Andy McDonald, the Labour MP for Middlesbrough, has an article in the New Statesman about Britain’s economic divide. It's pretty partisan stuff, but it does contain an interesting idea.
McDonald takes the constituencies of the 21 MPs who are full members of the Cabinet and combines them into a single entity called “Cabinetland”. His point is that the Government is led by people who don’t really understand how bad things are, because they represent parts of the country which have dodged the worst of the economic downturn:
Because MPs with safer seats can afford to spend more time on national politics, they tend to climb higher up the greasy pole than colleagues in more marginal constituencies. For this reason, most of Cabinetland is situated deep within the Tory heartlands (the five Lib Dem seats being the obvious exception).
To win a majority at the next election the Conservatives must win over the swing voters of ‘Middle England’. It is an evocative name, redolent of thatched cottages and country lanes, but it gives a misleading impression. Middle England and the Tory heartlands are not the same place at all. By and large, senior Conservatives do not represent the communities they most need to reach out to.
In a related piece for the New Statesman, Rafael Behr expands on this theme. He warns that ministers risk being led astray by their constituency mail bags:
It’s easy to dismiss the need for new development when you already have what you want from life:
This is, however, a rather over-simplified argument. The implication that it’s only comfortable commuters who object to new development is incorrect. Furthermore, typical Tory voters are hardly immune to the effect of the economic crisis – anyone who relies on interest from their savings could tell you that.
Nevertheless, Rafael Behr does deliver some home truths:
It is a sad fact that, in Britain today, the rate of home ownership is falling. It is hard to see how this trend can be reversed with house prices on the rise and housebuilding at historically low levels: