Wipeout for Labour in Hartlepool

I live around 35 miles South of London in a semi rural village. However, less than 5 miles away is a large group of towns, with high streets which are dying, high unemployment, poor ex council estates, knife crime, county lines drugs. There is a huge disparity between rich and poor all over the UK, not just London, the North East or North West. You only need to scratch the surface of towns on the Kent and Sussex coasts to find high unemployment and poverty.

@Flaxmeadow
No, this is complete and utter revisionist nonsense and very typical of the twisting of our history by leftist liberal progressives who do nothing but put this country and our history down.
I completely agree. Some time ago I read a popular history by an academic at a leading uni. I swallowed the lot, horrified by the actions of the UK. Then (for my own academic reasons) I did a lot of my own research into the place and time, including reading the same memoirs, government files and so forth that he had used. I was, and remain, horrified by the blatant cherry-picking, twisting of the truth and muddling of timings. There was just too much of it, all in one direction, for it to be nothing but a series of honest errors. Either the author went in with blinkers, or had a view and wasn't going to let the pesky facts get in the way, or had set out to write propaganda. Whatever, he has set the terms of the discourse in that field.

The whole experience has made me deeply cynical about any work produced by Leftist academics (probably unfairly). I say this as someone who used to be an avowed leftie, but has settled in the centre, possibly centre-left.

Absolutely bloodylutely.

It's quicker to get to London by train than Manchester from the NE for a start.

Ive seen something about KS wanting to move a Labour HQ to the NE; there is already a Labour HQ in Newcastle. (According to my Labour friend.)

Can I just say that the North is not just one homologous blob. The NW and the NE are very different.

Listening to Shabana Mamood being interviewed on Today this morning was interesting. She, and many like her, talk a language that no one can actually understand. Also, it became very clear that Labour doesn't listen to itself, not just to us normal mortals.

A recipe for labour renewal:

1. Talk with real words, not just recycled platitudes from sociology coursebooks.

1. Stop calling people out. Listen instead.

1. Active listening. Reconstruct what people are saying to you back to them to see if you've understood properly and to show them that you have been listening.

If we look at whole life chances then we find London has the highest life expectancy of anywhere in the country with Scotland the worst followed by the NE then NW of England

Tealightsandd I don't know why you are so fixated on London being worst and refusing to acknowledge the levels of deprivation outaide of london. Why do you think so many people travel to london seeking opportunities?

In terms of covid deaths, as of yesterday's figures only one london borough features in the top 20. Yes deprivation plays a big role in all of the areas badly affected. Population density and mobility in London tends to have resulted in a pattern where a covid wave has swept through london swiftly then subsided whilst numbers increase elsewhere. So if you look at figures early on in each wave London fairs worst but these figures are then overtaken outside London.

Anyhoodle.....it is wretched that there are deprived, crime-ridden areas with few opportunities anywhere in the country.

It does seem that both major parties are run by a fair chunk of people who are out of touch with the needs of those who are subjected to this deprivation, whether in London, Cornwall, the North, anywhere.

I too wish Labour would turn away from identity politics/US-style social justice and focus on addressing economic inequality, to lift up ALL who are getting the short end of the stick in the current system. Not sure how.

devastating impact on London was laid bare today with some of its most deprived boroughs the hardest hit in the country.

Newham has the highest death rate from coronavirus in England and Wales, according to official figures for March to December, with London the second worst affected region.

Tibtom
I assume the gentrification referred to for Grenfell referred to the cladding to try and make it look smarter. In other areas Grenfell fire would not have occurred because there is no money to make tower blocks look better by cladding them so they have no cladding rather than dangerous cladding. (I am speculating as to the pp meaning here)

Yes. I think gentrification did play a part in that terrible and horrific event. It kind of broke something inside me that morning. I hope that doesn't sound like a soundbite, because I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I can't even begin to describe how I felt about it. I'm so on board with justice for the people and neighbourhood affected.

I dont want to be misunderstood here. I'm not having a go at everyday people in London, it's the LP I've come to despise over the years and what seems to be its dismissal of its class based roots in favour of navel gazing USA style activism. I'm very much an old fashioned kind of left wing person still and this LP is not the party I grew up with and it's the worse for it IMO

I'm a class perspective kind of lefty

Two thirds of all temporary accommodation families are in London. Children don't have opportunities whilst living in one room with their parents and siblings sharing facilities with strangers.

Health and disability.
No access or extremely limited when rough sleeping or a hostel. Which is the fate of many London ill and disabled.

At the end of the day, it's not the worst thing, to have less educational opportunities and a lower paid job - but stable housing around your family and support networks.

Not, that I'm claiming (unlike Flax?) that there's no educational opportunities in the north. Some of the best universities are in the north. In fact, it's almost as if there's more opportunities - since students are more likely to be able to afford to live there.

If somewhere has a population of 10 people and 4 die, it might have a higher average than somewhere else

I am not sure what you mean by this? I was going on the fact that that is a smaller proportion of the horrendous death toll of covid than than the proportion of the population that live in London.

London hit hardest by coronavirus due to high deprivation levels, ONS figures show. Nine of the top 10 boroughs with the highest death rates were in the capital

Those figures were from last June. Covid them spread around the rest of the country.

What's also very clear, is that if it's the supposed "privileges" of London that you're so resentful of, that's another one you're very welcome to.

Depends how you define deprived.

Deprivation indices are based on seven measures:
Income Deprivation
Employment Deprivation
Education, Skills and Training Deprivation
Health Deprivation and Disability
Crime
Barriers to Housing and Services
Living Environment Deprivation

www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/london/london-hit-hardest-coronavirus-deprivation-ons-a4467196.html%3famp

London hit hardest by coronavirus due to high deprivation levels, ONS figures show. Nine of the top 10 boroughs with the highest death rates were in the capital

www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloombergquint.com/amp/business/london-s-covid-deaths-boost-crowded-housing-on-agenda-for-mayor-election

Newham, the borough where Amri lives, had the greatest proportion of overcrowded homes in the U.K. and also the highest Covid death rate in the pandemic.

Deprivation is a big reason why more than 10,000 Londoners are dead from Covid.

That places london below average for the uk for deaths from Covid.

I assume the gentrification referred to for Grenfell referred to the cladding to try and make it look smarter. In other areas Grenfell fire would not have occurred because there is no money to make tower blocks look better by cladding them so they have no cladding rather than dangerous cladding. (I am speculating as to the pp meaning here)

That's not true. When Covid hit, the ONS had a list of the worse areas of deprivation. Several were London boroughs.

Deprivation is a big reason why more than 10,000 Londoners are dead from Covid.

A stable settled home is one of life's basic essentials. Something denied to more Londoners than anywhere else in the country.

The housing crisis and level of homelessness significantly worse there.

London aside, some of the worse deprivation is also in the south - in the south west.

Grenfell wasn't gentrification! It was social housing. With criminally negligent underinvestment. I agree the cladding issue could happen outside of London too (it shouldn't be an issue still and should've been dealt with). My point is that Grenfell is a far more accurate depiction of London's social housing (the precious tiny amount left) than somewhere with a dining table.

Sorry if I misinterpreted your attitudes towards Londoners. You were talking about having vulnerable forced out Londoners moved into your housing. I understand the frustrations if housing is scarce, but please don't blame the poor people with nowhere else to go, who really won't want to be ripped away from their communities and support networks. Sorry if that's not what you were doing.

I agree with you btw that women and girls seem to have been badly failed where you are. It's just that it's not the fault of Londoners. Women and girls are being badly failed there too.

The people you're angry with. They don't tend to stay in London. They fuck off to homes in the countryside, leaving the mess they've made behind.