A Tory minister has said voters unhappy at train delays and rising mortgage bills are “being grumpy”.
Andrew Griffith also insisted the Conservatives can win the next general election, despite them still languishing 20 points behind Labour in the polls.
His comments came the day after two of his colleagues quit the government, with neither of them planning to stand at the election.
Polling guru Professor John Curtice has also declared that Labour are “99%” certain to form the next government.
Appearing on GB News this morning, science minister Griffith was asked if the Tories could still defy the odds.
He said: “No, I absolutely think that the Conservatives can win the election.
“It’s been a difficult number of years.
“No-one foresaw the Covid pandemic, nobody saw Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“So, it’s been difficult for everybody in the country, I understand that.
“People have had their frustrations - but the answers to those frustrations are all Conservative.”
He added: “If you are worried about your train service not being reliable, the answer is not to repeal every single trade union law passed since the 1970s.
“If you are worried about your interest rates being too high is not to have the hundreds of billions of unfunded spending promises from Labour.
“So, I understand where people are, they are being grumpy.
“We are focusing on delivering our plan...that’s, I think, the way that we can convince people that the right answer is Conservative.”
Rishi Sunak was forced into a mini-reshuffle last night after armed forces minister James Heappey and education minister Robert Halfon resigned.
In a surprise move, he also made outspoken Red Wall MP Jonathan Gullis a deputy Tory chairman in place of Lee Anderson, who has defected to Reform UK.
Meanwhile, polling experts Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have said the Conservatives are on course to lose 500 seats at the local elections on May 2.