The loss of the Hartlepool byelection in 2021 undoubtedly marked the low point of Keir Starmer’s leadership of the Labour party and convinced many commentators that the next election was a foregone conclusion.
Two years on, after Labour’s most buoyant party conference in years, my research group More in Common ran a focus group of voters who had backed the Conservatives for the first time in that byelection, to find out what, if anything, had changed.
