“Local people” demagogy is no answer
In the last council by-election in my ward, in Islington, north London, I voted for the Independent Working-Class Association. I had my doubts, but the IWCA seemed to be making some effort to offer a working-class political perspective to the voters here — a corner of Islington which until recently was almost all big blocks of council and housing-association flats, and is still very heavily working-class, yet belongs electorally to the Liberal Democrats. The IWCA did well, coming third only 14 votes behind a competent New Labour candidate. That was in January 2003. The IWCA’s literature for...