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00:00 The UK's election campaign is one week old now and Rishi Sunak's government has got
00:04 off to a rather lacklustre start. Sunak's main gambit is introducing military service
00:10 for young people, a move that his own defence minister had previously ruled out and a former
00:15 military chief has called "bonkers". The Tories are expected to lose July 4th's
00:20 election to Keir Starmer's Labour Party. We can bring in now Anthony Travers, Professor
00:24 in Practice at the London School of Economics Department of Government.
00:29 Good morning Anthony. This is not a very convincing start to the election for Rishi Sunak, is
00:33 it? And does the Prime Minister think he could actually win the election?
00:37 Well, there's no doubt that the Conservatives' beginning, the early part of their election
00:44 campaign has had some unfortunate moments in it. Not just the policies, and policies
00:51 such as National Service is popular with a key segment of the voters, particularly older
00:56 voters who tend to vote Conservative, it'll harden that up. But separately, he went to
01:02 Belfast and was filmed just near where the Titanic was built and that didn't provide
01:09 a great help to, or a great start to the campaign either. But, to answer your question, the
01:17 Conservative Party in Britain is one of the most successful parties in the world. It's
01:22 existed in its current form since the 1860s and has incredible willy-nilly, or fights
01:29 very hard to win. So, although the polls show the Conservatives way behind, they won't
01:33 give up until polling day or after the votes have cast.
01:37 And of course those polls have for months now, perhaps even longer, shown that Labour
01:43 are expected to win. But is there a sense that the Opposition could get complacent and
01:48 maybe things go belly up in the next five weeks?
01:51 Well, I mean, given the width of the poll gap between the Conservatives and Labour,
01:57 the Labour, the main Opposition Party, then it is always possible that the polling gap
02:03 will narrow. In fact, I'd say it's almost certain that the polling gap will narrow over
02:07 the next five weeks. And at that point, people will say, well, perhaps the Conservatives
02:12 can win again. Remember, they've been in power either alone or in coalition now for 14, one
02:17 four years. And, you know, they have been in power between 1979 and 1997 for 18 years.
02:27 They are very successful at staying in office. But so long has there been this gap between
02:33 Labour and the Conservatives. I think in the time-honoured tradition of democracies, it
02:40 looks as if the electorate think it's time for a change.
02:44 And Keir Starmer had vowed to steer Labour towards the centre after the left-wing Jeremy
02:49 Corbyn years. And has this been an electoral success or is he just benefiting from Tory
02:56 incompetence?
02:57 Well, there's a kind of cliché, an aphorism in British politics that Oppositions don't
03:03 win elections, governments lose them. And the Conservative Party have had a pretty difficult
03:11 few years. Remember, Boris Johnson's prime ministership ended badly after parties in
03:17 Downing Street during the Covid lockdowns. This trust became the shortest serving British
03:23 prime minister in history because of a disastrous budget. So the current government have been
03:29 trying to stabilise the situation, which is seen at the prime minister, to stabilise the
03:34 situation he inherited. But there is a strong sense, you know, after a government's been
03:40 in power for a long time, that the electorate does move on. But, you know, as I said earlier,
03:45 they won't give up without a strong, powerful fight. And they are showing with policy ideas
03:51 every day that they are trying to create dividing lines with Labour. Labour have modernised
03:56 themselves. They're not the party of Jeremy Corbyn. But, you know, in the sense they're
04:01 untried, whereas the current government's in office and people at least know what it's
04:05 like.
04:07 And assuming that the Tories do lose, that would probably spell the end of Rishi Sunak's
04:13 leadership. What direction can we expect the party to take under a new leader in opposition
04:19 if it so happens?
04:20 Well, there's no question that the Conservative Party in Britain is amazingly ruthless at
04:25 getting rid of leaders who've lost. So it would be amazing if Sunak were to lose and
04:31 then to stay on. It has happened, but it's unusual. I think there'd then be a struggle
04:39 for the soul of the Conservative Party. Should it move further to the right to be a more
04:50 genuinely right-wing party? Or should it tack back to the centre politically, which is where
04:55 most British elections are won? But it really depends on who gets into Parliament at this
05:00 coming election and where that struggle for the soul of this remarkably long-lived party
05:06 would then, who'd win that struggle.
05:08 Thank you very much for that. Anthony Travers, Professor in Practice at the London School
05:13 of Economics' Department of Government.
05:16 [BLANK_AUDIO]