I have to admit my shoulders slumped when I read Fridays election results. Though this is the first parliamentary vote since the pandemic, and will be seen as judgement of its management, there is far more than this to the result. I remember over my years, several Conservatives suggesting their main role was to keep Labour out of power, indeed I remember one MP saying that he would like the Labour Party destroyed. Is this wish near to being fulfilled?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the loss of Hartlepool to the Conservatives, a seismic shock by any consideration, we now have to ask ourselves if, despite living in a democracy, if we are living in a one party state? Even if not, the political map is changing \u2013 so I have to ask myself the question – what the hell has happened?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The Incumbent effect<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The most obvious thing about the election is that the incumbents in Scotland, Wales and England have all done unusually well. The pandemic is coming to an end (fingers crossed on that), the vaccination roll out has been popular and this makes it hard for the opposition to make headway. Though it went against Trump, it has helped Johnson. It seems the some incompetent decision making has been forgiven as an air of optimism and positive pandemic news, at least in the UK encourages voters to give incumbents an electoral pat on the back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Small town effect. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
People in places like Hartlepool, and many other former Labour strongholds across the countries are in limbo. They have lost their traditional heavy industrial and manufacturing\u00a0industries which put bread on the table, created community structure even if some working conditions were savage. Close ties between working populations, their unions and Labour created the red wall seats traditionally out of bounds to Tories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Old jobs have been replaced by low pay de-unionised occupations. Small cogs in the \u201cJust in Time\u2019 production and delivery systems, warehousing, call centres jobs, and perhaps those in the delicate hospitality sector. The public sector remains the bedrock of decent jobs, though with increasing levels of stress for NHS staff and educators. Elsewhere, pay is low, jobs are insecure and prospect poor. Unemployment is at 9.4% and hitting the young hardest – 33% of disadvantaged youth are not in a job, education or training. Cash strapped local Labour MP\u2019s and councils get the blame. Despite much of this being driven by Conservative policy, voters see it as time for a change. This has been a long process and indeed Hartlepool would have been lost to Labour last time if it was not for the Brexit Party snaffling Tory votes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Conservatives have been long been embedded in rural constituencies, now it seem, in smaller towns too, leaving the cities to Labour. The political map of the UK is a blue sheet with red dots.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leadership<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Corby supporters will remind Starmer that the Labour party won Hartlepool elections twice while he was leader. Its not that simple. In 2017 he was fighting a diminished Teresa May and her awful campaign. In 2019 the vote against Labour was split by the Brexit party and both were in General elections with a higher turnout. Starmer supporters will claim a long Corbyn effect which was at its most negative in former red wall seats. We have to remember that the majority of voters did not bother to express a view \u2013 with a turnout of 45%, the reality is that one in 5 voters in Hartlepool chose Tory and for the whole population of 93,000, the 15,000 who voted Tory achieved this “landslide” with the support of just 15% of the population<\/em><\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So people in Hartlepool have not turned blue. This means that tiny margins matter and a small but significant number of voters prefer an incompetent but affable failed journalist to a brilliant if starchy barrister.\u00a0 Call this the Cummings effect when small blocks of voters, reached through social media, make big differences. With Labour voters staying at home, and the Conservatives no longer having to contend with losing votes to UKIP or the Brexit party, perhaps the result is not such a surprise after all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Central Government is putting funds into red wall seats where there are Conservative Mayors and MP\u2019s and Teesside is an example. There they have taken the local airport into public ownership, (!) made Teesside a free port and brought some civil service jobs to the area,\u00a0\u00a0bolstering the appeal of northern Conservative MP\u2019s and Mayors who are seen as getting things done after years of Labour stringency. This is achieved by selectively using the Towns Funds to increase political popularity of Conservative councils, Mayors and MP’s and make slogans targeting Labour like: \u201cThey\u2019ve down nowt; kick then out!” effective electoral tools. Conservatives take over and cash flows in as a part of the \u201clevelling up\u201d agenda\u201d. More votes next time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The moment I heard the result of the EU referendum, my first realisation was the problem this posed for Labour and their bedrock of\u00a0\u00a0support in Brexit supporting areas. Some Brexit supporters were emboldened by fear and hatred of immigration, that ancient and forever false scapegoat for economic downturn. Labour supported the EU and lost. The Tories did too, but replaced their leadership with Brexiteers to which the disaffected red wall voters have warmed. The anti-foreign theme has worked and left Labour losing enough votes to see the red wall collapse, perhaps for ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A flag shrouded nostalgia of a Greater Britain, emboldened by the vaccination campaign and oblivious to the pernicious effects of Empire and our diminishing role in the world seems to have an appeal which masks the harsher realities of where we are. Perhaps this little England approach makes cutting aid to the poorest in the world while spending billions on antiquated defence nuclear systems an electoral winner. The Patriot card might seem to work, but not so much with the emerging young and will hardly wash as our problems mount up.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I remember from my own spell on the factory floor and from studying and working in South Yorkshire during the miners strike that Unions were the glue that provided strength, unity, support, education and in many cases a social life in Red Wall constituencies. They provided the machinery for wage earners to have a voice. Trade Unions are associated with better health outcomes for the population and reduce inequality though collective bargaining. Their demise is not without consequences in terms of the day to day working life of millions of people and their demise has been critical for the success of Conservatives and their backers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Any study of the history of labour relations tells of the critical role of unions in improving the life of employees. Unions have been a force for good, a source of income for the Labour Party and a continual irritant to low quality employers and free market Conservatives whose policies have intentionally diminished the collective function of unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is the internet, and Cummings realisation that elections can be transformed by small swings in key voters, influenced by tapping into the frustrations and cynicism of the significant number of people who usually don\u2019t vote at all. The Brexit campaign manipulated the understandable anger people feel towards the establishment and can be fuelled by targeting online information to specific sectors of voters. It is evident this has happened with the Brexit vote as well as Trumps victory in the US and may be behind the election of Bolsonaro and Modi too.\u00a0Having a Brexiteer government will win some seats, though it might lose others. \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the election we heard little of how we are going to recover from the pandemic and \u201cpay back\u201d the hundreds of billions of debt incurred. Nor were the crises of heath and social care addressed much, and unmet promises of their integration unexplored. Climate change, or destruction of the atmosphere, seas and land hardly got a look in and when they did were framed in the usual reassuring platitudes. These issues don\u2019t make voters feel comfortable and speaking honestly about them is largely left to the Green party<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there is the pandemic. The management of COVID19 has been littered with incompetence which has given the UK a dismal record, both in terms of deaths, suffering and economic consequences. The Government have had well publicised daily briefings for some time which has given Boris Johnson and many of his ministers free publicity. Conservative ministers have become familiar to large numbers of people they would been invisible to if not for the pandemic. We have seen Johnson, Hancock, Sunak and the others literally hundreds of times more than their counterparts in the Opposition.\u00a0The restrictions, a quiet Parliament, an inexperienced shadow front bench drawn from a diminishing stock of Labour MP\u2019s\u00a0were by comparison invisible. The political lessons from the pandemic; poverty is unaffordable and public services work, has not been driven home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The timing of the vaccination, programme has been coincidentally beneficial for the Conservatives. This is despite being developed by public investment and mainly delivered by the public sector. At the end of the third wave, there is a mood of optimism which favours the incumbents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However you might see the outcome of these elections, I fear they are not good news for democracy. For the reasons above, it can be easily seen that the Conservatives are planning for a decade or more in Government. Blair and Brown are fading from memory. Not a one party state exactly, but approaching it. This means that the government will be emboldened to behave as they wish. The Chumocracy will expand and become embedded as a means of getting things done. More powers will shift away from near bankrupt local councils unless, as I mentioned above, they are in seats strategically important for the Conservatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n All this of course, is enabled by a largely uncritical, very supportive mainstream media. Even the BBC, under constant threat as public service broadcaster, have to tread carefully as they know they have the Conservative cross-hairs on their back. Debate is not so much stifled as eternally manipulated.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/drbannonsblog.aprendo.co.uk\/drbannonsblog_wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/leaders-.jpg\")
Buying votes.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Brexit<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Trade Unions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nInformation technology<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Avoiding the issues<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The vaccination election<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Democracy with a smaller d.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Conclusions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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