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Post by Merseymike on Jun 27, 2020 12:06:30 GMT
Indeed they could, but in all of those seats except perhaps Bassetlaw where there were some specific local factors, the drift away from Labour has been clear. You may be right and its possible they could move back. I think they are all broadly in the same category Labour will need to win them for a decent majority. Seven points behind in the polls won't do it, even if voters do like the idea of a slimy shyster lawyer as PM.
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Post by justin124 on Jun 27, 2020 12:17:01 GMT
But the drift away from Labour has only been clear over the last decade - not the last 25 years. Why has it happened - beyonf the obvious factors already referred to?
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Post by carlton43 on Jun 27, 2020 13:47:49 GMT
The swings against Labour in all of the seats I mentioned have been consistent. There is no saying that this cannot happen in other areas too. It depends whether you think there are more profound shifts away from Labour in the areas where they lost ground. There is certainly evidence that partisan dealignment is increasing and the number of people who feel strongly affiliated to a party has declined. This may mean both that some seats will be relatively easy to win back, but equally easy to lose again. I think Labour , given vote distribution, and the assumption that Scotland won't shift back pre Indyref2, will need a 10-12% lead and be able to recover enough to make the seats I mentioned competitive again. It depends on what you mean by 'consistent'.Warwickshire North and Leicestershire NW were Tory - held in the 80s with the former falling to Labour in 1992 and the latter in 1997. Until 2010 both appeared to have become fairly safe for Labour. Mansfield had been a rocksolid Labour citadel until the 1980s but very nearly fell to the Tories in 1987 in the aftermath of bitterness from the Miners Strike of 1984/85. There was a big swing back to Labour there in 1992, and the seat appeared pretty safe again until 2015.The big sudden shift which suddenly makes these seats appear safely Tory has really occurred over a period of five years or so. How deep does the commitment to voting Tory go? Much the same could be asked of Derbyshire NE, Bassetlaw & Bolsover. I think that you are quite wrong about this. There is a massive structural change and a mental change taking place in all those constituencies as they cast off old values and embrace new ones, aided by a relentless morphing from working class to middle class, but not academic alt.woke middle class (yet!) but to old values middle class. One generation is dying off, the next generation is in partial shift, the third gneration has shifted. Then there is the top up of outsiders coming with the carpet of new estates and the flight from inner urban Rotherham and Sheffield bolstering a trend to being anti-Labour. This is not short term, not ephemeral. These will be very difficult to win back as the change has reinforced a feeling inside themselves and their new feelings about the world. Labour needs a big lead and a Conservative party in disarray and mired in incompetence to win these back. The Conservatives do look as if they might oblige? But there again, they might not.
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Post by justin124 on Jun 27, 2020 14:17:46 GMT
It depends on what you mean by 'consistent'.Warwickshire North and Leicestershire NW were Tory - held in the 80s with the former falling to Labour in 1992 and the latter in 1997. Until 2010 both appeared to have become fairly safe for Labour. Mansfield had been a rocksolid Labour citadel until the 1980s but very nearly fell to the Tories in 1987 in the aftermath of bitterness from the Miners Strike of 1984/85. There was a big swing back to Labour there in 1992, and the seat appeared pretty safe again until 2015.The big sudden shift which suddenly makes these seats appear safely Tory has really occurred over a period of five years or so. How deep does the commitment to voting Tory go? Much the same could be asked of Derbyshire NE, Bassetlaw & Bolsover. I think that you are quite wrong about this. There is a massive structural change and a mental change taking place in all those constituencies as they cast off old values and embrace new ones, aided by a relentless morphing from working class to middle class, but not academic alt.woke middle class (yet!) but to old values middle class. One generation is dying off, the next generation is in partial shift, the third gneration has shifted. Then there is the top up of outsiders coming with the carpet of new estates and the flight from inner urban Rotherham and Sheffield bolstering a trend to being anti-Labour. This is not short term, not ephemeral. These will be very difficult to win back as the change has reinforced a feeling inside themselves and their new feelings about the world. Labour needs a big lead and a Conservative party in disarray and mired in incompetence to win these back. The Conservatives do look as if they might oblige? But there again, they might not. Those are all very fair points. However, seats such as Leicestershire NW, Warwickshire North, Nuneaton and Cannock& Burntwood did swing heavily to the Tories in the 1980s - as did Mansfield and Ashfield. They then proceeded to swing back to Labour in the 1990s - and post -1997 appeared to have reverted to being safe Labour seats . Only since 2010 has there been an even sharper swing back to the Tories - most obviously at the elections of 2017 and 2019. By their nature , demographic changes only reveal themselves over an extended time period - they are very unlikely to explain why these seats voted so differently in 2017 and 2019 compared with 2015 and 2010.Many offer Brexit and Corbyn as the reason for such a shift - to the extent that that is true , their disappearance as salient factors surely removes the reason for the switch.You are saying that other factors are at work here which will not be reversed, but why the sudden shift? Merseyside has been drifting to Labour consistently since the late 1950s just as Southern Essex - including Havering and Barking - has been moving sharply towards the Tories since the late 1970s. Neither of those have been sudden changes- indeed they now extend - re-Merseyside - to a couple of generations.Both are very different - and less dramatic - than what we have seen in those Midlands seats in the space of just a few years.
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Post by greenhert on Jun 27, 2020 14:31:40 GMT
But the drift away from Labour has only been clear over the last decade - not the last 25 years. Why has it happened - beyond the obvious factors already referred to? That drift was occurring since the 1980s but the Blair years masked it because Labour achieved usually above average swings in seats affected by that type of demographic change in 1997; however at the same time it achieved a below average swing for London in Battersea (where in 1997 the Conservative vote share was 3 points higher than in 1983!). The decline of the agricultural and industrial economic sectors (primary and secondary) and the rise of the service sector, where the work is usually less stable and not often permanent, and the knowledge sector which usually requires a high academic qualification level (tertiary and quartermary economic sectors) in addition to the substantial decline of council housing and the rise of owner occupation and private renting, are the key factors behind such long term shifts.
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Post by Merseymike on Jun 27, 2020 14:32:22 GMT
I think that you are quite wrong about this. There is a massive structural change and a mental change taking place in all those constituencies as they cast off old values and embrace new ones, aided by a relentless morphing from working class to middle class, but not academic alt.woke middle class (yet!) but to old values middle class. One generation is dying off, the next generation is in partial shift, the third gneration has shifted. Then there is the top up of outsiders coming with the carpet of new estates and the flight from inner urban Rotherham and Sheffield bolstering a trend to being anti-Labour. This is not short term, not ephemeral. These will be very difficult to win back as the change has reinforced a feeling inside themselves and their new feelings about the world. Labour needs a big lead and a Conservative party in disarray and mired in incompetence to win these back. The Conservatives do look as if they might oblige? But there again, they might not. Those are all very fair points. However, seats such as Leicestershire NW, Warwickshire North, Nuneaton and Cannock& Burntwood did swing heavily to the Tories in the 1980s - as did Mansfield and Ashfield. They then proceeded to swing back to Labour in the 1990s - and post -1997 appeared to have reverted to being safe Labour seats . Only since 2010 has there been an even sharper swing back to the Tories - most obviously at the elections of 2017 and 2019. By their nature , demographic changes only reveal themselves over an extended time period - they are very unlikely to explain why these seats voted so differently in 2017 and 2019 compared with 2015 and 2010.Many offer Brexit and Corbyn as the reason for such a shift - to the extent that that is true , their disappearance as salient factors surely removes the reason for the switch.You are saying that other factors are at work here which will not be reversed, but why the sudden shift? Merseyside has been drifting to Labour consistently since the late 1950s just as Southern Essex - including Havering and Barking - has been moving sharply towards the Tories since the late 1970s. Neither of those have been sudden changes- indeed they now extend - re-Merseyside - to a couple of generations.Both are very different - and less dramatic - than what we have seen in those Midlands seats in the space of just a few years. But we are talking about a very different set of voters. Indeed one of the things noted was that some of the seats which swung most away from Labour - I think Bishop Auckland was cited - was the reduction in the proportion of younger voters. I would also say that some of the seats lost this time have been drifting away from Labour for a while. There have been some new middle class voters in places like Rother Valley and NE Derbyshire. But also a loosening of tribal ties to Labour in the smaller towns. Those ties remain as strong in the cities but some of them have also seen population shifts - more young voters, students, BME, people with left wing attitudes. Whereas some of the places I have mentioned contain voters with historical family ties to Labour but quite right wing social attitudes
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Post by greenhert on Jun 27, 2020 14:42:10 GMT
Those are all very fair points. However, seats such as Leicestershire NW, Warwickshire North, Nuneaton and Cannock& Burntwood did swing heavily to the Tories in the 1980s - as did Mansfield and Ashfield. They then proceeded to swing back to Labour in the 1990s - and post -1997 appeared to have reverted to being safe Labour seats . Only since 2010 has there been an even sharper swing back to the Tories - most obviously at the elections of 2017 and 2019. By their nature , demographic changes only reveal themselves over an extended time period - they are very unlikely to explain why these seats voted so differently in 2017 and 2019 compared with 2015 and 2010.Many offer Brexit and Corbyn as the reason for such a shift - to the extent that that is true , their disappearance as salient factors surely removes the reason for the switch.You are saying that other factors are at work here which will not be reversed, but why the sudden shift? Merseyside has been drifting to Labour consistently since the late 1950s just as Southern Essex - including Havering and Barking - has been moving sharply towards the Tories since the late 1970s. Neither of those have been sudden changes- indeed they now extend - re-Merseyside - to a couple of generations.Both are very different - and less dramatic - than what we have seen in those Midlands seats in the space of just a few years. But we are talking about a very different set of voters. Indeed one of the things noted was that some of the seats which swung most away from Labour - I think Bishop Auckland was cited - was the reduction in the proportion of younger voters.I would also say that some of the seats lost this time have been drifting away from Labour for a while. There have been some new middle class voters in places like Rother Valley and NE Derbyshire. But also a loosening of tribal ties to Labour in the smaller towns. Those ties remain as strong in the cities but some of them have also seen population shifts - more young voters, students, BME, people with left wing attitudes. Whereas some of the places I have mentioned contain voters with historical family ties to Labour but quite right wing social attitudes Also a rise in voters aged over 65. In Hove, by contrast, the exact reverse has occurred with spectacular long-term voting results.
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Post by hullenedge on Jun 27, 2020 14:43:53 GMT
Those are all very fair points. However, seats such as Leicestershire NW, Warwickshire North, Nuneaton and Cannock& Burntwood did swing heavily to the Tories in the 1980s - as did Mansfield and Ashfield. They then proceeded to swing back to Labour in the 1990s - and post -1997 appeared to have reverted to being safe Labour seats . Only since 2010 has there been an even sharper swing back to the Tories - most obviously at the elections of 2017 and 2019. By their nature , demographic changes only reveal themselves over an extended time period - they are very unlikely to explain why these seats voted so differently in 2017 and 2019 compared with 2015 and 2010.Many offer Brexit and Corbyn as the reason for such a shift - to the extent that that is true , their disappearance as salient factors surely removes the reason for the switch.You are saying that other factors are at work here which will not be reversed, but why the sudden shift? Merseyside has been drifting to Labour consistently since the late 1950s just as Southern Essex - including Havering and Barking - has been moving sharply towards the Tories since the late 1970s. Neither of those have been sudden changes- indeed they now extend - re-Merseyside - to a couple of generations.Both are very different - and less dramatic - than what we have seen in those Midlands seats in the space of just a few years. But we are talking about a very different set of voters. Indeed one of the things noted was that some of the seats which swung most away from Labour - I think Bishop Auckland was cited - was the reduction in the proportion of younger voters. I would also say that some of the seats lost this time have been drifting away from Labour for a while. There have been some new middle class voters in places like Rother Valley and NE Derbyshire. But also a loosening of tribal ties to Labour in the smaller towns. Those ties remain as strong in the cities but some of them have also seen population shifts - more young voters, students, BME, people with left wing attitudes. Whereas some of the places I have mentioned contain voters with historical family ties to Labour but quite right wing social attitudes Sounds flip but London sucks a certain type of younger voter from the North.
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Post by justin124 on Jun 27, 2020 14:47:43 GMT
Those are all very fair points. However, seats such as Leicestershire NW, Warwickshire North, Nuneaton and Cannock& Burntwood did swing heavily to the Tories in the 1980s - as did Mansfield and Ashfield. They then proceeded to swing back to Labour in the 1990s - and post -1997 appeared to have reverted to being safe Labour seats . Only since 2010 has there been an even sharper swing back to the Tories - most obviously at the elections of 2017 and 2019. By their nature , demographic changes only reveal themselves over an extended time period - they are very unlikely to explain why these seats voted so differently in 2017 and 2019 compared with 2015 and 2010.Many offer Brexit and Corbyn as the reason for such a shift - to the extent that that is true , their disappearance as salient factors surely removes the reason for the switch.You are saying that other factors are at work here which will not be reversed, but why the sudden shift? Merseyside has been drifting to Labour consistently since the late 1950s just as Southern Essex - including Havering and Barking - has been moving sharply towards the Tories since the late 1970s. Neither of those have been sudden changes- indeed they now extend - re-Merseyside - to a couple of generations.Both are very different - and less dramatic - than what we have seen in those Midlands seats in the space of just a few years. But we are talking about a very different set of voters. Indeed one of the things noted was that some of the seats which swung most away from Labour - I think Bishop Auckland was cited - was the reduction in the proportion of younger voters. I would also say that some of the seats lost this time have been drifting away from Labour for a while. There have been some new middle class voters in places like Rother Valley and NE Derbyshire. But also a loosening of tribal ties to Labour in the smaller towns. Those ties remain as strong in the cities but some of them have also seen population shifts - more young voters, students, BME, people with left wing attitudes. Whereas some of the places I have mentioned contain voters with historical family ties to Labour but quite right wing social attitudes Interesting point re-more middle class voters, but it is worth pointing out that - across GB as a whole - such voters now tend to be much less Tory than was true back in the 60s and 70s. Many former Tory voters from such demographic groups have been alienated by the vulgarity of extreme populism seen in the modern Tory party.
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Post by Merseymike on Jun 27, 2020 15:02:18 GMT
But we are talking about a very different set of voters. Indeed one of the things noted was that some of the seats which swung most away from Labour - I think Bishop Auckland was cited - was the reduction in the proportion of younger voters. I would also say that some of the seats lost this time have been drifting away from Labour for a while. There have been some new middle class voters in places like Rother Valley and NE Derbyshire. But also a loosening of tribal ties to Labour in the smaller towns. Those ties remain as strong in the cities but some of them have also seen population shifts - more young voters, students, BME, people with left wing attitudes. Whereas some of the places I have mentioned contain voters with historical family ties to Labour but quite right wing social attitudes Sounds flip but London sucks a certain type of younger voter from the North. And all the Northern cities from the smaller towns
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Post by yellowperil on Jun 27, 2020 15:19:41 GMT
But we are talking about a very different set of voters. Indeed one of the things noted was that some of the seats which swung most away from Labour - I think Bishop Auckland was cited - was the reduction in the proportion of younger voters. I would also say that some of the seats lost this time have been drifting away from Labour for a while. There have been some new middle class voters in places like Rother Valley and NE Derbyshire. But also a loosening of tribal ties to Labour in the smaller towns. Those ties remain as strong in the cities but some of them have also seen population shifts - more young voters, students, BME, people with left wing attitudes. Whereas some of the places I have mentioned contain voters with historical family ties to Labour but quite right wing social attitudes Sounds flip but London sucks a certain type of younger voter from the North. ftfy
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Post by tonygreaves on Jun 27, 2020 16:59:41 GMT
I don't think you understand what has been happening for a decade or more and came to a head in December. It will take a lot more than a few policy changes to significantly reverse what happened. I would not think that a London-based and charisma-light establishment intellectual like Starmer is the man to do it.
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Survation
Jun 27, 2020 17:25:20 GMT
via mobile
Post by Merseymike on Jun 27, 2020 17:25:20 GMT
I don't think you understand what has been happening for a decade or more and came to a head in December. It will take a lot more than a few policy changes to significantly reverse what happened. I would not think that a London-based and charisma-light establishment intellectual like Starmer is the man to do it. I don't want to reverse it. I don't like broad church parties Prefer Labour to recognise the need for electoral reform. And more parties could then legitimately survive.
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Post by matureleft on Jun 27, 2020 19:46:54 GMT
I don't think you understand what has been happening for a decade or more and came to a head in December. It will take a lot more than a few policy changes to significantly reverse what happened. I would not think that a London-based and charisma-light establishment intellectual like Starmer is the man to do it. Hmm. That must be why Blair went down so well in these parts, and then seemingly Cameron and Johnson. They like public schoolboys? Oxford Alumni?
Having lived in the part of the world we are talking about for 20 years I'd suggest that the issues go deeper than the identity of any leader. Starmer is a small part of the solution but I would hope that he utilises his team properly. Others would be better at communicating Labour's message in small town, ex-industrial settings. I'd also hope that he considers these issues (not all of which have solutions, and not all of which are unique to these areas):
- the decline of previously-seen-as-permanent male (and I emphasise that) employment that carried recognition and some status locally and its substitution with low skill, low paid, often temporary, low status work
Plenty to work on. On the positives, in my experience, there are people who are interested in solutions and prepared to work hard for them.
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Post by andrewp on Jul 7, 2020 13:36:50 GMT
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Jack
Reform Party
Posts: 8,079
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Post by Jack on Jul 13, 2020 15:38:39 GMT
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Post by Andrew_S on Aug 4, 2020 14:50:47 GMT
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mboy
Liberal
Listen. Think. Speak.
Posts: 22,173
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Post by mboy on Aug 4, 2020 15:08:56 GMT
The changes on those new figures don't correlate with the poll just above it...
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Aug 4, 2020 15:27:30 GMT
The changes on those new figures don't correlate with the poll just above it... rounding (36.4 (rounded down to 36) less 34.6 (rounded up to 35) is 1.8 (rounded to 2)
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hengo
Conservative
Posts: 1,689
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Post by hengo on Aug 4, 2020 15:54:54 GMT
I’m surprised that the gap hasn’t narrowed much more I must say ( or at all after the initial boost for Labour from ridding themselves of Corbyn). Of course the impact of the growing unemployment figures as the effects of Covid measures has yet to be felt. That may change things but I’m not sure. It’s difficult to see Labour convincing many that they would be more effective in managing the economy.
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