Patrick O’Flynn Patrick O’Flynn

Hartlepool and the theft of the Labour party

Keir Starmer (photo: Getty)

When the unthinkable happened in 1882 and England lost a test match on home soil to Australia there followed a mock obituary in the Sporting Times.

‘In Affectionate Remembrance of English Cricket, which died at the Oval on 29 August 1882, deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances,’ it read, adding that: ‘The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.’

It will be tempting to compose something similar on behalf of the Labour party should it be defeated by the Conservatives in the Hartlepool parliamentary by-election later this week. The most appropriate destination for the ashes would surely be the chichi London neighbourhood of party leader Sir Keir Starmer.

A constituency poll conducted in Hartlepool by Survation indicates that Labour is on course for a spectacular defeat in a seat it has held ever since its inception – even in the Tory landslide of December 2019. A predicted result envisaging the Conservatives winning a 50 per cent vote share, compared to just 33 per cent for Labour, would be truly seismic were it to occur.

Other polls showing similarly catastrophic Labour results could be on the way in other parts of what we once referred to as the ‘red wall’. The pollster Opinium has the Tories beating Labour in the Tees Valley mayoral contest by 63 to 37 per cent. It also shows the Conservative Andy Street way ahead of Labour’s Liam Byrne in the West Midlands mayoral election, with Street potentially winning easily on the first round by 54 to 37 per cent.

If these polls are accurate – or even just in the right ballpark – then a long-term structural political realignment that is devastatingly disadvantageous to Labour is taking place. December 2019 will be seen not as an aberration but as a mere staging post.

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