Business | 2009.06.02
Stoke-on-Trent: what went wrong
Above the former lingerie shop, the curtains are half-drawn and patterned with a Wedgwood pottery design. Next door stands the old Spode Works. Once famed for creamware and pearlware, for bone china and blue underglaze, last year the company went into administration after nearly 250 years. Today the paint is peeling around the windows of the old factory shop; peer through the dusty glass and the room sits dark and quiet, its shelves empty.
Stoke-on-Trent once sat at the heart of the Potteries, an area of Britain that took advantage of its proximity to coal and clay and from the 17th century became famous for fine ceramics, for names such as Wedgwood and Royal Doulton, Minton, Portmeirion and Dudson.
But in recent years the decline of the British manufacturing industry and cheaper ceramic imports from overseas have hit the Potteries hard. Few of the old factories survive and the community is angry and frustrated.
In 2002, the city elected its first British National Party councillor. Now Stoke, which is made up of six towns, has nine BNP councillors, and the party expects to do well in the area in this month\'s European elections. "The vast majority of people in Stoke-on-Trent abhor what the BNP stand for," says Mike Barnes, the newly appointed leader of the city council Labour group. "But the city has been through a difficult phase. People want somebody to blame. And the BNP have been very clever in having someone to blame."
Largely they blame the local Polish and Muslim communities, though ethnic minorities in fact make up just 7% of Stoke-on-Trent\'s population. "There\'s not a lot of meat behind their policies," Barnes says. "They\'re putting populist ideas forward, but they don\'t actually do their homework. They wanted to get rid of the council translation service, for instance, but they didn\'t realise that would prevent translation into braille."
"You\'re not offended by our walls or our flags are you?" asks BNP councillor Mike Coleman, sitting in his council office, where the walls are covered with British flags, front pages of the Daily Express and pictures of Enoch Powell, the Pope and the Queen. He talks of housing waiting-lists, of crime and unemployment; he rails against Muslims and the Chinese, New Labour and the Church of England. He describes Stoke as a city of "generous, warm people" who are "resentful, angry, looking for a new politics".
The party has been preparing for these elections for over a year. "We identify a couple of friendly pubs, establish friendships, and keep going back. Initially it\'s hostile, the BNP is the big bad bear, but once we start talking about our populist, nationalist policies, the mood changes." Coleman is optimistic about this week\'s election. "We won\'t get the floating vote or the mainstream vote," he says, "but we think we\'re going to get the militant vote."
Across the street from Spode sits the Last Orders pub. Regulars are standing around the pavement, drinking Newky Brown. One talks of how he has lived in Stoke for 30 years, and in the last few elections he has voted for the BNP. "I\'m not a racist," he insists. "It\'s about jobs."
Clayton Conteh, who has lived in Stoke all his 18 years, is an apprentice labourer. "There\'s a strong BNP movement here," he says. "I understand the point of view. People are worried about jobs, especially the Polish or whatever." This week will be the first time he has voted: "But I wouldn\'t vote for the BNP. My old man\'s from abroad and he\'s been a councillor, independent, for the last six years. It\'s his job to make sure the ethnic minorities are treated fairly. The opposite of the BNP."
In the market hall they are preparing for market day, unstacking eggs, mopping floors, wiping countertops. British flags hang around the meat counter, and nearby a poster for the Love Music Hate Racism concert. A woman stands in the doorway. "I wouldn\'t go anywhere else," she says. "But it could do with a bit of excitement. My son\'s at college," she adds. "I\'ve told him not to stay here. He\'s got his passport; I said just go out and see the world and if you like somewhere then stay. Just go, because there\'s nothing round here."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/02/bnp-far-right-local-elections
