The last general election saw the Conservatives win their highest vote share in forty years, while Labour slumped to their lowest seat total since 1935. At the heart of this electoral earthquake was the so-called 'Red Wall', some sixty seats stretching from the Midlands up to the north of England. Who are the Red Wall voters and why did they forgo their long-standing party loyalties? Did they simply lend their votes to Johnson to get Brexit done – or will he be able to win them over more permanently? And as the Labour Party licks its wounds, how were those votes thrown away and what, if anything, can be done to win them back? And how will the pandemic and the government's reaction to it change the voter's outlook on party politics in the future? Will everything be the same after it has passed? This book sets out to answer those questions by putting them to the people who will decide the next election.
A history of the UK’s regional inequalities, and why they matter Differences between England’s North and South continue to shape national politics, from attitudes to Brexit and the electoral collapse of Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ to Whitehall’s experimentation with regional pandemic lockdowns. Why is this fault line such a persistent feature of the English landscape? The Northern Question is a history of England seen in the unfamiliar light of a northern perspective. While London is the capital and the centre for trade and finance, the proclaimed leader of the nation, northern England has always seemed like a different country. In the nineteenth century its industrializing society appeared set to bring a political revolution down upon Westminster and the City. Tom Hazeldine recounts how subsequent governments put finance before manufacturing, London ahead of the regions, and austerity before reconstruction.
What lies beyond the Red Wall? Mouse's friends don't know - but that doesn't stop them feeling scared. Can Mouse find the courage to travel into the unknown, where a world of freedom and possibility awaits? From Global Illustration Excellence Award winner Britta Teckentrup comes a simple and beautiful tale about facing our fears, welcoming change and discovering freedom - perfect for even the youngest children. Look out for more books from Britta Teckentrup: The Memory Tree My Hand in Your Hand Never Take a Bear to School
Broken Heartlands is an essential and compelling political road-trip through ten constituencies that tell the story of Labour’s red wall from Sebastian Payne – an award-winning journalist and Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times. The Times Political Book of the Year A Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Mail and FT Book of the Year 'Immensely readable' - Observer Historically, the red wall formed the backbone of Labour’s vote in the Midlands and the North of England but, during the 2019 general election, it dramatically turned Conservative for the first time in living memory, redrawing the electoral map in the process. Originally from the North East himself, Payne sets out to uncover the real story behind the red wall and what turned these seats blue. Beginning in Blyth Valley in the North East and ending in Burnley, with visits to constituencies across the Midlands and Yorkshire along the way, Payne gets to the heart of a key political story of our time that will have ramifications for years to come. While Brexit and the unpopularity of opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn are factors, there is a more nuanced story explored in Broken Heartlands – of how these northern communities have fared through generational shifts, struggling public services, de-industrialization and the changing nature of work. Featuring interviews with local people, plus major political figures from both parties – including Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer – Payne explores the significant role these social and economic forces, decades in the making, have played in this fundamental upheaval of the British political landscape. 'Impressive and entertaining' - Sunday Times 'A must-read for anyone who wants to understand England today' - Robert Peston
With a foreword by Michael Portillo. Deborah Mattinson had a unique perspective on the New Labour project. As Britain's leading political pollster, she has been monitoring public opinion since the mid-1980s, and helped transform Labour into Europe's greatest election-winning machine of the modern era. Most recently as chief pollster to Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, she has been on the frontline of electoral politics, consistently representing the voter's side of the story to the politicans. Sometimes, she has encountered scepticism - a belligerent John Smith made an unappreciative witness to one of Deborah's focus groups - and she has often had to convey unwelcome results - telling a grumpy Gordon Brown he needed to spruce up his appearance cannot have been easy. With a stellar cast, including Neil Kinnock, Peter Mandelson, John Smith, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Talking to A Brick Wall reviews the New Labour years from the voter's point of view. It tracks the ups and downs of the Blair/Brown era as seen from beyond Westminster, showing how closely political reputation correlates with voter connection. It profiles the swing voter, shows the importance of women's votes, and what gives a politician popular appeal, and maps the voters' views through the 2010 campaign and its immediate aftermath, showing how the electorate has been left out of political decision making and revealing the public's recipe for rehabilitating the Labour Party and rebuilding trust in democracy. A champion of democratic renewal through citizen engagement, Deborah Mattinson believes that we must move to new grown up partnership politics if democracy is to thrive.
The fourteenth book in the beloved, bestselling Redwall saga - soon to be a major Netflix movie! Sawney Rath, ferret chief of the Juska tribe, and his band of villains kidnap a baby otter from Redwall to raise him as the Taggerung - a legendary animal said to have supernatural fighting skills. The young otter is trained to be a ruthless killer, but the Redwall spirit lies deep within him and as he grows older he begins to dream of another life . . .
The book reproduces the cleaned paintings for the first time. It also describes and analyzes their amalgam of Coptic (Egyptian Christian), Byzantine, and Arab styles and motifs as well as the religious culture to which they belong. In 1996, funded by the United States Agency for International Development and at the request of the Monastery of St. Antony, the Antiquities Development Project of the American Research Center in Egypt began the conservation of the paintings in the church. The paintings revealed by the conservators are of extremely high quality, both stylistically and conceptually. While rooted in the Christian tradition of Egypt, they also reveal explicit connections with Byzantine and Islamic art of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Some newly discovered paintings can even be dated back to the sixth or seventh century.
Why did thousands of lifelong Labour voters in the party's heartland seats abandon the party in the 2019 General Election? Simple explanations like 'Brexit' and 'Corbyn' dramatically underestimate the importance of longer term trends, and the changing public narrative in these communities. This is the story of one of the most remarkable shifts in British politics.In the Red Wall constituencies, parents and grandparents had passed down stories of the Labour Party standing in solidarity with local working people. These were Labour towns and Labour people. This public narrative shaped the collective memory, identity and politics of these communities for a hundred years. It also sustained the Labour vote.This book explains how this public narrative changed and why it matters. As Labour became increasingly disconnected from its traditional working class communities, these voters shared stories of being left behind, ignored, taken for granted, looked down on and betrayed. Brexit and Jeremy Corbyn's leadership accelerated this process and a new public narrative emerged 'the Labour party no longer represents people like us'. By 2019 a 'never Tory' generation had become Conservative voters.The fall of the Red Wall highlights the risks of failing to understand and respond to public narratives. It also provides crucial lessons for political storytelling. Drawing on analysis of long term trends, extensive academic research, election results, focus groups and interviews in forty-one Red Wall constituencies, this book sets out key principles to guide Labour's development of a new political narrative. It is essential reading for political communicators and activists, analysts and researchers, from across the political spectrum.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A passionate manifesto that exposes hypocrisy on both sides of the political divide and points a way out of the tribalism that is tearing America apart—from the CNN host hailed as “a star of the 2016 campaign” (The New York Times), now seen on The Van Jones Show Van Jones burst into the American consciousness during the 2016 presidential campaign with an unscripted, truth-telling style and an already established history of bridge-building across party lines. His election night commentary, during which he coined the term “whitelash,” became a viral sensation. A longtime progressive activist with deep roots in the conservative South, Jones has made it his mission to challenge voters and viewers to stand in one another’s shoes and disagree constructively. In Beyond the Messy Truth, he offers a blueprint for transforming our collective anxiety into meaningful change. Jones urges both parties to abandon the politics of accusation. He issues a stirring call for a new “bipartisanship from below,” pointing us toward practical answers to problems that affect us all regardless of region or ideology. He wants to tackle rural and inner-city poverty, unemployment, addiction, unfair incarceration, and the devastating effects of the pollution-based economy on both coal country and our urban centers. Along the way, Jones shares memories from his decades of activism on behalf of working people, inspiring stories of ordinary citizens who became champions of their communities, and little-known examples of cooperation in the midst of partisan conflict. In his quest for positive solutions, Van Jones encourages us to set fire to our old ways of thinking about politics and come together to help those most in need. Includes an invaluable resource of contacts, books, media, and organizations for bipartisan bridge-building and problem solving. “Van Jones is a light in the darkness when we need it most. In the tradition of the great bridge builders of our past, Van’s love for this country and all its people shines through.”—Cory Booker, U.S. senator, New Jersey “Van Jones’s voice has become an integral part of our national political debate. He is one of the most provocative and interesting political figures in the country.”—Bernie Sanders, U.S. senator, Vermont
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB PICK * INDIE NEXT SELECTION * LIBRARY READS SELECTION * AMAZON EDITORS' CHOICE * WASHINGTON POST BEST OF THE YEAR The "terrifying, wise, tender, and thrilling" (R.O. Kwon) adventure story of a fugitive girl, a mysterious gang of robbers, and their dangerous mission to transform the Wild West. In the year of our Lord 1894, I became an outlaw. The day of her wedding, 17 year old Ada's life looks good; she loves her husband, and she loves working as an apprentice to her mother, a respected midwife. But after a year of marriage and no pregnancy, in a town where barren women are routinely hanged as witches, her survival depends on leaving behind everything she knows. She joins up with the notorious Hole in the Wall Gang, a band of outlaws led by a preacher-turned-robber known to all as the Kid. Charismatic, grandiose, and mercurial, the Kid is determined to create a safe haven for outcast women. But to make this dream a reality, the Gang hatches a treacherous plan that may get them all killed. And Ada must decide whether she's willing to risk her life for the possibility of a new kind of future for them all. Featuring an irresistibly no-nonsense, courageous, and determined heroine, Outlawed dusts off the myth of the old West and reignites the glimmering promise of the frontier with an entirely new set of feminist stakes. Anna North has crafted a pulse-racing, page-turning saga about the search for hope in the wake of death, and for truth in a climate of small-mindedness and fear.
