'Labour have taxed the living daylights out of business, killing growth stone dead...'

After that landslide defeat at the last election, the Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride could be forgiven for feeling downbeat about the Tories' future. But Labour's chaotic and crisis-filled first six months in power have left him increasingly confident the Government can be sent packing after just one term.

- David Williamson

GETTING Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves out of Downing Street at the first opportunity is an ambition Mel Stride is determined to make reality.

The 63-year-old Shadow Chancellor talks with urgency of over- turning Labour's giant majority and bring- ing the curtain down on the Starmer era.

"We have to be utterly determined to turf this Government out in a single term," he says. "I really believe that it can be done."

And with the Conservatives just one point behind Labour in the latest Techne poll, he wants to be part of one of the greatest political comebacks of the modern age.

Sitting in the shadow cabinet room on a dark January evening, he points out that Labour won less than 34 per cent of the vote in the summer election.

"It is a wide majority but it is very thin," he says. "I think with time we have every chance of succeeding in coming back."

His optimism and personal warmth won him fans in the Tory leadership election.

He also impressed the winner, with Kemi Badenoch handing him the sought-after position of Shadow Chancellor.

The Conservative leader, he insists, has just what it takes to lead the party to triumph.

Ms Badenoch is known for her combativeness in Prime Minister's Questions but Mr Stride insists her "fearless" approach to "saying what she believes" should "not be confused with any inability to actually listen very carefully to what other people feel and think and take that into account".

He adds: "I have been hugely impressed with her."

His key job is opposing Ms Reeves and he has embraced this challenge with gusto.

He talks with horror at what has happened to the economy in the half-year since Labour took power.