Disgruntled constituents could turn on the former Prime Minister
In what should be a Conservative safe seat, Britain’s shortest serving Prime Minister is now fighting to retain her place as she joins the list of former top Tories now at risk of being out of a job after 4th July.
Infamously defeated by a lettuce during her short stint as Prime Minister, Liz Truss’s disastrous record in power could see her disgruntled constituents cast her out at the general election.
Liz Truss was elected MP for South West Norfolk in four consecutive elections, securing nearly 70% of the vote in 2019. It is supposedly the 11th safest seat for the Tories. However the latest figures suggest a dramatic shift in her chances as a number of polls have predicted Labour could win the seat, on a tight margin.
The seat has been Conservative since 1964 and it would be a disastrous turn of the tides for Truss if she was booted out.
A local group of Tory activists dubbed the ‘Turban Taliban’ have re-emerged during the election campaign in another attempt to unseat her. They make up a group of traditional Conservatives who have felt let down by Liz Truss’s performance as a local MP and prime minister.
One of the group’s former members, 71-year-old James Bagge, is now running as an independent having left the Conservative Party in 2009. The risk for Truss is that the former army officer could take enough voters away from her to help Labour’s chances.
She has been accused of neglecting her constituency in order to promote herself abroad by the Labour candidate Terry Jermy, who has been a local councillor for 15 years. He told Politico he was “incredibly frustrated at her lack of involvement with the constituency.” This was only aided by Truss’s no show at the local hustings.
A campaign video released by Truss announcing her re-election was widely mocked online, after she listed her record in the area which included securing a new hospital, a new banking hub and money to regenerate the town centre. However she was strongly reminded of what she had failed to include, mainly crashing the economy and doubling people’s mortgages.
There are nine candidates standing in the constituency and Liz Truss has insisted that she has public support behind her, while Terry Jermy of Labour has predicted his chances as “50:50”.
In less than five days the verdict of South West Norfolk voters will be revealed.
(Image credit: X screenshot)
Hannah Davenport is news reporter at Left Foot Forward
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