Searching for Britain – Inside the 18 June Guardian Weekly theguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Can Labour reconnect with its alienated base?
The challenge is to be there every day, supporting the most vulnerable and understanding their needs, writes Labour councillor
Steve Munby. Plus letters from Anna Ford,
Ben Entwistle
Keir Starmer leafleting in Hartlepool, ahead of a parliamentary byelection and local elections on Thursday 6 May. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
Keir Starmer leafleting in Hartlepool, ahead of a parliamentary byelection and local elections on Thursday 6 May. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
Letters
Wed 5 May 2021 12.17 EDT
Last modified on Wed 5 May 2021 12.27 EDT
“What is it that the left is not hearing?” Julian Coman asks (Labour’s lost voters clamour for belonging – but will the party answer them?, 3 May). He refers to Labour’s “city and university town redoubts”, but fails to ask what differentiates them from the “red wall”.
1
What does it take for a politician to resign?
on the loss of shame
“Most of us are constrained by rules, and morals, and shame, and the expectations of others,” writes Hugo Rifkind in The Times. “The Johnson-Cummings epiphany was that you can just opt not to be,” he writes. “Don’t appear before that select committee, don’t answer that question, don’t keep that promise, don’t sack that colleague, don’t admit you broke the rules, don’t resign when it can no longer be denied,” continues Rifkind. “For an extreme example of how things used to be, consider the case of Mark Harper, who resigned as an immigration minister in 2014 after discovering that his cleaner didn’t have the right to work in the UK,” says Rifkind. “Imagine that today. I mean, it’s inconceivable, right?”
Kier Starmer campaigns on Seaton Carew, Co Durham, on 1 May. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
Kier Starmer campaigns on Seaton Carew, Co Durham, on 1 May. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images
Mon 3 May 2021 10.00 EDT
Last modified on Mon 3 May 2021 11.55 EDT
In the wake of Labourâs terrible, soul-destroying election defeat in 2019, the need to âlistenâ to the red wall constituency voters who had deserted the party became an instant truism. In the trauma of the moment, there was a genuine desire to understand why so many of the places that had sustained the labour movement for so long had voted for the enemy.