The House of Commons green benches have fallen silent in Westminster and it’s time for us, the United Kingdom, to choose who will occupy them next.
So, Sky News has decided to take a piece of upholstered parliamentary furniture around the country for you to share your thoughts on.
We started our Bench Across Britain series in the West Country, hauling our green bench down the harbour steps, across dark slimy rocks and on to the vast yellow sands of Towan Beach in Newquay Bay.
Here we found our first speaker, surf instructor Rich Holgate Smith.
“I haven’t engaged with it enough myself,” he admits. “I don’t follow Rishi Sunak religiously. But I see what’s happening on a daily basis, like, the way I’m living.
“The cost of rent has tripled in the last few years or the cost of food has gone up. And I see we’re losing a lot of the good things that made this country great, a lot of free services, the NHS, for example.”
The feeling that public services are in decline is a recurring theme of conversation on our bench, as is the cost of living.
Young couple Sophia Zielinski-Keall and Max Whiteley are on the beach walking their dog when they stop for a chat.
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“I haven’t seen anybody come down here really to see what’s happening in Cornwall,” says Sophia. “Like on house prices; they have spiralled out of control down here. We managed to buy a first home and we feel quite lucky. It was hard.
“I know a lot of people who are trying to buy their own first homes at the moment as well and they’re finding it really, really tricky, especially with the salaries down here. They don’t compare to the salaries in London and house prices are just shooting through the roof.”
Max adds: “I think we both got good jobs, but the money just seems to go every month. In a lot of ways I was better off 10 years ago than I am now, even though I was probably earning 50% less.”
Second-home owners pushing up house prices for the locals has been a growing problem in the region. Two teachers from Falmouth, Frankie Baseley and Jessica Fenton, say the same.
“Housing down here – it’s just gone way beyond anything that we can afford,” says Frankie. “We earn a pretty good salary for being in Cornwall, but going to a shop and doing like a weekly shop is just so expensive!”
Jessica adds: “Then I think at work, budget cuts, lack of resources, lack of funding for mental health, especially special needs, especially school trips – like the cost of living is really affecting coach prices, so we can’t go to school trips.”
St Austell and Newquay is Tory-held. Labour were second in both 2017 and 2019 and there was no UKIP or Brexit candidate in either election.
This year there are at least seven candidates, including one from Reform in a seat that is estimated to have voted 65% Leave in the Brexit referendum.
Labour needs a 14.5% swing to take the constituency. With that, uniformly across the country, they would be on course for a 50-seat majority.
There are multiple constituencies for the Conservatives to defend in the region which is currently pretty much a sea of blue. In England, Labour and Liberal Democrats only have two seats each west of Bristol – but are looking to turn the South West into a patchwork of red and yellow.
With 700 miles of stunning coastline, people here care deeply about the environment. One surfer who sat on our bench lamented “the amount of poo in the sea”. Other locals were angry with both main parties for rowing back on green commitments.
Transport is another issue, be it bus and train services, or the price of fuel. Aircraft mechanic Richard Wooldridge says the cost of petrol is “crippling” his family.
He says: “I travel for work, my wife travels to work. I work away from home so I can earn a good wage. But it’s now got to the point with the cost of fuel that I have to consider, whether I continue in my chosen career or be a stay-at-home dad because the fuel prices are so high.”
Down at the harbour at 9am on a Sunday, Richard is part of a group of men who religiously jump into the water come rain or shine. A fellow member of the Blue Ball swim club, teacher Matthew Jenkins, says for him “integrity” is the number one consideration for his vote.
He added: “I think the fact that we were told a lot of things and a lot of those things never happened, we were lied to a lot of times, especially during the COVID years.
“And I know some of those things some people found quite trivial, but in terms of integrity, they’re actually really important and they made a big difference to people’s lives.”
Despite the general dissatisfaction with the previous government and despondency over the cost of living – there is no huge enthusiasm for the main opposition party.
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Jessica, one of the Falmouth teachers, reflected the general mood when she said: “I’m going to be definitely looking around at different parties and thinking.”
The people who came to our bench seemed to know what’s wrong with their lives – fewer knew which party had the solutions.
The former head of royal protection says he warned the Royal Family about Mohamed al Fayed’s reputation before Princess Diana took her sons on holiday with him.
The women say he raped and sexually assaulted them while they worked at the luxury department store, prowling the shop floor and “cherry-picking” women to be brought to his executive suite.
Now, Mr Davies says people were aware of the Egyptian businessman’s reputation as far back as the 1990s, and that he raised concerns about him to the Royal Family.
“This was a man who I would be concerned [about] if a relative of mine was going on holiday with him, let alone the future king and his brother and their mother, Princess Diana,” Dai Davies told Sky News.
In July 1997, a month before she died, Princess Diana went on holiday with Fayed and his wife to their residence in St Tropez.
She took the two young princes with her – a holiday Prince Harry described as “heaven” in his 2023 memoir Spare.
“I was horrified because I was aware of some of the allegations even then that were going around,” said Mr Davies.
“I was aware that he had tried very hard to ingratiate himself with the Royal Family and obviously knowing, as I did, the reputation he was alleged [to have] then, I was concerned, and I took the opportunity to inform the Royal Family.”
Mr Davies says he was told: “Her Majesty is aware.”
“The rest is history,” he said.
Buckingham Palace told Sky News it had no comment on the allegations.
Fulham ‘deeply disturbed’ by allegations
Fulham FC, a football club that was owned by Fayed between 1997 and 2013, has saidit is “deeply troubled” by the dozens of “disturbing” sexual abuse allegations against the businessman.
The Premier League club also said it is “in the process of establishing whether anyone at the club is or has been affected” by this alleged behaviour.
However, Gaute Haugenes, who managed the club’s women’s team between 2001 and 2003, told the BBC extra precautions were taken to protect female players from Fayed.
“We were aware he liked young, blonde girls. So we just made sure that situations couldn’t occur. We protected the players.”
The legal team involved in a civil claim against Harrods for allegedly failing to provide a safe system of work for its employees said they aimed to seek justice for the victims of a “vast web of abuse”.
Lily Allen says she had her children “for all the wrong reasons,” at a “high pressure” point in her career when she felt “overwhelmed”.
The singer and actress had her two daughters, Marnie, 12 and Ethel, 11, with her ex-husband Sam Cooper when she was in her mid-20s.
By the time she became a mum, she’d already had hit singles including Smile and The Fear, released two studio albums and received a Brit Award for best British female solo artist.
Speaking about motherhood on the BBC podcast Miss Me?, which Allen hosts with her long-time friend Miquita Oliver, she said: “I think I had children for all the wrong reasons, really.
“Because I was yearning for unconditional love, which I haven’t felt in my life since I was a child.”
The now 39-year-old star added: “And also, my career was at such high speed, high pressure, and I felt like very overwhelmed by what was happening. I just didn’t get much respite you know?
“And I felt like the only way to stop people hassling me was to say, ‘It’s not about me, actually this is about this other person that’s inside me’.
When asked by Oliver if it worked, Allen says: “Yeah, they did leave me alone. I don’t think I really understood what was happening, what I got myself into.”
The daughter of actor Keith Allen and film producer Alison Owen, she went on to discuss her own childhood.
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“My mum, bless her, had children really early as well, and she really struggled. But she doesn’t really talk about the struggle. And so… She inadvertently gaslit me into thinking it was, you know, easy.
“You just sort of throw the kid over your shoulder and you get on with it.
“Her job was very static, and in one place and went to an office and mine wasn’t like that at all. It wasn’t easy. It just wasn’t easy.”
The ‘nasty scars’ caused by absent parents
Allen previously told the Radio Times podcast that while she loves her children, having them “ruined her career”.
She said her decision to prioritise them over her pop career was a decision she made so as not to inflict the “nasty scars” of being an “absent” parent onto them.
She also said the myth of having it all “really annoyed” as it simply was not true.
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Allen, whose younger brother is Game Of Thrones actor Alfie Allen, married Stranger Things star David Harbour in 2020.
Away from her music career, Allen has branched out into acting over the last few years, starring in two plays in London’s West End, and winning a role in Sky drama Dreamland last year.
An investigation has been launched after “Jail Starmer” graffiti was daubed on the window of an MP’s office.
The Met Police received an allegation of criminal damage on Saturday in relation to the incident at Clive Efford’s office in Eltham & Chislehurst, South London.
This is a new seat which was won by Labour at the general election, though in 2019 it was notionally Conservative.
On Friday night the window was painted with white graffiti which says “Jail Starmer”.
Sources told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby that an image of the vandalism has been circulating among Labour MPs’ WhatsApp groups this morning. However, Mr Efford has downplayed the incident.
There have been growing concerns about the safety of politicians in recent years, following the murders of Jo Cox and Sir David Amess.
MPs have described working in an increasingly hostile environment, with experiences ranging from death threats and abuse to attacks on their constituency offices and protests at their homes.
In a statement, the Met Police said: “On Saturday 21, September, police received an allegation of criminal damage to an office building in Westmount Road SE9.
“Graffiti had been daubed on the premises the previous day.
“An investigation has been launched and enquiries are ongoing.
“Anyone with information is asked to call 101 quoting CAD 2672/21Sep.”