With one week to go before voters head to the polls in the North Shropshire byelection, the Downing Street Christmas party scandal has prompted some last-minute doubts. “Boris has let us down, hasn’t he,” said Wendy Young, 72, who along with her husband has long voted Conservative in general elections. “I’m not sure who I’ll vote for now, but I am considering switching.” On the other hand, her husband, 75-year-old Dian Young, was unmoved by the issue and said it hadn’t affected how we would vote at all. “My opinion is it happened 12 months ago; forget it. There’s a lot of things we need to sort out now with regards to Covid and that should be the priority,” he said, as he drank coffee in Oswestry’s Festival Square on Thursday morning. “I don’t believe the prime minister knew anything about it. It was going on behind the scenes.”
The couple were typical of the split opinion across the town as voters weighed up the significance of the scandal engulfing the Conservative party. Reports of a string of staff parties over the festive period last year have prompted an investigation by the cabinet secretary, and Boris Johnson is facing calls to resign if he is found to have misled MPs about the gatherings. Last week the prime minister joined the campaign trail in North Shropshire in the run-up to the byelection, which has been prompted by Owen Paterson resigning in the wake of Johnson’s disastrous attempt to save him from punishment over a serious breach of lobbying rules. One Oswestry local who asked to remain anonymous said she and her husband had voted Conservative for the first time at the last general election, but were considering switching back to Labour after reading the news this week. “We didn’t see our family last Christmas because we weren’t allowed, were we?” she said.
There were still many holding back anger as they talked of the sacrifices they and their family members had made to follow the rules. “I spent Christmas alone last year. It feels like one rule for them,” said 49-year-old Julie Owen. “I think people are losing confidence in the Conservatives. And any new Covid rules that are brought in, I think people will just ignore them.” “I’m not surprised, and not really that shocked either, we’ve come to expect this kind of thing. I can totally understand why people are angry though,” said 35-year-old Alex Dempster, adding that he probably will not vote in the upcoming election as he doesn’t feel it will make any difference in a historically safe Tory seat. North Shropshire past election results
“People are just appalled because of what they had to go through at the time. I know somebody who had to watch his father’s funeral over video. It seems like they were ignoring the rules and enjoying themselves while everyone was going through hell,” said Mike Coppock, 60, a former independent town councillor who runs a local gift shop. He plans to vote for the Green party, which he anticipates will be the surprise success of the election, but doubts whether anything will be enough to stop a Conservative win in a constituency that has returned a Tory MP ever since it was created.
“I think that many people who usually vote Conservative will not bother going out to vote,” he said. “But it’s a shame we don’t have a single opposition candidate, because the vote will be so split.” The Liberal Democrats are predicted to be the main contenders in the byelection, with some bookmakers placing them as the favourite to win following the Christmas party backlash, and the Lib Dems are feeling more confident with each passing day. “There’s no doubt the past 48 hours have really depressed the Conservative vote,” said Jack Haines, a Lib Dem campaigner. “It’s definitely too close to call. What will be key is Conservative voters getting very angry, and those true blue voters who probably would never switch their vote, but they definitely might stay at home and not vote.”