Even in the U.K.’s most Conservative constituency, the former governing party’s contest to choose a new leader is failing to set pulses racing.
Six former ministers have jostled for the past month to succeed ex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the helm of the Tory Party. But with their battle confined largely to closed-door hustings among party faithful and op-eds in the national press, voters in Harrow East — where more than 53% of those who turned out at the general election on July 4 voted Conservative — showed little enthusiasm for the proceedings when approached by Bloomberg.
"I don’t think the Tories will win again,” said Patricia Tubbritt, a pensioner who was en route to the supermarket with a trolley bag in tow. After abandoning the Conservatives last month in favor of Reform U.K., an insurgent party to its right, she professed herself uninspired by the six candidates and spoke of her nostalgia for former premier Boris Johnson, who was ousted in 2022 by his own party after a series of scandals, and no longer sits in Parliament. "He’s the only chance of good leadership,” she said.