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In Wokingham and Don Valley, candidates are finding their parties’ stances make it hard going on the campaign trail
On a cold, crisp day in a prosperous neighbourhood in Earley, Berkshire, Phillip Lee, the former Tory minister now running for the Lib Dems, has reason to be cheerful. In the space of a few minutes, he has traipsed up the long gravel drives to speak to a couple of voters pledging to switch from the Conservatives to back him.
And yet it is clear that Lee, whose concerns about Brexit drove him to give up a safe Tory seat to fight the Remain cause, is aware that there are frustrating obstacles that could prove critical in his quest to overturn the 18,000 majority of the arch-Brexiter John Redwood. The failure of a bigger pro-Remain pact looms large. “Alastair Campbell was out supporting me yesterday,” he says. “He’s pretty depressed about it.” Continue reading...