Not all beastly in Eastleigh

 Not strictly about the books, but the political history of the town where, in a parallel universe, the Solent Welfare Rights Project can be found.  In the real world, this blog from March 2013 contemplated the 'lessons' (or otherwise) to be learned from the recent by-election.



The view from Netley Beach, Eastleigh Constituency.  It's prettier at night...

If I didn't know this was going to be the sort of post where the jokes almost write themselves, I'd be tempted to put it in 'the other blog'.  It's going to be almost completely plantless and riddled with more political references than there are slugs in a typical hosta bed, but it's simply not the style for the sombre Suffragette time-traveller who writes http://raggedskirt.blogspot.co.uk/
The author of that was an earnest young woman who took her politics extremely seriously and, in the days leading up to her 24th birthday in the late spring of 1987, could have been found trudging the streets of the Southern Parishes of an obscure Hampshire town with bundles of Labour Party leaflets in a big satchel, stuffing them through the letter-boxes of prospective voters, boldly knocking on doors and checking voting intentions, wincing with embarrassment when those doors were opened by sitting Tory councillors (supporters' address list just a trifle out-of-date there, Eastleigh CLP - thanks, comrades!).  Because that was my home constituency for the first 24 years of my life, excepting the term-time parts of my three years as a student in Red Sheffield - Beastly Eastleigh. 

I was even allocated the thankless task that same year of running for a Parish Council seat in yachty Hamble (which subsequently went even further up itself by adding 'le-Rice' to its title).  Despite the marvellously efficient Eastleigh CLP printing a leaflet describing me as belonging to the 'Campaign Against Nuclear Disarmament', when naturally I supported quite the opposite cause - and so did the Party as a whole, officially, back then - I managed to come second (with about 150 votes) to the Tory, who had a mere 600 more, and still beat the Libdem into third by about three votes.  Whether my 'success' might have got me a winnable seat next time round, I'll never know - at a Labour Party meeting later that year, the guest speaker (invited by his colleague in the ambulance service, who was also my driving instructor) was a chap discussing the merits of Regional Government.  I wasn't totally convinced by his ideas, but got on quite well with the little man himself.  His name was Jon Honeysett.  The rest, as the saying goes, is history...

The town of Eastleigh is probably hoping to slip quietly back into obscurity now the political band-waggon and media circus is packing up and moving on, especially now that the rest of the civilised world thinks all its UKIP-voting xenophobic citizens care about is the mathematically impossible prospect of more Bulgarians than the entire population of Bulgaria heading their way in the next wave of EU migration.  That's an entirely unfair reflection on the good people of Eastleigh - I can think of a couple of friends who would be only to welcoming to strangers from anywhere in the world, just as long as the immigrants were willing to share the coolest tracks from their record collection and any particularly tasty vegetarian recipes.

But then we do know all four of the Democrats living in Texas too...

Unless you're a railway enthusiast, and a steam buff at that, or (God forbid) a fan of ghastly 1970s 'comedian' Benny Hill who was born there, you probably hadn't heard of Eastleigh until all the shenanigans with Chris Huhne and his motoring misdemeanors hit the press.  But the position of Eastleigh MP has a track record of misfortune not far better than the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts tutor at Hogwarts.  For many years, the MP was a genteel old Tory by the name of Sir David Price, who didn't seem to get particularly upset about anything until his pet dog was bitten by an adder in the New Forest, at which point he got all riled and started calling for the reptiles to be culled en masse, but ultimately failed in his St Patrick like ambition.  His successor, elected in the 1992 General Election, took a safe seat and was tipped for great things but ultimately became (in)famous only for the manner of his untimely death.  I will discreetly refer my readers with curious minds who are not too easily shocked by kinky goings-on to Wikipedia for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Milligan

Suffice to say, that didn't help the Tories with their 'Victorian values' morality-heavy strategy at the time, though was the gift that kept on giving to political satirists for years to come.  The Libdems swept in at the by-election on a tide of moral outrage and much of their famous grass-roots electioneering, heavily based on promising to do something about dog poo on pavements (not, however, 'kill the adders so dog-walkers can take their pets out to the New Foest in safety', which even those in the blue corner had disgarded by then). 

I understand dog poo is still an issue on the doorstep.

Poor Mr Milligan's fruity fatality was quite handy from my perspective, as I was working for Eastleigh Council in their housing advice team at the time.  We often had to contact other local authorities when checking the back-stories of some of our applicants for housing and invariably when you called them and said where you were calling from, they'd ask 'Where?' and you'd have to explain it was a town in south Hampshire, just north of Southampton, just south of Winchester...  After what should have been, but never was called 'Orangegate', EVERYBODY knew where Eastleigh was!*

And then they forgot again.  Eastleigh settled down with an obscure Libdem MP called David Chidgey (wasn't that a village near Camberwick Green?) and local politics went off the scale of absurdity with a Conservative/Labour coalition holding the Libdems at bay in the Town Hall at one one point.  No one old enough to remember that was going to buy 'Don't vote for the Libdems - they've made a pact with the Devil!' in 2013, when Eastleigh Labour Party didn't always remember to bring their own long spoons to the feast.

So if there's one thing I'd urge Ed Milliband and the policy guys at Labour HQ, it would be don't try to draw conclusions from anything that happens in Eastleigh, because it's weird with a frankly bonkers political history.  And don't drift to the right to try and snap up those UKIP voters either, because if you do, you'll lose even more of those earnest young activists who thought nothing of leafleting an entire village single-handed in a day for 'the Party', until the Party dropped Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament, and Clause 4, went to war in Iraq, and introduced Employment and Support Allowance.  We've heard muffled regrets about the illegal war, but it's been a bit quiet on where 'we' stand on plans for squandering billions on son-of-Trident.  Some potentially popular renationalisations (railways, anybody? - that would go down well in Eastleigh!) might help stop the rot and so far nobody's apologised for those nasty new descriptors and letting Atos loose on the sick and disabled, have they?  

You need us old-fashioned, idealistic activists back on board; those leaflets aren't going to deliver themselves, you know.  And once you've got the policies worked out, sort your 'supporters' address lists out too!

*whoops - is that my John O'Farrell moment, the sick remark that will come back to haunt any future political life I might aspire to?