I’m sure that many residents across Pontypridd and Taff Ely have been watching in horror as the Tory leadership race unfolds.

We’re now down to two candidates – Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, and former Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Both have served willingly in Boris Johnson’s shambolic Government. Ultimately, they both represent the same failed Conservative ideology in Westminster that has led to 12 years of economic stagnation and a collapse in UK living standards.

In this moment of national crisis, as the cost-of-living skyrockets and runaway inflation looms large, we need our next Prime Minister to bring bold ideas for how to help the thousands of families who are already struggling, and get the country back on track for economic growth after more than a decade of stagnation.

Instead, the last few weeks of Tory drama have shown that neither Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak have any real answers at all.

Rather than offering solutions to ease the cost-of-living, Truss suggested an astonishing £8.8bn cut to public sector pay, when many in the public sector are already struggling to make ends meet. After a humiliating U-turn, it’s clear she is more interested in punishing working people and cutting taxes for the super-rich.

Sunak, meanwhile, playing catch up, seems intent on capturing the extreme fringes of the Tory party with increasingly desperate attempts to appear ‘anti-woke’. His latest idea, to designate anyone who ‘vilifies’ the UK as a political extremist, is almost as disgraceful as his earlier commitment to expand the cruel Rwanda deportation policy.

Thanks to a succession of inept Tory Prime Ministers, Britain is stuck. Whoever wins the Tory leadership contest won’t change the fact that the same party has presided over a shameful record of inequality and hardship since 2010.

We desperately need a fresh start. Only a Labour Government in Westminster can deliver the real, meaningful change we need.