Labour and the Conservatives have been drawn more or less level in the polls for some time now, and Labour seem incapable of pulling firmly ahead - despite the government's endless buggering up of things. Why? I've got a theory, and I'm going to use my father as the example...
My father has voted Labour in the past. He's a working class man from a working class family. He lives in a council house. He's worked all his life, but lost his job after Covid hit, and was furious to discover he couldn't get a damn thing from Universal Credit.
He's got some significant health issues and so does his partner. They both rely on the NHS. He's very worried about climate change. In every respect he ought to be a slam dunk Labour voter. But instead he thinks Boris Johnson is great and voted Tory at the last election. Why?
Because he's afraid of change. And the world is changing fast. Suddenly he's being accused of racism for the same jokes he used to tell loudly and unchallenged down the pub (accurately btw, he is racist, although of course he doesn't think so).
Suddenly women don't laugh at him calling them 'wench' anymore. In fact they get angry about it. He's forced to see gay people on his television, and he doesn't like that either. He's getting old, and he's really not a fan of that, and who to blame but the young?
In Labour he doesn't see a party who will help him through his unemployment. Who will ensure he always has a roof over his head. Who will see to it he doesn't have to wait months for an important hospital appointment. Instead sees a party who are for 'them'.
'Them' being everyone who doesn't think like him. And that perception isn't Labour's fault. Labour shouldn't pander to prejudice. That he thinks like this is the fault of the Daily Mail, and social media - which he is increasingly addicted to.
In the Tories - who have left him high and dry when he most needed help - he sees the people who will shut 'them' up. Who play with ease on his angry white-van-man brand of patriotism, where it's not about loving your country so much as it's about wanting it to crush all others.
And that's the essential heart of it. To him, the Tories love Britain and want it to thrive. They will put Europe in its place, will play Rule Britannia, will give him something to be proud of. Labour? Labour will just accelerate Britain's decline into namby pamby wokeism.
Again I stress, I don't think this is particularly Labour's fault. Corbynism undoubtedly made it *worse*, but the perception was already there. I don't want to see Labour shaft minority groups to win round assholes like my dad. Does anyone?
I don't know what the answer is. I guess in a very long winded way I'm just making the point that thinking people will abandon the Tories for Labour because they're personally suffering because of Tory incompetence is naive. Patriotism is a hell of a drug.
"Us v Them" hatred is a hell of a drug. And right now the Tories have both those weapons well in hand and aren't shy about using them. Labour have a mountain to climb.
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