If the Conservatives were trying to retain the seat of disgraced former MP Peter Bone, you could be forgiven for not noticing.
On a gray Wednesday morning in early February, there wasn’t a single Conservative poster or billboard to be seen during the 20-minute walk from Wellingborough station to the city centre.
This is the very market town that voted for Boris Johnson’s government with a huge majority of 18,540 in 2019.
As grand Victorian terraced houses give way to smaller shops and family-run bistros, you eventually pass the campaign headquarters of Conservative candidate Helen Harrison.
It is an abandoned single room with a car parked outside. Except for some posters of Mrs. Harrison hanging in the window and a chair pushed into the back corner of the room, you wouldn’t think anyone had been inside for years; a campaign team from the most electorally successful political party on the planet, at least. .
But when we talk to people in the town it soon becomes clear why the Conservatives are keeping their powder dry. Despite Mr. Bone’s overwhelming majority, they are in serious contention.
Not only are the Conservatives 20 points behind Labor in national polls, local voters are also angry at the behavior that led to Mr Bone’s expulsion from parliament.
Tory, a one-time senior, was fired after it was discovered he had indecently exposed himself to a member of staff and trapped her in the bathroom of a hotel room.
To many residents, the Conservatives have done themselves few favors by choosing to replace Mr Bone with Ms Harrison, his partner of several years.
Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak and his cabinet showed little interest in the contest; Neither a minister nor the Prime Minister took up the seat to campaign.
After many locals said they would not vote, it was largely “they”. [politicians] they are all the same,” some voters explained why they would not support the Conservatives next Thursday.
“I’m not voting for Peter Bone and his little puppet [Ms Harrison]A former Conservative Party voter said: Independent.
Ms Harrison is a 51-year-old physiotherapist who currently serves as a Tory councilor for North Northamptonshire. He was one of the directors of Grassroots Out, a pro-Brexit pressure group co-founded by Mr Bone ahead of the 2016 EU referendum.
Mr Bone’s partner is an enthusiastic supporter despite a damning parliamentary report into his behavior and has expressed pride in having the former Tory MP with him on the campaign trail.
He also claimed the standards panel “got it wrong” when it found he exposed himself to an assistant and physically hit her.
And Mr Bone claimed people did not raise his partner’s behavior towards him as an issue when he was around knocking on doors in Wellingborough and Rushden.
Another man said he usually votes Liberal Democrats but Ms Harrison’s candidacy has encouraged him to tactically vote Labor next Thursday.
“The Conservatives have elected Peter Bone’s girlfriend and that means she will be running the business and we don’t want that,” he added.
A third Labor voter, who has also supported the Liberal Democrats in the past, said the party’s candidate, Gen Kitchen, had won him over. The man, who teaches U3A art at the Victoria (community) Centre, said: “Gen won my vote because he came to art class and did all the handshakes and introductions.
“But after all that, he rolled up his sleeves and helped the volunteers clean and organize.”
“You’ve got to do it,” said Ms Kitchen, whose honeymoon was cut short by the damning report into Mr Bone’s conduct that led to the by-election.
The 28-year-old former waiter, councilor and charity worker said it was his natural instinct to help clean up and he even did it at the local bingo.
He was born in Northamptonshire to sailor parents who thought the idea of becoming an MP was “a bit crazy”.
But Ms Kitchen, who went to a local state school during the last Labor government, is determined to fight for voters who she says have been “left behind under Conservative leadership”.
He lashed out at Mr Bone and the Tory-run local council, saying they had failed to appeal for increased money and had left the high street to rot.
“Why don’t they take innovative ideas to the high street? Supposedly they are the party of the business world, but they are not there.”
At one point while wandering around Wellingborough town centre, there were 18 kebab shops and 18 barber shops within a 10 minute walk.
One voter, a former doctor who lives in a more affluent neighborhood, said the town has gotten worse in 30 years. “It used to be a pretty quaint country town, but now the town center is run-down,” he said.
He said he had voted Labor and Liberal Democrats in the past but would vote Labor this time because of Mr Bone’s bad behaviour.
But Hassan Ben Ali said not all voters had made up their minds Independent He would vote, but “it’s all the same.”
He complained about the cost of living crisis and the government’s handling of Brexit but said he still considered backing the Conservatives.
Mr Ben Ali criticized Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak’s stance on Israel’s occupation of Gaza.
And a few hours after getting off the train at Wellingborough station, Independent Eventually he found a house with two posters outside supporting Tory candidate Ms Harrison.
But when asked if he wanted to talk about his support for the Conservatives, the occupier refused.
Independent It was also one of many media outlets denied access to Ms. Harrison. One Labor MP said the party’s tactic appeared to be to retain as many die-hard Tory voters as possible while encouraging as low a voter turnout as possible.
“He’s trying to sneak in through the back door,” the deputy said.
While support for the Conservatives may be hard to come by, Ms Kitchen has her own mountain to climb. Even with Sir Tony Blair’s landslide majority in 1997, Wellingborough was Labour’s second most marginal seat, with a majority of just 187.
If Labor wins next Thursday’s by-election, it would not only propel Sir Keir Starmer into power, it would also see him heading for a Blair-style landslide.