With betting an unexpected theme of this election, we’ve taken our parliamentary bench to the Sheffield dog track.
Bookies are lined up beside the arena and the people of Sheffield have come for a perfectly legal flutter on which greyhound can run fastest, while chasing a mechanical hare that they will never catch.
Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough is one of the most working-class constituencies in the UK – the seventh most deprived in England and Wales.
At the Owlerton Stadium a lot of the punters said they weren’t going to vote, one man in his 80s proudly said he’d never voted, but those who said they are going to the ballot on 4 July, say they want change.
Callum Fradgley, greyhound trainer, said: “I would like to see Labour win it personally, but that’s just a personal choice. I’d like a government that’s going to be more for the working class.”
Neil Kelly, a teacher on a day out with his family, said: “All you need to do is go into a school to see that the spending may be going up but it’s not going up in line with everything else. I work in a school in Sheffield for autistic kids and the facilities we have at some of the sites are frankly Victorian.”
Referring to Labour’s policy to remove the VAT exemption on private school fees, Mr Kelly adds: “I can only see that putting VAT on private schools is going to have a positive impact on public schools, if that spending goes towards public schools.”
Teacher Neil Kelly backs Labour’s policy to remove the VAT exemption on private school fees
Howard Wood, greyhound transporter, told us: “I will vote Labour. I have voted Liberal in the past but then they did a coalition with the Tories, so I’ll never vote for them again. Keir Starmer comes…
