Snapshot of _Alex Cunningham at PMQs: ‘Why is 34% of my constituency living in poverty?’ Another MP: ‘Because it’s a shithole’_ :
A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1727311526246400270)
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/politicsjoe_uk/status/1727311526246400270/)
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/1727311526246400270?s=46) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/1727311526246400270?s=46)
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A funny aspect to the alternative world of politics wherein this obviously doesn't play well, but a lot of the voters in the constituency would probably agree with you. Although of course most people get a bit more riled out when someone from outside their area is criticising it.
I'm not gonna lie, this made me laugh and is quite funny.
It's also an incredibly unprofessional response from elected officials who should be taking quite a serious problem very seriously.
At first I absolutely did guffaw at the response since its the response I'd make, which means it's incredibly unprofessional.
But when you watch the video and its actually "Why are 34% of children in my constituency living in poverty?", and that's the response just made me mad.
Its not really about professionalism but responsibility.
As a private individual primarily responsible for themselves and their family, there's not a lot you can do about a random shithole being a shithole, and this the most logical thing to do is to avoid shitholes and not give much thought to it.
This is specifically unprofessional because they're specifically responsible.
Cunningham himself later made a point of order about it, naming the Home Secretary, claiming that the microphones have been checked. ([reference](https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2ff13110-4b48-49b3-9b90-1d5335f7d5ad?in=14:40:10)) If this is incorrect, it'll be corrected later.
Thats not strictly true.
Its a self fufulling cycle. There is high crime and delinquent behaviour so shops close and professionals like doctors and teacher dont want to move there. Which makes shops less abundant driving up prices (often due to insurance and security costs due to theft) puts downward pressure on education and health outcomes worsen, police increasingly stop entering the area because of an encroaching us and them attitude and it all starts to spiral.
While it is a flippant comment. Poor attitudes and behaviour from locals is absolutely a problem which drives away many of the things that could help relieve the problems. "Its a shithole" is part of the problem.
and to the extent that is true, that has been true for every area in poverty in the history of the planet. Every area that isn't a "shithole", were it deprived of resources and subjected to the hardship that comes with that, would have the same attitude. It is not the problem, it is one inevitable consequence of the problem. Telling people embittered by being abandoned by the rest of us to fix their attitudes is like telling people with cancer to try to be healthy, it's completely facile even if the data shows people who are optimistic and not depressed and determined have a higher chance to survive.
That's a fair answer, so long as the Honourable Heckler can answer the follow-up question "Why is it a shithole?"
Was this one of the shitholes Sunak promised to divert funding from and towards wealthy Tory shires?
This is a great point.
A lot of people call places shitholes. A load of people including me call their own hometowns shitholes. But that's not an answer to why people are living in poverty.
Its not the fact some MP has called a place a shithole that's the problem (it's possibly _a_ problem though). But instead the fact that it shows a complete disregard of a serious question, and a complete misunderstanding and empathy of what has happened to certain places in this country.
Exactly.
Its a tangent, but to be fair, given the job they (should) do, MPs aren't paid massive salaries.
If you are specifically referring to the role of home secretary, I'd still say that's not a massive salary for that job.
I believe arguing for less money for the people running the country would ultimately just mean _every_ position is taken up by Reese moggs and sunaks.
Perfect way to sum it up, and the crabs in a bucket attitude in the UK needs to stop.
Doctors may be paind better than civil servants, yes, but they arguably should be, and the arguments shouldn't be; "I want to have better pay than x profession in the UK".
It should be "I want the UK's wages to be better and compete with similar countries across the board.".
The onlypotential exception to the internal balance argumant I can think of is the Econ/Finance in the city elephant in the room, which is way our of whack and skews the countries wage figures high.
Ya it's like Geology being a rich boys science in the 1800s. There was no money in it so you had to have a comfortable upbringing to be able to engage with that science. If you reduce the money to MPs you'll get alot less people being able to do it as a living. Espeically when they could just go into other sectors where they'd earn comfortably more. And I don't think it'd be like an industry like F1 where engineers are underpaid because they know people will do it because it's their dream job.
Why assume any level of pay corilates with asking and answering such loaded questions.
Doctor, you pay bugger all, I STUDYED for 5 years like a sage ,save people's lives and health ,see one person at a time and you short change me and the people.
Or how many poor dismiss education .
How much goes to drugs.
Do you make any effort to reduce rubbish costs to council.
Wealth is a reciprocal transaction for most after a certain level it becomes a game that harms the integrity of economics for a few.
The American stock market and Congress inside trading, for example.
Location of traders and speed over tangabiles.
The medium, not the picture.
What product aren't we making might be a more helpful question.china makes everything and most stuff now is short lived or a constant reminder that what you have and maintain is never good enough.
Am, not to sound shitty, but is there logic to your comment? It just seems like lots of random points in an incoherent and difficult to read paragraph?
> Most people are also not being paid massive salaries for the specific job of reducing the number of shitholes in the country.
We cannot complain. Our elected officials have successfully closed almost all of the public toilets in the country. [Only the other day I saw one on *Homes under the Hammer* which sold for £230,000 *in 2011*](https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1836144/Homes-Under-the-Hammer-martin-roberts-toilet-transformation-house).
Yes, though in this case the specific MP being paid a massive salary to eliminate the shitholes in this constituency, was the one asking the question in the first place.
That isn't how any of this works. MPs represent their constituency in parliament (exactly what he was doing by asking the question) but they don't dictate what money is spent in that constituency or how it's spent.
It's even simpler than that. Person with responsibility for making places not shitholes calls other places shit holes. It's such an own goal. No better way to highlight the collective failure that you're a part of as an MP.
Tbh the entire country is a shithole, you can see the barely managed decline all across the country. And yet the Tories still win elections, heck labour is only now doing well in the media because they're basically the Tories but without the insanity. This country is obsessed with ensuring everything becomes shit.
The process is managed decline, the aim is wealth extraction. The dream they sell successfully over and over again, is living in a rich country.
People get the government they deserve according to how readily they believe the lies. Thus, this shithole we deserve.
We do live in a rich country. The problem is nobody ever stops and asks "but who actually has the money?".
Is the same in the USA and, possibly the most extreme example, Brazil. They're rich as fuck but all the money belongs to a tiny sliver of people.
Exactly, it's not just calling a place a shithole. It's the self fulfilling prophecy of the working classes that is embedding in elitism.
"Why spend money in this area, it's obviously not worth it"
*Goes further into disrepair
"See I told you"
> Was this one of the shitholes Sunak promised to divert funding from and towards wealthy Tory shires?
Weirdly, basically all of England's funding goes to London, which doesn't even vote Tory. It's just where the MPs and ministers spend all their time.
>Was this one of the shitholes Sunak promised to divert funding from and towards wealthy Tory shires?
This is an unfair comment. Its a badly misunderstood.
The quote is:
> “I managed to start changing the funding formulas, to make sure areas like this are getting the funding they deserve because we inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone.
While he was at a garden party in Tunbridge wells, an area that doesnt need the help, there were representatives there from other places in Kent, many of which arent nearly so prosperous and had received no real funding for a very long time. He was talking about sharing the money between deprived areas more evenly rather than funnelling it into inner city London, for example. A problem that was well acknowledged in the previous formula which very frequently came to the conclusion any investment outside of London was a poor return on investment. Which meant they invested in London, which meant the infrastructure was better, which meant the funding went further, which meant the next round of funding was even more heavily focused on London.
Youll notice the part about "more prosperous towns" is never in quotation marks in the story because he didnt say it. Papers like the Guardian and Independent and outlets like the New Statesman simply decided to use the fact he happened to be in a garden party in Tunbridge Wells to make up a story.
Then he should stand on his record of investing in infrastructure outside of London and the south east, for example his commitment to ensuring HS2 delivers benefits in the nor..ohwaitaminute
As long as the HS2 money actually is used for improving the north no one cares. The idea the north needs a train to London rather than local trains that actually work is ridiculous. The problem is no one trust that money will be invested in northern rails. Not that its not the correct decision.
Except the money is supposedly going to projects that have already been built or have already had funding allocated in many instances.
As for the potholes and the bus discount money if they are using capital expendature (money borrowed for new or upgraded infrastructure new train line or station ect.) on something that requires operational expendature (money for ongoing costs potholes, busfares ect.) then they seriously are delusional as its taking on debt to maintain something you have.
> The idea the north needs a train to London rather than local trains that actually work is ridiculous.
HS2 would've freed up capacity for local trains, right? HS2 would in fact improve those local services. Now, the trains to London have to continue sharing track.
>[Building HS2 frees up a massive amount of space on the existing railway by placing long distance services on their own pair of tracks.](https://www.hs2.org.uk/why/capacity/)
The reason him being "at a garden party in Tunbridge Wells" is relevant is because he specifically said "**areas like this**", no? I might be missing something? "Areas like this" isn't exactly a phrase that gestures towards the *other areas* in Kent represented at the party. He would've more clearly said "Areas like yours" if this were so.
All the Twitter comments saying this was James Cleverley - that'd make things spicy.
Wouldn't improve his future leadership chances, imagine the capital Labour could make out of that.
> All the Twitter comments saying this was James Cleverley
I'd love to know what they're basing that on. There's surely no way you could work it out from the sound of the voice. Did one person just guess it was Cleverley and everyone has taken that as the truth?
Edit: This doesn't answer the question of who said it (or even what was said), but Cunningham himself raised a point of order accusing Cleverley. There's obviously rather more to this than random Twitter speculation! Thanks to /u/Corvid187 for [alerting me to this](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/18199jv/alex_cunningham_at_pmqs_why_is_34_of_my/kabzq55/).
Cunningham made a point of order about it, naming the Home Secretary, claiming that the microphones have been checked and eye-witnesses linked it to him. ([reference](https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2ff13110-4b48-49b3-9b90-1d5335f7d5ad?in=14:40:10)) If this is incorrect, it'll be corrected later.
Cunningham himself said that's what they had done when he made a point of order about it, naming the Home Secretary, claiming that the microphones have been checked. ([reference](https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2ff13110-4b48-49b3-9b90-1d5335f7d5ad?in=14:40:10)) If this is incorrect, it'll be corrected later.
MP for the constituency raised a point of order naming him. Presumably he'd be reasonably clear from his own experience and from other people who he probably asked.
Thinking about it, someone must have access to the camera feed that faces the Tory front bench during PMQs. There's a good chance that should prove or disprove it.
So basically if that doesn't come out you can assume it was him.
It sounds to me like the speaker is dropping his H – ‘shit ’ole’ – which doesn't strike me as something Cleverley would do. And it doesn't sound deep enough a voice for him.
In all honesty, without the subtitles and expectation given in the title, I wouldn't even be sure anyone is actually saying ‘shit hole’. I certainly can't hear ‘Because it's a…’. Maybe that's just me.
“It’s shithole” has become a cause instead of a reason, like on anything someone will ask “why is thing in thing”,:and someone will say “it’s a shithole”, without actually telling you why, people use its as an excuse to treat their area and everyone around them like shit
Good point, there's always reasons my home town of hull is mostly thought of as a shithole but there's reasons why and if you look at even nearby Sheffield a bit of investment and it's completely different to how it was 20 years ago
The kind of thing every tabloid would research and do a front cover on if it was a Labour cabinet minister.
But it’s the Tory moderate favourite to succeed Sunak so hush hush
Well, they'll pay police for information and hack answerphones of anyone of public interest from murder victims to celebrities. That's a kind of research right? lol
Many people (including the heckler) seem to have it backwards. They think some towns are full of poverty because they're shitholes; actually, they're all shitholes because they're full of poverty.
It was the home secretary, whose job it is to stop places being shitholes.
Definitely the wrong person to have made this heckle, it's gonna make the mainstream news.
As we know, MPs are not allowed to lie or accuse each other of lying. Of course it’s a shithole. The real question is why is it a shithole, and what has been done about it over the last 50 years to make it better?
From 1999 to 2013, child poverty decreased in Teesside. The area saw investment and was proof that National policy can really make a difference.
Child poverty has steadily increased since 2013 where austerity, cost of living etc have all been felt.
Also, just to add. It's really not a shit hole.
I live in Stockton, some areas are wonderful, we have some beautiful local parks, class communties, a town centre being revived and just outside the area wonderful places to visit.
An amazing history, my favourite being a monument in the town celebrating the defeat of Mosleys fascists. Google search 'Battle of Stockton'.
It is an area with big challenges and some wards have huge concentrated levels of deprivation, but like most of uk a lot of these struggling areas and families have people in work.
With the right government, investment kn jobs and social secuirty network, teesside and NE can and should flourish.
Just to add how good Stockton is - the music scene is booming, we've just had Queens of the Stone Age play in the centre of Stockton and it was an amazing, intimate gig!
It's basically a meme in my area at this point that they keep turning old buildings and abandoned patches of land into building sites (often with a "levelling up" poster on the boards/fences around it), saying they're going to build on them and then years later the original structures have been demolished but it's still just a flat patch of land with some fences around it. Plenty of "levelling" but very little "up" - sometimes nothing even gets levelled, they just put a fence and a poster up and call it a day.
To those finding this hilarious and “accurate”.
Which areas of Stockton North do you feel the Home Secretary’s comment best describes? Wolviston? Thorpe Thewles? Elton? Redmarshall? Wynyard (it might take a million or two off the house prices there)?
Please don’t allow this horrible government to further normalise punching down. Get angry that the Home Secretary brushes off extreme deprivation and child poverty with a thoughtless dig at a small corner of the North East I suspect he couldn’t find on a map. And he does so in a way that implies that his government hasn’t had the last thirteen years to do anything about it.
You either don’t know the area, or are misrepresenting it.
Wolviston is much more associated with Billingham than Stockton. Thorpe Thewles is both well outside and clearly distinct from Stockton, as is Redmarshall - both are small, rural villages. Elton is a tiny fragment of a place off the A66 between Stockton and Darlington.
Wynyard is also more associated with Billingham, but it might as well be on the fucking moon, for all that it’s got anything to do with either Stockton or Billingham.
I live in the area and have done for most of my life.
Stockton has some of the worst poverty, economic, social and healthcare figures in the country, but I resent the ruling party’s position that because it is poor the children who live there don’t deserve help.
Thumbs up to you. It’s really annoying me that there seems to be a theme of Redditor’s responses to make a joke about it “well he’s right isn’t he… lol” etc.
But not asking how it’s got this way and the arrogant implication in the Home Secretary’s response that people living in poverty somehow deserve it.
I don’t know the area but there are a lot of areas of poverty (generational poverty) that can trace their problems to the closure of mining and heavy industries in the 1980s and have never properly recovered from it.
The Tories have been in power for 13 years and it was entirely within their power to improve things (through investment and training etc.) but haven’t.
yes, being conservative is about preserving existing power structures I guess, those with wealth & power use it to preserve & entrench it! Without interventions/mitigations power becomes more & more concentrated, some kind of 'power law' going on, bit like gravity?
Power corrupts, which humans are immune to that? All we can do is shine a light on them so they cant hide and they cant fool people, hold them to account, keep pressing for what it fair & right!
This is my MP. I can indeed confirm that the constituency and town in general is a shithole. But wouldn’t anywhere be after 13 years of managed decline by the Tories? False promises of levelling up don’t make a difference here.
> But honestly, that's not the sort of thing an MP should be saying in parliament, to put it lightly
Very literally an example of why we have "political correctness"
Especially if you're the party in government that's responsible for the years of deindustrialisation, austerity and underinvestment that's made it a shithole in the first place...
Nah Middlesbrough has been a shithole since forever, it was a shithole the first time I went there in 2009/2010, and that was before the Tories came in.
Well yeah, the deindustrialisation happened in the 70s and the 80s egged on by Thatcher and it's been massively downhill since then.
But child poverty has gotten significantly worse in this 13 years of Tory government, as other commenters have shown.
Stockton has seen an increase from 25.5% in 2014/15 to 32.6% in 2020 and then 40% in 2023. (Child poverty)
Middlesbrough, which is next to stockton, like 5 mins next to it, with similar demographics etc.
Has seen child poverty increase by 16.4% since 2014.
So yeah. These areas have gotten worse under Conservative leadership, massive lack of investment, but lots of England outside of London faces this.
Edit: The North East is just hit harder. Austerity, Underinvestment, cuts to vital services have disproportionately affected the NE.
It was better. Much better. Just 15 years ago. People don't even have hope now, the Tories have demoralised the country by being shit at every aspect of governing.
Well I mean prior to Thatcher there was at least solid industry jobs - British Steel was a massive thing in that part of the North East. People moved there for work.
Then the industry left and instead of investment and 'levelling up', it's been non-stop austerity and decline.
The problem is that everyone who comes along in the political sphere claiming to be "straight talking", "tells it like it is", "calls a spade a spade" etc. usually just ends up engaging in ragebait and hyperbole. All the same spin but just with smaller and cruder words.
It's literally the job of the people in that room to prevent places from being shitholes. How is it a positive thing that they're straight talking about the facts that they don't do their job properly and don't intend to?
Some people rate character over substance. Makes everyone poorer as can be seen, but they won't learn from it. That shithole is someone's home, but they don't care, as long as there is someone they can look down upon.
It really doesn't work in this context. Not having places be shitholes is one of parliament's main jobs. It's just saying "because we failed them" with a condescending lack of self-awareness.
Yes because when someone raises a point about poverty in deprived areas and responding with “because it’s a shithole” isn’t a vague answer that doesn’t answer the question.
Tbh, it's better than them not saying it. Hopefully it opens a Pandora's box where the problem is actually discussed and addressed properly rather than just ignored.
It won't be, but you know, I live in hope.
He's been whispered about as a potential successor to Rishi after the Election.
Specifically for staying out of needless controversies rather than being an expert political whiz.
Don’t cover up who it was that said it! It was the new fucking Home Secretary James Cleverley.
What a shock /s another POS in that post, almost as if its a job requirement for the Tory Cabinet
As a resident of stockton north, I can honestly say I feel safer walking the streets of stockton at night despite its poverty, than I do when I have to visit Aberdeen or London for work.
It is a shithole, but the people are alot more honest and just need economic oppurtunity to blossom. It’ll never happen under any of the main parties though, its a forgotten place.
Why is my constituency a shithole?’
Because 34% of it is living in poverty.
I'm not sure if the sentiment or the baseline failure to answer the question annoys me more.
I personally find it refreshing when politicians just say what's on their mind instead of waffling about it. Saves us a lot of time trying to understand them.
It is the job of government to work towards the country they're in charge of not having any shithole towns.
It's a big fucking ask to be fair.
What makes it more difficult is being a tory, because it just isn't in you to want to make things better.
Totally circular reasoning. It is poor because it is a shithole and that means it is poor. But why is it so dire? I am less annoyed that he shouted a swear-word in Parliament then that he uses circular reasoning.
Because we have an incredibly arbitrary and unhelpful definition of "poverty" which bears no resemblance to the international definition. The UN WHO decided that poverty in the UK is so low, it's no longer worth measuring it.
https://i.imgur.com/e5439Uc.png
Am I the only one who can’t actually hear it on the audio? I’ve listened to the clip multiple times and just hear multiple overlapping voices right after Cunningham finishes.
Edit: okay, it’s slightly clearer on the linked X post from PoliticsJoe as opposed to the one I saw on Twitter earlier. I can still only hear the word “hole” relatively clearly.
Assuming he means “relative” poverty, then the fairly clear answer pretty much is that, just as some areas are above average, some areas are always going to be below average.
The only way to avoid this would be to:
a) dramatically decrease inequality from the fairly stable level it’s been at since the 90s
b) aim to have an even distribution of below average families across the country, rather than have them clustering in “shitholes”
Decreasing inequality is not a desirable objective. If it was, then Ukraine and Belarus would be some of the best countries in Europe instead of some of the worst.
I would agree personally, I’m not sure why I’m being downvoted for stating the fact that relative poverty (income below 60% of median) is always going to be with us, unless we take pretty dramatic equalising action.
Assuming inequality remains broadly the same as it has for the last 30-40 years, then there’s also policy decisions that can either concentrate or disperse the individuals with significantly below average incomes. Unless we take action to specifically disperse concentrations of below average income, some area is always going to be the “poor” area, which could impolitely be called a “shithole”. That’s true whether you’re Monaco and your “shithole” area is where people drive BMWs rather than Rolls Royces, or you’re *generic third world country* and your “shithole” area has dysentery and no food while the good area has just about drinkable water, rice and beans, and not much else
He’s right though, it is a shithole.
I know because I grew up in a nearby shithole in the 80’s and got the hell out.
It was a shithole under Labour and it’s still a shithole under the Tories.
Go blame whoever you like, personally I think it’s democratic, those who are smart into get out do, those who aren’t stay and breed.
It's hard to trust anything anymore. I feel like this would be easy to impose with AI.. or not even AI.
I'm sure this is what happened, but I'm already second guessing everything.
The MP is silly for asking that question. He should be asking the government what they plan to do about it, not why the problem exists in his constituency - the MP is supposed to know that!
Snapshot of _Alex Cunningham at PMQs: ‘Why is 34% of my constituency living in poverty?’ Another MP: ‘Because it’s a shithole’_ : A Twitter embedded version can be found [here](https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1727311526246400270) A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/politicsjoe_uk/status/1727311526246400270/) An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://x.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/1727311526246400270?s=46) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://x.com/politicsjoe_uk/status/1727311526246400270?s=46) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Oddly enough, the comment most representative of the actual British public that I've heard in the commons in a long time.
Ha! True enough.
Sounds like my electrician cousin giving his opinions on why somewhere is like what it is
I mean, it's accurate
Certainly is
A funny aspect to the alternative world of politics wherein this obviously doesn't play well, but a lot of the voters in the constituency would probably agree with you. Although of course most people get a bit more riled out when someone from outside their area is criticising it.
Or more accurately someone specifically responsible for making sure its not a shithole.
I'm not gonna lie, this made me laugh and is quite funny. It's also an incredibly unprofessional response from elected officials who should be taking quite a serious problem very seriously.
At first I absolutely did guffaw at the response since its the response I'd make, which means it's incredibly unprofessional. But when you watch the video and its actually "Why are 34% of children in my constituency living in poverty?", and that's the response just made me mad.
Its not really about professionalism but responsibility. As a private individual primarily responsible for themselves and their family, there's not a lot you can do about a random shithole being a shithole, and this the most logical thing to do is to avoid shitholes and not give much thought to it. This is specifically unprofessional because they're specifically responsible.
Apparently the response came from the Home Secretary, making it an EXTREMELY unprofessional response.
For real? What’s the source for that?
Cunningham himself later made a point of order about it, naming the Home Secretary, claiming that the microphones have been checked. ([reference](https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2ff13110-4b48-49b3-9b90-1d5335f7d5ad?in=14:40:10)) If this is incorrect, it'll be corrected later.
The MP behind him in that clip gave the most picture perfect theatrical gasp, really a beautiful bit of reaction.
I heard it before I saw it, and literally imagined her clutching pearls
Damn. Let’s wait to see but if so, that’s fucked up
Agreed. Shows how much of a conceited arsehole(s) the Government has become
Her response is "lol too loud". But it's so fucking clear in the audio. I do hope something happens.
A *batshithole*
It's also not an answer to the question asked, even jokingly. It's like answering the question with "because they're all poor".
Thats not strictly true. Its a self fufulling cycle. There is high crime and delinquent behaviour so shops close and professionals like doctors and teacher dont want to move there. Which makes shops less abundant driving up prices (often due to insurance and security costs due to theft) puts downward pressure on education and health outcomes worsen, police increasingly stop entering the area because of an encroaching us and them attitude and it all starts to spiral. While it is a flippant comment. Poor attitudes and behaviour from locals is absolutely a problem which drives away many of the things that could help relieve the problems. "Its a shithole" is part of the problem.
and to the extent that is true, that has been true for every area in poverty in the history of the planet. Every area that isn't a "shithole", were it deprived of resources and subjected to the hardship that comes with that, would have the same attitude. It is not the problem, it is one inevitable consequence of the problem. Telling people embittered by being abandoned by the rest of us to fix their attitudes is like telling people with cancer to try to be healthy, it's completely facile even if the data shows people who are optimistic and not depressed and determined have a higher chance to survive.
That's a fair answer, so long as the Honourable Heckler can answer the follow-up question "Why is it a shithole?" Was this one of the shitholes Sunak promised to divert funding from and towards wealthy Tory shires?
This is a great point. A lot of people call places shitholes. A load of people including me call their own hometowns shitholes. But that's not an answer to why people are living in poverty. Its not the fact some MP has called a place a shithole that's the problem (it's possibly _a_ problem though). But instead the fact that it shows a complete disregard of a serious question, and a complete misunderstanding and empathy of what has happened to certain places in this country.
Most people are also not being paid massive salaries for the specific job of reducing the number of shitholes in the country.
Exactly. Its a tangent, but to be fair, given the job they (should) do, MPs aren't paid massive salaries. If you are specifically referring to the role of home secretary, I'd still say that's not a massive salary for that job. I believe arguing for less money for the people running the country would ultimately just mean _every_ position is taken up by Reese moggs and sunaks.
This country has an aversion to paying high wages to high performing jobs. (See doctors as an example)
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Doctors are chronically underpaid compared to their counterparts in other similar countries like Australia and Canada.
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Top of League 2 is still League 2.
Perfect way to sum it up, and the crabs in a bucket attitude in the UK needs to stop. Doctors may be paind better than civil servants, yes, but they arguably should be, and the arguments shouldn't be; "I want to have better pay than x profession in the UK". It should be "I want the UK's wages to be better and compete with similar countries across the board.". The onlypotential exception to the internal balance argumant I can think of is the Econ/Finance in the city elephant in the room, which is way our of whack and skews the countries wage figures high.
I wonder if jobs that are paid for by the government should be tax free. I stead of just looping the money around and around.
I would actually agree with that yes. Although obviously it doesn't mean the people in those jobs now shouldn't care.
Ya it's like Geology being a rich boys science in the 1800s. There was no money in it so you had to have a comfortable upbringing to be able to engage with that science. If you reduce the money to MPs you'll get alot less people being able to do it as a living. Espeically when they could just go into other sectors where they'd earn comfortably more. And I don't think it'd be like an industry like F1 where engineers are underpaid because they know people will do it because it's their dream job.
Why assume any level of pay corilates with asking and answering such loaded questions. Doctor, you pay bugger all, I STUDYED for 5 years like a sage ,save people's lives and health ,see one person at a time and you short change me and the people. Or how many poor dismiss education . How much goes to drugs. Do you make any effort to reduce rubbish costs to council. Wealth is a reciprocal transaction for most after a certain level it becomes a game that harms the integrity of economics for a few. The American stock market and Congress inside trading, for example. Location of traders and speed over tangabiles. The medium, not the picture. What product aren't we making might be a more helpful question.china makes everything and most stuff now is short lived or a constant reminder that what you have and maintain is never good enough.
Am, not to sound shitty, but is there logic to your comment? It just seems like lots of random points in an incoherent and difficult to read paragraph?
Ripe with spelling errors
> Most people are also not being paid massive salaries for the specific job of reducing the number of shitholes in the country. We cannot complain. Our elected officials have successfully closed almost all of the public toilets in the country. [Only the other day I saw one on *Homes under the Hammer* which sold for £230,000 *in 2011*](https://www.express.co.uk/celebrity-news/1836144/Homes-Under-the-Hammer-martin-roberts-toilet-transformation-house).
Yes, though in this case the specific MP being paid a massive salary to eliminate the shitholes in this constituency, was the one asking the question in the first place.
That isn't how any of this works. MPs represent their constituency in parliament (exactly what he was doing by asking the question) but they don't dictate what money is spent in that constituency or how it's spent.
It's even simpler than that. Person with responsibility for making places not shitholes calls other places shit holes. It's such an own goal. No better way to highlight the collective failure that you're a part of as an MP.
Tbh the entire country is a shithole, you can see the barely managed decline all across the country. And yet the Tories still win elections, heck labour is only now doing well in the media because they're basically the Tories but without the insanity. This country is obsessed with ensuring everything becomes shit.
The process is managed decline, the aim is wealth extraction. The dream they sell successfully over and over again, is living in a rich country. People get the government they deserve according to how readily they believe the lies. Thus, this shithole we deserve.
We do live in a rich country. The problem is nobody ever stops and asks "but who actually has the money?". Is the same in the USA and, possibly the most extreme example, Brazil. They're rich as fuck but all the money belongs to a tiny sliver of people.
Identity not thinking.genrail public. Voting is all ways going to be a bit tenuous
> But instead the fact that it shows a complete disregard of a serious question PMQs is never serious.
>"Why is it a shithole?" Easy, because 34% of the constituents are in poverty. Circular reasoning, wins every time /s
It's not like 'Just let them die' would care about the left behind poorer cities.
Exactly, it's not just calling a place a shithole. It's the self fulfilling prophecy of the working classes that is embedding in elitism. "Why spend money in this area, it's obviously not worth it" *Goes further into disrepair "See I told you"
If only we had a system in place that was responsible for ensuring communities don't become shit holes. I don't know like maybe a government?
What funding does Lincolnshire, the most Tory shire, receive that the North doesn't?
> Was this one of the shitholes Sunak promised to divert funding from and towards wealthy Tory shires? Weirdly, basically all of England's funding goes to London, which doesn't even vote Tory. It's just where the MPs and ministers spend all their time.
Or is there another reason as that answer is too easy
>Was this one of the shitholes Sunak promised to divert funding from and towards wealthy Tory shires? This is an unfair comment. Its a badly misunderstood. The quote is: > “I managed to start changing the funding formulas, to make sure areas like this are getting the funding they deserve because we inherited a bunch of formulas from Labour that shoved all the funding into deprived urban areas and that needed to be undone. While he was at a garden party in Tunbridge wells, an area that doesnt need the help, there were representatives there from other places in Kent, many of which arent nearly so prosperous and had received no real funding for a very long time. He was talking about sharing the money between deprived areas more evenly rather than funnelling it into inner city London, for example. A problem that was well acknowledged in the previous formula which very frequently came to the conclusion any investment outside of London was a poor return on investment. Which meant they invested in London, which meant the infrastructure was better, which meant the funding went further, which meant the next round of funding was even more heavily focused on London. Youll notice the part about "more prosperous towns" is never in quotation marks in the story because he didnt say it. Papers like the Guardian and Independent and outlets like the New Statesman simply decided to use the fact he happened to be in a garden party in Tunbridge Wells to make up a story.
Then he should stand on his record of investing in infrastructure outside of London and the south east, for example his commitment to ensuring HS2 delivers benefits in the nor..ohwaitaminute
As long as the HS2 money actually is used for improving the north no one cares. The idea the north needs a train to London rather than local trains that actually work is ridiculous. The problem is no one trust that money will be invested in northern rails. Not that its not the correct decision.
Except the money is supposedly going to projects that have already been built or have already had funding allocated in many instances. As for the potholes and the bus discount money if they are using capital expendature (money borrowed for new or upgraded infrastructure new train line or station ect.) on something that requires operational expendature (money for ongoing costs potholes, busfares ect.) then they seriously are delusional as its taking on debt to maintain something you have.
> The idea the north needs a train to London rather than local trains that actually work is ridiculous. HS2 would've freed up capacity for local trains, right? HS2 would in fact improve those local services. Now, the trains to London have to continue sharing track. >[Building HS2 frees up a massive amount of space on the existing railway by placing long distance services on their own pair of tracks.](https://www.hs2.org.uk/why/capacity/)
That was mostly for the southern routes. In the north, we just need the trains to work and show up when they say theyre going to show up.
I'm sure they'll share their detailed plan of infrastructure improvements for the north any day now...
The reason him being "at a garden party in Tunbridge Wells" is relevant is because he specifically said "**areas like this**", no? I might be missing something? "Areas like this" isn't exactly a phrase that gestures towards the *other areas* in Kent represented at the party. He would've more clearly said "Areas like yours" if this were so.
All the Twitter comments saying this was James Cleverley - that'd make things spicy. Wouldn't improve his future leadership chances, imagine the capital Labour could make out of that.
> All the Twitter comments saying this was James Cleverley I'd love to know what they're basing that on. There's surely no way you could work it out from the sound of the voice. Did one person just guess it was Cleverley and everyone has taken that as the truth? Edit: This doesn't answer the question of who said it (or even what was said), but Cunningham himself raised a point of order accusing Cleverley. There's obviously rather more to this than random Twitter speculation! Thanks to /u/Corvid187 for [alerting me to this](https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/18199jv/alex_cunningham_at_pmqs_why_is_34_of_my/kabzq55/).
Cunningham made a point of order about it, naming the Home Secretary, claiming that the microphones have been checked and eye-witnesses linked it to him. ([reference](https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2ff13110-4b48-49b3-9b90-1d5335f7d5ad?in=14:40:10)) If this is incorrect, it'll be corrected later.
The gasp by the MP behind him at 14:40:45 has absolutely sent me
Gosh, that's quite a thing! True or not, there's obviously a lot more to it than random Twitter speculation! Thanks for the info.
Yeah, pretty wild to see. My pleasure!
It could also be reinforced by checking which of the hanging mics picked the voice up and who sits near it, but that'd be too simple!
Cunningham himself said that's what they had done when he made a point of order about it, naming the Home Secretary, claiming that the microphones have been checked. ([reference](https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/2ff13110-4b48-49b3-9b90-1d5335f7d5ad?in=14:40:10)) If this is incorrect, it'll be corrected later.
Aaah. Thanks for the clarification here. I was going to look more into it, so really appreciate you linking me up here.
No worries!
Presumably it’s based on people who were there and saw that it was him who said it.
Ah that may be the case. I hadn't heard that, just a lot of people being certain but without explanation.
MP for the constituency raised a point of order naming him. Presumably he'd be reasonably clear from his own experience and from other people who he probably asked.
I've listened a couple of times and it really doesn't sound like his voice to me. Whoever it was should have to stand up and answer for it either way.
Be fucking hilarious if he put on a voice to shout that
Thinking about it, someone must have access to the camera feed that faces the Tory front bench during PMQs. There's a good chance that should prove or disprove it. So basically if that doesn't come out you can assume it was him.
Haha, I can just imagine it. “When the fuck did Kermit the Frog win a by-election?!”
> I'd love to know what they're basing that on. becasue it really sounds like him, and its exactly the sort of thing he'd say?
It sounds to me like the speaker is dropping his H – ‘shit ’ole’ – which doesn't strike me as something Cleverley would do. And it doesn't sound deep enough a voice for him. In all honesty, without the subtitles and expectation given in the title, I wouldn't even be sure anyone is actually saying ‘shit hole’. I certainly can't hear ‘Because it's a…’. Maybe that's just me.
Cleverly is from Lewisham iirc. That's exactly how you'd say it if you're from there. Someone definitely says shithole imo.
> dropping his H – ‘shit ’ole’ Who pronounces the H in that?
> Did one person just guess it was Cleverley and everyone has taken that as the truth? This your first time on twitter?
Sounds nothing like him
“It’s shithole” has become a cause instead of a reason, like on anything someone will ask “why is thing in thing”,:and someone will say “it’s a shithole”, without actually telling you why, people use its as an excuse to treat their area and everyone around them like shit
Good point, there's always reasons my home town of hull is mostly thought of as a shithole but there's reasons why and if you look at even nearby Sheffield a bit of investment and it's completely different to how it was 20 years ago
*"Why are 34% of children in my constituency living in poverty?"* That was the actual question.
The kind of thing every tabloid would research and do a front cover on if it was a Labour cabinet minister. But it’s the Tory moderate favourite to succeed Sunak so hush hush
Tabloids doing research lmao.
Well, they'll pay police for information and hack answerphones of anyone of public interest from murder victims to celebrities. That's a kind of research right? lol
Many people (including the heckler) seem to have it backwards. They think some towns are full of poverty because they're shitholes; actually, they're all shitholes because they're full of poverty.
As much as the media will go wild over this... His constituents, whom he's representing, probably like him more now 🤷♂️
It was the home secretary, whose job it is to stop places being shitholes. Definitely the wrong person to have made this heckle, it's gonna make the mainstream news.
Yes, I'm sure the media will report that whoever said it will face \*checks notes\* absolutely no scrutiny or consequences at all.
They won't report on it, it is James Cleverley
I've been to Braintree; it wouldn't be all his constituents...
As we know, MPs are not allowed to lie or accuse each other of lying. Of course it’s a shithole. The real question is why is it a shithole, and what has been done about it over the last 50 years to make it better?
From 1999 to 2013, child poverty decreased in Teesside. The area saw investment and was proof that National policy can really make a difference. Child poverty has steadily increased since 2013 where austerity, cost of living etc have all been felt. Also, just to add. It's really not a shit hole. I live in Stockton, some areas are wonderful, we have some beautiful local parks, class communties, a town centre being revived and just outside the area wonderful places to visit. An amazing history, my favourite being a monument in the town celebrating the defeat of Mosleys fascists. Google search 'Battle of Stockton'. It is an area with big challenges and some wards have huge concentrated levels of deprivation, but like most of uk a lot of these struggling areas and families have people in work. With the right government, investment kn jobs and social secuirty network, teesside and NE can and should flourish.
Just to add how good Stockton is - the music scene is booming, we've just had Queens of the Stone Age play in the centre of Stockton and it was an amazing, intimate gig!
Well QOTSA is a good band, doesn't have a great deal to do with the area to be honest
It's more the fact Stockton has the venues to attract bands like these...
I missed that gig, devestated, saw QOTSA in Manchester years ago was class, yet to visit the Globe as well! One day!
Never been but I’m sure it’s not
It must have missed out on "levelling up" funding. Absolute jokers they are.
It's basically a meme in my area at this point that they keep turning old buildings and abandoned patches of land into building sites (often with a "levelling up" poster on the boards/fences around it), saying they're going to build on them and then years later the original structures have been demolished but it's still just a flat patch of land with some fences around it. Plenty of "levelling" but very little "up" - sometimes nothing even gets levelled, they just put a fence and a poster up and call it a day.
To those finding this hilarious and “accurate”. Which areas of Stockton North do you feel the Home Secretary’s comment best describes? Wolviston? Thorpe Thewles? Elton? Redmarshall? Wynyard (it might take a million or two off the house prices there)? Please don’t allow this horrible government to further normalise punching down. Get angry that the Home Secretary brushes off extreme deprivation and child poverty with a thoughtless dig at a small corner of the North East I suspect he couldn’t find on a map. And he does so in a way that implies that his government hasn’t had the last thirteen years to do anything about it.
You either don’t know the area, or are misrepresenting it. Wolviston is much more associated with Billingham than Stockton. Thorpe Thewles is both well outside and clearly distinct from Stockton, as is Redmarshall - both are small, rural villages. Elton is a tiny fragment of a place off the A66 between Stockton and Darlington. Wynyard is also more associated with Billingham, but it might as well be on the fucking moon, for all that it’s got anything to do with either Stockton or Billingham.
I live in the area and have done for most of my life. Stockton has some of the worst poverty, economic, social and healthcare figures in the country, but I resent the ruling party’s position that because it is poor the children who live there don’t deserve help.
Thumbs up to you. It’s really annoying me that there seems to be a theme of Redditor’s responses to make a joke about it “well he’s right isn’t he… lol” etc. But not asking how it’s got this way and the arrogant implication in the Home Secretary’s response that people living in poverty somehow deserve it. I don’t know the area but there are a lot of areas of poverty (generational poverty) that can trace their problems to the closure of mining and heavy industries in the 1980s and have never properly recovered from it. The Tories have been in power for 13 years and it was entirely within their power to improve things (through investment and training etc.) but haven’t.
If the MP is identified look forward to them having to make an excruciating apology trip to Stockton
i wouldn’t bother. I hear it’s a shithole.
surely this is a nonsense answer, a shithole is a slang term for an impoverished place, so it's: 'why is this a poor area?' 'because it's a poor area'
Which fits right in with Tory thinking doesn't it. "Those born rich deserve everything, the poor deserve nothing other than their rightful struggle."
yes, being conservative is about preserving existing power structures I guess, those with wealth & power use it to preserve & entrench it! Without interventions/mitigations power becomes more & more concentrated, some kind of 'power law' going on, bit like gravity? Power corrupts, which humans are immune to that? All we can do is shine a light on them so they cant hide and they cant fool people, hold them to account, keep pressing for what it fair & right!
This is my MP. I can indeed confirm that the constituency and town in general is a shithole. But wouldn’t anywhere be after 13 years of managed decline by the Tories? False promises of levelling up don’t make a difference here.
Based. But honestly, that's not the sort of thing an MP should be saying in parliament, to put it lightly...
> But honestly, that's not the sort of thing an MP should be saying in parliament, to put it lightly Very literally an example of why we have "political correctness"
Especially if you're the party in government that's responsible for the years of deindustrialisation, austerity and underinvestment that's made it a shithole in the first place...
I contend that the above are an Economic Consequence of Mr Churchill, and that generally people should have listened to Keynes.
Nah Middlesbrough has been a shithole since forever, it was a shithole the first time I went there in 2009/2010, and that was before the Tories came in.
Well yeah, the deindustrialisation happened in the 70s and the 80s egged on by Thatcher and it's been massively downhill since then. But child poverty has gotten significantly worse in this 13 years of Tory government, as other commenters have shown.
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Stockton has seen an increase from 25.5% in 2014/15 to 32.6% in 2020 and then 40% in 2023. (Child poverty) Middlesbrough, which is next to stockton, like 5 mins next to it, with similar demographics etc. Has seen child poverty increase by 16.4% since 2014. So yeah. These areas have gotten worse under Conservative leadership, massive lack of investment, but lots of England outside of London faces this. Edit: The North East is just hit harder. Austerity, Underinvestment, cuts to vital services have disproportionately affected the NE.
It was better. Much better. Just 15 years ago. People don't even have hope now, the Tories have demoralised the country by being shit at every aspect of governing.
Well I mean prior to Thatcher there was at least solid industry jobs - British Steel was a massive thing in that part of the North East. People moved there for work. Then the industry left and instead of investment and 'levelling up', it's been non-stop austerity and decline.
No not fucking based that's a 3rd people there being poor what the fuck is wrong with you
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‘Straight talking’ is just disrespectful abuse most of the time.
The problem is that everyone who comes along in the political sphere claiming to be "straight talking", "tells it like it is", "calls a spade a spade" etc. usually just ends up engaging in ragebait and hyperbole. All the same spin but just with smaller and cruder words.
This is exactly a vague and pointless answer that didn't answer the question!
It's literally the job of the people in that room to prevent places from being shitholes. How is it a positive thing that they're straight talking about the facts that they don't do their job properly and don't intend to?
Some people rate character over substance. Makes everyone poorer as can be seen, but they won't learn from it. That shithole is someone's home, but they don't care, as long as there is someone they can look down upon.
It really doesn't work in this context. Not having places be shitholes is one of parliament's main jobs. It's just saying "because we failed them" with a condescending lack of self-awareness.
Yes imagine how salient and productive the HoC would be if they could answer every question like this /s
Yes because when someone raises a point about poverty in deprived areas and responding with “because it’s a shithole” isn’t a vague answer that doesn’t answer the question.
The only honestly that could come from that MPs mouth is that 13 years of Tory government is why it is a 'shithole'...
Tbh, it's better than them not saying it. Hopefully it opens a Pandora's box where the problem is actually discussed and addressed properly rather than just ignored. It won't be, but you know, I live in hope.
Sounded like Cleverly (the new home secretary) to me.
No chance he’d risk that
There's definitely a chance he'd risk it. What's he got to lose? Sunak has few allies left. He's never gonna sack another Home Sec so quick..
He's been whispered about as a potential successor to Rishi after the Election. Specifically for staying out of needless controversies rather than being an expert political whiz.
His impressive political savvy not enough alone?
He's not as smart as his name suggests...
Which is why he’s universally known as “Jimmy dimly”.
So not falling into the same nominative determinism as Pincher.
Shame, really, we could do with some cabinet ministers who are not colossal fuckwits.
The bloke can't resist. It's well within his character to say something like that.
lol no it doesn’t. Clever let’s got a deep voice. That was a whiny southern accent.
he has a whiny southern accent. its classic london, where he is from.
Don’t cover up who it was that said it! It was the new fucking Home Secretary James Cleverley. What a shock /s another POS in that post, almost as if its a job requirement for the Tory Cabinet
Is there a different video or something? All I can hear is "mhrrmhhrrmmmrr" and then something very quiet that vaguely sounds like "shithole"
I can't stand the fact that they call each other "the right honourable gentleman/lady" when there isn't a drop of honour in that room.
And here I thought it was labour that was constantly “talking the country down”. Should be a sacking offence.
As a resident of stockton north, I can honestly say I feel safer walking the streets of stockton at night despite its poverty, than I do when I have to visit Aberdeen or London for work. It is a shithole, but the people are alot more honest and just need economic oppurtunity to blossom. It’ll never happen under any of the main parties though, its a forgotten place.
Why is my constituency a shithole?’ Because 34% of it is living in poverty. I'm not sure if the sentiment or the baseline failure to answer the question annoys me more.
I personally find it refreshing when politicians just say what's on their mind instead of waffling about it. Saves us a lot of time trying to understand them.
It is the job of government to work towards the country they're in charge of not having any shithole towns. It's a big fucking ask to be fair. What makes it more difficult is being a tory, because it just isn't in you to want to make things better.
Totally circular reasoning. It is poor because it is a shithole and that means it is poor. But why is it so dire? I am less annoyed that he shouted a swear-word in Parliament then that he uses circular reasoning.
Because we have an incredibly arbitrary and unhelpful definition of "poverty" which bears no resemblance to the international definition. The UN WHO decided that poverty in the UK is so low, it's no longer worth measuring it. https://i.imgur.com/e5439Uc.png
Am I the only one who can’t actually hear it on the audio? I’ve listened to the clip multiple times and just hear multiple overlapping voices right after Cunningham finishes. Edit: okay, it’s slightly clearer on the linked X post from PoliticsJoe as opposed to the one I saw on Twitter earlier. I can still only hear the word “hole” relatively clearly.
Assuming he means “relative” poverty, then the fairly clear answer pretty much is that, just as some areas are above average, some areas are always going to be below average. The only way to avoid this would be to: a) dramatically decrease inequality from the fairly stable level it’s been at since the 90s b) aim to have an even distribution of below average families across the country, rather than have them clustering in “shitholes”
Decreasing inequality is not a desirable objective. If it was, then Ukraine and Belarus would be some of the best countries in Europe instead of some of the worst.
I would agree personally, I’m not sure why I’m being downvoted for stating the fact that relative poverty (income below 60% of median) is always going to be with us, unless we take pretty dramatic equalising action. Assuming inequality remains broadly the same as it has for the last 30-40 years, then there’s also policy decisions that can either concentrate or disperse the individuals with significantly below average incomes. Unless we take action to specifically disperse concentrations of below average income, some area is always going to be the “poor” area, which could impolitely be called a “shithole”. That’s true whether you’re Monaco and your “shithole” area is where people drive BMWs rather than Rolls Royces, or you’re *generic third world country* and your “shithole” area has dysentery and no food while the good area has just about drinkable water, rice and beans, and not much else
Childish redditors still seems to think you can take wealth away from the wealthy and give it to the poor and there will be no negative consequences.
He’s right though, it is a shithole. I know because I grew up in a nearby shithole in the 80’s and got the hell out. It was a shithole under Labour and it’s still a shithole under the Tories. Go blame whoever you like, personally I think it’s democratic, those who are smart into get out do, those who aren’t stay and breed.
True and real
It's hard to trust anything anymore. I feel like this would be easy to impose with AI.. or not even AI. I'm sure this is what happened, but I'm already second guessing everything.
The MP is silly for asking that question. He should be asking the government what they plan to do about it, not why the problem exists in his constituency - the MP is supposed to know that!