Health

'When did we become this cruel?' Poverty looms large for Norwich voters


At first glance, Norwich North might offer a neat test of how environmental issues will shape this election. Norwich, “a fine city” as its signs declare, is a green place. The Greens are the second-largest party after Labour on the city council. Global heating imperils the Norfolk coast 15 miles away. Norwich South is held by Clive Lewis, the Labour MP who drew up the green new deal bill with Caroline Lucas.

But first glances and neat ideas do not apply to contemporary politics. Or Norwich North. The climate crisis and environmental issues are only a distant concern, and only when voters are prompted.

When asked whether climate change shapes her voting intentions, Jessamy Selwyn, a disability PA, artist and volunteer for a homeless street kitchen, says: “There is no reason why we should be talking about anything other than how we feed and house people.”

People want to discuss the NHS, social care, fears of Brexit and not Brexiting, and the rise of mental illness, drugs and homelessness. Norwich North appears a divided, anxious place but it is also packed with heroic community action.

Five respondents to a Guardian reader callout mention “Chip” or the Norwich Soup Movement. When a soup kitchen closed where Chip, 32, volunteered, she started her own DIY version, drumming up support on Facebook.

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Six years and “45,000 breakdowns later”, the Norwich Soup Movement feeds 80 people, 14 nights in every 28, with 150 volunteers cooking hot meals and delivering them to a city-centre stall. Three other women-led grassroots groups cover other nights so Norwich’s homeless can get a hot meal at 8pm every evening.

Chip also established an alternative food bank. Unlike mainstream food banks, people do not need a referral from a doctor or social worker, nor is access rationed. “There are no questions asked apart from ‘How are you?’ People need to come and have a cry,” says Chip. “I don’t want proof of poverty – that’s disgusting.”

Norwich’s official rough sleeper figures ­– a street count recorded 21 in November 2018 – are a massive underestimate, according to Chip. Police crackdowns on begging have moved people from the centre; others sofa-surf or sleep in tents in woods by the prison. The £11.7m spent on housing or homelessness in Norwich in 2009-10 was cut to £7.1m by 2015-16. This year the council reported its homeless caseload had doubled.

The Norwich Soup Movement’s food bank.



The Norwich Soup Movement’s food bank. Photograph: Norwich Soup Movement

Chip snorts when asked how she will vote. “Seeing someone cry because you’ve given them shower gel – what the fuck? That is what the Tories have done to single working mothers and people with disabilities and people working zero-hours contracts. The Tory government is making people beg. They are putting people through shame and huge embarrassment. When did we become this mean? When did we become this cruel?”

Selwyn, who volunteers with Chip, links homelessness to mental health and drug problems in the city. “Once they are struggling with their mental health they turn to substance misuse. They are completely failed because there is no council housing, no rehab services, no mental health services and the hostels are riddled with drugs. There is no escape. Social mobility is what’s been most compromised by austerity.”

Norwich is one of 12 “social mobility cold spots” given extra government education funding: the city was ranked 294 for social mobility out of all 324 English local authorities in 2017.

Norwich currently has the second-highest rate of drug deaths (after Blackpool) among all areas in England and Wales. Eighty people have died in the past three years – more than in any single London borough.

“It’s a dystopia,” says Selwyn. “Norwich is relatively isolated and we feel the impact of social change more slowly. That makes us complacent, which has led to a city on the point of crisis. I am very sad watching people I know die. It’s exhausting and terrifying and we are all just one crisis away from being there ourselves and falling through the cracks which have become chasms.”

Norfolk and Suffolk’s mental health trust is the worst-performing in England, in special measures since 2017. Saskia Walsh, 23, says she survived in spite of Norwich’s mental health provision, suffering severe mental health problems from 13, and finding herself “palmed off” by a succession of NHS professionals. She felt constantly rushed through the system and never even heard back from several assessments. “I’m obviously aware of the implications of austerity,” she says.

She has recovered to study at the University of East Anglia and shares a flat with her boyfriend, Conor Warne, 27, a trainee accountant. They say they are now suffering – from noise, threats and fireworks aimed at windows – because a “vulnerable” neighbour is not getting the support he needs. A rough sleeper has spent the night in their flat hallway.

Walsh and Warne (recently mugged by someone who was begging) want more help for the vulnerable. “Mental illness does not exist in a vacuum,” says Walsh, who is voting Labour. “An ultra-competitive capitalist system is not conducive to good mental health,” adds Warne. “Rather than just mopping up crime with 20,000 more police officers, what about 20,000 more mental health nurses to reduce the demand in the first place?”

Simon Dade, who until recently had been homeless for over two years.



Simon Dade, who until recently had been homeless for over two years. Photograph: Martin Pope/The Guardian

If this makes Norwich North a likely Labour gain, it is not. The constituency is divided by the curving ring road. Labour draws most support from postwar council estates and tight-packed city terraces inside the road. Outside sprawl more affluent, Conservative suburbs.

Brexit is a constant conversation topic. It is making Muhamed Januzi, who arrived from Kosovo 21 years ago, vote for the first time. Brexit “changed everything”, he says. His business, Primo cafe, has suffered financially; his front window smashed. “I will vote Labour. Hopefully they will sort it out and decide to stay.”

But it appears less decisive than billed. Brexit is not always shaping voting choices.

Maggie Neave, 60, has ME. After she and her husband pay their rent, gas and electricity, their universal credit (plus private pension) leaves them £340 a month. She has long voted Ukip. “I wanted out of Europe. It was nothing to do with immigration – I wanted my vacuum cleaner to work properly. It was all these stupid rules they brought in, limiting the power of vacuums and kettles. I just want to govern ourselves again.”

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This time she is voting “tactically”: Labour, to get the Conservatives out. “All the people that are sleeping rough. It’s horrendous. We sit here at night and think if we missed another rent payment, it could be us. It could happen to anybody on UC. It’s wrong.”

Meanwhile, Conservative-oriented remainers are torn. Elliot Symonds, 48, a corporate trainer, says his work has seen double-digit growth in recent years. “Most people are doing OK,” he says, “but Brexit is just another seven years of people not getting it right. I’ve got two boys and I’d love them to have the opportunities in Europe that I had.” Symonds would normally vote Conservative and worries that voting Lib Dem will put in Labour.

Insurance broker Damien Ives fears Brexit. While manufacturing jobs vanish – 200 jobs are due to be lost when a water heater factory closes; iconic Colman’s has also shut its Norwich base – the insurance company Aviva still employs more than 5,000 in the city. “Everybody knows somebody who works for Aviva,” says Ives. “Aviva’s base in France is getting bigger. If they said ‘Brexit is causing some issues we’re going to hop somewhere else’ it could have a massive impact on our regional economy.”

But voters such as Ives and Symonds say they cannot support Corbyn-led Labour. In leafy Thorpe St Andrew, Steve (who prefers to withhold his surname) declares that “the health service” is his top priority. A carer for his mother, who has MS, and dad, who died after cancer and vascular dementia, he says “social care was an absolute nightmare”. So Labour? “There’s no way on God’s earth I’d vote for Corbyn. Boris has got something about him, a bit of ooomph. He reminds me a bit of Churchill.”

Medieval Norwich was a birthplace of British antisemitism and two voters raise it in the wake of criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership on the issue. Corbyn has called antisemitism “vile and wrong” and said his party is tackling the problem within its ranks. However, one voter, who requests anonymity but who defines himself as a socialist, says he cannot support Corbyn’s Labour, even in this marginal. “Why should any leftwing Jewish voter feel obliged to elect as prime minister a man we know is an antisemite? This issue is so toxic for me. Antisemitism worsened in 2014 with the Gaza war and when Corbyn came in, it calcified. I’ve lost friendships over it. Leftwing friends have shared antisemitic material online and when you challenge them, it’s been horrible.”



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