15 Jul 2014

Reconnecting with Britain’s disenchanted non-voters

It dawned on Labour MP Gloria de Piero just how much some voters loathe politicians when she was at a festival shortly after being elected.

“Some guy came up to me and said: ‘Ooh, can I have a picture with you? I really like watching you on telly.’ And I said: ‘By the way, I’m not on telly any more.’ And he was, like: ‘Oh, right, what do you do now?’ I said: ‘I’m an MP.’

“And he looked at me with disgust and just walked off. He didn’t ask me what party. It was just that word: ‘I’m an MP now.’ He didn’t want to know,” she told me.

Now De Piero is traipsing round the country asking, as she puts it: “Why do people hate me?” Her hope is that she and her party can reconnect with the public, and persuade them to get out and vote once again.

I joined her and her Labour colleague Jon Trickett in Hastings, East Sussex, where in some streets turnout is among the lowest in the country. In Denham Close, for example, just five out of 57 people voted at the last local elections. In Carpenter Drive, 12 out of 134 people did.

She was braced for verbal abuse and worse. But although she encountered several fierce-looking dogs, a feral cat, and a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses, people were by and large polite. Their message was nevertheless devastating. MPs were simply irrelevant to their lives, and there seemed to be nothing De Piero and her colleagues could do to persuade them otherwise.

Sam Haffenden, who builds swimming pools for a living, said: “I’m not really interested in voting, to be honest with you. I just let everybody else do it, get on with it, and then pay my own bills. Do that sort of stuff really. I have nothing against [politicians] it’s just that I get on with my own day-to-day thing.”

Many suggested there was no point in voting because, over the years, politicians have repeatedly broken their promises.

Vivienne Humphries was typical of the mood of mistrust: “To be perfectly honest, you can’t believe what they say. They make promises and you just can’t believe it.”

That’s a pretty sobering message for MPs of all political hues. But there’s an additional problem for Labour. Haffenden was one of several non-voters who didn’t know who Ed Miliband was. And those who not only knew who he was but also voted weren’t sure he was the right man to lead the country.

One said: “I don’t think he’s strong enough, angry enough. He needs to get a bit more passion.”

Another, Ralf Hoare, said he did vote Labour, but he’d rather Alan Johnson was in charge of the party.

No matter how bleak the message, De Piero didn’t seem too discouraged. The daughter of Italian immigrants – who’s known poverty in a way many of her Westminster colleagues haven’t – came into politics in 2010 after a career as a TV journalist. She, like her fellow MP Jon Trickett, who was a plumber before he went into politics, is passionate about getting more working-class politicians.

But before she persuades the denizens of Denham Close and Carpenter Drive to stand for parliament, she’s got to get them into a voting booth first.

A full version of Cathy Newman’s film is due to be shown on Channel 4 News shortly

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