If politics is a soap opera, the people of Canvey Island switched off a few years ago. This is England at its most Conservative, literally: the island is in the constituency of Castle Point, which delivered the highest vote share (76.7%) in Britain for the party at the 2019 election.
The Tories’ looming appointment with electoral calamity is evident from the responses I receive when visiting this Essex coastal town, which range from indifference to contempt. There are plenty of older folk (a quarter of the residents in the constituency are aged over 65) but also a sprinkling of families, as well as shirtless young lads bombing down the high street on bikes, passing union flag bunting on the railings. Ask about the election, and some respond as if it’s the first they’ve heard of it, others like it’s a mild trauma they’d rather forget.
“I am not going to vote,” becomes a stock answer. Worryingly for the government, many of those answers come from people who plumped for the Conservatives last time, such as Dave, a 78-year-old pensioner. He cites a question from the BBC leaders’ debate in Nottingham last Wednesday, which comes up unprompted a few times here: “Are you two really the best we’ve got to be the next prime minister of our great country?” If there’s any comfort for Sunak, Dave dismisses Farage as a “one-man band”, with little to back up his policies.
That said, Reform has become a repository for the hopes of many former Tory supporters here. Steve, aged 70, is washing his car in the sun. A former printer and proud trade........