23/04/15: Vauxhall. That strange world of chem sex and property development. Most gays view Vauxhall as a place to pass through, a crossroads where every direction leads to a heady mix of pleasure (or occasionally regret!) and somewhere to stumble out of, wondering vaguely what day it is and whether you still have a job. If your mum says you can get pregnant from a toilet seat then logically it’s probably best to wrap your ovaries in cling film before setting foot in Vauxhall. It’s that sort of place. Right?
Well no, turns out people live in those houses. 24hour bacchanals are all very well, but it’s election time and the word on resident’s lips is community. What better place then for a debate of the local party hopefuls to show the gay community that they give a damn than the Royal Vauxhall Tavern – a historic landmark of gay culture in London that will probably be knocked down along with everything else we quite like in London unless we start to get a bit more angry about stuff. And things. I am deeply angry about things.
Reigning champion/Vauxhall MP/badass perm model Kate Hoey has been the one to beat for over 25 years now, so forgive me if I’m not on tenterhooks come election but we can all accept this is a fairly safe Labour seat. Unfortunately, for the purposes of this debate the other parties seem to have come to the same conclusion and decided to save their heavy hitter for more winnable battles; so this evening we have contenders alternatively lacking in charisma or experience throwing themselves against Castle Kate only to have their broken bodies swept aside to a crowd chorus of “Bollocks”. Did I mention a lot of the crowd shouted profanities? Best part of the evening.
If the ‘debating’ wasn’t up to much (it amounted in the end to little more than a restatement of party policies) the truly inspired aspect of the evening was the location. In my opinion all political debates should take place in a bar. Or a magical forest. Some place where the stranglehold of polite servility can break down and carefully rehearsed answers fall apart (judging by her answers, it is debatable whether Green Party candidate Gulnar Hasnain rehearsed at all). People eagerly took the chance to vocally support the issues that matter to them, and tell the candidates to “bugger off” when they were being insincere.
Most revealing is that while the standard big election topics dominated (immigration, economy, education, housing) it was not in the self-preserving ‘what can my government do for me’ mentality that more Conservative leaning parties rely upon. This particular audience overwhelmingly supported a Britain that stands up for persecuted immigrants, where the poor and the sick do not suffer under the bedroom tax or hated ATOS program, where a stronger economy isn’t used to justify throwing people out of perfectly good homes so they can be knocked down and rebuilt as exclusive riverfront property.
It turns out that no matter how comfortable gay men have become in London they still remember what it feels like to be persecuted and they have long memories as to where that persecution has traditionally come from. Poor luck then for Tory representative James Bellis who was flogging a dead horse with his support of housing associations, maintaining the bedroom tax and a parental participation into school syllabuses which one audience member loudly surmised as “homophobic schools, for homophobic parents, to create homophobic children”. Add in a curious segue that seemed to imply that big business was being unfairly attacked and was in need of more government defenders and it wasn’t the ‘We’re all in this together’ argument the party needs us to believe.
“It turns out that no matter how comfortable gay men have become in London they still remember what it feels like to be persecuted.”
More successful was Liberal Democrat Adrian Hyyryläinen-Trett, a man with an unpronounceable surname that ranks him somewhere with the Nicole Scherzingers of the world. He was strong and outspoken on gay issues and his very existence as an openly HIV positive candidate is a sign of fantastic progress, but he comes across too much as a one issue politician who would be great for gay rights, but may be ignored on other issues. Still, he outshone his Conservative and Green candidates in terms of being relatable and relevant.
What Vauxhall needs is a leader who understands the game but has some ethical accountability and that is what Kate Hoey wants voters to know they already have, even criticising Labour-led Lambeth on many issues. Her clarion call that “This country must always have room for refugees” is the sort of inspired simplicity of intent that make’s the Green’s “we’ve got to stop all that” seem absurdly childish. With the public increasingly tired of rhetoric and wanting to understand where people truly stand on issues, Kate is the candidate who is listening. Based on this debate, some of the other candidates should get used to playing catch up.
The Vauxhall Tavern, 372 Kennington Lane, Vauxhall, SE11 5HY.
Words by Damien Killeen
Photos by Angus Wharton
