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Jeremy Hunt claimed some Tory MPs were “losing their nerve” because of the Conservative Party’s position in the opinion polls. 

The Tories suffered a bruising set of local election results last week and then on Wednesday were rocked by the defection of Natalie Elphicke to Labour. 

Ben Houchen, the Tory Mayor of the Tees Valley, warned yesterday that the “public do not vote for parties who are not united” as he called for an end to infighting. 

Lord Houchen’s comments and Ms Elphicke’s defection were raised with Mr Hunt this morning during an interview with the BBC as he was then asked if he was worried about holding onto his own seat of South West Surrey. 

The Chancellor replied: “My seat is a marginal seat and I will fight it very hard and put everything I can into winning it. But let me just say, in terms of Ben Houchen what he said was divided parties don’t win elections and we need to pull together as a Conservative Party.

“I think that when you see we are behind in the polls, unfortunately some colleagues do lose their nerve. 

“But the vast majority of parliamentary colleagues, they understand a very simple truth which is that people vote for Conservative governments because they trust us to take tough and difficult decisions in the long term interests of the economy. They can see that we have done that.”