‘Things aren’t going to get any better’ - Politics expert explains why Rishi Sunak has called a shock July election. - video Dailymotion

Analysis from Dr Steve McCabe, Associate Professor at Birmingham City University.

Transcript

00:00 Well, thank you for joining us, Steve. Why do you think Prime Minister Sarak has called

00:05 a snap election in July?

00:08 Well, people may have noticed that there was an announcement by the Office of National

00:12 Statistics about inflation. It fell to 2.3%, which is great news compared to what it was

00:17 not that long ago, which is over 11%. But the thing is, this disappointed the city and

00:22 the much anticipated fall in the base rate, which was going to happen, which would then

00:27 impact on mortgage rates, is not likely to occur. So the good news that Sarak was hoping

00:32 over the summer months leading up to an election is off the cards. Plus the fact that the Chancellor

00:37 has got much less rigour room in terms of giving tax cuts in autumn. So I think they

00:42 realise things aren't going to get better, go for it now and take the consequences.

00:48 And how will the Labour Party respond to the election news?

00:52 Opinion polls suggest that they've got a sort of very handsome lead. They are very likely,

00:56 according to that, to be the new government, Keir Starmer, who, let's face it, has only

01:01 been leader for four years after the most dreadful sort of result in 2019 under Jeremy

01:06 Corbyn. So clearly they rush the prospect of taking power. But nonetheless, they recognise

01:12 that some really significant problems to be dealt with. So this is not like 1997, when

01:18 new Labour came to power and there were some healthy finances. There's a lot of big problems,

01:22 the NHS, public services, crime. If you remember the 2010 election, certainly in Birmingham,

01:29 who said, you know, there's nothing left. This time that really is true. It's going

01:33 to be very, very difficult.

01:35 How might Reform UK impact the Conservative vote in the upcoming July election?

01:40 But Reform, they're going to sort of keep pushing this message that this country can't

01:45 afford to sort of take more people on. And neither is there a big issue of the cost of

01:49 dealing with those people coming across on the boats. So expect that to sort of figure

01:53 very large in the election, certainly if Reform has anything to do with it.

01:56 Dave, thank you very much for your time today.