Yahoo News 'I've lived in Grimsby all my life - but this year I can't vote for town's MP'
It feels like little old Grimsby has been the centre of the Earth these past few days - and for good reason.
How the people of Grimsby and Cleethorpes vote on July 4 will be massively influential on the final result.
So it’s no wonder that the UK’s national media has been camped out on Town Hall Street all week, with the country’s top political journalists, including Sky News’ Beth Rigby and Sophy Ridge digging deep into the heart of the community we all know and love.
It of course culminated last night with The Battle For Number 10 - the news organisation’s showpiece in its coverage of the General Election 2024 - a head to head between Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer at Grimsby Town Hall and broadcast live to the nation in a primetime slot.
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That’s how important your vote is in the General Election.
But of course, it’s different this year - not every Grimbarian registered to vote with a Grimsby dialling code and postcode will actually get to have a say in whether the town - traditionally a working class Labour stronghold - remains blue following the unprecedented outcome of the 2019 election or whether it will revert to the red it was for decades previously.
I am one of these people, and no, I am not happy about it.
I was born in the former Nunsthorpe Maternity Hospital (you don’t get more Grimsby than that really do you?), I spent my early childhood growing up on the West Marsh - I went to Macaulay Infants’ School as it was known then, and my parents both taught in local schools and shopped at Grandways on Cromwell Road. My mum was born here (my Dad wasn’t but he’s lived here since the 70s and was probably one of the most conflicted men in the country when his beloved Seagulls took on the Mariners in the FA Cup last year!) Just before I turned eight, we moved out of the heart of the town, but we still ‘lived in Grimsby’ and we were always never more than a few minutes’ drive from the Town Hall.
Now I have a family of my own, and that is still the case. Our eldest child was born at Grimsby’s Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, and our youngest would have been too if he hadn’t decided to make an early appearance while we were on holiday. But that’s a story for another time - although relevant because it makes me a bit sad that it doesn’t state Grimsby as his place of birth on his passport.
I started my journalism career - effectively as an apprentice - at the Grimsby Telegraph in 1998, fresh from A-levels at Toll Bar Sixth Form - so I never even left to go to University. In fact, the only time I have lived anywhere else was when I was sent on a three-month block-release journalism course at Highbury College in Portsmouth in 1999.
Twenty-five years later and I am still here - I haven’t even worked anywhere else in that time.
Don’t get me wrong, I love visiting other places and travelling, but Grimsby is definitely my comfort blanket - it’s my home, and it likely always will be. The majority of my own family are still here - one of my brothers, his wife, their children, I have aunties in Grimsby, an uncle, A LOT of cousins - some have moved away, but for some, Grimsby is still their actual home too, and I know those who have moved away still think of it as home. One of them still comes back to practically every Grimsby Town home match from where he now lives in Lincoln and his own son, who has never lived here, is also a Mariners fan - because his Dad’s roots are here.
My in-laws are here. I am Grimsby through and through, yet it really hit home when my polling card landed on the doormat the other day with the name of my constituency in capital letters: BRIGG AND IMMINGHAM.
I have lived in my current house for 19 years. For those 19 years (and the many before it), I have been in the constituency of Great Grimsby. My MP for the first three decades of my life was the late Austin Mitchell, who I loved interviewing as a young reporter. Then his Labour colleague Melanie Onn took over in 2015, until 2019 when all eyes were on Grimsby as it turned blue and Lia Nici was elected for the Conservatives.
I haven’t moved. But the electoral boundary has and for the first time ever, on July 4 2024, I will be voting for an MP in a place other than Grimsby. It doesn’t feel right. I have absolutely nothing against Brigg or Immingham, but I do not live in either of those places - they are not even in the same dialling code area. I live in Grimsby.
The Great Grimsby constituency no longer exists. It is now Grimsby and Cleethorpes and that is another reason this election is so important locally. Cleethorpes has been Conservative since 2010 when Martin Vickers won the election. His predecessor, Labour’s Shona McIsaac, had represented the constituency since its inception in 1997.
I do wish my vote was for Grimsby and Cleethorpes and it’s going to take a lot of getting used to - I don’t agree with the new boundary, but it is what it is. What is most important is the overall outcome for the country.
Whatever you do on July 4, just please vote. You have been given a voice, use it. After the events of the last few years, it’s arguably never been more important.
