Mark Piggott

There’s much more to Islington than Corbyn and Ocado

News that Islington’s yummy mummies are up in arms about a proposed Ocado refuelling centre near a local primary school has caused much mirth and merriment in the media. How hypocritical, that the very people who use Ocado deliveries most – when not driving their 4WDs with Greenpeace bumper stickers to the Nags Head branch of Waitrose – should be jumping up and down in their ethically sourced hemp sandals at the possibility their little darlings might have to inhale the same fumes as common folk in Barnsley and Brixton. Few of the contributions have taken note of the fact that air pollution around Yerbury, where the Ocado depot is being built, is appalling and a great leveller – lung disease doesn’t discern between those who own or rent their homes.

The Ocado controversy is really an extension of an ill-informed debate around Brexit, Corbyn and the supposed ‘soul’ of the Labour party. Islington, the argument goes, is the spiritual home of Corbynism: middle class, ultra-woke, out of touch with the harsh realities of life as experienced by people in less fortunate postcodes. And, while there’s some truth in the stereotype – it’s impossible to do the school run without bumping into Ed Miliband, Keir Starmer or Jezza himself – there’s more to Islington than Remain-voting, self-flagellating, prole-loathing yuppies (as I still call them).

As someone who has lived in and around Islington since 1985, and with two children who attend schools nearby, I know that Islington is a more complex, divided and dangerous place than usually depicted. As I noted as long ago as 1997, when I watched Labour march to victory in the general election at a friend’s place on the Marquess Estate, politics has been turned on its head in Islington.

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