The Tories Are In Town

Well, the Conservative Party is, anyway. Its long history in Birmingham is an important reminder that, even since it became a major force, Labour has by no means always dominated the politics or urban Britain, even if it is about to make massive gains against what was in itself the very telling Lib Dem municipal insurgency of the last 15 years or so.

Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, it is a long list of such councils that the Conservatives could realistically expect to control at least some of the time well into the post-War period, and from which they could in those days expect to return a certain number of MPs. Fully half of the MPs from Leeds were of that hue all the way up until 1997. If the Thatcher and Major Governments had any special understanding of rural life, then they had an extremely peculiar way of showing it.

In the same way, numerous rural constituencies only went safely Conservative after the First World War, before that having been either hotly contested between that party and the Liberals, or else safely Liberal and often with very strong Radical traditions. The rising Labour Party's failure to make much, or in many places anything, of that was one of its greatest missed opportunities. That said, once safe Labour seats first became identifiable in the Twenties, then county divisions predominated among them. Durham County Council was the first local authority that Labour ever won, and it has never been lost in more than a century.

Miners? So what? Economically, socially, culturally and politically, there was and is nothing urban about miners, or about past or present pit villages. Places like Sunderland, Gateshead, Hartlepool, Stockton and so on have not been in County Durham for these purposes for nearly 40 years, but the overall result has remained the same. Not necessarily deserved, and these days, at least at parliamentary level, only for the lack of a more understanding alternative than very London New Labour, but there we are.

Lessons all round for the coming realignment. Learn them well.