Politics

Guardian -  Since I first voted for Thatcher in 1979, I’ve always gone Conservative,” says the Hertfordshire farmer Andrew Watts – a longer period than the three decades he has been managing his cereal farm near the village of Puckeridge. But when he enters the voting booth on 4 July, the 64-year-old will be backing the Liberal Democrats. Watts says the switch is partly down to what he calls a “lack of coherent agricultural policy” from Westminster, but he mainly blames it on a loss of integrity within the Tories in recent years...Watts’s frustrations tally with those of a growing number of English farmers, whose disillusionment could overturn the Conservatives’ long-assumed status as the party of the countryside... A survey of 430 farmers by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit last month recorded Tory support at 32%, down from 41% in 2019, while support for the current opposition hit 35%.