Thread by @LukeTryl

🧵Two v.different focus groups today in Tory heartlands & both showed the depths of trouble the Tories are in. Spelthorne where fair to say the outgoing MP hadn’t left a positive impression & Maidenhead where as I said earlier they were so positive about Theresa May as a local MP

Both were Tory 2019 -> undecided. Starting with Maidenhead it was more generous towards Sunak and the Tories who’d “had a lot to deal with” But felt as one participant put it “after the past 14 years you could offer everyone £1 million to vote Tory & they’d still vote them out”

On Sunak, Maidenhead participants felt D-Day showed “no common sense” and felt he was “uninspiring” but also credited him with bringing down inflation and “doing a better job than those before” but ultimately felt the Tory Party “weren’t behind him”

On the election locally the Lib Dem candidate had really cut through as one put it “everyone knows Josh”. Some worried about his age but others felt it refreshing we weren’t like the US with “80 year olds in charge”. Either way another group where Lib Dems campaign was noticed.

Labour & Tory candidates were less well known and there was surprise the Tories hadn’t “put up a bigger hitter” but someone who had lost before. This was one of the first times I’ve heard tactical voting brought up spontaneously & the group thought it was Tory vs Lib Dem here.

The group were not instinctive Labour supporters and this group both worried both more about Labour raising taxes than we hear normally and the “super majority” line was brought up unprompted and when it was was a worry to this group.

So they tended to think now could be the Lib Dems moment “the best chance they’ve got because the Tories have been so bad” and they were a good “balance between the two parties”. But there as with most Lib Dem groups - tuition fees and the post office scandal were hesitations.

On Davey they had mixed views on the stunts “He’s just doing silly things and grinning with a silly grin. But I’ve no idea what he’s actually said” or “well we know he doesn’t have a good sense of balance”

The group were less positive on Farage (certainly in contrast to Spelthorne) “He’s a good communicator, I’ll give him that. He has this facade of a normal guy down the pub. But if you scratch under the surface he’s quite a dangerous person to have in power”

In fact most worried about what he meant for politics, that his suggestions weren’t serious and felt the comments made by reform activists were racist and indicative of a bigger problem - though some hadn’t heard them until they were raised in the group.

On the flip side a couple of participants felt it wasn’t right to call the comments racism, just people saying what they felt and that Farage had a lot to offer that other politicians didn’t have.

Overall the group in Maidenhead were underwhelmed by the current state of politics and the campaign, felt all politicians let them down, and those that had watched the debate felt that the question asking if Sunak and Starmer were “the best the we’ve got” was spot on.

The Spelthorne group shared that disillusionment but were far more negative about the Tories. One of the most negative so far. Despite it being, their “usual party” and that you could elect a “dog with a blue rosette in Spelthorne”- no one had a good word to say about the Tories

On Sunak they variously described him as “wet” “tiny” “disrespectful to what we’ve been through” thinks not having Sky TV means you’re poor” “doesn’t really want the job”

They were almost as negative about Starmer and complained they didn’t know what he stood for, didn’t believe what he said about private healthcare, had no backbone. But did when discussing his background (which most hadn’t heard) like the fact he came from something “more humble”

Someone said Starmer would be pushed out for Angela Rayner, and the Spelthorne group were universally negative about Labour’s Deputy (something reasonably unusual given Rayner often has more fans than critics in our groups) if there’s an audience for Tory attacks it was here.

Instead of the main parties this Spelthorne group was (with exception of Clacton) the most pro-Reform group we’ve run. They liked Farage being “willing to speak out” someone who’d “sort our country out” “different to completely useless other 3” “compassionate about our country”

But they did worry that Reform had a bit of a worrying “underbelly” which gave them cause for pause but felt that individual candidates didn’t always mean the party was bad. Another worry was could Reform actually govern.

But what was driving that support for Reform was a sense as in many other groups that Britain had stopped working and needed someone to sort it out. So that people who “worked hard all their life werent battling for the basics”

From crime (particularly violent crime and young people), to benefits, to Mickey Mouse degrees, to dentistry and control of immigration and above all getting a GP appointment they felt large parts of the country weren’t working, and needed totally shaking up.

A few of the participants also knew the Lib Dem candidate, thought he was good locally but worried he couldn’t win and if it would be a wasted vote.

Could anyone win them back for the Tories? Here there was real consensus on Boris Johnson, all of whom said he’d be better than Reform UK or any other politician on offer. I suspect this is why the Farage-Johnson row is damaging to Reform as the Reform/Boris fan overlap is big.

This group was also unusual in that when I probed on Party-gate as a barrier to Boris coming back they all felt it was overblown & that Boris had done the best he could in the circumstances. Occasionally we get some people who think that but unusual for it to be a whole group

A few participants also had a lot of time for Penny Mordaunt and wished the Tories had picked her over Sunak. They were much less generous about Kwasi Kwarteng their outgoing MP who they felt hadn’t ever been visible in the area and had been a disaster as Chancellor.

Profile two separate groups one in Maidenhead one in Spelthorne. All Tory to now undecided. As ever not picked to be anything close to representative, but given these are previously safe now knife edge seats what’s shaping undecideds views is particularly interested.