Since 1997, every new government has been defined by an inner-London postcode. Remember the David Cameron era ‘Notting Hill set?’ Tony Blair’s ‘Granita summit’ in 1994 with Gordon Brown and the frequently elicited mockery about the ‘Islington elite?’ Even Liz Truss lasted just long enough for a headline or two about her ‘Greenwich gang,’ which included her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng.
Camden represents a sort of finishing school for Labour’s politicians
For thirty years, with only a three-year break, the Labour party has been led entirely by men living within three miles of the Arsenal football ground. Even when power shifted left in Labour, it was to Islington’s radical flank – Jeremy Corbyn. Yet merely to mock them all as products of North London ignores a fine, but critical, geographic difference.
If Sir Keir Starmer is plotting the route of his government over dinner, the restaurant would almost certainly be in the London Borough of Camden, not Islington. Camden is home to the Labour leader, who has represented Holborn and St Pancras since 2015. Camden council has been a Labour flagship for some years: its leader, Georgia Gould has been selected for the new parliamentary constituency of Queens Park and Maida Vale. She is the daughter of the late Philip Gould, a gifted new Labour strategist, a fact brought up in a laudatory online tribute by Alastair Campbell. Last week, a newspaper profile even talked of her as a future Labour leader.
With a population of over 200,000, Camden is bigger than many cities, and experience gained in such an authority is a useful entry on any candidate’s CV. Thus Labour councillor Danny Beales, cabinet minister for new homes, jobs and community investment, is standing in Boris Johnson’s old seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, a key target. Labour’s chief whip on the council, Lloyd Hatton is running in South Dorset. At the time of writing, councillors Richard Olszewski and Rishi Madlani have been unsuccessful in finding seats, although the 7 June parliamentary candidate’s deadline gives them a few more days.
Camden also matters in terms of political influence. Arguments about anti-Semitism scarred Labour in the Corbyn years. Here, Starmer will look to the incoming president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, former Camden Labour councillor Phil Rosenberg, to play his part in managing relations between Labour and the Jewish community. Then there is Board of Deputies vice president Adrian Cohen, husband of the Board’s outgoing president Marie Van der Zyl: Cohen briefly represented Hampstead for Labour, despite only really running as a paper candidate. In Camden, even Labour’s paper candidates win.
In April 2022, Starmer spoke of his ‘huge pride’ in Camden council’s achievements. So what does Camden tell us about how Labour, and Starmer may govern the country? Camden is seen as open and accessible to business – venture capitalist Saul Klein has described Camden as ‘a much more diverse, multicultural environment than either of the world’s bigger tech areas, the Bay Area or Beijing. It’s one of the best places in the world to start a business.’ The regeneration of Kings Cross and St Pancras is one of the most visible examples of change in the capital. But it is far from clear who has gained from this redevelopment.
Camden is now building both council and affordable housing, with 2,600 such properties in the pipeline. Last year, this initiative was personally endorsed by Starmer. But this is modest compared to that completed in earlier generations, and Camden remains a classic example of the ‘squeezed middle’ – a borough of expensive homes, especially to the north, combined with heavily over-subscribed social housing, and too little in between. This may explain why, in 2020, only 17 per cent of council employees lived in the borough.
In his speech launching Labour’s General Election campaign, Starmer referred to the life chances of children in Camden’s deprived Somers Town district, who can see Google’s offices and those of the Guardian on their doorstep, but who live in social circles far removed from their neighbours. Labour is talking about these issues, but it is too soon to assess if Camden represents any sort of model for addressing them.
On health, the borough projects itself as forward thinking. The ‘Good Life Camden’ wellbeing framework looks to involve residents in defining what makes for a good life in the borough, and to collect data on what residents actually want. This reportedly captured three key issues for residents – health, equality and safety. Again, having been introduced only a year ago, it is too early to evaluate the framework’s effect upon population health, but it is suggestive of an approach which moves away from relying on categories such as GDP to measure what the success of an area may look like.
While Sir Keir may be talking a tough fight on illegal immigration, in March Camden declared itself a ‘borough of sanctuary,’ and held an event ‘showcasing the waves of migration which have built Camden’s diverse and vibrant communities’: here, at least, Camden sounds little different from Corbyn’s Islington. Camden council has a distinctly nannying approach to business – the borough looks to build its commitment to what it calls ‘LGBTQ+ equality’ into procurement processes, and has declared that it seeks to work with businesses whose values align with its own. Wokery has certainly been a presence: in 2021, the council celebrated Transgender Awareness Week by painting a road crossing at the junction of Tavistock Place and Marchmont Street in the colours of the Transgender flag. Such crossings raise significant safety issues, especially for some disabled people, and appear to have gone out of fashion as quickly as they came in.
Islington is old news. In today’s Labour party, Camden, and the Camden cadre, is where it’s at
While declaring a commitment to consultation, Camden does not always get the results it wants. Following the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests, Georgia Gould expressed solidarity with BLM, and the council moved to change the name of housing block Cecil Rhodes House. Residents were given four replacements to choose from – WW2 heroine Noor Inayat Khan, black boxer Bill Richmond (1763-1829) the more anodyne Fleetside Court, or Park View House. The council recommended Noor Inayat Khan or Bill Richmond – the majority ethnic residents chose Park View House in a ballot. In 2020, there was also a ballot concerning Beckford Primary School, named after William Beckford, who had owned slaves in Jamaica. Pupils and parents chose the name West Hampstead Primary School, ahead of staff, who wanted the name Gilroy Primary School, after the pioneering Afro-Caribbean headmistress Beryl Gilroy.
The voters will soon have their say in a much bigger election. For now at least, Camden represents a sort of finishing school for Labour’s politicians. As Starmer and a succession of Camden councillors focus on Westminster, Islington is old news. In today’s Labour party, Camden, and the Camden cadre, is where it’s at.
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