2020 Hindsight: The Tories’ year of living dangerously, with DAVID GAUKE

How it started, how it’s going… This was a year that blew up Boris Johnson’s plans for post-Brexit Britain and forced the Conservatives into uncharacteristic economic intervention. What has 2020 done to a newly-purified party of true believers? Former Conservative MP David Gauke tells Ros Taylor about the state of the New Tories, what would have happened if Cameron hadn’t called a referendum on the EU, and how the Conservatives have become “a party of protest, not government”. 

• “It’s a discontented party. It’s uncomfortable. And it’s rebellious.”
• “It’s now hard to see that there’ll ever be pro-European advocacy in the Conservative party again.”
• “There’ll be a gravitational pull towards those socially conservative Red Wall voters… Anyone who’s expecting a return to Cameron-style government will be disappointed.” 
• “The Tory Party has taken on the personality of a newspaper columnist, rather than a traditional party of government.”

Presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jelena Sofronijevic and Jacob Archbold. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production

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