In the country’s safest Tory seat, prosperity seeks a steady hand
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Version 0 of 1. What can you learn from talking to five people, or 10, or 20? Nothing much if you’re looking at the differences between them: a random handful makes for nothing but anecdata. When they all say the same thing, that’s when you know there’s something in the water. Political stances in North East Hampshire, the nation’s safest Conservative seat (in 2015, MP Ranil Jayawardena took 66% of the vote), run the gamut from lifetime Tory to first-time Tory, but they’re (almost) all agreed on that, and agreed on the reason: the nation needs a strong hand. But there’s another strain to this patriotic march: if this is the “glumbucket” election, Hampshire is the epicentre of glum. Outrageously photogenic, implausibly sweet, Jayawardena was selected by open primary and won by a margin even more comfortable than that of his predecessor, James Arbuthnot. “It was humbling to know that two-thirds of people had put their trust in me,” he said, drinking a lime and soda, on the pristine, sun-kissed high street of Odiham. In the attractive houses with their lofty names, in the dinky villages, the well-kept hedges, there is no trace of a poster, no sign of electioneering at all. This can only be conjecture, but I think it’s because the campaign’s artificial cyan branding matches nobody’s curtains. From Elvetham Heath to Hartley Wintney, places impossible to name without sounding like you have a lisp, there is a marked reserve. One person in 20 would give me their full name. A 54-year-old woman asked me to call her “a retailer” (“Don’t you think that sounds a bit… clinical? How about Barbara?” “Barbara’s fine”). “It’s almost like you don’t want to say what you think because people are so opinionated and judgmental,” said Jo, 40. “I don’t know if it’s because everything is so heightened, since the referendum.” “But what do you think?” “I haven’t decided,” she said, and Jessica, her 42-year-old colleague in the organic food shop, said, “I can’t stand it when people won’t decide.” Opinions run the gamut from decided to undecided, but on two key points, almost everyone agrees: first, they’re going to vote Conservative; second, “It’s not about the party you agree with any more,” said Richard, 28, who worked in a corner shop in Hook, “it’s about who you disagree with the least.” In a glumbucket election, this is the centre of glum. Andrew (not his real name), 57, in a Costa Coffee in Hartley Wintney, makes the most positive case for a Conservative win: “They’re the most likely to provide un-ideological government. That’s what I want. Moderate, pragmatic government.” Then it starts to unravel a bit. He may love moderation, but is far from neutral: he’s so anti-fracking that, in the 2015 election, he registered to vote in the constituency of his second home in Yorkshire, then drove 280 miles, “not just to vote against the Conservatives: my intention was to deface their campaign poster”. But while he was on his way there, Nick Clegg announced his intention to double the council tax on second homes, and that made him so angry that he ended up voting for the very party he’d travelled all day to vandalise the posters of. In a glumbucket election, this is the centre of glum “I’m only telling you this as a mark of how ambivalent I feel about politicians.” But you’re still anti-fracking – “Yes, I absolutely loathe it” and the Conservatives are still pro-fracking – “And I loathe them for pushing it.” How to put this: why don’t you just vote for someone else? “It’s never really about a good or a bad choice, it’s a decision between several bad choices.” “At the end of the day,” said David Allison, who runs a flooring company and is in his 50s, “this is a very wealthy area. Hart was voted the best place in the country to live. Elvetham Heath had the highest household income.” He was ending his bank holiday in the Tweseldown, a pub in Church Cookham. Every hostelry is fancier than the last. By the time I got to the Red Lion in Odiham on Tuesday, opposite the constituency office, I’d landed on a tweed banquette. I raise that not because the privileged vote for the status quo – some do, some don’t. Rather, it’s hard while you’re sitting on tweed, flanked by replica RAF paraphernalia some interior designer has bought by the metre, to believe that there’s anything wrong that a steady hand on the tiller can’t solve. Yet, Allison and others insist, they’re not voting in their own interests. “I’m not. I’ve got a daughter going to university, the best thing for me would be to have no tuition fees. But I’m not voting for myself, I’m voting for my country.” John, his friend, a similar age and a self-employed carpenter, chipped in to clarify: “Jeremy Corbyn is a weak lefty lunatic who will be a danger to this country.” David continued, “I find his pacifism sickening. Imagine how easily he would capitulate in Brexit negotiations.” Alan, a third friend, a physicist-turned-taxi-driver, disagreed: “Just because he’s a pacifist doesn’t mean he’d be a bad negotiator. We’re not at war with Europe.” We all gave him a sceptical look. Aren’t we, though? “People go on about the affluence, but there are pockets, not everyone’s rich,” said Sabrina, a social worker in her 30s, in the Tweseldown with Becky, a teaching assistant. They won’t vote Conservative, Becky because she thinks bringing back foxhunting is “the silliest idea I’ve ever heard”, Sabrina because she’s seen what government cuts have done to her department (“There are two of us doing a three-person job, and now they’re trying to bring that down to one”). Yet neither will consider voting anything else (“I did a quiz online,” Becky said, “and my closest match was Ukip. So that was a bit of a shock.” Sabrina thinks “they’re all the same”). I came to Hampshire North East expecting to find the level of consensus infuriating – smug at the very least – and left thinking, guys, I wouldn’t mind you all voting Conservative if you didn’t seem so miserable about it. None of this misery touches Jayawardena, however. “Listening to a sermon by the bishop of Basingstoke on Sunday, he talked about the first book of Chronicles, Chapter 29, where David gives willingly to fund a temple, even though it would be Solomon who would actually build it. I heard that sermon, and I thought there was a wonderful parallel here with Theresa May. It’s absolutely right to say, we can’t just pass the buck to the next generation.” Serene and faithful, he makes off to knock on another door. |