How Kent County Council will work with the next government

Transcript

00:00Welcome back to KMTV studio here in Medway and I'm delighted to say that I'm joined by KCC leader Roger Gough.

00:13Now Roger, we've been talking off camera there a little bit about the exit poll.

00:17It's a really difficult night for the Conservatives.

00:20But 131 seats, would you have taken that at the beginning of the night?

00:25Certainly it's at the higher end of what was projected.

00:29And equally if we look at what's projected for Kent or indeed for Kent and Medway, although it comes for these purposes to the same thing,

00:36seven Conservative seats, which would be again at the higher end of what many of us perhaps feared was the case, certainly during the campaign.

00:45I think you have seen a little bit of solidifying in the closing week or so.

00:50But there was no doubt that many stages it looked as though it could be an even bigger setback.

00:56But look, that's just relative to expectations.

01:00We have to be realistic. This is a very, very bad night for the Conservative Party.

01:04And when Rishi Sunak called that general election, were you surprised?

01:07Yes, I was.

01:09I think that I was surprised because I thought that there was an effort to land a number of points about what was happening with the economy,

01:17some of the challenge to Labour's plans.

01:21And I thought some of those things were just beginning to land a little bit.

01:25So that was something that you would want to continue. So I was surprised, yes.

01:28And as leader of the council, you must have been like, gosh, we're going to be in for a hard time now,

01:34trying to get out on the doorsteps with the candidates as well.

01:38What's it going to be like for you now with what's, if the exit polls to be believed,

01:42that there's going to be a Labour government by the end of the night?

01:46How are you going to work with a Labour government?

01:49Well, I think, firstly, we will treat every government in the same way.

01:54So we've had a government of our own party for a long time.

01:58That has not stopped us standing up for what we think is right for Kent and challenging when that's appropriate.

02:06When you get to the stage when you are actually judicially reviewing a Home Secretary from your own party,

02:11then I think we are willing to take on government or to work with government of whatever party.

02:18And if you go back, actually, to the new Labour years,

02:21there was obviously there are points where, unsurprisingly,

02:25a Conservative council and a Labour government will come into conflict.

02:29There were also many areas where they worked together very successfully.

02:32So we will seek to work with, frankly, we have no choice,

02:36but we actually believe it is quite doable to work with a government of whatever party.

02:41But clearly we would have to see what attitude a Labour government takes.