On Thursday afternoon, the good people of Stockton-on-Tees were preparing for Stockton Sparkles, an annual festive event that promises to transform its commanding high street – known as the widest in the UK – into a “winter wonderland”.
But wonderland was not the word on everyone’s lips. Instead, it was the description of the place allegedly employed by the home secretary, James Cleverly, during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Alex Cunningham, Labour MP for Stockton North, said Cleverly had uttered the phrase when he asked Rishi Sunak: “Why are 34% of children in my constituency living in poverty?”
Before the prime minister could respond, several observers, including Cunningham, heard Cleverly say “because it’s a shit-hole”, though after first issuing a blanket denial, the home secretary subsequently claimed he had called Cunningham a “shit MP’. It’s fair to say the audio evidence doesn’t entirely support that claim.
Perhaps used to being the subject of disparaging remarks, many locals responded with a well-rehearsed line in self-deprecating humour. “If he thinks Stockton’s bad,” said one man, “he should go to Middlesbrough.”
“He could have taken the edge off it,” suggested Kenneth Goodall, who owns a small shop in the Shambles mini-precinct. “But then again, he could have spoken more honestly and called it much worse.”
Most locals agree that the town has seen better economic times. Teesside was once an industrial hub whose pollution-spewing factories led to locals being known as “smoggies” after the smog that was a regular atmospheric feature. The main shopping centre has recently been knocked down and redevelopment is under way, but there’s a familiar post-industrial emptiness to the town centre that an abundance of charity shops, pound shops and betting shops doesn’t begin to fill. “There’s a lack of work and funds, and no attention is paid to the area, not just Stockton but across the north-east,” said a woman called Helen. “If he’s got a problem with Stockton, why doesn’t he do something about it?”
Whatever Cleverly said, many local people think that the government has turned its back on the north. All the talk of a northern powerhouse and levelling up seems increasingly to them to be just that: talk. Stockton, like all of Teesside, voted by a large majority for Brexit. That continental divorce was supposed to usher in a new era of autonomy, prosperity and, critically, wealth redistribution.
In the regions, there was a strong perception that the affluent south-east looked towards Europe rather than its stricken hinterlands, and Boris Johnson encouraged the idea that the UK’s departure from the EU would correct historic structural divisions almost as a matter of course.
That vision hasn’t materialised. As a recent paper from Harvard Kennedy School concluded, levelling up is hard work that requires investment, innovation and determination – none of which, it might be added, the government shows much appetite for producing. In that sense, while Cleverly’s alleged comment may have been throwaway, it also speaks of a cabinet weariness at the scale of the problems with which it is ineffectually grappling.
What’s striking in Stockton is the lack of expectation that things would be any other way. They are used to people in power “looking down their nose” at them, as one man put it. Many others have internalised the criticism, echoing it in different ways, denigrating the town or lamenting the growth in “crackheads”, “alcoholics” and “immigrants”.
One older man started out talking of Cleverly being a “disgrace” and a “typical Tory” before registering his disappointment with Brexit, chiefly because of the rise in immigration. “We used to get Europeans, now it’s just boat people.”
Only one woman, who worked for the council and therefore did not want to be named, articulated the negative potential of Cleverly’s verdict. “The government shouldn’t be saying that because it could put off investors and have a really bad effect on companies coming in. An opinion like that he should have kept to himself.”
The long-term sick that the government are keen to get back to work make up almost 40% of economically inactive people in Stockton, compared with 26% nationally – a sure sign of deep-rooted social deprivation, as is child poverty, the issue that Cunningham highlighted and which prompted Cleverly’s insult.
But it would be wrong to assume that Stockton is in some kind of death spiral. Many of its inhabitants feel extremely proud of their hometown, not least the young. “It’s filled with wonderful people and like-minded people who make a brilliant community,” said Marina Gears. “And the council funds some wonderful events. I just can’t wait to get the Tories out.”
For Adam Would, the language Cleverly used is “typical of the way working-class areas are described”. He thought it betrayed an ignorance of communities like Stockton, of their histories and culture. “The big thing in areas like this,” he said, “is the work ethic and how people get together. It’s what’s made this country great.”
Those are the kinds of rousing words you’d want a senior politician to voice to help rally an area that has known too many down days of late. Ideally, someone in government, better still in cabinet. Someone with a responsibility for the safety and security of our communities, especially those that are in greatest need of protection and help. Someone, in other words, like the home secretary.
That he chose instead to badmouth a part of the world that has endured chronic political neglect says much more about the politician than it does of the town of Stockton.
