The well-heeled shoppers strolling the grand promenade and pleasure gardens of Cheltenham’s affluent center should provide a much-needed respite for Boris Johnson’s ailing government. But the mere mention of the Prime Minister’s name provokes a reception as chilling as the chill air that blows over the spa town in the Cotswolds.
Outside the House of Fraser department store, Chris Carter, 74, is fed up with the man he helped put into No. 10. “I don’t like the guy — I’m not happy,” Carter says, holding a couple of bags. “He hides many things. He only apologizes if he gets caught [over the parties in Downing Street], but there is more to come. It’s not just parties – what else is he lying about?”
Carter, who has voted Conservative all his life, also worries about the other, even more devastating crisis threatening Tories’ voting fortunes: the rising cost of living. He muses that the average household gas and electricity bill could rise by £700 a year if the price cap changes in April.
Chris and Rachel Carter. “I don’t like the guy. I’m not happy,” says Chris. Photo: Karen Robinson/The Observer
“Rich people will not be affected. Poorer people will be in despair. and people [like us] in the middle gets no help at all,” he says. “I couldn’t vote Labor; I would probably vote liberals [if there was an election tomorrow].”
This will worry local and national conservatives. Cheltenham is finely balanced between the Tories and the Lib Dems. The city was a staunch Liberal Democrat for 23 years until the Tories conquered it in 2015. Current Conservative MP Alex Chalk, whom Johnson appointed attorney general, has a slim majority of 981 votes. It would take less than 1% variation to change it from blue to yellow.
Rising prices aren’t just eating away at people’s stagnant wages – they’re eroding Tory support in the South as well as in former Red Wall seats in the Midlands and North. In an upscale salon on the corner of two Regency Terraces, one of the hairdressers, James Wellings, 41, is feeling the pressure and fatigue of the party he voted for in 2019.
“I am a single father. You can really feel it,” he explains while a customer waits patiently. “In the weeks that I don’t have my son, I sift through the bottoms of what’s in the freezer so I can at least get him some nice stuff if he stays with me. [My son] no longer asks for things – he asks if we can afford things. He learned from me.”
Wellings is unsure who he would vote for now but is leaning towards Labour. “I voted conservative [in 2019] because I thought they were the best of a bad bunch. But am I impressed with the government? No. Am I happy with the way they handled things? No,” he says. “It’s frustrating when you have a prime minister describing his salary [for writing a newspaper column when he was mayor of London] as “chicken feed”. You are out of contact.”
William Mortimer Moore: ‘I never like Boris. He’s a bit of a pant fit.’ Photo: Karen Robinson/The Observer
Even those planning to vote Conservative again are struggling to say anything positive about the Prime Minister. William Mortimer Moore, author and landlord, remarks: ‘I never liked Boris. He’s a bit in the pants, he wouldn’t necessarily tell the truth, takes liberties, chaotic in his private life.
Away from the tourists and wealthy shoppers, there is another, poorer side to Cheltenham. Here, low wages, inadequate social benefits and rising costs are driving many into debt and into severe austerity to make ends meet.
Anne Crockard, 62, who earns minimum wage as a healthcare assistant, fears she won’t be able to retire. “They need to raise wages. I’m working more hours than ever before. I do 48-50 hours a week,” she says. “It’s hard work. It’s no good for me anymore – lifting up old people. I have a bad back. But I have to put in the hours to pay the rent and the bills. It’s horrific.”
Crockard, who voted for Johnson’s Conservatives in the last election, is yet to win over any of the leaders. “[Johnson’s] Leave the page down. But who do we choose next?”
Anne Crockard: “I’m working more hours than ever before.” Photo: Karen Robinson/The Observer
Jade Brock, 25, who takes care of her two children and works part-time as a sales clerk, has fallen into rent arrears. “My grocery store used to be £60 – now it’s £100. My weekly energy bill has gone from 20 pounds to 40 pounds,” she adds after listening to Crockard. “I’m behind. I want to get out of there, but I can’t do more lessons because I have two kids.”
Gregory Orchard, 29, can’t move from home despite working full-time at a hardware store. “It’s depressing — I’m just trying to push myself through it,” he says. His family often cannot afford to turn on the heating and fear the coming increase in energy bills. “We never have the heating on. We can’t afford that. We’re working three or four shifts,” he says.
His friend Jemma Ward, 29, who is on foster care, puts her four children first, which increasingly means she doesn’t. “The first priority is them,” she says. “It’s killing you because you’re hungry and you don’t have the energy to take care of her, but you have to keep going.”