To one who has spent a lifetime in politics, the opinion polls for the council elections appear unreal. Can Reform really be about to dominate the region as completely as they suggest?
We might say that the traditional parties have had it coming. Both Labour and Tories appear moribund and pedestrian. They are entitled to no sense of pique at their somewhat liturgical approach to politics being outflanked and outgunned by the insurgents from right and left. From the polls – of which we should remain wary – the Tories in particular look likely to be reduced to a rump across much of East Anglia.
Can it happen? This fate of the Tories is most pronounced in their traditional fiefdoms of Suffolk and Norfolk county councils, where they are forecast to be all but wiped out. (Pollcheck expects the Tories to lose every seat in Suffolk.) But tactical voting seems to reign, and activists report a huge churn between parties, making any kind of detailed forecasting almost impossible.
The biggest influence in tactical voting is to keep Reform out. The polls are quite clear on the party’s avalanche they are expecting, but veteran election workers beg to doubt. This may be one of those occasions when the figures really do lie. But by far the best chance of keeping out Reform is for their opponents to turn out and vote. This diary is not intended as a tactical voting guide – there are several of those, though none seem to work – but the picture across Suffolk and Norfolk seems clear.
Tactical voters in Ipswich and Great Yarmouth will probably look to Labour. There is a Liberal Democrat outpost in Woodbridge, and the party also has high hopes of seeing off Reform in North Norfolk. In fact, generally the LibDems seem quite buoyant. Is this what their canvassing tells them, or are they – as this diarist suspects – naturally all little puppy dogs at heart?
Just about everywhere else, and in particular around Mid Suffolk and the Waveney Valley, the Greens will probably take the tactical vote. That in itself represents a remarkable facility.
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There will be few among this diary’s august readership who are not conversant with Greaves’ Rules. For the few sadly uninitiated, this is the protocol for buying a round in a pub, and represents the life’s work of Billy Greaves, who through his devotion might be considered the patron saint of old Fleet Street.
The essential rule, as most readers will know, declares that we can never buy our way into or out of a round. So, we should never have to buy our first drink. On arrival on licensed premises, if there are others of our preferred company present, one of them (deemed ‘in the chair’) holds the responsibility for voicing those immortal words: “What’s yours, squire?”
If such an invitation is not forthcoming, then the clear implication is that the newcomer has been blackballed and is not welcome in that coterie.
All of which is a somewhat lengthy introduction to the situation facing Andy Burnham. He is once again being voiced abroad as the most pressing successor to Keir Starmer. But Team Starmer are having none of it. Steven Swinford, political editor of The Times, claims they have decreed that Andy Burnham’s return to the Commons should be thwarted “at any cost”. So, should Mr Burnham step foot within the portals of the Muckrakers – or any other licensed establishment where Sir Keir and his satraps are carousing – he may have to buy his own.
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Now there is nothing reprehensible about a party leader wishing not to be deposed or taking steps to prevent it. Inventing dubious reasons why it would be A Bad Thing are also to be expected: in this case to avoid having to hold a Manchester mayoral election, which Reform might win. (Or the Greens, of course, though the pro-Starmer conspirators are careful not to mention that possibility.)
But from other sources, we also hear the political tectonic plates may not yet have finished their slow progress. The Greens are finding much common ground with Labour’s soft left. Discreet discussions have taken place. Your diarist has explained previously how many in Labour of a leftist persuasion have moved to the Greens. Yet there is now talk of movement amid the moderate left in the opposite direction, with the aim of winning back control of Labour and returning it to its internationalist and socially liberal traditions.
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Grabbing headlines again this week is the Mandelson scandal – though quite what the scandal is, or whether there is one at all, depends on your newspaper. Largely missing from the headlines, meanwhile, is Nigel Farage, who we learn in early 2024 was the recipient of five million quid from an overseas-based billionaire. This was shortly before he announced that he would stand as an MP after all. He would represent Clacton (even though Clacton has yet to notice).
All we can know for certain regarding Mandelson is there was some cack-handed obfuscation, though by whom and for what purpose is subject to competing claims. It is important, even if we don’t quite know what it is, but too tiresome to include in detail in the diary.
But Mr Farage and his sometimes elaborate financial arrangements are a different marmite de poisson altogether, though the details have attracted little attention from the news media. He insists the whole £5 million was for security, which if so would avoid further investigation by the Commons authorities.
Naturally this subject emerged during the Socratic dialogue among the wise men this week, though the reason that discourse cannot be reported here may also explain its absence from the rest of the news media.
Anyway, the Conservatives have reported the matter to the Commons authorities. For now, that is where it rests.
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The editor is a wonderful woman, as has been previously observed, but crossing her is rather like being caught plundering Smaug’s cave when he returns unexpectedly from the pub. For reasons of discretion, therefore, the last entry had to be completely rewritten. But in this entry, it seems fairly plain that we might accuse the Tories of telling porkies.
Local election leaflets circulating around several areas of Norfolk claim to show “recent canvassing results”, which is to say merely how the Tory canvassers espouse to believe the vote will go. Only, miraculously, the figures are identical in every ward: Conservatives 38%, Reform 34%, Labour 20% and Liberal Democrats 5%.
The give-away might be that, in one case, no division is stipulated, and instead we read: “recent canvassing results from PLACE”.
Rob Colwell is the Liberal Democrat councillor on West Norfolk and is standing for Gaywood South, and claims the leaflets add to a growing crisis of trust.
“At the moment there seems to be a real distrust within politics,” he says. “A publicity stunt like this – something that is dishonest – feeds into that mistrust, especially with the rise of the far right and Reform.”
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Now the Conservatives are no longer able to drape every other field across the region in their banners, there is little to show there is an election taking place. Garden and window posters seem particularly absent this year. In particular, for a party who according to the polls are about to claim control of most of East Anglia, there is hardly a sign of Reform.
More surprising is the lack of canvassers. Both Labour and Tories seem to lack their usual cohorts and the few Tory canvassers espied, have worn that haunted ‘who’s next?’ air worn by the congregation at a funeral.
In particular, though, other than a couple of chosen urban centres Reform have no presence. It is commonly acknowledged by political apparatchiks that a relentless team of knockers-up on the day is essential to victory. But the broederbond of Reform know this is their weakness, so they are placing all their hopes of seedy glory on what they have plenty of: money.
Half the Amazon rain forest has seemingly been destroyed to provide the brochures which slither through every letterbox, bearing the usual demotic but generic idiom of Reform; and no doubt they will be supplemented by a bombardment of social media advertisements.
Reform has few human resources, so they are avoiding the need for human contact at all. To avoid falling foul of spending limitations, the leaflets rarely stipulate a particular candidate, so only the unloved voters remain as the obligatory human input. A majority of voters would never dream of backing Reform, but while the party only need 25% of the vote under ‘first past the post’, they can still control our lives.
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Ben Goldsborough is the MP for South Norfolk, and has taken objection to the Reform candidate Karl Catchpole, standing in Long Stratton. Mr Catchpole believes the acknowledged racist Enoch Powell (of the ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech) is “one of the greatest visionaries of the last 50yrs”, and praises Tommy Robinson (who has assaulted two police officers) as “a caring family man”.
“South Norfolk is built on respect, fairness, and decency,” says Mr Goldsborough. “Those who represent our community must reflect those values.”
But also in Norfolk there is Reform’s Jason Patchett (Hoveton), who has written: “Constant kow-towing to the black community is not doing us any favours. It is predominantly that demographic which is causing the issues but we’re frightened to do anything”. While his party colleague Richard Eminson (Lakenham) sees Mr Robinson as an “icon”.
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Meanwhile in Essex, Reform’s leader in Basildon, Councillor Sam Journet, has been arrested for secretly filming staff and residents with Meta-style glasses. He is also accused of bullying and has been requested to apologise for posting footage of a young disabled man, in an attempt to shame him.
While also down there in Rayleigh and Wickford, local Reform chairman Nick Cooper likes to dress up in SS uniform, and his email address is based around the phrase ‘iron cross’.
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Chris Hinchliff (NE Herts) is a Labour MP and one of those not content with merely a walk-on part in the nation’s narrative. He is this week’s worthy recipient of the foaming bumper of Old Unprintable presently standing on the bar at the Muckrakers. Earlier this year, he launched the all-party parliamentary group on council and social housing, in partnership with Shelter. He highlights 1.3 million households on a waiting list and 175,000 children in temporary accommodation, and in a criticism of his own government he calls for an end to the ‘developer-led’ housing system.
“Trickle down housing economics is a con and Labour never should have bought into it,” he says.
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Roger Mortimer, the Earl of Leicester, is sometimes regarded as the first hero of representative democracy. Were he to be among the topers at the Muckrakers this week – difficult admittedly since he has been dead these past eight hundred years – we may be sure he would announce drinks for all on his lordship’s purse, (including no doubt Andy Burnham). All would toast this week’s news that, at last, hereditary peers will no longer sit in the House of Lords. They will play no further role in the country’s governance, and Wednesday was their last hurrah, or possibly their last ‘Hear hear!’
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This week’s sinister characters lurking in the shadows were Liz Crosbie, Malcolm Lynn, Celina Błędowska, John Elworthy, Mary Marshall, David Patey, Karl Whiteman, James Porter, Stace Richards and Mark Popay.
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