To find optimism, I often go to Milton Keynes – and if that triggers a smirk, it is probably proof that you have never been there. Long known as England’s pre-eminent new town, it was granted city status two years ago, which matched not just its size and diversity but a modern optimism that you do not have to try hard to find. For sure, it has problems with poverty, inequality and homelessness. But it also pulses with a fascinating sense of the future.
On election day I was in one of Milton Keynes’s more deprived neighbourhoods, talking to people as they came in and out of the local polling station. And at about 4pm I spoke to Sandra, a young woman who had just finished her A-levels and was voting for the first time. What, I wondered, had she been thinking about as she decided who to support. “Workers’ rights, jobs, education, not serving in the army like Mr Sunak wants,” she said.
