THE town’s MP has described the Conservative general election campaign as hopeless and lazy.

Braintree MP James Cleverly made the comments on Monday, during an appearance at a think tank event with Bright Blue, an independent organisation for what it calls liberal conservatism.

During Mr Cleverly’s opening remarks at the event in Westminster, he criticised the Conservative’s general election campaign and said Labour had confounded expectations.

He said: “At one end of the spectrum there are people who say it is, or was, the worst general election campaign in living memory.

“It was, in many respects, a hopeless general election campaign. I mean hopeless in both senses of the word.

“It quite clearly did not accomplish what we hoped and expected to accomplish, which is a solid working Conservative majority.

“It was hopeless in the other sense of the word in that it was devoid of hope.

“There was no sunny upland, there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

“It was a big spoonful of bitter medicine with no sugar on top."

Mr Cleverly went on to say the country was split over Brexit and some people had been scared of change.

When answering a question from a member of the audience, Mr Cleverly went on to say a friend in local government had told him it would be cheaper to buy a kindle for every child in the borough than it would be to keep libraries open.

But the MP explained his party had been forced to do some serious thinking.

He said: “Obviously the result that we got has forced us to do some serious thinking about not just the election campaign, but also about politics in general and the Conservative Party’s role in British politics.

“The Labour Party confounded expectations and they were snapping at our heels.

“Unprecedented. Certainly in anyone’s living memory to have all the other parties pretty much pushed to the peripheral.

“There is a recognition that we have been a bit sloppy and perhaps lazy at putting ideas into the public domain."