'Political vegetable broth' Public sector workers give their views on Labour leader

The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, pledged in an interview with Sky news last month, that a Labour government "will properly fund our public services. I believe in our public services".

- David Batty

But to what extent do grassroots public sector workers believe in him? The Guardian has spoken to doctors, teachers, social workers and local government officials who mostly expressed muted support for Starmer. Many said they wanted a bolder and more radical vision from Labour after years of austerity.

Others said they were planning to not vote for Labour for the first time, because they believed Starmer had moved the party too far away from its traditional leftwing values.

Amanda Lyons, 66, a children's social worker in Cardiff, said while she was previously a loyal Labour voter, she would not vote for them this time. While this was partly due to the vagueness of Labour's plans for public services, the key factors for her were Starmer's failure to condemn Brexit and to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza.

Lyons said: "Starmer's trying to make Labour as big as possible, by widening the party so much that it can include anybody. But if you're not going to take [a stance] about important moral values and issues, what does it say about him and his party? He's so obsessed about getting into power that he's just not prepared to say anything that's going to maybe wind any particular group up.

"I don't want a Tory government but my conscience won't let me vote for Labour." Andrew Lynch, 70, a semiretired primary school teacher from Mitcham, London, said he respected that Starmer was playing a "careful game" in order to get elected, and was "desperate not to make any mistakes".

Lynch, who works for a multiacademy trust in London, added that he saw Starmer's bland reputation as a positive after the Conservative leaderships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.