‘Really, Alex?’: Tory moderates risk reputations by backing Lee Anderson

Constituents of MPs such as Alex Chalk are expressing frustration at endorsement of hard-right views

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As political graffiti goes, the message to the Conservative MP Alex Chalk scrawled on some steps in the centre of his Cheltenham constituency was polite, if very pointed. “F**k off back to France?” it began, using slightly coy asterisks. “Really, Alex?”

For baffled locals in the genteel Regency town who have not been following politics amid the summer recess, it was a reference to Chalk’s defence of inflammatory comments about asylum seekers made last week by Lee Anderson, a fellow Tory MP and one of the party’s vice-chairs.

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