82 Britain The EconomistDecember 21st 2019
21vote Conservative than Labour dropped
from 47 in 2017 to just 39 this time round,
according to YouGov. Mr Johnson also
cleaned up among men. After a campaign
spent glad-handing chaps in hi-vis jackets
and, at one point, driving a digger through
a fake wall, the prime minister notched up
a 19-point lead over Labour among men,
compared with a six-point lead among
women. “Blue-collar men think [Labour]
are dreadful, sponging, effete wasters,”
says Simon Clarke, the Conservative mpfor
Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.
“It is just contempt.” The Tories may have a
woman problem, but they seem to have a
bloke solution.
The government thus rests on an unfa-
miliar electoral coalition living in parts of
the country that the Conservatives do not
know well. Mr Johnson’s strategy to keep
hold of these new voters has three parts:
more money, more power and more atten-
tion. The prime minister’s fiscal plans al-
low him to spend up to £80bn (3.8% of an-
nual gdp) on capital projects over the
coming parliament. Much of it will be on
high-profile projects outside the south-
east, such as “Northern Powerhouse Rail”,
which will better connect the north’s cities
and surrounding towns. The hitch is that
these take time. So projects that can be
done quickly will be favoured and shouted
about. Whereas a new railway can take de-
cades, bus services can be improved within
a few years, under existing laws. Likewise,
legislation to turn Teesport into a “free
port” with its own customs arrangements
could be tabled in 2020. Expect a visit from
a hard-hatted Mr Johnson if it is.
Handing power to local politicians is
also on the agenda. Mr Johnson’s allies like
reminding people that he is the first prime
minister to have also been an elected
mayor (of London, in 2008-16). But plans to
devolve power are often resisted most
fiercely by those whom they are supposed
to empower. Gateshead refused to join a
devolution project centred around New-
castle, on the other side of the Tyne. A plan
for Sheffield and its environs was watered
down. David Cameron, whose government
tried to get more English regions to adopt
elected mayors, was half-right when he
grumbled: “We just thought people in York-
shire hated everyone else. We didn’t realise
they hated each other so much.”
There are reasons for the Conservatives
to believe that the new electoral map may
last. Sedgefield nowadays has plenty of
swanky suburbs, where a Tory life of home-
and car-ownership can be lived cheaply.
Given their demography, many of the seats
that went blue in the recent election
should have had a higher Tory vote in the
first place. For many years people in the La-
bour-held north and Midlands were less
likely to vote Conservative than people
with identical characteristics who lived inthesouth,pointsout JamesKanagasoo-
riam,a Torypollster.Amixtureofhistory
andhabithelpedtokeeptheLabourvote
artificiallyhighintheseregions.In2019,
thankstoBrexitanda deeplyunpopularLa-
bourleader,thespellbroke.
YetthetwintailwindsofBrexitandJe-
remyCorbynwillnotalwaysbethereto
helptheTories.Oncetheyareremoved,the
newConservativealliancemayproveun-
stable.Thedaysoflifelongpartyloyaltyare
over,saysWillJenningsoftheUniversityof
Southampton, who has researched the
growingpoliticalgapbetweenBritain’scit-
iesanditstowns.“Arethesevotersgoingto
stickaround?”heasks.“That isthebig
question.” Unless theConservatives can
comeupwitha positiveanswer,another
partyleadermightendupgivinga victory
speechinMrJohnson’soldseat. 7P
ublic-service broadcasters always
come under fire during and after elec-
tion campaigns, and the bbcmore than
any. On the campaign trail Boris Johnson
threatened the licence fee, the charge on
viewers from which it gets most of its fund-
ing. Labour is now accusing it of bias
against its leader, Jeremy Corbyn. The bbc’s
defenders argue attacks from both sides
mean it must be getting things about right.
In normal times, tempers calm and the cor-
poration sails on to its next generous li-
cence-fee settlement.
But things look dangerous for the bbc
this time. The Tories’ anger is deep. Theirire stems not only from their view of it as
the Brexit Bashing Corporation (as Mr
Johnson calls it) but their leader’s treat-
ment by Andrew Neil. Before the election,
in a to-camera monologue that was widely
shared, the bbc’s most feared political in-
terviewer goaded and chastised the prime
minister for avoiding a grilling.
That has put the corporation in the
sights of Dominic Cummings, Mr John-
son’s revolutionary strategy chief. His
plans to shake up the civil service are well
known. The bbchas apparently become
another target. Its director-general, Lord
Hall, has recently been hauled in to see
him, according to people close to the
broadcaster. Mr Johnson has reportedly
banned cabinet ministers from appearing
on the flagship “Today” radio programme.
This week the government ordered a re-
view of whether non-payment of the li-
cence fee (currently set at an annual
£154.50, or $203) should cease to be a crimi-
nal offence. Decriminalisation would cost
the bbc£200m a year, it says. It would also
signal that the government sympathises
with those who have long attacked the li-
cence fee as an unfair, anachronistic tax.
Another unwelcome change from the
Conservatives, decided in 2015 in order to
achieve Treasury budget cuts, is about to
hit. In a few weeks’ time, well over 1m gran-
nies and grandads will be hearing from
Auntie. A letter will spell out that for the
first time in nearly two decades, over-75s
must cough up for the licence fee (people
with incomes of less than £167.25 a week
will be exempt).
In deciding which over-75s get free li-
cences and enforcing the system, the bbcis
in effect being obliged to take on the job of
the Department for Work and Pensions.
“There will be confrontations with mil-
lions of people and that will deeply hurt the
bbc’s brand,” says Claire Enders of Enders
Analysis, a media-research firm. The gov-
ernment could decide to keep free licences
for the over-75s and make the bbcpay for
them. That would mean a big cut—hun-
dreds of millions—to its licence-fee in-
come of £3.8bn, in addition to the cost of
decriminalisation of non-payment.
“The risk is that the walls close in on the
bbc,” says Ed Williams, a former director of
communications for the broadcaster who
runs Edelman, a public-relations firm, in
Europe. A mix of a big shift in politics, age-
ing audiences, the rise of video-streaming
services like Netflix and the threat of public
indifference is putting huge pressure on
the corporation, he says. Persuading young
people to watch and listen to the bbchas
long been a problem. The average age of a
bbc1 viewer is now 61. The most recent an-
nual review from Ofcom, the media regula-
tor, found that for the first time, fewer than
half (49%) of people aged 16 to 24 tuned in
to bbc tvchannels every week.The election’s aftermath is turning into
a nightmare for the bbcBoris and the BeebAgony Auntie