‘Voters care about bins, not PM’s wallpaper’
‘There was a gentleman talking to us about the trees, the road, the speeding, That was his complete focus’
VOTERS care more about whether bins are being emptied rather than who has paid for Boris Johnson’s flat to be decorated, the co-chairman of the Conservative Party has said.
Amanda Milling insisted that the party’s donations were being spent on campaigning ahead of this week’s super Thursday local and regional elections.
Ms Milling was speaking on the campaign trail in Hartlepool to The Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics podcast last week 24 hours before the Electoral Commission launched an inquiry into whether party funds were used to pay for the redecoration.
The Prime Minister has insisted that the watchdog will find no wrongdoing. Asked if she could guarantee that party money was not spent on the flat, Ms Milling said: “Donations are absolutely focused on campaigning on the ground in seats like this in Hartlepool, but also the elections across the country.
“And from my point of view, I’m really enjoying getting out on the doorstep and talking to residents, because what’s really important to them?
“It is the things which we’re talking about for these local elections: who fills the potholes, who empties the bins, who keeps your streets safer.”
Ms Milling repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over how the flat’s renovations were funded. She said: “The donations that are made to our party are all important to us, focusing on campaigning. All our donations are reported to the Electoral Commission.”
Asked directly if the work on the flat was paid for by the Tory party, Ms Milling said that the Prime Minister “has paid for the refurbishment”.
The row over the 11 Downing Street flat was one for the Westminster “bubble” and not for members of the public preparing to vote on Thursday, she claimed, adding: “On the doorstep people are firmly focused on the issues in terms of the local area.
“I was in Sandwell only yesterday and there was a gentleman talking to us about the trees, the road, the speeding. That was his complete focus.”
The time people had spent at home during the three national lockdowns over the past year had meant that they were more focused on local services, she said. “If you think about the last 12 months, we’ve all been staying at home following the rules. We’ve really noticed those things. We noticed when the bin came to get collected, we noticed those potholes.”
Tory sources are hopeful of pulling off a shock victory in the Hartlepool byelection, the first time the party would have held the seat since 1974.
One said: “The numbers coming out of Hartlepool privately are saying they think they are going to romp it. They are getting this twin bounce of the vaccine and getting Brexit done.”
However Ms Milling said: “This is a very, very tough ask. This is a seat that has been a Labour seat for decades. We didn’t win it in 2019 despite winning seats in the region.” Tory strategists are expecting the Tories to lose more than 1,000 seats on Thursday. Ms Milling added: “We outperformed in the last set of local elections while Labour and the Lib Dems have underperformed and we’re expecting to see a post-Corbyn bounce and a Lib Dem revival.”
A Labour source also tried to manage expectations, saying: “We experienced our worst defeat since 1935 in December 2019. It is going to take time to win back that trust, and that’s been made all the more difficult by the pandemic. This will be a pandemic election. Whether you’re in Hartlepool, Scotland or London, that’s still the dominant issue.”