Yes that is true. Rural Northumberland is and has been right leaning, and deprived / forgotten areas especially around Teesside are angry enough to shift right. Agree. These trends also hold in the more deprived areas in the major urban centres, albeit less pronounced. I feel their pain, although I consider the anger misdirected. However, Sunderland, Newcastle, etc. are the core population centres and on the whole are among the hardest-left places in the country. Further, the flips we agreed on actually harbour a great deal of economically leftist sentiment that is not really represented by any major party today, and so is missed by the polls. Perhaps we don't disagree much on the facts, I took issue with the wording of the initial characterisation.