Lord Frost admits he used to be a LABOUR MEMBER before radical political shift

“I was involved in the Labour Party at university and for a little bit afterwards,” he told Gloria De Piero.

“My parents were both Labour Party voters at the time as well. And I then went into the civil service, so proper politics had to stop.”

Explaining what attracted him to the party he said: “I thought at the time the Labour Party was the party that stood up for ordinary voters, people who wanted their lives to be better, wanted things to change, wanted to kind of get on in life and you know make themselves, their families, better off.

“I thought the Labour Party was a party that stood up for people like that. I have changed my mind about that.”

Revealing what led up to him switching to the Tories he continued: “I think it was a gradual realisation to be honest, partly being in the civil service, and becoming quite Eurosceptic about what I saw in Brussels in the 90s. That was a big part of it.

“But I think more importantly, I began to realise, and I believe very strongly now, that the Labour Party is not the party of ordinary voters, it's the party of the public sector, the people who like to decide how the country is run and like telling other people what to do. And those were the classes that were defeated in the 2016 referendum. That was a vote for change and doing things differently. And I think that's what the Conservative Party now stands for.

“Something very interesting has happened in politics in the last five years. Which is that for the first time ever, I think, since the foundation of the Labour Party, the richer you are, the more likely you are to vote Labour. And that says a lot.

“The Conservative Party has got to accept that, deal with it and become fully the party of change, doing things differently for ordinary voters. And that's what I think is so important. I think the referendum was a breakpoint.

“Things changed at the referendum. We now need to deliver on that vote for change for ordinary voters around the country.

Speaking about the idea of him standing as an MP in the next election he said: “That's in the hands of the electorate, ultimately. And also in the hands of the Conservative Party to select me for a seat. So I am on the candidates list now. I haven't applied for any seats yet. But I might in the year to come.

"We'll see. Real politics happens in the Commons. That's where the crucible of national life is. And I think if you want to be in politics, that's where you've got to be.”

Asked about the idea some see him as a future Tory leader Frost addedd: “It’s nice of people to say that. I don't think it's likely to happen. The reason I want to go into the Commons is that's where politics is, that's where you need to be if you want to influence things and that's just that's the way our system works and quite right too.”

Commenting on what he believes Tory voters think of him, he said: “I’m sure there are quite a lot of Conservative members who have mixed feelings about me. But to the extent that I do strike a chord in what I say, I think I speak for what a lot of Conservative members think.

“They do want the country to be different. They do want it to be a more free market. They do want taxes to be lower. They want us to stand up for certain things. So maybe they’re not hearing that as much they would like from many of the leading Conservative politicians at the moment. And I guess I speak to that.”

Asked who he saw as the Tory’s “star players” he said: “I think people like Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch. They are very strong Cabinet ministers. They set out a very clear view of the way forward in various areas.

"But I think many Cabinet Ministers are doing good things. What worries me is that there’s a sense of drift, a sense that the country’s got a lot of problems and they’re a bit too big to be tackled and so we’;re just going to carry along in a kind of ‘steady as she goes way’.

“I think the genius of the Conservative Party historically has been not to give in to that, but to be able to face up to the challenges the country has and to grip them and deal with them.

“We’re going to have to do that again because this country’s got a lot of problems and we’ve got to deal with them.”

Frost also commented on his views about the current behaviour of some of the civil service - which he used to work in.

“I do think the civil service has changed,” he said. “When I first joined the Foreign Office in the late 80s, it was a bit like joining the military.

“It was a bit like you know, you stayed, you got the job done, you did what your political masters wanted.

“You got on with it and that has gradually changed over the years. So this, I think the civil service has come to think of itself as a sort of independent guardian of the constitution if you like.

“I think that's a bit of the root of the conflicts that we've had over Brexit. So it's not that there's a BLOB opposing it. I think it's just that the civil service, largely not entirely,has come to think of itself as representing the middle ground in the country. And they push back a bit against people who want things to change.”