The Metropolis

The hipster marginals?

Mike Pollitt | Tuesday 27 April, 2010 10:58

With political certainties quickly unravelling around us, politics is in danger of becoming momentarily cool. And if something is about to become momentarily cool, then you can bet your last pair of skinny jeans that it’s going to be swarmed over by a load of hipsters.

Could a group whose raison d’etre is to divorce themselves from such lame concerns as the rest of society have an important part to play in ushering in the brave new world of multi-party democracy? If they decide it’s cool enough, they just might.

Hipsters tend to live in solid Labour territory (Rents are cheap; living nextdoor to the underclass is cool). But in 2010 there is no such thing. Seats like Holburn & St Pancras (home of the student hip), and Hackney North & Stoke Newington (home of the ageing hip) need a 10-12% swing away from Labour if they are to fall to the new LibDem order. These numbers would once have seemed insurmountable, but Cleggphoria and an increase in the number of young voters make them feasible. Even a 15% swing in Hackney South and Shoreditch might not be impossible.

Add in the influence hipsters might have in preventing Labour from reclaiming Bethnal Green and Bow from Respect, and you could have an electoral earthquake on your hands: Labour locked out of it’s London heartlands, and a liberal consensus dominating British politics.

All of this assumes, of course, that the young and hip will naturally gravitate to the Lib Dems. Perhaps the biggest danger to this is that Cleggphoria has made his party just a bit too cool. If the Lib Dems go mainstream, the hipster may be forced to vote for an even more alternative party just to stay ahead of the curve. But if they can get over their nausea at the thought voting the same way as a lot of people less edgy than themselves, they might find it a price worth paying for a more liberal, and lets face it, more hip society. Clegg should issue this rallying call before he jumps the shark: Hipsters of London, unite! You have nothing to lose but your cool.

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