This cafe owner featured in Labour’s manifesto – now he says its policies sting
On the front of Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto, you can find a big black-and-white picture of Keir Starmer: sleeves rolled up, jacket off, serious look on his face.
Flip 24 pages in, and you’ll see a picture of another man, not nearly as well-known but appearing equally as fed up.
Sitting at a table with some colourful bunting behind him, he presses his hands together in front of his face and fixes a tired gaze out of a window to his left.
The caption tells us this is Charlie, a cafe owner and former Conservative voter who believes change at the top of politics is ‘overdue’.
‘I voted Conservative before but the only way out of this is Labour’s plan for economic growth,’ he says in a quote underneath.
‘Cheaper bills for us and our customers, and that bit of extra cash to spend. That’s the change we need.’
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Almost two years on from the election, growth has been meagre. The energy price cap is higher now than it was during the election campaign, though Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced measures to reduce bills at last year’s budget.
Meanwhile, Charlie Weale is still running the Corner Cafe in Deal, north of Dover on the Kent coast.
‘I wouldn’t say it’s a great picture,’ he told Metro.
Certain decisions made by Reeves have been particularly tough on him as a small business owner, though he remains sympathetic to the challenges she faces.
He said: ‘All I’m feeling is the extra burden now of another minimum wage increase, which is happening at on April 1. So we’ve had two of those since Labour came in.
‘I think the first one was justified because the economy was in dire straits, given what they inherited from the Conservatives.
‘But as I think the economy is slightly better than it has been, I think the latest minimum wage increase is unnecessary, actually, in my opinion, and all it’s going to mean is that we can’t expand the business in terms of staffing, or for things like further training for people.’
However, he added: ‘I’m also of the view that if the latest Cabinet had Einstein, Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking in it, they still wouldn’t have sorted it all out yet given the state of things.’
In a select committee on Wednesday, Reeves said: ‘The reason the economy has been weak for the last few years is that living standards have gone backwards, which meant people, after paying their rent or their mortgage and their bills, and the weekly food shop had very little money left to spend on other things.
‘And that’s not good for businesses, particularly high street businesses and small businesses.
‘And that is what we are trying to turn around, not just growth for growth’s sake, but growth that actually is felt in the pockets of working people and makes working people better off.’
The government’s biggest issue, Charlie insisted, was the quality of its communications – which he described as ‘hopeless, absolutely hopeless’.
‘I get messages all the time from the Labour Party saying, “Oh, we’re doing this, and that’s happening and this.”
‘Don’t tell me. You’ve got to tell the rest of the population, some of which are going to Reform and all these foolish parties.’
His path to appearing in the Labour manifesto began when he became friends with Mike Tapp, the party’s pick to hold the Dover and Deal seat following the controversial defection of Tory Natalie Elphicke in May 2024.
The image of a disenchanted Conservative being tempted by the relative fiscal stability promised by Labour was manna to the party’s campaign team, so they made good use of him – including with a prime spot in their all-important list of election pledges.
As for the man with his sleeves rolled up on the front cover, Charlie now says he ‘lacks charisma’.
He told Metro: ‘Blair had lots of it, and, and so did Boris, didn’t he, but Boris ended up being a completely fiscally inept person and, we all know about the mistakes for the Iraq war with Blair.
‘I don’t think you need to have a personality to be a good Prime Minister.’
Charlie added: ‘I think the only problem he’s got is that he’s the Mandelson thing. It’s not good.
‘I think it’s showed extremely poor judgment by employing him as US ambassador. Not good. But you know, show me the next Prime Minister who didn’t make a mistake, and probably show you a liar.’
This was a recurring motif throughout the conversation: an acknowledgement of government mistakes, followed by the offer of a little defence.
Was it enough to make him vote for Labour once again if there was an election tomorrow?
If he hesitated at all, Charlie said it would be ‘only because of their inability to communicate with the general population’.
He continued: ‘But I do think what we don’t need at the moment is more upheaval by changing to someone else.
‘I think we should give these people, the Labour Party, a chance to fulfill what they said they were going to do.
‘It’s like changing football managers after three games, isn’t it? You don’t get to the end of what was trying to be achieved.’
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