Austerity, Brexit and Covid: Why Conservatives lost the general election after 14 years in office

The Independent

Austerity, Brexit and Covid: Why Conservatives lost the general election after 14 years in officeIndependent

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00:005 Conservative Prime Ministers, 7 Chancellors, 8 Foreign Secretaries and no fewer than 16

00:08Housing Ministers.

00:09And by some reckonings, the average Briton is around £10,000 a year worse off in real

00:15terms than in 2010.

00:16The 4th of July has marked the death of 14 years under the Tory party rule.

00:23In 2010 David Cameron limped into Parliament, assisted by a coalition with Nick Clegg's

00:29Liberal Democrat Party.

00:30We have to accept that we fell short of an overall majority. Our big, open and comprehensive

00:37offer to the Liberal Democrats involves helping them to implement key planks of their election

00:41manifesto.

00:42In 2013 Parliament passed the Same Sex Couples Marriage Act by 400 votes to 175.

00:49Worth noting though that 135 Tory MPs voted against the bill.

00:55Then in 2014 Scotland voted 55% to 45% against independence in a victory for Cameron and

01:02the main national political parties over the SNP.

01:06People of Scotland have spoken. Like millions of other people, I am delighted.

01:10The nation rewarded the Conservatives with an unexpected majority win in the 2015 general

01:16election and David Cameron was graced with a second term as Prime Minister.

01:20I truly believe we're on the brink of something special in our country.

01:24Three widely acclaimed laws were passed in this year, revealing the gender pay gap legislation

01:29meant large companies are now forced to disclose whether they are paying men more than women.

01:35The Modern Slavery Act gave law enforcers stronger powers and perpetrators harsher punishments,

01:40while the Shared Parental Leave Act was praised for allowing eligible parents to choose whether

01:46they wanted to share the mother's maternity leave allowance.

01:50Cameron's premiership would ultimately be decided on his biggest gamble, his manifesto

01:55promise of a referendum on EU membership.

01:58The choice is in your hands. I believe that Britain will be safer, stronger and better

02:04off in a reformed European Union.

02:06The UK voted 52% to 48% in favour of leaving, ending a more than 40-year union and plunging

02:14the country into its biggest political crisis since World War II.

02:19David Cameron resigned and took himself and his wife away on no less than four holidays

02:25to lick his wounds.

02:26As Cameron left, Theresa May arrived in 2016 with a party experience near civil war due

02:32to the practical issues encountered over Brexit.

02:35Following the referendum, we face a time of great national change.

02:39May called a snap election in 2017 to strengthen her position and lost her majority against

02:46the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party.

02:48It is clear that only the Conservative and Unionist Party has the legitimacy and ability

02:53to provide that certainty by commanding a majority in the House of Commons.

02:58Marred by political hurdles and backlash, in March 2019 May said that she would not

03:03lead the UK in the next stage of Brexit negotiations.

03:07I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal. Sadly, I have not been

03:13able to do so.

03:15And Conservative MPs chose Boris Johnson in her stead, who was one of the main faces in

03:20the pro-Brexit campaign.

03:22May was gone and Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to a sweeping win in a snap election.

03:28Campaigning under the slogan, get Brexit done, the Tories enjoyed their biggest election

03:32win since Margaret Thatcher's landslide in 1987.

03:38Britain finally exited the EU on the 31st January 2020, which represented one of Britain's

03:44biggest ever geopolitical shifts.

03:47First, the positives. The Domestic Abuse Act was passed in 2021, which aimed to give the

03:53justice system more powers to protect survivors of domestic violence.

03:58Then, one of the biggest health and economical disasters in centuries struck the world.

04:04Boris Johnson led the country through the Covid pandemic.

04:07If your friends ask you to meet, you should say no.

04:11While major successes in UK vaccine engineering meant the first arm to receive a vaccine against

04:17Covid-19 was British, and the rapidity of the rollout of Rishi Sunak's furlough scheme

04:22deserved praise, Johnson became unstuck due to his fundamentally unserious character.

04:27Being photographed at Westminster parties while families were deprived of seeing their

04:32loved ones in hospital during their final moments led to a mass ministerial revolt,

04:37and Johnson was forced to step down.

04:40The fourth prime minister's reign was, unfortunately for her, the shortest in British history.

04:46Even a wilting lettuce in the Daily Star's viral video feed lasted longer than Liz Truss

04:51did in office, where her disastrous Truss-Porteng mini-budget crashed the economy in September

04:572022 and ended her tenure at 44 days.

05:02That is a disgrace.

05:05By the end of 2022, the UK's economy was in a poor state, not helped by Russia's invasion

05:11in Ukraine, which caused an energy price spike.

05:14Rishi Sunak, who had been widely respected in his role as chancellor, took the reins.

05:19Sunak may have managed to steady the ship, but his unpopular Rwanda deal to stop net

05:24migration, along with his awkward encounters with the general public, hadn't led to his

05:29favour in the polls.

05:30There were all sorts of things that I would have wanted as a kid that I couldn't have,

05:34right?

05:35Sky TV?

05:36He was, after all, the richest ever occupant of 10 Downing Street.

05:42We now look to a rebirth of a new Britain with Keir Starmer's Labour Party.

05:46But what will change?

05:48Time will ultimately tell.

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