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

[FOJN]

Jesus that is a big blow. Labour have held that seat since the early 70s.

It should be a wake up call but I am not hopeful. Who in their right mind thought fielding a remainer candidate in a constituency where 70% of the electorate voted leave was a good idea. Labour say they are listening but that's rather hard to believe.

[the80sweregreat]

Was always going to happen wasn't it?
Either Labour accept that people don't want to rejoin the EU and ditch a lot of their beliefs in order to win , or become a fringe party , or have a breakaway party set up with new ideas and a different outlook to the old one.
Centre left policies win elections.
They need to win over the northern voters.
How is another matter!

[Hotankles]

Genuine question - is there a person in the Labour camp who can turn round and say to the all the Labour MPs ‘right the fucking lot of you get out, I’m starting from scratch’

Or is will it just be a continual discussion with the same people wondering why they are failing so badly!

[the80sweregreat]

Tone deaf. Labour will still blame everyone else.
We are slowly turning into a ' one party state'

[AfternoonToffee]

Once you lose seats like this you know that something is very wrong. Where are the alternatives to the Conservatives who can stop them in their tracks ? Nobody as far as I can see.

They should have realised when they lost all the other seats.

[the80sweregreat]

They have had 18 months to find out what was wrong ! Obviously not long enough

[Jangle33]

I completely blame Momentum and Jeremy Corbyn for all this. It’s going to take years to repair and I think Keir is doing the best job in the circumstances

[BronwenFrideswide]

Jesus that is a big blow. Labour have held that seat since the early 70s.

That seat has been Labour since it's inception in 1972. How many of these seats which have been Labour for donkeys years do Labour need to lose before they realise just how out of sync they are with the electorate?

[picturesandpickles]

@the80sweregreat

Labour have lost Hartlepool.
Another nail in their coffin it seems.
They should reflect on what they stand for and realize that putting a remainer up for election in that seat wasn't a great move.
We need a strong opposition and it's slowly being eradicated because the Labour Party are too busy pampering to the so called ' woke' brigade and not listening to their electorate enough. An electorate there who clearly isn't that worried about wallpaper.
Once you lose seats like this you know that something is very wrong. Where are the alternatives to the Conservatives who can stop them in their tracks ? Nobody as far as I can see.

Important to review this result a) in the pandemic context and b) alongside changes in traditional Tory seats.

There are big shifts in the whole electorate, and the political realignment is looking to be large.

Labour's electorate is not a homogenous blob of voters, so listening only to one portion of their voters wouldn't work, prioritising 'red wall' seats would probably lose more seats overall. If this were easy, it'd have been fixed by now.

Also overall cash imbalance between Tory and Labour is now massive, and money buys elections.

[Schmetterling1]

I completely blame Momentum and Jeremy Corbyn for all this. It’s going to take years to repair and I think Keir is doing the best job in the circumstances

This, a million percent.

It’s probably patronising of me but my guy reaction is to feel so so sorry for Hartlepool. Do they really think the Tories care - or even know - what Hartlepool needs?

[BronwenFrideswide]

@the80sweregreat

Tone deaf. Labour will still blame everyone else.
We are slowly turning into a ' one party state'

Yes the mantra seems to be the electorate are wrong, just don't know what's good for them rather than Labour being the ones in the wrong.

[Jangle33]

Standing up to inequalities and prejudices is not being woke. It’s an important part of a democratic society. I worry terribly about the incredible financial inequality of Party funding plus the media’s influence.

Surely the trade unions etc have got to stop the fighting and show the Labour Party Dow unanimous support. Or there won’t be one at all.

[the80sweregreat]

@Jangle33

I completely blame Momentum and Jeremy Corbyn for all this. It’s going to take years to repair and I think Keir is doing the best job in the circumstances

You can't blame JC for this result! Maybe the others , but they voted Labour in Hartlepool in the last election.
I blame Sir Kier Starmer personally and not listening to people. It's not rocket science.

[picturesandpickles]

@BronwenFrideswide not seen any electorate blaming today at all

[Changechangychange]

I really wouldn't care if Boris made a play, I am happy to put him off. I'd bet he'd buy the drinks

Oh come on. He’d put his hand up your skirt, then slip off and stiff you with the bill, including a couple of bottles of champagne he sent over to a table of 20yr old girls when you were in the loo

[picturesandpickles]

You can't blame JC for this result! Maybe the others , but they voted Labour in Hartlepool in the last election

Labour only held it in 2019 because the brexit vote was split.

Corbyn made Labour toxic. He made it toxic to both ends of the Labour spectrum by being seen as a) unpatriotic and b) antisemitic.

Detoxifying will take a long time - see Tories post 97, Lib Dems post coalition for examples.

[psychomath]

Only read the first few pages, but just wanted to chip in to say that where I am the 'old school Left' candidates still do reasonably well - i.e. the ones who are all about the trade unions and such rather than the new identity politics Left. If we didn't have a first past the post system that makes voting for minority candidates nothing more than a protest vote, they might do even better. But I'm not sure how many areas even field candidates like that anymore, and certainly none of the major parties represent that position. I don't think it's that there's been a major rightward shift among voters so much as that Labour have moved away from their traditional position, leaving a vacuum that's been filled by the Tories in the absence of any other serious contenders.

[the80sweregreat]

Starmer has been the leader for well over a year now. He still put a remainer up in that seat to contest the by election. Blaming Jeremy Corbyn for that is a bit much although I take the point that the previous leader also did a lot of damage snd the fall out from the previous elections etc.
I believe the previous MP had to step aside over some allegations of inappropriate behavior so that may have also swung the vote too. (I don't live there , but I've taken an interest in the results etc. )

[Flumpaphone]

Like a previous poster said I'm sick of standing in the polling station and only having the least worst option to choose from. None of the candidates on the ballot paper yesterday were anyone I wanted to positively vote for.

We've always been a country where if you must lose then do it with grace and humility. That also applies to winning. I find the large inflatable Boris the Conservatives have out up outside the count (not the party office, the count) in Hartlepool utterly distasteful. Crowing, gloating and the idolising of someone who really shouldn't be idolised is not how we do things in this country.

Crowing is one thing, delivery is quite another.

[MissScarletInLibrary]

I live in the north, in a labour seat (previously Lib Dem). I think that the move to conservatives and brexit vote for quite a lot of people I speak to was a protest vote. They felt dissatisfied with the situation they were in and wanted a change.
I spoke to quite a few people post brexit who felt Westminster didn’t understand them and they didn’t want to be told what to do by them. At DH work they invited Ed Milliband in to speak to the staff about the benefits of remaining in the EU - you can imagine the result, a lot of the staff were so annoyed that this was their workplace was telling them how to vote a lot chose to vote leave on the back of it!
Where we are the public transport is terrible, there is massive underfunding in the local communities. People became dissatisfied with their local MP so why not vote for someone promising something better - the conservatives are the only party that has identified this north/south animosity and is capitalising on it.
You see it all the time on MN, should I move north for a cheaper house? Is it always grim in the north? It’s only 200 miles away but it could be a different planet for what London think. Labour also had a policy of nominating a non local for these safe seats, they didn’t know the area and the struggles.
So no I don’t think the red wall fell because the voters want conservatives it fell because they want change and would vote for a party offering that change.
It will be interesting to see if they deliver the levelling up, there has been a lot of noise about moving public sector jobs north but will wait and see. Boris might want to move the treasury to Darlington but what about the economists and civil servants that work there will they move? I’m pretty sure there aren’t a load of top economists currently living in Darlington waiting to take these jobs up!

[BronwenFrideswide]

[quote picturesandpickles]@BronwenFrideswide not seen any electorate blaming today at all[/quote]
It's on MN.

[wonkylegs]

@MissScarletInLibrary I think the Tees Valley mayor is also very press savvy, he's great at grabbing headlines and putting on positive spin he's been a great figurehead for the conservatives in the area. I think people don't really look too closely at the detail behind those headlines because I'm not sure it comes out looking as good.
Having been involved in a few initiatives with the TVM I'm very skeptical about follow through and actually making real difference after things have been announced.

[FOJN]

I find the large inflatable Boris the Conservatives have out up outside the count (not the party office, the count) in Hartlepool utterly distasteful.

The inflatable had nothing to do with the Conservative Party, it was erected by the Hartlepool Wombles and it wasn't the only inflatable they put up around the town.

www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/hartlepool-election-results-2021-inflatable-boris-johnson-b933715.html

[Flumpaphone]

Hmmm, I think if you look at the make up of the "Hartlepool Wombles" you'll find they are very much Conservative supporters and once again it's all about the headlines, the cameras are at the count

[the80sweregreat]

Called ' wombles ' because they have obviously cleaned up there. Will they deliver ?
They clearly like Boris Johnson so let's hope he pumps the money into this area!