OPINION
Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen sees a great future for Britain (Image: Unknown)
Before his death in 1806, William Pitt the Younger was credited with saving Europe from Napoleon. His reply remains one of the most powerful statements in British political history: “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.” It’s a reminder that leadership is not found in slogans or sentiment, but in strength, seriousness and delivery.
Pitt didn’t just lead a nation at war - he built a capable, confident state. He reformed taxes, invested in trade and infrastructure, modernised Whitehall, and laid the foundations for Britain’s long 19th century of growth and global influence. That legacy was not ideological, but institutional. He gave Britain the ability to act - to adapt to a changing world and shape it in turn.
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Today, we need to do the same.
We face our own era of upheaval: war on the European continent, turmoil in the Middle East, the breakdown of global trade norms, stagnating economies and the beginning of a new industrial revolution shaped by AI, data and low-carbon energy.
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Britain must rediscover its ability to act - at home and abroad - with clarity and purpose. That means rebuilding state capability, restoring national sovereignty, and preparing the next generation of political leaders for the hard business of government.
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That’s why I’ve joined Conservatives Together, a new initiative launched by Sir Grant Shapps to help train and equip future Conservative leaders. It’s not enough to campaign well. You have to govern well. And that takes skills, confidence and a serious understanding of how to get things done in a complex world.
The greatest challenge facing the West today is a crisis of sovereignty – not in the abstract, but in the practical sense. Democratic governments are increasingly unable to deliver on the promises they make to their citizens. Borders go unenforced. Infrastructure projects take decades. Elected ministers find their decisions overturned by opaque bureaucracies, international institutions, or layers of legal process no one voted for.
This isn’t just frustrating - it’s dangerous. The authority of democratic government is being hollowed out. That’s why Brexit mattered. It was a necessary step to bring decisions back home. But the job is not yet done. We now need to complete the task a by restoring state competence, reasserting ministerial authority, and ensuring that government is once again able to act in the national interest without being second-guessed at every turn.
We can admire Donald Trump’s instinct to challenge complacency, but Britain doesn’t need simple rage. It needs results. Our Conservative tradition is different: practical, reformist, and rooted in a belief in institutions - not to preserve them for their own sake, but to make them work better.
Labour, by contrast, offers no plan to fix what’s broken. Their instinct is always the same: defer to international frameworks, rebuild old regulatory links to Brussels, and retreat from hard decisions in favour of comfortable consensus. That won’t deliver the reform Britain needs. Reform cannot deliver a coherent plan for the future either.
Instead, we need a clear, centre-right alternative: pro-growth, pro- sovereignty, and focused entirely on outcomes. That’s what we’ve tried to deliver in the Tees Valley. Not just regeneration, but renewal. We’ve backed offshore wind, green hydrogen, digital infrastructure and modern manufacturing. We’ve cut red tape, attracted global investors, and shown that levelling up can be more than a slogan. It can be real.
It hasn’t been easy. But we’ve learned a lesson that Westminster sometimes forgets: if you want results, the state has to work. That means modernising public services, digitising government, cutting unnecessary layers of management and using AI to increase productivity. It means putting ministers back in charge of outcomes, not just announcements.
It also means investing again in our security - military and economic alike. In a more volatile world, defence spending must rise. Supply chains must be rebuilt. And industries of strategic importance must be protected. That doesn’t mean nationalism. It means realism.
Internationally, we need to reshape the institutions we helped build. Where they work, we should lead. Where they don’t, we should leave - on our terms. We don’t need dependency. We need partnerships - alliances that reflect our values and interests, not legacy arrangements that tie our hands. This is the real Conservative agenda for the next decade: restoring sovereignty through competence. Building a modern, capable, sovereign Britain that can act in its own interest - and inspire others by its example. It doesn’t require tearing everything down. But it does require serious reform. And it requires people who are ready to govern.
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Pitt’s success wasn’t rooted in nostalgia or populism. It came from seriousness. From reform. From a belief in what the state could achieve if it was equipped to deliver. He understood that Britain could only lead abroad if it was strong at home.
We find ourselves again at a moment of industrial and political change. The world is reordering. The challenges are great - but so are the opportunities. With the right leadership, the right reforms, and the right approach, Britain can once again shape the world around it - not through slogans, but through example.
That’s the Conservative future we need. And it starts with getting serious.