we pretend to campaign and they pretend to vote for us

Here’s some “why the Bradford West result means we should support my politics” that supports my politics: Next Generation Labour.

1. Don’t take support for granted
2. We have to realise that the wars still matter
3. Mobilised youth are a polical force to be reckoned with
4. Labour has to examine its relationships with Muslim communities
5. Austerity needs a fighting response

See also Matt Turner‘s point that Bradford West has had the biggest percentage rise in unemployment in the UK. NGL (which seems to be some sort of Ken Livingstonian tendency, fair enough by me) also say:

One of the more unpleasant responses to Galloway’s victory has been the suggestion that ‘the Muslim vote’ is somehow tainted and invalid

The best thing you’re likely to read on this is Irna Qureshi’s post here about the day-to-day, dogshit’n’forms processes of Bradford West politics.

She explained that her family had this time boycotted the “apna” (our own, referring to Imran Hussain, although she couldn’t name him either) because he’d stopped making time to attest her extended family’s passport photographs. And here’s my point. This woman and her clan’s vote had nothing to do with policies or even an inkling of research – the only thing that seemed to matter was accessibility

It’s easy to forget that quite a significant number of people don’t know anyone in the odd, class-based list of professions who are allowed to sign across the back of your passport photo. On Twitter, someone described this as “patrimonial” politics, but it’s more than that. Democracy itself is an institution that is meant to cross class barriers. If Hussain wouldn’t do it, that’s a very clear message about where the local CLP sees itself in the class system.

Also, if you swap out “clan” for “family”, this sounds pretty much like the sort of politics that are stereotypical of France, where there are officially no ethnic or religious communities in the secular republic. The explanation of this is that it’s just politics, stupid. It’s like that everywhere, just the bullshit differs.

Over here, the following excellent points are made.

British people are stereotyped for a tendency to turn to the weather as a means for finding some common ground for smalltalk. In Bradford, it’s the failing regeneration projects first, then the weather if there’s time. Everyone seems to have a better idea of how to run the place than the people currently doing it, and they’re always agitated enough to tell you. Not a great sign.

This is why I knew he would win, despite the answers to my Twitter question: ‘Would Galloway be good or bad for Bradford and why?’ coming back with 50% negative responses based on his showboating, lack of substance, self serving nature, and worse. His policies were quite simple: regenerate the Odeon. Sort out Westfield. Sort out education. He either succeeds, in which case, great. Or he fails, in which case, we’re not exactly losing out are we?

There’s been much made of his appealing to Muslim voters, which he did as well, but 18,000+ votes in Bradford West makes a mockery of the accusation that this is the real reason he won. His policies were pretty broadly relevant and Twitter was buzzing with ‘I wouldn’t normally vote for him BUT… ’. This shouldn’t have been an angle that any of the big three should have had to worry about, because they should have had it covered.

I didn’t know he took a view on the Odeon; no wonder he won. One theory I have about this is that the Labour HQ remembered him making a fool of himself on TV, and reasoned from a TV-centric, airpower theorist perspective that anyone who went on Celebrity Big Brother (and doesn’t that sound dated) and made a cock of himself would be a permanent laughing stock. Nobody was more obsessed with reality TV than Blairites. In this sense, not only didn’t they worry over much about the street campaign in Bradford, they also didn’t remember that there are two iconic video clips of him. 1) is him being a cat, 2) is him ripping into the Republican senators. You’re unlikely to see 1) again on TV, but there’s nothing to stop 2) circulating virally on the web.

Consequently, I do worry that the London election campaign is so virtual. Boris Johnson is a deeply virtual character, of course, a media construct built out of grinning on TV and mildly controversial newspaper columns, and Brian Paddick’s public image has apparently been designed to look exactly like a mildly corrupt town-hall politico in a Danish thriller. But it’s not as if the campaign is very visible on the streets – I’ve seen precisely two posters (one this weekend, Ken, in a window in Waterloo, and a Lib Dem billboard which has now ended its run).