Welcome to tricolour Britain, a country divided along party lines When the local elections are held next month, it could well be that a new picture of Britain starts to emerge. Rather than being one nation, with Tory shires and Labour cities, we may see a political tricolour, with the nationalists at the top, Labour in the middle and the Tories at the bottom. Labour may be riding high in the opinion polls, and will doubtless win hundreds of council seats next week, as opposition parties tend to do. But look closer, and there are tracts of England that have become almost entirely Labour-free zones. Cheltenham, Eastleigh, Maidstone and Wokingham have not a single Labour councillor. It is impossible to stage a national comeback without springboards in such areas, which is why Mr Miliband is so worried. The Liberal Democrats are worst-placed of all. They have long prided themselves on being the "party of local government" nationwide - but their popular support has halved, and it now lacks the troops to defend many areas. Quietly, Clegg has given the order to retreat. The Lib Dems are fielding 1,200 fewer candidates than the other parties, and are not attempting to cover major cities like Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester. The strategy is to find a heartland, and Clegg has settled on the South West of England, where the Lib Dems hope to become the natural party of opposition to their Coalition partners. For better or worse, they hope that this will be their fortress during the general election onslaught. This process is now beginning to influence Government policy. Tory ministers have noticed how their Lib Dem colleagues are thinking of ways of buttering up the South West, and are making announcements there. "The 9.06 am from Waterloo to Plymouth is chock-full of Lib Dems," says one minister. You can tell what they're up to. And the Tories? They have no hope of capturing the northern cities, and the mission looks as impossible now as it did 10 years ago. The party does reasonably well in the rural areas, but cities such as Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Gateshead and Knowsley are entirely Tory-free zones. Winning a majority at the next election will be impossible without progress in such places. There is nothing new in the differences between the North and the South of England, but seldom has the economic situation been as stark. In the North East and Wales, state spending equates to more than 60 per cent of economic output - literally on a par with the old Soviet states. If Scotland were independent, its state spending would be the third highest in the world. Cutting back public spending and welfare is not a vote-winner in the many parts of the country where those on benefits, or those employed by the state, make up the majority of the electorate. The massive growth of government (and welfare) dependency has disfigured local economies, widened regional inequalities and made it harder to come up with a message that works as well in the North as in the South. But there is more to politics than economics, more than a cold calculation of whether you'll be paying less tax. When the Tories last commissioned a study about the North, it concluded that the geographical aspect was a red herring. The greater problem was the lack of a message for the blue-collar workers who make up a greater share of voters in the North. These people are worried about crime, schools and the cost of living in general - not the environment, overseas aid or Lords reform. The Tories don't lack a northern strategy, but a sense of mission in general. And this is what Alex Salmond is getting right. No matter how closely Salmond snuggled up to Rupert Murdoch, or how annoying you may find his permanent grin, his Scottish National Party represents a cause that has energised a small army of activists. The battle for Glasgow next week will pit Labour supporters, who can barely name their latest Scottish leader, against a band of nationalists for whom taking Glasgow City Chambers would represent a historic victory. Not so long ago, the Conservatives and the Labour Party represented a cause which had nationwide appeal. The problem is that neither, at present, really do. For all the talk about political realignment, the larger problem in British politics is de-alignment - a steady decoupling of the priorities of an increasingly professional political class from those of the nation as a whole. Appointing a "Minister for Liverpool" won't help the Conservatives, any more than Mr Miliband will lure back Blair-era voters by peppering his speeches with the word "aspirational." The surest route for a party to break out of its heartland is to focus less on the Westminster chess match, and more on finding an agenda that enough people think is worth voting for.