A week ago, a report came out which should be required reading for anyone in the Labour Party or who wants a Labour government. It's about low income voters and can be found here:

https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/low-income-voters-2019-general-election-and-future-british-politics

At the election, the Tories won low income voters by FIFTEEN POINTS.

It was the first time in recorded history that they'd won low income voters at all. And extraordinarily, they were more popular among low income voters than high income voters.

That's why Johnson is terrified of economic meltdown destroying that newly won support.

It's also why Starmer's messaging is bewildering so many on here. Because sadly, many on here clearly don't appreciate the reality on the ground at all.

Since 2015, Labour have been trapped in a seemingly intractable dilemma. Our voting coalition is VERY loose.

Our base now is young people, metropolitan professionals, black and ethnic minorities: inevitably so given the Labour Party's social liberalism. The membership and most Labour voters were heavily pro-Remain for a reason - because it fits most of our world views.

But it doesn't fit the world views of those who've been steadily moving from Labour to Tory for many years. Social conservatives alarmed at the rapid changes all around them - and who last year, did not trust Labour in any way whatsoever.

Think about it. Last year, we produced our most left wing, profoundly redistributive offer since 1983 - and we were thrashed by the very people we most wanted to help. Even in 1983, we still won the working classes... but not any more.

Those aware of the problems we have among the working classes often blame this entirely on New Labour. Yes, it started with them - but it's still getting worse. Including when we move further and further to the left economically.

And the reason for that, more than anything else, is culture.

The report makes it perfectly clear that any rightwards shift on the economy is a non-starter. Which is why Starmer has regularly re-emphasised that won't happen. That's why he denounced trickle down economics.

It's also why he said that once this crisis is over, we cannot go back to how things were.

But on culture, we have a massive problem which the report's authors perfectly identify. Over the last few days, left wing commentators have been quite horrendously oblivious about it.

Generally, left wing activists on here talk about the working class and reconnecting with it all the time. Then they instantly denounce the Labour leader when he makes the first baby steps towards doing so. It's almost comical.

In 2006 or so, my best friend asked me why Blair couldn't be bolder. She was pretty frustrated. I responded by explaining the realities of FPTP - and said:

"I don't like how authoritarian New Labour are - but I know why they need to be....

"Labour voters are more likely to be poorer and more likely to be working class. Which area suffers more from crime? Tunbridge Wells..., or Toxteth?"

The extraordinary numbers of working class voters we've lost are much more likely to be affected by and scared of crime.

They've been utterly betrayed by the Tories' swingeing cuts to the police under austerity. We know this - so pledged tens of thousands more police under Corbyn.

Now, the same people who rightly supported that are up in arms when Starmer says "defund the police" is nonsense?

And by the way, it IS nonsense. Yes, we should be asking questions - loud ones - about stop and search, tasering and the police's treatment of black people in general. But let's stop funding them? You what?

Starmer is also entirely right about it distracting from BLM's message.

I support BLM and he supports BLM! Black Lives Matter. But no, Black Lives Matter does not mean "defund the police". And people are completely off their rocker if they think any major party leader could support such a thing.

The first obligation of any party seeking government is to keep us safe. Which, of course, is where this Tory government has failed and is still failing, horrendously.

But I have to ask people on here: you supported increasing police numbers under Corbyn, now you want the police defunded? Come again?

Much the same explains why Starmer did not support statues being forcibly removed. That is to say: he doesn't support illegal behaviour.

Do you know what MPs are often bombarded by in their inboxes? Emails about crime. Emails about law and order. Emails from scared people.

At the election, the public thought Labour and Corbyn were weak, very weak, on crime. Parties with such an image do not get a hearing.

Nor do parties which are seen as hating their own country. Yet whenever patriotism is so much as even mentioned on here, cue fury. "You are pandering to racists!"

So you think a party can win election to govern a country when huge numbers think we hate everything it stands for?

There's also a rather horrible contradiction. Exactly the same people who rail against Remainers and the People's Vote for what they did to Labour's chances and say we must reconnect with the working classes... routinely refer to white working class men as... "gammon".

So you want us to reconnect with the working class while ridiculing white working class people? Are you kidding me?

But then, all of this comes from that huge clash in world views and culture which I mentioned earlier. "Gammon" are ridiculed because their views seem ridiculous.

And their views seem (and in practice, often are) ridiculous to us because we're all so distanced from them - as they are from us. That is to say: we don't even understand the English (and I stress 'English') working class at all.

The English working class are - and mostly always have been - a whole mass of different things. They are much more individualistic than the left ever acknowledges; many of them would like to escape from being working class, which is why that term 'aspiration' sometimes appears.

The English working class are deeply patriotic. Many of them love the Royal Family and are proud, not ashamed, of Britain's past. And the English working class have also always supported the police and expected, for the most part, law and order.

That loose voter coalition I mentioned earlier? Try reconciling the many appalling lived experiences of black and ethnic minorities in Britain - and their awareness of this country's violent, often hideous past - with the views of those who are proud of this country.

Try making just a few steps towards something more socially conservative, and see how our base reacts. Off they'd go to the Lib Dems and Greens in a heartbeat - just as they've already moved to the SNP in Scotland.

But speaking of the SNP: isn't it strange how exactly the same people who wrongly accuse Starmer of turning us into the Tories regularly praise the SNP... despite it being a largely middle class, very non-socialist party?

The SNP is mildly social democratic.

Yet if Starmer wants to make Labour a social democratic party, all hell breaks loose. The SNP has done a broadly good job for the people of Scotland, and acted mostly in the common good. Yet if Starmer wants something similar for the rest of the UK, apparently, he's Lucifer.

Old v young, closed v open, social conservatives v social liberals. That is the divide which dominates British politics: of which Brexit was a totem, but a symptom, not the cause.

Those on here who talk about socialism but ignore all the rest of it just do not get it.

Healing that divide? I think it's impossible - but someone has to try, and true leadership demands it. Yet when, on a completely different subject, Starmer simply says he hopes that women and trans people can work together and heal their differences - again, he's condemned.

That's just basic common sense. Would people on here prefer a war instead? The same goes for all the things I've mentioned. Anyone trying to heal the UK's many gaping divides, economically AND socially, has my support. It's brave and it's abundantly necessary.

There's a massive identity crisis out there. People are scared and insecure, Neoliberalism has an absolute ton to do with that - but it's not the whole story. Reaching out to those who rejected us requires LISTENING to them and not dismissing them.

Starmer has only just embarked on that process. I applaud him for doing so. And I despair of those unwilling to do any thinking or any reflection or any analysis of this at all. /ENDS