Oliver Leader de Saxe looks back on all the monumental moments that have defined Kent's political landscape over the last 12 months.
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00:00They say a week is a long time in British politics, let alone a whole year.
00:16In the last 12 months, make or break budgets, shock defections and sweeping elections have
00:23changed Kent's political landscape forever.
00:27But while yesterday's news may have slipped from memory, the shockwaves of these moments
00:33are still being felt on today's front pages and in tomorrow's headlines.
00:39It was really surprising.
00:41It's not been the best year, let's all be honest.
00:43When you've just used the word unpredictable, I think it is unpredictable.
00:47Labour have now won the election.
00:51This is a year on the front line of Kent politics.
00:57A new year with the promise of a general election.
01:02But crunch time had come a lot earlier for Medway Council.
01:06Clearly, we knew we were inheriting a difficult set of financial circumstances.
01:11We knew before the election, because the previous leader of the council had confirmed that we'd
01:16had a 91% cut in our revenue support grant.
01:19So we knew we were going to have to take some challenging choices.
01:22By the time full council rolled around at the end of February, service cuts, council
01:27tax hikes and government borrowing were all on the cards to stave off effective bankruptcy.
01:34But it wasn't just Medway Council that had to balance the books.
01:39Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer.
01:40Yeah!
01:44Then-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt's spring budget wasn't quite the election giveaway some may
01:51have been hoping for, despite national insurance cuts and promises for Kent investment.
01:58You know what, I think everybody would have loved there to be tax cuts.
02:02Everybody would have loved there to be some giveaways with extra cash.
02:05But unfortunately, the financial situation of the country didn't allow for that.
02:10So there was very little to give away.
02:12You have to be pragmatic.
02:13If you base your whole campaign on being good with the economy and being a safe pair of
02:18hands, you cannot then go and make spurious claims to spend money when you don't have
02:22it.
02:23The budget did little to swing the polls, with YouGov pinning voting attention for Labour
02:29at 47%, while the Conservatives found themselves flatlining at 20%.
02:36With defections across the House of Commons, an increasingly common sight, there was one
02:43particular Kent betrayal that left a few jaws on the floor.
02:47Yeah, Gabriel, it's fair to say this did come as a shock.
02:50I'm sure we've all seen the video by now of Natalie Elphick at the very start of PMQs
02:55crossing the floor to not only join the Labour Party, but to sit directly behind the Labour
03:00leader, Sakhir Starmer.
03:02Well, you know, I'm very surprised because Natalie had always been very critical of Labour
03:07as a Kent MP.
03:08You know, I know and I have a lot of friends that will distrust her going forward.
03:13But I'm not aware that she's seeking to stand anywhere else.
03:17And it wasn't just in Westminster.
03:20The incumbent party were having an increasingly difficult time.
03:24Across Kent, Conservatives have made losses.
03:2612 Lib Dem seats at the moment, one Labour, two Tories and one Tunbridge Wells Alliance.
03:32Liberal Democrats taking control of Tunbridge Wells.
03:35But a made stone for council remains under no overall control.
03:39Parties will now be scurrying to find coalitions to form the biggest administration.
03:44Well, I mean, you can quite easily argue that overall control isn't always a good thing.
03:50We have a huge super majority in national government on a very small amount of votes.
03:57So I'm not unhappy with being in a coalition, if I'm honest.
04:00I welcome my Lib Dem colleagues and I welcome the challenges from the other parties because
04:04that's what makes a good government.
04:07But it wouldn't be long until all of Kent got to make their voices heard.
04:12And we will have a general election on the 4th of July.
04:15It's great to be here in Gillingham.
04:17At long last, the election has been called.
04:21The time has come and the wait is over.
04:25The polls kept saying it.
04:26I didn't quite believe it myself.
04:28But now there it is.
04:29It's a massive Labour landslide.
04:33I always knew this seat was a 50-50 chance rather than it was never a definite no or
04:37a definite yes.
04:38And that made it really hard to know.
04:40I was even up during the count.
04:43It was only at the very end when I heard the results and it was a definite thing that I
04:48actually thought, yes, that actually made it.
04:52Across Kent's 18 seats, 12 went to Labour, while the Conservatives returned only a handful
05:00of MPs.
05:02While Reform managed to take vast swathes of the vote across Kent, despite not returning
05:08a single representative.
05:10Well, Reform did very well in this seat for lots of reasons.
05:14Chiefly, as we understand it, one of the big reasons that people voted Reform was because
05:18of immigration.
05:19You saw last week the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, talking about how the Conservatives
05:23have failed in immigration.
05:25And that's true.
05:26You can't say that you're going to do something and repeatedly not do it and expect to get
05:29away with that.
05:30The public will take you to task and so they should.
05:32So we will have to change.
05:34We will have to be better in the future.
05:35And if Reform is the pressure that makes us do that, so be it.
05:39But there was one promise on election night that came sooner than anticipated.
05:45I might be causing trouble from the backbenches or I might be kind of promoted, who knows?
05:50Controversial MP Rosie Duffield quits Labour but pledges to stay in the job, thus avoiding
05:55a by-election.
05:56You know, Rosie Duffield has been in the opposition for a long time.
06:01This was an opportunity for her to deliver.
06:03She is in the government, she was in the government, Labour came into power, so it was an opportunity
06:09for her to deliver for her constituents in Canterbury.
06:15It is easy to be in the opposition, but when you are in the government, you have to deliver
06:19it and it was an opportunity for her to do that.
06:23So yeah, I think people in Canterbury are going to miss out, missing out.
06:28While Labour were facing down-teething issues, one of Kent's last remaining Conservatives
06:34was making a bid to reinvigorate his party.
06:37What we need to do is we need to be bringing back Tory voters from all parts.
06:42Of course we need those who chose Reform to come back.
06:45We also need those who chose Labour or the Lib Dems or those who stayed away to come back.
06:48And Tom Tugendhat, 20.
06:52So as a result of that ballot, Tom Tugendhat is eliminated from the contest.
06:57Tom is quite a centrist, part of the One Nation caucus, and it seems that some of the party
07:02has moved away from that and there was more evidence that people wanted harsher policies
07:08on things like immigration, which Tom was a little bit more considered about.
07:12So I think that perhaps his campaign wasn't quite as robust as it should have been.
07:17There were some good gimmicks that he did, and I think on merchandise especially he was
07:21very, very good.
07:22But unfortunately I think that people, Conservative members, are spectacularly angry at the way
07:27that Conservative politicians haven't kept their promises.
07:33But as the year rolled into autumn, inheritance tax in Labour's first budget in 14 years sparked
07:41widespread anger amongst Kent's rural communities.
07:45If these changes go ahead, and not just these changes, all of the changes that have come
07:51forward in the budget, but also the long-term profitability of farming and the way that
07:56that's been squeezed, then we should expect land to be lost from small family farms.
08:02And the only things really that that will then go into are housing in inappropriate
08:06places, things like solar farms in totally inappropriate places, or massive mega farms
08:12run by corporations.
08:13While the budget may still be in the headlines, all eyes are on the next year.
08:20So what does the future hold for Kent's politics in 2025?
08:26One of the things I've learned is definitely not to make political predictions.
08:29It's really bad when you have to make predictions because then people do actually hold you to
08:33them.
08:34There's a lot of white paper coming out around devolution in the next few days.
08:39A lot of vision and focus will be given by local government across the country as to
08:44what the ramifications are of that.
08:48And we could all be abolished next week, who knows?
08:50I should have listened to Stuart, shouldn't I?
08:53I thought I could wrap up this doc edit last week.
08:57Then the government gave us this.
08:59The English devolution white paper.
09:02We thought 2024 was a monumental year in Kent politics, but 2025 is shaping up to be
09:10the biggest yet.
09:11And it's all because this paper means many of Kent's councils will be abolished.
09:17But what does that actually mean?
09:20What will Kent look like next year?
09:22Well, I think there is a lot in the white paper that accords with what I've always wanted
09:27to see in terms of devolution.
09:29You'll recall that last year I argued the case for devolution and a mayoral authority
09:37under the previous government.
09:38So I've always been keen to ensure that some of these really big strategic decisions, things
09:44that affect infrastructure, economic development, environment, skills, that those decisions
09:50are actually taken not by national government, but by people who are ultimately accountable
09:56to residents in Kent and Medway.
09:59One of the things I've shared with colleagues at the moment is that we've got four health
10:02care partnerships.
10:04They're not exactly equal when it comes to numbers, but I think that could be a potential
10:08building block.
10:09There'll be different views from different colleagues across the whole of the area.
10:13And I think for me, as much as possible, with the limited time we've got, let's say we've
10:17got to get some initial thoughts into government by the middle of January.
10:22And bearing in mind all individuals involved in this need to take a breath over the Christmas
10:27period as well, that will mean, I think, some potentially quite intense conversations.
10:32While both Roger Goff and Vince Maple are the main men required for a new Kent mayor,
10:37the government reorganisation into a handful of larger authorities will require much more
10:45negotiation and it might be difficult to get everyone on side.
10:51It's something that none of us want.
10:53And to be clear, you know, we were elected at a district level to serve people, to be
10:59close to people and to provide real services.
11:01We are such a large county with very, very differing communities, north, south, east
11:05and west.
11:06I'm not sure how that would work.
11:07And also the funding of it needs to be called into question.
11:11It handled badly, it could be a real threat, handled correctly.
11:15This is a massive step towards a much better future for this entire nation.
11:212024 promised to be a defining year in Kent's political history.
11:27But as we sit here braced for a new era, what we've seen happen over the last 12 months
11:33could very soon be distant history.
11:37The only thing we know for certain is the Kent of this year will look very different
11:43from the Kent of 2025.