The unlikely revolutionary hoping to unseat Liz Truss

James Bagge does not look much like a revolutionary. A former army officer and criminal barrister, he has a smooth voice giving away an Etonian schooling and a predictably firm handshake.

He is wearing a gilet and brown leather boots when we pull up at his farm a few miles outside Downham Market. The welcome includes a cocked leg at the car wheel from his 13-year-old golden retriever Humphrey.

But for all the traditional Tory trappings, Mr Bagge is the chief renegade in what could be one of the most remarkable stories in the popular uprising expected against the Conservatives on Thursday: the ousting of a former prime minister.

In any usual election cycle Liz Truss should not be at risk. She won 69 per cent of the vote in her South West Norfolk seat in the 2019 general election, Labour hobbling into second on 18 per cent. The constituency has been blue for generations.

Yet this is no normal campaign for the Tories. Or, uniquely, for Ms Truss, whose 49-day premiership has left her vulnerable to becoming the first former No 10 occupant since Ramsay MacDonald in 1935 to lose their constituency.

It would be the ultimate “Portillo moment”, that point on 1997 election night when Michael Portillo, tipped as a future Tory leader, was booted out by voters.

Mr Bagge is contributing to that possibility. A disillusioned former Conservative, the 71-year-old is standing as an independent candidate hoping to take Ms Truss out by wooing the Tory voters that made up her past support base.

“It was a disaster,” says Mr Bagge of her time in office as we chat over cups of coffee by a laid but unlit fire in his sitting room. “She seemed to have poor leadership qualities.”

He picks out the sacking of Tom Scholar, then the Treasury permanent secretary, at the start of her tenure as a particular misstep. “Then when it all goes wrong you turn round and blame them all,” he adds, apparently of the ire directed at Whitehall after her demise. “That is the oldest trick in the book.”

There is also, as they say, history between Ms Truss, 48, and Mr Bagge. He was the most prominent member of a group of local association Tories who fiercely opposed her being thrust upon them from outside as a candidate back in 2009.

The opposition got the nickname the “Turnip Taliban”, a nod to Norfolk’s root vegetable output. But Mr Bagge insists that his campaign – launched the day Ms Truss’s self-justificatory book came out in April – does not amount to sour grapes.

“I really wished it had been otherwise. I wished I had been proven wrong,” he says of the years since that clash. “She could have been good, but it was never to be.”

The problem for Ms Truss is she is now caught in a pincer movement. To her Right, like Conservatives across the country, is Reform, hoovering up votes by elevating concerns about immigration and the media-savvy campaigning of leader Nigel Farage.

But she has a Tory problem to the Left too, with Mr Bagge, framing himself as a moderate and tapping into anger about Ms Truss allegedly overlooking her constituency while rising the ministerial ladder, picking up votes especially, it appears, in the Norfolk villages.

The political danger is multiplied by the Tory centrists riding in behind Mr Bagge. Rory Stewart, now one of Britain’s most famous Conservatives thanks to a vast following via his Rest Is Politics podcast, has voiced support for the campaign.

Two former colleagues who sat round the cabinet table with Ms Truss, Dominic Grieve and David Gauke, have also given endorsements, the former actually campaigning in the seat and the latter sending a video message.

Mr Gauke thinks a Truss defeat could happen. “From what I hear she’s very unpopular there,” he tells The Telegraph. “And anything’s possible in this election.” Celebrities too have joined in – quiz show host Anne Robinson has declared Mr Bagge “the strongest link”.

What does Ms Truss think about all this? It is hard to ascertain, not least because her campaign has made the deliberate decision to avoid the national media.

There have been no interviews with UK-wide newspapers or television, in marked contrast to, say, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, who has blitzed the media as he battles the prospect of defeat in South West Surrey.

A hint as to why, perhaps, is found on Ms Truss’s leaflets. Securing a banking hub for Downham Market and £20 million of investment for Thetford are given prominent spots.

The fact she was leading the country less than two years ago is not deemed worthy of an explicit mention. A Truss campaign source says: “She is very much standing on her record as a high-profile, experienced, campaigning fighter for this area.”

There was also a no-show at the only major hustings event, where seven of the nine candidates appeared, on June 20. Ms Truss was spotted watching the England match in a pub 30 minutes before it began. Her team said she later went to a prior-arranged event that clashed and sent her apologies.

Labour believes the strategy is simple: to keep a low profile and hope the area’s long history of voting Conservative can carry Ms Truss over the line. It could yet work.

‘Most people vote Tory’

At The Greyhound Inn in Swaffham, a single line of St George’s Cross bunting hanging above the door, Tories can still be found.

“I think round here most people will vote Conservative rather than Labour,” says Nicky, the 55-year-old landlord. He thinks he will vote Tory, though is still toying with backing Mr Bagge.

Others are abandoning the party though. “I’m not voting Conservative,” says the retired Tony, 69, while sipping a pint. “She has put me off from day one”.

Chris, a 60-year-old bricklayer, says he challenged Ms Truss on immigration when she visited the pub last week. He is sitting out this election: “Anyone you vote in won’t improve my life.”

A few minutes walk away and a group sitting outside the Market Cross Cafe can be overheard debating who to back over their coffees.

Pat, 58 and self-employed, has flipped on Ms Truss. “I’m a lifelong Conservative voter but I can’t physically vote for Liz Truss,” he says.

“So I think I’ll end up voting for the independent guy. I’d be tempted to give him a chance if it keeps Liz Truss out.”

He doubts, though, that defeat is likely: “The old adage here is that you can stick a blue rosette on a pig and get re-elected. I think that is enough.”

Labour candidate hopeful, party less so

The irony of this contest, like so many across rural England, is the desire for Tory vengeance could see a Right-leaning electorate being represented by a Labour MP for the next five years.

Terry Jermy, the 38-year-old Labour candidate – 15 of those years spent as a councillor in his home town of Thetford – has had little support from his party’s nationwide campaign, suggesting the centre believes a victory is unlikely.

He hopes a crowd-funding venture which has raised £15,000 and the splitting of the Tory vote could see him come through the middle to turn this patch of rural Norfolk red.

“I genuinely think it is 50-50 between us,” Mr Jermy says during a chat in a Thetford community centre. “She may even come third with Reform in the top three.

“I haven’t found a single person on the doorstep who has said they are voting for Liz Truss. They are voting for the Conservatives because they feel duty bound to, I have found plenty of people saying that. But I haven’t found anyone who said ‘Liz Truss is a brilliant MP and I’m going to go and vote for her’.”

The Labour positivity must be taken with a pinch of salt. Even some of the apocalyptic polling analyses of recent weeks have shown Ms Truss winning re-election, which remains a possible outcome.

During a day driving around her constituency, however, it proves difficult to find much public evidence of the Truss campaign.

There has been an issue with her posters, multiple people claim. One had “Truss” changed to “Trump”, a nod to her explicit endorsement for the former US president’s re-election bid.

Another had devil’s horns scribbled on. A third, according to Mr Jermy, had a physical lettuce placed above it. “It was still there two weeks later,” he adds.

Then we discover a visible Truss presence at last, her face plastered on the outside of the Swaffham Conservative Club, the centre of the party in this region.

A hubbub in the bar draws us in. Dozens of people are here, albeit, it becomes apparent, many dressed in dark suits. Perhaps the local party is alive and kicking after all?

“Sorry,” interjects the barmaid, surprised by the presence of strangers. “This is a wake.”