James Bagge is standing as an independent Conservative at the next election, hoping to take on the former prime minister. Photo: Charlie Biglin
On a damp, gray early summer morning, three men and a woman stroll through a 700-acre private estate in rural Norfolk. They wear blue bibs that read “Vote Independent: Bagge.” A red Royal Mail van crunches down the gravel road and stops next to this curious group.
One of the four – a neat, gray-haired man who looks like an old version of Gordon Ramsay – steps forward. 'Hello! Do you support me? he asks the stunned driver. After a short pause, the postman replies: “What are you?”
This is a very good question that James Bagg must give a convincing answer to before the general election on July 4.
This is a very good question.< /p>
This is a very good question that James Bagg must provide a convincing answer to before the general election on July 4th.
p>
A few months ago, he launched what can best be described as a quixotic campaign to unseat Liz Truss, the local MP, as an independent Conservative. He wants her to be remembered not only as the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, but also as the first former No 10 holder to lose her seat since Ramsay MacDonald lost Seaham in 1935.
Liz Truss, pictured at a campaign event in Dereham in 2022, has held the seat of south west Norfolk in four successive general elections. Photo: Getty
On the face of it, a victory over the former prime minister in this largely rural, white and conservative region. Creating a constituency seems a ridiculous idea, even though the Conservative Party is deeply unpopular nationally.
It was a Tory stronghold for 60 years. Truss has won four general elections in a row, most recently with a stunning majority of 26,195. Indeed, in 2019 she received more than twice as many votes as her Labor, Lib Dem and Green opponents combined, and for none of those parties this constituency is even remotely close to being a target seat . Bagge, a political novice, admits he faces a “monumental task” of achieving “one of the biggest election upsets in history.”
However, a lot has happened since the last election and few have gained traction in south west Norfolk. Truss damaged the economy during her short but disastrous premiership and her personal rating fell to minus 70. She wrote an unconscious memoir in which she blames everyone but herself for the disaster. She spends a lot of time giving lucrative speeches abroad, not least to rallies of the American far right.
Liz Truss at a right-wing summit in Maryland in February this year Photo: NurPhoto
She founded the Popular Conservatism movement in a silent challenge to Rishi Sunak's relative centrism. She is backing Donald Trump in the November US presidential election and is growing closer to Nigel Farage (although his Reform Party is also running a candidate against her).
But Bagge is no crazy fringe, no Screaming Lord Satch. As a Conservative, albeit a deeply disaffected one, he potentially poses a far greater challenge to Truss in this true blue constituency than the official opposition parties. He could be described as a “rebel of the establishment”. He is an old-school one-nation conservative who believes the party has “lost its way” and he is a figure of some stature in a distinctly feudal part of the country.
Bagge's aristocratic ancestors have lived here since the 1400s. His great-great-grandfather was a local Tory MP. He was born and raised at Stradsett Hall, a magnificent Elizabethan manor house near Downham Market, and still lives on the property.
He was educated at Eton, served as an army officer in Cyprus and Northern Ireland and worked as a criminal barrister in London. He assisted in the investigation of Guinness share trading fraud for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). He conducted formal investigations into the Barings Bank failure and the Equitable Life scandal while working for the international law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.
He served as Chief Sheriff of Norfolk in 2017 and was Deputy Sheriff for three years until he resigned resign to begin his campaign. “I thought it inappropriate to be His Majesty's representative trying to overthrow His Majesty's former Prime Minister,” he chuckles.
Bagge worked as a sheriff, an army officer and a criminal lawyer. Photo: Charlie Biglin
For good measure, he has raised more than £70,000 for Norfolk's unpaid carers by walking 1,500 miles from King's Lynn to Santiago de Compostela in Spain in 2018, worked for three years as a senior consultant at the Norfolk Citizens Advice Bureau and helps run two local youth charities. . “I have a very privileged position and I am very aware of it, but somewhere in me there is a desire to serve,” he says. “I honestly feel like I want to give something back.”
Bagge has another claim to fame. He and his elder brother, Sir Jeremy Bagge, 7th Baronet and current occupant of Stradsett Hall, were prominent members of the so-called Turnip Taliban, who opposed Truss's election as a parliamentary candidate for the constituency back in 2009.
They and other members of the local Conservative association complained that the young, state-educated woman from Leeds was a complete outsider, foisted on them as part of David Cameron's project to modernise the party, and that south-west Norfolk needed a home-grown candidate who understood its special rural nature.
The day after Truss was elected, the Mail on Sunday revealed details of her affair with Mark Field, a married Conservative MP 10 years her senior who was her mentor. Riots began. Members were furious that Truss, who is herself married, did not tell them. A second meeting was scheduled.
Truss with husband Hugh O'Leary in 2022. The couple remained together after the revelation of her affair with Mark Field. Photo: Shutterstock
The tabloids had a field day. They dubbed Trace's opponents the “Turnip Taliban” after a local root vegetable and the “Norfolk Neanderthals.” Sir Jeremy, the typical red-faced country squire, unwittingly fueled this caricature by insisting: “I have absolutely nothing against women. Who cooks my lunch? Who's cooking me dinner? How did my wonderful children appear?”
Cameron and his aides in London demanded that the local association stand down and accept the Track. Most did just that. The Bagge brothers did not do this. In a contentious second meeting, James Begg put forward a motion to overturn Truss's selection, but it was defeated by 132 votes to 37. Truss won with the help of the capital's liberal establishment, which she now disdains. Bagge, a lifelong Conservative, has left the party.
He smiles ruefully as I recall the saga. “I have broad shoulders,” he says. “And it turns out that turnips have deeper roots than lettuce,” he jokes, referring to the lettuce that famously survived Truss’s premiership.
Bagge resigned from the Conservative Party in 2009 following Truss's election victory in 2009. Photo: Charlie Biglin
Bagg refutes my idea that this is “Revenge of the Turnip Taliban.” He denies challenging Thruss to settle old scores. “These are not sour grapes,” he insists. “I still feel just as strongly, even stronger than then, that she is not the right person for this district.”
He opposed her selection in 2009 not because of her affair, he insists, but because she had nothing to do with Norfolk and “in two or three years we won't see her in sight or sound.” He feels completely vindicated. He says that although she has resurfaced in the constituency in recent weeks, she has been an absentee MP for most of the last 14 years, traveling from London only for occasional photo ops.
“She gets out of the car and the first thing she says is, 'Where's the photographer?'” he claims. He doesn't know she's due to have surgery. Certainly none of them are advertised on her website. “She's failed as a representative of the South West Norfolk constituency.”
Trass pictured driving a bus at the Equipmake Electric bus factory, Snetterton Business Park, Norfolk Photo: Tony Buckingham/UNP
As for her 49 days as prime minister, he adds that they were a disaster. “She's a disgrace to South West Norfolk and the butt of every comedy show… After she was thrown out of the window, I thought we don't want her to remain our MP.”
Bagge formally announced his candidacy the same day Truss published her memoir, Ten Years to Save the West, in April. “We now have six weeks to save South West Norfolk,” he jokes.
The former prime minister's book, in which she writes that “the Conservative moment in the West has been teetering for almost a generation,” Credit: Getty
Bagge's candidacy has sparked a fight that reflects the tensions tearing apart the Conservative Party nationally. It pits a traditional, centrist, slightly patrician Tory who feels his party has been hijacked by strident right-wing ideologues against the standard bearer of the party's populist wing – a woman who disdains the establishment and boasts of being a “power buster”. chief” and covers the “raucous and noisy.”
Keen to test the public mood in south-west Norfolk, I join Bagge on one of two dozen walks he is taking this summer to introduce himself to the electorate. He said that if Sunak had not called a snap general election, these walks would have seen him visiting every village in the constituency, as opposed to random Highway raids.
I meet him in Hilgei, just off the A10 motorway. He arrives in an old Volvo and turns out to be an affable, quiet man with a hearing aid and a putter, having injured his knee the previous day during a charity golf match. He is 71 years old and believes that if elected, he will become the oldest MP to be elected to parliament for the first time.
He was joined by an old friend from the SFO, who had traveled from Devon to support his campaign, and another from his Norton. Rose Days, who came from London. Both hate Truss, as does a third member of Bagge's circle, Elizabeth Bryson, a retired teacher from nearby Downham Market who says she can no longer vote Conservative because “I don't want to vote for Liz Truss.”
Photo shows Bagge with his supporters on a walk through the constituency. Photo: Charlie Biglin
I can't help but suspect that this day was staged to some extent. A woman named Jean Rockford shows us around and tells me that Truss has done little to help a local group for victims of sexual assault. So does Jenny Groom, the former independent mayor of Downham Market, who says Truss has done nothing to help her town. Bagge then introduces me to Ali Dent, the village butcher, whose shop also sells second-hand books and garden gnomes for charity. “You need a local MP, not someone bussed in from somewhere,” he says.
Our walk to Southery, a village four miles from the flat moors, takes us along country roads flanked by sweet-smelling cow parsley, past ditches, dykes and sheep fields, and through the Wood Hall estate. There, caretaker Jim Holman emerges from his cottage in time to greet us. He is also a Bagge supporter. “We need someone who cares about the constituents and, like many others, I'm a little fed up with Liz,” he says as an F-35 fighter jet from nearby Marham RAF base whizzes overhead.
< p>Apart from a confused postman, we don't see anyone else until we get to South. Bagge fills the time by describing his “word of mouth” campaign. He says he recruited 130 volunteers, raised more than £20,000 and distributed 10,000 leaflets. He hired a social media expert. He persuaded Martin Bell, a former BBC war reporter and independent MP for Tatton, and Andy Preston, a former independent mayor of Middlesbrough, to speak at a recent rally in Thetford. He consulted Rory Stewart and David Gauke, two former centrist Tory ministers expelled from the party for opposing a no-deal Brexit.
Bagge claims that at least a dozen local Tory councilors quietly encouraged him to stand, and that several Labor supporters promised to vote for him to defeat Truss. “I'm taking advantage of genuine and widespread discontent,” he says. At the signal, we meet a dog walker. A former police officer, she says she has voted for Truss before, but “I don’t think I could vote for her again. I don't think she did anything good.”
Bagge says he “takes advantage of genuine and widespread dissatisfaction” with his campaign against the former prime minister Credit: Getty
The walk ends at the Old White Bell in Southery, where exactly nine villagers have gathered to meet Bagge. If elected, he promises to be a “local champion” who will improve collaboration between county councils, health trusts, education authorities and charities.
After questions about migrant labour and a proposed new poultry farm, the discussion turns to Truss. Villagers complain about her frequent trips abroad. Some are traditional Conservative voters and say they will not vote for her again. A couple are Labour voters who intend to vote for Bagge to keep her out.
Bagge's audience is small and self-selecting, of course, but Truss's perceived disdain for her constituency does seem to be a problem. Norfolk's Eastern Daily Press recently reported that she spent “more than 70 days last year travelling the world on events.”
The Register of MPs' Interests shows she visited the States half a dozen times during this period, as well as Switzerland twice, Taiwan, Denmark, Poland and Ireland. These paid trips mainly consisted of speaking engagements and earned her around £250,000. Lately she has been diligently promoting her book.
I called Terry Jermey, a Labor Party parliamentary candidate and local councilor. He, too, told me that she had been visiting the constituency more often in recent weeks because she was “nervous” about the election, but “she has been completely absent for the last few years.” She does not work with local councilors. She doesn't do operations where people can meet her. I don't know anything about what happened for many years.”
Josie Ratcliffe, a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate and another local councilor, said: “We rarely see her. She has a reputation for coming to the constituency only for pre-arranged photo ops and disappearing back to London before a press release is issued.
Truss is pictured at a Conservative Party campaign event at Condimentum Ltd in Norwich. Photo: Getty
With some difficulty I found a member of the County Conservative Association who was willing to speak to me on strictly vague grounds. “She’s just a joke, isn’t she,” the person said. “I don’t support her. I don't think she's a good MP. I think she's all about herself… I'd like James to beat her.” Other members of the association would vote for Truss out of party loyalty, the source admitted, but “my friends say they will vote for James.”
To be fair, she was a minister for 10 years before her short stint as prime minister, leaving little time to visit Norfolk. She has a home in Downham Market and in a post on X she says: “I will be adding to my record of championing local people over the last 14 years. I have experience across South West Norfolk, from building the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn to creating a new banking centre in Downham Market and securing £20m of funding for a new town deal in Thetford.”
< p>Which makes it all the more surprising that neither she nor her aides were willing to defend that record in this article. Indeed, when I approached them, I was met with the proverbial wall of silence, presumably because they were afraid to give Bagg the oxygen of publicity, afraid that his unlikely candidacy might gain support.
I called and wrote to Jonathan Isaby, her spokesman, but got no answer. I called Ian Sherwood, described to me as her “director of operations” in Norfolk. “I have nothing to tell you,” he said, then cut me off.
I wrote to David Hills, who until recently chaired the South West Norfolk Conservative Association and was awarded an MBE as a result of Truss's controversial resignation. list. He replied that he was “not available.” I left messages asking them to call me on the association's answering machine. Nobody did this.
Finally, the day after my walk with Bagge, I turned up at the association's offices in an imposing neoclassical building in the center of Swaffham. As luck would have it, the new chairman, architect Matthew Sawyer, was due to give a presentation on planning to the association's Swaffham branch. “Our dear Liz Truss!” exclaimed the well-spoken woman when I explained what I was doing. It was unclear whether she was sincere or joking.
While waiting for Sawyer, I chatted with older member Colin Dickerson. He agreed that Truss faced a difficult task, but still thought she would win. He recalled how her predecessor, Gillian Shepherd, survived when the Conservatives were deeply unpopular in 1997 – although the majority fell from 17,000 to just 2,500.
Sawyer then walked in, looking visibly nervous. He took me to his office. Yes, he received my messages, but no, he couldn't talk to me. “We're focused on Liz's campaign and supporting what Liz is doing locally,” he said.
That's exactly what I wanted to talk about, I told him.
“I have no further comment,” he replied. “The person you should contact is Jonathan Isabi.”
But he doesn’t want to talk to me,” I objected. Sawyer left the room to call Isabee. He came back and said that neither he nor Isabi would talk to me. “Why not?” No answer. “How often does Liz Truss do surgery?” – I insisted. No reply.
Outside, I sent Isaby one last message, asking what Truss had achieved for her constituency, how many days she had spent there in the last year, how many operations she had had, whether he wanted to comment on Bagge's challenge and why he do not talk to me. No answer.
Before returning to London I did one more exercise. In the absence of any polls, I stood in Swaffham's picturesque old market square and conducted my own small poll of 20 randomly selected passers-by, men and women, young and old. It was, of course, deeply unscientific, but the results were amazing.
Of the first 19 people I approached, not one said a kind word about their deputy. The track was “a waste of space,” said a retired school employee. “Absolute nonsense,” said the retired innkeeper. “She’s a damn burden,” said the self-employed man. One roofer told me: “She almost stopped the country. It destroyed the economy. I hoped we would never hear from her again.” The former retail manager added: “I used to like her, but when she got the prime minister job she seemed to have lost badly.”
Few people have seen her around the constituency. Some had voted for her in the past, but no one was inclined to do so this time. On the 20th try, I finally found a Trass supporter. “Her intentions [as prime minister] were good,” said a former teacher named Bill. “I think her ideas were reasonable, but she probably learned to run before she could walk. I think she did the best she could in very difficult circumstances.”
One more thing I learned from my questioning was that despite all his hard efforts, despite all his walks through the back streets of Norfolk, few people had heard of Bagg. More.
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