Bellwether Tory seat shows prosperity won’t save Rishi Sunak from the mood for change – John McLellan

There are other significant employers in the area − Kimberly-Clark rolls out the Andrex from its Barrow mill and GlaxoSmithKline still operates at nearby Ulverston but is winding down an operation which once employed 5,000 people – but there is nothing on the scale of BAe Systems.

Far from a mirror of Clyde shipbuilding’s decline, the workforce stands at 10,000 people, 4,000 less than the boom years in the 70s and 80s but due to swell to 17,000, mainly because of the Aukus deal signed by the UK Government with the US and Australia to beef up security in the Pacific. In October, the Ministry of Defence awarded a contract of £3.95 billion to cover development work on Aukus’s nuclear-powered attack submarines to 2028, guaranteeing manufacturing jobs into the late 2030s.

Where these new recruits will be sourced is another thing because the population is only 67,000, and already the yard is sucking in people with little experience of such highly technical work. Many of the jobs will not be in Barrow at all, but will go to design contractors working from home. But that’s nit-picking and it’s surely undeniable that high employment of skilled people must be a good thing.

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The question is why doesn’t it translate into a town that feels and looks affluent? When I lived there in the 1980s, it had its own Next, a big M&S and there was much excitement when a Debenhams store opened. But Next has long gone and despite the good wages, M&S closed its doors in 2020. Debenhams has been taken over for offices by, you guessed it, BAe. We visited friends last weekend and the main shopping street, Dalton Road, makes Sauchiehall Street look like a retail jewel. It’s remarkable that with investment pouring in, it looks like a town on its knees.

5,000 majority at risk?

Why this matters is because Barrow and Furness is a bellwether constituency. Its working-class roots are deep, a rugby league town that produced Emlyn ‘Crazy Horse’ Hughes, and voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. When Labour loses the plot, as it did under Michael Foot, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, Barrow votes Conservative. When Labour remembers that jobs and prosperity matter more than purist principle, Barrow returns the favour.

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The local Conservative Association chair, Councillor Les Hall, is confident their MP Simon Fell can defend the seat he won in 2019 at the third attempt (5,000 UKIP voters denied him victory in 2015) because of the UK Government investment in the yard, but other party supporters I spoke to are just as convinced his 5,000 majority will be swept away.

Like Rishi Sunak’s decisive actions to save jobs and private businesses during lockdown, voters don’t make their choices based on gratitude for past actions but on how they feel in the here and now. For all the prosperity being generated by government cash, the signs of decay are as strong as in places with no such advantages, more Airdrie than Aylesbury.

Apart from the lack of places to spend money, drug dealing is rife – we saw dealers cycling between pubs on Dalton Road − care at the local hospital, Furness General, is notoriously poor, and like most places there is a dire shortage of teachers. National Service might be supported in principle, but when schools can’t find staff and colleges are strapped for cash, who really believes a national volunteering and training system can be created from scratch? Once the rot sets in, it’s hard to shift, and new polling suggesting the return of a Conservative government is less popular than the prospect of a Corbyn-led Labour government was in 2019 shows the challenge facing Mr Sunak is effectively insurmountable.

Swinney’s lack of political nous

But if no political Rentokil can fix the Conservative timbers, the SNP faces a similar struggle to convince voters they have answers after 17 years in which the list of failures has lengthened with each one that passes. Sure, people like the idea of the free stuff that the SNP have doled out thanks to a generous UK block grant, but the dogs in the street know the money has run out and services are beyond breaking point. Our bins in Edinburgh haven’t been emptied for nearly a week.

And as commentator after commentator has pointed out over the weekend, John Swinney has displayed a staggering lack of political nous by defending the indefensible Michael Matheson from sanctions approved by SNP members on the standards committee, and with Green support Mr Matheson may escape essentially scot-free after claiming £11,000 roaming charges incurred by his sons watching football on holiday as a legitimate parliamentary expense.

It speaks of fatigue and desperation, will stick in voters’ minds, and could seal the fate of SNP MPs across the country. In Scotland or England, when your time’s up, it’s up, and to quote John Donne’s famous lines, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Meanwhile, readers of last week’s column may be interested to know that my mother was discharged from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital last Tuesday, about 16 hours after we learned she wasn’t getting out. An ambulance was provided to take her back and by good fortune the cleaner who comes round once a fortnight just happened to be there. And that’s how we found out about her discharge. No call to us, no coordination with the care service, just out you go. Still, anything is better than the Langlands unit. As one doctor said when she was first admitted, you don’t want her going in there… When the rot sets in, it’s in.