I’m calling it: the Tories will win a majority

It’s time to stick my neck out. What follows is anecdotal and my hunches have often been wrong. But I think that though Boris Johnson will get his overall majority, Tory strategists’ hopes of surfing a tidal wave of new support from ‘tribal’ Labour voters in the English Midlands and the North will not be fulfilled. Mr Johnson will win this time, but there will be no substantial and enduring shift northwards of Tory support.

I live in the north Midlands. The two closest constituencies to that (safe) Conservative seat of Derbyshire Dales neatly fit the description political pundits offer of the sometimes struggling Midlands and northern seats where Johnson’s Tories hope to make huge, game-changing advances on 12 December.

These are not wastelands, and they include some lovely English countryside, winding lanes and picturesque villages, so why do I say ‘sometimes struggling’? Because before the 1980s, in much of the eastern part of Derby-shire and across into Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire, coal mining and its associated industries were very important, not only as employers but as the shapers of community.