Convenience Big Store: Now the Tories need to look south

15 May, 2021

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Jon Connell

Editor-in-chief

UK politics

Matthew Williams-Ellis/Education Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Now the Tories need to look south

On the surface "the Tories are sitting pretty", says Sherelle Jacobs in The Daily Telegraph. As Boris Johnson leads their "remorseless advance into former socialist heartlands", there's talk of an early election in 2023 to press home their advantage. Some predict the PM could even beat Margaret Thatcher's "11-year reign". But down in the leafy south, Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens have been making gains on local councils. The flight of Labour-leaning urban voters to rural Tory seats is being accelerated by working from home and the percentage of graduates in the population is rising. Pitching themselves as the "party of non-metropolitans" looks like a "no-brainer" for the Conservatives – actually, it's a "ticking time bomb".

The truth is, much of the Tories' political success over the past decade is down to rising house prices, says George Eaton in the New Statesman. It was well-off homeowners, not deprived voters, who turned the "red wall" blue. But the "property-owning democracy" Thatcher dreamt of is "wilting". In London, where the average house price is 13 times the median salary, the Tories are increasingly "marginalised" – in the 1987 and 1992 general elections, they beat Labour in the capital. As Generation Rent grows up, the Conservatives will realise "it is hard to sell capitalism to those with no capital".

The "Great Realignment" of politics, from economics to values, is also pointing left, says Ed West in UnHerd. Johnson is triumphant now because he's won over the culturally conservative working class, but Labour has a coalition that'll win "the Britain of 2040". The young, the unmarried, renters and ethnic minorities are all "demographically ascendant" – and rock-solid Labour. Anti-Toryism is a "social norm" for the young, so they won't be morphing into "cynical conservatives" any time soon. Just as realignment in America has handed wealthy districts to the Democrats, so the young, professional Conservative voter will soon die out and southeast England will turn red.

I'm not so sure, says Michael Deacon in The Daily Telegraph. "The Tories are the most successful party in the history of politics for a reason: they're willing to do and say whatever it takes to win." They banned the teaching of homosexuality in schools, then introduced gay marriage 25 years later. They took us into Europe, then took us out again after 45 years. Just as they wooed the red wall, they'll cling on to the "woke middle class" with aplomb. "I can picture it already": Priti Patel will pledge to defund the police, Oliver Dowden will commit to tearing down a minimum of 20,000 statues a year and Jacob Rees-Mogg will announce his preferred gender pronouns in Latin.

Everyone's watching

The Pursuit of Love

The BBC's giddy adaptation of Nancy Mitford's "most intoxicating novel" left me feeling a bit drunk myself, says Jessie Thompson in the Evening Standard. Our heroine is Linda Radlett (Lily James), "a romantic soul who smooches windows" and lusts after the first boy she meets (Freddie Fox). Her misadventures are narrated by her more practical best friend, Fanny (Emily Beecham). Adapted and directed with "mischievous Mitfordian spirit" by Emily Mortimer, The Pursuit of Love has it all: romance, secret meetings in cupboards, romps in the bath water, angry upper-class patriarchs and the "ridiculously perfect" Andrew Scott as Lord Merlin.

I had to check that the novel features nude sunbathing and quite so many references to being in the bath, says Anita Singh in the Telegraph. (It does.) And I'll admit the soundtrack of New Order and T Rex "works pretty well". Kudos, too, to the BBC for leaving in the politically incorrect pronouncements of Uncle Matthew, played by Dominic West, who has "a whale of a time" yelling about "Huns, dagos and wops". But someone (maybe not West) should have cheered up Lily James. She can't do funny, and lines that are a joy on the page here "carry all the sparkle of flat champagne".

Mitfordians, please, just give it a chance, says Lucy Mangan in The Guardian. For anyone outside the select group "of purist fans", each of its three episodes is an absolutely glorious hour. Mortimer gets under the hood of Mitford's reputation as a light comic novelist by deftly digging into a distinct "throb of pain" – the book's insights into thwarted female potential – behind all the gratuitous giggling.

It helps that she keeps many of the original lines, says Carol Midgley in The Times. Modern Brits will never not snigger at the line: "We must keep our end up, Fanny." Mortimer, who appears as Fanny's libidinous and unmaternal mother, "the Bolter", has added some excellent one-liners of her own. She has Linda say: "I masturbate every time I think about Lady Jane Grey, and I think about her all the time." It's "a bit more Mitford for your money", and where's the harm in that?

The Pursuit of Love is on BBC1 and iPlayer. Watch the trailer here.

Inside politics

Clement Attlee was a "very visible part" of the wartime government, serving as deputy PM in charge of domestic affairs while Winston Churchill focused on beating Hitler. Attlee proceeded to use that profile to trounce Churchill in the 1945 general election, says Matthew d'Ancona in Tortoise. Boris Johnson was savvier: he rebuffed Keir Starmer's attempts to join him and fight Covid in a bipartisan way. "There was never going to be any sharing of the limelight – and it paid off," a shadow cabinet minister says.

Property

THE HIDEAWAY Foreign buyers are "scrambling to make investments" in Portugal, says The New York Times, and this light-filled retreat near the coast and Unesco-listed Sintra would be a perfect buy. The contemporary villa "all but disappears" into its rural surroundings in Colares, 25 miles west of Lisbon. It has five bedrooms, five bathrooms, a gym, a spa, a games room, gardens and a pool. €3m.

Noted

The Guardian turns 200 this year, and to celebrate it has revisited the typos and howlers for which it is famous. "Grauniad" cock-ups include renaming works by Vikram Seth (A Suitable Buy) and Shakespeare (The Taming of the Screw). The paper once republished an article by Finnish journalist "Jatkuu Seuraavalla Sivulla"; a reader advised that this means "Continued on the next page". Even attempts to put things right can go wrong, as in 1999: "We misspelled the word misspelled twice, as mispelled, in the Corrections and clarifications column on September 26."