I think for the last 50 years, possibly excepting one Labour leader, the wider electorate have seen Labour as literally the worst of all alternatives. That's why the Conservatives are consistently voted in.

The problem isn't really either of our two terrible main political parties though, it's the absence of any realistic competition. If there were an obviously better alternative I believe that despite any historical affiliations voters today on all sides would leap to it. We've had that 50 years to find an alternative and there's still nothing palatable waiting in the wings.

Why this is, I think is more debatable. Maybe the answer is PR, maybe we need to pay MPs more in line with historic rates in real terms (and more than some recent software dev grads), maybe it's something else. But it's pretty clear to me that as much as people don't want the Conservatives, they really don't want Labour either.