BROKEN HEARTLANDS
A JOURNEY THROUGH LABOUR’S LOST ENGLAND SEBASTIAN PAYNE
Macmillan, 432pp, £20 What happened in the so-called ‘red wall’ seats of the Midlands and northern England that caused them to switch from Labour to Tory in the general election of December 2019? Sebastian Payne, Whitehall correspondent of the Financial
Times, bought a red Mini Cooper and undertook a road trip to find out. ‘The result is a nuanced tour-d’horizon of a political landscape shaped by history, emotion, loss and patchy regeneration,’ wrote Julian Coman in the Observer. ‘Payne visits 10 red wall constituencies in England, nine of which turned blue in 2019. At each stop along the way, he intersperses local foot-slogging and analysis with a rich array of interviews, engaging a huge cast of characters... This engrossing, warm and insightful work is an indispensable guide to how it came about.’
Payne grew up in Gateshead, which is not a ‘red wall’ seat but shares similar characteristics. ‘His skin in the game makes the journey a personal one,’ wrote Martha Gill in the Evening Standard, ‘and this lends the book a particular warmth (it may also explain some of the candour of his interviewees). His passion for his subject comes through... What we get is a patchwork quilt of explanation, analysis, and anecdote, which gradually builds to Payne’s thesis: that Labour in these areas was indeed a victim of long-term, structural forces beyond its control – but that in 2019 these were turbocharged by Brexit, along with Jeremy Corbyn’s failings and Boris Johnson’s charisma... Payne’s entertaining and insightful book is essential reading.’
In her review for the Times, Janice Turner found the book to be ‘thorough to the verge of obsessive... painting vivid portraits of uncelebrated towns. No one escapes his lively interrogation. He collars every living Labour leader except (notably) Jeremy Corbyn, old Tories such as Norman Tebbit and some rather surprised new MPS. He also speaks to countless angry, thoughtful, passionate, despairing locals, from fishermen to café owners, trade unionists to businessmen.’ New
Statesman political commentator Stephen Bush said the book ‘examines the narratives on Red Wall constituencies like the layers of an onion: starting with superficial readings, before peeling them back to reveal greater complexity.’