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“GET THEUKAUKUKUKAUKYour browser does not support the element. Acle Straight responsibly dualled” does not sound like the rallying cry of a populist firebrand. But that pledge was central to the campaign of Rupert Lowe, a businessman who won the constituency of Great Yarmouth for Reform in the general election. He was referring to a dreadful 10km stretch of the 47, which runs across a bog and connects the seaside town with the outside world. Built by the Victorians, the single carriageway carries 22,000 vehicles a day and has a terrible record for congestion and accidents.Most accounts of the rise of Reform , a hard-right party that won five seats in the summer and is now backed by , do not mention asphalt. The party has exploited fury about immigration; it gleefully wades into culture wars. But a new study by Michael Dnes of Stonehaven, a consultancy, points to something else: all four of the seats recently gained by Reform (Lee Anderson already held Ashfield) have a “missing road”. Not only that, poor transport infrastructure is correlated with the seats the party appears most likely to win next time.So far Reform has done best in coastal towns in the east of England. According to the Office for Road and Rail, a watchdog, the region has the worst roads in the country by some distance. That is mostly because it has lots of badly maintained -roads. Seaside towns struggle to make a case for road investment because they are often poor and “fish don’t drive”, notes Mr Dnes, a former official in the transport department.In Clacton, the seat of Nigel Farage, Reform ’s leader, around half of workers drive to their jobs on a half-finished dual carriageway. In Skegness, won by his deputy Richard Tice, many people have to drive 50 minutes to get to a hospital. Both men spend much of their time talking about immigrants. But roads are the service that Britons rely on most in their daily lives, and are an especially emotive issue for older, male voters. The Acle Straight campaigners have been largely ignored for three decades. That may help explain why populists make inroads.
