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In leafy South West Surrey, traditional Tory ground, we are taking the public temperature.
“It’s very hard to vote Conservative at the moment”, 49-year-old Penny tells us. “You just can’t ignore the last two years”.
This is the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s seat (8,800 majority). Voters here are affluent, home-owning, traditional Conservatives, the sort of people the Tories cannot afford to lose; and the subject that comes up again and again: mortgages.
“I am just constantly thinking about money now, and it’s even worse for the kids,” one homeowner tells me who now pays £600 more a month for her mortgage.
PM claims ‘we are going to get through this’; follow Politics Hub latest
Speaking to voters in the street for an hour is not an exact science, but the mood here has undeniably turned away from Rishi Sunak, towards Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
The Labour leader wants to link the Conservatives, in particular Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, directly to the mortgage problem.
Today he said the party has “hugely damaged” the economy and “we haven’t had growth for 13 years”.
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Sir Keir Starmer takes aim at the Tories
The trouble for the prime minister is that message seems to be resonating: there is a weariness, certainly in South West Surrey, that people feel worse off than they did a decade ago.
Today the prime minister admitted the road ahead won’t be easy. He said he wants to be “honest” and “straight-talking”. But is he being straight with the public when he says he will halve inflation this…
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