The constituency of North East Hampshire is a high-water mark of Conservative party membership, and yet I comb Fleet, its white-hot centre, for members to no avail.
The constituency party office is as unresponsive as a yeoman. Perhaps shy Tories are so shy, now, that they no longer come out in the daytime, like badgers. More likely, it’s just a numbers game; there are only 150,000 members in the country, which even at a concentration of 10 times the average would still only give you one person in 50.
Instead, I speak to the Conservative leaners, which is everybody – except for Will, 16, who stays resolutely uninterested in politics. “I think if I work hard and I do my best, I won’t have to worry about who’s prime minister.”
Upon learning that Boris Johnson is out of the running and it is now a choice between two women, he says, “That’s OK. I mean, it worked before.”
“You only think that because you weren’t born,” I inform him. “It was shit before.”
“When I say, ‘it worked’, I meant ‘it’s happened before’,” he responds.
David Cameron has not emerged well out of the events of the fortnight since the EU referendum. “It felt like he left the country just when the country needed him most,” says Halima Rahman, 35.
“I don’t bloody understand it,” says Debbie, 53, “It felt like we did that vote and then they all jumped ship. No doubt they’ll have an answer for everything, but I just don’t understand it.”
Hazel, 78, has probably the kindest interpretation: “I felt sorry for Cameron. I wish he’d stayed a bit longer but he obviously felt that people were anti-him.”
It’s generally a defeated sort of ‘no’ – did we intend, or do we want, a new prime minister? Not really, no; but since we have to…
“Theresa May,” says Sue Polley, 59, with what – I hope I’m not misremembering – looks like a musketeer-ish air punch. Partly because she is the best of a bad bunch. “I don’t see her as another backstabber. I thought it was disgusting, what Gove did. And I’d really been dreading Boris. They’re like rats leaving a sinking ship. I can’t believe nobody had a plan.”
But Polley also perceives qualities in May beyond her being not as bad as all the others. “She’s quite dogged. She’s determined to get the result that she’s trying for. She doesn’t give up.”
An ambivalent rather than absolutist remainer, Polley reluctantly concludes, “half the people in this country need a bit of a smack. And Theresa May is the person to do that.”
The brand identity of both candidates for the Tory leadership is impressively consistent, across every generation. May is determined, tenacious, “she’s been on the front line so she knows about the politics that goes on in politics”, says Matthew, 50, another remainer.
And this terrier-like reputation serves her pretty well – Zia Rahman, 40, especially, sees May as a sure way to “restore some calm and order” – with only one exception. “She looks very ‘I’m a career woman’, and I don’t think she’d be open to change,” says Hazel. “Most of her life has been, ‘I want to get there, I want to get there’. Well, now she’s there, but it’s very different once you’re actually there.”
Andrea Leadsom, meanwhile: “I have no idea who she is,” says Emma, 34, seconded by her partner James, 35, echoed by everyone.
Apart from the sense of chaos, the persistent image of rats and ships, one theme emerges, first from Kenny, 32. “They should be concentrating on the people of the country, not each other. The small people.”
“I just wish we could all get together, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, to just work for the people. I don’t mind who gets it, as long as they’re for the people,” Debbie says.
“He was traumatised by leave,” Halima says of her husband, Zia, “and I was more, ‘it’s happened so we might as well get on with it’.”
“But now there’s enough mess and we just need to deal with it,” Zia chips in. “Let them choose a leader, then get on with it. No more elections, no more mess.”
Cometh the hour, cometh the woman: May has built a reputation on not giving up on things until they are finished, and, suddenly, the situation arises in which all anyone can see is a great sprawl of unfinished business. Her good fortune is almost uncanny.
Of course, this is before the members get involved: the faithful never go quietly into common sense, and the obviousness of May’s fit might be her undoing.
