Power, the People and the Party

Live from Salford, during the Conservative Party conference in neighbouring Manchester, Sir David Cannadine argues that Victorian Britain was never far from revolution. He tells Andrew Marr how a century seen as conservative was actually troubled by political upheaval. Britain may have been the world's greatest empire but it was riven by self-doubt. Novelist Anthony Powell depicted the turbulence of the 20th century in his series A Dance to the Music of Time. Powell is seen as the arch-conservative, but biographer Hilary Spurling argues that he was fascinated by power and people at every level of society. Jane Green tracked the 2017 General Election as co-director of the British Election Study. She explains how the public judges those in power, and why political reputations are hard to shake. And Phillip Blond, director of the think tank ResPublica, helped shape recent Conservative ideas including the "big society" and the "northern powerhouse". He fears the Conservative Party could become irrelevant unless power is shared out.Producer: Hannah Sander.