Britons go to the polls next week for a general election expected to end 14 years of Conservative rule marked by economic turmoil, Brexit, political scandals and upheaval.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's right-wing Conservatives are set to be ousted from power as there appears to be widespread discontent over their record in government and the state of the country.
Sunak failed to narrow a gaping 20-point polling deficit to Keir Starmer's centre-left Labor Party in a largely lackluster election campaign.
Some predictions put the Conservatives on course for the worst results in their 200-year history and predict a record majority for Labour, whose last term was Gordon Brown in 2010.
One poll even suggests Sunak could become the first sitting British prime minister to lose his own seat.
Voting will begin at 7:00 a.m. (06:00 GMT) next Thursday and continue until 10:00 p.m., with official results coming late at night and early in the morning.
Increasingly, the electorate is being seen to be sending a message to the Conservatives that their time is up, with some already indicating that they can only mitigate the scale of Labour's victory.
“The country is a disaster,” said Tom Lough, an 82-year-old Conservative voter in Richmond, northern England, where Sunak is running for re-election.
“They're just not good enough,” added another Conservative supporter, Bruce Walker, 67, accusing the party of abandoning its values of low taxes and strength on security and immigration.
– “Broken Britain” –
David Cameron brought the Conservatives to power in 2010, imposing tough austerity measures in the aftermath of the global financial crash, hitting public services – and people's pockets.
Cameron then gambled on appeasing the party's anti-EU right-wingers by calling a vote on EU membership, which backfired when the public narrowly voted to leave the EU in 2016.
Brexit and the form it is expected to take cost first the presidency of Cameron, who supported “remain”, then that of his successor Theresa May, who failed to get her divorce agreement approved by the parliament.
Boris Johnson, who took power, managed to secure an 80-seat majority following a snap election in 2019, but was brought down by his handling of the Covid crisis and accusations of corruption and cronyism .
Liz Truss's brief term in September and October 2022 ended after her unfunded tax cut plans spooked markets and sent sterling crashing.
Sunak, the party's fifth leader and prime minister since 2010, has tried to revive his fortunes, promising to bring down inflation and reduce record levels of immigration.
But he has struggled to quell public anger over rising living costs, frustration with long waits for medical appointments, shabby public services and creaking infrastructure.
“Nothing in this country is working anymore and no one in government cares,” Trades Union Congress leader Paul Nowak said last September. “The Tories have broken Britain.”
– 'Change' –
Confidence in the conservatives is wavering, even in the national press which is mainly favorable to the conservatives.
“Almost everything is getting worse and almost nothing is getting better,” wrote columnist Allister Heath in the Daily Telegraph earlier this year, although he predicted things would not improve under a Labour government.
Other political commentators predict that the country is at a historic “inflection point” and has a chance to reset, even if Starmer stops short of promising radical reform.
Five years ago, under the leadership of veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn, Labor relied on a far-left manifesto advocating huge public spending and renationalisation, and suffered its worst electoral defeat since 1935.
Starmer, a former human rights lawyer and attorney general, took over in 2020 and set about ending the ideological infighting that had hampered the party's electoral prospects.
He also took action against accusations of anti-Semitism, even expelling Corbyn himself as part of a plan to return the party to the
“We campaigned as changed Labor and we will govern as changed Labour,” Starmer, 61, told the Conservative-supporting Daily Mail in an interview published on Wednesday.
But the party's promise of “change” promises to be difficult to keep, particularly in a country with limited public finances.
The Conservatives ran a negative campaign, warning of Labor profligacy and higher taxes, and promising tougher measures on immigration and security.
Their share of the right-wing vote could be split with Brexit champion Nigel Farage's anti-immigration Reform UK party, which could mean years of political wilderness.
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