In search of an election
Beppe Severgnini, an Italian correspondent and a columnist, finds some people quite enjoying the campaign, and some quite unaware of it.
When it opened in 1914, the Adelphi was one of the greatest hotels in the world. With solid marble walls, indoor swimming pool, full central heating in all rooms, it was Liverpool’’s arrival and departure point for passengers on the great liners to America.
People are busy, around here, tonight. There is the graduation ball for Hope University , a convention of church — bell players and a Welsh football team that decided there was no point in waiting for the match in order to celebrate, so they sing and hug each other in the lobby. Not only are these people ignorant of Harold Wilson’’s sojourn in the hotel, but most seem oblivious to the fact that a general election is only days away.
The last time I was in Liverpool, Derek Hatton’’s Trotskyite militants were running the city council in the 1980s. Mr Hatton, for all his faults, inflamed Liverpudlians, who love a good argument. "Souses are like Neapolitans. Great sense of humour, laid-back attitude, maybe not the hardest-working people in the world," says Alberto Bertali, an Italian who runs a big factory making household appliances, loves the city and wouldn’’t want to live anywhere else.
A real Neapolitan-Alfredo Oliva, an architect who moved to Liverpool "per amore" and now walks around camouflaged in an Italian flag as the cook of the Adelphi’’s pizzeria-disagrees. "Until today, I didn’’t even know there was an election coming up. In Naples, and all over Italy, people are at each other’’s throat, before a big vote. That’’s good. That’’s how you make up your mind. "
Maybe people in this city have made up their minds already, and that’’s why they don’’t bother with politics. They prefer to walk around in the drizzle, pretending it is spring. Boys in bright red Liverpool FC jerseys , girls in what looks like their underwear, but turns out to be an evening dress. Their Labour MPs enjoy huge majorities. Jane Kennedy, in Liverpool Weavertree, has almost 20,000. Peter Kilfoyle , in inner-city Liverpool Walton (home of the two football clubs, Everton and Liverpool), 27,000. Louise Ellman , in Liverpool Riverside, which includes poor and volatile Tox-teth, 22,000. Bob Wareing , in Liverpool West Derby, 26,000. Stan Jones, the organiser for the local Labour Party, asks whom I would like to meet. I go for Ms Ellman and Mr. Wareing. Ms Ellman is a nice lady with piercing green eyes, and no illusion. Her constituency has one of the lowest turnouts in the country. "Young people are not interested, they don’’t feel connected. Four out of five are not going to vote. Older people talk to me about their everyday problems. One lady told me: ’’If you don’’t fix my shower, I won’’t vote for you’’. "
Wally Edwards, a former aide to Harold Wilson, is expecting me. He is happy to talk about his days in the navy, and his encounter with the future prime minister, in 1945, in the Shefton Arms pub. He tells me he’’s got two daughters married to Italians, who live in Tuscany. "What do they think about Silvio Berlusconi becoming prime minister" I ask. "Not happy," Wally says. "But I told them: ’’Come on, girls. At least you had got a couple of nice hammers-and-sickles on your Italian ballot papers. ’’ Some working-class element, I mean. "
Mr. Edwards says he "is not much of a Blairite". But he works for the common cause. This morning, he must brief a group of volunteers who are about to deliver leaflets in the area. They leave the Labour Club with a shoulder bag that says: "Taking the Lead in Europe". I ask them if Europe is a big issue, in this campaign. "No, it isn’’t. But the bags were left over from the European election. "
While we drive, they are in a good mood. "You seem to enjoy putting leaflets into letter-boxes," I say. They laugh: "It is not so much putting ours in that we like. It is taking the Lib Dems’’ out. You know, sometimes they stick out. " Good, I think. Four pensioners, two children. At least six people in Britain are having fun in this election campaign.
Questions 14-17
Who don’’t bother with politics and prefer to walk around in the drizzle
14.___________________
15.___________________
16.___________________
17.___________________