Warning signs

DURING the General Election campaign, I volunteered to fold leaflets and canvass by phone at Home Secretary Amber Rudd’s office in the Hastings & Rye constituency.

I was appalled by the downright abuse I received on the phone and told the office staff the Tory manifesto was proving unpopular, especially the plan to remove the triple lock on pensions and the changes to social care. No one listened. By the middle of last week, I was telling the other volunteers I thought Ms Rudd could lose her seat and there would be a hung Parliament. All they did was laugh.

When I met Ms Rudd, I told her my fears, but the others in the room said how wrong I was. So, I was sad, but not surprised, when the results came in: Ms Rudd retained her seat, with a reduced majority from almost 5,000 in 2015 to a knife-edge 346.

MEG BOUTELL, St Leonards-on-Sea, E. Sussex.