There are no bluebirds. Pull into Dover, and it’s the geography and the poverty that hits you. The white cliffs sit like quarried giants against a dirty paper sky. They guard a sea that stretches moodily over the southern edge of England. For generations Dover has been an industrial power base; now a few pale kids work on the minimum wage at Costa Coffee. Others loiter around, out of work and out of hope. A southern town with northern levels of poverty.
Right now Dover is also the site of a battle. The local community is fighting to stop the privatisation of the town’s historic port. Lord Maurice Glasman, godfather of the Blue Labour movement, has been talking wide-eyed about this campaign to anyone who will listen.
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