The young man in a baseball cap doesn't have time to stop for a chat, but he needs only four words to get across his message: "Bring back Boris, innit."
We are in the market town of Monmouth, a Welsh Conservative stronghold where David Davies has been MP since 2005. In the last general election the Tories won a majority of almost 10,000 here, but as we interview shoppers on Monnow Street there are few signs that this is a heartland for the party.
The verdict from those we speak with on Saturday afternoon is damning of the Conservatives' recent record in UK government, including accusations of "ineptitude" and "crazy economics". But there are also some calls for Boris Johnson to return or Rishi Sunak to enter Number 10. And we bump into the area's MP who, on his way to a shoe shop, tells us there is "no reason whatsoever" for a general election and why he is backing a "safe pair of hands" in the Tory leadership contest, which is set to conclude within a week.
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Gill Jones, a receptionist taking her French bulldog Claude for a walk in the town centre, says: "I would definitely struggle to vote for the Conservatives ever again, I think. It's been total ineptitude and a lack of emphasis on the country as a whole. It's been more about personalities and individuals keeping their own jobs rather than seeing beyond the Westminster bubble."
The 66-year-old believes the Tories will find it hard to retain their seat in the town. "Monmouth has a reputation of being one of the wealthier areas... But we're subject to the same underfunding as everyone else. Our NHS system is very poor. The things people need, we are not getting in Monmouth as much as anywhere else."
Monmouth has not always been Tory, it fell twice to Tony Blair in 1997 and 2001 and once to Neil Kinnock in 1991, but Conservatives have usually had a much better reception here. Current MP Mr Davies has a commanding 19.9% majority and won five straight elections.
Yet he will be looking for a new job when the next General Election is held, if the latest polling trends are repeated at the ballot box. Electoral Calculus projects, using the average of the latest polls, that Labour will win Monmouth comfortably taking 50% of the vote while the Conservatives get less than a third.
The latest survey by People Polling has put the Conservatives on just 14% of the vote, the lowest level in British polling history, and on course to be all but wiped out in a general election. The poll commissioned by GB News, also asked people which word or phrase first comes to mind when they think about the Conservative government. The most popular words were “shambles”, “useless” and “incompetent”, followed by “chaos” and “rubbish”.
David Roffey, who is visiting Monmouth for the day, used to live in the town but now calls Hereford home. The 53-year-old tells us: "Both Monmouth and Hereford are very Tory places, very traditional sorts of towns, but I think the Tories have kind of let the traditional people down. The crazy economics of the last few weeks with Liz Truss have shocked a lot of people. Conservatives like a nice, quiet economic stability and they just haven't delivered on that, so I think the Tories are really going to struggle in the next few elections."
The housing association worker has voted Labour, Lib Dem and Plaid Cymru in the past, but he is complimentary of Mr Sunak. "He has got that economic competence and stability which, after the Liz Truss shock, we need to go back to, to get the trust of the markets back again," says David, who adds that Mr Johnson would be a "really backward-looking" choice.
Jeffrey Hudson, an 81-year-old who has lived in the area all his life, believes there is only one option: "Boris has got to come back. Why? Because there's nobody else."
The retired lorry driver is "not particularly" a fan of the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP, but thinks he should return because he has "done half a job". Jeffrey believes a general election would be a bad idea. "The country's in a big enough mess now. If Labour got in, it would go bankrupt."
Jeffrey has some sympathy for Liz Truss, whom he says was "on a hiding to nothing" given the economic climate, but he believes she was right to resign. And he gives a less than flattering view of the bookies' favourite to win the leadership race. "I honestly wouldn't like to see Rishi Sunak in charge... He's not for ordinary people, he's for the wealthy. Boris Johnson is down to earth."
Diane, a 63-year-old retired teacher who lives in Chepstow, tells us a general election would be "the fairest way forward". She has voted Tory in the past but would "find it difficult" to do so at the moment. "In the near future I think I'm struggling to know who I would vote for," she says.
As soon as Ms Truss' disastrous mini-budget was unveiled, Diane felt her resignation was an inevitability. She adds: "I think the Tories are going to struggle to recapture any of their longstanding seats anywhere in the country really, Monmouth included."
Mr Sunak would be Diane's choice for the next Tory leader due to his past in the treasury and the need for "some level of market stability". At first she thought Mr Johnson's mooted return was "just a big joke" but now she is "really worried it's more than a joke and could become reality".
'He's a steady hand on the tiller'
We catch Monmouth MP David Davies as he heads to buy some shoes. Explaining his decision to back Ms Truss in the previous leadership contest, he says: "What she wanted to do was laudable enough. I would have thought everyone would have agreed with it and I didn't actually see Labour or anyone else say that what she wanted to do was wrong.
"She wanted to be able to guarantee energy prices for two years and at the same time bring down taxes to enable growth. As far as I was aware, Labour supported the tax cuts except for the 45% one [the top rate of income tax] which didn't go through anyway... What the government was trying to achieve was I think perfectly laudable, it just wasn't achievable."
But Mr Davies thinks Ms Truss was right to step down. "She was hoping she could borrow enough money to pay an energy guarantee for two years but the markets weren't willing to do it without raising interest rates, so it couldn't be done."
Mr Davies says he was "a bit" surprised to hear of Mr Johnson's intention to stand, but adds: "There are so many surprising things going on in politics that the bar to surprise me is quite high." Although he does not wish to "say anything negative" about any candidates, he suspects Mr Johnson may struggle to get the 100 MP votes needed to progress to the online ballot of members. Around 50 MPs have declared their support for him at the time of writing but Mr Davies says: "I think if you were going to back him, you would have done it already."
For Mr Davies the preference is Mr Sunak. "We face a financial crisis at the moment and he's a financial expert. He's a safe pair of hands... He's a steady hand on the tiller to take us through a bit of a crisis."
The MP argues there is "no reason whatsoever" for a general election, pointing to Mark Drakeford, Nicola Sturgeon and Gordon Brown as examples of leaders who did not call immediate elections when they came to power.
What about the opinion polls? Opinium released one last week suggesting the Tories could lose all their Welsh seats, but Mr Davies says he is not thinking of his position any differently. "I never, ever get confident or arrogant about that. As far as I'm concerned there is no such thing as a safe seat, and the words 'safe seat' are actually banned in my office."
Mr Davies says hello to a friend walking by, the retired police officer Pete Davies. Asked whom he wants to win the leadership contest, Pete points to his heart and says "Boris", before pointing to his head and saying "Rishi". With a laugh, the Monmouth MP says: "I like it."
Pete, 66, tells us: "I have seen a lot of people say, 'I am not going to vote Conservative again.' But I think it's more to show their dissatisfaction. I think when push comes to shove, people will say, 'I can't put the cross in the other box, because I am Conservative.'"
Our last stop is the Salt and Pepper kitchenware shop, where Louie Hughes and Diane Booty have worked together for 10 years. They are such a well-liked double act that locals know them as Hinge and Bracket, but their views on the leadership race could not be more different.
Louie says: "I love Boris. I think he did so well with Ukraine. He made mistakes but they rubbed his nose in it a bit too much." With a chuckle and shake of the head, Diane gives her own verdict: "I think he is very intelligent but he doesn't stop to think about what he is saying and he comes across as a buffoon."
You can read more of the latest Welsh politics news here.
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