With their party conference blown off-course by the row over HS2, and the king’s speech overshadowed by Suella Braverman’s comments about homelessness, next week’s autumn statement is one of the few remaining opportunities for the government to make a renewed pitch to the public. Our focus group last night suggests the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, has his work cut out – not just to bolster vulnerable colleagues but even to win back voters in his own back yard.
The voters that researchers from More in Common spoke to in the new Godalming and Ash seat were part of the so-called “blue wall”. Most were lifelong Tory supporters – as concerned about issues like the rise in private school fees or pressures on landlords as the more day-to-day cost of living concerns we often hear. Voters like these held their noses and stuck with the Conservatives in 2019, despite disliking Boris Johnson, because they feared Jeremy Corbyn was worse. Four years later the mood, summed up by Heather, a sales manager, was of having reached the end of the line with a government behaving like “a runaway train”.
