It’s a dark and gray morning in Witney city centre.
Raindrops pour down Cotswold stone and bounce from the pavements.
This dismal July scene gives the right metaphor for Conservative sentiment right here.
Witney, in Oxfordshire, has been a Tory stronghold for 102 years – and was additionally the constituency for former prime minister Lord Cameron – however it’s now formally now not a protected seat.
A “Liberal Democrats Winning Here” signal, seen from the roadside, is a nod to the city’s newly elected MP.
Charlie Maynard took the seat from the Conservatives, successful 20,832 votes to Robert Courts’ 16,493.
Discovering somebody who voted Conservative within the election, who desires to speak about it, isn’t straightforward.
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The primary prepared to speak is Mark Doig, standing outdoors the butchers, who describes the Tories as “in a bit of a mess”.
“Too many prime ministers”, he tells me. “Boris Johnson, Liz Truss – they all did their bit to put the nail in the coffin.”
He additionally says he “might vote Lib Dem” subsequent time.
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He provides: “I think the Tories have really blown it, it’s going to be difficult to get back.”
One other Conservative voter, on her mobility scooter outdoors Waitrose, is Joan White, who once more has at all times, largely, voted blue.
“They’ve got a lot of work to do haven’t they?” she says. “Immigration – they all need to work on it.”
After which: “I liked Rishi Sunak – he’s a gentleman of politics – but perhaps not tough enough.”
It’s one thing a number of individuals have stated right here – that they like Mr Sunak, however he wasn’t a pacesetter.
Patricia Harvey-Thompson
“Rishi Sunak was too weak,” Patricia Harvey-Thompson agrees. “Decent but weak.”
She goes so far as to say she felt sorry for him, so gave him “one vote”.
“I should have voted Lib Dem”, she provides, “but I thought well, at least get one vote”.
I ask her how she feels as a Conservative voter proper now.
She replies merely: “Disappointed.”
Past that, she admits that she’s going to “never forgive them for partygate” after her relative died of COVID.
It appears, for Patricia, and others I converse to, that the Conservatives have failed on most fronts.
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Jack Treloar, a 19-year-old Conservative councillor for Witney, agrees individuals “wanted change… nationally and locally”.
Jack Treloar
That’s why, he says, they voted tactically towards the Tories.
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So the place do the Conservatives go from right here in Witney?
Jack says the Reform occasion “split the vote” and that’s the place the Tories might want to work arduous to persuade individuals to return.
However there’s clear disenchantment with the Conservatives on this city and the poll field was finally their protest.
The subsequent Tory chief might want to do one thing vital to carry again voters.
Even those that remained devoted this time round look like slipping away.
