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The salt-of-the-earth northern town allegedly branded a “s**thole” by the Home Secretary is actually super, the Daily Star can reveal.
Stockton-on-Tees, on the doorstep of the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors, is loved by comic Bob Mortimer and serves up £3 pints – £2 cheaper than the national average. Houses in the town cost just £150,000 and the first public passenger railway in the world was laid there, pulled by one of the first ever steam locomotives.
Superb Stockton was unfairly thrown into the spotlight this week after James Cleverly was accused of making derogatory comments about it during Prime Minister’s Questions.
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Labour MP, Alex Cunningham, asked PM Rishi Sunak why so many kids in his constituency were living in poverty.
He claims the Home Secretary replied “because it’s a s** hole”. Mr Cleverly denied that – but admitted calling Mr Cunningham “a s*** MP”.
However, audio clips appear to back up the Stockton member.
The row risked overshadowing many of the town’s good features.
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Funnyman Bob grew up a stone’s throw away and worked in the terrific town.
He was a bin man and later returned to work at the Law Centre in Stockton.
Bob, 64, said: “I loved living there. I was there until I was 25, and the people that you meet then remain with you a lot longer than people you meet when you are older.”
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One of his characters called Councillor Evans was based on a real local Labour councillor from Stockton, somewhere with a “very distinct, very dry” sense of humour.
Bob added: “I was a bin man for about 16 months. It was a summer job but I just stayed on. It was all right and the people were pretty nice to us as binmen.
“You got £4.20 a day and you finished about midday every day, but then all the drivers forced you to the pub all afternoon.
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“If I’m coming back to the North-East I set off early so I can come and have a little drive around. I drive around my old haunts to see what’s changed.”
Sensational Stockton’s other claims to fame include local chemist John Walker, who invented the friction match in 1827.
It also boasts the widest high street in Britain and helped to win the Second World War by developing anti-tank guns and nuclear weapons at the town’s chemical firm ICI.
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Billy Elliot actor Jamie Bell and Drop the dead Donkey star Stephen Tompkinson are from the town.
Film director Ridley Scott, former PM Harold Macmillan, and famous writer George Orwell also once lived there.
Angela Harper, co-owner of Stockton’s KU bar which has hosted the Arctic Monkeys, said: “We know for a fact Stockton punches above its weight when it comes to music, with festivals and events that would put big cities to shame and would challenge people to come and see for themselves.”
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Claire Church, owner of Remember Me Tea Rooms, said: “It’s shocking for someone who is a member of Parliament to say that. Stockton Council are doing their best, trying to regenerate the town, and they don’t get enough credit.
“The way the people come together – we do have our problems here but that’s like anywhere else.”
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