While much of our focus has been on the election results north of the Border, it’s what’s going on south of Gretna Green which is truly fascinating.
The ascendant narrative there is that the rundown towns and rural areas George Orwell wrote about 80 years ago (which are still rundown) are populated by “uneducated” plebs, largely motivated by their blind and petty patriotism, xenophobia, and a deep collective desire to engage in acts of mass economic self-harm.
This, for some, explains why they would vote Tory.
Labour’s trouncing, apparently, was merely a matter of Red Wallers’ deep confusion.
It had nothing to do with these post-industrial communities being taken for granted by Labour and the left to fall into decline.
Nothing to do with post-industrial towns being used for years as testing grounds for up-and-coming political talent (like Peter Mandelson and David Miliband) before being parachuted into big jobs in London.
It had nothing to do with the gentrification of the Labour Party which took place under Tony Blair, where the number of MPs from working-class backgrounds fell sharply while careerist figures in fitted suits, talking paternalistic public relations jargon, came to regard themselves as “the adults in the room” – by talking down to the people who put them in power.
How could these plebs vote Tory? What have Tories ever done for them? Well, as most of you know, working-class people rarely endorse a party with any real enthusiasm – democracy is a nose-holding exercise where you vote for what you see as the least disagreeable option.
That said, while the rest of us have been obsessing over Dominic Cummings, Boris’s extra-marital excursions and whatever else we think will destabilise the UK Government, Rishi Sunak has been quietly targeting investment in Red Wall areas like Darlington, where a new train line will create jobs and quicker journey times.
Then there’s Boris, who delivered Brexit (as he promised) while the memory of countless Labour figures trying to overturn the result – ignoring their Red Wall constituents in the process – remains fresh in voters’ minds.
In November last year, it was clear to anyone paying even moderate attention to the political currents, that while Boris’s early handling of the pandemic was woeful, his position would be vastly strengthened if he could deliver Brexit and a successful vaccination roll-out.
Some thought such a proposition naïve. Well, here we are.
Boris is now so emboldened that he was able to withstand a week of attack from the most powerful flank of the right-wing press. Labour platitudes are not going to cut it.
Conservative MPs are brimming with energy and confidence. They have a chancellor down the line who is willing to spend. Investment has been so low in these areas for the last 30 years that even modest sums feel like progress to locals.
This creates a perfect storm which threatens to wash a Labour Party bereft of ideas away for good.
In a few years, Red Wall residents will be able to reach out and touch local infrastructure which came as a direct result of voting Conservative. This is why the recent Labour charm offensive emphasising British values (with no coherent analysis of Red Wallers’ objective economic interests) was always doomed to fail.
The momentum is with the Conservative Party, temporarily unshackled from right-wing economic ideology thanks to a pandemic which demands state intervention.
It is now free to frame the recovery as its own success story. One of endless economic growth given we are effectively starting from zero.
Labour must go back and think harder – the Red Wall is now the Tories’ to lose.
Error to dismiss PM fans
Many of us look at Boris and wonder why people take him seriously. We conclude anyone who does must be stupid.
This is a fatal error. Where some regard Boris as unjustifiably over-confident, others perceive a leader with a positive vision of the future.
Where some perceive Boris’s personal transgressions as proof of his unfitness for office, ordinary people find him strangely relatable.
Then, of course, there is the culture war dimension of politics which creates all manner of strange bedfellows.
The Tories are best placed to absorb those who feel displaced.
If anything, Boris’s flawed nature may even act as a source of comfort to some – in a world where everyone feels anxious about failing a social media purity test.
Performative activism aside, the average person has said and done things that would probably get them cancelled.
Tory love letter is wooing working class
Are working-class people who vote Tory as daft as some people think?
One way of assessing what these voters want is to analyse the top lines from the Queen’s Speech – a love letter written by the Government to its supporters.
Try to imagine the recent Queen’s Speech being watched by the average punter, not ideologically motivated or on Twitter every minute of the day.
It had announcements about tackling inequality, connecting far-flung communities to the rest of the country, environment and animal welfare and housing reform.
While the Queen’s Speech is not famed for its detail, it’s about creating mood music. Does that not tell you something about some of the people who voted Tory in working-class areas?
They want investment, to feel connected, they care about free speech, they want more money for the NHS and action on child poverty and educational attainment. Obviously, the speech is partly a PR exercise, but it also tells you something about what the Government believes is important to the people who voted for it.
What actually gets done remains to be seen but workers who support Boris are not the reprobates they are often made out to be.
