LABOUR’S local election debacle shows that the Tory advance in England has not been reversed by the pandemic. It has accelerated.

The appalling Hartlepool result – in four years the constituency has gone from voting 52 per cent Labour to 51 per cent Conservative – was accompanied by hundreds of council seat losses and, in key mayoral contests, the re-election of incumbent Tories with increased margins (Andy Street in the West Midlands ended up with an eight-point lead over Labour, that had been 0.8 points in 2017; in Tees Valley, Ben Houchen turned a knife-edge 51-49 per cent win over Labour then into a 73-27 landslide). 

This was not the pattern everywhere, but it was the general pattern. Tory inroads into Leave-voting Labour areas seen in 2019 are redrawing the political map.