To think that Conservatives don't actually care about 'red wall' voters beyond getting their vote

[Tuesdaysintheazores]

But people who live there and are going to be voting Conservative obviously do feel that they are the best people to represent them. Very interested to hear from people who live in red wall areas. AIBU?

YABU = Conservatives actually do care about these people now

YANBU = Conservatives just trying to get the votes and seats

The real issue is not that Cons don't care about the red wall, it is that Labour have just banked on them for a few decades.

This is yet another obvious chance for labour activists to activate that critical thinking meme and activate some introspection and not try by the back door calling those who don't vote the way you want them to as hoodwinked, easily led etc.

At this point, after nearly a decade of Tory rule, it isn't the electorate who are out of touch, it's those who still like to come out with statements such as 'turkeys voting for christmas' whilst pretending the red wall who where largely die hard vote for a red roset on donkey voted leave, there will be the usual replies of blaming right wing media without any sense of self reflection.

I honestly can't wrap my head round politics any more. I read a lot about it, I do understand everything I read but it still doesn't compute for me what people think the Tories will do for them.

Of course the Conservatives don't care about these new voters.

But but Boris really cares about football and which billionaire gets to own my team and stuff and he promised he’d ‘level us all up’. Not sure what that means but it sounds good. I really trust him. It won’t be like with the DUP and the fishermen. He really means it this time.

He really cares. He even hates John Lewis which is sticking it to the middle class Southerners! He probably got his wallpaper down B&Q just like us working class folk. He totally gets us. The Sun, The Mail, The BBC all told me so and why would they lie, it’s not like they all went to the same school or anything! Plus he looks like a right laugh! Lol!

So what if voting for them makes me poorer, you pointing that out to me is sneering plus they hate woke people who are the cause of everything going wrong and so do I so voting for them is worth having no services and not being able to buy a house!

My area’s been getting more shit since 2010. It’s David Cameron’s and Theresa Mays fault and when Boris leaves it will be his fault and when Sunak takes over it will be brand new Tories and I’ll vote for them again and the more you advise me that it’s not in my interests the more I’ll tell you you’re sneering at me and will vote for them to spite you!

I'm from one of the Red Wall areas but now live in the South East and I was horrified at the fall of the Red Wall!
I hate the identity politics of the Labour Party but nothing, not one single thing would make me vote for the Conservatives! I'd rather poke out both my eyes with a blunt stick!

My area is Tory through and through, despite the fact it seems to be getting poorer, we have HS2 works carving up the town, no real jobs the Conservatives will still win! It's very depressing!

@picturesandpickles

I honestly can't wrap my head round politics any more. I read a lot about it, I do understand everything I read but it still doesn't compute for me what people think the Tories will do for them.

Of course the Conservatives don't care about these new voters.

I don't want the government to do anything for me. If anything, I want them to do less than they do now.

@StoneofDestiny

*My Grandad was a miner. He wouldn't vote for this Labour party. They don't represent working class people and they certainly don't represent women. Sadly I will be voting anything other than Labour to keep them out*

Best vote Tory then. They were famous for looking after miners, and the current Tory leader really has a lot of respect for women and well know for his working class roots. 🙄 .

And there, in a nutshell, is why the Labour Party is dying. No interest in, or attempt to understand, the voter or address their concerns. In the view of it's members, it seems that the Labour Party is the home of all the virtues and comprises the only honest and decent people to be found in British politics. Anyone who disagrees must be an idiot, one of the "sheeple" or a "gammon". Labour is losing contact with the voters and if it does not look sharp, it will lose them entirely like the Liberals did in the 1920s. Whatever you may say about the Tories, they take the voters very seriously indeed.

@Tuesdaysintheazores

But people who live there and are going to be voting Conservative obviously do feel that they are the best people to represent them. Very interested to hear from people who live in red wall areas. AIBU?

YABU = Conservatives actually do care about these people now

YANBU = Conservatives just trying to get the votes and seats

Hahahaaa, what a shocking revelation, OP. Who could have seen that coming?!

I'm from a Red Wall area in the North East and now live in Manchester. I vote Labour but despair at the way Labour supporters and politicians sneer and insult people who voted Leave, think people can't change their biological sex etc. People will not vote for a party who thinks they are racists, bigots, thick or whatever insult is thrown at them.

I saw on Twitter a comment that said people will vote for someone they don't like but not for someone who dislikes them. Think this is apt for Labour at the moment.

Also many of my family have given up on Labour because they felt betrayed by their 2nd EU referendum policy.

Tories care about nothing except making money.

I think most working class people are conservative with a small “c” by inclination.

I think this is the real truth. Outside of the red wall conservatives have always had a lot of votes from working class people of all ages. I live in the south west and although we do have a higher proportion of elderly people, we also have a large population of younger, working class people with jobs in agriculture and fishing (traditionally that is changing now). These voters have never seen labour as understanding their lives and aspirations - to them labour has a,ways been associated with the miners and the industrial north.
Of course they then went and shot themselves in the foot by voting for Brexit because of a mistaken belief that the Tories would continue pouring money into the region after we left the EU, so they have a big shock coming to them and one that I personally feel they deserve

I think labour have always missed a trick in ignoring the SW. we do have little pockets of red, but they have always mostly stayed away and so were just seen as a party that represented the north (some people down here still associate labour with flat cap and whippets) and then seen as the urban, leftie party under Tony Blair. Maybe labour needs to leave the north to Tory bribes and seek new voters down here?

99% of what Labour talks about isn't identity politics related. In fact, the Tories spend far more time on "culture wars" - witness their endless rage at somebody throwing a statue in a river.

However, the 80% right wing British press give the impression that Labour literally do nothing else than talk about diversity. It's almost as if they've identified that as an Achilles heel and their billionaire owners don't want a Labour government??? Hmmm....

In a country with a FPTP system, monarchy, huge private land ownership, powerful public school system, an 80% influential and no holds barred right wing press etc, etc, it really takes something special for a Labour government - any Labour government - to get elected. Yes, Blair one his fair share but New Labour governed more like the Lib Dems than a Labour government. But perhaps thats the only way forward.

won his fair share

Personally I have no major issue with a right of centre party. My issue with the British Conservative Party is that they are obsessed with pushing the country every further to the right and selling off all our assets, infrastructure, public services, schools, hospitals, parks, green space, libraries etc. There is very little that is conservative about the British Conservative Party. All the while scapegoating the most vulnerable people in society - immigrants, disabled people, the poorest 5%, as and when suits.

No party cares about voters beyond getting their vote. Do you seriously think Sir Kier genuinely wants to help people? No, he wants their vote because he wants power and will say whatever he thinks people want to hear in order to get it. The same for the Tories, the same for the Greens, the same for the Lib Dems, the same for the BNP, the same for the SNP.

Labour, for whatever reason, are currently still in the "elect a dickhead as leader" phase. This happened to the Tories as well of course, after a "powerful" leader (Thatcher) they elected a string of weak leaders (Major, Hague, Duncan Smith) before finding one who was actually electable. Labour's string since Blair has hardly been inspiring (Brown, Milliband, Corbyn, Starmer) and above all none are credible Prime Ministers.

Hell, Johnson is still a more credible PM than Starmer, and that's saying something.

I think most working class people are conservative with a small “c” by inclination.

This is true for a lot of my family. I used to live in a red wall area. My observations are that people believe all politicians are corrupt / help their mates out (Labour are just as bad as the Tories for this), but you can 'get on' and 'pull yourself up' better under a Tory govt.

My dad, whose parents had nothing, always voted Tory because he believed it was the party of aspiration and bettering yourself, doing better than your parents had.

I think part of the problem (on all sides), and only part because this is such a multi-faceted area, is that politics has become a straight-out-of-uni gravy train for most MPs. There is very little concept of public service any more in the upper echelons of either party - that I can see.

I read a really interesting autobiography once by George Thomas, ex-Speaker of the House of Commons, and he recounted an experience he'd had in the corridors of Westminster after he became Speaker. He bumped into a fresh crop of Labour MPs, who had taken an approach to some piece of legislation (forget what) that completely ignored the genuine needs of working class voters, and he was surprised and upset. They didn't understand what the problem was. He then realised that these were the first crop of men (!) who had grown up under the cradle-to-grave system, whilst he could remember people starving, and no NHS, no safety net (however laughable it is nowadays for some) etc. His thoughts were that until you got a critical mass, again, of people who had experienced that kind of suffering, that the days of a truly collective, left-wing movement were over. If you like, the Overton window had moved too far to the right.

I think about his observation a lot, and I think he's right; you only have to look at the leadership of the Labour and Trades Unions to see that.

So a man who is known to lie, cheat and think that rules are for the little people is more credible than a man who used to be the DPP?

Ahh, but I guess Johnson said he got Brexit done, but then he's a proven liar so is it beyond the realms of possibility that he is, in fact, still lying?

I live in a staunch Labour area and they literally do not give a shit about the people who live here. They treat us with contempt. I would never vote Tory, but I'll never vote Labour again either unless they drastically change their ways and show some humility and respect towards the voters. They're the biggest hypocrites going and their snouts are well and truly in the trough. At least you know the Tories are nasty and they're not hypocritical about it.

Well voters are unlikely to support a Labour Party which labels them as thicko bigots for having a different opinion and is unable to engage in debate. Starmer has made no progress in eliminating the toxic identity politics that have been the hallmark of the party for the past 5 years. They have their fingers firmly in their self righteous ears and just don’t care about the views and priorities of red wall voters. They will remain in the political wilderness for years to come.

Like some pp, I agree many Conservatives don't, but I also feel Labour just as much hasn't cared beyond getting votes and do little but chat shit in some parts of the country as they just expect us to stay red if we have particular demographics. Oh, we've got students and a diverse urban demographic, no need to really do anything there but our own little pet projects.

Want to see Labour's identity politics in action (with nothing to do with trans issues) - have a look at Derby Labour Manifesto. 'Identity Derby' on the 2nd page - see how many times they talk about identity, how important it is we build a city identity, what they're going to support to build a city identity, how we need to dare to be different and who we are as their first bullet point... I don't think they really know who we are. We are is a mix of people with a lot of different views who ended up getting so fed up of their naft identity projects that our Council went blue 3 years ago and I think we have 5-6 'UKIP v.3' councillors who like to chat a lot about localism in part because Labour stopped discussing local things ages ago. One of our local Labour candidates keeps going on about 'food justice' & how it's very important -- yet to see him actually explain what that means on a local level. Feels like jargon dart board.

I don't think Derby can be counted as a red wall anymore if it ever was, though Derby South has had a Labour MP for decades and seem to be viewed as a Labour area when those are shrinking rapidly. I've definitely heard my area be called a 'Labour area' when for years all 3 of my area councillors are basically UKIP under different brandings (UKIP, Brexit Party, now Reform Derby), and that's largely because they're the only ones who appear to do anything about here. As much as I despise them, especially after last year's fiasco with harassing hotel staff when the councillors think they're housing refugees (and somehow didn't seem to get hotels are private property, yes including their car parks), I get why people vote for them when they're also the ones who dealt with when garbage issues in our area, even so far as arranging trucks and coming out themselves to help people. They're in the parks, at all the events, being a general pain on the council no matter if it's Labour or Conservatives in power and people like that. I think they're just as self serving, the main dude literally will take any excuse to dress up as his impersonation of St George - but at least they're visibly doing things for the community while also being assholes.

Labour's equivalent for our area was doing litter picking for about an hour for their Instagram -- though oddly didn't describe where they were really well, at least not in a way anyone who has lived here long would - or taking photos of overfull bins and going on about what a shame Derby people are being with throwing too much away even though it's obvious from the photo that it wasn't even taken in Derby (couldn't even get the right colour bins FFS). Even their identity thing is so inconsistent - they go on about supporting a particularly large development 'if the finances line up'. Not if it fits in with the area, if it fits in with 'Derby's identity', if the finances line up. I've yet to hear them discuss that it's near an area of concern when it comes to air pollution, how the little badly maintained roads into it will deal with the projected increase in traffic, how it will impact on travel and student safety for the new school that's almost done being built around the corner. Yeah, the area needs to be developed as it's now holes in the ground which we've way too many of, it's an awkward area to walk through with the pavements as they are, but they keep wanting to put as much crammed into an area as possible, and it always ends up causing issues. We don't need more hotels and offices and shopping and a range of eateries, and...and... I've heard similar from those I know who campaign for Labour in Nottingham around their big Broadmarsh redevelopment & frustration with those higher up the Labour food chain - so little about people who live and work in an area, it's all about the students and getting big names in - things that I would have thought have been proven time and again to be unreliable.

This is the first time I get to vote, just got my first voter's card a few days ago after finally finishing the naturalization process earlier this year...and I'm a bit stumped to be honest, far more than I thought I'd be. Won't touch the Tories or Reform, Labour really doesn't seem to care about us anymore, and in my area that just leaves the Lib Dems which I've seen in other parts of the city, but never in my area, and yeah. I'm pretty sure my area will remain Reform Purple, but it'll be interesting to see how the other areas fair especially with the Cons and Reform still making tactical deals (Cons withdrew in an area Reform is projected to gain).

@Violetparis

I saw on Twitter a comment that said people will vote for someone they don't like but not for someone who dislikes them. Think this is apt for Labour at the moment.

Who tells you Labour dislikes their core support? i mean who is actually reporting it and making sure it receives a lot of attention?

If you want to be a success in politics, you'd never be a Green, a LD or a Labour party candidate, the fact that people do want to be in these parties, tells me they are in it because they have genuine beliefs, i think many Tories are just there to get rich and have power.
e.g. Johnson supported the EU for many years, especially as Mayor of London, yet he changed his tune to get power....

The Cons say what they think voters want to hear...usually a string of 3 word slogans, ending in DONE.

So grateful to everyone who's taken the time to post on here, it's been really interesting to read them all

I saw on Twitter a comment that said people will vote for someone they don't like but not for someone who dislikes them. Think this is apt for Labour at the moment.
I think that's really insightful in terms of how some people are feeling

Hell, Johnson is still a more credible PM than Starmer, and that's saying something.

I disagree but then I like Starmer and do feel he genuinely cares. I think he'd make a good PM

Democracy in this country is broken. We need proportional representation so that people can vote for smaller parties if they want. It shouldn't be a case of "don't like Labour, therefore voting Tory." We have all been convinced that votes for smaller parties or independents are 'wasted', so end up with the same old, same old. Instead of accepting that, we should be fighting against it. First past the post is a travesty.