Decanted

I was interviewing someone yesterday and he revealed he used to work for Newham Council in the 1980s and 1990s.

I couldn't resist asking him about the current attempts to "decant" benefits claimants from Newham to Stoke (and elsewhere).

He said that many of the benefits claimants originally came from Westminster when that borough was being cleansed of socio-economic group E. 

The then Newham council encouraged this (against the advice of their housing department) as they felt they were getting thousands of additional Labour voters.

Now that Newham wants to "gentrify" and also reduce financial pressures many of these people are being decanted again - presumably to areas like Stoke where Labour voting fodder will be welcome (though perhaps not by Tristram Hunt MP - as an Old Etonian "parachuted" into Stoke against the wishes of the local party he is not going to be keen on thousands of destitute people with housing problems cluttering up his weekly surgery, especially as these "Old Labour" voters would probably prefer someone a bit more like themselves as MP).