My career in politics nearly ended the day it began, when I was almost run over by a gang of Nazis in a Mini-Metro. Not a very butch car to be hit by, I know, and a rather pathetic substitute for a Panzer tank. But it was the early 1990s, and supporters of fascist government in Britain had seen their resources dwindle a bit over the decades.
I was 14, and attending my first political demonstration, an Anti-Nazi League protest against the BNP in Halifax. I became separated from the crowd. There were some hooligans from the other side screeching around in a car yelling abuse and doing handbrake turns and, as I ran down a street away from them, they drove the car up onto the pavement behind me. I thought I was about to be mown down, but at the last minute they swerved back on to the road and roared past. Several pasty-looking middle fingers were extended in my general direction.
It was an interesting introduction to the strange politics you can get in some small northern towns. You get weird politics when people don’t know where to turn — and I think that’s what’s going on up north at the moment.
David Cameron inherited lots of political baggage from the 1980s which makes it tough for the Tories to win a hearing in northern cities. The Liberal Democrats used to run in the north of England in opposition to complacent Labour councils. Now they are trying to avoid being minced for joining the coalition. And after the recession and the debt crisis Gordon Brown left behind, northerners don’t feel so enthusiastic about Labour either.
Hence, politically, some strange things are happening. First George Galloway gets elected in Bradford. Then John Prescott didn’t get elected in Humberside — even though it’s a traditional Labour heartland.
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