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Even In Ed Miliband's Constituency, Voters Still Aren't Convinced By Labour

Voters in the Labour leader's Doncaster North constituency complain that they’re ignored by all politicians. But in their eyes, Miliband appears more confident now than he did last year.

DONCASTER NORTH – “I probably will vote Labour,” says Phyllis Mallin, a 77-year-old OAP who’s lived in Doncaster all her life. But six months ago, the lifelong Labour voter had turned her attention towards the Conservatives. “We wouldn't even think about [Ed Miliband],” Mallin says.

Back then, the Labour leader was struggling. Nationally, his approval ratings were in decline: Voters saw him as weird, aloof, and, most importantly, weak. It didn’t help that in his conference speech in September, he failed to make any mention of the deficit.

In recent weeks, there have been signs of a shift in opinion, with voters seeing a more assured Miliband. “Back then everyone was pulling him to bits, and I didn't know what to think,” Mallin says. “But now he seems to have got stronger, and when he was pulled apart, he didn't lose his temper either.”

Despite this, Labour probably wouldn’t want to put her up on a poster any time soon. “He seems nice,” she says of Miliband, her local MP. “His speech [about Labour’s plan for immigration] was lovely on Saturday, but how is he going to do what he said he’d do? Even Jesus Christ had limits.”

If Miliband is going to become prime minister, then the voters of his own constituency, Doncaster North, are precisely the kind of people he needs to reach. Yet even as his national profile rises, the reaction among the locals here suggests that he still has some way to go before he comes across as a truly convincing figure.

It's not that the Labour leader stands any chance of losing his seat. There was a brief flutter of excitement when a poll by Lord Ashcroft in December seemed to suggest that UKIP voters might be able to vote tactically with the Conservatives to unseat him – but it turned out to rest on flawed data. In fact, Miliband was 30 points ahead of his nearest rival.

Still, even Labour admits there's been an increase in UKIP support, as people complain that high unemployment rates – 10% in Doncaster North – mean claimants get benefits at the expense of hard-working taxpayers. (Even though only 3.5% of those in the constituency actually claim Jobseeker’s Allowance.) UKIP has set up a new headquarters in Doncaster town centre, sandwiched between two Asian restaurants, and decided to hold its November party conference on the outskirts of the constituency, claiming that it was “parking our tanks on the Labour party’s lawn”.

Nigel Farage has visited the constituency a number of times. After a trip to Rhino’s bar in the village of Bentley, where Miliband's constituency office is based, the UKIP leader claimed: “Not a single person has a good word for Ed Miliband.”

For his part, Miliband has only publicly turned up to his constituency once since the short campaign began on 30 March, when he said some rather nice words and thanked his staff and campaigners.

Bentley itself is referred to by one website as the "capital chavtown in South Yorkshire". That's not fair. Located a couple of miles away from Doncaster's busy city centre, the streets are filled with the gleeful noise of children playing in the primary school, the hum of the occasional passing car, and the smells of freshly fried food.

A few steps away from Rhino's bar, where Farage spoke, members of the Bentley Working Men’s Club are discussing the election. According to James Tyrer, the 76-year-old club president, one of the key issues is the SNP and Scotland. “The general consensus here is to just let them go with their own way," he says. "Just give them independence and let them go so they can’t influence Westminster politics."

The Bentley Working Men's Club.

Tyrer had always voted for the Conservatives but switched over to UKIP in 2010. He says Miliband has “rather airy-fairy socialist ideas that in principle don’t work” and calls him “politically naive”. He says Ed’s brother, David, could have won his vote: “He’s more politically astute.”

Despite their differing ideologies, what Tyrer is really upset by is Miliband being an absentee MP. Struggling to hide his anger, he says: “Eight years ago this club was destroyed in the floods, and our local MP [Miliband] never even showed his face. He never even put in an appearance.”

Indeed, it is this, rather than the national attack lines deployed by the Conservatives, that really engages the local voters. A key part of the Tory strategy has been to suggest that a minority Labour government would only come into power with the help of Nicola Sturgeon, which could, according to the Tories, lead to more subsidies for Scotland. In Doncaster, views on the SNP are clearly mixed. John Hopkins, a local barber, doesn’t care if Labour does a deal with Sturgeon. Neither does David Lomas, an 18-year-old apprentice walking up the hill. “Sometimes deals just have to be made,” he shrugs.

For Lomas, it matters more that Miliband has conviction. Previously he thought the Labour leader was "useless", but then he saw the TV debates. “He seems to be a bit more well-equipped,” he says, before skateboarding away.

Back on the main high street, Pauline Middleton, a 74-year-old who’s run her own boutique women’s fashion store for 55 years, is thinking about the floods again. “We were flooded eight years ago, the shop and my house above it, which we had built years ago,” she says. “We never saw any of them [politicians], no one from any department really. They should've come over.”

Middleton’s never seen Miliband, she says, “even though his office is just on the other side of the hill".

Another voter, 82-year-old Ken Oldale, hoves into view. He used to be an administrator before he retired and is now a genuine floating voter. At the end of last year, he was determined to vote UKIP, but changed his mind after finding it impossible to picture Farage as a home or foreign secretary.

He would have considered voting for David Miliband, he tells BuzzFeed News, but he doesn’t have much time for Ed. “I don't think he's got the backbone to be a real leader,” he says, bluntly. “He just doesn’t impress me.”

Indeed, despite polls suggesting that their local MP could well become the prime minister next month, people's most common reaction in Doncaster North is that they just aren't interested. Even having the Labour leader as their local MP – albeit a distant one – has done nothing to address the disillusionment about politics, and the lack of interest in it, that has afflicted so many other parts of the UK.

In a newsagent a few doors away from Miliband’s office, 43-year-old Michelle Haggan says she switches off the television any time political coverage comes on. She thinks politicians are just lying about their promises anyway.

Meanwhile, Chris Joerning, 27, leans against a bus stop that faces the sign for the constituency office and says: “I don’t know anything about him. I’m not going to vote.” He adds: “This government’s fucked anyway.”

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