The House of Commons green benches have fallen silent in Westminster and it’s time for us, the United Kingdom, to choose who will occupy them next.
So, Sky News has decided to take a piece of upholstered parliamentary furniture around the country for you to share your thoughts on.
We started our Bench Across Britain series in the West Country, hauling our green bench down the harbour steps, across dark slimy rocks and on to the vast yellow sands of Towan Beach in Newquay Bay.
Here we found our first speaker, surf instructor Rich Holgate Smith.
“I haven’t engaged with it enough myself,” he admits. “I don’t follow Rishi Sunak religiously. But I see what’s happening on a daily basis, like, the way I’m living.
“The cost of rent has tripled in the last few years or the cost of food has gone up. And I see we’re losing a lot of the good things that made this country great, a lot of free services, the NHS, for example.”
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Rich Holgate Smith
The feeling that public services are in decline is a recurring theme of conversation on our bench, as is the cost of living.
Young couple Sophia Zielinski-Keall and Max Whiteley are on the beach walking their dog when they stop for a chat.
“I haven’t seen anybody come down here really to see what’s happening in Cornwall,” says Sophia. “Like on house prices; they have spiralled out of control down here. We managed to buy a first home and we feel quite lucky. It was hard.
“I know a lot of people who are trying to buy their own first homes at the moment as well and they’re finding it really, really tricky, especially with the salaries down here. They don’t compare to the salaries in London and…
