“Autumn is the mind’s true spring,” declared Cyril Connolly. It is after all the beginning of so much: schools go back, as does parliament, new books are published, the footie season begins (as does Ipswich Town’s further rise to glory)… It is the season when our imagination is stirred, we have new ideas and begin new projects.
So it is a time for optimism. Your diarist was discussing with the wise persons at the Muckrakers, therefore, a natural reluctance to open the diary this week with anything regarding Reform – even their complete defenestration by Thursday’s Channel 4 investigation into their finances (as reported almost as it happened by East Anglia Bylines).
So what about the return of parliament and the Burnham speech? Last week this diary pondered whether the freemasonry of headline writers over the summer correctly spelled out what they claimed would be backtracking on almost every strategic promise Andy Burnham had made.
“Electoral reform, the EU, water, political donations… According to the headlines, the new PM seems about to ditch his promises on all of them,” quoth your correspondent last week. But Mr Burnham will have none of it. This week in the Commons he spelled out his vision, and my dears, wasn’t he bullish? It must rank as one of the most confident and, yes, optimistic speeches heard in the Commons for years.
All that has to be translated into action, of course, but in concept at least, it really does seem that Mr Burnham ‘gets it’. At least he talks constantly of hope. We could survey the whole melancholy landscape of the Starmer government in vain to find the word.
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The speech naturally came up during this week’s weighty confabulations at the Muckrakers, amid other speculation on whether Pliny the Elder brewed his own beer, how many angels really can dance on the head of a pin – apparently it all depends on the dance – and whose round it is.
One of the wise persons came up with her own example of hope, worth quoting here:
“As a late boomer, I think we need a new generation of politicians who look forward and have answers to today’s not yesterday’s problems. Their world is completely different to Farage and Restore’s vision of a purified low tax, no-public-services world.
“Those problems include the squeezed middle with children still in education, paying for expensive homes, working hard and with parents beginning to need care. They recognise that a country should be organised to help its citizens prosper. That is where hope will come from.”
It touches on a political perspective which your diarist has been plugging for some time, and which seems to echo Mr Burnham’s ideas. Politics which genuinely start from the bottom up, acknowledging and recognising the public’s priorities, instead of politicians telling them what they prefer to see through the prism of their own party interest.
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One issue which Mr Burnham may need to re-think is Brexit. He doesn’t want to go back, he tells us. But to bring Brexit to any conclusion he may need to. He is leaving an open sore, not only regarding Brexit itself but the forces of darkness it released. Racist vigilantes these days strut our streets with what they would like to think of as impunity. The word fascism is used widely. All of this was fuelled by the hatreds released and encouraged by the Brexit ‘debate’, and signing a few trade agreements isn’t going to put racism back in its box. We can’t just hope it will go away. Sooner or later, it will have to be confronted.
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More evidence of how Labour’s terror of Reform is misplaced comes this week from that doyen of pollsters, Professor Sir John Curtice. He points out:
“Despite its best endeavours, Labour’s support is still predominantly a pro-EU vote. It has had relatively little success in attracting back Leave voters because Reform is the party that now represents the majority of Leave voters and Labour are finding it very difficult to appeal to that group.”
Those “best endeavours” of course refer to the almost criminal farce of Morgan McSweeney’s successful attempts at persuading Keir Starmer to jettison all Labour’s history, culture and internationalist principles to appeal to the racists. At the same time the party seemed bizarrely to be trying hard to off-load those of its voters who still believed in the party’s principles and had voted remain. That position has fortunately met the fate it deserved; yet still the party will not mention the love that dare not speak its name: Europe.
One backtracking of which Mr Burnham was accused during the summer was his intention to stick to the notorious red lines. Yet in his speech this week he specifically addressed the harm which Brexit has done. So…
We are waiting, prime minister…
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“Most Britons see Reform as untrustworthy, extreme and incompetent, while the most common words to describe Nigel Farage are ‘racist’ and ‘liar’.”
Those were the findings of a YouGov poll this week, timed to coincide with the opening of Reform’s annual conference. That of course coincided with the Channel 4 revelations and news that Reform’s vote share has fallen by six points over the last year, to 22%, placing them now in third place behind the Tories and a resurgent Labour.
We can only speculate on quite how all this is going down with the delegates. They must by now acknowledge that the party’s leadership has developed an uncomfortable habit of finding itself embroiled in questions about rules, standards and propriety. It is a party of Del Boys and Arthur Daleys, golf club bores, queue jumpers, corner cutters, double dealers, main chancers and double-glazing salesmen.
Do they recognise themselves in all this? Many probably don’t care; it is probably to what they themselves aspire. (After all, dear reader, supposing the criminal classes voted, which party do you suppose would get their almost unanimous support? The Liberal Democrats?)
Probably it will have little immediate effect: we can’t know because many of those hacks who might have reported any insurrection have been banned.
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Still unsure how to deal with the new PM, Kemi Badenoch (NW Essex) decided to shuffle her shadow cabinet this week. This region has lost two prominent figures: Priti Patel (Witham) and James Cleverly (Braintree), who has become fed up with his leader’s posturings and, having been beaten by her in one leadership bid, has decided he has had enough and is giving up the front bench to fight the London mayoral election instead. That will allow him considerably more freedom to compete on his own principles and thus, if and when he probably loses, he can get out with some dignity.
James Cartlidge (S Suffolk) remains in the shadow cabinet, covering defence with Nick Timothy (W Suffolk) as shadow justice secretary. Alex Burghart (Brentwood), the main winner, is made shadow deputy prime minister – a largely cosmetic and meaningless title which does not exist under the constitution. But he also remains as shadow Northern Ireland secretary.
One feels Northern Ireland has every reason to be miffed. Shadow deputy prime minister sounds awfully swanky: whereas, let us face it, shadow Northern Ireland secretary has always been seen as near the bottom of the pile. So consider, dear reader, given that neither of those roles carries a salary, which is Mr Burghart most likely to spend his time on?
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Last weekend we learned that Reform-led Essex County Council are to set up Operation Vanguard: “security teams” in Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester to provide a “visible presence and deterrence in areas where migrants from Wethersfield asylum centre are bussed [sic] every day”.
Any such ‘security team’ however would have no powers whatever – no more than the ordinary man in the street. (They will however probably get to wear sexy black uniforms and strut around. There is no information so far on whether the uniforms will include a personalised codpiece. On this may depend the enthusiasm of many potential applicants.)
To be clear, Essex Police tell us that there is no record of problems arising from Wethersfield, so it appears this is a vanity project, one which will cost Essex taxpayers £150,000 for the first three months. It will involve soi-disant ‘British patriots’ facing down a few people sitting in a bus shelter. My dears, once these goons become fed up with simply posturing, they will naturally go off and find somebody to confront. If there is no trouble, then they will naturally make some. And what do Essex Police feel about all this?
Meanwhile, Labour’s Councillor Lee Scordis (Old Heath and The Hythe), alleges the Liberal Democrats refused to back his attempt to call in the Operation Vanguard decision for fear of “upsetting people”.
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And on the subject of vanity projects, we drag the tarpaulin off Colin Sutton, Reform’s police and crime commissioner for Norfolk. He recently distinguished himself by expressing sympathy for the Thetford rioters who were confronting his own police officers. (A position not entirely appreciated, it is understood, by his officers.)
Now he turns his attention to the one subject which preoccupies every family dinner time across the county. We refer of course to the matter of ‘gender-fluid warrant cards’. In future no trans police officer will be issued with dual warrant cards – presumably one for each sex.
Fortunately, there has never been any occasion to even consider their issue; nor is there any at the moment. But just in case, the stalwart Mr Sutton would like the good people of Norfolk to know he will have no truck with it.
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But not much of this will be of interest to Nigel Farage, who this week declared that – checks notes – he intends to spend less time in parliament. [Shurely shome mishtake – Ed].
He made the announcement just before flying off to Washington DC to attend “a GB News party”.
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Reform’s Danny Kruger says his party would put a stop to postal votes, presumably because it only encourages skiving and failure to perform one’s civic duties.
In the recent Clacton by-election, Nigel Farage was a postal voter.
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The Huntingdonshire District Council vote of no confidence in Liberal Democrat leader Sarah Conboy failed when Reform councillors abstained. Their leader, the tragically embarrassing Ryan Coogan,walked out of the meeting early, according to one report because he had been criticised for wearing shorts.
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The region has lost one of its most distinguished political commentators this week. Ever since Asquith did the dirty on Arthur Balfour, or so it seems, Paul Geater has graced the pages of the East Anglian Daily Times with his wisdom (and his exclamation marks) on the local political scene. He knows where all the bodies are buried and indeed has buried a few personally.
But this week he finally retired from his regular column – intriguingly, to turn to politics himself.
“I’ve always considered myself a centrist politically,” he writes. “But it has become clear to me that the centre of gravity has lurched violently to the right.”
He doesn’t like the “right wing racist thugs”, though neither is he keen on current developments in the Greens. So, what is the boy Geats up to then, eh? Every party knows perfectly well he has the skinny on them all. What has he got planned? He is what one might call a downy old bird, and Pecksniff will follow his wheezes with some relish.
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