This is The Guardian.

Hello, I had a really interesting conversation with the political scientist and academic

Professor Rob Ford a couple of weeks ago about our political landscape and how big moments like the

Gorton and Denton by-election and the rise of Greens and Reform UK all stemmed from labour failures

after the 2024 election. There was so much to cover that we've ended up splitting the interview up

over two episodes. Here is part one. Enjoy.

We've got a special episode of Politics Weekly for you today. I'm joined by Professor Rob Ford. He's an academic and a political scientist and he's written about right-wing

politics, Brexit, and of course his incredible election series,

the latest of which covers the 2024 general election.

Rob, I thought we could start there if that's okay, because although it might seem like ancient

history given how much has happened since the last general election, actually I think

it still frames what's happening today in some really interesting ways.

I mean, it does feel like a long time ago, but the summer of 2024 was a kind of victory lap for the people who'd been strategizing for Stama since 2021.

And they regarded the whole result as a resounding success for their strategy.

Reading your book, I think one of the things

that jumped out at me was just how much we've misunderstood that election and how maybe some of

those misunderstandings are playing into why our politics is where it is today. You debunk the

idea that Labour won that election because it was able to appeal to these quote-unquote

hero voters in the red wall, the kind of working class voters who used to vote Labor, then went

Tory in 2019, and then supposedly came back to Labor in 2024. These are the voters who, you know,

care a lot about fuel prices and immigration and the kind of things that Labor was desperate to either campaign

on or to neutralise as an issue. And your analysis is those aren't the voters who want it for

...