In the shadow of a defunct Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire, I spoke to people who felt the appeal of a strongman leader who ‘does what he says’

The first time I clapped eyes on Rugeley, in Staffordshire, my mind boggled. Right in front of me were vivid symbols of two successive eras, sitting beside each other like layers in rock.

A disused coal-fired power station still dominated the skyline, but what now sat around its old cooling towers could not have been more different: branches of KFC, Burger King and Subway, a new-looking McDonald’s, a Premier Inn with an adjoining faux-traditional pub (named The Colliers, in limp tribute to the town’s history of coalmining), and a gargantuan construction that stretched into the distance. This was an Amazon fulfilment centre, opened in 2011 and said to be the size of nine football pitches. I spent a long afternoon outside its gates, watching people from the GMB union trying to recruit new members, while coaches full of workers came and went.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist