Comments by "Cinderball" (@cinderball1135) on "Conservative Party losing support in northern ‘Red Wall’ areas" video.

  1. I just want to challenge the assertion right at the start - it wasn't that Labour voters swapped to the Tories - it was that a lot of Labour voters simply stayed home. Thousands who were reliable attendees at the polls didn't show up, perhaps in response to the controversies surrounding then-leader Jeremy Corbyn, and perhaps in response to Labour's lukewarm reaction to Brexit. I'm not saying I think Labour deserved to win the last election, or that it didn't - only challenging the framing of the facts, which was misleading. :)
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  2. @Adele K I'm looking through the results and comparing the difference between 2017 and 2019, and it's really hard to say that there was actually that much of a swing away from Labour direct to the Conservatives. The Conservatives gained around 3000 votes (going from 18,000 to 21,000), but Labour lost 8000 (going from 24,000 down to just 16,000), which seems to underscore my point, not yours. As I said originally, it's not that Labour voters converted en masse to the Tories - it's that Labour voters didn't turn up, or potentially voted for third parties (which amounts to the same thing).
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  3. @Adele K I should clarify then, I don't really mean to suggest anything more complex than that it is wrong to think that 8000 Labour voters swapped to the Conservatives, which is the impression one would get from listening to the beginning of this report. I framed it as saying that a lot of Labour voters stayed home, because that's an alternative narrative I've also heard, but that's probably just as shaky, in all fairness. If I were pressed, I'd just say that the results were messy, and I expect a combination of factors were responsible, rather than any one. Yes, I imagine Brexit was a key factor, but so too was the state of the leadership, and so too was the manifesto (which was populated with excellent policies, but too many for the average voter to have faith that it was serious). Of course, without stopping and interviewing every single Bolsover voter, it would be hard to know for sure, but this is why I should try to keep my assertions fairly tight and limited. I hope that makes sense. :)
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