Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

The Peterborough effect

Nick Cohen discovers the curious disparity between a city and the Tory party chairman's vision of it

Nick Cohen
Sunday 24 December 1995 00:02 GMT
Comments

THE drinkers of Peterborough are brimming with optimism. Nightly they raise their glasses to the recovery and rip open bags of pork scratchings in celebration of Conservative economic policy. As the evening wears on, only the threat that a Labour government could divide and weaken Britain can shatter the merriment.

Such was the picture of life in the fenland city's pubs presented by last week by Brian Mawhinney, the Conservative party chairman.

He should know - he's the local MP; and on Monday's edition of Newsnight he showed Peter Snow that he was far more in tune with the real concerns of real people in the real world than any member of the metropolitan media.

Facing some tough questions about recent gaffes by Conservative Central Office, Dr Mawhinney interrupted his interrogator. "I have to tell you it's not the sort of thing they are talking about in the pubs of Peterborough," he said affably. "What they are talking about in the pubs of Peterborough is the reduction in unemployment, the Budget, and the fact that there is going to be greater prosperity in the pockets of people next year.

"They are talking about the importance of holding the United Kingdom together and representing this country in Europe."

Really? We visited those pubs to find out, and we discovered something of a conceptual gap between Peterborough, the medium-sized Cambridgeshire city on the East Coast line, and Peterborough, the centre of exuberant optimism seen by Dr Mawhinney.

"No one's spending any money," complained Robbie, barman at the Lion in the city centre. "Trade has been so slow the boss is not even going to get his bonus from the brewery.

"People don't talk about politics here. No politics, no religion; that's the old rule. I hear all about women trouble, work trouble ... I get it all."

A tour of the bar confirmed that the range of conversational topics covered everything except Britain's alleged economic miracle.

In the pool room, most of the talk was about, well, pool. But in the interludes between games, Vic, a middle-aged man, raised the subject of Softly, Softly, and a long argument followed about who was old enough to remember the Seventies television detective series and its stars' remarkable haircuts. Not exactly prosperity and the jobs boom, or "holding the United Kingdom together"?

We decamped to the Cock Inn in the suburb of Werrington where we hoped to find serious-minded drinkers still praising the Budget.

First impressions were promising. A man in the corner was telling his friend how he had gone to look at a new house. A sign that the housing market was moving again, perhaps?

We listened discreetly and tried not to seem shifty or suspicious.

Alas, the speaker's attempts to join the property-owning democracy had been frustrated by the potential seller's religious enthusiasm.

"We went out to see the house last week," he said, "and there was some bloody mad preacher out there.

"He was an interesting guy, mind, but bugger me he did go on. I think they have to convert a quota of people a week or something.

"Anyway, Kev was with me and he's a cynical scouser who wasn't having any of it, so we left. I might have got more into it if he hadn't been there."

No joy in the corner then. But three businessmen by the bar seemed like typical beneficiaries of the new thrusting economy.

They, too, however, were being battered by the curses of modern life. In their case it was not born-again Christians trying to lure them into Bible-studies classes by posing as house vendors, but new technology.

"I used to be able to type on to my screen," said a mournful man in a pinstripe suit, "then Jackie could pick it up on her screen and print out a letter. Can't do that with the new system."

"Can't you give her the disk?" asked a helpful friend.

The disk? What disk?"

"Yes, type it on to the disk and give that to Jackie and she can put it into her computer."

"I don't know," came the sad reply. "I just don't know how to do that at all."

The middle-aged cannot be expected to be up to date with the technological revolution. But surely the young children of Thatcherism would be fascinated by the business opportunities it presented?

Alas, at the Alderman, back in the city centre, they were more interested in drink. Stuart, Mark and Mark, three 19-year-old students, described at great length how they had woken to find their clothes flecked with curry, alcohol and worse after a party, before moving on to discuss the advantages of cider "the cheapest way of getting drunk there is" and vodka, "a real alcoholic's drink."

Fairness and accuracy required a more extensive survey of life in Peterborough. After all, we could have missed the hordes talking about feeling "prosperity in their pockets", even if we tried to cover every pub.

The local paper, the Evening Telegraph, keeps its ear close to the ground and may be picking up the good news we were missing. But apparently it, too, is failing to find Dr Mawhinney's Peterborough. There was no news of business booming or spending rising. Its main items this week were:

Monday: Have-a-go Dad Paul Brighton "critically" ill in hospital after fighting with teenagers who threw a beer can through his window; city council faces pounds 1m budget cuts; and chief executive of local courts charged with drink-driving.

Tuesday: More cuts, this time for the fire service which warned that lives were being put at risk; Have-a-go Dad making "remarkable recovery"; future of colony of large newts in balance; a letter from the leader of local homeowners suffering from negative equity saying the Government's "free-market" policies were "nonsense".

Wednesday: City lottery scrapped because it cannot compete with Camelot; blood stocks running low in hospitals; city council to get more powers even though it has less money.

Thursday: Have-a-go Dad feels much better and is sent home for Christmas; bed shortage in Peterborough District Hospital leads to patients being treated in corridor; thieves stealing computer chips identified as "growing menace" to local business. Friday: Hospital crisis worsens; boy saves turkey from oven by buying the bird with his pocket money; the beleaguered fire service is banned from making a traditional late-night collection for charity in a nearby village after resident complains about the noise.

In short, Peterborough is a city inhabited by Softly, Softly fans, missionaries, technophobes, young alcohol specialists, have-a-go-heroes, newt fanciers and turkey lovers.

All of the above fuel conversation Indeed, the talk is of almost anything and everything, except the Budget and defending Britain's status as a centralised, unitary nation state.

Last August, Dr Mawhinney announced that at the next election he would be leaving the Peterborough constituency - where he had a vulnerable 5,376 majority in 1992 - and moving to the newly-created safe seat of Cambridgeshire North West.

Perhaps the saloon-bar conversation there may be more to his liking.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in