“Hopefully we can get on with it, because what we’ve got happening at the moment isn’t really working, is it?” That was how Gemma, a construction manager, reacted to last week’s general election announcement. She was one of nine undecided voters in the new parliamentary seat of Hitchin, in Hertfordshire, who More in Common spoke to as part of a focus group on Wednesday evening.
The participants were certainly not natural Labour voters. More than any other group we’ve spoken to this year, they were frustrated at high taxes and in particular the impact of fiscal drag and benefit cutoffs. Matt, an account manager, told us that rules around benefits thresholds and child benefit had “rankled him for years”. Ben, a facilities manager, said he had cut down the amount he worked to avoid hitting new thresholds, saying: “If everything goes up and the thresholds don’t increase then you just start getting penalised more.”
