“Nothing worries me,” said David Moore, puffing on a large cigar in Morley town centre, about five miles from the middle of Leeds.
The 80-year-old was reacting to Rachel Reeves’s spending review, in which the chancellor pledged to turn the tide after “14 years of mismanagement and decline”.
Among increased spending for defence, the NHS and business, Reeves pledged to tackle the backlog of asylum seeker cases and end the use of hotels to house them, to invest £39bn in social and affordable housing over the next decade and spend £15bn on improving transport, especially outside London and the south-east ofEngland.
It comes after a partial U-turn on winter fuel payments after a substantial backlash when the benefit previously given to everyone of retirement age became means tested.
Moore – once a Labour voter but no longer – who lives in a detached house nearby, said he “got by alright” without the winter fuel payment this winter but “any money for OAPs is great”.
He said the reversal was too little too late for his support of the government though. “They’ve made the biggest mistake of their lives.”
His wife, Maggie, had stronger words. “Labour want kicking in the head,” she said.
She was not pleased to hear there would be more investment in homes, believing the government would use them “to house all the immigrants”. “It’s alright moving them out of hotels but where to? They’ll be put into a house that our people need.”
But that sentiment was not felt by everyone in Morley – theWest Yorkshireconstituency where Reform UK’s Andrea Jenkyns, then a Tory, surprisingly beat the then shadow chancellor Ed Balls in a general election a decade ago. The seat, after a boundary change, is now held by Labour’s Mark Sewards, Morley born and raised, who won 44% of the vote last year, making it a stronghold.
Robert Barrett, a retired factory engineer who lives with his Gambian wife and two children in south Leeds, said: “We need cheaper housing that poorer people can afford, especially single people with children.
“It puts people in debt and makes people have a difficult life. That’s one thing I do feel strongly about. Wealthier people are buying up homes on buy-to-let mortgages and putting rents up. They see people as cows to be milked. That’s something we’ve got to push back on.”
Barrett was pleased to hear of more funding for apprenticeships – something he did when he was young – and mentioned that after the cold war he lost his job when the factory he had worked in making lorry axles for the defence industry closed down.
So a boost in defence spending would be good? “No. In those days we had a moral defence. Now we’re not on the right side [with the UK’s support for Israel].”
Barrett, also a former Labour supporter, said he was turning towards the Greens or the Workers’ party and felt like there was little difference between Keir Starmer’s party and the Tories.
“I’m annoyed at how the working class has been treated,” he said.
Jake Tilly, a musician busking on the high street, was wary to say whether he was happy with the announcement without seeing the details, citing similar reservations about Labour. “On the surface, it sounds good. It’s not the Tories. Keir Starmer is not technically a Tory. But the cut to PIP makes you think.”
Plans to restrict eligibility for personal independence payments (PIP), the main disability benefit, are being consulted on, which could mean thousands of disabled people lose their benefits from November next year.
Though the newly approved West Yorkshire tram network will not come to Morley – it will go through the chancellor’s constituency of Leeds West – wider funding for local transport could benefit people in the town.
Funding for local transport was much needed, Tilly said. “There’s only one bus, the 200 that I use, and it feels like they just cancel one for fun every day. More consistency in buses would be great – particularly knowing I can get back on a night.”
Tilly, a former Labour supporter who voted Lib Dem at the most recent general election, wanted to see a party on the left learn lessons from Nigel Farage’s Reform.
“What is it that Farage is doing for the right? We need a rebrand of the Greens or the Lib Dems.”