When Geoffrey Cox QC next makes an appearance in the north Devon town of Bideford on the banks of the River Torridge, he can expect a frosty reception. Trainee barber Summer Tanton, 17, summed up the mood of many. “I don’t know how he can understand the sort of things ordinary people here go through when he is so rich and, by the sound of it, living on the other side of the world half the time. He needs to be here, listening to us.”
Her colleague at the Old Town barber shop, Michael Smith, 31, agreed. “The only thing I know about him, to be honest, is that he has loads of money. That’s the problem with MPs. They’re out of touch.” Cox holds a thumping 25,000 majority in Torridge and West Devon, a seat he took from the Liberal Democrats in 2005. The constituency features hills, valleys, coastlines and moorland. There are well-heeled villages and towns but also pockets of deprivation. Torridge, which includes Bideford, has the sixth-lowest average weekly gross pay in the UK.
Jane Cannon, 61, said she had been holding down three jobs trying to make ends meet but had recently lost them all. “And meanwhile Geoffrey Cox is earning hundreds of thousands of pounds on top of his MP’s salary.” Cannon was taking part in a demonstration in Bideford on Wednesday opposing the closure of drop-in centres for people with mental health issues. “He should be here talking to us about these problems, not enjoying himself in the sun.”
At the skateboard park, 18-year-old Ben, who works at a pub and a skate shop, said there was cynicism and suspicion among younger people about politicians. “There’s a feeling they are just in it for them and they don’t have anything in common with us.” Cynicism is found in abundance on Cox’s Facebook page. Under a piece by the MP on 5 November, welcoming government funding for the area, one person responded: “Nice to see that you were thinking of your constituents while you were swanning around in the Caribbean.” The views of skateboarders and social media posters may not worry the Tory strategists in the West Country. But the opinions of elderly volunteers restoring the historic steam water carrier ship, SS Freshspring, on the quayside might.
John Pook, 74, a retired anaesthetist, said Cox had proved useful when he and his neighbours were fighting the threatened closure of an ancient lane. “But you hear some dire stories about him,” he said. Pook said he had voted Conservative for “90% of my life” but wouldn’t back Cox next time. Cox’s political opponents were keen to take advantage. Councillor David Brenton, who leads the Labour group on Torridge district council, said: “You could run a missing MP contest. Spot him and win £1,000.” Brenton said he had last seen Cox in the flesh in August 2020 when he attended the opening of a slipway in the coastal village of Westward Ho! “We don’t come across him very much at all.”
Brenton has stood four times in general elections but, frankly, never got close. “He does very well in the rural places. There are a lot of landowners and retirees around here, many of whom are natural Tory voters.” But the Tories seemed unabashed. Councillor Simon Newton, the party’s group leader on Torridge district council, rejected the idea Cox was never around and said he last saw him three weeks ago when he listened to villagers complaining about disturbance from private helicopters clattering over Dartmoor. “He came and listened and talked to people,” said Newton.
John Gray, the chair of the Torridge and West Devon Conservative Association – whose political mantra is: “You get the politicians you deserve” – said Cox was a “superb” local MP who combined “a strong ethos of public service with an astonishing work ethic and valuable legal expertise”. Gray said the proof was in the pudding. He had built his majority from just over 3,000 to almost 25,000 because of his “dogged commitment” to serving his constituents. He claimed Cox’s independent thinking during the Brexit negotiations benefited the whole country. “People don’t want to see machine politicians and in Geoffrey Cox we have an MP who brings far wider expertise.”
James Ashley, 47, who was pinning up the day’s menu outside the Mill Street Brasserie, could not have disagreed more. He has still not got over the expense claims Cox made in 2015 for a 49p bottle of milk, £2 worth of teabags and £4.99 for “weedkiller for space in front of the constituency office”. “I think that sums him up, really,” said Ashley.