‘People won’t be able to live’: rising costs are biggest fear for working-class Tories

As Boris Johnson faces sustained pressure from Conservative MPs over a series of areas from migration to a looming cost of living crisis, The Sunday Telegraph commissioned two focus groups in Tory seats to gauge the views of working-class Leave voters who backed the Prime Minister’s party at the 2019 election.

The groups, organised and moderated by Public First, the polling firm that has carried out work for Downing Street, took place in Bury South, a Red Wall seat won by the Conservatives with a majority of just 402, and Old Bexley and Sidcup, where voters will select a successor to James Brokenshire, the highly regarded former minister who died from cancer, on Thursday.

Tom Banks, director of Public First North, said: “While those who ‘lent’ their vote to Boris Johnson in 2019 are not having full blown buyers’ remorse, there are now serious questions being asked of his Government.”

Cost of living

Asked to identify the biggest issues that they and their families expected to face over the next year, members of both groups responded instantly with cost of living concerns such as “more taxes”, “inflation”, “fuel costs”, “interest rate rises”, and “energy prices”.

“It’s not pennies anymore,” said Steven, 61, a warehouse manager in Bury.

“We’re jumping up in 50p chunks now, whether it’s on your cornflakes or your fuel, ciggies or whatever.”

Clare, 41, a sales assistant and mother of four from Bury, agreed: “Diesel is dearer, we’ve had a notification from the mobile phone company saying that they are going to have to put the prices up in April.”

Maria, a 37-year-old mother of three who works as a communications officer in Bexley, said that the cost of fuel was now “extortionate”.

“Everything seems to be going up apart from my salary,” said Derrick, 59, a sales manager and father of two in Bexley.

Steven added: “Every year inflation and wages have always gone up … now the gap between the two is getting to the point where people just won’t be able to live.”

Mike, 38, a leisure centre manager in Bexley, said: “I owe my landlord a lot of money now, because of Covid, because I had to reduce my payments. I’ve lost all my savings.

“The way that all the costs are coming up, energy and electric and fuel, disposable income that I could save with has got smaller and smaller and smaller to the point where I’m getting up, I’m going to work, I’m coming home and going to bed and I’m not earning any extra money. And with this new National Insurance rise and fuel, I’m essentially looking at almost being in debt by the end of every month now.”

Immigration

“There is a fundamental elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about, and that’s the fact that the population is just spiralling out of control,” said Derrick, the sales manager in Bexley. “We’re a small, piddly little island … we’ve got too many people for the space that we’re in, we haven’t got enough doctors [for the population size].”

Mark, 42, in Bury South, said: “You think about your kids and your grandkids and there’s no new housing being built. The population keeps going up because we just keep letting everybody in. And the people they let in jump straight to the front of the queue. It is scandalous.

“It’s just going to fall apart, this country, because the health service, schools … it’s all right saying ‘come in’ but, let’s face it, people that do come into this country are crammed into already deprived areas that don’t get any money anyway. You see it all around the North West.”

Mark said he had only “voted once” – he backed the Conservatives in 2019 when Boris Johnson pledged to “control immigration” – but “I won’t bother again”.

Laura, a 44-year-old café assistant from Bury, said: “It sounds horrible and you do feel awful saying it but it seems that [migrants] just get everything handed to them. And I think our percentage of taking in is a lot more than other countries.”

Clare, the sales assistant, said: “One of the reasons I voted to leave was for immigration. It wasn’t as a racist thing … if there’s a country that’s in difficulty, and we can help them then you should. But there has to come a point where your country’s crippled, when we have to start helping people at home.”

One theme that emerged in both groups of Leave voters was a concern that more eastern European workers were needed to plug job vacancies such as in the hospitality sector. The sentiment appeared a far cry from the pre-Brexit insistence by some Eurosceptics that EU migrants “deprive British citizens of jobs”.

Before Brexit, “when the Polish were over here, they worked their a---- off ”, said Clare. Now, she believes, the UK has sent “all the ones that work, all the ones that graft home … yet we’ll bring all the people from Syria in and we’ll give them money.

“I was in Cornwall in the summer, every single shop was crying out for staff,” she said.

Derrick, in Bexley, said: “There are jobs that fundamentally, as Brits, we don’t want to do. We don’t want to sweep the streets, we don’t want to clean the toilets … So we have to bring people over.”

Both focus groups were held on Tuesday, a day before 27 people bound for Britain drowned in the Channel – although concerns over the numbers of migrants entering the UK illegally by boat were raised in both sessions.

NHS

“My concern is the NHS, the state that it’s getting in,” said Debbie, a 61-year-old project administrator in Bexley. She had taken her elderly mother to hospital days earlier and her mother, who uses a wheelchair, was left “outside in the cold just to get triaged”. “I do feel it’s because people can’t get through to their GPs and get appointments so they just turn up at A&E,” Debbie said.

Others agreed about the apparent lack of an availability of GP appointments – a problem widely reported in recent months but played down by health chiefs as applying only to a tiny minority of surgeries.

Clare, the sales assistant in Bury, was outraged that she had been left with no option other than to visit A&E for a problem she felt could have been easily addressed by a GP.

“My daughter got impetigo on her face and I couldn’t get into the doctors.

“The doctors told me to go to the chemist, the chemist told me to phone 111, I phoned 111 and I had to take her to A&E for impetigo. It’s just crazy.”

However, Abigail, 40, a warehouse operative, said she did not “have any issue generally getting an appointment” and the problem appeared to be “hit or miss” depending on individual surgeries.

Housing

In Bexley, Sally, a 57-year-old retail supervisor, said the Government must oversee the construction of “more affordable housing for our children”.

Derrick said: “We’re not going to own property in years to come. We’re going to be like Europe, we’re going to be renting … because unless you are earning £40,000 plus you won’t be able to afford a mortgage.”

Maria said of her three young children: “Are they going to live with me for the rest of their lives?”

Mike said: “I’m a 38-year-old and by the time my parents were 38 they had already had two homes … I have absolutely no hope of buying a home in the next five years. Absolutely none. Not just in London, but anywhere, because I simply don’t have the financial ability.”

In Bury, Steve said: “There are cheap homes being built for yuppies who can afford them – because they’re not that cheap.” Deb, 60, a full-time carer with 14 grandchildren, agreed. “Affordable housing is not affordable to the majority of people,” she said.

Boris Johnson

“I moved to vote Conservative basically because of Boris Johnson, because I thought, this man knows what he’s talking about and he says it as it is,” said Clare, the sales assistant in Bury. “But I think we just need somebody that knows how it is to live in the real world, how it is for typical working class and how we struggle to survive.”

Michelle criticised the Prime Minister’s performance during his speech to the CBI on Monday, during which he “couldn’t find what he was doing” and was “fumbling with his papers”.

“Everything about that man is just a joke really … He has always been like that. But I mean, you’re Prime Minister, show a little bit more organisation and skills.”

Amy, a 33-year-old PA, agreed, saying: “I do quite like Boris Johnson and I do feel he’s been put in [difficult] situations, but if you are addressing millions of people be a little bit more organised.”

But, particularly in Bexley, there were warm words for Mr Johnson’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Derrick said: “We hit the nail on the head with the Covid vaccinations … give the guy some credit on that.”

This week’s by-election

“I think the Conservatives are really worried they’re not going to hold Old Bexley,” said Derrick. “They’ve had it for years since Edward Heath was a candidate for this area. We’ve had Boris and Rishi Sunak down here. They don’t send big hitters down if they’re not really worried they’re not going to hold the seat. And I think they should be worried if I’m honest.”

Amy, the PA, said: “I have lost faith in them over the past year. I think deep down I probably will vote Conservative again, but they should be worried.”