom.

“Perhaps it’s not a surprise we’ve given children a mental health crisis if all we do is talk about the problems, not talk about the solutions.”

This self-described “relentless optimist” – who relaxes by exercising his black labrador and cocker spaniel on the South Downs around his home near Petworth in West Sussex – relishes the challenge of reviving not just the Conservative party but the prosperity of the UK.

“The future of this country is going to be fantastic,” he says. “We just need to stop this Government digging a hole that’s getting deeper by the day.”