Voters in a bellwether south-west England constituency are willing to back Labour at the next election as the “dead-walking Conservative government” has failed to ease the pressure on working people and struggling public services.
In Sir Robert Buckland MP’s South Swindon seat, Jeremy Hunt’s spring budget felt like a “kick in the teeth” as the highest earners were rewarded with a huge pensions giveaway, while the working class received no gains.
The sentiment of Rishi Sunak being completely “out of touch” has not shifted since the autumn statement, with voters in the “red wall” seat of Leigh saying the prime minister was “absolutely not” on the side of the working class. “I’m not impressed with him, he’s too polished and not in touch with the people,” said Patrick, a 38-year-old charity manager.
Hunt’s expansion of free childcare, thought to be one of the postive aspects of his budget, appeared to come across as deceptive to voters in South Swindon. Michelle, a 53-year-old health administrative worker who joined the diverse focus group convened by More in Common UK for the Guardian, questioned whether there would be enough nurseries still open by the time the policy kicks in.
Jackie, a 52-year-old accountant, added: “Nurseries have struggled through Covid, nobody went to nursery so they closed down. Electricity prices have gone up, wages have gone up, I just think it’s all a bit, too little, too late really. But it sounds good. It keeps the public happy until you look further behind the announcement and then you see when it’s coming in. Where do you find a nursery if they’re all closing?”
The three-month extension of energy bill support did little to uplift those who voted Tory in 2019, who feared many people would end up putting more strain on the NHS after battling freezing temperatures because they were unable to heat their homes and questioned what would happen once those three months were over. “There’s enough money in government to cover all these issues. It’s just how they choose to spend it. I think HS2 is nearing a trillion pounds. There’s enough money to solve the [energy bills crisis],” said Ant, 40.
Could Rachel Reeves do a better job with the public purse? Lifelong Tory voter Phil, a 65-year-old retired landscaper, said: “She comes across as competent and far better than previous shadow chancellors, and she presents Labour as being far more competent financially than they have been in the past.” But he said Keir Starmer still had a way to go to be a convincing Labour leader. “He doesn’t come up with any ideas does he? He’s got plenty of ammunition to criticise given the performance of the government over the last few years, but I don’t hear any real ideas about how they’re going to improve things in the future.”
The focus group appeared certain they were not going to back the Conservative “people-pleasers” who use red-meat policies, like the illegal immigration bill, to garner headlines. But the group could not determine if they were willing to wholly support Labour, which they felt had a historic “people-pleasing” strategy of “throwing cash at people”.
“Labour won’t have the money to really change things. They are great at spending money but they won’t have it there. My fear is the tax rates at the moment are the highest they’ve been in 40 years and with a Labour government they’d only get higher again,” Phil said in agreement with a few other members.
Cindy, 47, said Starmer’s intentions “appear to be good”, but choosing Rishi Sunak over the Labour leader was the “lesser of two evils”.
Over the past few weeks, the Tory party chair has been repeating the fact that when Labour last left government, Liam Byrne, then chief secretary to the Treasury, left a note saying: “I’m afraid there is no money.” South Swindon voters were divided, with half of the group claiming it could have been childish banter between the two parties. Labour would return to “pleasing everyone by handing out money”, said Jackie, who added: “But where will it come from this time?”
The youngest member of the group, 24-year-old Fleur, said Starmer was coming across as “compassionate and passionate” in trying to help people across the country, highlighting the apparent lack of compassion within Sunak’s team as something that may lose the Conservatives the next election.
All members of the group criticised the government’s illegal migration bill and said they could not trust the Tories to get a grip on the Channel crisis because of their poor record over the last 13 years and also because there was a lack of support for people desperately seeking help. “It’s all quite negative, unworkable and they’re just inciting hatred,” said Fleur.
Labour is throwing its weight within this target seat, with the former MP Heidi Alexander selected as the party’s parliamentary candidate to face Buckland. Alexander, deemed to be one of the many heavyweights making a comeback to frontline politics, was a former shadow health secretary who quit under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership in 2018.
Conleth Burns, senior associate at More in Common UK, said: “This week’s budget and the recent flurry of government deal-making might have impressed Westminster insiders, but it simply wasn’t cutting it for the voters we spoke to in South Swindon.
“The government might have hoped that the last few weeks would have jump-started the Tories’ electoral recovery, but this group in Swindon shows that any real recovery is a long way off.
“In fact, many of this group thought Labour could’ve done a better job with the budget, and almost all agreed that Labour wouldn’t have done a worse job.”
