Frustrated Respectability: Local Culture and Politics in London's Docklands

Abstract

How useful is the concept of urban community in modern society? The author considers the arguments of some observers of modernity who view local community as insignificant. Although the economic foundations of such community might well be eroded, definitions of local identity continue to have significance in lived culture and are important in shaping the political views of those who live in traditional working-class neighbourhoods. The history of London's Docklands is examined. The defence of local labour markets and the wish for the community to be viewed as respectable rather than rough, largely account for the residents' desire to mark out the boundaries of locality. The spatial limits of specific communities cannot themselves be objectively deduced from structural forces such as class or ethnic relations. Yet on a subjective level the popular desire to mark out the limits of community can be understood with reference to such forces. From the 1970s the Docklands economic base was destabilised and the foundations of the traditional community was weakened, In Bermondsey, large numbers of new residents took up residence in the 1970s. They were seen by the locals as threatening to undermine an authentic local identity. The conflict between traditional and newer residents was evident in the struggles within the Bermondsey Labour Party branches in the early 1980s, which preceded the endorsement of the ‘newcomer’ Peter Tatchell as the official Labour Party Parliamentary candidate. Tatchell was subsequently attacked by the tabloid press for his sexuality, his appearance, and his ‘trendy’ inner-city radicalism. He was presented as the very antithesis of the authentic Bermondsey worker. This campaign of villification resulted in the defeat of Tatchell in a safe Labour seat in the by-election. This defeat demonstrates how the moral politics of the New Right, which were being given expression by the press, converged with the frustrated respectability of the white working class in the area.

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