Electric Review

BOOKS: A useful enterprise
The Political Map of Britain by Simon Henig & Lewis Baston

My ambition to be the next Byron Criddle — the wine, women, and song, who wouldn’t dream on it? — never wavers, but my taste in reference books is undergoing some subtle evolution. I feel obliged to zig zag past the Times Guide to the last election as quickly as possible (some good stuff, of course, but such a pity we were no longer treated to those stars of tomorrow, the defeated candidates). And as you know, The Almanac has a firm place in my slowly beating heart. However, there’s now a new kid in town, and all hail Politico’s for giving us The Political Map of Britain — that everyone who purchases this book should almost certainly be put on a register of some sort is neither here nor there, what matters is that this is a good job, well done.

There’s certainly a lot to praise in a book that can go to the trouble of properly differentiating between National Liberals and ‘pro-Lloyd George independent Liberals’ in its historical tables. A useful, and by me, much appreciated device employed by the Political Map is that long, author-identified synoptic essays are avoided, with tart summaries of the regional and national position being anonymously offered up instead. This, it strikes me, is a very wise thing to do: I know what I’ve turned to this fat volume for, and it’s most definitely not to read windy academic theorising about why it turns out people voted the way they did. All I want is facts, and lots of them.

One extremely depressing fact is evident from the 168-strong list of Conservative target seats. For, starting at merely number 45, there are half a dozen where we’re in third place. Glum, glum, glum. Of the great and signal events in Romford last time round, we’re offered the opinion that this resembles nothing so much as Labour’s contracyclical 1980s successes in freakish Liverpool, and that

Labour ignored the siren voices of Merseyside socialism — will the Tories avoid falling into the trap of drawing too many lessons from Rosindell’s success?

Can’t say that I agree with that — not, naturally, that the party won’t pay any attention to Rozza’s achievements, I’m sure that they’ll be able to resolutely continue ignoring our proven winner. No, it’s the whole ‘let’s win by being like New Labour’ drift that I’m suspicious of. Perhaps at some future point I’ll have to lay down some basic principles of Reptilian philosophy — ‘a little snake-skinned book’, if you will.

Interestingly, the old black magic hasn’t left the party yet, as is obvious from the fact that we’re always the ones considered first by books like this. You might have thought there was some merit in putting the Government party first, but it’s invariably the Conservatives — of course I’m a beneficiary of this ghoulish and irresistible fascination, so I can hardly complain. Although the glamour boys of this effort are Messrs. Henig and Baston, they’ve been manfully assisted by MORI’s Roger Mortimore, and from Scotland, Wales and Ulster respectively, Mark Stuart (yet another Norton by-product), Russel Deacon, and Sydney Elliot. Of whom the latter at least makes a change from Paul Bew as all-purpose Ulster pundit. However, there’s a tiny, inconsequential thing to note: Prof. Bew would have, for the first time in a long time, found himself on the far right end of this crowd. It’s a progressive text at root, as a piece of misplaced piety the introduction makes clear:

Sadly, readers will be struck . . . by the precipitous decline in voter turnout. [L]ike most others, the authors hope this is a temporary phenomenon, while fearing that it may be a rather more permanent feature of the political terrain. If so it is incumbent on all those engaged in the political process to try to make politic and elections more interesting and if this book contributes in any way to that cause then it will have proved a worthwhile project.

Au contraire, mes nerdish amis — the Political Map, a handsomely produced charmer, is already more than justification enough for its own existence. And my unsettling, vaguely glistening reactionary frame remains coiled round this tome confident in the knowledge that the deadheads of Barnsley West & Penistone aren’t going to be provoked into doing anything as unseemly as voting by going out and reading this here publication.

What’s best about the book (I learned things) are the regional essays, as much as the excellent constituency profiles. Such typos as there are come from unavoidable slips of the hand rather than unforgivable ignorance. Myself, I’d have thrown in some bile about the religious composition of the Scottish PLP, but it takes all sorts, and you can’t help but loving gems like the seat that ‘does not go in particularly for higher education’ (Chingford as it happens). The Political Map has been written with wit, enthusiasm and love, and stands a better than average chance of establishing itself as part and parcel of being boring about politics in Britain. It deserves to become a cash cow for Politico’s, as, assuming our Father in Heaven to be, in one of his many mansions, a Nerd of some sort, Iain Dale deserves to be rewarded come the day of Judgement for publishing lovely, sick lumps like this.

Simon Henig & Lewis Baston, The Political Map of Britain [Politico’s, pp. 1011, £30.00]

The Snake, October 18, 2002 07:44 PM