Spent a morning following Labour canvassers in Durham.
V mixed bag. People on doorstep bewildered and deeply hostile to politics.
Little enthusiasm for Labour. Anger with their Brexit position. Corbyn bigger problem. Lab’s only saving grace little enthusiasm for Tories either.
V mixed bag. People on doorstep bewildered and deeply hostile to politics.
Little enthusiasm for Labour. Anger with their Brexit position. Corbyn bigger problem. Lab’s only saving grace little enthusiasm for Tories either.
One man said he’d always been a Labour voter but this time he’d vote Conservative. Said he knew many people felt the same. “be prepared for big shocks at this election.”
Nonetheless that was relatively rare. More direct switchers from Lab to Brexit Party.
Nonetheless that was relatively rare. More direct switchers from Lab to Brexit Party.
Many others completely undecided. Some reflected Durham had been Labour too long but didn’t see it changing hands.
Recurrent theme was that of anger at what was going on in Parliament. That “they [politicians] only serve what is in their interests”. That democracy had been traduced. Also class overtones “people with accents like mine don’t matter. Even in the Labour Party.”
Active astonishment at Lib Dem position on revocation: “I just can’t believe they’d go back on a vote like that.”
But Corbyn was a bigger problem than Brexit on the Durham doorstep. Plenty saying variants of “he’s too left wing for me”. Nonetheless most of these people were now undecided. My sense was Corbyn could win them back, as 2017. But has to pull off same trick as he did then.
As for the Tories, little sense of big Labour/Tory defection. Plenty of slippage to the Brexit Party though and more still weighing it up. Boris Johnson was a problem for many potential Durham Tory voters: “I’d vote Tory if he didn’t act like such a silly public school boy.”
The weird thing about this election, based on this first week of campaigning, is both the votes of the Tory and Labour parties feel very soft to me.
