Will Forster had been a Woking councillor since 2009 by the time he became the town's first Liberal Democrat MP in 2024, which means he had a front row seat for the disaster that made Woking infamous. The Conservative run borough council ran up debts of around £2 billion on failed property speculation and effectively went bankrupt, one of the worst municipal collapses in modern England, and Forster was deputy leader of the council left to clear it up. He arrived at Westminster busy and stayed that way, 421 of 429 divisions and a steady stream of speeches, much of it on the unglamorous plumbing of council finance and the cost of rail fares. There is no scandal here, which on this site is worth saying plainly. The uncomfortable question is quieter: a man defined by cleaning up someone else's mess has not yet shown what he builds when the mess is not already made. Verdict: the competent hand you want after the fire, still to prove he is the one you want before it.