'No idea,' say town's Tories on leadership vote

Until July's general election, Great Yarmouth had been a Conservative stronghold for 14 years.

Won from Labour by Sir Brandon Lewis in 2010, he retained the constituency for his party in three successive polls, increasing his majority each time.

But he stood down before this year’s election and Rupert Lowe took the seat for Reform UK.

Later we will find out if the new Conservative leader is Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick.

The announcement, due at 11:00 GMT, will bring an end to a campaign which began shortly after the party’s crushing election defeat.

With both leadership contenders admitting there has been low turnout in the party's internal vote, what is the view from Tories in Great Yarmouth?

A few hours before the final ballot closed, the BBC spoke to party members in the Gorleston Conservative Club.

Russell Leggett said he had been a member of the party since he was 18.

Now 70, he felt the leadership election should have been concluded much earlier.

"I think the timing has been wrong, because we’ve had a budget coming on just after the election and they should've got on with it, rather than leave it [the party's response to the Budget in the House of Commons] to Rishi [Sunak] for his final speech [as leader of the opposition]," he said.

He said he would prefer it if the former prime minister had remained in charge of the party, and he was "apathetic" about the leadership race and probably would not vote.

"I don’t know if either of these two are strong enough to do it," he added.

78-year-old David Stephenson from Ludham has also been a member of the Conservatives for more than 50 years.

He also felt that Sunak should have stayed on as leader, and that he had been left with a difficult hand as prime minister.

“I think he's very strong, and a good orator," he said.

"The Conservative Party have been dealt a very cruel blow with Covid and Ukraine and Brexit. They’ve had a tough time and I don’t think anyone gives them credit for that."

When the BBC spoke to him, he was undecided on who to vote for, with his favoured candidate knocked out in the last round of voting.

"I thought James Cleverley was pretty good and he would stand a chance. He’s a very experienced guy but, apart from that, I have no idea about the other candidates at all," he said.

Derek Wright, 95, joined the Conservatives in the 1970s.

He, too, had yet to vote in the final round and said choosing who to back was "very difficult".

Mr Wright felt neither candidate had done enough to make themselves known to party members.

"I don’t know either of them," he said.

"You don’t hear about them and so you really don’t know nothing about them."

• Follow the leadership result on BBC News: Politics

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