Even in the borough that ‘saved Thatcher’, the tide is turning against ‘utter disgrace’ Boris
IT HAS been the poster-boy council for Thatcherism for decades – but the Conservatives now risk losing the borough of Wandsworth to Labour for the first since the 1970s.
The south-west London council is one of seven that the Conservatives are projected to lose as voters threaten to sit on their hands in the wake of partygate.
Labour won the popular vote in the 2018 council elections, while Putney, Tooting and Battersea all returned Labour MPS the following year as the borough seemingly drifted to the Left.
Ravi Govindia, the Conservative leader of Wandsworth council, and an adherent of low-tax, laissez-faire conservatism, said he was proud of the fiscal prudence shown by his administration. “We don’t particularly want to charge people more than we absolutely need,” he said. “That’s an absolute belief of this council.
“We have been able to reward residents, and that’s because we are able to afford it. We can afford it because we have looked after our money very, very carefully.
“We do not have any debt. We do not have to spend any money servicing a debt. Now that is a record of delivery, and that is the mark of our success.”
Malcolm Grimston, who has been a councillor for almost 30 years and left the Tories in 2014 to sit as an independent, noted Wandsworth “saved Thatcher’s political life” in 1990 when the Conservatives held it amid a dismal set of national results.
Embattled by a growing cost-ofliving crisis, a thorny relationship with his backbenchers, and the hangover of a partygate scandal that refuses to go away, Boris Johnson will hope his party can also cling on to the traditionally blue borough.
But when one disillusioned Conservative voter in Putney was asked by The Telegraph what could convince him to return, he said: “Get rid of Boris, I think he’s a complete and utter disgrace.
“I know it’s a local election, but it’s the only way we have to give a message.
“I was a lifetime civil servant – he’s wrecking the whole system.”
Elsewhere in the borough, there were more encouraging signs for the Conservatives as they strive to avoid what would be a totemic defeat. One voter described partygate as “awful”, but insisted that the issue was “done” in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Another Wandsworth resident said that he would remain loyal to his low-tax, local Conservative councillors in today’s elections despite recent woes in Westminster.
But the second part of his answer might alarm CCHQ.
“It will matter more in the national [elections]. If Mr Johnson would get out, then hopefully they’d put someone else in… then maybe I’ll stick with the Tories.”
As the Tories brace themselves for losses nationwide, Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak’s tax rises are starting to bite in what was reputedly Thatcher’s favourite council of all.
And if the Tories cannot hold Wandsworth, it would be a crippling loss – felt not just across the country, but right at the heart of what the Conservative Party has traditionally stood for.