In Eastleigh, Hampshire, people are more concerned about rubbish collections than the criminal behaviour of their former MP – and many express sympathy for him
Only one story in the Hampshire town of Eastleigh is causing outrage on the letters page of the local paper. It is about a flagrant disregard for the law by people arrogant enough to believe they can get away with it. But it is nothing to do with the resignation of the MP Chris Huhne, who pleaded guilty last week to perverting the course of justice. It is the tale of a group of vexatious dog owners who repeatedly refuse to clear up after their pets.
"A friend who works as a commons warden tells me that dog owners will scoop up the dog mess, place it in a black plastic bag and then hang it from a tree branch," writes a furious Barrie Hammond to the editor of the Southern Daily Echo. "Take care if you go jogging."
The story of the former Liberal Democrat MP and cabinet minister, who repeatedly denied over two years that his former wife, Vicky Pryce, had taken speeding points for him in 2003, doesn't even get a look-in. For many people in this former railway town, the lies told by a politician do not stink as much as the pooch problem. They seem, for the most part, to be extraordinarily understanding of Huhne's predicament.
"I'm just disappointed really," says Joan Lakeland, 77, a former nurse, "because Chris Huhne was a good MP, excellent, and it's very sad really, at this time when we could do with good MPs. Most people here are lower working-class, I would say, and this government has been quite bad for them. They're feeling the pinch."
But what did she make of the fact that Huhne insisted for so long that the allegations made by his ex-wife were false, in effect lying both to his party and the electorate?
"I think we all do things we shouldn't when we're under pressure and I think he was under extreme pressure," says a sanguine Lakeland. "Everybody makes mistakes."
A by-election has now been called for 28 February. Lakeland, who has voted Lib Dem in the past, will vote Ukip, "but not because of anything Chris Huhne did. It's because I feel disappointed with the government. They've not come up to scratch, the coalition."
The reality of the economic downturn in Eastleigh is plain to see. On the high street there are seven charity shops and three pawnbrokers. Around the corner, there is a long queue of customers in Poundland. What do they make of Chris Huh ne? "Mr Dodgy," says one man resignedly. "But then they all are, aren't they?"
Eastleigh has not benefited from the prosperity evident in other parts of Hampshire and there is a distinct feeling that local people are too busy struggling to make ends meet to worry about what they see as a politician's relatively trivial misdemeanour.
What they care about are local issues – bin collection, council tax, street-cleaning and, of course, dog mess. Besides, they're accustomed to weathering the storms of political scandal: the last time a parliamentary by-election was called here was when the incumbent Tory MP Stephen Milligan was found dead from auto-erotic asphyxiation in 1994.
"So Chris Huhne made a mistake! Slap him on the wrist and get on with it," says Christina Cox, 53, a former housekeeper. "There are more important things to be worrying about – the homeless, social security. This is just irrelevant. Personally, I don't give a damn. He didn't murder anyone. He has done an awful lot of positive things locally."
It is true that the Liberal Democrats have a good reputation here for getting things done. Although not a safe seat, the party has held Eastleigh in five successive parliamentary elections and it is the only constituency in the country where every local authority councillor, at district and county level, is Lib Dem.
"We've worked hard for a long time," says Keith House, the Liberal Democrat leader of Eastleigh borough council. "It's actually that simple. There's no science to it. If you look at the area demographically, it's not instinctively a Liberal place [but] we listen to the community here to represent their best interests. In that respect, we're not overly political. People like that."
But didn't he feel personally let down by Huhne's shenanigans?
He hesitates, fiddling with his cup of black coffee. "Well... erm... the difficulty is we're in the middle of a trial, so there's a limit to what I can talk about," he says. "Chris rang me on Sunday evening, talked about what he was planning to do on Monday and I expressed sadness."
House insists that he relishes the by-election battle as a chance to prove there is clear water between his party and their coalition partners, the Conservatives. The town is bracing itself for a visit from the holy triumvirate of Lib Dem MPs: Danny Alexander, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg are all due to make an appearance in the next couple of weeks.
Not to be outdone, Grant Shapps, the Conservative party chairman, was in town on Friday, showing his support for the Tory candidate, Maria Hutchings. The by-election is being seen as a two-horse race – a poll of 1,006 Eastleigh adults conducted by Tory peer Lord Ashcroft put the Tories on 34% and the Liberal Democrats on 31%. Labour was in third place on 19%, followed by Ukip on 13%.
Hutchings, a local woman who makes much of her down-to-earth attitude in campaign literature, could be spotted at various points during the day being ushered around by a coterie of smart-suited, well-spoken young men brandishing shiny blue balloons like defensive weaponry. A modest crowd of journalists trailed her from the bandstand to the railway station and back again in the bracing wind. No one else seemed to take much notice.
Huhne often canvassed here – in fact, it was harder to find someone who hadn't met him on the doorstep than someone who had.
"Chris Huhne supported a lot of local events," says Mike Collins, 65, a semi-retired logistics director. Collins fondly recalls the Lib Dems' recent triumph in successfully managing to reroute HGVs from a residential area. "Chris Huhne supported that campaign. Probably, as MPs go, he was OK."
Peter Adams, 47, a stonemason and builder, was repaving his driveway when Huhne popped by last summer. "He just dropped in, came and introduced himself," says Adams, talking inside a shopping mall overrun by zigzagging motability scooters. "I've always held him in quite high respect... Both me and my wife have voted Lib Dem in Eastleigh for a long time. I certainly wouldn't change the way I vote because of what he's done. I probably would've done the same thing."
It is a view echoed by Stephanie Hatcher, 34, a mother of three who has been living in Eastleigh for four years.
"I don't think it's made me less likely to trust politicians," she says. "What he's actually done, a lot of people do. I know people who have been close to the limit on [speeding] points and they get their wives to take it for them... I think the expenses scandal was worse because that affected people, didn't it? It was the money we were paying in taxes that was going to pay for things that weren't genuine. It wouldn't change the way I vote because I think all parties are pretty much the same. I might vote Lib Dem."
Still, as a parent, Hatcher admits Huhne's actions are difficult to explain to her children – all of whom are of primary school age. When something like this is brought into the news, they ask questions," she says. "And you have to say: 'That's a terrible thing, don't do that. You don't lie.'"
Most residents see the Huhne/Pryce saga as a personal crisis that should not have been splashed across front pages and voice concern for the couple's children, particularly after the publication of a series of brutal texts between Huhne and his youngest son, Peter.
There was also the revelation in court last week that the majority of arguments across the dinner table in the Huhne household centred on membership of the eurozone, which is enough to make anyone feel a twinge of sympathy.
According to Keith House: "This is a very sad family drama and people empathise with that and just feel, 'Ouch'. From a political perspective, my sense is the story has moved on."
But not everyone is so forgiving. Keith Field, 76, a former builder who stops to chat outside the British Heart Foundation charity shop, says he's amazed Huhne was "such a twit. It was sheer arrogance that made him think he could get away with it."
And what about the £17,000 payoff that Huhne received when he quit the cabinet? Should he now be forced to pay it back? "Yeah," says Field. "I think he should be crucified politically."
Indeed, despite the general tolerance in evidence on the streets of Eastleigh, there is an underlying sense of stupefaction that Huhne – by all accounts an intelligent man and an able politician – should have let the lie snowball to such an extent. According to Emma Turrell, a psychotherapist in neighbouring Winchester, Huhne's undoing was his ambition.
"Highly competitive, comparative individuals, such as Chris Huhne, can have a tendency to bully others in a bid to feel more OK themselves," she says. Whether this urge towards competition will manifest itself through a return to frontline politics is uncertain. At the moment Huhne is staring down the barrel of a possible jail sentence. Among dedicated Lib Dem activists, the general feeling is one of sorrow that they have lost a good MP for a bad reason.
Martin Kyrle, 79, a former mayor of Eastleigh and an active member of the Liberal Democrat party for 55 years, attributes Huhne's downfall to "a personal flaw. It's tragedy in the Greek sense, when you cannot bring yourself to admit you made a mistake… He should have gone down to the nearest cop shop as soon as these allegations surfaced and said 'I made a mistake'. If he'd admitted it, he would have got away with a fine and a caution."
Had the events of the last week made Kyrle reconsider his loyalty to the party? "Not in the slightest. It wouldn't stop me. If you have one bad apple in the barrel – you just need to throw the apple out."
Someone would have to clear the apple up, of course. Just in case any letters were written to the local paper about unsightly litter.
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