NEW STATESMAN: It’s tempting for Labour to pick cities over towns – but doing so would be disastrous

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y contrast, class no longer provides the guide to voting intention it once did. The Fabian Society’s new report reveals that the Conservative lead among ABC1 voters in rural England and Wales is 28 per cent. Among voters of the same social grade nationally, Labour has a one-point lead. The pattern is repeated in C2DE voters, once seen as Labour’s traditional working-class base. While Labour has a four per cent lead in this group across Great Britain, the Conservatives have extended a 14-point advantage in rural areas. As Rob Ford at Manchester University wrote, with the gain of Canterbury and loss of Mansfield in 2017 “class politics has turned on its head”.