After two delicious weeks in the south of France, your diarist returns to open the diary and once again pick up his pen. So now tell me, my dears, has anything happened in my absence…?
We jest, of course.
“So little trouble do men take in the search for truth; so readily do they take what first comes to hand.”
So observed Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens, though he might as well have been talking about voters for any one of today’s right-wing parties – Referendum, Ukip, Brexit or Reform. News that Nigel Farage has now darkened our door was not met with unmitigated joy at Bylines Towers. Images of Dorries, Hunt, Truss and all those others who circumstances have forced your reluctant diarist to write about loomed out of the dark, but when we’re talking of creatures of the dark then the protean leader of the Reform Party is the real ravioli. There will be no escaping him and his Farage farouche during the rest of the campaign.
Until Mr Farage’s intervention, the Clacton race was seen as neck and neck between Conservatives and Labour, with Reform given little chance. Under a Farage candidacy, one would assume Reform would surge, presumably taking most votes from the Tories – perhaps splitting the vote and handing the seat to Labour.
But then, we assume Mr Farage wants to win, which is by no means certain. In an interview with The Times earlier this year, he mused: “Do I want to be an MP? Do I want to spend every Friday for the next five years in Clacton?”
*
It will not have escaped readers’ attention that Rishi Sunak called the election the day after he was quite sure your diarist had left the country. He has thus avoided a couple of weeks of revelations and ridicule at the opening of the campaign. But Pecksniff returns, and to misquote Louis XV: “Avec moi, le déluge”.
Those same readers will recall only too well that this diary has been talking up the likelihood of an early election for weeks. In April, we observed in what had become almost a mantra:
“It would still make sense for Mr Sunak to go to the country earlier rather than later, when he can claim he has chosen the date rather than having it thrust upon him; and before some of his lunatic MPs try to replace him with Boris Johnson again.”
And Mr Sunak duly called the election because the number of letters of no confidence were gaining momentum, sponsored by the Boris Johnson fan club.
*
The polls grow increasingly dire for the Tories. YouGov produced one which gave them only 140 seats, and they describe 79 of those as ‘tossups’ (with a lead of less than 5%). The Liberal Democrats are getting close to being the official opposition on 50. (Though a former LibDem chief while told your diarist this week that he would much prefer his party to be third: the Commons accommodation is much more congenial.)
One can only put the champagne on ice and await the long election night to come. And long it will be. Because in the past, early results have been from urban areas and so mostly Labour, with the Tory shires piling in during the early hours. But this time, the shires seem no longer to be Tory. So it’s only as dawn breaks that we will begin to see the magnitude of their eclipse.
*
But what if the polls are wrong? Fear not. As Arthur Daley would have said: “Stand on me.” Things have gone much too far for there to be any question of a Tory renaissance.
There comes a point in any government’s failings when voters simply stop listening: they have had enough. There is no means by which the government can get through to the public anymore. There are 61 constituencies within the region covered by East Anglia Bylines. Almost all of them are held by the Conservatives. But the latest polls suggest they may be left with only five.
*
It seems that Tory MPs everywhere are giving up the ghost. The party is over. We read a leaked memo from Conservative HQ to their MPs and their staff, complaining that they are not working hard enough at campaigning in order to keep their jobs. They aren’t putting in the long hours canvassing. Perhaps they can’t face the rejection. Their staff in many instances agreed, which must make for interesting conversations over coffee. And at least one MP complained that he would be on holiday.
Their financial backers are turning away too. The memo mentions Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) in particular, who has approached her usual donors but with no success whatever.
Electoral Calculus gives Labour a 94% chance of taking the seat, overthrowing an 11,000 majority. Ms Doyle-Price is only given a 6% chance of holding it.
*
Not for the first time in his career, Norman Lamb has shown himself as a man of principle and perhaps one of the few grown-ups in the room. As one of the rare ministers from the Tory LibDem coalition to leave a distinguished record, he wholeheartedly backs his successor as LibDem candidate in North Norfolk, Steffan Aquarone. No surprise there.
But what marks him out in this election is that he is honest and courageous enough to recommend voters in another constituency to vote for a candidate from another party. He suggests the new Waveney Valley seat should turn to Green Party leader Adrian Ramsay. Our present two-party system cannot possibly encompass the whole gamut of political opinion. So while we are within the straightjacket of first past the post, we need politicians of character and honesty like Sir Norman to help break the mould.
*
That race to win North Norfolk is neck and neck. The latest Election Maps poll give the Conservatives 33.3%, LibDems 33.2%, and Labour 14.8%.
The sitting MP is Conservative Duncan Baker. Seeing the way the wind is blowing, this former Ukip member is trying to reinvent himself as what he calls “a centrist Conservative”. He is, he declares in a letter to a constituent, “very proud” of his environmental work, though Hansard never lies. His voting record on allowing water companies to discharge raw sewage as they wish is there for all to see.
*
And so inevitably we come to Liz Truss. Something has happened to her face, have you noticed? It looks somehow folded in the middle, as though she has kept it in her back pocket and has been sitting on it. Perhaps it’s an effect of all that flying she has been doing to highly paid gigs, describing for lots of lovely moolah how she almost bankrupted this country and cost almost every family thousands. Or perhaps it’s down to guzzling too much champagne on the flights; or was it perhaps a bad oyster?
There are many signs during this election that journalists are at last trying to get their own back, hence the headline for her interview in the Eastern Daily Press: “Liz Truss on why she is not the worst prime minister ever”.
But there is more good news. Norfolk South West was always a redoubtable Conservative stronghold; even when things were looking bad for the party, the Truss numbers held up. Not anymore. Electoral Calculus gives Labour’s Terry Jermy a 55% chance of overcoming a 17,000 majority and taking the seat.
*
Pecksniff has written before of Labour’s desperate courting of those the party considers its core vote, and how this focus may be sadly misplaced. Because research suggests those voters may now share Conservative values more closely than Labour’s, whereas traditional true-blue areas may provide happier hunting grounds for the people’s party.
A fascinating new insight into this phenomenon is being reported by party canvassers during this election. As happens, once a party has canvassed its steadfast supporters, it goes on a hunt into enemy territory to try to find converts. And Labour canvassers are finding not just the angry indifference of Conservative voters which they have become used to; but a new determination to vote the government out. In fact, their enthusiasm is said to outweigh the traditional Labour areas, who by some reports are inclined to be complacent.
One of Pecksniff’s shrewdest intelligencers describes the Tory vote as being “hammered”. It is too recent to know precisely why, but one factor may be the still raw public outrage over Partygate, which continues to turn up regularly on the doorstep. Perhaps the traditional ‘middle-class’ Conservative voter expected more from his government than this kind of amorality, whereas ‘working-class’ voters rather take it for granted.
*
There has been a great flurry of activity from one Richard Holden, chair of the Conservative Party and until recently the MP for somewhere ghastly oop north. But the seat disappeared with the boundary changes, and Mr Holden has been shopping his sorry torso around the shires, trying to pick up a safe gig. This has caused much anger and consternation within the party, with accusations about his pulling strings.
One of those seats he tried for size was Central Suffolk and North Ipswich,represented by his colleague Dan Poulter until Dr Poulter himself jumped ship to Labour a few weeks ago. But his application here was given the bum’s rush.
So with time running out, he dived down to Basildon and Billericay, formerly held by John Baron, where he squeezed in at the last minute as prospective candidate despite outrage from much of the local party. The anger was based on the seat being 300 miles from his former constituency and his lack of any credentials to represent Essex.
But we learn today, as we go to press, that enough letters of no confidence have gone in to trigger a special general meeting, to review the candidacy. The party’s problem is that nominations need to be in by 4pm today – that’s…ooh, in about 15 minutes’ time.
My dears, such excitement! By the time you read this missive, all will be clear. Will the Conservatives of B and B be lumbered with a candidate they despise and for whom they won’t turn out to work, or will the party’s candidacy be left vacant?
As it stands anyway, Electoral Calculus gives the Tories only a 42% chance of holding on to the seat, with Labour at 57%. Though as this is written, news comes of at attempt by Reform to stand a candidate against Mr Holden – or perhaps against the lack of a Tory candidate. Now how might that play out…?
*
There has been a great deal of confusion over Tom Hunt (Ipswich) and his alleged sympathies for the Reform Party, though his attentions are rather more concerned with saving his political career. Although until the election was called he was the sitting Conservative MP for the town, the odds are heavily stacked against him in confronting Labour’s Jack Abbott, who is reckoned a 97% shoo-in. So treacherously, he cast his eyes towards other more winnable seats nearby. One of them was Central Suffolk and North Ipswich.
Mr Hunt claims he was invited to apply for the vacancy. But since he and Dr Poulter had no time for each other, and the Central Suffolk part of the party believes Mr Hunt to be a grubby little oik from well below the salt, this seems unlikely. In any case, whether they rebuffed him or he decided against it, or whether (as one source has it) he couldn’t get past the emergency rules, the move didn’t happen.
But his possible decampment to Reform has been so widely rumoured that his half-hearted denials have featured in more than one headline. In the meantime, he plugs away at the race card, English being no longer spoken in Ipswich town centre, and anything to do with refugees. In fact, he has now become a target for a Hope Not Hate investigation.
Mr Hunt has apparently reluctantly now committed himself to his old seat, declaring that he can’t let his people down. (Which after his embarrassing attempts to find a safer nest takes a lot of chutzpah.) It seems almost certain however that, after the election and his inevitable defeat, he will jump ship to Reform.
*
It has been noticeable that Tom Hunt has been missing for much of the campaign so far. But like his party leader, that’s not all he has been missing. It seems that he failed to attend the Ipswich D-Day commemorations, a fact which it’s fair to say has been noticed and will not be forgotten.
*
Oh, and Pecksniff has just learned Hemel Hempstead Tories have replaced their candidate with just a few minutes to go…
*
With special thanks to Karl Whiteman, Oliver Holmes and James Porter.
<<< Previous Pecksniff’s Diary
