There is a new poll out today which shows that the red wall is collapsing. A year ago in traditionally Labour seats like Wrexham, where I live, the Tories were on 48% with Labour on 39%. Now Labour leads by 47% to 41%. Of course, there are four years to the next election but MPs such as the ghastly Sarah Atherton, in these parts, should see that the writing is on the wall. Like so many folks here in Wrexham handed P45s thanks to insane lockdown policies – supported by silly Sarah –, folks like Ms Atherton will themselves be encountering a P45 in due course.
Not all of this slippage is the fault of Boris Johnson and his careerist loyalists such as Ms Atherton. Some folks lent the Tories their vote just to get Brexit done. We hope that will not be an issue next time, so those loaned votes were always going home.
Some Labour folks were so repelled by the extremist woke agenda of Comrade Corbyn that they could not vote Labour. In these parts, we do not want our kids brought up to be gender fluid, learning to sing songs by Hamas and taking a knee to whatever is the cause of the day. Smug Tories thought this was a long-term cultural shift. I am not so sure. Sir Keir Starmer is obviously far less bonkers than Corbyn and folks will perceive Labour in a different way as a result.
Meanwhile, a net 51% of red wall voters still think the Tories look after the rich. No more than 15 people at an outdoor wake, 30 at a grouse shoot – of course that is fair on all say the party of privilege. Yesterday’s Grant Shappes move looking after rich travellers and the obsession with Eton and free speech and silence on the manifest failings of state schooling will only reinforce that view.
And the poll also showed that a net 10% of those polled agreed with the view that the Tories do not share the respondent’s values and a net 9% thought the Tories do not deal with matters that concern them. Princess Nut Nuts might push Boris into bringing in more green measures & pushing a pro trans agenda but what folks in the red wall seats actually care about is surging unemployment, failing schools and other bread and butter issues.
Rather patronisingly – as is their wont -, the Tories talk of showering money on “levelling up” grand projects. Here you are poor people; here are a few crumbs from our table; I hope you appreciate it like good fellows.
But just because we did not all go to Eton and Harrow followed by three years at Oxbridge, we bumpkins from outside the great Cities do know whose money it is that is being spent. It is ours! And we’d rather spend it ourselves and have the lockdown obsessed Government get off the back of business.
We out in the boonies see a Police force that will arrest Santa for being on a march of more than two people objecting to lockdown but taking a knee to a BLM March. We sense this is not a Police force that shares our values though Boris and Nut Nuts might not argue that an increasingly woke Met is becoming far more diverse and inclusive.
The arrogant Tories may not be to blame for all of this enormous swing but they are to blame for a good bit of it. They have four years to mend their ways before folk such as Ms Atherton suffer an inevitable fate. But can you see any sign of contrition on their part?