Many of you will already know how close Southampton is to my heart. It’s where I’m from, where my earliest memories were made, the place that shaped me. Still today the trials and triumphs of the mighty Saints are the source of my highs and lows all season. 

Tomorrow, the City will be in my thoughts as you play your part in choosing which party leads us for the next five years.

Voters will consider the past of course, but ultimately this election is about the future. 

We live in increasingly uncertain times. You only have to switch on TV to see war on the continent of Europe, Iranian proxies firing at British ships in the Red Sea and China becoming increasingly assertive and brazen with its cyber-attacks. 

The next five years will bring great opportunities for Southampton and wider Hampshire, but they will bring risks too. It is not the time for uncertain and inexperienced government. Rather, we need leadership with a record of taking the bold action we need to make our country more secure and a clear plan for the future. 

I can understand people’s frustrations. We have been through tough times with Covid and then the war in Ukraine sending prices spiralling and squeezing family budgets. We haven’t got everything right as a government, but we’ve taken the difficult decisions and now inflation is back to normal at two percent. We’ve cut taxes, wages are rising and the UK has defied gloomy expectations to grow at the fastest rate in the G7.  

If we stick to our plan, we will cut taxes again for 27 million workers, bringing them down by £1,350 for the average worker by 2027. We will cut taxes for our entrepreneurs, the lifeblood of our economy, by abolishing the main rate of National Insurance for the self-employed so that hard work is always rewarded.  

Owning a home is a dream Conservatives want to make a reality for as many people as possible. So we will abolish stamp duty for first-time buyers up to £425,000 and create a new Help to Buy scheme to bring down the barriers to homeownership and help thousands more onto the housing ladder. 

We will reform child benefits to give parents more financial security and protect pensioners by making sure the state pension is never dragged into income tax. It shocks me that Labour want to impose a Retirement Tax on pensioners who have worked hard all their lives and deserve peace of mind in retirement. 

Your car, your home, your pension – you name it Labour will tax it. It’s what they always do, it’s in their DNA. The Labour-run council has done it here in Southampton – running out of your taxpayer money, hiking up council tax by the maximum amount allowed and yet still needing a £121 million rescue bung from the government to stabilise their finances. The Conservatives on the council called it ‘shameful’ and I totally agree. 

With a supermajority, Labour would have unchecked power to replicate this financial mismanagement on a national scale. They would be accountable to no-one, free to raise taxes without restriction. You would be the ones to pay for their mess.

Our plan to stop the boats and secure our borders, Labour would rip up because they fundamentally don’t believe in controlling migration. Our plan to bolster our national security raising defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP, they won’t match, leaving us weakened on the world stage. Our plan to get to net zero sensibly and responsibly, they would bulldoze with an ideological approach that would hit households with higher bills. 

So don't let anyone tell you a Labour supermajority is a forgone conclusion. As few as 130,000 votes are set to determine the outcome. A vote for any other party is just a vote for Labour. So vote Conservative to have your voice heard, your taxes cut and your values represented.

  • Read open letters from Labour candidate Darren Paffey, Reform UK candidate Alexander Culley and Conservative candidate Sidney Yankson on our website today.