Beyond the Red Wall by Mattinson Deborah;

Author:Mattinson, Deborah;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

She believes that the Tories were able to connect with these values, while ‘Labour seemed to be shouting, “You’re wrong”, rather than starting from where people are and trying to understand them’.

Finally, there was the offer. Labour promised a cornucopia of goodies so extensive as to be offering people stuff that they didn’t even know they wanted, such as the much mocked ‘free Wi-Fi’. Labour left the perception that they had failed to set clear objectives and, more crucially, had failed to cost their programme. The Conservatives, now much better trusted on the economy, had far less to prove, but, with their streamlined manifesto and clear messaging on the NHS (more nurses) and, most of all, on Brexit, it was easier to see how they won the day. In hindsight, it seems that the clarity of the Brexit message alone might have been enough. This, and the subsequent achievement in passing the Withdrawal Bill, was seen as a positive even by the minority of Red Wallers who had voted Remain. Karen, a Remain voter from Stoke, said, ‘We’d reached the point where we really did need to just get Brexit done. We’d been swimming round and round in circles.’ Meanwhile Justine, in the same Stoke focus group and also a Remainer, observed wryly, ‘We’d broken enough eggs – now we had to make the omelette.’

The first three months tends to be as good as it gets for a new PM. The first focus groups and interviews that I ran for this book were all held through February and early March 2020. Boris Johnson was still in his post-euphoria, pre-delivery honeymoon period. Those new working-class voters, even if they had held their noses to vote in the first instance, now seemed to have forgotten their own discomfort and come round to Johnson, and most professed to be comfortable with their decision. After the election, BritainThinks re-interviewed undecided voters who had voted Tory and found that, despite reservations, many had concluded Johnson was the right man for the moment. He was seen to be ‘focused and determined’, especially in fixing the mess that the politicians on both sides of the House had caused. I also heard again and again how he was less snobbish and elitist than the Tory Party as a whole. When I queried how an Oxbridge Old Etonian could understand people from very different backgrounds, I was told that his warmth and positivity meant that he ‘liked people’. His ‘buffoon act’ showed that he lacked self-consciousness, his spontaneity signalled that he was authentic and down to earth, even if he is posh.

The other recurring theme was about Johnson’s positivity. Against a backdrop of despair about the whole political class, he seemed to radiate hope. ‘He’s like a light at the end of the tunnel,’ said one. ‘Corbyn was all gloom and doom, but Boris deserves a chance cos he’s so positive. You want to believe him.’ Back in early 2020, Red Wall voters’ optimism was often vague and lacked

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