The Politics of the Poor: the East End of London, 1885–1914

The central theme of this book can be summed up as ‘neither electoral sociology nor linguistic turn’. Instead, its author emphasises the micro context of politics – how local social and cultural milieux shaped the reception of political ideas, and hence the fortunes of political parties. His focus is, thus, ‘how ... ideas were filtered by localized social and economic structures and processes of communication and popular culture’ (p. 12). And, have no doubt, for the most part he does this brilliantly – this is the most thought-provoking and refreshingly original book about British politics that I have read for some time. Brodie’s focus is East End politics between the Home Rule crisis and the First World War, and his principal target is the historiography of East End Conservatism. He convincingly demolishes accepted explanations linking Conservative political strength in the East End to extreme poverty, casual labour, protectionism and anti-alien sentiment. Conservatism, he argues, was strongest in the least impoverished areas of the East End – in places such as Stepney and Mile End where, by Booth’s standards, the bulk of the population lived in ‘comfort’, and skilled workers and clerks outnumbered the casual poor.