I think what depresses me most about Labour's failure to retain Hartlepool is how much we're going to have to hear about what went wrong from people in London who have no interest in the electorate except as numbers on a screen

One thing that we do disastrously wrong when we cover politics in British media is that we rely on the expertise of Westminster commentators to talk about the electorate. The stuff that happens in the Commons, though interesting/important, offers no insight into the real world

On a national level, very few comment writers and TV commentators spend any significant time speaking to ordinary people and as a result they overcomplicate things with talk of the party being too centrist or too much damage already being caused by Corbyn or whatever nonsense

And if they'd ever spent time among normal people they'd know nobody gives a shit about any of that stuff. Most people don't follow politics. I've talked to literally hundreds of voters in the last few months and I would say maybe a handful cared about policies and positioning