The irony about this is that, had it not been for EU funding, the North would be in a worse state than it is now. Cos the tories haven't given a damn for the north while in power for the last 10 years. Why do people think that will change in the next 5 years?

Reading some of the posts on here it seems like the Tories have capitalised on creating a myth that the local MP is the equivalent of a Governor in the US, where they make decisions over spending and local policies.

So people are saying look at how much our area has declined over how many years, we've had a Labour MP over this time, so it must be down to them.

The reason those areas have declined is because they have been ignored by central government, which for the last 9 years has been led by Conservatives. By electing a Conservative MP, you've not voted for change, you've given them an endorsement that what they are doing is popular. Why would they need to change anything in the north and midlands now as they have already locked up the support.

The Boris/Cummings Tories are ruthlessly centralised and on-message with their MPs, and unfortunately what a lot of the northern/midlands constituents who have newly elected a Conservative MP will find is that those MPs will just be sent out to deliver 'lines to take' to you. If you go to see one of them to raise issues about the state of your hospital, you'll hear the central lines to take about how we've invested X into the NHS this year, getting 30,000 new nurses. If you go to say you're concerned about crime, you'll get told about how X amount of new police are going to be recruited (not withstanding the fact that police numbers will be well below what they were a decade ago due to so many being laid off when Theresa May was Home Sec). You'll also be told 'positive messages' about how the government is getting Brexit done and can 'unlock the potential of this great country'. Those MPs are there to vote through Boris' policies and will be disciplined very carefully not to rock the boat, so don't expect much in the way of them standing up and fighting for their communities against their own government. They will be used as PR mouthpieces to tell voters in their areas the propaganda messages that they want you to hear.

Look at Boris and his inner circle: Raab, Gove, Rees-Mogg, Hancock. Do you really think they are sitting round thinking 'how do we improve things in the north'? They are the 'Britannia Unchained' group who a few years back were authoring 'policy documents' saying how British workers were lazy and should have their working rights stripped down, so we're more like America where people only have 1 week annual leave per year. A good number of them were calling for the NHS to be privatised, although they are all careful not to say that on the record now. Their policy priorities will be to appease the high-value donors and lobby groups that fund them and have niche requests about stripping down environmental regulations, reducing consumer protections, safety standards, so that big businesses can cut their costs and make bigger profits at the expense of lower protections to the public.

Boris doesn't care about backtracking on his promises shamelessly when he needs to. He went to the DUP conference when he was on the outer after having resigned as Foreign secretary, and told them that no British PM could ever sign a deal that split the UK down the middle by creating a trade border between mainland GB and NI. That border between GB/NI was the EU's opening offer which Theresa May rejected and ended up with the all-UK 'backstop'. A year later, Boris was PM, he got his deal with the EU by literally going back and accepting the EU's opening offer which Theresa May had fought against, and he didn't care about selling out the DUP and backtracking on his previous comments, because he could sell that politically as 'getting the deal that nobody thought possible' and 'getting rid of the backstop'. He has blatantly lied during the election campaign by saying that border will not lead to checks for businesses sending goods between GB and NI, of course it will. But by the time people find that out and are angry, he will have his majority and it won't matter.

He is going to have a similar situation too over fishing rights where the EU are looking to drive a hard bargain over the level of access to British fish stocks for EU fishing boats. Boris wants to have a quick trade deal to sell as a success to the public, so the odds are he is going to just accept what the EU wants and sell out the fishing communities that have just voted for Conservative candidates. No doubt there will be outrage in those communities, but Boris won't care and the local Conservative MPs will be given lines to take to pacify them. If they want a champion for their anger it is more likely to be Farage than their local Tory MP.

I wasn't a fan of Corbyn and I couldn't stomach voting for Labour but....if you've voted for the Conservatives out of anger at the way your community has been neglected I fear you are going to be totally disillusioned with the way they will bulldoze on with their own agenda and just throw you 'lines to take' to try and keep you quiet.

99% supposition and your own opinion, of course

99% supposition, you do know it is the same conservative government that were in charge for the last 9 years but run by Dominic Cummings. I would say it is more based on experience of their recent history. I have no idea who our new MP is because the literature I received was somewhat generic and basically just said get Brexit done.
I admit Johnson was well coached because who would answer what would you get for his current lady friend, “I would get Brexit done”.

Very interesting interview with Deputy Labour Leader on Andrew Marr show this morning; a genuine politician and nice guy who, like Jeremy Corbyn was vilified by the National press ever since they came to power four years ago.
The Tory press ie The Sun (can't even call that a newspaper), The Daily Mail, The Daily telegraph etc etc have all made it their prime intention to blacken the character of Corbyn and McDonald with lies and part truths to the point where a large percentage of the population say they hate them and cannot vote for a party led by them, but none of these people seem to be able to say why they hate them. It's because 80% of this county's Press is owned by the Establishment and they don't like their cosy, privileged, little world to be ruffled in anyway.
Corbyn and McDonnell were made to appear as ogres yet decent people of this country have been cajoled into voting for a lying, priviliged, philandering coward who hates the working class and hides in fridges to avoid awkward questions.

Never has so many been fooled by so few.

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Only another six and a bit weeks and we can all go from being amateur politicians to being Rugby League coaching experts.

They didn’t take your last post on board Lindsay maybe this one eh

it’s getting very boring now.

The press will always savage a Labour leader. They work hard to create a caricature that sticks and then attack it relentlessly. It's just the reality that Labour have to deal with. The only way to deal with it is to have a leader who is sufficiently credible to minimise it, which Blair for all his faults, was: a natural communicator.

As a result we're now hearing familiar analysis from Labour. "People on the doorsteps were saying they didn't mind our policies....it was the leader".

Exactly the same that they said about Kinnock - "the Welsh windbag". Ed Miliband "Red Ed". The tabloids made easy caricatures of them and in the end it stuck.

What is making me laugh now is all these Labour figures saying "we need to come out of our metropolitan bubble and start listening to working class communities again". Then in their next breath they say "the next leader has to be a woman". Now....is that because they've been listening to working class communities who said what we want is a female leader, or is it the metropolitan bubble saying we need a female leader to make us look diverse. That will appeal to metropolitan liberals but the rest of the country literally doesn't give a toss about the leader's gender.

What the gender issue does do though is create more problems with a hostile media, because the media is always tougher on women than men. Look at Hilary Clinton in the US, or how Theresa May got vilified for her attempts to bring back deals from the EU but Boris got hailed as a genius for bringing back his (which conceded things that May hadn't!).

The media is going to have some easy tropes to use against female leaders:

- blonde airhead
- stroppy cow
- pompous old bat

This may be harsh but if Labour is thinking of any leader who could be even slightly painted by the right wing media in to any of those tropes, then I'll see you in 2024 for the analysis of, "the leader was a problem on the doorstep".

It worked well for the Lib Democrats having Joe Swinton

Well the Labour Party in Wakefield didn't seem too bothered about our plight with regard to Newmarket and all the great sporting facilities it would have provided for the young people of our area when I contacted M creagh J tricked and p box I got a lack lustre response and it went on for years and years so perhaps it might focus a few minds in future now they carnt be guaranteed our vote.

I thought MC said that our previous MP was a great help with regards the stadium but I could be wrong.