London fascinates me

I lived in a labour safe seat in london. pretty much everyone I worked with voted labour out of reverse snobbery. The others are toffs and Labour is for working class people - they didn't bother to familiarize themselves with the local candidates or any policies of any parties including labour.

the labour MP didn't even TRY to sound interested in local issues, didn't need to. The green party candidate seemed really interested in real issues affecting the poorer inhabitants of the area and the labour one couldn't care less from what I could see. And he was the biggest toff of the lot of em! but the people I worked with would swear blind that labour was made up of working class heros and every other party were just a bunch of toffs.

Haven't really heard that kinda talk from labour supporters in other areas, for the most part I think that people who vote labour do so because they either like their actual policies or local MP, or dislike someone else's policies or MP so vote tactically for labour against them. But what I was hearing in central london was people not interested in the 'details' and just voting for the party they perceived to be the working class party IYKWIM without knowing ANYTHING else about them, or wanting to know for that matter

that was a few years ago mind you

I like the cut of your jibe, Coolfonz.

Even if London doesn't fascinate me in any way, shape or form.

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I expect SomeGuy even met a black man once

No, true, Page 5: www.islington.nhs.uk/jsna/Chapter-10-Employment-and-prosperity-JSNA-200910.pdf

"50% of children in Islington are growing up in workless households"

What utter rubbish.

It's because it's urban. Same with the big northern conurbations.

it's nothing to do with 'progressiveness'. The most 'progressive' (educated, liberal) areas (Richmond, Kingston, etc.) elect Lib Dem or Tory MPs.

True there are a lot of meeja types in Islington, but equally 50% of children in Islington are growing up in workless households, and it's no surprise that the Labour vote is high there.

And we're not scared of immigrants, seeing as how we actually know some.

Lol at "foreigners vote labour" - wot, like Scots and Welsh you mean?

I think urban centres vote Labour because we are more community minded and perhaps are more dependent on state infrastructure.

labour also won lots of councillors in local elections - Ealing has changed to Labour and Harrow I think.

as an aside, just wondering how the whole Hung Parliment/ Labour Ealing council change will effect Toby Young's desire to build a new school for his kids in ealing.
Squash it completely with any luck.

Red flag still flying over North Westminster . Karen Buck has a very good reputation locally.

Labour is traditionally the party of workers, who are more concentrated in conurbations, probably has something to do with it.

Joanne Cash's face was priceless when Karen Buck won. She was like the reverse-Portillo moment.

"How dare hubby's money not buy me a seat!!" stomp / sulk

was delighted to see Karen Buck (Westminster North) and Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) for labour retain their seatsfor labour, despite the onslaught from the tory contenders/ ashcroft money.

especially pleased for Karen Buck.

SomeGuy thats utter rubbish. Its about class and progressiveness as aforementioned - you can see the class thing by what happens in west london and the suburbs.

There are a few ethnically influenced seats whwre class and ethnicity meet - to argue otherwise is being disingenuous - Tooting is one seat that proved that but I dont see the problem with it tbh.

At the end of the day people want politicians that both reflect and work for them - the working classes and more progressive people dont see that in the Tories - hence a lot of London being red.

someguy, that quote (supposedly Morrison) is a myth.

besides, shirley porter tried her best to achieve the reverse for the westminster tories.

The Labour party pledged, years ago, to
'build the Tories out of London'. Hence all the council estates with their very high Labour votes.

It's far more complicated than poverty alone.

The Tories made gains into some serious Labour heartland territory, including some quite poor areas, in the north of England.

Ethnic minorities are often poor. Yet again right wing people have to racialise issues that are in fact class issues. very very telling, as someone above said.

Poor people vote labour. Hold the front page. Why do they just not believe that people like David Cameron, Zac Goldsmith and George Osborne may not have their best interests at heart. It's a mystery indeed.

In other news Labour regain control of Islington Council in a landslide.

The 1 Tory MP in Scotland, David Mundell, hung on.

I think the Tory brand in Scotland is just too tainted. Annabel Goldie is a very effective leader but in my opinion, Thatcher's single biggest mistake was to sacrifice the Tory party's one-nation instincts.

Cameron is an old-school one-nation Tory but the Scots are understandably sceptical. The economic pain which is on the way will sadly do nothing to persuade them.

At this point, an independent right-of-centre party in Scotland allied to but not dictated to by the Conservatives would probably be best.

Actually Scotland has nae blue

The red bits are also clustered around other areas of inner city/deprivation, eg Liverpool, Sunderland, bits of South Wales etc. Interesting that Scotland has no or virtually no blue.

As someone from an ethnic minority, I am perfectly aware that ethnic minorities do not blindly vote Labour.

Nevertheless, all the polling evidence is very clear that firstly ethnic minorities do vote for Labour more than other parties, and that ethnic minority Labour voters are more loyal to Labour than white working class Labour voters.

Incidentally, as a demographic bloc, ethnic minorities also have far lower turnout than the population as a whole.