Gove and Hunt, Beware: True-blue Surrey Is Ready to Turf Out the Tories – and You’re Next

THE GUARDIAN: An avalanche is coming. The voters I met are abandoning the Conservatives over lying, cheating and Brexit

“Were you still awake for Raab? Or Hunt? Or Gove?” On the morning after next year’s election we may be asking each other that, remembering the magic early-hours moment in 1997 when Michael Portillo lost his seat in Enfield Southgate, north London, symbolising the earthquake that brought down the Tories after 18 long years. Imagine the shock of Tory A-listers’ seats tumbling in the forever Tory fiefdoms of Surrey.

I had never imagined it, so what I discovered while canvassing with the Liberal Democrats last weekend in Michael Gove’s Surrey Heath constituency was terra incognita to me. Before, there was no point in following the fortunes of forlorn opposition candidates trying to knock down impenetrable home-county blue walls. There is now. » | Polly Toynbee | Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Tensions Rise at the £3bn Surrey Estate Russian Oligarchs Call Home

THE GUARDIAN: The secretive owners of mansions at St George’s Hill will be nervous about making an appearance on Liz Truss’s hitlist

St George’s Hill, near Weybridge, has been called Britain’s Beverly Hills. At least a quarter of its houses are owned by people from former Soviet states. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
The warning to rich Russians linked to Putin that the UK government “will come after you” and ensure oligarchs have “nowhere to hide” is likely to hit hard at the gated luxury housing estate in Surrey dubbed “Britain’s Beverly Hills”.

Russians and those from former Soviet states own more than a quarter of the 430 luxurious homes in St George’s Hill, a heavily guarded 964-acre estate near Weybridge, Surrey, where mansions have changed hands for more than £20m each.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said on Sunday that the government was drawing up a “hitlist” of oligarchs with links to Putin who will be added to the sanctions list in coming days and weeks.

“We have to make it deeply painful for the oligarchs that support the Putin regime. There are over a hundred Russian billionaires,” she told the Sunday Times. “Nothing is off the table in terms of who or what we are targeting. We are very clear about that – we are very prepared to do what it takes.”

Brad, one of six fluorescent jacket-wearing security guards who prevented the Guardian from entering St George’s Hill, said there were more Russians living on the estate now than at any time in his six years working at the gate. » | Rupert Neate, Wealth correspondent | Monday, February 28, 2022

105mph Wind Recorded as Gales Batter Britain

A man walks through the sandstorm at the Swansea seafront
in south Wales on 12 February 2014

THE GUARDIAN: Wales hit by record wind speed as Thames is set to rise to highest level in 60 years

Strong winds continued to batter the UK on Wednesday, causing disruption to road and rail networks and leaving 21,000 people without power.

A top wind speed of 105mph was recorded in Aberdaron in north-west Wales, and Western Power Distribution said electricity supplies had been hit in south Wales, the south-west and the west Midlands. Gusts of 92mph have already been recorded in the Mumbles on the Gower Peninsula, south-west Wales, the weather forecaster Meteogroup said.

Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol was briefly closed for the first time in its history, and the storms have also brought a number of trees down. Coastal areas could also be battered by large waves, the Met Office said.

The Environment Agency warned that the Thames was set to rise in places to its highest levels in more than 60 years, causing severe disruption to communities in Windsor, Maidenhead and Surrey. » | Haroon Siddique, Matthew Weaver and agencies | Wednesday, February 12, 2014