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.
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