The year in politics: HS2 part cancelled, cost of living crisis, election woes for The Conservative Party

Dr Steve McCabe, political expert and Associate Professor at Birmingham City University with analysis of the political year

Transcript

00:00 We continue our look at the political year in May where at the local elections

00:05 the Conservative Party suffered significant losses.

00:09 You didn't just get it over the line, you blew the doors off!

00:12 Well it's always very dangerous to sort of take local election because of course they are

00:18 primarily about local issues, but of course there is no doubt that

00:23 people, if they can be bothered to vote, and of course we have a sort of

00:26 traditional reluctance to sort of go and vote locally or for the local issues so

00:30 it's a sort of a bit of a deficit and despite all efforts that are made to

00:35 improve this nothing's worked. But undoubtedly it shows a certain

00:41 direction of travel that the Tory party is in big trouble. We believe

00:46 there's going to be another sort of by-election in the near future and

00:48 probably the Conservatives will lose that.

00:50 Results did also not go well for the Conservatives at the many by-elections in the year with particular

00:56 shock at losing safe seats in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire, but it was this

01:01 announcement at their October party conference that really shocked the nation.

01:06 I am cancelling the rest of the HS2 project and in its place

01:14 we will reinvest every single penny, £36 billion in hundreds of new

01:24 transport projects in the north and the Midlands.

01:27 I mean I was always very sceptical about the ability of sort of

01:30 levelling up and indeed I would make the comparison to when sort of East and West

01:33 Germany came back together. It was trillions and trillions of sort of

01:37 well in those days of euros, still is, so yeah I'm never going to spend that

01:43 amount of money and indeed the really sort of persuasive argument

01:47 because I've never been that bigger fan of HS2 in terms of what it was supposed

01:51 to do. If they'd taken a sort of fraction of that and spent it in the way that

01:55 they have done and it's been dedicated to sort of dealing with the

01:58 disadvantaged communities I think we'd be feeling the benefits now.

02:01 Many are predicting an early general election in 2024 with the cost of living expected to be the

02:08 main voter concern. Indeed research by the Resolution Foundation suggests the

02:13 average British household has become £2,100 worse off in 2023.

02:20 Well I remember the 1970s and particularly the early 80s under

02:25 Margaret Thatcher and of course we had Rights to Work March and

02:28 yeah as I say people taking to the streets. We have seen them taking to the

02:31 streets about other issues but yeah so cost of living is something that

02:35 people are undoubtedly suffering from and there is

02:38 undoubtedly a sense that things must get better and you're

02:43 absolutely right, people will not vote for a government or incumbent government

02:46 under which they are undoubtedly worse off. There is a

02:49 big issue about redistribution of wealth. The question is

02:53 that there are limited resources at the moment. Are people willing to pay,

02:56 particularly those who are in work, are they willing to pay more and see more of

03:01 their money go to the disadvantaged? It's a real difficult one.