In Actual Fact…

Yes, I got all electioned-out about the time of last year’s Democratic Primaries, but here’s a UK Election exercise for you all:
Describe the constituency you have to vote in
Or. Write 1,000 words. Include the term “Stoke-on-Trent” but not “positive argument for the use of saturation carpet-bombing”.

I’ll be flying off to England for a quick visit this weekend, very much on the BNP campaign trail – a day in Bradford and a visit to Stoke-on-Trent.
Obviously if I was researching this properly I’d do Burnley, Oldham and Tipton too, but it’s more to do with the fact that I’ll be in Bradford to do the “the best man is an awful public speaker and you do that word thing really well” toast thingummy (as you can see, they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel). I intend to modify this speech – swap Texas for Yorkshire – should work…..

And yes, I know the BNP are competing in over 100 seats, they’re going for all of them equally, rather than targetting 5 or 6, it’s not in any way to get over the barrier required to receive free public broadcasting and mailshots or anything. After all they’re doing Epping and Sandwell too.
Okay, so I’m going to Bradford, but why Stoke? Well, I’ll spend a day or two at my parents’ house. They live, where I largely grew up, in the Peak District, in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Also, I’ll do my postal vote there. I’d decided to, despite saying at the 1952 committee that I wouldn’t, vote Conservative – first time for everything in life and so on. Not particularly because I want the Conservatives to win, I don’t, if Mr Blimpish’s adverts were correct and not just highly amusing, they might be on to something, but they’re not, especially with this one. I do, however, want the incumbent (Charlotte Atkins, LAB) to lose. Staffs Moorlands used to be one of those seats further north that were solid blue (that’s right-wing for American readers). Small market towns and hill farmers tend not to vote Labour. However, throw in some boundary changes in the mid 90s – lop off some conservative areas here, add on 20,000 traditional Labour voters from (former) mining areas there and suddenly (especially with the ‘97 landslide) it was a Labour seat. In 2001 she got 49% of the vote, compared to the Tories 35.3. Defendable surely – it’s on the list of “the 159 seats Michael Howard needs to win”, but at number 119 or so. It is one that I’d be prepared to have a wager on though. She counts on traditional Labour votes and has proved to be nothing if not a slimy, greasy-pole climbing, New Labour careerist. She’s not popular with local Labour activists who want a “real” socialist and, although they’d rather let Michael Howard eat their first-born than vote anything other than Labour, they may well stay home rather than vote for her. She has, however, managed to sign on to every anti-countryside Bill going through parliament despite representing a constituency with the word “Moorlands” in the title and the local Cons have a reasonable candidate and are active. I’d still predict the result going 2/3% either way, and the UKIP might take a big bit of right-wing support, but if you’re a spread-betting man and can get good odds – it’s worth a quid or two. Not too much – that’s a 7% direct LAB-CON swing, where almost no one makes that direct swap, it’ll all depend on who stays at home – but you can still get very good odds.

So if you keep going on about Staffs Moorlands, what’s all this about Stoke then?
Well, when (after making up my mind about how to vote/bet) I received my electoral documentation papers I noticed that they said “constituency Stoke-on-Trent (North)” on them.

After a bit of ringing around and wracking my brain to remember the words “Nana’s house”, “last registered address within the UK”, “lower council tax band”, “boundary changes” and “is that ‘avoidance’ or ‘evasion’?” it dawned on me that I wouldn’t be voting at my parents’ address, but rather from a house we now rent out. It’s part of Staffs Moorlands District Council, but now, technically, in the parliamentary constituency of Stoke-on-Trent (North).

So I’ve been desperately trying to find out about Stoke (oh the shame of association, etc.). For the person who is interested (i.e. me) this is it….
Stoke-on-Trent. Population ca. 250,000. Post-industrial hellhole half way between Manchester and Birmingham – themselves decent-sized metropolises which also managed to draw any vestiges of culture towards themselves when they were creating their dust and filth -covered selves. Can’t really decide if it’s in the Midlands or the North. Until recently a pre-post-industrial hellhole, important industries: mostly ceramics, but also include(d) mining, specialist steels and chemicals. Twin towns; Limoges, Erlangen. Recently established as UK capital of teenage motherhood and hooliganism. Politics – seats in parliament, 3, solid Labour since 1945, but tendency for bizarre extreme right-wing weirdness of late.

Stoke has never had the I’m white, my girlfriend isn’t, please don’t attack us feel that Bradford had on my one previous visit (National Museum of Photography, Film & Television). It’s poverty-stricken, not so much as is the case with larger cities that there are very rich and very deprived areas. It’s just generally, all-over poor. There’s an immigrant community, but it never seemed that big and I couldn’t work out why the BNP do so well there. As I’m repsonsible for actually voting for someone from there I’ve been trying to find out a bit more about its politics.

Formed as a unitary authority in 1997, S-o-T turned in a Stalin-would-be-proud election 60 Labour councillors from its 60 wards, however with total Labour power came a total fuck-up. What does any North-Midland city reeling from the loss of industrial jobs need? That’s right – a “cultural quarter”. After all, if you haven’t got a job at the pit, at least you can go to the theatre, right? Their policies seemed consist of spending so much money on stupid projects that they ran out of money to sweep the streets. At the next local election, loads of independents stood and there was a loss of majority control for Labour. They eventually got it back, but in the meantime a taboo had been broken. People had started to vote BNP. Regularly – not just as a protest vote, but had come to see themselves as BNP voters. The far-right now has 2 or 3 councillors and are very close in lots of others wards. In last years Euro elections the BNP, despite, or perhaps because of massive media attacks registered votes of over 25% in at least 7 wards.

The one thing that I really didn’t understand was the mayoral elections. S-o-T was one of the first British cities to get the chance to elect its own mayor. It did. An openly gay independent local activist. However in a break from British electoral tradition, there wasn’t a first past the post system. The Labour guy got 22.2%
The gay independent socialist got 21.3% (that was basically how he was describing himself).
And the BNP candidate got 18.7% (more than the Tories and LibDems combined).
The secondary choices of everyone except the first 2 candidates were then counted and Mike Wolfe, the openly gay, socialist Independent won, as he had far more secondary votes than the Labour candidate, and more in total when all the primary and secondary votes were added together.

Now just think about that for a while…..

1. Almost 1 in 5 people who could be bothered to vote, voted fascist
2. Of those people that did vote fascist, there must have been a certain group that said, “Oh well, if we can’t have the racist, fascist bigot, let’s go for the queer instead”

Can you imagine being the statistician in Islington who has to present his or her political masters with extrapolations of how these people will vote on May 5th? I certainly have NO idea where my tactical vote is going…..