‘I haven’t seen any change’: black Labour voters in Liverpool and London six months on

Jeannette Francis: ‘We still vote Labour, because a lot of us don’t like coming out of our comfort zone.’ Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

In Toxteth, a fast-gentrifying area of Liverpool that has for decades been the nucleus of the city’s 300-year-old black community, Saeed Olayiwola considered how the Labour government compared with the Conservatives. “I don’t see much that sets them apart at the moment,” Olayiwola said.

Since Keir Starmer’s government took power six months ago, voters in two urban constituencies, both represented by black Labour MPs – Liverpool Riverside and Tottenham in north London – have been weighing up the party’s decisions and talking to the Guardian.