If you take people for granted long enough eventually they leave you, usually while you resort to undignified pleading and threats. True with Labour in the red wall, true with the Tories in rural areas, and true with bad marriages since the dawn of time.
The Conservative party's final fortnight pivot to 'please, farmers, come back and vote for us' is so fascinating to me, because it's a) obviously the right call but b) was obviously the right call at the start of the campaign, the year, and indeed Sunak's premiership. Why didn't they do it earlier?
Gentlemen, the time to buy your wife flowers is 'regularly' and the time to shore up your rural base is 'just often enough that they don't start making sheeps eyes at other parties'
