“He kept on saying, ‘My dad was a toolmaker and we were on the breadline,’” says Alan Webb, a retired toolmaker, laughing. “I mean, come on. I was a toolmaker and I wasn’t on the breadline.” Webb, 75, is having fun at the expense of Keir Starmer, who told voters about growing up in a pebbledash semi, the family having its phone cut off and, surely a few too many times, that “my dad was a toolmaker and my mum was a nurse”. “He kept on saying it as if he was poor,” Webb says. “I was a toolmaker and I actually earned some good money up here.” Webb, originally from London, lives in the County Durham town of Newton Aycliffe. He moved here 52 years ago and has not picked up one scintilla of the accent. The town was part of the old Sedgefield constituency and had Tony Blair as its MP. It fell to the Tories in 2019. On Thursday the new constituency of Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor went to Labour’s Alan Strickland with 46% of the vote. Second was Reform’s John Grant with 24%. Starmer, in his first speech outside 10 Downing Street, was addressing people like Webb when he said that “especially” if they did not vote Labour, “I say to you directly: my government will serve you. Politics can be a force for good.” But people like Webb are going to take a lot of persuading. “I voted for Nigel [Farage’s Reform]. At least he’s in parliament now and he can make his mouth go, he might ruffle a few feathers,” Webb says. “I’ve just always liked the guy, I mean he’s always been truthful. That’s what people like.” The Tories were obliterated in the north-east of England, while from Blyth down through Jarrow to Middlesbrough, the runner-up party behind Labour time and again was Reform. It’s a Sunday lunchtime in the Phoenix club in Newton Aycliffe and people are drinking, not eating. The Guardian is barred from one room because of bingo. Webb is one of the drinkers, although “I’ve just had the one”, he says.
On another table, Dave Robinson, 58, former RAF and now a delivery driver, voted Conservative, but admits he was tempted by Reform. “The thing I didn’t like were the links to Putin and the Kremlin,” he says. “Without all that, I would have voted for them.” Robinson says the Tories did not deliver on their levelling-up promises. “For the size of this town, the infrastructure is absolutely shocking. Community spirit was good once, but slowly but surely, it’s gone down, it’s getting worse. There has been no levelling up here. Paul Howell [the former Tory MP] has done nothing for Newton Aycliffe.” On a third Phoenix club table, “Big” Dave Newberry, 78, is happy to say he voted Labour and hates what he believes the Tories have done. “I do believe that over the past 14 years the Conservative party have tried to destroy the NHS,” he says. He sees Farage as a troublemaker. “I just don’t like the guy … and he likes Putin.”
Outside, Stuart Isaac, 63, a retired welder, is having a cigarette. After voting Labour all his life, he backed no one this time. “It doesn’t matter who gets in. Nobody can fix the country,” he says. Immigration levels are a big issue for him, but he says he was not tempted to vote Reform. “I think Farage has a few good points, but he’s too extreme, he’s got too many of the BNP and people on that side in the party. He needs to get rid of them.” In the town centre, it’s quiet apart from shoppers at Aldi and Tesco. In the window of a former Peacocks are boards telling the proud history of what was meant to be “the shining star of the north”. For William Beveridge, Newton Aycliffe was the place where his vision of the welfare state could be realised. It would be “the perfect town, a town of beauty, happiness and community spirit”. No one would say Beveridge’s dream has come true.
“It’s dying,” says Jean Briggs, an NHS worker who voted Labour. “Actually, it’s dead. I mean, look at all this [pointing to empty shops]. This is a massive town with nothing.” Conservative promises of levelling up never came to places like Newton Aycliffe, the Guardian was told time and again. Will it under Labour? “Hopefully,” says Briggs. “They definitely can’t do any worse than the Tories.” A lady named Julie – “no surname, sorry” – voted Labour and is a tiny bit optimistic, though not much. “The problem in Newton Aycliffe is that all the shops are closing,” she says. “It used to be a very busy town, but week after week there is another one closing. It is so sad.” Jörg Gerlach, from Germany, has lived in Newton Aycliffe for 24 years. For him the election result was no surprise. “The general public are unhappy with politics in general. It is the same in Germany,” he says. He thinks the rise of Reform is a reaction to “going very left and woke”. People in England don’t say what they really mean, he suggests. “If you look at Germany, France, Italy, people are more outspoken and they demonstrate,” he says. In the UK, he adds, they vote Reform.