“It’s all been very vanilla, hasn’t it? Starmer’s not going to win it, the Conservatives are going to lose it,” said Lee, a small business owner giving his final verdict on what he and eight other Hitchin residents felt had been a lacklustre and unilluminating election campaign.
In doing so, he might well have been talking on behalf of almost any of the 50 focus groups More in Focus has run across the country over the course of this campaign.
One of the first of those campaign focus groups was with voters in Hitchin, a new constituency that in ordinary times would be reliably Conservative, but which is now a knife-edge Tory/Labour battleground. In May, these undecided voters found themselves torn between their consensus that Britain under the Tories “isn’t really working” and “needed to move on”, with concerns that Keir Starmer remained a blank canvas and worries about Labour’s record on tax and the economy.
Fast-forward five weeks and some of that Hitchin group, with a couple of additions, are back together to tell how their opinions had changed. The answer? Very little.
Despite weeks of policy announcements, debates, gaffes and campaign stunts, these Hitchin residents felt they had been left with “more questions than answers”. As aircraft technician Ben put it, the campaign has “been going around in circles and there’s not really much being said”.
One thing had certainly changed, however – Rishi Sunak’s standing. In May, the group was split between those who felt Sunak had done his best with an impossible task, and those who felt he was too out of touch to understand the country he was trying to lead. As the campaign closes after the D-day and Sky TV debacles and Gamblegate, they now felt the prime minister had become a liability. As teacher Maxine put it, “It feels like maybe one of the best pledges they could make is that they are going to replace the leader of the Conservative party … I think he’s completely stuffed.”
But nor had Starmer given them the clarity they expected as the campaign progressed. As Ben put it: “I feel like that’s going to kind of get him off to a bad start [as prime minister] because he’s just going to sort of win it by default.” Across the group, they shared concerns that they still didn’t know much about what Starmer really stood for.
Their concerns about what Labour might mean for their taxes had not been entirely dispelled either. While they were dismissive of Tory tax attacks, Lee said he still “felt less safe with Labour on taxes” and commercial manager Beth expressed her concern that she didn’t “trust any of them on taxes”. Interestingly, across the group, there was a feeling it would have been better if the parties had just been honest that they might need to put up taxes to sort out the problems they all agreed the country was facing – as things stand, they feel they are being lied to.
That combination of Tory gaffes and perceived Labour obfuscation meant that these former Tory voters were entering the last week of the campaign far more undecided and uncertain than they were used to. Paralegal Tara explained her frustration that “I’ve normally made my mind up by now who I’d be voting for”, while Maxine lamented: “I used to feel a lot clearer.”
Nigel Farage was one politician who they felt had broken the mould and given direct answers. While they could see Farage’s appeal to other people – as Ben put it, “He’s just more normal, upfront and comes across as a man of the people” – for this group, Farage’s answers weren’t the right ones. They were appalled with the racism in Reform UK and were deeply worried about Farage’s comments on Ukraine. As Beth said, “Everyone was backing Ukraine, including us. For him to say something like that, it just goes against our morals.” While Maxine added, “He’s a dangerous character to be saying stuff like that. It doesn’t feel good, and it doesn’t feel safe.”
Could anything help this group, all of whom still intended to vote, make their mind up? Starmer’s comments about trying to protect family time on a Friday evening certainly hadn’t helped his cause – and went down terribly across the group. As Beth put it, “I think, if you want to do that, don’t be the prime minister, do something else. It’s not a pick-and-choose-your-time-slots kind of job.” Facilities manager Ben added that the CEO of a company couldn’t just say, “Hang on a minute. I don’t want to work past six on a Friday.” While lab technician Harry felt Starmer knew he wouldn’t be able to stick to it, which made some worry that he was being inauthentic.
The problem for the Tories in capitalising on this, however, is that the group found themselves weighing up their concerns about Starmer against a deeper sense that the Conservatives had not only lost their way, but had led the country to do the same. Maxine talked about her anxiety after the mini-budget: “I felt so nervous for at least a week about decisions. I found that really destabilising and that has affected me.” Her view was echoed by Ben, who said the Tories had brought “zero stability”.
This group was sure about one thing: that Labour was going to win on Thursday and win big. The question for them was whether they wanted Hitchin to be part of that Labour majority or a Conservative opposition. After a campaign that had failed to live up to their expectations, these voters really do seem to be waiting until the very last minute to make up their minds.
• Luke Tryl is the UK director of the research group More in Common
