High-profile errors by prime Conservatives have contributed to a “tough” election marketing campaign for his or her party, in accordance with a senior authorities minister.

Welsh Secretary David TC Davies described Rishi Sunak’s former aide Craig Williams placing a bet on the election date, in addition to Mr Sunak’s controversial early return from D-Day commemorations in France, as an “error of judgement”.

He additionally instructed BBC Wales’ Nick Servini, in an interview to be broadcast on Thursday evening, that he wish to see authorized migration to the UK – which was 685,000 individuals final yr – introduced all the way down to between 100,000 and 150,000.

Mr Davies mentioned a future Conservative authorities would maintain inflation down, cut back authorized and unlawful immigration and enhance public providers.

Mr Davies branded Tory colleague Mr Williams’ betting on the date of the overall election, which is being investigated by the Gambling Commission, as a “enormous error”.

“It was a silly error of judgement, which Craig has absolutely accepted and mentioned that he’ll utterly co-operate with the investigation,” he mentioned.

But Mr Davies additionally mentioned he believes the “behaviour of people” won’t “determine the outcome of the election”.

He additionally praised the pace of the prime minister’s apology after his personal “error of judgement” in returning early from the D-Day occasion in Normandy.

“I’ve by no means seen any chief apologise so profusely and so rapidly for one thing,” Mr Davies mentioned.

David Thomas Charles Davies (Top Cat to his colleagues) was born in 1970 and was educated at Bassaleg Comprehensive School in Newport.

After leaving college, Mr Davies labored for British Steel and joined the Territorial Army earlier than transferring to Australia, the place he labored has a nightclub promoter, tobacco picker and rickshaw driver.

In politics, he was elected to the Welsh Assembly – which he opposed the creation of – in 1999 as member for Monmouth, turning into the one Tory representing a Welsh constituency.

He made the headlines later that yr after Labour member Alison Halford mentioned he had “one of the nicest bottoms” she had seen for “some appreciable time” – to which Mr Davies responded that he would “flip the opposite cheek”.

Elected as MP for Monmouth in 2005, he has since chaired the Welsh Affairs Select Committee, been an assistant authorities whip and junior Wales Office minister, earlier than his promotion to Welsh secretary in 2022.

On immigration, Mr Davies mentioned the 685,000 those that legally migrated to the UK final yr was “far too excessive”.

After saying it could be “tough for me to pluck a work out of the air” on a stage of authorized migration he can be proud of, Mr Davies went on to say that round 100,000 to 150,000 “can be the place I personally would go to”.

Measures have already to introduced in to assist obtain this, he mentioned, like limits to college students bringing members of the family to the UK and rules about the amount of money people need to be earning before they are allowed to migrate.

“Immigration was already beginning to fall because of that,” he mentioned.

He insisted that the party’s plan to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda was possible and is already offering a “deterrence impact”.

He additionally mentioned a plan to axe the “flawed sort of levels” and as an alternative implement 100,000 extra apprenticeship schemes would imply British residents might take the roles at the moment held by migrants and keep away from a niche in workforces.

Mr Davies defended the prime minister towards claims he’s out of contact after Mr Sunak mentioned he went with out “a number of issues” as a baby, including Sky TV.

“He did not have the privileged background that individuals assume he did,” mentioned Mr Davies.

“Obviously, his household have been well-to-do, I believe [his] mom was a GP and father a chemist, or the opposite method round, however principally it was a middle-class household.”

He mentioned Mr Sunak was one of many “cleverest individuals I’ve ever labored with”, however was not as glowing in his evaluate of former PM Liz Truss.

“I believed that was a debacle,” he mentioned, referring to Ms Truss’ less-than-two-month tenure as chief.

It “was not a very good month” for the party when Ms Truss left workplace in October final yr, he mentioned, including that “after we had a frontrunner who did not know what she was doing, we removed her rapidly”.

But he mentioned Ms Truss alone couldn’t be blamed for an increase in rates of interest, as they peaked throughout the EU on the identical time in 2022.

“To be trustworthy… we printed, we borrowed, we spent, and we did that to guard jobs.”

David TC Davies’ full interview with Nick Servini shall be broadcast on BBC One Wales and online at 19:00 BST on Thursday.

Representatives of Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats shall be interviewed on Friday and Plaid Cymru chief Rhun ap Iorwerth on Monday.

You can watch Labour’s Nick Thomas-Symonds’ interview here.

Plaid Cymru – Ioan Bellin

Green – Ian Chandler

Conservative – David TC Davies

True & Fair Party – June Davies

Labour – Catherine Fookes

Independent – Owen Lewis

Heritage Party – Emma Meredith

Liberal Democrat – William Powell

Reform UK – Max Windsor-Peplow