Wolverhampton locals react to snap election decision

As the region gears up for a general election in six weeks' time, Wolverhampton locals have had their say on the future of the city.

Transcript

00:00 My name is Matthew Ball, I'm from Wolverhampton and I'm unfortunately 32 years old.

00:06 I'm really happy, I was worried he'd be leaving it until perhaps the winter.

00:12 I heard some people say next year but so it's really good it's going to be happening in the summer.

00:17 Yeah, it can't come too soon to be honest because I think the Conservative government

00:22 at least in the last 10 years if not the last 14 have done very very little for

00:29 the country. My name's Andy Hendricks, I'm from Wolverhampton, I'm 56 years of age.

00:33 Probably needed to happen, it's about time the public had another chance to elect

00:40 a new government or even for you've got a situation where you've got Rishi Sunak who's

00:48 not been elected, he's been elected by his peers rather than it be the general public.

00:53 I think the general public needs to have a say. I've seen some development in Wolverhampton, I

00:58 work for the transport industry so I was a bit sad that Andy Street didn't carry on with the

01:03 mayoral election. He's under the Conservative banner so he's done okay so I was a bit disappointed

01:09 with him going. I think this region specifically probably needs immigration sorting. As for other

01:15 things, redevelopment of the town has been going quite well. We've got an area down by the Sun

01:21 Street area where it's derelict that needs that needs sorting out. We need to get people back

01:26 into towns rather than it be outside big shopping centres. We've got to try and steer away from pound

01:34 shops and betting shops. If we could get the high street back to normal where we get proper shops

01:41 that people can come and enjoy and think well yeah they're gonna have a good environment then

01:45 maybe that's the way to do it. And to be fair I will have a look at both candidates. I was,

01:51 I voted Conservative last time for Boris. I thought you know the situation, I think if Covid

01:57 hadn't happened I still think we'd be looking now to re-elect him. I think that was a massive thing

02:02 for the country, especially money wise, the amount of money it cost. But yeah I'm looking to all

02:09 parties. I look at Starmer, I think he's trying to be Blair. I remember the stuff on Tony Blair.

02:15 When Tony came in I thought he was good, I voted for him, fair play, you know he did well. And then

02:20 when the progression happened, the Iraq war, the opening the borders, the door, you know,

02:25 I thought you know and then it went on to Gordon Brown, that was just a job for the boys.

02:30 My name is Malcolm James, I'm 73, lived in Wolverhampton all my life. I am a Tory voter

02:37 and I will vote Tory. There's no way that I could vote Labour because they waste money. You only

02:43 got to look at our local town in Wolverhampton to see that the rubbish that they're doing with

02:49 the money. It didn't surprise me. I said to the wife yesterday, after Prime Minister's questions,

02:55 that they'll be having an election within six to eight weeks and I was pretty right last night.

03:00 And I thought he was brave in standing down the street in the pouring rain, although it was

03:06 mistake by his advisors. I did think he was brave to stand there. I don't think we've done too bad,

03:14 we've had furlough, haven't we? You know, Labour people say, well, no, we're not voting Conservative

03:21 because of Labour. But they didn't say that when they were being paid furlough by the government.

03:26 Our priority is immigration. This time we had a change. It's again time we had better

03:32 infrastructure, better services, less corruption, less post office services going down the tubes,

03:39 the sewers, in the rivers. Shall I go on? I'm just speechless about not what they've

03:45 done to Wolverhampton, but what they've done to the whole country. You find corruption,

03:50 you find run down services, you find an NHS where you can't even get an ambulance these days,

03:57 and you're left waiting to rot away.