A portrait of chaos? Grassroots Tories are dismayed at No 10 turmoil but they want PM Liz Truss to stay – for now

Covering the walls of the South Durham Conservatives Association’s office in Darlington are images of the party’s leaders through the decades.

All, but one, carry the same neutral pose and authoritative expression. The subject featured last in the line, however, is sat at a jaunty angle, oozing confidence with a cocked head, sly smile and relaxed stance.

Compared to the other portraits, hers appears chaotic. Her tenure is given the same damning assessment by those present.

“Bedlam,” is how Alan Marshall, a Darlington Borough councillor, describes it.

“I think it’s absolute turmoil. It’s disheartening.”

He is one of five Conservative party members meeting me at their association’s headquarters. Their faces glum, their patience thin, at the seemingly never-ending changes in policy and personnel.

“It’s incredibly frustrating,” says Sarah Rose, who is standing as a candidate in next year’s local elections here.

“I think it’s certainly made local candidates’ jobs a lot more challenging.”

Only one member of the group backed Truss for leader, but none want to see her replaced, fearing more instability. Interestingly, their anger is trained on MPs rather than the PM.

“She’s got to get her MPs coalescing around her, and it’s clearly not happening,” councillor Jon Clarke tells me.

“That’s what’s causing all the issues at the minute. It’s a shambles.”

A key brick in the Tories’ red wall gains of 2019, Darlington has become the poster child of the government’s flagship ‘levelling up’ policy.

Last year, it was chosen as the location for the Treasury’s new Economic Campus, creating more than 1,100 jobs.

But inside the town’s historic indoor market, optimism is in the short supply.

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‘You just don’t know how it’s going to end’

One elderly shopper told me she can only afford to eat one meal a day, given the rate at which prices are rising. Another says she’ll soon have to work two jobs “just to live”.

Robin Blair has been selling fruit and vegetables here since he was seven. Now 77, his stall is one of only a handful left. His former neighbours couldn’t keep up with the spiralling costs.

“It makes you nervous,” he said.

“It’s so uncertain, you just don’t know where it’s going to end, and how it’s going to affect people”.

While the Conservative party faces a political crisis, the country faces an altogether much graver one, of rising inflation and soaring bills. And so the principal concern for many here is not who is in power, but what’s left in their pocket.

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