“I won’t vote Tory again”: how water crisis is hitting the Conservatives in the Blue Wall

The Guardian reports:

The water crisis in Surrey is threatening to turn lifelong Tories into revolutionaries.

“The whole thing needs stirring up, but short of storming the gates what do you do?” asks exasperated retiree Mary Barnby after days of on-off water supplies in the village of Cranleigh…

Barnby is furious with the company, on the day it announced a hosepipe ban. “Some of the water bosses should face jail for this rather than £2m bonuses.”

Pointing to one of the water tanker drivers, she says: “That chappy there doesn’t have bonuses – he doesn’t even have a Portaloo.” The driver, Chris, a subcontractor from Redditch in Worcestershire, has been sleeping in a tanker’s cab since Saturday…

The local Liberal Democrats reckon such anger could help it pick up so-called blue wall seats. Cranleigh is part of the Guildford constituency – which is 11th on the party’s lists of winnable seats.

“We lost by just 3,337 votes,” says Zoë Franklin, who will be standing again for the party whenever the election is called.

You can read the full piece here and you can help Zoë Franklin’s campaign here.

Sign up to get the latest news and analysis