The Annual Tory party Conference: The Fallout in Winchester

This year’s Tory party conference took place on Sunday 1st October and went through to Wednesday 4th October.

The biggest news over the four day conference was the cancellation of the HS2 line. This came after the Prime minister was receiving criticism for not making a decision over the matter.

Sunak vowed that all the money that would go into the completion of the rail way, roughly £36bn, will be re-invested into the north.

Councilor of Wonston and Micheldever, Caroline Horill, wishes the Prime Minister the best of luck and says if he can pull off the investment strategy with the money saved from HS2 into the northern network and connect the east to west rather than the north to south, then good luck to him.

This wasn’t the only big announcement during this conference as The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, announced the freeze on the hiring of civil servants and introduced harsher sanctions for those on benefits who make little effort to find jobs.

He also announced the increase of the living wage to £11. Which Caroline Horill is a big fan of.

“In the current climate people will find this a big benefit,” she said.

However, Martin Todd, leader of Winchester City Council, said: “The conference was pretty strange.

“It didn’t really talk to the problems that people have here in the Winchester area. There was nothing about the cost of living crisis, very little about the NHS and the environment which is an issue which really matters to those in Winchester.”