Bury South focus group: Conference leaders’ speeches like “night and day”

2019 Conservative voters in Bury South, one of the most marginal constituencies in the country at the last election, have given their views on Keir Starmer, Liz Truss and the leaders’ speeches to their party conferences.

A focus group of seven people, commissioned by LabourList and organised and moderated by Public First, was asked for their views before and after being shown short video clips of the party leaders’ speeches. All seven said Starmer did better than Truss, with one describing the two speeches as “night and day”.

The group described the Labour leader’s speech as “powerful” and “inspiring” and all seven participants – all of whom voted for the Conservatives in the 2019 general election – reported that they would back Labour in the next election.

The group expressed concerns about the cost-of-living crisis, particularly highlighting uncertainty over energy bills and mortgages over the coming months, describing the situation as “pretty frightening” and “a bit scary”. They were generally negative about the support that the government is providing.

The focus group was held on October 6th; a focus group brings together a small number of people to answer questions in a moderated setting. The group is chosen due to predefined demographic traits, and the questions are designed to provide insights on certain topics of interests. Here are our findings.

Before being shown the leaders’ conference speeches…

Government interventions – “poor decisions”

One psychotherapist, who voted Conservative in both the 2019 and 2017 elections, told the researcher that he is concerned by the “poor decisions” being made by the new Prime Minister, adding: “We’re already in the middle of a financial crisis and things just seem to be getting made worse by flash decisions by the new leadership.”

Another participant told the group that she is “very, very pessimistic”. The 61-year-old carer said she thought “trust in this government right now is just zero” and that it “feels to me like they’re only looking after the big corporate companies, they don’t really give a crap about how we’re struggling”.

“I’m very, very scared,” she added. “I am really am frightened of what’s to come.”

Another said simply that the government is “not doing enough” and argued that ministers seem to have “no common sense”. “Because they’ve got loads of money, they’ve never had these struggles,” he suggested. “They don’t think about the common man and how these families on the breadline are going to survive.”

One person told the moderator that all her relatives are “feeling the pinch right now” and said “every single one of them has said that nobody is in touch with the struggles that we’re going through”. “Parliament has no clue,” she concluded.

Liz Truss – “it’s so worrying that she’s in charge of the country”

Liz Truss won the Conservative leadership election last month, beating rival Rishi Sunak, after Boris Johnson resigned earlier this year. Asked whether Truss is going to make a good Prime Minister, one respondent immediately replied: “No.”

One described her as “sort of wet” and told the group that the Prime Minister had been “annihilated in every single interview that I’ve seen because she can’t answer a question”. She added: “It’s so worrying that she’s in charge of the country”.

There was a general sense of unfairness that Truss had become Prime Minister without a vote of the general public, with one saying that she has been “thrown on us”. Another agreed, saying that Truss “seems to have got the job by default… and now she’s really struggling”.

The group criticised the economic turmoil seen since her new Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, unveiled the tax-cutting ‘mini-Budget’. “Her first decisions have put us in massive economic difficulties, terrible start really,” one person said.

“I can’t believe there’s these two people in control of the government who nobody voted in, they just got there by like default and they’re just changing things to suit them – it’s just bizarre,” one woman said. All but one in the group backed the suggestion that there should now be a general election.

One voter also highlighted that the government has known about the “risk” posed by Russia going to war, which he said the country has been “on the brink of for the past ten years”, and blamed successive Tory governments for making “no preparations”.

Labour – “Labour are more for the working class”

The moderator highlighted recent polling suggesting that Labour would secure a majority in a general election. Asked what they thought about that prospect, one said the Tories are “there to fill their pockets” and “Labour are more for the working class”, adding: “Anybody could be better than this shower.”

One did worry that because Labour “no longer has the unions to rely on” – referring to recent clashes the leadership of the party has had with union leaders over strikes – that the party might “slip into the same realm as the Tories are in now” because “they might make decisions that are going to be wrong for us”.

Keir Starmer – “for the working-class people”

One voter – who backed the Tories in 2019 but Labour in every other general election since 2010 – said the Labour leader is benefitting from the Conservatives being “in such a vulnerable position” and because “everyone hates them”.

She added that Starmer is “really fair from what I’ve seen” and “for the working-class people”, highlighting how he was “instrumental in trying to take Boris down for partying” during the pandemic. “Things like that don’t go unnoticed,” she added.

One participant described the Labour leader as a “bit wet”. Another said he has “some really strong women in his cabinet”, picking out deputy party leader Angela Rayner, saying she has “talked sense now for the last five-six years”.

After being shown the leaders’ conference speeches…

Liz Truss – “a load of rubbish”

Shown a short clip of Truss’ conference address, made available by the BBC, participants reacted negatively to the Conservative leader’s speech. One argued the speech was “a load of rubbish”, another said the “performance was terrible”, and that the Prime Minster seemed “unprepared” and “unprofessional”.

“She doesn’t give me confidence that she’s going to follow through with that… she doesn’t make you believe what she’s saying,” one person argued.

One data analyst, who backed the Tories in the last two general elections, said: “She didn’t really talk about many policies then did she? She talked about stories about her kids and her brothers, it’s not really something you want to hear I don’t think, there’s more important things to talk about.”

Another participant agreed, saying they were “not really fussed” about Truss’ anecdote about being handed a “junior air hostess” badge while her brothers were given “junior pilot” badges, during a flight taken when she was a child.

“She doesn’t have a statesmanlike quality,” one woman told the group, adding that she thought the Prime Minister is a “stepping stone for the Tory Party” and offered only “empty words” that are “not helping us” during her speech.

Another person suggested that the two most memorable moments were the row caused by the use of M People’s song and the disruption caused by Greenpeace protesters, suggesting: “If she’s doing a dead important speech and they are the two things I’m getting from it, her messages obviously aren’t coming across.”

Growth, growth, growth – “stability is more important at the minute”

Asked whether Truss saying that “growth, growth, growth” were her priorities was good, one group member said: “No, we want to hear about what she’s gonna do about the mess that she’s already made and how she’s going to help the working class – and not feed the people who are already millionaires.”

She added that, “like always”, the “people at the bottom, the people who are struggling” had been “missed out”, arguing: “She should have come out and done ‘this is what happened, this is my plan, this is what I’m going to do for each and every one’. But that were just like… a pathetic wimp.”

Another participant suggested more generally that “slogans are always a bit wishy washy anyway” and that they “wouldn’t take much notice of that” had it been from any party, saying: “Actions speak louder than words.”

One described growth as “never a bad priority”, but added: “Stability is more important at the minute… We’re just financially unstable, we don’t whether we’re coming or going… we don’t need to concentrate on growth, we need to concentrate on stabilising the country.”

“I can understand wanting to grow the country, I suppose, but I don’t feel like I’m getting any of the pie at the minute so I’m not gonna get any of the bigger pie, am I?” another participant said.

Another agreed, suggesting that “all this growth will affect a small percentage – but the message should be how are they going to take care of the vast majority of people worried about keeping warm this Christmas and paying their mortgage”.

One woman also pointed out that people are not going to be able to help stimulate the economy “if we’re not able to buy anything except utilities”. She added: “It’s like they expect us to pull a spare £400 out of our backsides… Who’s got spare money to go shopping?”

Keir Starmer’ speech – “ten times better than Liz Truss”

“I do really like him, he’s a good speaker, very powerful. I like the way that he is for the working class because that’s what we need him – it did worry me when he said he’s going to take on Putin… he’s got to be careful with his wording there,” one woman said after watching a short BBC clip of the Labour leader.

Another group member said the speech “sounds great” although in keeping with previous focus groups commissioned by LabourList this year, expectations on delivery were tempered by distrust of politicians.

“They say all these things to get themselves there and then backtrack once they actually get into power,” one argued. “The energy things sounds really good but surely we should be looking at that anyway”. Another reacted to the speech by saying they would “take it with a pinch of salt at the moment”.

The reaction to Starmer’s address, however, was broadly very positive. One person said: “He came across as a really good speaker. It was quite an inspiring speech, which is good, and he mentions working-class people which is aimed at people like myself and people I know.”

Comparing the Labour leader at his party’s conference to Truss at hers, one said: “The power that comes from Keir is a lot more positive, he’s just got a bit more about him which makes me think he could make a solid change.”

One person added: “I said he was wet earlier, but he came across really well.” He described Starmer as “impressive”, welcoming that he seemed to have “some plans in place” and said the speech “wasn’t just wishy washy ‘growth, growth'”.

“As a speech and performance it was ten times better than Liz Truss,” he said.

Others agreed that Starmer’s speech was better than Truss’, one “by a country mile”. “It’s like night and day from the last one,” one participant suggested. “It made me think as I was watching, God, I’m definitely voting Labour next time around.”

All seven in the focus group last week said that they would vote Labour at the next election, including three who specifically told the moderator that Starmer’s speech had made them more sure of their decision to vote for the opposition.

The study in Bury South forms part of a series of focus groups commissioned by LabourList and carried out by Public First, bringing you insights from key constituencies across the country as we approach the next general election.