Grim polling picture for the Tories in Yorkshire but it’s of their own making

It’s not so much as lost ground but a complete collapse in trust for a party that only five years ago enjoyed a landslide victory. Yorkshire is set to become an almost completely Labour region with the Tories under threat in every seat, according to polling.

It’s saying something that the discussion is around the “scale of Labour’s victory”, rather than any prospect of a Tory Government returning.

“The honest truth is that things are looking pretty bad for the Conservatives,” says political scientist Professor John Curtice.

There has been talk this week of rolling out Boris Johnson to try and claw back ground in so-called ‘red wall’ seats but that would be akin to a Hail Mary pass in American football parlance.

The people have not forgotten the chaos that Johnson brought upon the office of Prime Minister. And his Levelling Up project promised so much but delivered so little for the region with the North-South divide growing.

The Public Accounts Committee report on Levelling Up yesterday was damning about the Government’s approach to handing out piecemeal funding.

While voters have turned off the Tories, it isn’t because they are particularly enamoured by Labour.

As Matthew Flinders, professor of politics at the University of Sheffield, writes in his Saturday Essay, Labour doesn’t have a clear vision for when it forms government.

Instead there is an overwhelming sense of despondency and people are just fed up with being taken for granted.