Hitchin in Hertfordshire does well in the polls.
On the edge of the Chilterns and 30 minutes from central London by train, it’s Britain’s most expensive market town for first-time buyers. It’s also been voted one of the top 10 best, and top 20 happiest, places to live in the country.
Last summer Labour did well in the polls here too. Hitchin’s 35,000 inhabitants, with above average earnings, levels of employment, and higher education, ejected the Conservatives for the first time in more than 50 years.
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Having swept into affluent southern constituencies, Rachel Reeves is now asking them to help pay for her plans via a combination of increased taxes on earnings and savings.
While her first budget made business bear the brunt of tax rises, the higher earners of Hitchin, and those aspiring to join them, are unapologetically in the sights of the second.
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Kai Walker, 27, runs Vantage Plumbing & Heating, a growing business employing seven engineers, all earning north of £45,000, with ambition to expand further.
He’s disappointed that the VAT threshold was not reduced – “it makes us 20% less competitive than smaller players” – and does not love the prospect of his fiancee paying per-mile to use her EV.
But it’s the freeze on income tax thresholds that will hit him and his employees hardest, inevitably dragging some into the 40% bracket, and taking more from those already there.
“It seems like the same thing year on end,” he says. “Work harder, pay more tax, the thresholds have been frozen again until 2031, so it’s just a case where we see less of our money. Tax the rich has been a thing for a while or, you know, but I still don’t think that it’s fair.
“I think with a lot of us working class, it’s just a case of dealing with the cost. Obviously, we hope for change and lower taxes and stuff, but ultimately it’s a case of we do what we’re told.”
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Reeves’s central pitch is that taxes need to rise to reset the public finances, support the NHS, and fund welfare increases she had promised to cut.
In Hitchin’s Market Square it has been heard, but it is strikingly hard to find people who think this budget was for them.
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Jamie and Adele Hughes both work, had their first child three weeks ago, and are unconvinced.
“We’re going to be paying more, while other people are going to be getting more money and they’re not going to be working. I don’t think it’s fair,” says Adele.
Jamie adds: “If you’re from a generation where you’re trying to do well for yourself, trying to do things which were once possible for everybody, which are not possible for everybody now, like buying a house, starting a family like we just have, it’s extremely difficult,” says Jamie.
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Liz Felstead, managing director of recruitment company Essential Results, fears the increase in the minimum wage will hit young people’s prospects hard.
“It’s disincentivising employers to hire younger people. If you have a choice between someone with five years experience or someone with none, and it’s only £2,000 difference, you are going to choose the experience.”
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After five years, the cost of living crisis has not entirely passed Hitchin by. In the market Kim’s World of Toys sells immaculately reconditioned and repackaged toys at a fraction of the price.
Demand belies Hitchin’s reputation. “The way that it was received was a surprise to us I think, particularly because it’s a predominantly affluent area,” says Kim. “We weren’t sure whether that would work but actually the opposite was true. Some of the affluent people are struggling as well as those on lower incomes.”
Customer Joanne Levy, shopping for grandchildren, urges more compassion for those who will benefit from Reeves’s spending plans: “The elderly, they’re struggling, bless them, the sick, people with young children, they are all struggling, even if they’re working they are struggling.”
