GODALMING, Oct 21 — Liz Truss’ resignation on Thursday was met with relief by voters in the Conservative stronghold town of Godalming, located in the well-heeled London commuter belt.

“Terrific!” said travel agent Ken Cully, 62, on hearing the news.

“She just made a mess of it, an absolute mess of it and didn’t have the support of the rest of the party.”

Cully said the chaos of the past few weeks had left him very concerned and he feared it was too late for the Conservatives to turn their fortunes around.

“The damage is done. That’s for sure,” he said. “I am worried like everyone else in the country. We’re all struggling.”

The affluent leafy town, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of London, is part of new Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt’s constituency, although he has indicated he will not be running.

‘Absolute mess’

In the picturesque high street, lined with upmarket coffee shops and bakeries, retiree Sally Sherfield said the political chaos had left her “uneasy”.

“I do think it’s better that she goes,” she said.

“I think it needs a general election. I think they (Truss’s government) have done too much damage to the country. It needs to be altered.”

Carmen Harvey-Browne, a recently retired teacher and Conservative voter, said the situation had become an “absolute mess” and Truss “just needed to go”.

She said Truss was “not fit for purpose”, adding that news of her departure left her feeling “a bit more hopeful now”.

“They need to turn it around big time. Hunt is OK, but it’s a poisoned chalice”.

Many, however, were reluctant to be too hard on Truss and said their real worry was the opposition Labour party led by Keir Starmer.

‘Bring Boris back’

“It’s their fault. They elected her,” said Pam Deeprose, a retired secretary and lifelong Conservative, referring to the party members who had the final say over electing Truss, rather than Conservative MPs.

“Bring Boris back,” she said, adding that she dreaded a repeat of the 1978-9 industrial unrest under Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan’s government that saw the dead go unburied, rubbish pile up in the streets and picket lines outside hospitals.

“I live in fear of Labour taking over. We’ve seen it all before — the ‘winter of discontent’. We’ve seen the three-day week, the chaos,” she said.

Since taking office, Liz Truss has seen her personal and party ratings plummet with YouGov saying on Tuesday she had become the most unpopular leader it had ever tracked.

Labour meanwhile has clocked up a huge 33-point lead, the biggest since the heyday of former party leader and prime minister Tony Blair in the late 1990s.

David Rhydderch, a “floating voter” who had sometimes supported the Liberal Democrats, said he believed a Labour landslide was now inevitable at the next election, whenever it was held.

“The damage has been done, the question is how much. I think the next election will be a re-run of 1997” when Blair swept to victory.

‘Tory extremism’

For Jonathan Hoad, a 65-year-old IT consultant, the problem had ultimately been Truss’ tax slashing agenda, not personalities.

“The policy was all wrong from the start. We all saw Boris being portrayed as a buffoon but he was following the rules of the past in taking the middle ground, not this right-wing Tory extremism.”

Truss had taken the party too far to the right, he said, forgetting that even Conservatives recognised the need to provide “social care, education and all that”.

“I think that’s where she went wrong. It’s been borne out by the public reaction which was ‘oh my God what’s this’?” — AFP