It’s a gloomy, gray morning in Witney town center.
Raindrops fall on Cotswold stones and bounce on the pavements.
This grim scene from July provides the perfect metaphor for the conservative sentiment here.
Witney in Oxfordshire has been a Tory stronghold for 102 years – and was also the constituency of former prime minister Lord Cameron – but is now officially no longer a safe seat.
A “Liberal Democrats Winning Here” sign, visible from the roadside, pays homage to the town’s newly elected congressman.
Charlie Maynard took over for the Conservatives, winning 20,832 votes to Robert Courts’ 16,493.
Finding someone who voted Conservative in the elections, who wants to talk about it, is not easy.
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The first one willing to talk is Mark Doig, outside the butchers, who describes the Conservatives as “a bit confused”.
“Too many prime ministers,” he tells me. “Boris Johnson, Liz Truss – they all did their part to put the nail in the coffin.”
He also says he “might vote Liberal Democrat” next time.
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He adds: “I think the Conservatives have really screwed up, it will be difficult to come back.”
Another Conservative voter, on her scooter outside Waitrose, is Joan White, who again has always voted mainly blue.
“They have a lot of work to do, don’t they?” she says. “Immigration – they all need to work on that.”
And then: “I liked Rishi Sunak – he’s a gentleman politician – but maybe he’s not strong enough.”
It’s something that some people have said here – that they like Mr Sunak, but he was not a leader.
Patricia Harvey-Thompson
“Rishi Sunak was very weak,” agrees Patricia Harvey-Thompson. “Decent, but weak.”
She even goes so far as to say that she felt sorry for him, so she gave him “a vote”.
“I should have voted Lib Dem,” she adds, “but I thought well, at least get a vote.”
I ask her how she feels as a Conservative voter right now.
She responds simply: “Disappointed.”
Plus, she admits she will “never forgive them for partying” after her relative died of COVID.
It seems, to Patricia and others I talk to, that the Conservatives have failed on most fronts.
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Jack Treloar, a 19-year-old Conservative councilor from Witney, agreed that people “wanted change… at a national and local level”.
Jack Treloar
That’s why, he says, they voted tactically against the Conservatives.
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So where do the Conservatives go from here in Witney?
Jack says the Reform Party “split the vote” and that’s where the Conservatives will need to work hard to convince people to come back.
But there is clear disenchantment with conservatives in this city and the polls were ultimately their protest.
The next Conservative leader will need to do something significant to bring voters back.
Even those who remained faithful this time seem to be running away.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
