James Cleverly ( Stockton)

[Newtonianmechanics]

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/james-cleverly-stockton-north-shithole-b2451844.html

Course he said it! What happened to levelling up eh! Scary that they actually think like this. It isn't helpful at all. Disgraceful in fact.

Point taken, but if you look at Cleverley"s background he isn't exactly top drawer in terms of achievement anyway.

I suppose he could ask Theresa May. She'd probably tell him to get stuffed.

If you don't have a problem with the home secretary reacting to a question about child poverty with the phrase "because it's a shithole" then really, raise your standards.
Absolutely this with bells on.

It should not be acceptable for any member of government to blame poor people in deprived areas for their own poverty and shocking levels of child poverty when many areas of the country are living and breathing the effects of austerity every day.

This isn't about Stockton. It's about a member of the government showing the contempt he holds all working class and poor people and all areas that aren't rich, Tory strongholds. We should be mindful that's how he sees many of our areas too.

I'm from Stockton. It's one of the biggest towns in the UK and is two constituencies. Stockton North and South. South is actually a Tory constituency. MP is a deputy Tory chairman. The town centre and some of the estates have been struggling for generations. I remember the town hall flying a banner with the unemployment stats back in the eighties where Stockton had the highest number of jobless per resident in the UK

But Teessiders are resilient. Generous. Welcoming. There's history and culture and community. It's surrounded by some of the UKs most gorgeous countryside.

Shame on Cleverley of course. But shame on some of the posters on here too

South is actually a Tory constituency.

Not for much longer I suspect!

I remember the banner on the town hall too.

I suspect that Stockton South will change hands at the next election.

Mind you, due to the boundary changes, it will be Stockton West by then. I see the Labour candidate is a local man.

Lol. I remember when it was one of the first SDP constituencies. Ian Wrigglesworth My mum thought he was rather dishy and his daughter went to our school

DH, who is from Stockton, remembers when the MP was Harold MacMillan🤓

Yes. He became Lord Stockton. He'd be speechless with horror at the dross that passes for the Tory Cabinet these days.

Cleverly needs to go, now.

@newnamethanks Lord Stockton objected to some of Margaret Thatcher's policies, no idea what he would think of the current government were he alive today. Other than that they rival his own government for dodgy behaviour and alleged corruption.

No argument @LlynTegid they possibly hid it better.

I don't find those kind of comments massively surprising - it seems like we've had many comments over the years, which sum up the disdain that some Tories have for those who haven't been fortunate enough to be born into wealth or been ruthless enough to do whatever it takes to haul themselves up.

In terms of towns like Stockton - the problem is that society has changed so much - manufacturing/heavy industry died off decades ago as a major source of our economic output (obviously the Teesside area still has the chemical industry) and we've been way too reliant on the retail sector to drive the economy in a lot of towns. Now people's shopping habits have changed so quickly and the high street has not. It does need a radical rethink - Stockton and other places are not beyond recovery but there still seems to be a lack of future planning.

This is why politicians lie. When they tell the truth they get derided for it.

There are a lot of shitholes on the uk. I've lived in some of them. I'd rather some MPs actually admitted that!

I'd rather that MPs did something to help improve those places than make snide, off the cuff remarks about them.

If you've been in power for 13 years you don't get to dismiss questions about child poverty by saying it's because they live in a shithole.

That's not some kind of courageous truth telling.

Particularly when you lie about saying it in the first place.

And you got elected on a policy of “levelling up”. There shouldn’t be any shitholes if they’d made any attempt to keep their promises to the red wall.

Which country in the world has no shit holes? I'm on the next flight!