He drove a 1967 Austin-Healey Sprite from Land’s End to Edinburgh


It's an intriguing prospect – a true-blue 669-mile road trip all the way from Land’s End to Edinburgh. And this is exactly the adventure that Middle England’s Tory revolt has opened up.

You can now travel the length of England and deep into Scottish territory while passing only through Conservative constituencies. As Boris Johnson, might say: ‘Huzzah’.

So without a moment to lose, I have started planning my odyssey in a true British classic – a 1967 Austin-Healey Sprite, owned by 21-year-old Ben Rolls from Sherborne, Dorset.

It's an intriguing prospect – a true-blue 669-mile road trip all the way from Land’s End to Edinburgh, writes ADAM LEE POTTER. And this is exactly the adventure that Middle England’s Tory revolt has opened up. You can now travel the length of England and deep into Scottish territory while passing only through Conservative constituencies. As Boris Johnson, might say: ‘Huzzah’

It seems simple: keep west of Bristol and nip through the West Midlands, slink up into High Peak and past Carlisle and you’re there – poised like a blue mamba on the SNP’s doorstep.

The South West of England is now as blue as Dorset’s famous Vinny cheese. It is as if the Lib Dems never existed.

On the road: Adam Lee Potter and his Austin-Healey Sprite stop off in Tory Yeovil

Yeovil Old Boy Paddy Ashdown would be turning in his grave – if he weren’t still alive.

Red Exeter stands alone until you hit Bristol, another angry little cluster. Push on up to Stroud and through Middle England, a wedge of blue.

You can’t get bluer than the Cotswolds, but the West Midlands holds the key to the Conservative sea change.

When Labour’s number one target seat, Warwickshire North, declared at 4am not just a Tory hold but an upswing of 3 per cent, David Cameron had it in the bag.

With the wind in my hair, I’ll whistle up through High Peak in Derbyshire.

Here is the biggest challenge of all: a land-locked corridor that cheekily slips between red Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire, a narrow belt of single file constituencies, perilous as a sniper’s alley.

Thank goodness for Colne Valley, Calder Valley and Keighley – now a Conservative haven, despite being the birthplace of Tony Blair’s spittle-flecked old chum Alistair Campbell.

Left at Scotch Corner and on we go, into Penrith.

Up past Carlisle and the die is cast – into Scotland we go at last: Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale.

At Dolphinton on the A702, we come to a stop just 21 miles shy of Holyrood, stymied not by one of the Lib Dems’ defunct ‘red lines’ but by the amber ring of the SNP.

There is but one consolation for poor old Labour.