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THREAD: Why Boris wants to ramp up the culture war over statues and why he might not succeed.

There’s a lot of talk about statues at the moment, not least from the PM who tweeted on Friday that tearing them down “would be to lie about our history"
Yesterday, in a Daily Telegraph article Boris claimed he would “resist with every breath in my body any attempt to remove that statue [of Churchill].” This is a straw man, almost nobody is calling for Churchill to be removed from Parliament Square.
The BLM campaign is actually about structural racism and the public overwhelmingly agree that British society is at least slightly racist (@YouGov says only 6% think it’s not racist at all). Hence the announcement of *another* Commission to look at racial inequality.
But Boris wants to focus on statues because the public is more divided, particularly along Remain/Leave lines. Remainers (who tend to be socially liberal) are more likely to approve of pulling down statues than Leavers (who tend to be socially conservative). @OpiniumResearch
Focusing on splits over cultural values is broadly helpful to the Tories. The GE2019 Tory vote is very divided on left-right economics, a surprisingly high number hold fairly left-wing views. What tends to unite them is that they are likely to be social conservatives.
By contrast the Labour vote is much more united around economic issues (nearly all Labour voters are left wing) but they have very disparate views on liberalism versus social conservatism.
At the last election, the Tories picked up a number of socially conservative ex-Lab voters unhappy about Corbyn and/or Brexit. In the absence of Corbyn and with Brexit “done” (!) it makes sense for the Tories to continue to focus on cultural values to keep hold of those voters.
But the Labour leadership is sensibly not playing ball. Starmer has not supported the spontaneous pulling down of statues. Meanwhile the events of the weekend have shown moderate voters just how nasty conflicts stoked up around culture and social values can get.
Despite Johnson’s efforts, the Covid crisis continues to be the most important issue. And Britons are surprisingly united over Covid. Lockdown needed a collective sacrifice, which overwhelmingly Britons were prepared to make, regardless of political viewpoint - unlike in the US.
Lockdown remains a popular policy, and not just among liberal Remain-y types. Most people, including a majority of Leave voters, currently think that the government is moving too fast to end the lockdown. From @OpiniumResearch.
Initial high levels of support for the government’s handling of the crisis *are* breaking down, but the divides are principally along party lines, with a smaller gap between Remainers and Leavers. Leavers are more likely to support the government, but…
…they are more likely to be Tory voters in the first place.

Just looking at Labour voters, Leavers and Remainers both disapprove of the government in large numbers. So the government isn't getting a free pass from more socially conservative voters.
So whilst coronavirus remains the biggest issue and with the Labour leadership refusing to fall into a statue-shaped trap, then the government is likely to go on being judged on principally on competence, and *not* on which side it takes in a culture war. (@OpiniumResearch)
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