Who is popular today?

This fractured election will leave no one party speaking for the nation
The fanfare at the launch of a general election tends to obscure the reality that Britain’s voting system involves hundreds of very particular local elections.
That constituency variation, combined with unusual volatility in party identification, makes the poll due on 12 December highly unpredictable. Brexit has shuffled conventional loyalties, forcing the Conservatives in particular to seek support on unfamiliar terms. A recent report by the Conservative thinktank Onward identifies “rugby league towns” – places such as Workington, Warrington and Wakefield – as the arena for a new type of political contest. These are places weighed down by economic and social insecurity. They voted leave in 2016 and Labour a year later. Conventional Thatcherite Toryism, preaching liberation through individual enterprise, has little purchase there. But Boris Johnson needs to advance on that front to compensate for a pro-EU migration to the Liberal Democrats in seats that used to be comfortably Tory. Continue reading...