Tory ‘red wall’ seats under threat
Political Fix
Financial Times
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 3 April 2024
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many ‘red wall’ constituencies across northern England, the Midlands and north Wales switched from Labour to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election partly thanks to then prime minister Boris Johnson’s energetic pledge to revitalise struggling communities outside the south-east. It was a seismic shock to Britain’s political landscape but can the Tories hold on to these seats in May’s local and mayoral elections and in an upcoming general election? Host Lucy Fisher, the FT’s Whitehall editor, discusses with colleagues Jim Pickard and Stephen Bush, and is joined by Luke Tryl, the UK director of More in Common, a strategy and communications consultancy focused on explaining public opinion to policymakers.
Want more? Free links:
Will the ‘red wall’ reshape British politics again?
UK’s electoral landscape swings into volatility
Only 10% of UK levelling up funds spent, say MPs
Sketchy Politics: can anything save Sunak?
Follow Lucy on X: @LOS_Fisher
Sign up here for 30 free days of Stephen Bush's Inside Politics newsletter, winner of the World Association of News Publishers 2023 ‘Best Newsletter’ award.
Presented by Lucy Fisher. Produced by Audrey Tinline with Leah Qiunn. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer. Audio mix and original music by Breen Turner. The FT’s head of audio is Cheryl Brumley.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The latest episode of the next five podcast is all about health prevention and vaccines. |
| 0:04.0 | Ice speeds Kate Hashi at G.S.K. |
| 0:06.0 | For every dollar invested in improving health, there's an economic return of two to four dollars. |
| 0:11.8 | Murray Aiken at Icubia Institute for Human Data Science. |
| 0:15.2 | The benefits of adult vaccination are compelling. |
| 0:18.3 | And David Sinclair at the International Longivity Center. |
| 0:21.3 | Preventable conditions amongst those aged 50 to 64 in the UK cost |
| 0:25.1 | 27 billion a year. |
| 0:26.8 | Listen to the full episode of the next five, wherever you get your podcasts. Is the Red Wall about to come tumbling down? |
| 0:38.0 | Welcome to Political Fix, your essential insider guide to Westminster, |
| 0:42.0 | from the Financial Times with me Lucy Fisher. |
| 0:48.4 | Coming up we'll be examining the Conservative Party's chances of holding on to those voters who switched to them |
| 0:53.7 | from Labour in 2019 and looking at some of the reasons behind the failures of |
| 0:58.5 | levelling up. With me here in the FT studio to discuss some of this are my FT colleagues Stephen, |
| 1:05.2 | Hi Stephen, and Jim Picard, hi Jim. |
| 1:07.3 | Hello. And we're also joined by Luke Trill, the UK director of the Think Tank and |
| 1:11.6 | Consultancy More in Common, founded in the director of the think tank and consultancy more in common founded in the aftermath of the |
| 1:14.9 | murder of the MP Joe Cox in 2016. |
| 1:17.8 | Hi Luke. |
| 1:18.8 | Hello? So first off, it seems obvious we need to just establish what is the red wall |
| 1:26.7 | Lou do you want to just take us through that? So red wall is a group of seats that on the face of it were historically safe labor seats but actually |
| 1:38.0 | looked if you looked at the demographics much more like Tory seats if you looked at the age profile the demographic profile the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Financial Times, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Financial Times and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.