‘Definitely not Tory’: will Thatcher’s home town vote for first Labour MP?

There were hints of a sunny afternoon in Grantham on Monday when the skies kept clouding over, producing on-off moments of drizzle. But if the weather was undecided, that was nothing compared to the voters, with less than two days left until the general election.

“We watched the debates but we still don’t know,” said John Lyon, a retired bricklayer going to the bank with his wife, Jane, a retired chef.

In parallel with the wider constituency, the Lyons have always been Tory voters. “I think I will vote for the Tories this time because if everyone votes for the smaller parties, like Green or Reform, Labour will get in,” John said.

He may be right: projections show there is a real chance on Thursday of what would be the first ever Labour victory in Margaret Thatcher’s home town.

The true blue constituency has never voted Labour, not even during the New Labour landslide of 1997, when huge swathes of the country left the Tories behind.

Grantham continued to resist the pull, with the Conservative vote share only increasing every election. By 2019, Gareth Davies, the incumbent Tory MP, had a whopping 66% of the vote.

But such is the disastrous polling for Rishi Sunak’s party that on Friday morning, voters in the seat of Grantham and Bourne, renamed from Grantham and Stamford to take into account a boundary change, could be waking up to their first elected Labour MP. There was one period in 2007, when their MP Quentin Davies defected to Labour , but as soon as voters had the chance in 2010 Labour was relegated to third place with a solid Conservative win.

Though a boundary change is a factor in the town’s potential new switch of allegiance, projections from the consultancy Electoral Calculus using the old boundary show Labour would still steal the seat from the Tories. In other words, people in Grantham are likely to vote for change.

“It’s hard to decide how I’ll vote at the moment,” said Angela Page. “Definitely not Conservative. Covid changed things for me, there were too many lies.”

She had been a Conservative voter in previous elections, having come from a family with strong Conservative views. “People around here are staunch Margaret Thatcher fans so it’s a big change for us,” she said, beneath a 3-metre-tall bronze statue of the Iron Lady that was proudly erected in the centre of the town in 2022, costing £300,000. “Generally, people can’t trust what we have now. I just want trust. We need people who will make the correct decisions for the country.”

She began as a “big fan” of Keir Starmer, she said, delighted that he had taken over from Jeremy Corbyn who she – and most people who spoke to the Guardian in Grantham – did not like. “But now he’s morphing into other politicians. He’s not standing out.

“I was a Sunak fan, he tries and he works hard, but I couldn’t bear Boris Johnson. I always said that if he got back in I would emigrate.”

Even with Thatcher looming overhead, dressed in the full ceremonial robes of the House of Lords, Page said she felt “no guilt whatsoever” about ditching the Tories. “It’s just time. We need fresh input and that could have come from the Conservatives, but it didn’t.”

Others felt the same. “The Conservatives are not doing any good, nothing’s improved,” said Rosemarie Barks, picking up a prescription in the town centre with her husband, Trevor. “I haven’t voted Tory before but this time I really think they’ve shown their true colours. It’s been scandals one after another.”

The couple said they had never felt proud of the association with Thatcher. “Her dad was known to be a miser,” Trevor said, but he added that they liked to see someone who had worked hard to get to where they are.

“Starmer came from the bottom and worked his way up, we need to give him a chance,” said Rosemarie.

Not everyone agreed with this. “Labour used to be for the person who was working. Now it’s all about handouts to make it easier for the people who don’t want to work,” said Terri Rogan, who was having lunch on a bench with her colleague Caroline Henson, from the healthcare clinic. “But the Conservatives just want to line their own pockets and the pockets of their friends.”

Henson said: “I used to be Conservative but I don’t believe a word any of them say. It’s all empty promises.”

So, what could anyone do to win their votes in the final few days of the election campaign? “Be tougher with immigrants,” said Rogan. Immigration was on many people’s minds in Grantham – a local hotel had been used to house refugees who were then “hanging around the town centre” to the frustration of many locals.

But Reform UK is predicted only to come third here, which was because, as Rogan put it, “they’re just focusing on immigration, they don’t seem to have a plan beyond that. Farage pops up and I just think ‘whatever mate, sod off’.”

“Which paper did you say you were from?” said Rogan, when asked if the Guardian could take their picture. “Oh that’s fine, nobody we know is going to see the Guardian.”