The Conservatives' Northern problem
Earlier this week I spoke at a Policy Exchange event at the Conservative conference on the problems facing the party in the North (Neil O'Brien's thought on the same are here). It goes without saying that the Conservative party do less well in the North, and have done for a long time. At the election last year the Conservatives led by 22 points in the South, while Labour led by 7 points in the North.
Back in 1979 when Thatcher came to power the Conservatives led by 21 points in the South, Labour led by 4 points in the North.
Hence, while this isn't a new problem, it is getting worse - in 1979 the Conservative share was 10 points higher in the South than the North, now it is 13 points higher. The north/south divide for the Tories isn’t new but is growing.
Looking at polling differences between North and South there are obvious differences - people in the North are less positive about the Conservative party, about Cameron and about things the government are doing. But in most underlying ways voters in the North have views that are much the same as voters in the South, with the same concerns about economy, immigration, health, pensions, etc.
It is tempting too think that the difference is all down to demographics - that the North is simply poorer and more working class, and these factors mean it will always be more Labour and less Tory, it's just one of those things. However, this does not seem to be the case - aggregating up YouGov data, even people in the same social class seem to be significantly more Conservative in the South and significantly more Labour in the North (i.e. professionals in the North are more Labour than in the South, C2s in the North are more Labour than in the South, etc). The difference is not just down to comparative class or affluence - based on raw demographics the Conservatives are doing worse in the North than they could be.
My own suspicion is that a lot of it is down to the simple perception of the Conservative party as not understanding, caring or being close to the North. YouGov polling here asks how well people think Labour and the Conservatives represent Scotland, Wales, the North, the Midlands and the South. Only 12% of people think the Conservative party understands and represents people in the North well, 52% badly. Amongst respondents who actually live in the North it is even worse - 11% think the Conservatives understand and represent them well, 65% badly. (Not, I should add a particularly Northern problem - more a "anywhere that isn't the South" problem - the figures are much the same in Scotland, Wales and only slightly better in the Midlands).
We then asked those who said they thought the Conservatives represented the North badly why they said that. Responses fell into a couple of categories - first the perception that the party was Londoncentric, caring only about London and the City. Secondly, in terms of issues, the only things that emerged were unemployment and investment in industry, which people felt Conservatives didn't understand or care about. Third was Conservative MPs being unrepresentative, while some said they were too Southern, far more expressed this in terms of them being too rich, public school educated or upper class. Ultimately though, the thread that ran through most responses was a perceived lack of empathy with what it’s like to struggle,
with people facing unemployment or deindustrialisation. That's my guess at why the Conservatives do worse in the North than the demographics suggest they should – people don’t see them as understanding or caring about their problems.
Of course, this is also largely the problem that the Conservatives faced across the country at the last election - while the Conservative party under Cameron did manage to improve their party image in terms of being seen as more tolerant and modern, they didn't really manage to make any change to the perception that the Conservative party was closer to and cared more about the rich than anyone else and in the North, caring more about rich affluent people seems to tie more into an image of caring more about rich affluent Southerners. For the Conservatives to do better in the North they need to address what is really a problem for them everywhere - to convince voters that they don't care more about the rich than “ordinary” people.
