Luke Tryl is Director of More in Common. He is a former Director of the New Schools Network, Director of Strategy at Ofsted, and a former Special Adviser.
While the events of the past few days will make many Conservatives eager to forget Boris Johnson, the breadth of the coalition he created in 2019 remains a striking achievement.
With the main drivers of that victory – Corbyn, Brexit, and Johnson – no longer in play, we wanted to find out what, if anything, could rebuild a majority that stretched from Surrey to County Durham.
To do that, last week, we spoke to voters in focus groups in two key seats: Blyth and Wycombe.
Blyth fell to the Tories for the first time in a generation in 2019 as the party smashed through the Red Wall, while Wycombe, a seat in the so called Blue Wall, had a 15,000 Conservative majority as recently as 2015 but is now firmly on Labour’s target list.
The question we wanted to answer: is there an offer that the Sunak Government can make in both types of seats that would keep them in the Tory fold at the next election?
The good news for the Conservatives is that for all the psephology on the differences between these two types of seats, the issues that voters said would decide their vote were almost identical. What’s more, the issues the people we spoke to raised matched the Prime Minister’s five pledges – particularly the cost of living and the NHS.
Unfortunately, the positives stop there, with voters in both Wycombe and Blyth exhausted with what they saw as unending political chaos, and giving the Government poor marks against Rishi Sunak’s own scoresheet.
For nearly two years, the cost of living has dominated focus group discussions. But the nature of that concern has shifted. In the winter most people told us about jaw-dropping energy bill hikes, while more recently people pointed to food prices they don’t believe are fair.
But for the first time, we heard from voters that they were just as concerned about interest rates as inflation. Isaac, a systems manager in Wycombe explained “mortgage rates, that’s where the new squeeze is”, while Jonathan, a HR team leader in Blyth, said that “no one can afford their mortgages going up by hundreds of pounds”.
The group in Blyth wanted to know when the Government was going to bring in a cap for mortgages as with energy, but in Wycombe they were more resigned about the extent to which the problem was now out of government hands.
But if cost of living was the biggest concern, it was recent NHS experiences that elicited the real horror stories. In Blyth, three of the eight had been on a waiting list for more than a year. In Wycombe, Diane, a schoolteacher, told us her GP surgery was “dire, just dire, just terrible”, while others told us they just didn’t bother trying to get appointments.
The NHS risks being electoral kryptonite for the Conservatives and what people wanted to see was clear: the Government to put more money in and to settle with striking doctors and nurses.
Away from policy, what did voters think about the man in charge?
As has become common when talking about Sunak, they were conflicted between respecting the Prime Minister’s competence (particularly in delivering furlough during the pandemic) and the sense he is just too wealthy to relate to their lives. Tanya, an office manager from Wycombe, summed up a common complaint:
“Rishi Sunak ain’t got no cost of living, how can you be for the people, if you’re not a normal person.”
And while the groups definitely saw him as an improvement on Johnson – “he’s not going to embarrass us with that mad hair” – the manner in which Sunak took over jarred with a few.
Gemma, an account manager from Blyth, thought it selfish the way Sunak “just upped and left when it was getting tough with Boris”, while Steve, an IT manager in Wycombe, didn’t like that “he was happy to stab his old mate in the back to make sure he got the job himself”. As both Michael Heseltine and Ed Miliband found out, wielding the knife can come at a cost.
It was also clear that these voters thought Sunak hadn’t yet managed to make the political weather in the same way as Johnson.
In Wycombe, Diane told us that “He’s just not as visible”; Isaac added: “Rishi presents better, but he’s not as tough”. James, a construction manager, concluded: “Rishi’s a bit vanilla”. These arguments about visibility come up time again in focus groups.
Sunak must find a way to address that criticism – that he’s not simply tidying up his predecessors’ mess, but that also has a positive offer to tackle the big problems. Steve perhaps put it best:
“People don’t really know where we’re going as a country. And it just seems like the UK is a pretty shitty place to live now. Everything’s expensive… Just show us a solid plan of how you aim to reduce inflation and support people who need it the most.”
The electorate’s ask of Sunak is not an easy one. But it is the only path there is: deliver on the economy, make life feel affordable, and ensure people can get a hospital appointment, and that 2019 coalition, many of whom are voting Labour by default, might just be prepared to give the Tories a second look.
Luke Tryl is Director of More in Common. He is a former Director of the New Schools Network, Director of Strategy at Ofsted, and a former Special Adviser.
While the events of the past few days will make many Conservatives eager to forget Boris Johnson, the breadth of the coalition he created in 2019 remains a striking achievement.
With the main drivers of that victory – Corbyn, Brexit, and Johnson – no longer in play, we wanted to find out what, if anything, could rebuild a majority that stretched from Surrey to County Durham.
To do that, last week, we spoke to voters in focus groups in two key seats: Blyth and Wycombe.
Blyth fell to the Tories for the first time in a generation in 2019 as the party smashed through the Red Wall, while Wycombe, a seat in the so called Blue Wall, had a 15,000 Conservative majority as recently as 2015 but is now firmly on Labour’s target list.
The question we wanted to answer: is there an offer that the Sunak Government can make in both types of seats that would keep them in the Tory fold at the next election?
The good news for the Conservatives is that for all the psephology on the differences between these two types of seats, the issues that voters said would decide their vote were almost identical. What’s more, the issues the people we spoke to raised matched the Prime Minister’s five pledges – particularly the cost of living and the NHS.
Unfortunately, the positives stop there, with voters in both Wycombe and Blyth exhausted with what they saw as unending political chaos, and giving the Government poor marks against Rishi Sunak’s own scoresheet.
For nearly two years, the cost of living has dominated focus group discussions. But the nature of that concern has shifted. In the winter most people told us about jaw-dropping energy bill hikes, while more recently people pointed to food prices they don’t believe are fair.
But for the first time, we heard from voters that they were just as concerned about interest rates as inflation. Isaac, a systems manager in Wycombe explained “mortgage rates, that’s where the new squeeze is”, while Jonathan, a HR team leader in Blyth, said that “no one can afford their mortgages going up by hundreds of pounds”.
The group in Blyth wanted to know when the Government was going to bring in a cap for mortgages as with energy, but in Wycombe they were more resigned about the extent to which the problem was now out of government hands.
But if cost of living was the biggest concern, it was recent NHS experiences that elicited the real horror stories. In Blyth, three of the eight had been on a waiting list for more than a year. In Wycombe, Diane, a schoolteacher, told us her GP surgery was “dire, just dire, just terrible”, while others told us they just didn’t bother trying to get appointments.
The NHS risks being electoral kryptonite for the Conservatives and what people wanted to see was clear: the Government to put more money in and to settle with striking doctors and nurses.
Away from policy, what did voters think about the man in charge?
As has become common when talking about Sunak, they were conflicted between respecting the Prime Minister’s competence (particularly in delivering furlough during the pandemic) and the sense he is just too wealthy to relate to their lives. Tanya, an office manager from Wycombe, summed up a common complaint:
“Rishi Sunak ain’t got no cost of living, how can you be for the people, if you’re not a normal person.”
And while the groups definitely saw him as an improvement on Johnson – “he’s not going to embarrass us with that mad hair” – the manner in which Sunak took over jarred with a few.
Gemma, an account manager from Blyth, thought it selfish the way Sunak “just upped and left when it was getting tough with Boris”, while Steve, an IT manager in Wycombe, didn’t like that “he was happy to stab his old mate in the back to make sure he got the job himself”. As both Michael Heseltine and Ed Miliband found out, wielding the knife can come at a cost.
It was also clear that these voters thought Sunak hadn’t yet managed to make the political weather in the same way as Johnson.
In Wycombe, Diane told us that “He’s just not as visible”; Isaac added: “Rishi presents better, but he’s not as tough”. James, a construction manager, concluded: “Rishi’s a bit vanilla”. These arguments about visibility come up time again in focus groups.
Sunak must find a way to address that criticism – that he’s not simply tidying up his predecessors’ mess, but that also has a positive offer to tackle the big problems. Steve perhaps put it best:
“People don’t really know where we’re going as a country. And it just seems like the UK is a pretty shitty place to live now. Everything’s expensive… Just show us a solid plan of how you aim to reduce inflation and support people who need it the most.”
The electorate’s ask of Sunak is not an easy one. But it is the only path there is: deliver on the economy, make life feel affordable, and ensure people can get a hospital appointment, and that 2019 coalition, many of whom are voting Labour by default, might just be prepared to give the Tories a second look.