Bury St Edmunds is in a constituency where Labor has never won. But now there is a chance. The general feeling in Britain two days before the election is that the country is facing change.
Labor candidate Peter Prinsley has been a party member since his youth, but only decided this summer to run for a seat in parliament. Prinsley is a surgeon and runs healthcare issues.
Almost every Briton has an opinion, usually negative, about the NHS healthcare system. He says people distrust the welfare state when waiting times for surgery are long, when ambulances are delayed for emergency cases and hospitals fall into disrepair in the UK. In recent years there has been no shortage of headlines about ‘dental deserts’ on the UK map, that is large areas with years of waiting times for dental appointments due to a lack of NHS dentists to take on new patients. Then there remains very expensive private dental care.
“They are disgusting!”
When Prinsley campaigns in the rain in the well-kept small town of Bury St Edmunds in the county of Suffolk in England, the doctor notes that he is now making diagnoses linked to ill health that did not occur before.
Prinsley faces an electorate angry at the Conservatives:
– They are disgusting! says the voter. And look what they got us into with Brexit!
But Brexit is not really an election issue. Most parties and voters agree that there is no going back. Labor hopes to negotiate trade, research and development and student exchanges with the EU. But between the lines, they are aware that in that case it is about the EU’s willingness to initiate.
Right now, with the war in Ukraine and a situation where the EU may have to reassess its relationship with the US (read Trump), there is no great appetite for protracted negotiations with the British.