Ahh! This explains it!
Demos, a power and politics think-tank have just published The Power Gap.
As political leaders compete to “give power to the people”, The Power Gap interrogates what it means for people to be powerful. Using eight indicators, this report assembled data across Britain to create an index of every consituency in the nation. Ranking from 1 to 628, divided into the five leagues, the index reveals a dramatic divide between the powerful and the powerless. The map drawn from the index reveals clusters of the powerful, and 'deserts' of powerlessness - particularly in urban areas - where citizens lack wealth, education and a gebuine choice at the polls.The Power Gap argues that it is power, not more narrow approaches of income or mobility, that is the critical inequality in Britain. This is the divide that matters to our wellbeing and progress as a nation, and the challenge to which politics and leaders must rise.
You can download the report free here. On page 36 there is the map. And this is the South East. Its based on parliamentary constituencies.
Overall, there are 626 constituencies evaluated. Luton is the little dark blue (low power) at the centre towards the top, two thirds surrounded by orange (very high power).
536th Luton South
509th Luton North
and in the area around
171st Hemel Hempsted
91st South West Bedfordshire (Dunstable)
74th Mid Bedforshire
34th Hitchin and Harpenden
15th St Albans
While I do not fully subscribe to all the ideas and implications in a simplistic power / powerlessness analysis, this goes far beyond a crude analysis and brings into the consideration many of the indicators that are involved in the multiple deprivation index and analyses them diffeerently. I do believe it explains a lot. And when you see the reality of the difference between some of the wards of Luton (for the overall constituency figures mask the ward by ward realities still further) and St Albans you have to resort to a model that moves far beyond the simple economics. The stark difference
Open Democracy have a good review and video. The Power Gap | openDemocracy. The role ascribed to the church in the gathering of power to itself in that video is hardly new but seldom addressed.
This needs some thought. And a whole lot of reconciliation.
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