[spireitematt]

I stay off for a few days and weeks and everything seems to kick off.

Going back to the Labour Party, I bought a book off Amazon called 'The Fall Of The Red Wall' and it's about Labour areas turning Conservative in 2019. This hasn't happened because of Jeremy Corbyn or Brexit, Labour losing votes in these 'Red Wall' seats have been happening since 2005. Under Thatcher and Blair we lost 6-8 million jobs in manufacturing and a lot of these places in the Midlands, Yorkshire, North East and North West where the manufacturing jobs were the backbone of these places. These jobs disappeared meaning it left people unemployed and having to move out of these areas and towns to find work but it also meant people had less money meaning the town centres and shops became run down, it's had a domino affect. There is a North/South divide but there is also a Cities vs Everywhere else divide.

Labour took for granted the votes of these areas and the people thinking they would always vote Labour no matter what. Labour moved from the trade unions and standing up for the 'traditional working class' and tried to go after the Middle class, London elite and young professionals vote and the party has moved as well as everything now seems to be focused on London, inner cities, students and the middle classes.

The manufacturing jobs in the Midlands, Yorkshire, North East and North West have been replaced by call centre's, care work or retail work which doesn't pay enough for people to live on. The people who live in these areas are having to leave these places behind and move to cities like London, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield etc to find work or move to an area where they can commute to work. It's not just jobs though there has been a lack of investment by local Government into facilities in these areas as well. Due to young people moving out of these areas to inner cities to find work and socialise it has meant that the people left behind in the areas have been retirees and retirees are more likely to vote Conservative where the younger generation are more likely to vote Labour.

What I found also interesting in the book is that there are more floating voters now then ever before. Also people don't make the jump from Labour to Conservative without UKIP. So these voters who used to vote Labour would go from Labour to UKIP to Conservative. Also the 2016 referendum helped the Conservatives because the 2016 referendum brought out voters who wouldn't normally vote or were disenfranchised and these people were more likely to vote Leave but they also voted Conservative in 2019. A similar thing happened in Scotland after the 2014 Scottish Indy referendum, people who never voted or were disenfranchised voted Yes in 2014 and these same people voted for the SNP in 2015. People who vote for SNP only vote SNP for independence as they like Labour's economic plans but don't want the Union. Also in Scotland and in Europe there is a vote for 2nd preferences and they think there is some sort of theory that if you choose a party as a 2nd preference then you maybe swayed to vote for them in a General Election depending on how positive you think that party is.

Anyway I'm half way through it but it's very interesting.