Until the Left can learn to like its own country, it stands very little chance of winning another election

The smarter Labour MPs are on a mission at the moment. Not a lecture tour, but a listening tour. Just before Christmas Lisa Nandy was in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, to hear why people in this previously safe Labour seat had chosen to abandon her party and return a Conservative as their MP.

As with all such listening exercises, the same phrases keep recurring. The sense that voters in such places had been taken for granted by a Labour party obsessed with London and hyper-liberal university graduates. Also foremost, of course, was the Labour Party’s organised betrayal over Brexit. But there were other cultural components, aspects of which Labour has struggled with from long before the disaster of Corbynism.

The problem which Labour faces on cultural and identity issues is not easy to solve. It cannot be addressed simply by listening to people’s complaints. It is deep-rooted: so deep that perhaps Labour simply cannot solve it.

As various psephologists have pointed out since the election, there are two tectonic shifts that could fundamentally alter the British political landscape for the next generation. The first is if the Conservatives are able to hold and strengthen their present position of power by moving to the Left on economics. Among other things, this will necessitate an increase in public spending, especially on infrastructure projects outside of London. This election proves the need to give back to those regions where people have felt forgotten.

The other move that could occur is for the traditional party of the Left to try to bring itself back into the centre ground of politics. Although the Labour Party cannot go much further left on economics than the plans put forward by John McDonnell, it seems unwilling to abandon this prospectus. In which case, their complimentary move to that of the Conservatives is to tack to the Right on issues of culture.