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At Liverpool’s North Dock, Everton Football Club’s new £800 million stadium appears to be nearing completion, its aluminium roof visible for miles around, gleaming in the summer sunshine.
It’s a symbol of urban renewal, but it could mask deeper economic problems that will have to be addressed by whichever party wins next week’s election.
In the shadow of this monument to Liverpool’s cultural and sporting excellence live some of the poorest people in the country.
Liverpool Riverside, which stretches for eight miles along the River Mersey, is the most deprived of England’s 543 constituencies, according to a report produced by the House of Commons Library, which measured several indicators including income, employment and health.
That includes luxury apartment blocks and tourist attractions in the city centre, but also areas such as Toxteth and Vauxhall, where communities have yet to recover from post-industrial decline that accelerated under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government.
As a result, voting Labour here has become historically intransigent, with incumbent MP Kim Johnson winning a majority of more than 37,000 votes.
But when I The party saw worrying signs of discontent in countries it visited this week.
While touring voters in Dingle, a working-class area of south Liverpool traditionally seen as a Labour heartland, I They watched as voters told Johnson they didn’t trust Keir Starmer and said they would vote for the Reform Party instead.
Johnson is competing for the seat against Gary Hincks of Reform UK. Several other candidates are also running..
But even the Labour candidate has shown little interest in the leader, and she is disappointed that Mr Starmer has not committed to lifting the two-child limit on welfare benefits, which would lift an estimated 300,000 children out of poverty.
“Children are going to school hungry,” she said.[Removing the limit] It would be a start. We have heard that the Government has wasted £1.2 billion on scrapping PPE, money that could have been used to lift the two-child limit.
“From my perspective, the punitive policies put in place by the Conservative government are terrible.
“[Shadow education secretary] Bridget Phillipson talks about breakfast clubs, which many schools, due to poverty, already fund from their own budgets and provide meals during the school holidays.
“threshold [for free school meals] It is set very low at less than £7,400 a year and that amount needs to be increased.”
In addition to Labour’s policies, Johnson also expressed concerns about the Labour leader’s broader judgement, Sun The newspaper remains unpopular in Liverpool because of its coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.
She also criticised the Prime Minister’s choice to welcome former Conservative MP Natalie Elphick into the party, contrasting it with the party’s treatment of veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott.
“When he talks about change he says the party has changed – for whom and how?” she said, explaining that black voters feel they have been “taken for granted” by Labour for “many years”.
Mr Johnson vowed to stand up to Starmer from the back pews, saying: “You have to be courageous. From my perspective it’s not good for the party to agree with everything the leader says. We’ve always been a broad-minded church, so let’s embrace that.”
Listening to local voices in Liverpool, it’s easy to understand why Johnson feels the need to take a more radical stance than his party leadership.
At the Kirkdale-based charity Rotunda, a short walk from the new Everton Stadium, food bank volunteers hand out shopping bags to a stream of visitors.
“We don’t ask names or do means tests, we’re like family,” said Maxine Ennis, the charity’s chief executive.
“Getting them through the door is the hardest part, but once we get them we can help them and build their self-esteem.
“People will come and say, ‘We don’t have any gas. [because I can’t afford to top up the meter] If you ask, “Can you help me?”, you will get help.
“Nobody wants to be in that position. People want to be able to pay rent and provide for their kids, and that’s not happening.”
Like much of the north, Liverpool has been disproportionately hit by austerity measures, with the city council losing £444 million between 2010 and 2020, or around 64% of its total budget.
Mr Ennis believes local authorities have quickly withdrawn from areas such as Kirkdale, forcing charities to expand their support.
Rotunda began as a small educational institution 40 years ago and when Ennis joined in 2009 it had just four staff and an annual turnover of £150,000.
Now it employs 30 staff, has an annual turnover of £1.5m and doesn’t just provide a welcoming space, it also helps local people with everything from childcare to fuel vouchers and education courses.
“When services were cut and people had nowhere else to turn, we had to step in,” Ennis said.
“When the Conservative government came to power, these services were withdrawn.
“I think people feel disenfranchised, disengaged and disillusioned by decisions that have been made about them.
“The changes to welfare benefits and universal credit have been awful and they feel powerless.”
Labour has refused to commit to increasing funding for local councils if an election is called next week and continues to insist there will be no tax increases, leading experts to conclude the party is planning new cuts to public services in a bid to balance the budget.
For Ennis, it would be “devastating.”
“Change is needed and I expect the Labour Party and Keir to show it with actions, not just words,” she added.
“It’s time to turn the page… It can’t get any worse. There’s a lot of work to be done, but I think we’re in a place of hope.”
“Liverpool needs to be presented as a place with ambition and pride, and we have plenty of that.”
“People want to work, not go into a shed and get a loaf of bread.”
Scott, a 35-year-old father of two who lives not far from the Rotunda, said the problem was that the work he did not get paid was not enough.
“My gas and electricity bills have gone up from £70-90 a month to £200, plus council tax and fuel costs, so I don’t know what the cap is.”
“I used to go on day trips to North Wales but now on my days off it’s like, ‘let’s go to the park because it’s free’.”
Carer Scott said living standards were much better under David Cameron and blamed the decline in living standards on the leadership of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
He said he would vote Labour to “get the Conservatives out”.
Back in Dingle, their friends Eileen and Karen gave Kim Johnson and the local Labour MP, Steve Manby, a long list of grievances they wanted addressed before they would vote for the party, including an unscrupulous landlord who believed 16 people lived in a two-storey terraced house on their street.
When asked about the election, they still expressed concern about the rising cost of living.
“I work full time and I’m in debt at the end of the month,” Eileen said. “Starmer, I don’t trust him.”
“Change is needed. The Labour Party needs to stand up for working class people.”
The friend, who declined to give his name, said he had already sent in his postal ballot.
“I voted for Reform instead of Labour,” she admitted. “My mum will be twisting in her grave, but she might believe me when I say that they’ve done nothing in this area so I took a chance on Reform.”
“If they do nothing for four years, we’ve lost nothing, right?”