Doing The Splits

At the 2016 referendum, the 10 most strongly Leave-voting seats and the 10 most strongly Remain-voting seats were all held by the Labour Party. A longstanding split in Labour's electorate, by no means only over one issue, was thrown into very sharp relief. Today, in much the same places, very much the same thing can be seen in relation to the Conservative Party.

In London, although there was no net change in its number of seats (or in anyone else's, oddly enough), that party had a better General Election than it had expected. It held seats that it had expected to lose, and on the swings and roundabouts it picked up seats that it had not expected to win. Meanwhile, it famously made large gains from Labour in Wales, the North and the Midlands.

And now, the London plague pit is in Tier 2, while almost all of the Red Wall seats are in the Tier 3, as if you were more likely to catch Covid-19 in Weardale or Teesdale, Bassetlaw or Bolsover, the Don Valley or the Rother Valley, then you were on Oxford Street, which is also in a Conservative-held constituency, in the run-up to Christmas.

This week, London may be put into Tier 3, and that may even mean a third national lockdown before rather than, as expected, after Christmas. But that is quite unlikely, based on past form. And no matter how low our R numbers were, do not expect us to be moved down into Tier 2, least of all if London had indeed been moved up.

Thank the Conservatives for this, while also thanking Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens for having abstained. Do not vote for any of them. But do vote. I am the Independent parliamentary candidate for North West Durham. What are you doing?