Who's Still Interested In Us?

Reading the Hackney Gazette this week, I noticed that long term Hackney Tory leader Eric Ollerenshaw is leaving the borough, to stand as an MP in Lancashire.

Whilst I can't say that I ever cared for his politics, Ollerenshaw stands as the only mainstream politician to actually knock on my door and canvass in an election campaign, in the 13 years I have lived in Hackney. Given that takes in the 1997, 2001 and 2005 general elections, plus countless borough and Greater London elections, it illustrates the scale to which working class areas have been abandoned by political parties, Labour especially.

In its place - apart from a huge void - is sometimes a vague ethnic politics. Labour stood a Kurdish speaking woman last time round, who I saw in my block one day. She certainly never knocked on my door, I assume she simply canvassed my Kurdish speaking neighbours. In nearby Haggerston, Labour have held off the Hackney Independent by ensuring they have a Nigerian candidate on their slate, who is used solely to get his fellow countrymen's vote out.

Welcome to London politics 2007.