They kidnapped poor, working-class and upper-class voters last time. And now it is heading towards complete collapse. What happened?
The short version
- The Labor Party is on track to win elections in Great Britain.
The summary is created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI) and quality guaranteed by Aftenposten journalists.
It was an electoral shock. The old industrial areas of northern England, a safe Labor stronghold all these years, were colored blue in 2019. The winner was Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He promised to complete Brexit and give them a better life. So they believed him.
Now everything indicates that the Conservatives are headed toward a historically bad election. Johnson has since been expelled from the Prime Minister's Residence and the House of Commons. Instead, old finance minister Rishi Sunak became prime minister. And he doesn't sit safely. British newspapers write almost daily about those who conspire against him and want to assume the leadership position.
Huge bullets
British election expert John Curtis believes the British Labor Party has done just that The chance of winning is 99 percent. Opinion polls indicate that the Labor Party is ahead by about 20 percentage points.
They will get a clue in the local elections in May. But polls can be wrong. The final ruling will come in the parliamentary elections. Many bright blue precincts are set to turn red. The Prime Minister sets the date for the elections to be during the year. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said this week that it will happen when it happens “I feel like things are getting better”.
There is no doubt that there have been some difficult years.
Conspiracies and division
The Conservatives have governed continuously for 14 years, with five different prime ministers.
We see a tired and exhausted party that has ended. Then you get the intrigues and divisions and the party going in all directions. This is what the senior lecturer and British expert Eric Mustad at Agder University says.
There are many arrows pointing in the wrong direction for British society. Boris Johnson has promised people they will get better.
It didn't work out that way.
– Everything is going badly
– Everything is going badly. There is an ongoing crisis in living conditions. These countries are perhaps more affected than other countries because the welfare state is in a very bad state after 14 years of its existence Conservative PartyConservative PartyConservative Party is a term for the conservative party in Great Britain. – The council, says Mustad.
He points out that the health care system and education system suffer from enormous problems.
Skyrocketing prices, economic downturn, and a health care system that doesn't work are affecting those who already have the least.
The public health system was once seen as a jewel in the British welfare state. But the pandemic has put the already struggling health care system under enormous pressure. A recent study calculated that long waits in hospital emergency departments may have cost 250 people their lives every week last year, according to Cloud News.
And now conservatives are being punished severely in the polls.
Had to clean
Mustad believes Rishi Sunak had to spend his time cleaning up the mess after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Truss was Prime Minister for a record six weeks. In that short time it promised debt-financed tax cuts, sending the British pound into the basement.
-Rishi Sunak hasn't really been able to show his good side. He's had to spend his time putting out fires after Boris Johnson.
There is a lot of speculation in the British press about whether Sunak will be allowed to continue as leader of the Conservative Party. Names of potential competitors are being circulated. In many constituencies, the Conservatives are also being challenged by the new UK Reform Party, which Nigel Farage helped found.
During his reign, Farage was a prominent figure in the UK Independence Party and a strong promoter of a Brexit vote.
There is no new Tony Blair
The last time the Conservatives were in such a bad position was before the general election in 1997. It was then Tony Blair who conquered the country for Labour. Although the Labor Party has a very good position in the opinion polls, the situation is different. Blair represented something new, the so-called third way of social democracy, and was very popular before he dragged the British into the Iraq war.
Today's leader, Keir Starmer, is of a very different type.
– The Labor Party is sitting quietly in the boat to make sure it wins the elections. If they gain power, Mustad says, it is more because the ruling party is unpopular than because they have big visions for the country.
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