I went on an epic quest to find a Tory at Glastonbury

On Thursday morning, as I pull into camp, I spot him: a guy in his 30s wearing red chino shorts and leather boat shoes, happily sipping a pint in front of his car.

But as the festival clear-up begins here on Monday morning, where might he be now? The rare creature, who looks like he has got lost on the way to the Kings Road, in Chelsea, surely must have changed form to blend into the Glastonbury crowd? On a bleary-eyed Sunday, after three days of round-the-clock partying, everyone looked much the same: men in baggy tees and tracksuit bottoms, women in denim shorts, glitter and cowboy hats. This morning he is no doubt lost in the throng crawling their way out of the site exit.

Likely hidden, too, are his political views. At a speakers’ forum event on Saturday, where Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and journalist John Harris ask the crowd which way they are planning to vote the following Thursday, not a single person raises their hand in support of the Tories. The majority of the room say they’ll be voting Labour, with a handful of arms shooting up for the Greens, for independent candidates and for the Lib Dems (including Harris, if only “to get the Tories out”).

Glastonbury is an “antidote” to the culture wars, Burnham later says, but I don’t think that’s quite true. The festival has long been a political event in its own right, as a place for the opinionated and outspoken, and this year it was absolutely plastered in pro-Palestine flags. There’s something unnerving about seeing revellers whose tickets cost £360 at the very least wave these about like a fashion statement, at concerts and post-midnight raves; particularly since NYC Downlow, a gay club in the site’s southeast corner, appears to have scrubbed out two Stars of David from a sign on its front.

Very obvious, too, are signs encouraging revellers to vote, often alongside anti-Tory slogans and as a subtle cue to “vote Labour”. In huddled corners, queues for late-night food stalls and drunken conversations outside of tents, however, things aren’t quite unanimous. On Friday night, I overhear a group of lads in their 20s chatting about whether they would vote Labour or Reform. “It feels like they’re [Reform] the only ones who are being honest,” says one, though his mate points out that their “climate stuff is s---”.

It is a bold conversation for them to be having at a festival that has taken migration as its other major political theme this year: the same evening, a blowup boat designed by Banksy surfs atop the crowd during an Idles gig at the Other stage. Terminal 1, in the corner by the Pyramid stage, has revellers answer a British citizenship question as a test for entry. My colleague Laura Robinson encounters two lads in Reform and Just Stop Oil get-up respectively, who tell her that they have been dressed by friends as a prank – yet there is no mention of the Tories as a cause for embarrassment.

Surely, then, there must be a proud Tory in the crowd of 275,000? Saturday’s Coldplay headline set seems like a good place to find one. At a nearby bar, I spot a girl in a bucket hat and an orange mesh top – exactly the sort of posh outfit you’d find in any trendy city bar. I am right to assume that 26-year-old Sophie McNair lives in London, but she’s “absolutely voting Labour” on Thursday. Though, if she were living in Brighton, where her family are, “I’d be voting for the Greens as a tactical thing”.

I think I may be in luck when I encounter 24-year-old Gus – Gus! – milling around the Pyramid stage before the Coldplay kickoff. “I’m not sure who I’ll vote for yet, but it won’t be the Tories,” he says. “I went to a talk at Left Field [stage] this morning and they asked who was voting Tory, and not one person put their hand up,” he adds. “Maybe there were some secret Tories, but it’s probably for the best that they kept it to themselves.”

There is plenty of anti-Tory sentiment going about at this gig, but not much pro-Labour. There are no chants of “ohh Keir Starmer” as there were for Jeremy Corbyn at Glastonbury in 2017 (even though the current leader’s name arguably fits the rhythm of the White Stripes’ song that inspired the chant much better). So I hop over to the edgy Other stage, where electro duo Disclosure are putting on a set – they’re from Surrey, after all. I spy a man in a red fleece and hiking boots and decide to try my luck, before I encounter graffiti that reads “f--- the Tories” and think better of it.

On Sunday morning, my search for a Tory voter at Glastonbury begins proper. It is a good day for it: with the England game at the Euros kicking off at 5pm, I figure that there may be a higher proportion of Tories among those wearing Three Lions shirts. Upon leaving a Q&A session with actress Cate Blanchett at the cinema tent, I encounter Harry O’Connor, 31, who, in his England shirt and explorer hat, looks to me as Tory as it gets.

How wrong I am. “Red or dead,” O’Connor says. He would “maybe” vote Green or Lib Dem but never Tory.

Dejected, I head down through the carnival ground, where I see a blonde woman in black sunglasses and a dazzling orange trouser suit. Could it be former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss? Plenty of celebs have been spotted at Glasto. But she is gone in a flash. Surely not, I think – then again, David Cameron was spotted at a Taylor Swift gig in London last week. I text her press secretary in search of clues. He sends me a cry-laughing emoji in response.

Onwards. Next I hit Glasto’s southeast corner, where signs encouraging partiers to vote on July 4 plaster the enormous billboards. On the way, I bump into Jim Butcher, 48, who, in a T-shirt and knee-length shorts, could just about be a Tory in disguise. I learn that he lives in “very Tory” Sussex but still there is no luck. “I like Starmer and I think he’ll be better than what we’ve got at the minute,” says Butcher, “but they are trying to play both sides and they’re being quite boring.

“I do like the Lib Dems because they’re being more vocal about Brexit,” he adds.

I am about to turn back when I’m spotted by a group of (inebriated) lads in England shirts who want to know what I’m up to. “I would vote for Rishi just because he’s so cute,” says one. My lucky day? It seems not. Three of the bunch will vote Green, two Labour, and Jared James, 26, the least tipsy of the bunch, will vote Lib Dem.

“I’m a Lib Dem at heart,” James says. “I did vote for Boris in 2019 because I wanted to get Brexit over with, but I massively regret it now.” Oh dear.

At Glasto you should expect the unexpected, I’ve heard, so I head up to its waviest and kookiest corner, The Park. Here, a band called the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets have just finished tearing up the stage. Unsurprisingly, people there are reluctant (or too drunk) to chat politics. I spy a man in a white linen shirt and red necktie, but that is surely too obvious a move; instead I make a beeline for a guy in a fleece, with raver specs and a can of Stella Artois in hand.

“I’d vote anything before I vote Conservative,” says Wilson McTeare, 28, who lives in London. I expect him to launch into a diatribe on any of the festival’s hot button issues, but what is on this reveller’s mind is the infected blood scandal.

“My dear uncle Jonathan died because of infected blood, and it’s hard to think about voting for anyone who’s had anything to do with that when it’s impacted my family in such a devastating way,” he says. McTeare lifts up his fleece to reveal a home-printed infected blood scandal T-shirt.

“I’m very politically engaged, and I love the activism here,” he continues, “but I do feel like people are preaching to the choir.” One of his friends likens the whole thing to “a soap opera”. McTeare would like to vote for the Greens, he says, but is veering towards Labour. “For the wider happiness of this small, strange little island, I think we do have to get the Conservatives out.”

Having been from top to bottom of the Glasto map, I am starting to despair, so I call a card-holding Conservative member friend. “Do you know any Tories at Glastonbury this weekend?” I plead. “No,” she says. “We aren’t really attracted to Glastonbury. There’s too much lefty stuff. Maybe try the expensive bits.”

On her advice, I head towards the hospitality area, where the bathrooms are stocked with loo roll and the likes of Matt Smith and Stormzy have been spotted necking their pints. This exclusive backstage sector is rammed with trendy young people, so there is no hope, I expect. As if to prove my point, I spot actresses Florence Pugh and Emma Corrin on their way to Shania Twain’s main stage show, but they slip away before I can ask them how they plan to vote.

Darting through the cowboy-hat-touting crowd, I get through half of the grounds before I encounter 59-year-old Allie Hollingsworth, a friendly, sensible-looking woman in a gilet, with a handful of beer cans. She only has a moment to speak as she’s running between stages, but “I can tell you that I’m going to vote Conservative”, Hollingworth says.

After my face lights up, she allows me a quick chat and a snap. Hollingsworth remains a Tory voter, “Although I’d be quite keen to vote Reform, but Farage isn’t going to get in this time, so I’ll wait for the next election for that,” she says. “It’s safest to have a strong opposition to Labour rather than vote Reform this time,” she adds, before she runs off into the crowd.

In the end, then, I did track down a Tory at Glastonbury – but only just.