Labour may justifiably congratulate itself on symbolic wins in these local elections: the true-blue London strongholds of Westminster and Wandsworth, and the home of so-called “Workington Man” (deemed the archetypal new working-class Tory voter) in Cumberland. Yet it must channel energy from these morale boosts into a pitch that will give people something positive vote for.
In the last month, weaving my way between commons and closes, to the sound of wood pigeons and slow traffic, I found myself reporting in various slices of suburbia ahead of the local elections on a tale of two Englands.
