[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

An excellent analysis, imo.

OB, Andrew is referring to the minds of the red wall voters.

Here is the original publication. It's more about the average British voter than just the red wall subset.
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/upl...values-gap.pdf

"The UK in a Changing Europe is an impartial and independent organisation created to make the findings of academic research easily available to the widest possible audience."

---------- Post added at 15:33 ---------- Previous post was at 15:28 ----------

Originally Posted by Pierre

It is the descent into wokeness I think people are getting sick of, when what they want is jobs, regeneration and security.

What do you think of this analysis?

The voters, then, are not that keen on right-wing economics. So why do they keep voting for politicians who are? That’s where the culture war comes in. Get people worked up about political correctness, persuade them that woke liberals will take the country to hell in a handcart and at least some of them will vote for you even if they don’t like your rich men’s economic policy.

For Conservative politicians, the culture war is also an incredibly cheap way of getting votes. People still think you are socially conservative even if there is quite a lot of evidence to the contrary, which means you don’t actually have to deliver anything.

That most right-wing of prime ministers, Margaret Thatcher, did very little for the socially conservative voter. As James Ball noted after her death:

The legacy of Thatcher’s social conservatism is modest: Britain is, by and large, a nation marrying less, more accepting of homosexuality, and more accepting of people of other races.

In the 1980s the Conservatives even shied away from illiberal legislation that would have been overwhelmingly popular, such as the re-introduction of capital punishment. The liberal policies initiated during the 1960s, and the social changes that went with them, continued apace. Conservative politicians may have railed against ‘political correctness’ but they didn’t do much about it. Racist and sexist language that would have passed unremarked in 1979 was considered unacceptable by the time John Major left office. Margaret Thatcher might have talked tough talk on immigration but she did little to change the existing laws. Corporal punishment in schools was abolished by her government in 1987.

https://flipchartfairytales.wordpres...e-culture-war/

---------- Post added at 15:42 ---------- Previous post was at 15:33 ----------

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I can’t see Sir Kier himself ever making Prime Minister. His views don’t align with what Labour voters think and want and he is bland and uninteresting. I hope he leads Labour for many decades to come.

You can't win elections by just appealing to Labour or Conservative supporters. You need some cross-over appeal.