‘Our children are horrified’

Wrexham, North Wales

  To window cleaner Andrew Atkinson, Theresa May’s ‘blue-collar Conservatism’ is not just a slogan. It’s what he is. For the duration of the general election, gap-toothed, 32-year-old Atkinson has hung up his chamois leathers and water-fed poles and taken to campaigning on doorsteps in a bid to become Wrexham’s first Conservative MP. The campaign is costing him a fortune in lost jobs. Atkinson is a broad-shouldered lad who left home at 17 to earn a living as a self-employed squeegee wallah (‘glass hygiene technician, please,’ he jokes). He has the square jawline of Buzz Lightyear and an unaffected way with housewives. You half expect them to say: ‘Give us a squirt of Windolene and a quick rub-down while you’re here, love.’ Atkinson beetles around Wrexham in a battered old Ford Ka, borrowed from his wife. He was a Leave supporter but his politics are moderate, small-state, sceptical of welfare. His campaign is resolutely local: how to sort out Wrexham town centre and its drugs problem, and how to get Westminster to pay attention to this part of Wales.