Labour's most marginal constituency
Bedford picked Labour over Conservative by fewer than 150 votes in 2019; how have things changed five years later?
BY MICHAEL HAVIS
THERE’S a great deadpan comedy moment in the noughties sitcom, Arrested Development, when the protagonist, Michael Bluth, finds a mysterious brown paper bag in his fridge labelled “Dead dove, Do not eat”. He opens it, looks up a little perplexed, and says “well, I don’t know what I expected”.
It’s a moment that aptly characterises this week’s vox pop, which found me in the ultra-marginal constituency of Bedford. Here, in the 2019 general election, fewer than 150 votes separated the Labour incumbent from his Conservative rival. It is the most marginal Labour-held seat in the whole country.
But remember: that close result in 2019 came during Labour’s worst election loss since 1935, when Boris Johnson’s Tories assaulted Labour’s northern heartlands, demolishing the so-called “red wall”. If Labour could hold on to Bedford even then, it stands to reason that they’ll win the seat handily now that the two parties’ fortunes are reversed.
So, with Labour smashing the Tories in every poll that’s published, I suppose I expected to find a decent level of support for Keir Starmer’s party on the street, perhaps tempered by the same complaints I hear everywhere: don’t know what he stands for, Gaza, etc. I also expected to find lots of grumbling about the government — that’s pretty much guaranteed.
Yet I’m often surprised in my expectations when I step out and talk to voters. This guy who spoke at length about why he hates the Tories? Still voting for them. This lady who hates what Sadiq Khan has done to London? Still voting for him. I encounter these sort of political non-sequiturs every week.
So what surprises did Bedford hold for me? Let’s just say these were the most indecisive voters I’ve spoken to yet. I should’ve guessed; this is a constituency that picked one party over its opposite by the slimmest of margins. It was the likeliest outcome and I failed to predict it. As Michael Bluth said: “well, I don’t know what I expected”.
But before I recite what the voters told me, there’s a little production note I ought to share. This was the first vox-pop I’ve ever recorded over two different days. Usually I pitch up with my camera and microphone and get the thing shot in an hour or two. But this time round, I had only spoken to a couple of people when the camera decided it would no longer co-operate.
I would have to take it back to the office and fix it, and since Bedford is well out of my way, there would be no time to return the same day. Instead I returned a week later, just as the Conservative’s disastrous election results were starting to roll in. Whether that affected the outcome, I don’t know, but it’s worth stating that the chap I was about to film when my camera first malfunctioned was avidly pro-Tory.
Another chap I spoke to was equally pro-Labour. He was full of praise for his MP, Mohammad Yasin, happily committed himself to voting Team Starmer at the general election, and encouraged others to do the same. But as for the two main parties, that was all the enthusiasm I found.
From voter after voter, I heard deep cynicism about both Labour and Conservatives. Nobody thought much of the government, nobody expected much from the opposition. Some of these people weren’t voting at all.
One of these, a welder, had voted Labour during Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide victory, but wouldn’t vote for them again, believing the former Labour PM had destroyed the country. He also wouldn’t vote Tory, lambasting the party for failing to bring down immigration in government. Usually this is where I expect a voter to turn to Reform, but he also slammed Richard Tice for chucking out some controversial candidates. Off camera, he alluded conspiratorially to immigrants being used to “replace” native Britons, and said he was going to a Tommy Robinson rally next month. He was, he said, “not far right”.
Another bloke who planned not to vote told me the government was actually doing the bidding of the bankers, and that he expected it would be the same if Labour got in.
One guy, bizarrely, told me he was voting Labour but hoped they wouldn’t win. He was deeply cynical about both of the main parties, expecting them to make promises they had no intention of keeping, but still he wouldn’t turn to a third party. When I asked him why he was voting for a party he didn’t want to win, he said he had always voted Labour.
Another man, perhaps in his late 30s or early 40s, was similarly cynical about both red and blue, but indicated off camera that he had been sympathetic to Jeremy Corbyn, Labour’s left-wing former leader; though he did struggle to remember his name. A lady of a similar age was likewise disillusioned, but without the Corbynite leanings.
The last person I spoke to shared the cynicism of her neighbours, but hadn’t given up on the two main parties entirely. She said she could *maybe* be won over by Labour, but would vote for Boris Johnson if he made a comeback. If he didn’t, however, her likeliest vote was for the Greens.
It’s a phenomenon I’ve encountered a few times now: people switching Tory to Green. Really quite right wing to really quite left wing. I wonder if those making this political Odyssey realise quite how much distance they’re travelling, or whether the Greens are becoming what the Lib Dems once were — a handy place to dump a protest vote.
In any case, my expectations for this seat remain unchanged. If people don’t vote, or vote for a third party, this seat will remain a Labour-Tory marginal. The Conservative’s continue to struggle to gain ground in the polls, so if it’s a choice between these two parties, I expect it’ll be: Labour HOLD.