Nuneaton has been on a slow decline for some time. Once an epicentre of the Industrial Revolution, the flat land around here was pockmarked with coal mines sunk deep into the earth. Just a decade ago, the Daw Mill colliery — just a 20-minute drive away — was one of the largest in Europe still operating.
Then, in February 2013, a fire broke out 740 metres below ground. Sparked seemingly from nothing, it spread quickly to a ventilation unit and 100 miners had to be evacuated. Fourteen stayed behind to contain the blaze, but to no avail. A few years earlier, employees had been making £70,000 a year, with dozens chasing every vacancy. Now, out of nowhere, the mine was forced to close; 650 men lost their jobs.
Today, at Nuneaton Museum, a small exhibition featuring a spread of historical curios are all that remains of the industry. A woman working behind the desk tells me the closure of the pits was a blow to the town.
“We ran an event where we invited people in to discuss their memories of mining,” she says. “There is definitely a big sense of sadness at the loss of the industry. There was a fondness for coal. It was a real part of the town. It was in the bones of Nuneaton.” Can the area be revived? “There are a lot of plans in place to regenerate the town and to bring it out of what’s perceived as a slump,” she insists.
As for who they’ll vote for, she says locals are “sick” of the Tories. “The choice to vote for the Conservatives was made in desperation,” she explains. “Labour used to be popular, but there was a loss of faith in the party.”
Lianne Parry, a volunteer busy talking to the few guests who wander in, agrees that Starmer could win the seat. “The faith in Labour could come back,” she claims. Nuneatonians voted for Brexit, but they didn’t understand what it was or what it would do. “After it happened, they wondered why things were so difficult, but they voted for it without asking questions.”
I walk from the museum up into town, towards the high street. When the 18th-century non-conformist historian William Hutton visited Nuneaton, he described it as being “in the domain of sleep”. Some 250 years later, little has changed. Nuneaton Beds and Sofas is having a closing-down sale; the Myton Hospice a clearance sale; Debenhams is boarded up; a sign in the window of Gattsbys solid oak furniture specialists declares: “Sorry — closed.” The high street is largely deserted. The first man I try to talk to rides away at speed on his mobility scooter, insisting he does not live in Nuneaton.
I stop in at Lord Hop, a microbrewery set up in a shop that was once a former beauty salon. Its landlord, who was born in Nuneaton but now lives outside, says the footfall is so low, he often closes at 7pm during the week. Despite that, he insists, “the town is coming back”, with a new cinema and restaurant set to open. “It’s natural to be optimistic,” he tells me. “We never fully recovered from Covid. Covid chucked everything out of sync.”
In response, the Government “chucked money at the town”, he adds — but the £4 million from the levelling-up fund was not enough. It failed to tackle the real causes of decline — inchoate talk of council “corruption” and big business getting away with something, as well as a broader sense that the area hasn’t taken advantage of Brexit. Online, equally vague rumours about municipal corruption have been raised, with little substance behind them. “Where is all the money going?” ask Nuneaton and Bedworth Community Association on a website that also features a video suggesting the World Economic Forum “runs the world”.
The first crack in Labour’s local base of power came in 2008, when the Conservatives took control of the borough council for the first time since it was established in 1974. The “last fortress of socialism in Warwickshire” had fallen, the Coventry Telegraph reported. On a flying visit to the town, David Cameron congratulated then councillor Marcus Jones, the future agent of Miliband’s doom.
Could Jeremy Corbyn do any better? It was at a Labour leadership hustings in Nuneaton, after all, that the oddball backbencher drew such great applause that both Owen Jones and Toby Young foresaw his eventual victory. Held just a month after Miliband failed to win over the town, the occasion was designed to excise the spirits of defeat, but — as if the party’s new leadership had been built upon a burial ground — it would only come back to haunt them. In 2019, the Tory margin of victory stretched to 13,000.
“They’re all the same, all the politicians are the same,” says Nick, a regular nursing a pint of porter. “Corbyn was very Left-wing. He wasn’t interested in improving the town, he was interested in his own agenda. He believed in God knows what.” Nor was Corbyn strong enough, says the landlord — not strong enough to take on the capitalists, not strong enough to reverse decline, not strong enough to represent them.
Starmer, meanwhile, is too posh and too remote. Bill Olner, the Labour MP who represented Nuneaton from 1992 until 2010, was different, they say. Nick adds: “He mixed with the locals. He was a working man all his life until he was elected to parliament.” After his defeat, Olner, a former electrician and union shop steward, joined the local council and served until he contracted Covid and died in the local hospital.
Yet if it was Nuneaton where Labour’s crack-up began, and Nuneaton where their entry into the wilderness was confirmed, it may yet be the origin of their revival. A recently watered-down green energy plan from the party would mean investment for a new electric battery factory in the region. Locals remain confident things can change, while sceptical of the ability of politicians to help. Or, as Harry Ghale, one of the town’s many retired gurkhas told me as he helped set up a community barbecue: “Nuneaton is okay. I’m not bothered about who wins the next election.”
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