In rain-lashed Sunbury, a picturesque commuter town strung out along the swollen River Thames, there is scant enthusiasm for the Conservatives ahead of Jeremy Hunt’s much-trailed pre-election budget – even among the party’s erstwhile supporters. Dodging the puddles, barrister Simon Wheatley, 67, describes himself as “traditionally Conservative; at the moment, undecided”. “I suspect I am so presently disaffected that I probably won’t vote,” he adds. Asked whether Hunt could tempt him with budget giveaways on Wednesday, he sighs. “My fear is that it’s become terribly political, and not necessarily with an eye to long-term economy”.
Outside a nearby parade of shops, a sprightly grandmother, who declines to be named, describes the “real quandary” she faces in the general election as a Conservative party member. Sunbury sits in the ex-briefly-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s constituency of Spelthorne, at the top of the M3. The 59-mile motorway, which carves its way south-west out of London, and in summer is thronged with weekenders heading for the New Forest and the coast, tells a tale of the UK’s changing political landscape. En route to the northern edge of Southampton, it passes through a string of other Tory seats, some of which have not changed hands for many years. These bustling commuter towns and cities, with their rural hinterlands, were not the battlegrounds of the last general election in 2019, when the action was concentrated hundreds of miles north, in the “red wall”. But while the Conservatives may well be safe in Spelthorne, where Kwarteng is stepping down, the election battles in at least three of the constituencies along the M3 corridor – Surrey Heath, Basingstoke and Winchester – will be hard-fought. Prof Will Jennings, from Southampton University, an elections expert, says: “That sort of M3 corridor – call it the blue wall, call it just the south of England – is home to the sorts of demographic that are increasingly challenging for the Conservatives. “They used to be areas that were affluent, car-owning, employed. Those demographics, through the period of political change we’ve seen over the last five years, since Brexit, have drifted away from the Conservatives. It doesn’t mean all these seats are going to go red and orange but it does mean that the Conservatives are going to have some real fights on their hands.” A short drive down the M3 from Sunbury, at the Lib Dems’ constituency HQ in Camberley town centre, parliamentary candidate Al Pinkerton, an academic at Royal Holloway, University of London, is ready for one such battle. The levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, has not yet been confirmed as the candidate here, in his Surrey Heath constituency – but Pinkerton and his team have spoken to about 3,000 voters since the new year.
He says they are hearing the same laments repeatedly – about the state of the NHS, the cost of living, sewage in the rivers, and a broader mistrust of politicians – including, he says, some people saying they will back the rightwing Reform party. “People used to say about Surrey, it was the old joke, stick a blue rosette on – insert farmyard animal here – and it would win. It’s just not the case. Even though we have fought hard for that change, it’s happened remarkably quickly.” He points to the change of control on Surrey Heath borough council, which the Lib Dems took over from the Tories last May, after a series of risky investments blew a hole in the finances.
As to whether Hunt could win plaudits in a constituency like this one with a giveaway budget – evidently the hope at Westminster – Pinkerton is sceptical. “I don’t know, I don’t have a crystal ball. But when I speak to people, they have tax cuts baked into their thinking, and they reserve the right not to be persuaded by it.” Another half an hour south-west, the M3 skirts the southern edge of Basingstoke constituency, which has been Conservative since 1924, barring a year in the noughties when the sitting MP quixotically joined the Democratic Unionist party (DUP). Its MP, Maria Miller, calls Basingstoke the “economic powerhouse of Hampshire”. She points to recent government spending in the town, which has expanded dramatically in recent decades. And she highlights a statue of local hero Jane Austen – who spent more time there than in Bath, she says – which Miller raised the funds to erect.
“We’ve had massive investment in our roads, in our schools. What we want to do now is to make sure that the NHS, which is probably the bit of public services that finds it most difficult to expand, can catch up,” she says. “What I think people in Basingstoke will be looking for from the budget is how they can get to keep more of the money they earn. The cost of living is a significant pressure in the south-east.” Some voters tell a different story. Just around the corner from the Austen statue, in the historic town centre, ultra-runner Adam McCartney, 40, has just bought a head-torch for a round-the-clock competition. “I feel like it’s got more run down, especially at this end of town. The shopping centre could do with filling up: that is a bleak place to be. When it first opened, every one of those units was filled, and now it’s very much not,” he says.
“It’s been a steady decline. Over the past few years it feels like it’s accelerated. It feels like the incumbent Tory regime have just left it to it – they’ve abandoned it and thought, ‘there’s just enough there to keep people going, so we’ll leave them to it’.” The newly selected Labour candidate, Luke Murphy, lists a by-now familiar series of issues that come up in his doorstep chats. “GP appointments, registering with dentists, the state of the top end of town. It’s just people’s day-to-day experience.” Murphy acknowledges he has a tough challenge if he wants to unseat Miller, pointing out that a Labour win here would be historic. The swing required, of 12.2%, is strikingly similar to the 12.7% average shift his party would need nationwide to win a majority, according to recent research by veteran election-watchers Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher. On a walkabout through the Festival Place shopping centre, Murphy is greeted by Deborah Reavell, 77, who says she is “excited” about the election, and highlights the gaps in NHS services. “Well, that’s universal isn’t it? You have to use Dr Google, and sort yourself out.”
Twenty miles to the south-west of Basingstoke is the historic city of Winchester, home to the prestigious public school that educated Rishi Sunak. This affluent, semi-rural constituency returned a Labour MP in Clement Attlee’s postwar landslide, and was Lib Dem from 1997-2010, but since then has been solidly Tory. With boundary changes drawing in parts of neighbouring MP Flick Drummond’s seat, she will stand here for the Conservatives, while the incumbent, the former health minister Steve Brine, is standing down.
Paul Morgan, the managing director of office supplies company Warrens Office, says Winchester is thriving. “I think we’re insulated from other parts of the UK because we’re only an hour from London,” he says, highlighting the bustling high street, increasingly a leisure destination. “I think a lot of people are high earners, connected with London. They may drive around in a 20-year-old Volvo but they’ve got cash on deposit and they’re insulated. So I think we’re not representative of the rest of the UK.” Despite being relatively upbeat about the outlook, he is scathing about the Tories’ record. “The Conservatives have lost the right to govern, based upon their current performance,” he says. “What the Conservatives have missed as an overarching principle is that they should be the party of lower taxes.”
And while Morgan is no fan of Labour – “I can’t think of a situation where they’ve left the country, after a period of government, in a better state than when they started” – he thinks some voters here will either abstain, or switch to the Lib Dems. “But that’s not based on desire, it’s based on the least worst option.” The Lib Dem candidate, Danny Chambers, a vet who specialises in treating horses, says his many conversations with voters have highlighted the same concerns echoed up and down the M3 corridor – a deep mistrust of politicians and despair at the state of public services, especially the NHS – which appear unlikely to be patched up by a single budget, however generous. “They just feel taken for granted; they feel like no one’s ever knocked on their door before, no one’s ever cared. I think people are desperate for better public services, and that’s everything from roads that don’t have potholes in it, to a sewage system that’s not leaking stuff into rivers, to NHS care. People would rather get the mental health care they need for their kid, who’s struggling, or the social care for their grandad, than a tax cut.” Back on Winchester high street, Geoff Evans, 72, laments the current crop of politicians – on all sides – as the worst he’s seen in his lifetime. “Professional politicians, they haven’t got a clue. Half of them haven’t got the common sense they were born with,” he says. “I hate to say it, but the best thing, if it would ever be possible, is to bring back Margaret Thatcher.”