Following the resignations of the ‘Leicester Two’ from Brighton and Hove City Council, there are by-elections coming up in the Queens Park and the Kemptown wards.
I was reading a Labour leaflet from Queens Park, most of which I agree with. There was talk of lower rents, improving education, and the lot of people experiencing a cost-of-living crisis (“the lot of the poorer inhabitants” the leaflet said). There was a focus on unemployment, housing schemes, empty homes, and transport.
What struck me most was, according to the leaflet, the need for “representation of a virile type”, not something you read every day in election material.
In case you were wondering, this wasn’t a contemporary election leaflet from Labour’s Camilla Gauge, but one from 1935 when the Labour candidate was Richard Polling. I don’t know whether he was elected on that occasion but he did become a councillor, as did his son-in-law, Stan Fitch, and Stan’s son, the late Brian Fitch. It was Stan who gave me a copy of this leaflet.
Times have changed but the issues raised by Richard Polling – education, housing, rents, nursery education, etc. – remain as relevant today as they were in 1935. But as for ‘virile’ representation and leadership, I doubt it will be a concept that will loom large in Labour’s general election campaign!
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