The Economist - USA (2019-12-21)

TheEconomistDecember 21st 2019 81

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A

fter securingthe biggest Conserva-
tive majority in a generation, there was
only one place for Boris Johnson to take a
victory lap: Sedgefield. The seat, a former
mining community with a mixture of mar-
ket towns and well-off suburbs on the edge
of Teesside, had been Labour since 1935. It
came with the added bonus of once being
held by Tony Blair. “I know that people may
have been breaking the voting habits of
generations to vote for us,” said Mr John-
son, managing to speak soberly while
dancing on Mr Blair’s political grave. “I will
repay your trust.”
About 1m habitual Labour voters backed
the Conservatives in the election on De-
cember 12th, according to Datapraxis, a
data-analysis company. The upshot was
that a wall of seats across the north and the
Midlands that had not voted Conservative
in decades—or ever—fell to Mr Johnson’s
party. Redcar, a Teesside town whose steel
mill shut down four years ago under the
Conservative government, swung by 15
points from Labour to the Tories. The Black
Country turned blue, with Mr Johnson
gaining seats in Wolverhampton and West
Bromwich. In all, the Conservatives won 54

seats from Labour. Now comes the trickier

task: keeping them.

The first step is to work out who these

new Tory voters are. An area of 25,000

square miles (65,000 square km) with

more than 25m people is not homogenous,

but a few common threads emerge. Most

gains came from Leave-voting towns on

the edges of more successful cities. The

Conservatives cleaned up among blue-col-

lar workers. There was a direct relationship

between the size of the swing to the Tories

and the number of people in blue-collar

jobs. Many of the gains came in places that

are poorer than typically Tory areas. Going

into the election, the average hourly wage

in a Tory-held seat was £15.40 ($20.30); in

the seats it won it is around £13.70, accord-

ing to the Resolution Foundation, a think-

tank. Before the election 17 Tory seats were

among the most deprived 25% of English

constituencies, according to Alasdair Rae

from Sheffield University. Now they have

35 (see chart).

Many of the seats where the Conserva-

tives broke through are ageing. The num-

ber of over-65s in Bishop Auckland, which

the Conservatives won for the first time,

has increased by a third since 1981, while

the number of 18- to 24-year-olds has fallen

by a quarter, according to the Centre for

Towns, another think-tank. This is good

news for a Conservative Party that won 57%

of the vote among over-60s and 67%

among over-70s, according to YouGov.

At the same time Mr Johnson made in-

roads among younger voters. The age at

which someone becomes more likely to

The new Conservative Party

What’s the story, northern Tories?

Who are the Conservatives’ new supporters, and what do they
want from Boris Johnson?

Tory turf

England,deprivationrankingandgeneralelectionresult

Byconstituency*, 2019

Sources:HouseofCommons;AlasdairRae,SheffieldUniversity *ExcludingSpeaker’sseat

← Least deprived

Most deprived→

To p

Quartiles

Bottom

Conservative Labour

Liberal Democrat Green

Seat changed

parties in 2019

Britain

82 Borisv theBBC

83 Roughsleeping

84 Bagehot: An appetite for power

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