East Wiltshire MP says people in his constituency are "really depressed"
Danny Kruger added that Swindon is "not looking good" in a new interview
Wiltshire’s only Reform UK MP has said arriving in Swindon can make you want to “get back on the train” – despite predicting a bright future for the town.
Danny Kruger, MP for East Wiltshire, delivered the brutal assessment during a wide-ranging interview about how technology, manufacturing and political reform could transform Britain.
But his point was ultimately an optimistic one, arguing that Swindon has the infrastructure, location and industrial heritage needed to thrive again.
He described it as “the most amazing place with huge potential” and the “Anglofuturist city of the 19th and 20th century”, pointing to its railway heritage and later role in car manufacturing.
However, he said the loss of those industries, including Honda, had left parts of the town “really, really depressed”.
He added: “If today, if you stepped out of Swindon station, you’d want to get back on the train.
“I mean, it’s not looking good.”
But he immediately added that this was not fair to the town, saying its “underlying realities” were “very, very positive” and arguing the right industrial policy and political leadership could turn its fortunes around.
The comments came during an interview with Anglofuturism, a politically right-leaning podcast that champions an optimistic, technology-driven future for Britain.
Presented by former Telegraph journalist Tom Ough and scientist Calum Drysdale, it explores ideas ranging from AI, manufacturing and nuclear energy to housebuilding and space exploration.
Its self-consciously eccentric branding includes recording from a supposed “thatched space station” called King Charles III.
Its mix of technological ambition with traditional British identity chimed with much of what Danny Kruger had to say.
Turning to his own constituency, the MP described how technology was already changing rural Wiltshire, including tech firms operating from converted farm buildings.
He said his constituency had “amazing little high-tech firms”, adding: “You walk in and there’s a drone factory… you had to literally step over cow pats to get to the front door.”
Danny Kruger also painted a picture of technology allowing more people to work and run businesses in the countryside while living more locally.
He joked that people in Wiltshire cottages had enjoyed lockdown for “a few weeks before it got boring and the kids went mad”, because families and neighbours initially spent more time together.
But the interview ranged far beyond local issues.
Danny Kruger argued that Reform could halve the size of the civil service, partly through artificial intelligence and digitisation, abolish the Cabinet Office in its current form, and radically restrict judicial review.
He also confronted the prospect of AI and automation eliminating huge numbers of existing jobs in the general workplace.
While arguing that previous technological revolutions had created new work, he acknowledged the speed of the coming change could be different.
That, he said, could require an economy that rewards people for valuable activity even when it does not produce a conventional wage, while avoiding a system where people are simply “paid to do nothing by the state”.
He said a potential future of “universal leisure” would have to be accompanied by “universal responsibility”, with family and community providing people with purpose.
Danny Kruger also backed putting Britons on the Moon and backed Elon Musk’s idea of putting data centres – so controversial in Wiltshire and across the UK – in space.
Danny Kruger was elected Conservative MP for the Devizes constituency in 2019 and has represented East Wiltshire since the constituency was created for the 2024 general election.
Last September he defected from the Tories to Reform UK.
His predominantly rural seat stretches between Swindon and Salisbury, taking in places including the Swindon districts of Wichelstowe, Wroughton and Chiseldon and the Wiltshire wards of Marlborough, Pewsey, Amesbury, and Tidworth.