Bring on the chavs... Labour from Bransholme

A year or so ago I felt ‘uncomfortable’ about the national joke which chavs appeared to have been made. It has gone off the boil again; ‘new comedy’ doesn’t dwell too long and Shameless, not being new comedy, sails on regardless.

Of the eight Lib Dem paper communications to everyone in Avenue Ward in the six weeks of ‘the campaign’, the last three attempted to focus voters’ minds on a very few shibboleths, one of which was me not being a local candidate because I live on Bransholme. An example from each...

• “The election is a clear choice between local Lib Dem John Robinson and Labour’s candidate from Bransholme.”
• “I live locally on Park Avenue with my wife. Labour’s man lives miles away in North Bransholme.”
• “Gordon Brown’s candidate lives miles away in North Bransholme.”

I told everyone in Avenue Ward in Feb/March in my first leaflet that I live on North Bransholme. Now I know that I’m missing the point in terms of winning an election; just because you are clear, once a while back, doesn’t mean you’ll have much impact on the electorate. The leaflet game as the Lib Dems play it seems to be about pummelling a few clear messages which play to people’s general prejudices and fears and current complaints and concerns.

I accept that making play of me not living in the ward is a tactic, though it’s the height of Lib Dem hypocrisy in Hull. (For example: where did the Councillor who wrote out your blue personal letter live John?). I can even cope with John claiming not to know about his leaflets going on about Bransholme – we all know that Lib Dem candidates have next to nothing to do with what’s said in their names. (So much for being local eh).

What really upset me was how the Lib Dems will play on what they presume to be a generalised prejudice about Bransholme amongst voters in Avenue Ward. I think actually such a tactic is distasteful to many; that many can differentiate between (possibly) preferring a local candidate and it not mattering where a candidate actually lives in Hull.

That the Lib Dem machine is prepared to try this tactic should be beneath it. I thought Sloan was being harsh in March on resigning his Lib Dem membership and cabinet position when he said “Believing and standing for nothing more than re-election of its own representatives manifests itself in a most unattractive manner. It results in lies and deceptions; a need and willingness to say anything and misrepresent everything”. Clearly I was wrong.

Maybe I’m just pissed of because I lost, but... I think the national chav jokes went off the boil because many people realised that this was a kind of ‘within-race racism’. I did not congratulate John on his victory the other night; I was very angry about his party’s attempts at social divisiveness. There are several others by the way. I would like to call on John Robinson and any other basically honest Lib Dem Councillors and members to insist that their use of power and future attempts to retain it should not be characterised by the peddling of prejudice and the reinforcing of social difference and distance in Hull.