Local Knowledge

Laura Pidcock is almost certain to be my MP until I am well over 70, and very probably until I am 80. I have no ill will towards her.

My heart bleeds for the people of Birmingham Yardley. Here in North West Durham, we are getting off very lightly indeed by comparison.

But no, she is not "local". She is very audibly from Northumberland, and this is County Durham, where we can hear the difference instantly. 

Nor does that accent make her "working-class". She is at least a second generation university graduate. She was at least the second generation of her family to have managed to make a living as a charity worker.

And she was at least a second generation member of Northumberland County Council until she lost her seat to a Conservative, by which time she had been wafted into a parliamentary seat at the age of 28.

The problem is that she has yet to acquire any understanding of how things work here.

She now lives here in Lanchester, where Labour retains the Chair of the Parish Council on the vote of the sole Conservative, who is by happy coincidence the Vice-Chair.

In 2013, Labour, the Conservatives and the Independents managed to nominate 15 candidates for 15 seats. What were the odds?

As a Group Observer, I heard the then Leader of the old Derwentside District Council, a man of the mainstream Left, tell the right-wing faction on the Labour Group that he had the votes to remain Leader whether or not the Group, as such, voted to renominate him.

That was right there in the ward that now contains Laura's constituency office. And it was because of his and his supporters' highly fruitful relationship with the Independents, most of whom were more or less Tories of one sort or another.

He remained Leader until the day that that authority was abolished, at which point that right-wing faction and its allies in the same parliamentary constituency took over the running of the new unitary County Council.

And so on.

She'll learn.