Pretty much all English and Welsh election numbers over the last twenty years are explained by the fact that young people have been moving into large cities to go to college or university and staying there.

That's it.

Ignoring the 2019 Brexit blip, fewer and fewer people vote Tory year on year. The trouble is, those left in the depopulating areas generally do, thus the constituency goes blue as Labour voters urbanise.

This isn't changing without major boundary changes or, better still, PR.

It's amazing how much analysis can be created (on an industrial scale) whilst entirely glossing over this. I mean, to my mind I've only really seen @joncstone and - most recently - @JonnElledge tackling it.

dangit, this should say *young people! https://twitter.com/GarethDennis/status/1390575754275139585?s=19

In other words, the age threshold at which people are more likely to vote Tory increases by a year every year (ignoring 2019). It was at something like 45 in 2017.

It's all about demographics.

Also: I don't think I've seen any current analysis that uses the phrase "working class" unironically that's worth the pixels its appearing on.

The UK's working class is urban and diverse, often on zero or low hour contracts, usually on or close to minimum wage. Lots of them were called keyworkers last year.

People who have service jobs in former industrial towns and live in a semi-detached house are not working class.

As for Hartlepool...