The new front line of British politics is just lovely

Picture an idyllic British summer scene and the mind will generally conjure up an image of rich people having a lovely time. It might be a pink-faced crowd watching tennis at Wimbledon. Maybe it is men in blazers cheering rowers at Henley Royal Regatta. It could be horsey people roaring on their four-legged cousins at Glorious Goodwood, a fancy race meeting. In other words, you are picturing a Liberal Democrat constituency.

On July 4th the Lib Dems gutted the Conservatives in their prosperous heartlands across southern England, cantering to victory in seats such as Wimbledon, Henley and Thame, and Chichester. The electoral consequences were profound: the Liberal Democrats gained 61 seats almost entirely from the Conservatives, enough to condemn the Tories to opposition even before Labour bulldozed through more marginal seats on the way to a landslide victory. The political consequences will be profound, too. There is a new frontline in British politics—and it is just lovely.

For years British politics has focused almost entirely on rather grim places. Bellwether seats can be unappealing. Few tourists visit Harlow in Essex. People live in Dartford, a town in Kent, because of its convenience for London rather than because it is particularly nice. After the 2019 general election political attention turned to poorer seats in “left-behind” post-industrial regions such as Teesside, which are tough to love.

Now some of the fiercest political fighting will take place in Cotswold villages, in towns with £4m ($5.1m) homes overlooking the Thames and in small cathedral cities with fancy private schools. The richest voters in the country are up for grabs. By all means pay attention to the left-behind. But do not forget the “well-ahead”. No voter likes being overlooked, no matter how rich.

Henley and Thame was a typical gain for the Liberal Democrats. The constituency had been Tory since 1910 and once counted Boris Johnson, a former prime minister, as its mp. It ranks 643rd out of 650 for levels of deprivation. Life by the river is lovely for nearly everyone. Then again, so is life in almost every Lib Dem constituency. The Liberal Democrats control five of the ten most prosperous constituencies in Britain, according to Alasdair Rae of Automatic Knowledge, a data-analysis company. Almost half of all Lib Dem seats—33—are in the top decile. Among the 325 least prosperous constituencies, it has just seven MPs.

This was by design. Lib Dem strategists invented a rule of thumb: any town outside London with a branch of Gail’s, a bourgeois bakery chain, had activists hurled at it. It worked. The result was a vote of extreme efficiency, concentrated in Britain’s lovelier parts. In 2019 the Liberal Democrats won 11 seats with 3.7m votes; this time around they managed 72 seats from 3.5m.

After the Tory victory in 2019, prole-whispering became a full-time job for some: northern Leave voters were treated in the same way that 19th-century anthropologists approached indigenous tribes in Borneo. After 2024 well-ahead-whisperers will be asked to work out what these strange creatures have to whine about. Materially, things are fine in lovely land. Six out of ten Lib Dem voters say they are financially comfortable, according to More In Common, a pollster. (Four in ten Labour voters say the same.) On a wet Tuesday lunchtime in Henley-on-Thames a new Italian restaurant is rammed with well-to-do pensioners, enjoying a menu that includes sea bream at £33.50 and steak and lobster for £95.

The concerns of these lovely corners of England can seem piddling. Sewage became a political issue because Britain’s well-aheads decided swimming in waterways was fun; Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, spent half the campaign falling into bodies of water to highlight the problem. In Henley the bunting from the regatta is still hanging across the high street. Poo matters here; even the sturdiest rower is no match for E. coli.

But the well-ahead can have real problems, too. Lousy public services puncture any bubble of wealth. Private health care might enable a speedy hernia operation; but snap an ankle and someone with comprehensive cover will find themselves slumming it in an nhs a&e. Suffering is always relative. Complaints about the “cost of living” may seem ridiculous in Henley-on-Thames. Yet a luxurious life costs more than it did. It matters little whether someone has a mortgage worth £250,000 in Harlow or £800,000 in Henley-on-Thames: both types of voter are livid that housing costs shot up when interest rates rose. And each was happy enough with the idea of Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister to kick the Tories out.

Let them eat Gail’s cinnamon rolls

Do the Conservatives still understand this lovely England? Some do. In the run-up to the election Jeremy Hunt, then the chancellor, said that £100,000 was “not a huge salary” in his plush corner of Surrey. It was seen as a blunder. In fact, it was a stroke of genius. In most parts of the country, that is an enormous salary. But in most parts of the country, houses do not cost an average of £660,000. Mr Hunt looked at some of the richest, most fortunate people in Britain and said: “I feel your pain.” He survived the Lib Dem onslaught and is still the mp for Godalming and Ash, scraping home by 891 votes.

Other Conservatives are much further away from understanding the concerns of England’s nicest parts. Suella Braverman, a right-winger who sees herself as a future Tory leader (even if few colleagues do), this week gave a speech ranting about the threat of the lgbt pride flag. Voters thought the Lib Dems “were just more normal than the Tories”, says Luke Tryl of More In Common. The Liberal Democrats, a party that was once a haven for cranks, Celts and non-conformists, are now the party of royal regattas and lawn tennis. Until the Conservatives once again learn to speak for the well-ahead, the Lib Dems will do it for them. ■

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