Middle May

Once, politicians remained in their safe spaces and elections were fought in a handful of swing seats. This time Theresa May is campaigning in Labour heartlands, pitching herself at people who have never considered voting Conservative before. Tories are targeting seats they have not held since the 1930s and social class seems almost irrelevant. Pollsters YouGov recently observed that class now tells us ‘little more about a person’s voting intention that looking at their horoscope or reading their palms’. As Tony Blair might have put it, the political kaleidoscope has been shaken and the pieces are in flux. A picture of a Britain with new fault lines is emerging.

To begin to understand what is happening, one must accept British politics is now as much about values and meaning as it is about money or class. To many liberals it feels like a step backwards, but it’s also a reaction to a world out of kilter.

David Goodhart and Fraser Nelson discuss ‘Red Theresa’ on the Spectator Podcast:

Just as organised labour emerged in the mid 19th century to challenge the power of capital, so a more populist, cross-class politics has arisen now in the first part of the 21st century to challenge the destabilising dominance of the metropolitan, meritocratic elites.

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Ian Williams

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Britain’s main fault line now runs between Anywheres and Somewheres. Anywheres, about a quarter of the population, are well educated and mobile, and tend to favour openness, autonomy and fluidity; they are generally comfortable with social change. Somewheres, about half the population, are usually less well educated, more rooted, value security and familiarity, and place a greater emphasis on group attachments (local, ethnic, national) than Anywheres; they are generally uncomfortable with
social change.

This sounds very binary but there is a great variety of Anywheres and Somewheres as well as a big Inbetweener group of about 25 per cent of the population.