Trusted and Local
Both Labour campaigners who have dedicated their lives to fighting for residents on the Fylde Coast, Lorraine Beavers and Chris Webb’s paths have crossed often over the years. But for the past six weeks, because the pair have been tirelessly campaigning for votes in their respective constituencies – of Blackpool North and Fleetwood, and Blackpool South – their paths have crossed little.
There was the day of the Labour manifesto launch, when Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham came to Blackpool to rally support for the pair he said would be “formidable” representing Blackpool together in Parliament. And there was the arrival of Labour’s battle bus, which Webb hopped aboard in Blackpool South to join Beavers and her supporters on Cleveleys Prom.
And now there’s a sunny afternoon in the Devonshire Road Rock Gardens, where Beavers and Webb are chatting to passers-by about what matters most to them.
After boundary changes for this general election Park Layton, Claremont, and parts of Warbreck and Greenlands – where the Rock Gardens sit – fall into Blackpool South. People who live in North Shore have found this baffling.
But with Blackpool North and Fleetwood combined, the two constituencies are now roughly the same size. Beavers and Webb are urging people to vote Labour on 4th July. If elected, constituents will be getting two MPs who will work as a united front so that people in Blackpool, Thornton-Cleveleys and Fleetwood get the help they need.
“That Blackpool could have two Labour MPs who are both born and bred here, and so truly understand the town, is a moment I could only dream of at the height of Tory rule and doom,” says Beavers.
“The fact that it could happen under a Labour government will only make us more able to effect real change for Blackpool,” adds Webb.
A man walking his dog stops to say hello to Beavers. He recognises her after she recently knocked on his door during one of her three times daily canvassing sessions. Despite living a stone’s throw from the Conservative MP’s constituency office, he has seen more of Beavers in the past week than he has seen Paul Maynard in years. He’s seen even less evidence of help for residents of Blackpool North like him, who have struggled through the Tory cost-of-living crisis.
Beavers, like Webb, is working class and dedicated to being an accessible and visible MP with a “boots on the ground approach”.
She’s got a track record to back it up, with 20 years serving as a local councillor in Fleetwood. She says she has the “passion, experience and dedication to fight for us all”.
Webb chats to a woman who has one eye on her young daughter and the other on Labour’s plans for free breakfast clubs in schools – set to save her around £100 a month. Living just the other side of Devonshire Road, she falls into Webb’s Blackpool South patch, where he was elected as MP in May’s by-election.
What’s apparent at this boundary line, is that little separates people in Blackpool North and Blackpool South. Most of them are hard up and fed up. Many of them have lost hope in politics’ ability to do anything but harm.
“It’s really not surprising that people feel this way,” says Webb. “I get it. We’ve been let down so badly by politicians who have lied, cheated, flouted their own rules and laughed at us.
“But that’s not us. We want to see the best outcomes for the communities we live in.”
“Politics touches every aspect of our lives,” says Beavers. “People can choose not to engage with it but they can’t choose not to be affected by it. That’s why it’s so important that people use their voices and vote for real change.”
Disaffection with politics means some people choose not to vote. Others are looking for a radical alternative to what they see as mainstream politics and to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party for answers. But the policies laid out in his “contract” to the people “don’t add up,” says the Institute for Fiscal Studies, with its costings leaving a funding gap of “tens of billions of pounds per year”.
“It’s easy to throw wild promises about when there is no chance of getting into power,” says Webb. In contrast, he points to Labour First Steps For Change – a six-point plan to: deliver economic stability; cut NHS waiting times; launch a new Border Security Command; set up Great British Energy; crack down on anti-social behaviour; and recruit 6,500 new teachers.
“We have to be serious about this election. Labour’s plan is fully costed and ready to go and will have a huge immediate impact on people’s quality of life.
“Only Labour has a real chance of making this change and a vote for anyone other than us is risking more years of Conservative chaos for the country.”
