The Tories and the North

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

In front of me there’s a new map of UK constituencies. It’s very blue. That doesn’t concern me unduly – Tory strength in large rural constituencies means the map always looks very blue – but what red remains is clustered into certain areas – South Wales, Scotland, London, South Yorkshire, and the North East.

It’s the North East in particular that fascinates me. No matter how far I get from it, it will always be my home, and I care passionately about what happens there. Obviously then I’m delighted that it’s still a Labour stronghold – how couldn’t I be? If the Tories couldn’t make a breakthrough in the North East (or Scotland, South Wales etc.) this time, when could they?

Why is it then that the Tories can’t break through in the North East? Demographics no doubt play a part, as does tradition. Voting patterns are as ingrained in someone from the North East as their football team – you’re likely to vote the same way as your parents, who voted the same was as their parents and so on.

It has been suggested that the North East doesn’t vote Tory due to the percentage of people in the area working in public services – but this is cobblers, confuses cause and effect, and helps to explain where the Tories are going wrong. James Forsyth in the Spectator suggests that the Chancellor is seeking to create “enclaves of entrepreneurship”, and breed Tory voters in areas of pronounced Labour support. This is unlikely to work, and as public sector workers in the region get laid off, only to find benefits slashed as they search for jobs that aren’t there, it’s likely to make the Tories an even less appetising prospect. The truth is that they simply don’t realise how people in much of the North feel about them.

There is an innate distrust of Tories in the North East – fuelled by the miners’ strike, but it predates that – and a sense that they are in some way different. Certainly there is a feeling that the Conservative party is a Southern party that represents the views and interests of people “down south”. For many it goes beyond distrust into hatred, especially in old mining communities, and areas ravaged by the loss of manufacturing industries and the rise of call centres to replace them.

The Labour party has done a lot for the area, which I think people have realised and responded to. Areas like Gateshead will have been amongst the biggest beneficiaries of policies like the minimum wage, and the future jobs fund – and to see how the skyline of Newcastle has evolved over the past decade is a testament to Labour’s concentration on regeneration, and the work of RDAs like One North East. It really does feel like a different – better – place to the one I grew up in.

That is not to say that the North East was unreservedly happy with Labour in government – Labour became too distant, politically and economically, and remained too London focussed. Despite the North East being represented in the cabinet from 1997 onwards, it always felt, and still feels today that, as Gateshead MP Ian Mearns said in Parliament:

“when the United States sneezes, the UK catches cold and the North East of England gets pneumonia.”

When voters in the North East became disillusioned with Labour though, they rarely turn to the Tories. Like in central London, the Liberal Democrats expand to fill a void created by Labour – taking Newcastle council and in May overturning a 12,000 majority in Redcar. Now they are allied with the Tories it suddenly seems unimaginable that voters opposed to the Tories but turned off by Labour could turn to the Lib Dems – we need to find ways to capture their support again – or lose generations of voters forever.

At times during the budget on Thursday it seemed that Osborne was trying to throw a bone to the people of Newcastle, Gateshead and Sunderland. The extension of the Tyne and Wear Metro, and help for businesses setting up outside of London and the South East are positive measures – but they don’t compete with the game changing investment and regeneration the North East has seen under Labour – and it’ll take a lot more than that to win over what have proved to be some pretty loyal Labour voters.