young professionals paying up to half their salary in rent for the reward of a Zone 1
or 2 postcode. It is highly unlikely that outer London will become redundant at a time
when the hope of owning a home in inner London is now beyond the reach of most.
You only have to look at areas such as Walthamstow to see the pull that outer
London continues to exert on ambitious middle classes, albeit those who are more
likely to see themselves as living in an urban village rather than a sleepy suburb.
Between 2009 and 2012 the number of residents of Waltham Forest with degrees has
doubled.
London is no longer simply a city of inner and outer, rather it is a city of clusters of
wealth and pockets of deprivation. For Labour to engage with both the inner and
outer city, we need to able to understand these nuances, rather than simply relying
on geographical voting blocs. Even if the term seems somewhat outdated, the sense
of aspiration and ambition that David Cairns sought to capture in his reference to
‘conservatory labour’ matters as much to Labour today as it did when he first coined
it. Labour still has to prove it can be the party of the picket fence, as well as the picket
line.
London voters
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