Charlie Baker

The rise of the Old Rectory left

The rural middle-classes are abandoning the Tories

(Getty)

There’s a revolution stirring in the gentle British countryside, as a political faction starts to make their voice heard. The Old Rectory left are shrugging off their chains. In Thursday’s local elections, places where the Lib Dems were trailing the Tories saw an eight point swing to Ed Davey’s party. Meanwhile, the Conservatives lost control of Oxfordshire after ceding four councillors to the Lib Dems and another to the Greens. But who are these new rural agitators?

I’m sure you know the most brazen of the tribe: retired lawyers harassing their children by dropping James O’Brien clips into the family WhatsApp chat. Militant FBPE-ers based between Putney and Salcombe. Angry, very much online, and for the most part, comparatively wealthy – the Old Rectory left were natural, unthinking Tories who’ve started flirting with Labour and the Lib Dems. They used to read the Telegraph, but now have a subscription to the Guardian. Rory Stewart and Ian Hislop are their pin-ups. And they might very well help sway the next general election.

Just as the ‘Hampstead left’ was a broad coalition – teachers, civil servants and privately educated Labour grandees – the Old Rectory left ranges across the assorted members of the educated and asset-owning classes. There are farmers anxious about the staggering rises in costs. Small business owners who are struggling to get reliable and regular employees in the wake of Brexit. Young families with no hope of getting on the property ladder in London, who have left the capital and are now ratcheting up prices in their local area. While it might be easy to mock their more voluble members, the Old Rectory left are having their livelihoods threatened by the economic troubles enveloping the country.

Boris Johnson – an Islington journalist by trade – is an anathema to many countryside voters

This is most obviously felt in the agricultural sector.

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