Steve Nolan: Love thy neighbour? No chance!

But I can’t help but assume that some people in Dunstable weren’t subject to the same doctrines.

You may have read in the Gazette a week or two back that Dunstable Town Council has set up a petition in an attempt to block Boundary Commission proposals to make Dunstable a part of the Luton North electoral constituency.

It seems that DTC has legitimate worries and reason to be concerned about the changes, according to the town clerk the two areas have such different communities that it wouldn’t be viable for a single MP to look after both.

And he might be right, Luton and Dunstable are indeed very different communities.

But browsing social networking groups promoting Dunstable and indeed the Dunstable Gazette and Herald & Post’s very own Facebook pages, the mere mention of the word ‘Luton’ when used in the same sentences as Dunstable seems to provoke a surprisingly strong reaction.

To be honest, I can’t help but feel that most people’s objections to boundary changes aren’t necessarily to do with legitimate concerns but more to do with downright snobbery.

We all know Luton has its faults and the odd shady character has darkened its doorstep from time to time.

Let’s be brutally honest, when that posh chap on the Campari ad asked Lorraine Chase all those years ago if she was truly wafted in from paradise the last thing he was picturing was Luton. And TV property gurus Phil Spencer and Kirsty Allsop probably aren’t inundated by househunters’ requests to help them find their dream location (x3 for the full programme title) on the picturesque banks of our stretch of the Lea.

But some of the anti-Luton vitriol I’ve read is a little irrational and more than a little offensive - by the sounds of it some people would probably be in favour of signing a petition to erect a giant Berlin-esque wall keeping us Luton folk out if they could. The proposals aren’t that bad a prospect surely?

In all seriousness though, while part of me can understand people’s concerns - nobody likes change, besides Luton North is Labour while Dunstable’s South West Beds constituency is a Tory stronghold - some of the arguments and horror-stricken comments at the mention of that awful word Luton just don’t make sense.

Some make me believe that a fair few people just don’t understand the difference between politics at a parliamentary level and politics at a council level.

There seems to be some completely unfounded fear circulating that Dunstable is going to lose it’s identity as a market town within its own right. It isn’t. It will still be and will probably always be called Dunstable.

What difference to Dunstable’s “identity” does it make whether it’s politically linked with Houghton Regis, Leighton Buzzard, Linslade and the surrounding villages as it is now, or linked instead with Luton? Last time I checked there wasn’t a parliamentary constituency called Dunstable anyway, Dunstable is already “lumped” in with a load of other towns, all with different communities and different needs (the reason Dunstable Town Council doesn’t want the association with Luton remember).

Dunstable will still be a separate town, Dunstable folk still get a vote, they are still (in theory anyway) represented by an MP that has their best interests as a motive, it just so happens that that MP will represent the interests of Luton too.

Lots of digs about Busways and city bids have been chucked Luton’s way on Facebook. Things like city bids have absolutely zero to do with this issue - that’s a council scheme and nothing to do with parliamentary constituencies. Dunstable will still be under Central Bedfordshire Council control and long may that be the case - Dunstable folk pay higher council tax rates than us Luton residents I do believe.

And when it comes to the Busway - ask the majority of Luton folk and you will probably find that they are as opposed to that white elephant as much as anyone from Dunstable.

Personally, I do believe that it doesn’t totally belie sense for Luton and Dunstable to be in the same constituency anyway. We share the same hospital, we share the same transport links (the M1 and that much maligned Busway), our health PCTs often work in tandem and many of us work in our neighbouring town (I myself worked in a Dunstable store for seven years before I became a journalist despite living across the border in Luton).

I’m sure a huge amount of people will disagree, but I’m not worried in the slightest if the boundaries change and would welcome our Dunstable neighbours to the constituency with open arms.