That London

Nurtured in the bosom of that most talked about of fictional entities, the white working class, away from large urban centres, I have spent my entire adult life in London. I therefore straddle the electoral divide of the moment, in the eyes of the commentariat, that between London and, um, absolutely everywhere else in England.

London, which is "educated and civilised", doesn't vote for UKIPers and returns Labour councils. Everywhere else is brimful of racist yokels who hang on Nigel Farage's every word, have abandoned classical political allegiances, and who would no doubt be described using the phrase "sea-change" if journalists hadn't stopped using the phrase "sea-change" about a decade ago.

Now, don't get me wrong, against the Pollyannaish line being pushed by the liberal-left, the UKIP results yesterday are significant. As I said. But the whole "it's a crazy world outside London" explanation of Farageism is less than adequate. For reasons including, but not limited to, the following:

• The rush to paint London as some kind of leftist paradise that inevitably keeps its head whilst the rest of the country wraps itself in the union jack has to reckon with the fact that Boris Johnson twice beat Ken Livingstone in a straight contest.
• It is pretty much to be expected the Labour will do proportionately better in (a) large urban centres, and (b) places with significant minority ethnic populations. Thus, not just the results in London, but also in Manchester and Liverpool.
• It is absolutely true that there is disillusionment with Labour, and a widespread sense of abandonment amongst its traditional working class base. The factors giving rise to this are equally present in London. The difference in London is that there are counteracting forces preventing a peel-off to UKIP or apathy: notably more radical Labour programmes in key boroughs (Camden, Islington), strong left/ green alternatives and/ or community groups to absorb dissent in places where Labour are shit (Newham/ Lewisham). None of these things are entirely unique to London.

There remains a serious crisis of working class representation in England, and the rest of the UK. It is compounded by an immediate housing crisis and an economic 'recovery' that is having zero impact on peoples' actual well-being. These are the issues Labour needs to address; sidelining the persisting reality of class in favour of a supposed fissure between London and the provinces is the kind of politics that belongs in Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch. It has nothing to offer.