Conference season: The view from Winchester

The major political parties held their party conferences away from Westminster. Winol headed into Winchester to see what effect the conference season will have on the city’s key voters, in what is a marginal constituency.

Winchester is a target seat for the Liberal Democrats, having come within less than one thousand votes from winning the seat from the Conservatives back in 2019. Since then, the Liberal Democrats have won control over Winchester’s City Council.

Martin Tod, the Leader of Winchester City Council spoke to Winol about the optimism Winchester’s Liberal Democrats are feeling ahead of the next general election, which is widely expected to take place next year: “[The Liberal Democrats] have a really positive vision, we were talking about things that are an immediate worry to people like the cost-of-living and the NHS, but we were also talking about how we clean up the environment and think to the future about how we sort out the economy.”

Ian Tait, a former Conservative Party candidate believes that while Rishi Sunak is personally well-liked amongst Winchester residents, he thought his policies would “not resonate” with the Winchester voter.

Winol spoke to several people in Winchester, who were unsatisfied by the current state of politics in Britain.