Clapton Pond Blog

Tesco Trouble

 With the next edition of the Hackney Gazette expected to report on local opposition to a Tesco Express taking up residence at 144-146 Lower Clapton Road, this might be a good moment to fortify emotion with cold-eyed realism. Like all the fellow residents in the photograph above (taken yesterday), I love the friendliness and individuality of Palm 2 and many of our other local shops. The prospect of any of them being driven out of the business thanks to a branch of the ravenous Tesco giant having the mass buying power to undercut them on price is distressing.

Election Results In Hackney

At the start of my all-night election results coverage for The Guardian I wrote that, "Election fever isn't burning as hot here in Hackney as in other parts of the capital: it's a stubborn Labour stronghold." This turned out to be both right and wrong. In terms of how the borough voted, we turned out to be even more solid for Labour than before, with both of our Labour MPs, our Labour mayor and our Labour council strengthening their positions compared with previous elections in 2005 (for parliament) and 2006 (for mayor and councillors).

Vote, Vote, Vote!

I still take a perverse pride in Hackney's obdurate performance at the last borough elections in 2006. All around us - Camden, Tower Hamlets, Islington, Barking and Dagenham - weird and sometimes frightening swings were taking place, but in Hackney the message from the voters was a resounding "Labour: no change". Indeed, practically no change at all. But was I right to read the result as a cantankerous yet somehow endearing indication that we Hackneyites are not fickle or easily swayed by fashionable opinion? Is it really all that clever to be as stubbornly unchanging in our political alliances as we appear to be? Should we rejoice in the fact that the Liberal Democrat surge will scarcely trouble our two Labour parliamentary candidates at all? Is it likely that the Council's Labour edifice will be significantly disturbed and, if not, what will it mean?