This time next week Theresa May will head a government with an enhanced majority as former core supporters in key constituencies desert the Left once and for all / By Julia Langdon

The outcome of the general election will be decided on Thursday in the Midlands and the North of England. We will probably know the outcome quite soon after the polls close. 

It will not be the result of the strengths and weakness of the campaigns that have been waged by any of the parties in the last few weeks, still less of the devastating intrusion of terrorism into a democratic election, but directly because of the Labour Party’s historic failure to show any real regard for the interests and concerns of its traditional supporters. 

Those are the people who over the last century have voted Labour, not unthinkingly, but without questioning – until now – the belief that Labour is – or was – the only political party for people like them. 

They are the AVLBs, the people who today are telling the television ­cameras they “always voted Labour but …”