No rebellion in Matthew Parris’s ‘tattoos and Lycra’ Clacton

 
10 September 2014

Will the residents of Clacton be emulating their Scouse brethren with a Murdoch boycott? This weekend, Times columnist Matthew Parris urged the Conservative Party to “turn its back” on the seaside resort after its MP, Douglas Carswell, defected to Ukip.

Parris visited the town and counted 10 tattoo parlours but no branch of Waterstones, a uniform of Lycra and a static caravan brigade of people “going nowhere”. In today’s column, Parris chuckles at the Clacton Gazette’s furious response to his column, illustrated with a picture not of him but an unrelated namesake. So will the town be taking up arms against the Times, organising a boycott perhaps?

“I don’t think so,” local journalist James Dwan told us. “To be honest, I can’t think who would lead such a thing. Besides, a fair few people around here think he has a point. Not that we lack ambition but that we need investment.”

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