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?

The author of Blood And Property - a Top London Blog - has been industriously worrying away at questions like these, probing the implications of communalism and wondering if Diane Abbott is losing some of her appeal in the eyes of the local intelligentsia and even BME electors. Will anything ever change? Andrew Boff, who we might now have to dub the partial Conservative candidate for Hackney mayor, will surely argue that it might if other parties were given a half-sensible chance to join in. More seriously, there has to be a danger that when incumbent politicians are as firmly installed as most of ours they get complacent and lazy and dull. Abbott, after all, has recently been accused of getting a bit grand and we don't want that sort of thing round here. 

For such reasons I'm pleased that Boff is bringing his libertarian Conservatism to the table, that Suzanne Moore is running for parliament in Hackney North and that Denny de la Haye is running on a direct democracy ticket in Hackney South. The temptation to vote for anyone who's shaking things up a bit is rather large. That said, I'd feel guilty about not re-electing my three Labour ward councillors. They've knocked on my door. I've seen them out on the streets and drinking coffee at Palm 2. I know from experience that they are diligent and deserving, so how I could I not put my "x" next to their names? It's a conundrum, isn't? Yes? No? Hello?               

Comments

[james]

I am in a real conundrum about who to vote for in Hackney North & Stoke Newington.

I'm fairly new to the constituency. I've voted in one general election previously and was one of the many who went Lib Dem in Hornsey to get Lynn Featherstone in.

Hackney North seems like a safe Labour seat, but I don't feel I should give Labour my vote in this election. Abbott on the other hand is a good MP and a good servant of the area. I feel if I went Labour it would be for the public servant she is, in spite of her party.

I feel a huge amount of distrust with Conservatives and ideologically i'm more alligned to Lib Dems and Greens.

In all of this, I haven't had much exposure to any of the other candidates (Independent, Greens, Tory), with only a few leaflets popping in my door and ZERO (not one!) canvassers knocking on my door in the last six weeks.

Would my voting Lib Dem in Hackney North just be the electoral equivalent of p***ing in the wind? Would a vote for Greens (who, on the brief coverage I've seen of him, looks smart) be nothing more than a protest?

[Martin McCallion]

Yeah, I posted about this last night. My main point: yes, Diane was and is against the war and ID cards; but how can she then remain in a party that (well, whose leadership) supports them?

New Labour betrayed us. But then I suppose we always knew they would.

[Matt Sellwood]

Hi there James - wow - people seldom call me smart. :)

My argument is that, in Hackney North, the task is to build a medium/long term alternative to Labour on the left. Anyone who knows the Hackney Lib Dems would, I think, consider it fair to suggest that they aren't inspirationally radical.

However, the Greens *are* strong across the borough. We got 10,000 votes (1 in 4) in the 2009 Euro elections here, and while obviously General Elections are a different kettle of fish, we can build our vote this year as well.

Every vote for the Greens forces Hackney Labour a little further to the left in response, and helps build an alternative for the day when Diane retires and her constituency party tries to foist some Meg Hillier clone on us. If we haven't built up an alternative until that time, it'll be too late!

Cheers,

Matt Sellwood

[Spirit Leveller]

It's nice to see that 13 years of Labour government has provided you with sufficient perspective from which to be able contemplate the prospect of the Tories' return.

Fortunately, I'm from the north and therefore acutely aware of the impact of reactionary Conservative rule and, for that matter, Libdems and Tory/Libdem coalitions in local government. So I have no doubt which party I'll be voting for. The Labour Party.

Having benefited from massive house price growth over the last 20 years and, invariably, well remunerated jobs in the media, Hackney's 'intelligentsia' can afford to contemplate the prospect of voting for any party other than Labour. However, I think their view might be somewhat different if you were trying to scrape together a living on the Nye Bevan Estate.

[Vote Insanity you know it makes sense]

Local politics in the one party state called the Peoples Republic of Hackney is soooo boring. The electorate would vote Labour even if they put a turnip up as candidate

[Denny]

Spirit Leveller: Hackney is one of the poorest areas in Europe, never mind England or London, so you can stick the 'invariably well renumerated' job idea somewhere uncomfortable cheers. Personally I'm about to be homeless, having been unwaged for most of the last year.

Hackney also has one of the highest social housing concentrations in the country, hence why it's such a Labour stronghold.

The question is whether Labour is actually the 'poor people's party' any more - I'm not convinced they are since the New Labour project took hold. The subsequent question is whether anyone else is stepping up to take their place... Matt's Green Party might well be the only credible left-wing successor now.

[Willy]

just a little note about events unfolding in our wonderful neighbourhood. The Windsor had riot police vans outside of it tonight (fri), I thought nothing unsual, a fight ? I then incidentally began talking to a Windsor local about his car, nothing to do with the police prescence around the corner at the pub which he was planning on going into. Then his friends came out of the Windsor, said they were subject to a massive drug raid (the police actually got jammed in the doors because they tried to enter as a flank). Obviously people are dealing and smoking pot there. But the same goes across the road at the Biddles. But one very much doubts it'll be subject to a similar raid. Suddenly it seemed obvious the mayor has directed this ostensibly as a clean-up; anyone who doesnt fit the olympics brief, anyone not middleclass, forcing gentrification. The Cricketers all over again. Totalitarian.