It was unseasonably hot in Alford, Lincolnshire, and the early evening had brought a contented glow to the main street and residential avenues of this quiet market town. Colin Matthews, a genial former schoolteacher, was putting in another shift trying to convince people to give him another term as a local Conservative councillor and marvelling at the outbreaks of fury he was encountering. One man, he told me, had simply grabbed a bit of Tory campaign literature out of his letterbox and torn it into small pieces.
A couple emerged from their house and got into a very large car. For some reason, they were both carrying huge slices of chocolate cake teetering on tiny white plates. What one of them told me was laced with disdain. “They don’t normally turn out giving us leaflets,” she said, pointing at Matthews. “They don’t normally give two shits.” Even here, it seemed, rude and angry were the things to be.
