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Angela Rayner would be a “disaster for the country”, Sir James Cleverly has warned in a bid to stop voters deserting the Tories. Former deputy prime minister Ms Rayner – widely considered one of the strongest contenders to succeed Sir Keir Starmer – is expected to campaign across the country in what will be seen as an audition for the top job.

Labour is predicted to suffer heavy losses in local elections and to lose control of the Welsh Senedd, which could intensify calls for Sir Keir to quit. Sir James said the British people are “rightly furious” at Labour’s record so far, but warned that chaos would continue under the Prime Minister’s potential successors.

The Shadow Housing Secretary said: “Angela Rayner would be a disaster for the country. Wes Streeting would be a disaster for the country. Shabana Mahmood would be a disaster for the country, because they all have the same problem. They are more concerned with placating their backbenchers than delivering for the British people. The only way we’re going to start repairing the damage of Labour is to get back into government.”

The Conservatives face the challenge of stopping traditional Tories on the Right peeling off to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and those who lean Left going to the Liberal Democrats or the Greens.

Sir James said that voters at the last Westminster election rejected the Tories because they thought “it can’t get any worse”.

“Well, guess what?” he said. “It got a lot worse.”

He added that he wanted to “protect” the country from “the ineptitude of Labour, from the snake oil salesmen of Reform, from the gimmick-laden nonsense of the Lib Dems and the frankly vile policies of the Green Party”.

In a campaigning event outside the Lib Dem headquarters, Sir James attacked Lib Dem-led South Cambridgeshire District Council for allowing people to work a four-day week. Its website describes a model in which people “deliver 100% of their work, in around 85% of their contracted hours, for 100% of their pay”.

Sir James said the policy was “deaf to the needs of the British people at a time when bills are going up because of the Government’s ineptitude”.

He insisted the Conservatives had “learned lessons”, saying: “We have done, under new leadership, a big reset to make sure that we are relentlessly focused on delivering for the priorities of voters [and] taxpayers around the country.”

The latest YouGov polling shows Reform UK is in first place on 24%, ahead of the Conservatives (19%), Labour and the Greens (both 16%), the Liberal Democrats (13%), and Restore Britain (4%).

Sir James said the country is in a “completely new environment of multi-party politics” in which parties are “promising all kinds of nonsense just to scam votes out of the British people”.

He said: “Our message is really clear. The Conservative Party takes our voters seriously. We are careful with how we spend their money. We are very focused on the delivery of public services. And it’s only the Conservatives that take these things seriously.”