Jeremy Corbyn is “scruffy, old-fashioned and weak”, according to focus groups in a Midlands swing seat carried out by GQRR, the opinion research company.

James Morris of GQRR and Ian Warren of Election Data conducted two group discussions last month with Nuneaton voters who had voted Labour in 2005 or 2010 but who had switched to the Conservatives last year, when the MP Marcus Jones was returned with an increased majority. The seat had been identified by Labour as one of 23 ultra-marginals Ed Miliband needed to win. When the result came through just before 2am on Friday 8 May 2015, it was the moment the Labour leader realised the election was lost.

Miliband’s leadership was one of the main reasons given by the groups for voting Conservative. “I couldn’t imagine him as prime minister, not in a million years,” said one man. “Ed Miliband was sort of trying to talk his way through, he was just rubbish, he just couldn’t stick up – he seemed to contradict himself all the time,” said a woman.

But Corbyn’s image among these voters was if anything worse. “You want a charismatic leader and to me he’s more like Worzel Gummidge,” said one woman. The groups were asked to write down the first words that came to mind when they thought of Corbyn and, apart from “best of a bad bunch” and “don’t know enough about him”, their views were negative (see table below).

Nuneaton focus groups, 25 April, GQRR

The swing voters, especially the men, thought Corbyn was particularly weak on world affairs. “I imagine him in the White House – he’s like someone who got lost from the tour,” said one. Another said: “If the country was about to get blown up he wouldn’t press a button to retaliate… in this day and age you don’t want someone in charge of the country… that people might think twice about you know – oh bloody hell, he means business.”

The groups – of eight women and eight men – had little love for the Conservatives, and a low opinion of politicians generally, but James Morris of GQRR commented: “While the circumstances allow for a Labour recovery, we heard little to suggest it would happen. None of the men we spoke to said they would vote Labour if an election were held tomorrow, and only a couple would even consider the party today, most preferring to consider Ukip or even the Lib Dems instead. This is despite all of the men having voted Labour in 2005, and all but three in 2010.”