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Tories need to ‘stop talking about transgender toilets and focus on economy’, George Osborne tells LBC
7 May 2025, 18:44 | Updated: 8 May 2025, 10:46
George Osborne has urged the Conservatives to stop focusing on transgender issues and talk more about the economy.
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The former Chancellor told LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr that the Tories need to focus more on material issues if they want to return to power at the next general election.
Mr Osborne, who oversaw the controversial coalition and Conservative governments' austerity measures as chancellor between 2010 and 2016, said the party needs to "win back credibility on the economy" if they want to be elected.
"Kemi Badenoch made a reputation for herself and speaks very effectively and with passion on cultural war issues, transgender rights and the like. But that's what helps you be the rising star. I don't think it sustains you as a risen star,” he said.
"There's a big space at the moment in British politics for someone who's got a plan to grow the British economy, which strikes me as the main concern for most of the public. So if we spoke a little bit less about transgender toilets and a bit more about taxes, then we might be onto something.
“No Conservative opposition in my lifetime has got back without winning back credibility on the economy and making that the central offer at the election,” he added.
Read more: Labour 'is reviewing its winter fuel payment' after Reform surge in local elections
It comes as the party seeks to win back voters after suffering heavy defeats at the local elections last Thursday, losing more than 600 councillors along with control of all 15 local authorities.
Andrew Marr speaks to George Osbourne | Watch Again
Nigel Farage hailed the results as "the end of two-party politics" and "the death of the Conservative Party" as Reform picked up ten councils and more than 600 seats in Thursday's poll.
Osborne has dismissed this idea, but admitted that it would be ‘exceptionally difficult’ for the Conservatives to ‘come back’ into power.
"I've heard several times that there'll never be another Conservative government and I've heard several times there'd never be another Labour government. Both things turned out not to be the case,” he told Andrew Marr.
“So I'm not someone who believes all the kind of hype that we've seen the end of the two-party system,”
“And I think it is exceptionally difficult for a Conservative opposition just recently ejected from government to come back."
Osborne said Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has a ‘huge’ task ahead of her, but moving further right to keep up with Farage is ‘not going to work’.
He said: "The task facing Kemi Badenoch and the shadow Cabinet is historically huge, even though this Labour government haven't made such a strong start. And so I have some sympathy with the position they're in.
“I don't personally think chasing Nigel Farage's tail is going to work. And if you want Nigel Farage, why not have Nigel Farage? I think the kind of 10-year trend inside the Conservative movement of trying to copy the Brexit Party or the UKIP party or now the Reform party has not really worked".
Former Farage adviser says the Tories will be 'begging for a coalition' with Reform | Watch in full
Ahead of the local elections, Badenoch had suggested a potential coalition between the Conservatives and Reform at the local elections, which Farage promptly rebuffed, saying his party would not work with the conservatives ‘at any level’.
Osborne, who hosts a politics podcast with Ed Balls, suggested he would not vote for such a coalition.
"I would have quite a lot of reservations...I'm verging on no, but I certainly would not vote for Reform. My politics is on the centre right, but the centre bit is as important as the right,” he said.
The Labour party also suffered significant losses at the local elections, losing 180 council seats and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election - one of their safest seats - mostly to Farage’s Reform UK.
But Osborne has suggested that Rachel Reeves is making the problem worse by her handling of the outcry over the proposed cuts to pensioners’ winter fuel payment.
“If you're in a hole, stop digging,” he said. “I think there are some differences and Rachel Reeves's situation is actually harder than mine was with the pasty tax. (But) there's no chance, however unhappy Labour MPs are, that she's going to lose a vote on this, because they've got pretty much the biggest majority of my lifetime.
“It's more that it becomes not worth the candle. You know, the thing about the winter fuel payment cut she's made is it doesn't actually save very much money. If I were her, rather than just dig in, I would introduce a new kind of payment for winter time and change the terms of the debate".
