Conservatives attack Labour Welsh Government record on General Election campaign trail
Welsh Conservative David TC Davies spoke to ITV Cymru Wales' Rob Osborne.
The Conservatives say they are the only party to have a clear, bold plan to deliver a secure future for Wales, with the Tories focusing on Labour's record in Wales as they officially launched their General Election campaign in Wales.
In the last General Election, the Conservatives equalled their best ever performance in Wales, winning 14 of the 40 seats on offer, making significant gains in the north of the country in traditional "red wall" areas.
This time out promises to be a much more difficult time for the party in Wales, with the number of Welsh seats dropping to 32 amid boundary changes.
The Conservatives are pledging to continue to deliver for Wales with a clear plan to boost energy security, transport links and give young people opportunities for the future.
Two of the their key promises focus on north Wales, namely the electrification of the North Wales Mainline in a bid to make journeys more reliable and faster, and to bring nuclear power back to north Wales at Wylfa, creating high-quality jobs and energy security.
They are also pledging to maintain toll-free Severn Bridges, opening up Wales for business, create a National Service scheme for young people, and provide £1billion in continued levelling-up funding for Welsh communities.
Speaking at the Conservative election campaign launch on a farm in Monmouthshire on Friday, 31 May, Conservative parliamentary candidate David TC Davies said: "We came to this farm today because Clive Pritchard [farmer] had asked us previously to have a look at what the Welsh Labour Government's policies were going to do to farming: 20% of prime agricultural land out of circulation for trees and and other sustainability schemes.
"We want to talk about that and contrast it with what's going on over the border in England and, more generally, talk about the record of the Welsh Government and contrast it with what the Conservative government is doing in the rest of the UK."
When pressed on how far the polls suggest his party is behind Labour, Mr Davies questioned how accurate they are based on the conversations he has had when canvassing.
He said: "The reality is the opinion polls can say what they want. Everyday I go out and talk to people on the doorstep, not to opinion pollsters, but to voters.
"What the voters are telling me is very different to what the opinion pollsters are telling you."
Ahead of the launch, the Welsh Conservatives' leader in the Senedd Andrew RT Davies took aim at the Welsh Labour Government's record, saying: "Labour cannot be trusted to run Wales, so they cannot be trusted to run the United Kingdom.”
The Welsh Conservatives say under their UK Government, Wales has seen more than £2.5billion invested to help transform communities and create jobs, including projects supporting transport, tourism, heritage and culture across the country.
They pointed to the two Freeports, which is claimed will deliver thousands of new jobs, as well as investment zones supporting advanced manufacturing and the compound semiconductor cluster and growth deals across Wales supporting businesses.
Andrew RT Davies MS said: “Labour’s record of 25 years of running Wales is a stark warning to the rest of the UK of what a Labour government in Westminster would mean for them.
“Keir Starmer says Wales is his 'blueprint' for what a UK Labour Government would look like, and thanks to Labour, Wales has record high NHS waiting lists, the highest business rates in Britain, an ideological and damaging war on motorists and proposals that would risk 5,500 farming jobs.
“Labour cannot be trusted to run Wales, so they cannot be trusted to run the United Kingdom.”
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