Pigs Fly in Battersea
I know that I am not the only Battersea resident somewhat baffled by David Cameron’s choice of Battersea Power Station to launch his manifesto.
The location over the years has come to symbolize wasted opportunity and broken promises. Who can forget the photo of Margaret Thatcher in her heyday as prime-minister celebrating the ‘launch’ of the power station redevelopment under John Broome who later repatriated to Cairo after his business had gone bust. Since then other developers have come and gone, and the site is still derelict.
While Cameron pitched directly to ‘working people’ who feel abandoned by Labour and other idealists, loyal Battersea Labour activists gathered on the same day at their party’s local club house for Martin Linton’s adoption meeting.
It was a relatively upbeat affair- a mixture of old socialists and Blairites with a decent representation of women and ethnic minorities, some of who had come from other London constituencies to lend their support for arguably the most vulnerable Labour held seat in the UK.
The Battersea Labour Party Singers were on hand, a versatile band that includes The Internationale and Jerusalem in its repertoire-just to remind those Tories they do not have a monopoly on patriotism.
I haven’t a clue whether Lord Ashcroft has boosted my royalties as an author nor would I necessary object if he had. But I was happy to see two of my books Papa Spy and Barca enthusiastically bid for during the fund-raising auction, although somewhat miffed that they raised less individually than a signed copy of Alastair Campbell’s memoirs of the Number 10 Years.
Jim Fitzpatrick was there, reminiscing about his days as a local firefighter and Keith Hill about when he and Linton had known each other as trade unionist and journalist respectively, the kind of “bygone days” Cameron would prefer to add to the dustbin of history.
Pigs were seen to fly at the Labour Club having swooped in from the Power Station. Linton’s acceptance speech kicked of with a boast of his championing of ‘dangerous dogs’ regulation, not exactly a critical vote catcher. But he is standing again on the basis of his reputation as a locally popular and hard-working MP, dedicated to his constituents and unsullied by expenses scandals. His speech ended on a strident note, predicting that he would hang on to his seat. Not everyone present was so convinced.
