Am I deluded to think the blue wall might crumble if there were a GE ?

[Katharinablum]

Appreciate there's not going to be a GE for at least 3 years. Also appreciate that the british electorate seems to have a short memory regarding tory governments...
I'm on twitter and a regular comment from certain elements is that longstanding Labour leave constituencies turned tory in the last GE. Usually associated with crowing about how labour is finished. Back in dec 2019 I would have struggled to disagree, but with a new leader at the helm things are looking up, that and the absolute ineptitude of the government's management of the pandemic, plus their sheer dishonesty over brexit, I'm daring to wonder whether those resolutely blue constituencies in the home counties and shires might turn a little pinker ? What's the tipping point to make life long tories desert them ?
People up here in the north are more politically fickle, there's alot of w/c dislike and distrust of labour, far more than they deserve, whereas the tories have escaped it relatively speaking, despite years of ideological austerity that hurt the north far more than the EU ever did..Just wondered if people thought there would be a realignment in the way huge areas of the country voted, what with a chaotic brexit pretty inevitable as well as the fall out from covid.. .

It's quite ironic how many people who are worried about women's rights are happy to vote for a party that doesn't give a shit about feminism and women in the workplace etc.

Women are going to bear the brunt of this pandemic with jobs and the social impact.

But hey, that's not important, is it.

I think that universities at the present time don't seem to have the intellectual rigour we would expect. The lack of vigorous debate and the rise of no-platforming has led to narrow views rather than broad outlooks.

@PatsEarrings

I wasn’t a fan of Corbyn but had high hopes for Starmer. So far he’s been a damp squib.

Yes, I agree.

The last election was won/lost on two issues - Brexit and Corbyn. If the Labour Party had come down firmly to remain in the EU every remainer in the country would have voted for it and that includes voters too young to have voted in the referendum. Corbyn was a vote drain, even I couldn’t vote for him and I spoilt my paper. I will never forgive him for clinging on as he did and I suspect history will condemn him too.

I wasn’t a fan of Corbyn but had high hopes for Starmer. So far he’s been a damp squib.
What should he have done ?

He can NEVER force the Government to lose a vote
he CANNOT be seen to criticise the Civil Service or NHS
Brexit has happened
and his warnings about transition are being ignored

what SHOULD Starmer be doing ?

Yy VinylDetective

Yes the universities are closing down debate in a very unhealthy way.

And yes Labour losing women is a factor. It’s not why they lost the red wall but it’s symptomatic of their lack of connection with how people see the world. Wokeness is killing them. It’s alienating me and I’m a middle class liberal. Heaven knows how it’s polling in the post Industrial working class northern towns.

I don't know anything about Sunak really, just that he was a banker and has made alot of money, think he married money as well. I find him creepy, I'm not sure what it is so I can't explain it but he really gives me the creeps. I also find all the love for him a bit weird, its as if some people think he's put his hand in his pocket and is handing out his own money. No he is handing out money that your children and GC will be paying back for decades. I'm not into a debate about if what he is doing is right or wrong, I'm no economist, but it isn't his money. If you'd like to hand me the treasury cheque book I'll be terribly generous as well and everyone can fall at my feet.

@Katharinablum

I couldn't care less what Labour do. But I think some of the comments on this thread are indicative of a profound failure to learn from its obliteration at the last GE. Labour don't occupy the moral highground. If Labour keep hectoring voters as if they do? They will be shocked and awed at the next election too. Einstein's definition of stupidity springs to mind.

Why are England so reluctant to let Scotland go? @SBTLove
I'm not sure that they are. Opinion polling these days seems to suggest that the English are keener on Scottish secession (independence is for colonies, not unions) than the Scots are. The Shetlands have even gone so far as to propose independence from Scotland. The North Sea oil-based economy proposal for Scotland was looking shaky already, never mind once the waters belonging to the Shetlands, and those in the North Sea which maritime law would actually consider to be English have been taken out of consideration. So most of the English don't feel that there would be much lost, I suspect that they would be glad not to have to listen to the xenophobic nationalists anymore.

It depends on Scotland. If they gain independence in the meantime, Labour won't win another GE

Scotland might as well already be independent in so far as the electoral prospects of the Labour party are concerned. Labour has been in a continual decline in Scotland since 2003. It's nothing to do with Corbynism, and there's nothing that suggest the election of Starmer has made the blindest bit of difference either. They have 1, yes ONE, solitary Scottish MP, who only survives because he represents one of the most eclectic constituencies in the entire UK, with the single largest non-Scots born proportion of constituents of any constituency in Scotland.

All indications are that at next years Holyrood elections they are looking at having their remaining number of MSP halved, reducing them to nothing more that a fringe party with a literal handful of list MSP's.

If Labour wants to win UK General Elections, then it needs to win the majority of English and Welsh seats, because they are utterly dead as a concept north of the border. It's not about individual leaders or policies, they simply do not serve any purpose in Scotland any longer.

That could change post-independence, as the SNP would no doubt fragment leaving plenty of room for new centre and centre-left political parties, but as things stand Labour are closer to lost deposit territory than they are any sort of resurgence.

I'm not sure that they are. Opinion polling these days seems to suggest that the English are keener on Scottish secession (independence is for colonies, not unions) than the Scots are. The Shetlands have even gone so far as to propose independence from Scotland. The North Sea oil-based economy proposal for Scotland was looking shaky already, never mind once the waters belonging to the Shetlands, and those in the North Sea which maritime law would actually consider to be English have been taken out of consideration. So most of the English don't feel that there would be much lost, I suspect that they would be glad not to have to listen to the xenophobic nationalists anymore.

Congratulations, almost a full house of the latest nonsensical anti-Independence tropes

"xenophobic" nationalists, who are overwhelmingly in favour of remaining inside a non-incorporating union with other European nations, the 'foreigners' that they are supposed to hate, the same non-incorporating union that good old, harmless, union-flag waving British nationalists couldn't wait to be rid of.

It's blindingly obvious to anyone who is even slightly objective it's not the Scots nationalists who are the raging xenophobic hypocrites.

I don't know anything about Sunak really, just that he was a banker and has made alot of money, think he married money as well.
Sunak married money.
He might have made a few million himself
but his wife is worth billions (her daddy owns Infosys)

because those of us who DIDN’T vote for or want Brexit really had nobody out of the major parties to vote for!

Graphista I thought the Libdems were going cancel Brexit?

The red wall turned blue because of demographic change not electoral choice change.

Listeningquietly that’s interesting. Could you explain a bit more about that please?

@XDownwiththissortofthingX
It's blindingly obvious to anyone who is even slightly objective it's not the Scots nationalists who are the raging xenophobic hypocrites absolutely spot on!
@DdraigGoch Obvious where your misguided allegiance lie 🙄

@Southwestten
Re Demographic change in the former red wall
after the election, the reasons for the swing were analysed in great detail.
One of the key points was that young people have moved out of those constituencies (to places with better job prospects)
It was not that the Tories got more votes
it was that Labour got less
One of the constituencies, the average age had risen by 10 years in 5 years

• that means a lot of young people leaving

BUT With COVID, lots of young people are moving back out of the south east many are moving back in with parents many will stay in the north as its cheaper to live and broadband still works

so there is a chance that at the next election the demographics will be different
next year's census will be fascinating

PS re the red wall
Here is the list of the seats
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_wall_(British_politics)
Here is one of the seats
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashfield_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
where the Tory candidate actually got less votes in 2019 than in 2017
but won because the Labour vote collapsed

I swing between the opinion that people will vote Tory because we tend to cleave to the devil we know and they'll get a 'pass' for being in power during Covid; and looking at Keir Starmer and thinking he looks and sounds an awful lot like the Labour leader who won two massive elections back in the day.

I had no problem with New Labour and would personally welcome a Starmer Labour government.

I just keep flip-flopping as to what I think will happen.

Thank you for that Listening, very interesting.

I would strongly recommend Darren McGarvey’s Poverty Safari. It unpicks Brexit / the reason working classes cannot relate to the new left so well.

@ListeningQuietly really interesting explanation. The wiki bit about the red wall suggests that those former labour leave constituencies remaining Tory depends very much on whether Brexit is a success. Actually puts alot of pressure on the government to get things done which may be a good thing or just lead to loads of ambitious plans but none realised (ie northern powerhouse)

Olympic
I would strongly recommend Darren McGarvey’s Poverty Safari. It unpicks Brexit / the reason working classes cannot relate to the new left so well.
TBH many well educated and middle class women have rather a problem with Labour and Libdem Identity politics insanity

Up and down the land, the Labour and Libdem votes dropped
rather than the Tory vote rising
and time is not on the Tories side
because when people of my generation get old, we will indeed move to the right in our politics
some of us might even reach the middle of the spectrum
as we are Thatcher's children and we will never forget what she did to us in the early 80's

Up and down the land, the Labour and Libdem votes dropped
rather than the Tory vote rising

Which parties picked up the dropped Labour & Libdem votes?

Brexit party ?