Auntie Does It Again

Not for the first time, the BBC lazily calls Tynemouth “a Labour heartland”, apparently oblivious to the fact that it always had a Tory MP until 1997. And, for that matter, apparently blind. I mean, just look around you, Auntie. The Tories’ doing well there is not a case of “Look, we can even win here”, but of “Look, we even needed to get back here, because somehow we ever managed to lose here in the first place”.

Indeed, even Newcastle itself has not only a Lib Dem council and a history of Tory control for much of the post-War period, as well as of Tory MPs for certain seats, but also a strikingly high number of privately schooled children, a posh university, a thriving arts scene that is certainly not reminiscent of the pitmen painters, several gentlemen’s clubs, a racecourse of some importance, and no shortage of the swankier sorts of shops, restaurants, bars, and the like. But don’t bother trying to explain any of that to the London media.

So, should the Tories ever again manage to win back so much as one council seat there, then their mates in Fleet Street and the BBC will whoop with glee and ooze with condescension, rather than asking how the ward in question had ever come to return anything other than a full complement of Tories.