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July 03, 2008
Rotting rotten boroughs
Hat-tip to Andrew Kitching, who pointed out this Melanie Read article in The Times
which makes the case for getting rid of safe seats. Here are the key paragraphs:
"One of the first ironies presented by Glasgow East is that it is a classic Labour rotten borough. One of the most rotten of the rotten, in fact. For generations, its inhabitants have been treated as cannon fodder; their votes taken for granted, their poverty contained but largely untackled. Vote Labour? It's what they do, along with drinking, drug taking, bad diet and Irn-Bru. Why should politicians spend money on people who are going to vote for them anyway? Much better to invest it in marginal seats.
In election after election, Glasgow's poor automatically did what their parents had done, with 60 per cent or more of the vote consistently cast for Labour. Corresponding generations of Labour politicians, both local and national, used such loyalty to secure their positions but singularly failed to reward their people.
The final irony, of course, lies within the boundaries of Glasgow East, where the massed poor have perhaps not so much shifted their allegiance from Labour as ceased to have any allegiance at all - other than to Celtic FC. Will their lives change, whoever wins the by-election? Doubtful. Very doubtful. Sitting on the slow bus back to the East End, surrounded by drunks and junkies, the constituents inhale the ever-persistent whiff of broken promises."
Posted by malcolmclark on July 03, 2008
Comments
Anyone know how Glasgow East wards voted in the STV local election last year? It would give an idea of the activist levels able to help.
Posted by: Andrew Kitching at July 4, 2008 06:59 AM
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