Midlands seats where UK elections could be decided

A packed train from London to Nuneaton has been delayed. We are waiting for the driver to show up, the security guard explained through the microphone. You can hear the pitiful laughter of passengers sitting and standing. They've been here before.

When I arrived in Nuneaton, a town of about 90,000 in the West Midlands, there was little sign that an election was imminent. After spending several hours trudging through hundreds of houses, I discovered two campaign posters in the windows. One is for Labor and the other is for the Greens.

But Nuneaton has a totemic significance in British politics. The party that wins here has carried the country in every election except one since 1983. Former Prime Minister David Cameron said he knew the Tories would win in 2015 the moment he heard the Conservatives had won Nuneaton. Like much of the West Midlands, Nuneaton voted to leave in the 2019 Brexit referendum.

The West Midlands have had a particularly difficult time since then. Historically a manufacturing region, it has lost factory jobs much faster than the UK average. The poverty rate is 27%, the highest in the UK. Over the past few years, the canning of HS2, the planned high-speed rail link between London, Birmingham and the North, has sunk the soul of Birmingham's satellite ring.

In the West Midlands, it is hard to find anyone who speaks well of the Conservative Party. It is even harder to find a Conservative politician willing to speak out. But the overwhelming impression from my visit to the area was that few voters are invested in the Tory-Labour fight. For many, it feels like a sideshow to their own struggle.

Nuneaton's frontrunner Andrew Fox/FT

In Nuneaton, the only person who seems to be fully engaged is Green candidate Keith Kondakor. Wearing cargo shorts, purple-striped socks and old green trainers, he pushes leaflets into letter boxes in the morning heat. It is only 9.30am, but Labour is already ahead of him. The local party is on a roll after winning Nuneaton and Bedworth councils from the Conservatives in the Mays local election.

Kondakor grudgingly praises: they are pouring money into the campaign and have lots of volunteers. I got a personalised letter from Labour, and so did my wife. He found one of the leaflets on the doorstep and put it in the letterbox. He grumbles on their behalf. He sees another one pop out of the letterbox and says: “I’ll shoot whoever gives me that leaflet.”

Condakor, on the other hand, could barely smell the local Conservatives, who won the Westminster seat with 60.6% of the vote in 2019. That's about 30 points ahead of Labor. The Conservative Party, he explains, is bankrupt. The congressman travels most days with two staff members and his wife. They had a gang of 30 people. Banners were hung on closed buildings. They were very wealthy. Now people were saying there wasn't a single Tory leaflet.

Condakor can't even find the local Conservative on social media. There was a Tory troll who attacked me and made a formal complaint against me. He now votes Reform on Facebook. I miss being attacked by trolls. It used to give me something to argue about. The local Tory party did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The stunning building in the city center, with the Conservative Club emblazoned on its facade, is a disused relic of a bygone era. Currently, Tory operations are carried out in a nearby rental house. But last Monday, the front blinds were pulled down and the only sound that could be heard was the doorbell ringing and a faceless response from inside. There is no one who can talk to you. Labor politicians in Nuneaton also did not respond, perhaps avoiding anything that could jeopardize their expected victory.

Keith Kondakor: There used to be a Tory troll who attacked me and made a formal complaint against me. He is now voting for reform on Facebook. Andrew Fox/FT

Kondakor was born in Nuneaton and, in a typical trajectory, left when he was old enough. He says maybe half the population will be gone by the time they turn 18. It is rare for him to return. Jobs have been scarce in the area since coal mining ended. At one time, 20 coal mines operated around here, but the last one closed in 2013. Nuneaton's high street has been quiet following the successive losses of Marks and Spencer, Co-op and Debenhams. A high proportion of the small number of shoppers in the city center use mobility scooters.

Officials said that when his son was born at George Eliot Hospital (named after the local novelist), he registered his county of birth as Warwickshire. He admitted Nuneaton felt too low-status.

Molly Hopper, a young Nuneatoner, says: I don't really like this place. I have lived here my whole life. We have lost the things that would bring people to town. I think the best thing in town is the train station. It allows you to go somewhere else. The fastest way to London takes an hour, but it's too expensive and unreliable for most people to commute. Nuneaton itself is car-dominated. A dual return road passes through the village

The council has developed an ambitious project for regeneration, including a major cycle route. But the Conservatives cut $40 million from the plan, saying they had maintained the regeneration program when they ran parliament in February, similar to the cancellation of HS2.

Armistice Day Parade in Bedworth David Warren/Alamy

Nuneaton's greatest pride is its military tradition. Nearby Bedworth has a famous Armistice Day parade, and some Nepalese Gurkhas have settled here. One recent morning, two red-coated buglers performed on the steps of the town hall to mark Armed Forces Week. The new Labour mayor, in his gold-chained office, posed with them, and a photographer asked him, “Can we have the parade without you?”

Beneath Nuneaton’s stellar social fabric are those at the bottom. In a warehouse whose location is kept secret to prevent theft, Richard Fleming, project manager for Nuneaton Foodbank, shows off canned hotdogs, meatballs, tomato soup and spaghetti hoops recently donated by a supermarket. When the food bank started putting food in the church pews in 2013, Fleming thought: this is just a short-term thing. He now runs four centres in Nuneaton, supported by the Trussell Trust. At first, local politicians were embarrassed to be associated with the food bank, but now they are proud, Fleming says.

We had to invest in a van because we had grown so much. We had to advertise again and recruit new people because we had lost about 90% of our volunteers during Covid. Then the cost of living crisis caused a surge in demand. In the last two years we have had a huge number of people, working families with children, who can’t make ends meet. The food bank now feeds 600-700 people a month, which is a staggering figure according to Fleming, who is white British.

He worries that his business has become a permanent pillar of the local welfare state. He says many of his clients need food banks because they can't afford to pay their own way. But he adds: “The reason I do this is because these people can't help the families they came from. They have chaotic lives. Their children have chaotic lives. They have no routine. Sometimes former clients come in and say they've found work and they donate food. It makes me feel really good.

Inside the food bank, Fleming says, neither clients nor volunteers talk about politics. But it’s always there, and it’s the elephant in the room, which is why it’s here.

Richard Fleming: Over the past two years, we've seen a surprising number of working families with children who are unable to make ends meet. Andrew Fox/FT

Walsall is located in the Black Country, a former industrial area about 25 miles west of Nuneaton. Once known as the leather goods capital of Britain, this manufacturing city makes a brighter first impression. Council posters at train stations advertise Walsall's $1.5 billion transformation program, funded by the government's funding leveling scheme. The high street outside is filled with shoppers speaking African and Asian languages, Polish and English. There is a nice church overlooking the street from the top. Not a single election poster can be seen in the city

Local residents highlight Walsall's community spirit. Sir David Nicholson, former chief executive of NHS England and now running the local NHS Trust, says of the Black Country: “One of the strengths of the Black Country is its sense of belonging.

Walsall's architecture speaks of a city that relies on public institutions rather than large corporations. The most majestic buildings are the Town Hall (built 1903), Manor Hospital and Walsall Housing Group. WHG's Fay Shanahan says local organizations are working together to tackle the town's growing poverty problem.

This group, which manages social housing, has expanded far beyond landlords. We have an ACEing Asthma team who provide debt advice and can identify homes that are vulnerable to mold and moisture, which can make conditions worse. During the pandemic, WHG has called thousands of tenants and set up kindness teams to help those who are isolated or have mental health issues. The group never aims to evict tenants for non-payment of rent.

Given the national mood, Walsall looks likely to be taken over by Labor. But the Conservatives still have a chance of winning the new Walsall and Bloxwich constituency on July 4. The Conservatives won the Mays City Council election thanks to their leader Mike Bird, a veteran of local politics. But the Conservatives investigated Byrd for racism.

Despite being told it was 100% resolved, he stood up a month ago and complained: I didn't leave the Conservative Party. The Conservatives also left me. It's disappointing because the cause of the problem still remains and all they've done is the Conservatives. Move the Titanic's deck chairs.

As in Nuneaton, neither the local Conservatives nor Labour politicians responded to requests for contact. The Walsall Tories were fortunate in that there was a much deeper divide among Labour opponents. Aftab Nawaz, who led Labour on the local council, left the party with five other councillors in November to sit as an independent in protest at Labour’s tolerance of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Speaking from a shabby office in the once palatial council building, Nawaz explains: “It was a small council in a small town, but everyone had to do something.

Independent candidate Aftab Nawaz: I now feel both parties have a problem with Muslims Andrew Fox/FT

He said local Asians were happier under Jeremy Corbyn's far-left Labour leadership. He was a superstar in minority communities because he used their language to advocate a more humane foreign policy. Then, when the war broke out under Sir Keir Starmer's watch, we got emails from the party telling us not to attend demonstrations or Palestine solidarity events and to be careful who we shared our platforms with. Meanwhile, at mosques and family gatherings, people only talked about what was happening in Palestine. One big thing is when you go home and your children say, 'This is what's happening and your party is supporting it.'

Nawaz reflects in his Black Country accent: My representative is a Kashmiri Muslim like me. We are both British, naturally, born here. I think both sides now have a problem with Muslims. Sometimes they just see us as a block. If I told you I had someone representing the entire Christian community in town, you would tell me to grow up. Nonetheless, he said both the Conservatives and Labor tended to believe there were local Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities with equal voices.

Nawaz's candidacy will split the former Labor vote, but he does not believe the Conservatives will win the seat. He said Tory MPs told him: People are happy to vote for us locally, but they don’t want to vote for Rishi Sunak.

Once polls close, Walsalls' volunteer-run community station Ambur Radio will cover the election in English and several Asian languages.

What will be the outcome of the election among Amburs listeners? Station manager Preeti Kular replies: We will still have a cost-of-living crisis. What kind of extra money will we have at the end of this month? I think that's going to be people's main problem here.

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