Okay, I admit it. While the rain was pounding on the roof, preventing me from going out, I was idly Googling my name when I came across this acknowledgement in a report from almost two decades ago. It took me back to one of my former lives as a social researcher throughout the Thatcher and Blair years and had me remembering the Great War Against Deprivation that was waged during that time. So, yes, you’ll see from the acknowledgement that I was a soldier in the War, not only in Wakefield, but also in Batley, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Wigan, Knowsley, Hulme in Manchester, Kirkdale in Liverpool, and many other neighbourhoods across England that suffered from deprivation.
As a social researcher, my job was to listen to the local people – the residents, the community representatives, the activists – and to establish their priorities for change or, to use the vogue term in use at the time, for “urban regeneration”. And I’d put down my findings in a fancy report with lots of multi-coloured charts and graphs. I doubt, though, that many of those priorities were ever met by the well-intentioned local politicians and leading lights of the communities. You see, the Great War Against Deprivation was one that would never be won. It needed money and willpower from Central Government, and both of those were always in short supply. In meting out what limited funds they did make available, the Government even resorted to holding competitions between local authorities. Names like “City Challenge” (Michael Heseltine’s jolly wheeze) were manufactured.
And now the Government has invented a new way of tackling deprivation, a different sort of competition. We’ve entered the Great Levelling Up Decade. Funds for regeneration will be allocated to those communities that show most willing to vote Tory in forthcoming elections, thus enabling the toffs to retain power for many more years. But it won’t end well. The funding either will be too little or won’t materialise at all. Deprivation will continue to run rampant. I know, I was that soldier.
And now the Government has invented a new way of tackling deprivation, a different sort of competition. We’ve entered the Great Levelling Up Decade. Funds for regeneration will be allocated to those communities that show most willing to vote Tory in forthcoming elections, thus enabling the toffs to retain power for many more years. But it won’t end well. The funding either will be too little or won’t materialise at all. Deprivation will continue to run rampant. I know, I was that soldier.