Former MP and newly-appointed peer Craig Mackinlay has spoken of his near-death experience, hopes for the future and predictions on the direction the Tory Party is about to take.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Kent Politics Podcast, he also revealed when Rishi Sunak should have called the general election.

The soon-to-be Lord Mackinlay of Richborough has been to hell and back.

After developing sepsis in September last year, he was placed in an induced coma and tragically had his hands and feet amputated.

A closely-guarded personal matter, the public was largely unaware until he made a triumphant return to the House of Commons in May.

Hoping to see out his term as MP for South Thanet, he was left disappointed, however, when former PM Rishi Sunak then called a surprise general election.

Speaking to podcast host Simon Finlay, he told how he believed the diminished parliamentary party will soon be led by a right-winger.

He believes it most likely will be Kemi Badenoch, Priti Patel or Robert Jenrick.

The Conservative feels the final two will comprise a centrist and a right-winger and the latter will appeal to the party membership, which has the final say.

He said: “We are not choosing a Prime Minister this time but we are choosing a Leader of the Opposition…who’s in for a very tough job.

“The members always go for the right-of-centre candidate from the final two because that is the nature of the Conservative membership.

“MPs are nearly always a bit more centrist. You’ll have so much game-playing going on – with only 121 MPs there will be a lot of games being played.

“So a centrist and a right-winger will go through and the right-winger will probably win.”

In the feature-length interview, Lord Mackinlay speaks about his battle recovering from sepsis which nearly killed him and left him a multiple amputee.

He says Mr Sunak – who was one of three Prime Ministers (Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were the others) to visit him in hospital – should have called a November election when the economy may have been in a more favourable position.

And the former MP says the party did not see the threat of Reform UK coming, which proved to be one of the major factors in the Conservatives’ thumping defeat on July 4.

“We did have the effect of Reform UK which came in the later stages which I hadn’t foreseen a year ago,” he said.

Nigel Farage’s party “filled a vacuum” the Conservatives had created.

The betting scandal during the election campaign may well have been the difference between winning and losing in seats where the Tories were defeated by the tiniest of margins, he says.

The former MP said that traditional voting habits have changed to become more fluid in recent years and assisted Labour in 2024 in the same way it worked for Boris Johnson in 2019.

Mr Sunak called the election on the day Lord Mackinlay gave a rousing and emotional speech to tearful MPs on his return to the House of Commons for which he received a standing ovation.

He added: “I can hold my head up and say this is not the departure I would have wanted.

“I wanted a few more months in Parliament and to be campaigning on the things I wanted to be campaigning about as an MP. But as a political career it was a lovely conclusion.”

Lord Mackinlay, whose roots are in the Medway Towns, hopes his profile as a peer will enable him to campaign for better NHS prosthetics and raise awareness of the symptoms of sepsis.

“If I can get one person better prosthetics earlier, I will see it as a job well done,” he said.

“I also have a job of work to do to get people to recognise sepsis which is one of the biggest killers in the UK.”

He started to feel ill last September and within 24 hours was at death’s door when his body went into “full septic shock”.

He spent 16 days in an induced coma.

He says: “They were fighting to keep me alive. About 24 hours after feeling unwell, my wife was being told that I didn’t have much chance of survival, about 5% and was being told to prepare for the worst.

“It’s a year I would rather forget but I have to get on with it and make the best of it.”