The people of the ‘Red Wall’, that band of loyal Labour constituencies across the north of England which crumbled under a Tory onslaught in the 2019 election have been rewarded, not with jobs or wealth but with a plague and with death.
A Tory leadership which they sadly thought might help them more than their complacent, incompetent, Labour predecessors had done over decades in power, has talked of ‘leveling-up‘ but instead has given them weak, confuse and inconsistent management of a pandemic strategy and a contracted-out contact-tracing system, both unreliable and distrusted by many of their people.
They now have infection and mortality rates many times higher than their neighbours in Scotland and in the more affluent parts of England to the south. Only London with its own poor Labour constituencies has suffered more death:
When they voted the Tories in, less than a year ago, I feared they would be disappointed but this harsh lesson, once the media have let them see it, is worse, far worse, than they deserve.
And now, heaping pain upon pain, they hear:
One in three working-age families in so-called “red wall” constituencies won by the Tories from Labour at the last election will be £1,000 a year worse off if government plans to cut universal credit benefit rates go ahead.
The potentially dramatic impact on low-income households’ in “left behind” former industrial areas in the north of England, Midlands, Northern Ireland and Wales is highlighted in an analysis by the Resolution Foundation thinktank.
The hit would fall disproportionately on families in areas the government has promised to “level up” economically. These include 62% of working-age households in Blackpool South, and 44% in Great Grimsby, Birmingham Northfield and West Bromwich West.
Friends in Blyth valley constituency were horrified it turned Tory in 2019. As if things aren’t bad enough for poorer regions of England. Didn’t some toff political trougher talk about a ‘northern powerhouse’ once upon a time. Sunderland huge population, voted for Brexit, it’s areas like that will be worst hit by Covid and Brexit, unemployment will be massive for a start. Still, it’s a few miles from Westminster so they don’t give a toss. It’s a tragedy and it’s deliberate, just as with Thatchers destruction of industry, ruining lives, destroying communities. Disenfranchise the people, kick them down when they are too much trouble, utterly criminal.
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Its OK. The Tories are to set up an Campaign Office in the North.
Will it be in BBC Salford, now the BBC chief is a card carrying Tory?
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My English (dad’s) side of the family live there and still voted Labour. Thankfully, none of them have caught the virus – yet.
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Some opinion polls are indicating that support for the Tories and approval of Mr Johnson’s handling of the epidemic still have high levels of approval and that support for Labour is below that of the Tories, even though across England, Labour seem to be edging ahead.
The main factor seems to be that people feel that Johnson is human and approachable and is ‘batting (As in cricket) for Britain’.
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