
Badenoch says Conservatives need time to recover in Powys
In an interview with the County Times, the leader of the Conservative Party addressed the issues facing the party after the fallout of the last election which saw Montgomeryshire MP Craig Williams lose the party whip then the seat amid a betting scandal.
'I am working to rebuild trust with the public,' said Mrs Badenoch.
'We have acknowledged a lot of mistakes were made. That is why we lost the last election. It takes time to come back from an historic defeat like that.
'What people can see is that Labour may have won the election but they have no plans at all. All of the things they are doing are making things worse, it's not just the family farms tax.
"You look at unemployment it has gone up every single month since Labour came into office, inflation has nearly doubled since the Conservatives left, growth is down – that is a real problem.'
Mrs Badenoch was at the show to meet the Welsh agricultural community ahead of next year's Senedd elections and local elections in 2027.
This came the week after the announcement of the Sustainable Farming Scheme (SFS) by the Welsh Government which would see 10 percent of land being used to boost natural habitats.
When questioned by the County Times about the policy Mrs Badenoch said: 'I don't know about the 10 per cent but I do know having spoken to Welsh Conservatives is that they don't believe that what Labour is putting in is going to be enough.
'They believe there is an extra £100 million that could be invested in the SFS and that is what I support.'
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MP for the area David Chadwick criticised Mrs Badenoch and said the Conservatives were no longer the 'party of the countryside'.
'Welsh farmers won't forget how Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives sold them down the river when she was International Trade Secretary for catastrophic trade deals with Australia and New Zealand,' said Mr Chadwick.
'That's part of the reason the Conservatives lost this seat at the general election.'
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