But don’t expect the return of hugging any time soon in a warring Labour Party with sharpened knives out. The uncivil war replacing a post-mortem is a divided party in a hole digging deeper. Restoring the trust of lost voters, reconnecting emotionally with sections of a working class mesmerised by Conservative Boris Johnson, was never going to be easy. Why did Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram retain working class hearts and minds in North West England when they were lost in the North East? Incumbency was a factor but how did Labour take from the Tories the Mayorships of West of England and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough?

Source: Daily Mirror May 09, 2021 19:08 UTC