Betty Granger refuses to give up hope for another Conservative government. Sipping tea in the New Milton Conservative Club in Hampshire, Granger, 97, says she has her “fingers crossed” for a Tory win. She posted her 21st vote for them earlier this week. “I can’t think what anybody else would’ve done better,” she says of their record. Despite widespread expectation of a Labour landslide, there are still pockets of the country where the Conservatives’ following remains faithful. In the Hampshire seat of New Forest West, more than half of the population is over 50. Many move here to retire, most own their homes, and a tribal loyalty to the Tories is still commonplace.
Sir Desmond Swayne bucked a national swing to Labour when he was first elected here in 1997. Swayne is campaigning to hold the seat for an eighth term. He hits the campaign trail in his BMW convertible, with a battered cardboard cut-out of Margaret Thatcher strapped into the back seat. But even though he is the Tory candidate predicted to take the biggest lead in the UK, Swayne’s seat is not as safe as it once was. YouGov estimates he will take 41% of the vote, with Labour projected as second with 19%. The New Milton Conservative Club boasts 2,500 members – more than a fifth of the town’s population. The average age of members is 71, and cheap beer and regular line dances make it a social hub of the local retirement scene. For Granger, there is “never any other” party. She retired to New Milton from the Midlands where she and her late husband worked as a secretary and a sales rep to buy their own bungalow. She seems unperturbed by the legacies of Boris Johnson or Liz Truss and says the Conservatives are “the most sensible of the lot. Never has life been so good as when they’re in.” Swayne expects this race to be the closest he has contested. If the polls are right, his previous lead will be chopped in half. With a fraying “Vote Desmond Swayne” rosette pinned to his shirt, he tours the village in the sweltering heat, aware of his narrowing margins. A former Territorial Army major, Swayne starts his day of canvassing in Milford on Sea, an affluent coastal village where the majority of properties sold last year were detached £1m houses, according to RightMove. He acknowledges “the polling is very disappointing”, as he clicks down the street in brogues, but believes this to be dissatisfaction with the Tories rather than enthusiasm for Labour. Among Swayne’s previously reported opinions are the notion that blackface is “an entirely acceptable bit of fun” (which he has since apologised for), that the justification for masks during Covid was “mumbo jumbo”, and that fly tippers might be put off if they “were garotted with their own intestines”. But on the doorstep in this genteel village, Swayne is affable and suave, taking off his panama hat and introducing himself, before launching into his opening gambit: “Do you have any issues or concerns or rage that you want to express?” A retired project manager, Mark Gussin, 68, replies that he’s got “quite a lot of rage” at the party at the moment, from the leadership merry-go-round to “simple things like announcing the election in the pouring rain”. He also thinks Swayne has been the MP for too long – but nevertheless he has not ruled out a vote for him, because he’s “terrified” of Labour.
Around the corner, a retired hotelier, Roger Alexander, 79, is reluctantly planning to vote for Swayne again but says “I don’t want to” because he is “long past his sell-by-date”. His reason: “Habit, if I’m really honest … and I’ve always felt that the Conservatives would be best for me personally.” Alexander is also defensive of the Conservatives’ record. “I don’t believe they made a right royal mess of the last 14 years at all.” He points to world events such as Covid and Ukraine that have affected the economy and believes “they’ve dealt with it as well as they could”. When asked how Liz Truss fits into that, he smirks and says: “Error.” Traditionally the Liberal Democrats have come second here, but most polls predict Labour will be runners-up. One small poll even put Labour ahead. In the north of the constituency, past the New Forest villages where wild ponies roam free, are the market towns of Fordingbridge and Ringwood. Residents here are typically younger and less likely to vote Conservative. At Crow Farm shop in Ringwood, the manager, Alex Ward, 37, is still unable to buy a home for his family and says he is likely to vote Labour. His mother used to write to Swayne “every week”, he claims, but he “never replied”.
Ringwood is home to New Forest council’s only Labour councillor, John Haywood. “We are expecting the biggest Labour vote ever in this constituency,” he says. Despite this, Haywood knows that voting blue “is so ingrained here in some people”. The Labour candidate, Dr Sally Johnston, is a GP in the port town of Lymington, who led the New Forest Covid vaccination programme. But even here she faces a fight. At the Royal Lymington Yacht Club, John Macnamara, 76, is enjoying a glass of chilled white wine on the terrace. The retired oil and gas manager has already cast his postal vote so he can take his “beautiful” 33ft sloop across the Channel to France, once the wind picks up. Low taxes are a priority and he has a 100% record of voting Conservative. He thinks “they haven’t done much to cover themselves in glory” this time – but he voted for them anyway. “Anyone very rich campaigning for Labour, there’s something wrong there,” he says.
Sitting on a nearby harbour wall, an off-duty gardener is trying to catch a bass for dinner with a friend. Asking to stay anonymous for fear of alienating his wealthy clients, he is despondent at the politics of the area. At 29, he is still living with his mother in Milford on Sea, along with his partner and their baby, and cannot see a future where he can afford his own home. He voted Labour or Green in previous elections but says it “made no difference” and he didn’t register this time. He says: “I’m not rich. Desmond Swayne is going to get in. No one gives a fuck. What are any of them going to do for me?”