'What's going to change?" Hope lacking in towns devastated by Tory rule

There were about 30 people standing outside Birmingham central mosque, and they formed as diverse a crowd as the city's population. It was food bank day: inside a portable building in the car park, a team of four spirited women were efficiently sorting through crates of groceries, and handing those who had finally reached the front of the line what they needed.

- John Harris

As they did their work, we had a snatched conversation. "The queues are getting longer," one of them said. I mentioned the election, and the idea that things might change. "We're under the Conservatives now," said another volunteer. "If we're under Labour, what's going to change?" There was admiring talk of the independent candidates running in outwardly safe Labour seats across the city, on platforms that mix outrage about Keir Starmer's response to Gaza with opposition to local cuts. Here, it seemed the situation was more complicated than all those predictions about a Labour landslide.

At the mosque's entrance, I fell into conversation with Robert, who had been waiting for 20 minutes.

"I'm a student nurse," he said. "It can be hard to make ends meet, you know? A lot of student nurses go to food banks now."

He had once been a journalist, he told me, but the pandemic had triggered a rethink. So here he was: 54, training to look after people with mental health problems, and awaiting his carrier-bag of weekly essentials. "My money has to go on my mortgage first," he said. "If that doesn't get paid, I'll be homeless." He thought for a moment. "Nurses are the most trusted profession, but they're not valued. It's tough getting through the training. You get, like, an £11,000 grant. It's not a huge amount to live on, is it?" I brought up the election.

"I'll be voting Labour to get the Conservatives out," he said, which led to my next question: in the event of a Labour win, did he think things would get better? "I have to believe they will. I know a lot of people think it's all much of a muchness. But I have to believe that they'll put more money into the NHS and social care: those kind of basic things." Behind him in the queue was a woman who said her name was Max: five or 10 years older, and adjusting to a newly precarious life. Until six months ago, she had been a care support worker.