FOCUS ON POLICIES TO TORY MPS TELL BORIS
the Prime Minister’s alleged comments on “bodies piling high” during the pandemic or the decoration of his official flat are not priority issues for voters.
MPS said the public response does not compare to the passions ignited by Mr Cummings’s travel to Barnard Castle during last year’s lockdown, or by footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign for free school meals during holidays.
A Conservative MP in a former Labour red wall seat said he had only had four emails and one phone call about “sleaze”.
He added: “The worst times so far since I’ve been elected were Dominic Cummings and free school meals, and those were horrific. I mean, we were getting hundreds of emails and getting abuse online.”
North West Leicestershire MP Andrew Bridgen said: “It seems to be more of a problem for our middle class voters in the South than our working class ones in the
North.” Ipswich MP Tom Hunt said: “I have had a few emails and nothing on the doorsteps. It has all been about the vaccine rollout and how fast we are unlocking.” Bassetlaw MP Brendan Clarke-smith said: “It just hasn’t come up at all.voters I have spoken to seem to be more interested in what we are doing as a government.
“Labour doesn’t seem to realise that this is not a priority for most voters and it is not exactly going to win back the red wall for them.”
Thursday’s elections – when voters will choose councillors, mayors, police and crime commissioners, members of the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and a new MP for Hartlepool – are seen as a key test for how the PM’S support is holding up.
Andrew RT Davies, who leads the Conservatives in the Welsh parliament, said Mr Johnson is “definitely an asset”.
He said: “I was with Boris on Monday up in North Wales and he went down a storm. We went up and down Llandudno promenade and he was literally mobbed.
‘It just hasn’t come up at all’
“Could you imagine a prime minister with the profile that Boris has had – dare I say someone like Tony Blair – doing such a walk around when they were prime minister? And he was busily eating an ice cream on the beach, and there wasn’t [dissent] from anyone...
“And that wasn’t a controlled crowd. That was a crowd out for a sunny afternoon in Llandudno and just happened to have the Prime Minister in their midst.”
Richard Holden, who won North West Durham for the Conservatives in 2019, said: “The key thing on the ground in these elections – particularly in the North and in seats like mine – is who’s going to deliver the levelling-up agenda, who’s going to keep council tax reasonable and who’s going to stand up for local communities? That’s what’s cutting through at the moment.”
However, the controversy may be having more of an effect within Westminster.
A senior Tory source said: “It’s starting to hit Boris’s credibility in the parliamentary party more than it is out there in the country. I think it’s a real worry for MPS.”