DISHONOURABLE MEMBER

I guess one overlooked consequence of 13 years of Tory misrule is that being exposed to such a rich barrel of rotten apples means all corruption in public office is inevitably painted blue. How easy it is to forget the Labour MPs that have fallen foul of the law, not least those who were named and shamed (and, in one or two cases, imprisoned) following the expenses’ scandal. So, considering the supposedly ‘nobler’ alternative to the Tories could well end up in government a year or two from now, it’s rather timely to be reminded that some of their own are just as capable of crookedness as those on the other side of the House. Take Jared O’Mara – you remember him, of course; he’s the one-time ginger geezer who caused one of the biggest upsets of the 2017 General Election by ousting Nick Clegg. Well, yesterday he was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to four years in the clink. Convicted on six counts that the judge described as ‘cynical, deliberate and dishonest’, the former MP for Sheffield Hallam had stooped to play the mental health card as a defence for his actions, but it didn’t wash. Said Judge Tom Bayliss in his summing-up: ‘I have concluded that, although Jared O’Mara was without doubt suffering from autism at the time of the offences, that does not reduce culpability.’

Even before the cocaine habit that he bent the rules to fund became public knowledge, Jared O’Mara’s political career had ground to a premature halt in a matter of months following the surfacing of archaic tweets of a sexist nature along with allegations of sexual harassment. After a period of suspension, he stepped down at the 2019 General Election. Whereas his predecessor in the constituency was rejected due to the sacrifice of pre-Election Lib Dem promises on the altar of coalition, it rapidly emerged his successor was one of those Honourable Members who has little time for his constituents, his attitude towards them being described as one of ‘vile, inexcusable contempt’ by a former aide. In O’Mara’s case, revelations at his trial suggested it was no wonder he didn’t bother, considering he devoted most days to a steady ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ diet of five grams of cocaine and a bottle of vodka. The ex-nightclub manager evidently didn’t alter his lifestyle to fit his new responsibilities and carried on regardless. But it was the deception he employed to screw cash from the public purse that elevated his actions above mere hedonistic hubris.

O’Mara’s defence lawyer attributed his client’s behaviour to being ill-equipped when it came to ‘the stresses and strains of public life’, which is a fair enough explanation for an individual to turn to a chemical crutch; but O’Mara didn’t simply sink into substance abuse, something which many might have expressed sympathy towards had he received treatment and then emerged rehabilitated. For someone allegedly suffering from autism on top of an expensive drug habit, O’Mara displayed a clear and calculated business head when attempting to claim taxpayers’ money in the region of £24,000 for a nonexistent charity called Confident About Autism South Yorkshire; this fake organisation was a front for a friend of his he’d falsely named as his constituency support officer, though said friend appeared to have had his name taken in vain, as the jury cleared him of any part in the fraud. Another acquaintance on behalf of whom O’Mara had attempted to extract cash totalling £4,650 from Ipsa in relation to PR work that was never actually undertaken was less fortunate, found guilty of three counts of fraud and receiving a 15-month suspended sentence.

Understandably desperate to blame his actions on his ‘condition’, Jared O’Mara’s barrister Mark Kelly KC said, ‘When he felt he was being hounded by the media…he felt under pressure for certain circumstances that had come to light; he resorted to taking drugs and alcohol, distancing himself in many respects from those around him. These circumstances were very difficult circumstances for him to cope with, with his particular disabilities.’ This approach, however, failed to convince either judge or jury; the mental health card was not an adequate excuse, something Tom Bayliss KC emphasised in his conclusions. ‘You, Jared O’Mara,’ said the judge, ‘are a highly intelligent man. You were, I am quite sure, able to exercise appropriate judgement, to make rational choices, and to understand the nature and consequences of your actions. You may have occasionally behaved bizarrely or demonstrated disordered thought, but whether that was caused by your disorder or by your consumption of drugs – or both – is neither here nor there so far as this fraud is concerned. You knew perfectly well what you were doing with this fraud, you were behaving rationally, if dishonestly, and you were using your autism diagnosis to extract money from Ipsa to fund your cocaine and alcohol-driven lifestyle. It was deliberate, it was cynical and it was dishonest.’

The judge’s summing-up seems a fairly succinct summary of Jared O’Mara’s character and yet another sober warning when it comes to endemic Labour Party policy of selecting a candidate not on the grounds of merit but on box-ticking. In O’Mara’s case, his playing of the mental health card satisfied the criteria of the Momentum-dominated National Executive Committee, who went over the heads of the local constituency party to select him for the seat; his surprise success in winning it eased concerns, but his unsuitability was quickly exposed. One suspects a party so immersed in the ideology of Identity Politics probably won’t learn from its mistake.

BURT BACHARACH (1928-2023)

The emergence of the self-contained pop music artist in the early 60s undeniably dealt a body blow to the dominance of Tin Pan Alley; but the best of the professional songwriters were a resilient bunch and found there were still outlets for their talents. Not all of the bands at the forefront of the Beat boom and British Invasion contained in-house hit machines, and there were also what used to be called ‘girl singers’ in abundance – young, spunky sirens for whom the elegant standards of the 50s were old hat; the likes of Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Petula Clark and others were in need of their own standards, ones that reflected the changing mood of the 60s; and few songwriters delivered what was required better than Burt Bacharach, whose death at the grand old age of 94 was announced yesterday.

It would be easy to pay tribute to Bacharach by simply listing the staggering roll-call of hits that flowed from his genius melodic mind; although the 60s saw the end of the era in which standards were shared between all the great song stylists so that no performer could claim theirs was the definitive interpretation, Burt Bacharach’s songs – the most well-known being collaborations with lyricist Hal David – would still find themselves in the set-lists of most solo singers, whether or not they’d had the hit version. And sometimes the original recording would inspire a cover that would then be regarded as the definitive article; this occurred when The Carpenters had their breakthrough with ‘Close to You’, which was first recorded by the woman who served as Bacharach’s muse for several years, Dionne Warwick. Bacharach managed to achieve an almost symbiotic relationship with the women he wrote for; prior to his partnership with Warwick, his day-job had been arranger and bandleader for Marlene Dietrich when the Teutonic chanteuse was still touring the world’s concert halls; it was a steady income for Bacharach, but he knew he needed to devote his full-time to what he was best at – penning instant classics.

Bacharach was pivotal to what became known as ‘easy listening’ as the 60s progressed, which was basically the old pre-rock ‘n’ roll grownup pop coolly restyled for the new decade; his songs often seem tailor-made for a very 60s ‘Lounge-core’ vision of suave 30-something men in bachelor pads, handing a Martini to a languid lady in false eyelashes as a prelude to laying her clean as a whistle. His winning streak may have waned by the 70s, but his phenomenal output prior to that left behind a breathtaking legacy that will remain the gold standard of pop songs while ever there are people still around to listen to them.

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HOBSON’S CHOICE

The MSM response to the so-called ‘Twitter Files’ that were unveiled during the final few months of 2022 exemplified the way in which new and old news outlets reside in parallel universes that rarely crossover. The BBC and Fleet Street focus on each (admittedly plentiful) example of Elon Musk’s somewhat eccentric behaviour ever since taking over the single biggest influence on public discourse over the past decade, upholding the accepted narrative portraying the bonkers billionaire as a right-wing threat to all we cherish rather than highlighting his stated intent to make Twitter an open forum for opinions of all persuasion by both restoring dubiously-deleted accounts and uncovering the truth of the site’s previous moderators in keeping a lid on storylines potentially damaging to those on ‘the right side of history’. The fact that the FBI and Big Tech conspired to suppress the Hunter Biden story and sought to discredit the lone New York Post from reporting it during the run-up to the 2020 Presidential Election in order that it wouldn’t damage Sleepy Joe’s campaign is a revelation arguably on a par with Watergate, yet the pitiful coverage it received in the MSM is testament to how our fat controllers filter the output we are delivered on a daily basis and decide which particular viewpoint will best preserve their hegemony.

I guess we shouldn’t really be surprised; indeed, it’s difficult not to be cynical when reporting on anything of this nature now. The default response to any such revelation is to shrug one’s shoulders and expect nothing less from the powers-that-be; so, those who vigorously monitor the feed we receive online have been complicit in a cover-up – what else do we expect from society’s string-pullers? Don’t they all share a communal urinal? It matters not what one’s personal belief is of The Donald and the fruitcakes he has a habit of attracting; the fact that his opponents stooped even lower to ensure he didn’t secure a second term in office by convincing the public that a story which could threaten Biden’s chances of sleepwalking into the White House was nothing more than an irrelevant slice of hysterical hype on the part of the opposition – or an example of ‘Russian interference’ – is outrageous. But the masses buy it, just as they queue-up at the crack of dawn to buy the self-pitying, petty memoir of a privileged ginger whinger. The public have been sufficiently indoctrinated and respond accordingly when called upon.

But I suppose this is a trend to which most are now accustomed; after all, so much of what constitutes our instant exposure to world events is fashioned by those who have a particular perspective, and this is the one that provides us with our limited choice of opinions. The excessive MSM coverage afforded issues that had largely been resolved before being revived by the far-left of political persuasion on both sides of the pond neglects to mention that their recent resurgence is due to the left’s need to be engaged in a permanent state of war. Without a battle to define it, the left suddenly becomes redundant and no longer has any purpose; and when all the great civil rights struggles of the past were won by the most discriminated-against minorities with the largest numbers, the left found itself relegated to the fringes, let down by the proles who refused to do as they were told and reduced to recycling the kind of nostalgic warfare characteristic of the Corbyn cult. The left was effectively unemployable when someone like David Cameron could embrace a cause such as gay marriage, so it required a revival of the old struggles to render it relevant again.

The left seems to require constant conflict to justify its existence as an alternative to the supposedly-staid ‘other side’, which allegedly upholds old-school traditions (despite legitimising causes the left once had exclusive copyright on), so what better way to reclaim the opposition front by reviving racial tensions, regardless of whether its approach seems more geared towards reinstating segregation than being true to the doctrines of Martin Luther King and his belief that the content of a person’s character matters more than the colour of their skin? Class has been noticeably sidelined as an issue of division, perhaps because so many of the loudest voices waving placards emanate from elite academies and look down their noses at the uneducated plebs who remain mysteriously resistant to ‘the message’ – much easier to hone in on race and sexuality. Graduation is followed by the implementation of the campus dogma in office and boardroom in order to impose it on the masses more effectively. And then there’s a career in politics. After all, the Labour Party is attuned; it doesn’t want those at the bottom to rise above their lowly position, needing them to stay put so it can pat them on the head and rush to their assistance; ‘Don’t worry; we went to university and write columns for the Guardian – we’re cleverer than you, what with you being retarded yahoos.’

The left has its favourite causes – Palestine being the perennial, of course; but a one-time vital issue such as women’s rights has been severely usurped by misogynistic trans-activists, and with the latter being minority ‘victims’, the former has been abandoned by its previously-dependable foot-soldiers, left to its own devices and risking demonisation as it challenges the left’s favouritism. The pet projects of the left – whether Islam or Trans – threaten a serious reversal of the progress made by women’s rights in the past, and whenever that progress is placed in peril by proposed legislation favouring ‘gender identification’ – as in Soviet Scotland – natural-born women belatedly realise how much they’ve been shafted by their former allies. But the left can’t budge on this issue; it has committed itself. After all, women’s rights campaigners today show one of the left’s favourite causes in a bad light, and that light reflects badly on the left itself – and on its biology-denying leaders.

As was succinctly pointed out in a recent ‘Triggernometry’ interview with women’s campaigner and author Helen Joyce, many men posing as ‘legal’ women under new laws tend to go a little overboard with the cosmetics, thus emphasising their approach to femininity is a fetish of the kind that used to kept behind closed doors; as a rule, regular cross-dressers – and whatever happened to that word? – don’t pretend they’re genuine women at all and adopt a look low on the over-sexualised parody of the female sex that those demanding to be recognised as women often favour; ditto those who actually go through the full gender reassignment surgery and show a commitment above and beyond a mere fashion statement. A celebrity cross-dresser or ‘transvestite’ such as Eddie Izzard used to apply that label to himself at one time, whereas now he likes to masquerade as a woman whenever the fancy takes him, reducing the female identity to a series of stereotypical accessories that can be adopted or discarded at will. Yet, it’s not so easy to dismiss a dilettante like Izzard as a delusional fantasist when his fetish threatens to be enshrined in law.

I do wonder, though, if the SNP’s seemingly nihilistic embrace of this particular cause – which risks alienating vast swathes of potential voters – is merely another cynical addition to their independence agenda; the expected legal challenges of the UK Government to the bill gives them further ammunition to portray Westminster as English oppressors interfering in Scottish affairs. Perhaps it’s not so far-fetched to think such a thought when one is all-too aware that moral scruples are not part of the political armoury; but at a time when extremists of both left and right appear to have filled the voids left behind by politicians pandering to the few instead of serving the many, the abandonment of the majority in the middle is a serious failing that only adds to the general world-weary air of despair with our elected representatives and their ideological paymasters. Come the next General Election, the overwhelming desire to evict the current shower from office will certainly be tempered by the sobering realisation that doing so simply passes the parcel to a different kind of awful.

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NAME THAT CRISIS

As we currently reside in a winter wonderland, the NHS is naturally on the brink of collapse. This annual event – one that usually dominates the headlines of news outlets less than sympathetic towards the Conservative Party every January without fail – is making its yearly appearance at the moment, counteracted by evidence from the other side of Fleet Street concerning how many millions our most beloved of institutions squanders on the likes of ‘diversity coordinators’ and so on, thus depriving frontline nurses of wage increases they’d otherwise not have to strike for. But the narrative that traditionally opens a New Year tends not to recognise this strand of the storyline; it’s far easier to pin the blame on ‘evil Tories’ because black & white heroes and villains translate the myriad intricacies of the morbidly obese and unmanageable behemoth of bureaucracy the NHS has become into a more digestible bite-sized tabloid snack. Of course, there are always a few dependable Blimp-like Tories who will gladly provide sufficient fodder for the Mirror and the BBC by coming out with a reliably stupid quote to uphold the narrative, though these tend to be detached backbenchers who are all with Bupa anyway.

Unless one’s health takes a dramatic turn for the worst, most of us are mercifully spared from placing our lives in A&E hands; if we find ourselves afflicted by a seasonal sniffle that simply won’t go away, the nearest GP’s surgery tends to be the sole port of call – or at least used to be. Anyone who’s attempted to secure a doctor’s appointment during the past three years will probably have found sweating it out or self-medication is a preferable option. Sob stories from GPs have become commonplace in recent times, though most patients find it difficult to express sympathy after being placed on hold for hours when forced to book an appointment over the phone from the crack of dawn onwards, with an ailment hardly eased by exposure to some tortuous Auto-tune earworm or an ad on a loop demanding the listener purchases an app that will no doubt deliver a diagnosis in a Stephen Hawking accent.

The last time I managed to gain an in-person audience with a GP around a year or so ago, I recall being the sole person in a waiting room about as active as a Nightingale Hospital until a guy walked in and approached the counter to make an appointment; he was informed he needed to do so over the phone and proceeded to produce his mobile and ring the receptionist in front of him; observing this farce, I felt as though I’d walked into a Python sketch. Despite the absence of patient competition, I still had to sit for the best part of fifteen minutes before a doctor deigned to appear; this was one of those multi-GP surgeries where one rarely sees the same doctor two visits running, so I did wonder what the multiple medical men and women employed there were busying themselves with whilst I twiddled my thumbs in the deserted waiting room. Playing a round of poker, perhaps?

Ever since every illness – both life-threatening and merely annoying – was deemed by the likes of SAGE to be secondary to Covid, the majority of hospitals, clinics and GP’s surgeries seem to have obediently followed the Government-recommended lead, albeit without readjusting their priorities now we’re through the worst of it. And what thanks do they receive for their obedience? They get Chris ‘Mekon’ Whitty predicting mass deaths courtesy of all those undiagnosed fatal illnesses that were placed on ice because the medical profession did as it was told. Indeed, how many vital members of NHS staff were faced with the threat of losing their jobs barely a couple of years ago because they were resistant to the vaccine and exercised their rights as citizens of a supposedly-free country to opt out? Remember the smear campaign aimed at discrediting this perfectly democratic decision, one spearheaded by Government propaganda and supported by numerous sections of the MSM? Yes, like any institution of such an unwieldy size, the NHS has its dutiful servants and it has its avaricious freeloaders; I suspect the latter would have remained in place, continuing to draw their sumptuous salaries as middle-management parasites, and wouldn’t have shed a tear over the loss of those further down the food-chain whose presence can actually make more of a difference to a patient than a course in diversity training. But in this infantile narrative, we were made very aware as to who the heroes were and who the villains were.

I think, for a lot of people, some of the more extreme attitudes that the pandemic exposed were quite an eye-opener; it certainly served to show a few true colours that had been previously clad in the colourless brand of sheep’s clothing bearing a ‘tolerance’ label, i.e. the whole #BeKind brigade who anyone with half-a-brain can now belatedly recognise as the charlatans they always were – the allegedly liberal who are actually acutely illiberal, just like the so-called anti-racists or anti-fascists are amongst some of the most bigoted, intolerant, narrow-minded and downright nasty haters out there. And, as undemocratic and draconian as some of the legislation rushed through Parliament by a Conservative Government was, don’t forget it was supported all the way along by Labour and the Lib Dems – and if it was criticised at all, the basis of the criticism was that it wasn’t severe enough in curbing civil liberties. After all, we saw for ourselves just how severe it could’ve been in England via those constituent countries of the UK with administrations supposedly of the Left.

In a way, though, the unpleasant side of human nature that either surfaced through genuine fear or simply exploited the fear of others in the most unseemly manner was a symptom of more than a mere freak occurrence like the pandemic. I recently viewed an archive interview with Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Marty Feldman and Dennis Norden – all of whom were sharing a dinner whilst discussing comedy writing; as the get-together was staged at Christmas, the festive subject cropped-up and Feldman made a potent point as to the way strangers react to one another for just a handful of days out of the 365 the year offers us. He noted that people have to be ‘artificially stimulated to behave like human beings’, going on to say that ‘We have to be aware that this is the day when we behave like civilised people’. Whenever some TV telethon in a ‘Children in Need’ vein raises a whopping amount, there’s always tangible surprise expressed at just how selflessly generous people can be towards the less fortunate, yet should it really be a surprise? Sadly, the fact that it is greeted as a surprise speaks volumes. To be wished a Merry Christmas or a Happy New Year on the street by a stranger for one week in December isn’t an uncommon event; to be bid good morning on the street by a stranger any other time of the year certainly is.

Every public demonstration of ‘community’ and ‘we’re all in this together’ during the pandemic, such as standing on a street corner to applaud the NHS, came across as staged-managed, like an organised ‘fun’ event for kids at Butlin’s; none of it appeared organic or spontaneous; one almost got the feeling it had been hatched by Dominic Cummings as a means of getting the people on side, a less negative approach than the divide & rule tactic of shaming those who opposed pandemic policies like lockdown or mandatory masks. The pitifully small resistance to so much of what was imposed upon us during this period – and how that resistance was demonised by those who played right into Government hands – is something it’s hard to forgive or forget. Whether or not the NHS is actually in a genuine crisis again or whether this is just another strand of propaganda designed to oust one political party in favour of another cut from the same rancid cloth is something we’ll probably find out in a year or two. Mind you, as Jonathan Meades shrewdly pointed out in his study on jargon, politicians of every colour have more in common with each other than they have with normal people; and the truth we believe is the truth we receive.

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BLINDED BY THE LIGHTWEIGHT

I know it feels like 100 years ago now, but if you can possibly cast your mind back to the eve of the 2019 General Election, you might recall there was an unprecedented rash of preemptive exits as a wipe-out of the Westminster Remoaners beckoned following months of undemocratic chaos when they tried their damndest to reverse the 2016 mandate delivered by the people. The fragile majority Boris Johnson had inherited from Theresa May was whittled down to a minority as numerous Tory Members crossed the floor of the House and the PM removed the whip from 21 rebels; some even formed their own Party in conjunction with Labour MPs dismayed at the Momentum dominance within Corbyn’s Labour – anyone recall Change UK? – and some relocated to the Lib Dems; but all were desperate to prevent the General Election Boris was eager to call in order to sort out the problem once and for all, preferring the red herring of a Second Referendum. When it became clear this wasn’t feasible, there were even characteristically bonkers suggestions such as the one proposed by the Greens’ Caroline Lucas, which suggested an unelected emergency administration should be formed with her (naturally) at the centre of it. All of these moves served as a blatant indication as to just how much the Remainer elite within Parliament mistrusted the British public to do the right thing.

When those parties with the loudest Remoaner voices were summarily rejected at the ballot-box in the May 2019 European elections – obliterated by Nigel Farage’s newly-formed Brexit Party – many of them belatedly realised the electorate were not going to look warmly upon them come the next national vote. No wonder they were against it. However, when Boris finally managed to call his General Election in the wake of the proroguing of Parliament, and Brits found themselves confronted by a welcome democratic disruption to the annual assault of Christmas, the most blinkered and diehard still imagined the British people would come round to their way of thinking; Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson was unashamedly candid in her promise that her party would do its utmost to scrap Brexit if it found itself holding the balance of power. In the end, Swinson lost her seat. But there were others who never even got to that stage; eager to avoid a ‘Portillo Moment’, these were the ones who bottled it before their constituents had the opportunity to have their say.

Once the December Election was given the go-ahead, you suddenly couldn’t move for MPs voluntarily walking the plank in anticipation of the public shoving them off it. Sure, it’s not uncommon for veterans to announce their intention to stand down on the eve of an Election, but never before had so many Bright Young Things done likewise; a fair few had been earmarked as ones-to-watch, with some (in the case of the governing Conservatives) rising through the ranks to Cabinet posts with such speed that they were seen as potential future leaders. Amber Rudd, Justin Greening, Rory Stewart and Jo Johnson were some of the younger quitters from the Tories who jumped before the electorate pushed, whilst Jezza’s 15-minute challenger Owen Smith did likewise from Labour ranks. Some, such as the Scottish Conservative saviour Ruth Davidson, had quit upon Boris Johnson gaining the keys to No.10, whereas Tom ‘Bunter’ Watson got out because his embarrassing association with serial paedophile liar Carl Beech had ended his hopes of the Labour leadership; incidentally, both Davidson and Watson now sit in the Lords, having a hand in the passing of legislation without being answerable to the electorate. Nice work if you can get it.

Although some of the most prominent Remoaners did indeed have their Portillo Moments come the General Election – Jo Swinson, Chuck Umunna, Anna Soubry and Heidi Allen being the most notable – most had gone before the public had their say. And whilst their decision to stand down at a relatively young age (for an MP) was undeniably influenced by the humiliating drubbing they anticipated, it also highlighted just how much being a people’s representative is little more than another impressive notch on a CV for many of today’s intake into Parliament. It’ll look good when fishing for the directorship of a hedge fund company, I guess. Whatever happened to public service? Dennis Skinner may have lost his seat in 2019, but he’d put in almost half-a-century at Westminster; Tony Benn had surrendered a peerage and gone all the way to changing the law in order for him to continue as an MP, so committed was he to the cause of public service; these guys put the hours in and were there for more than a chance to appear on ‘Strictly’ or join Matt Hancock in the jungle one day. Indeed, as even Russell Brand pointed out on a recent YT video, how low have we sunk that the only place in which the opportunity to confront the former Health Secretary with the consequences of his pandemic actions is not in the Commons or on ‘Question Time’, but on an ITV reality show, where he’s grilled not by Andrew Neil but by Boy George?

Apparently, there was even a recent reality show in which two past political figures who’ve never stood for election in their lives – Alastair Campbell and Baroness Warsi – acted as the expert judges overseeing a bunch of ‘Apprentice’-style wannabes competing to become an imaginary Prime Minister; as far as I’m aware, Liz Truss was not amongst the contenders. Although I didn’t see the programme, I’ve a pretty good idea of the kind of show it was – after all, most TV produced in the name of ‘entertainment’ today follows a formula based on one hit show that is then reproduced endlessly; but maybe a public utterly exhausted with mendacious MPs evading every question put to them on a serious political programme see this route as the way forward for our elected representatives? And maybe our elected representatives are thinking along similar lines. It could perhaps offer one explanation as to why the public respond more to voting a celebrity out of the jungle than they do to voting candidates in or out of office; and it could also explain why those candidates view their political careers as merely another job they do for a bit before looking for something else.

Moreover, this situation could equally explain why so many recent recruits to the Commons Chamber come across as so lightweight and uninspiring compared to most of yesteryear’s big beasts. The intense level of commitment and the hunger to change society for the better is simply not there anymore, nor is the unswerving conviction that they actually have it in them to do so. Last time round, those that abandoned ship before the 2019 iceberg hit did so because they knew nobody would offer them a lifeboat; this time round, with polls pointing towards a similar catastrophe for the Conservative Party as a whole (rather than just its Remainer rebels), some have already revealed their indifference to public service by announcing their intentions to stand down before the date of the next General Election has even been decided.

The most invigorating incident of the 2019 Election from a Tory perspective was the collapse of Labour’s Red Wall and the once-unimaginable capture of eternal Labour strongholds by young Conservative upstarts; yet, the casual approach to commitment so prevalent in careerist politicians who seem to view their Honourable Member status as no different from being on the board of a financial institution or some soulless corporation surfaced again when 29-year-old Dehenna Davison, who won Bishop Auckland for the Tories in 2019, announced she’d be standing down next time round. One could argue Boris blew all the advantages that came with the Red Wall seats and that the chances of Davison’s re-election may have been rendered slim as a result, but it still seems to suggest Parliament is no more than ‘work experience’ for the young MP passing through en route to a more profitable position, as though it were some gap-year assignment in an African village; if that is indeed the case, the electorate will be better off without any of them; but one suspects whoever succeeds them will be cut from the same transient cloth.

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MUDDY WATERS

The way things are going, yer average member of the electorate probably reckons – and rightly so – that the Conservative Party will this time struggle to come up with one of its legendary last-minute winners to wrench victory from the jaws of defeat. Further behind in the polls than at any time in the past 20 years, the Tories are staring down the barrel of electoral annihilation unless the incumbent lady keeps on turning; and even then, it’s highly unlikely any miracles Liz Truss might attempt to perform will make much difference. There is now such a pungent odour of rottenness surrounding the Tory Party that it just won’t go away; they may have deposed the man viewed as the architect of the contempt for the public that behind-the-scenes events at No.10 during lockdown embodied, but the calamitous mini-budget affair seems to demonstrate that the incompetence so evident in the PM’s predecessor remains as strong as ever despite the change at the top. Even the old ‘Nasty Party’ tag has resurfaced this week with time-honoured kicks at those who are already down via rumours of benefit cuts and the revival of outdated prejudices towards claimants. Unsurprisingly, the general perception is that the blue side of the Commons is absolutely bloody useless, especially since it has had more than enough time to get it right.

Whereas apportioning blame to the last Labour Government was a familiar tactic of the Con-Dem Coalition from 2010 onwards whenever they f***ed something up, we’re now too removed from Blair and Brown for this to be a useful tool. And trying to pre-empt the blame game by predicting the next Labour Government will be even worse doesn’t wash. You should stand or fall by your own record – and you usually don’t have much of a record to be proud of if you keep chopping and changing the person at the top in the hope a fresh face will turn fortunes around. When one considers the Tory leader (and Prime Minister) has changed three times in 12 years of the country being run by a Conservative administration, yet Margaret Thatcher’s entire tenure in Downing Street comprised just one year less than that timespan, it’s like looking at the form book of Manchester United since the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson: six coaches in nine years and no Premier League title.

Yet this is the same political party that won a landslide as recently as 2019, famously demolishing Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ in the process; the fact that those voters on loan to the Conservatives are now contemplating returning to Labour – despite their well-founded reservations about Labour’s Identity Politics-infected Metropolitan obsessions that have bugger all to do with its traditional working-class base – speaks volumes as to the level of letdown the Tories have generated. But this is where we are: an utterly appalling governing party and an awful opposition that people will end up voting for because there’s no other choice. And Keir Starmer leading his Shadow Cabinet in a version of ‘God Save the King’ rather than ‘The Red Flag’ to close the Labour Party Conference fooled none of the Queen-loving plebs this Anglophobe Party seeks to reconnect with. No, whereas the 2016 Leave vote can be seen as a bloody nose inflicted upon a worldview that Labour remain the cheerleaders for, I suspect a similar injury will be dished out to the Tories in 2024 simply because it’s their turn.

The prospect of Keir Starmer as Prime Minister is not something that fills my heart with joy, to put it mildly; I’ve never made any secret of my loathing of the man, and this goes back a decade to his time as DPP and head of the CPS. I can’t say the rest of the Labour frontbench fills me with confidence either. The detoxification of the Corbynite influence within the Party has succeeded to a degree, but it retains many of the elements that have long made it such an unattractive proposition to the electorate. Only the other week, Labour MP Rupa Huq echoed Joe Biden’s ‘You ain’t black’ sentiments by labelling Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng ‘superficially black’ – as blatant an example of the racism at the heart of Woke ‘anti-racism’ as any British politician has been stupid enough to spout. The Party that can’t say what a woman is was also recently rumoured to have considered adding dilettante ‘lady’ Eddie Izzard to an all-woman shortlist to be selected as a Labour Parliamentary candidate; the fact all-woman shortlists even exist is patronising enough, but picking a bloke in drag to be included amongst the lucky ladies underlines further the kind of first-world luxury concerns that continue to alienate the Party both from its old supporters and from potential recruits that aren’t middle-class university graduates living in a big city.

Labour’s unrelenting Green fetish is another factor that wouldn’t play well with the wider electorate if implemented as legislation. Saving the planet may well be a noble crusade for those who can afford it, but the bulk of what Labour’s Green policies will cost the taxpayer is destined to hit the proles the hardest. And considering they’re hard hit enough at the moment when it comes to paying for energy, this isn’t a good sign; but it’s all our fault that the planet is f***ed, don’t forget – not a country like China pumping unchecked pollution into the atmosphere at will. Therefore, we have to pay for the privilege of saving it. We may not be able to heat our homes or buy food that’s edible, but at least our children’s children will be able to rent a shed by the end of the century. As with the war in Ukraine, Climate Change can be easily weaponised and blamed for any bad smell, something that pardons the genuine guilty parties who actually let Polly out of prison in the first place. Take the water companies – currently one of the worst examples of privatised industry, with chief executives and shareholders reaping astronomical rewards for running services that are piss-poor to say the least.

Their decayed fresh water supply pipes ‘mislaid’ over a trillion litres of water in 2021/22, and the utterly predictable heavy rain that followed the summer’s heat-wave led to a handful of companies releasing gallons of raw sewage into rivers and the sea, poisoning fishes and swimmers alike. So badly have some of the water companies performed that regulator Ofwat has heavily fined the worst offenders, prompting promises of £150 million reductions in water bills for affected customers. As an aside, I wish the regulator would change the name I keep typing as Oftwat, but I digress. One of the poorest performing and most heavily fined water companies was Thames Water. According to stats in the most recent edition of Private Eye, Thames Water has lost 217 billion litres of water over the past year, not to mention being responsible for a sinkhole that closed the Oxford stretch of the A34 as well as a pipe that burst in Windsor and caused disruption for those visiting the Castle during the mourning for Her Majesty; at the same time, the company’s Chief Executive was the recipient of a salary and bonus amounting to £2m. Well, that should make it a little easier to sleep at night in the absence of a conscience or sense of shame, I guess.

Apart from this seemingly decisive (if long overdue) action by Ofwat, the toothless likes of the Environment Agency has been remarkably ineffective in taking the water companies to task in recent years. And all the bodies entrusted with the state of the nation’s water are complicit in the ultimate buck-passing tactic that is to blame everything on Climate Change. For the water companies in particular, this is their very own ‘get out of jail card’, absolving them of all responsibility; but it works just as well for the failures of the regulatory bodies that are supposed to police them. Alas, such is the nature of the times we reside in. The Tories blame Labour; Labour blames the Tories; and all blame the war in Ukraine. And the pandemic. And Climate Change.

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NO SURPRISES

In their former guise as non-Democrats, the Liberals once presided over one of the most celebrated results in by-election history – and it happened exactly 60 years ago, when Eric Lubbock overturned a Tory majority of 14,760 in Orpington and transformed a safe Conservative seat into a 7,855 majority for the Liberal Party. The Tories had been in government for 11 years at that point, yet had already acquired the weary detachment from the electorate that is often a by-product of a decade in office; the familiar whiff of a sex scandal that can accompany such tired longevity was just round the corner, though in 1962 the name John Profumo had yet to become a household one; ditto Christine Keeler. Last night in Tiverton and Honiton, it would appear history was going through one of its routine habits of repeating itself as the Lib Dems inflicted one of the most comprehensive and humiliating defeats on the Conservative Party ever seen at a by-election as former Army Major Richard Foord triumphed over the Tory candidate, wiping out a majority of 24,239 in a seat that had never been free from Conservative hands since its creation. And the by-election only happened because the sitting Tory MP Neil Parish was forced to quit after he’d been outed for watching porn on his phone in the Commons.

On the same night a second Tory seat fell, this time to Labour; Wakefield, one of the ‘Red Wall’ constituencies captured by the Conservatives in 2019, returned to its traditional home. This by-election was also provoked by a resignation connected to a sex scandal; fittingly, the last time a government suffered simultaneous defeat in two by-elections was during the John Major era, which was also the last time such a sleazy collection of reprehensible individuals constituted the ruling Party. Even by past standards of sleaze, however, the case of Imran Ahmad Khan is especially unpleasant; Khan was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy, though he didn’t resign his seat until convicted. He’ll be spending the next 18 months being detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Considering Wakefield voted Leave in 2016 (as did Tiverton and Honiton in its Mid Devon guise), it was no great surprise its voters spurned Remoaner Labour in 2019; yet a Tory reverting to type is perhaps as predictable an outcome as last night’s results, and Wakefield turned red again whilst Tiverton and Honiton turned orange for the first time.

According to some sources, the Tory defeat in Tiverton and Honiton is officially the largest majority ever to be overturned at a British by-election, one that even exceeds the Lib Dems’ huge victory in North Shropshire last year. However, only the most gormlessly deluded Tory wouldn’t have seen this coming; most Conservative MPs returning to the Shires during the extended Jubilee Bank Holiday were confronted by angry constituents who’d had enough of the leadership, yet only 148 acted on their constituents’ behalf by registering their dissatisfaction with Boris in the confidence vote a couple of weeks ago. With a majority of Tories deciding to keep the PM in a job, it was left to the Lib Dem’s victorious candidate to say out loud what the 148 who voted against Boris declined to. He declared the voters of Tiverton and Honiton had spoken for the whole country by sending out a clear message. ‘It’s time for Boris Johnson to go – and go now,’ said Major Foord. ‘Every day Boris Johnson clings to office, he brings further shame, chaos and neglect. Communities like ours are on their knees. I also have a simple message for those Conservative MPs propping up this failing Prime Minister: the Liberal Democrats are coming.’

Okay, so there’s a slight element of ‘go back to your constituencies and prepare for government’ about that last statement, though in the thick of Lib Dem euphoria, it was probably understandable. This was one hell of a blow inflicted on a sitting administration, with the even-more predictable defeat in Wakefield the icing on the cake. The Liberal Democrats under the leadership of Ed Davey have been fortunate that the far-from enthusiastic response to Keir Starmer’s lacklustre Labour Party has enabled them to reinvent themselves yet again, emerging from the disastrous shadows of Jo Swinson’s Remain crusade and capitalising on widespread disillusionment with the two main Parties; it’s precisely what the Lib Dems did so well under Charles Kennedy, and when the alternatives are as uninspiring as Boris and Sir Keir – not to mention the motley crews assembled on the respective front benches of the pair – it’s no wonder the tide has turned for the Lib Dems again. Considering the likes of Dominic Raab and Michael Gove have smaller leads over the Lib Dems than that which the Tories had boasted in Tiverton and Honiton until last night, perhaps the new Lib Dem MP’s melodramatic warning should be heeded after all.

Boris had wisely kept a low profile during the by-election campaigns in the two constituencies; as with the increasingly-unpopular Ted Heath during the October 1974 General Election, the Prime Minister was noticeably absent from the promotional literature delivered by the hapless footsloggers trying in vain to court votes on behalf of their doomed candidate and attempting not to mention the Party leader on the doorstep. A not-dissimilar policy was tried by Labour canvassers in 2019, as I found out when I made my feelings on Corbyn and his cronies clear when confronted by one at the time. Anyway, Boris wasn’t at home to make excuses; at the moment, he’s in Rwanda, officially to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government shindig, but it’s possible he might be checking out the Kigali B&Bs earmarked for those pesky illegal immigrants. In his absence, the Conservative Party co-chairman Oliver Dowden became the latest Tory to walk a plank Boris refuses to countenance even exists.

Dowden’s resignation is the most high-profile response to two heavy defeats irrefutably linked to the ongoing fallout from Partygate. ‘We cannot continue with business as usual,’ wrote Dowden in his letter, though the PM is unlikely to receive that statement as advice. On the eve of an anticipated wipe-out at the two by-elections, Boris simply said ‘Governing parties generally do not win by-elections, particularly not in mid-term.’ Not the most encouraging message to the troops, but at least one rooted in realism; the Tories were seemingly prepared for defeat, if not what turned out to be the scale of defeat in Tiverton and Honiton. The Wakefield loss was no more of a surprise than the other seat, though tactical voting at Tiverton and Honiton saw Labour lose its deposit. There was also pre-by-election unrest at Wakefield’s Labour constituency branch when the entire committee resigned in protest at their preferred candidate, trade unionist Kate Dearden, being excluded in favour of a candidate parachuted in by the NEC; not that Keir Starmer will be bringing that up as he attempts to bask in the glow of his winner, Simon Lightwood.

When one considers the Labour and Lib Dem perspectives on Brexit, they’ll no doubt adopt a ‘don’t mention the war’ attitude now that two Leave constituencies are in their hands; even without the Partygate revelations, it’s possible the promise to ‘get Brexit done’ that enabled the Tories to triumph in the two seats in 2019 was regarded by voters in Wakefield and Tiverton as a done deal in 2022 and it was time to move on to other pressing issues, such as the cost of living; maybe they figured the Tories couldn’t deliver on that, considering the Tories’ policies in the pandemic provoked it. But it’s hard to escape the undeniable influence of what Boris and his cohorts got up to during the most testing period for the public in post-war British history when it comes to this pair of results. Let’s face it, though, Boris Johnson is a very lucky Prime Minister; he doesn’t have to call another General Election until 2024.

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LOCAL HEROES

On one hand, yeah, it looks like carelessness – the Conservative Party has lost two MPs in the last couple of weeks and now stands to definitely lose another whenever the next General Election comes around. On the other hand, there’s something inevitably familiar about the reasons for all three quitting: Sleaze. After being exposed as the Tory Member whose in-House search for tractor websites naturally led him to online porn, Neil Parish was faced with little choice but to voluntarily walk the plank. The MP for Tiverton and Honiton’s grubby escapades in the Chamber have prompted the same old calls for a reform of Parliament and its ‘institutional misogyny’, just as we had five years ago when Michael Fallon’s resignation as Defence Secretary after admitting to touching Julia Hartley-Brewer’s knee prompted the circulation of a clandestine and eye-opening ‘hit list’ of MPs behaving badly that some of us perused at the time. If anything had been done to sort the problem out back then, we maybe wouldn’t be where we are now; but there you go.

Crispin Blunt, MP for Reigate, isn’t on his way straight away – thus sparing his party another by-election; but he’s announced he will be when this current Parliament runs its course either next year or the year after. An MP since 1997, Blunt has been dogged by calls for him to quit ever since he somewhat foolishly defended fellow Tory, Imran Ahmad Khan, who has only just surrendered his seat following his recent conviction for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy in 2008. Khan was part of the new intake of Tories who smashed the ‘Red Wall’ in 2019, turning Wakefield blue for the first time. Questions over his original selection as a candidate have been raised (when rumours about his dubious behaviour were apparently circulating beforehand), but his conviction has led to him being appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, which is a very polite Parliamentary description for the sack. Actually, perhaps this quaintly meaningless title should be bestowed upon anyone being fired from any job. ‘How come you’re home early from work, luv?’ ‘Bloody boss called me into his office and told me I’d been appointed Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds. Bastard.’

All of this comes in the wake of Barnard Castle and Matt Hancock and ‘Partygate’ and Rishi’s missus and a pervasive, putrid stench of rotting reputations, not unlike the same odious odour that emanated from the Conservative Party in the early 1960s and – especially – the mid-1990s. All parties that have been in Government for a decade or more slowly see their mortal remains begin to decay and disintegrate after that length of time, but the Tories always seem to do it so much better than anyone else. And now the electorate has the opportunity to make its feelings known towards the governing party at the ballot box, with the local elections taking place tomorrow. The previous occasion in which most of the seats up for grabs on 5 May were contested was way back in 2018, and it’s fair to say a hell of a lot has happened since then. And yes, folks, that’s what they call an understatement.

Last year’s local elections were undertaken at the time of Covid restrictions and left the Tories in a relatively strong state after their first test since the sweeping victory of 2019; at the time, their impressive gains were attributed to a post-vaccine bounce, when the speed and success of the roll-out gave people the impression the end of the pandemic was nigh. By contemporary standards, it was a fairly optimistic moment. This time round, the mood of the nation has altered yet again and it’ll be interesting to see how much of the ire directed towards the party during a cost-of-living crisis will be reflected in the way people vote. Only the most diehard and deluded still see Boris as an electoral asset, yet one could argue the Tories’ (and the PM’s) most effective electoral asset remains the Labour Party. The shadow of Brexit, the toxic legacy of Corbyn, and the scourge of Identity Politics are three factors that continue to drive a deep wedge between Labour and its one-time hardcore support base in the old Northern heartlands. Labour may well score points on campus and amongst the metropolitan middle-classes, but until the party reconnects with the far greater numbers that always stood by it in less affluent locations it’ll never be returned to power. Local elections tend to be an interesting means of gauging how far Labour has come or how far it has continued to fall behind actual public opinion rather than the minority opinions of MSM mouthpieces and broadsheet elites the party seems to use as an ill-advised yardstick.

The one thing in Labour’s favour is the fact that London – which appears to be its new heartland – will see the contesting of every seat in every borough, meaning there are over 1,800 of them to fight for, and the omens are good. However, success for Labour in the capital when it comes to these local elections could present the party with one more superficial impression of its resurrection as a potential party of government, as it doesn’t yet appear to have realised that what happens in London largely stays in London. The rest of the country remains unmoved by what Labour has to offer. A year ago, the party performed badly in the local elections and lost the Hartlepool by-election as a pre-match warm-up, but even if it does better in 2022 than it managed in 2021 – and it would take something special to do worse – the fact that the majority of the seats on offer tomorrow are in Labour-leaning areas will again give the party a distorted picture of its popularity if it does as well as expected; after all, in the 2018 local elections, Labour gave the Tories the best bloody nose it had landed since 2012 and yet was still trounced at the General Election the following year.

Perhaps the Tories needn’t be too concerned about Labour and should instead concentrate more on the Lib Debs, whose post-proroguing ‘detoxification’ and return to their familiar protest vote status could be perceived as more of a threat. That said, the Tories are lucky that few of the locations where their traditional popularity is waning are on offer this time round; the sense of relief in Conservative circles that the Home Counties will only constitute a tiny portion of the battleground on Thursday means worries over a potential Lib Dem challenge will be minimised. Labour’s failure to reconnect with its ex-Red Wall regions has also left Tory support staying fairly strong in the old blue collar ex-industrial towns Labour abandoned, so the party should be safe in those areas.

Regardless of Thursday’s events, the Tories are already looking ahead to the next General Election, devising what they have called an ‘80-20 strategy’, which refers to keeping the 80 marginal constituencies they hold and capturing a further 20 they’ve earmarked as potential gains. With the threat of Rishi Sunak as the most likely contender to stand against Boris now seemingly neutralised, the PM can breathe a sigh of relief that his ninth life has proven to be as jammy as the eight before it. He is the most fortunate of Prime Ministers, a man entirely unsuited for the prestige of his office yet surrounded by mediocrities in his own party and confronted by an Opposition comprising a fair share of its own mediocrities, none more so than the man who leads it.

This week’s local elections may well contain a sizeable amount of protest votes that serve as a comment on the way the Tories have been performing at a national level, but even if Labour and the Lib Dems do well, it’s still a long way from a General Election. That the governing party is led by a serial philanderer and liar who was charged by the police for committing a criminal offence and yet has simply kept calm and carried on without fear of losing his job is something that says everything about where we are and how we get the politicians we deserve. Then again, if you’re concerned about bin collections, cast your vote.

© The Editor

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SNATCH OF THE DAY

Over the past week, the corridors of power seem to have been transformed into the cheesy plot of an ‘erotic novel’ penned by Edwina Currie; perhaps John Major’s former bit-on-the-side was on to something after all. Then again, it’s not so long since a quick grope beneath a CCTV camera by Matt Hancock was splashed across every front page on Fleet Street, so none of the current wave of ‘revelations’ are especially jaw-dropping. Granted, unnamed MPs watching phone porn in the Chamber is a new one, though why anyone would want to view porn in public when the accompanying physical response to it cannot be entered into without the risk of arrest on the grounds of indecent exposure is beyond me; yet, maybe the brazen thrill of watching it in a public place is part of the appeal for those who indulge in it – like dogging. Added to this grubby incident there’s also the alleged tribute to Sharon Stone on the part of Labour’s Deputy, Angela ‘Thingle Mother’ Rayner; considering how damaged every VHS copy of ‘Basic Instinct’ being returned to Blockbuster back in the day must have been whenever it came for that notorious scene to be played (and played and played), it’s a relief the camera crew working for BBC Parliament exercise a little more discretion.

I’m not quite sure if the suffix ‘gate’ has been attached to the saga of Angela Rayner’s crossed/uncrossed legs yet, but to do so would elevate it to a significance it doesn’t deserve at a time when one might say there are a few more important issues for our elected representatives to deal with. Perhaps it’s just a deliberately distracting story after an endless slew of relentlessly depressing heavyweight ones, and a convenient chance for Labour to play the sexist card when they appear incapable of chiming with public opinion in any other way. However, as it naturally slots into a certain feminist narrative, it’s being held up by some as emblematic of ‘institutionalised sexism’, which is as prevalent a presence as ‘institutionalised racism’ when it comes to our institutions in the popular imagination. The fact that Ms Rayner has been accused of joking about flashing her pins in the PM’s eye-line – supposedly overheard on the terrace of the Commons – suggests if the alleged flash actually happened it could well have been intentional.

Anyone who doubts that some women are not beyond occasionally weaponising their sexuality by deliberately exploiting men who are vulnerable to such cheap tricks evidently doesn’t get out much. If Angela Rayner did intentionally give Boris a peek in order to put him off his stride, she at least did so in the knowledge she couldn’t have picked a better target. After all, the PM has had his Benny Hill moments, as his numerous wives and mistresses will testify. Mind you, as a speech bubble in the current Private Eye points out in a photo of Rayner addressing the Government benches, she’s the one who has to look across at a twat every day, not Boris. At the same time, the sense of this story being used as a point-scoring exercise by Labour is kind-of ironic considering the Party can’t even define what a woman is; laughable Labour logic implies that the PM could just as well have been confronted by a dick should his gaze have wandered over to a lady on the Opposition benches – and, let’s face it, there’s no shortage of dicks on either side of the House.

But if Angela Rayner gave Boris an accidental flash, it would support the notion that the Commons is not really the right environment to wear a skirt that leaves little to the imagination; it’s only a couple of years or so ago that the now-‘Mayor of West Yorkshire’ Tracy Brabin made a speech in the Chamber dressed in an off-the-shoulder number that one wag said made her look as though she’d just been done over the dustbins round the back of her local KFC at the end of a hen night; and if Parliament didn’t have some sort of dress code, then male MPs could theoretically turn up for a debate dressed in T-shirts, shorts and baseball caps. Nobody is accusing any female MP of dressing ‘provocatively’ and therefore ‘asking for it’, but an awareness that they are in a workplace and should at least make the effort to dress accordingly is probably required. They’re not on a pissed-up day-trip to bloody Aintree, when all’s said and done.

It goes without saying that accusations claiming Angela Rayner was overheard bragging about putting Boris off by doing a Sharon Stone have been sidestepped by Labour, which has instead chosen to adopt the familiar victim line, with the Mail on Sunday – the paper that broke the story – singled out as a peddler of archaic misogynistic muck-raking. The article contained comments from the usual anonymous sources stating that Ms Rayner ‘knows she can’t compete with Boris’s Oxford Union debating training, but she has other skills which he lacks’. In a way, the most offensive thing about that line is the implication that, by virtue of his privileged background, the PM is somehow in possession of a verbal dexterity that the low-born Rayner can’t match and therefore has to resort to the tactics of a back-street slapper to outwit him rather than employing a highbrow luxury like intelligence.

Whatever one’s opinion of Angela Rayner, it cannot be disputed that making it all the way to Deputy Leader of a major political party has been a considerable personal achievement on her part; but she is her own worst enemy. Her infamous ‘Tory Scum’ rant merely handed ammunition to opponents who had a far smoother ride to the top, and by playing the sexist card she is once again confirming her enemy’s view of her intellectual limitations. Of course some male MPs, particularly those schooled in the gladiatorial arena of a single-sex environment like Eton, are insensitive towards their female colleagues in the Commons – largely due to their lop-sided impression of what women want – and a fair amount of genuine, old-fashioned sexism can be endemic in such characters; yet, at the same time, there are some female MPs who play upon this misogynistic ignorance and manipulate it to their own political advantage in a manner that is just as shameless and serves to render them no better than their opponents.

Responding to the story Angela Rayner said ‘As women, we sometimes try to brush aside the sexism we face, but that doesn’t make it okay…it can’t be women’s responsibility to call it out every time. I don’t need anyone to explain sexism to me – I experience it every day. Every time I do a PMQs somebody has an opinion on what I wear.’ Probably true, but many similarly critical column inches are also devoted to the appearance of an MP such as Michael Fabricant and his hairpiece, just as they once were to the gargantuan bulk of Cyril Smith, long before less apparent aspects of his personality were made public. Yes, women are confronted by forms of sexism on a daily basis, and they don’t have to be Members of Parliament; just ask any woman who’s ever driven her car into a garage or has had to suffer a handyman in the house recruited to fix repairs; female MPs are in a unique position to rise above this, and playing the sexism card is a cop-out when they could do so much more.

The most worrying element of this sublimely frivolous story is the fact that the Speaker of the House considerably exceeded his authority by demanding that David Dillon, the Mail on Sunday editor, be summoned to appear before him. Mr Dillon rightly refused the summons, as did his political editor Glen Owen; even Boris Johnson – a former journalist himself, lest we forget – supported the stance of the Mail on Sunday, stating that journos should ‘not take instructions from officials of the House of Commons, however august they may be.’ This statement was added to by a Downing Street spokesperson, who said ‘The Prime Minister is uncomfortable at the idea of our free press being summoned by politicians.’ He went on to say that the PM wouldn’t want ‘any perception of politicians seeking to in any way curb or control what a free press seeks to report.’ Indeed. In these troubled times, both politicians and political journalists should be focused on issues of far greater importance than the height of a hemline.

© The Editor

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SHIRE PURCHASE

If ever a county could be labelled a traditional Tory Shire, surely Shropshire has always ticked the requisite blue boxes. Still unique in that it remains a sizeable landmass in the middle of England without a single city, Shropshire is the largely rural border between the West Midlands and Wales, with its sole concession to post-war redevelopment being the Newtown of Telford. A familiar feature of 19th century novels penned both before and after the 1832 Reform Act, the campaign trail of the landowners’ chosen candidate is so entrenched as part of the archaic fabric of English political life that it’s revealing to discover such a system survived the termination of the old Rotten Boroughs. The Parliamentary constituency of North Shropshire was established the same year as the Reform Act, yet continued the practise of electing two members to Parliament, initially divided between the Tories and the Whigs. Within a couple of years, both victors represented the Conservative Party and the dual members remained that way until further reform in 1885, when the constituency was abolished and split into four separate constituencies electing one member each.

In 1983, the constituency of North Shropshire was revived and upheld the traditions of a century before by remaining a Tory seat. John Biffin was the first MP to represent North Shropshire in the modern era, replaced by Owen Paterson fourteen years later; Paterson’s recent…er…difficulties provoked his resignation at the worst possible time for the Government, and a by-election coming so hot on the heels of revelations of last year’s restrictions-busting Christmas parties left the ancient ownership of this constituency up for grabs for the first time in living memory. Whilst it was still unimaginable to envisage North Shropshire falling into the divided hands of the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats clearly fancied their chances as the resurrected protest vote for the disgruntled Tory voter now that UKIP no longer poses the threat it once did. And, despite the constituency voting Leave in 2016, the one-time cheerleaders for a second referendum were deemed the only option to a deeply unpopular administration masquerading as the lifelong leaseholders of the constituency.

At the final count, it was a chartered accountant by the name of Helen Morgan who took the seat from the Tories with an impressive swing of 34 percent. At the last General Election in December 2019, Owen Paterson had retained the seat he’d held since 1997 with 62.7 percent of the vote and a majority of 22,949. North Shropshire is the second safe Tory seat in a row to fall to the Lib Dems in a by-election, following the overturning of the Chesham and Amersham constituency from a 16,000 Conservative majority earlier this year. Whilst nobody would foolishly claim either victory is comparable to the legendary Orpington by-election of 1962 – which served as a devastating blow to Harold Macmillan’s crumbling authority – there’s no escaping the fact that two by-election blows in a row can be read as a humiliating rejection of the current shower running the show.

Perhaps the difference between now and Eric Lubbock’s shock triumph almost sixty years ago is that the Liberal revival of the early 60s proved to Harold Wilson (when he took charge of Labour a few months later) that there was a widespread groundswell of dissatisfaction with the Tory Government which Labour was in a far better position to capitalise on than the ill-prepared Liberal Party. Labour managed it in 1964, yet even though the party finished runner-up this time round in North Shropshire, it’s still difficult to picture Keir Starmer replicating Wilson’s achievement a couple of years from now. The political landscape is far more fragmented in 2021 than it was in 1962 – and it’d take a supreme optimist to see that altering by 2023 or ’24.

Boasting a majority of 5,925, the newest Member of Parliament was understandably overjoyed at evicting the governing party from one of its oldest backyards. She claimed many Labour voters opted for her as the best bet to oust the Tories, and this is a pattern we can probably expect to see regularly in the run-up to the next General Election, when so few Labour candidates inspire enough confidence to seriously threaten the Government outside of the remaining Labour constituencies that didn’t fall to the Tories last time round. ‘Tonight the people of North Shropshire have spoken on behalf of the British people,’ said Ms Morgan. ‘They have said loudly and clearly: “Boris Johnson, the party is over”.’ She went on to add, ‘In rural Shropshire today – just like Buckinghamshire in June – we have won the support of people who have always voted Conservative and people who have always opposed them…thousands of lifelong Conservative voters, dismayed by Boris Johnson’s lack of decency and fed up with being taken for granted – and thousands of lifelong Labour voters, choosing to lend their votes to the candidate who can defeat the Conservatives.’

If tactical voting of this nature proves to be a recurring trend that is extended into the next General Election, such a situation will still not ensure a Labour victory; a narrower Tory triumph will be the only predictable outcome, despite a significant improvement in Lib Dem fortunes since the dark days of Jo Swinson’s disastrous misjudgement of the national mood on the subject of Brexit. A merger between Labour and the Lib Dems – a far more permanent arrangement than a mere coalition for convenience – is the sole way forward if either party expects to oust an immovable party even as sunk in sleaze, corruption and outright dishonesty as the current Conservative crop. The blatant absence of a genuine opposition to Boris’s rancid administration is emphasised by the endless support provided to his pandemic policies by Starmer’s barmy army; rather than flocking around the red flag, voters in seats such as North Shropshire are registering their complaints in the ballot box by ticking the Lib Dem candidate as opposed to the Labour one. This is not a recipe for overturning a sizeable Tory majority across the country.

Labour’s problems are manifold in winning back the confidence of the electorate. With over a decade having passed since Gordon Brown’s brief tenure at No.10, the legacy of New Labour can’t even be blamed anymore as the source of the public’s mistrust in the traditional alternative to the Tories. Through the uninspired Emperor’s New Clothes of Ed Miliband to the asylum-taking revolution of Jezza’s lunatics, the Labour Party has struggled to connect beyond its hardcore fan-base over the past five or six years and still hasn’t flushed out the toxic remnants of the Corbyn era, with the Identity Politics domination of the frontbench remaining a deterrent to the wider electorate. Following a similar flirtation with minority pursuits, the Lib Dems have experienced their own rejection by voters and appear to have addressed the issue of late by switching focus to the genuine concerns of the many rather than the First World obsessions of the few. Labour could learn lessons from that, but they won’t do so by denying only women have cervixes or propping up Boris every time he goes back on his word and introduces ever more draconian curbs on civil liberties.

Yes, the loss of North Shropshire is a blow to the Tories – and an embarrassing one, at that; but a governing party losing a by-election when it has held power for over a decade isn’t necessarily an indication that the governing party’s days in office are numbered. For that to be the case there has to be a mass conviction that the opposition is a government-in-waiting, as was found in 1964, 1979 and 1997. Right now, despite the car crash that is Boris Johnson’s administration, who really believes Keir Starmer has the best pair of hands to take control of the steering wheel? Well, certainly not the Labour voters of North Shropshire.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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PARTY LIKE IT’S 1939

Strange days produce strange heroes. Amongst the unlikely few standing up to be counted today include such left-wing Labour luminaries as Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler, Clive Lewis and Rebecca Long Bailey; and even though he’s now technically an independent, even old Jezza himself can be added to the list of those who rejected the latest hysterically authoritarian response to a variant more infectious yet less dangerous than all the other convenient variants that have conspired to extend restrictions till the end of time. Of course, their rebellion alongside the 99 Tories who voted against the Conservative Government’s introduction of draconian measures dismissed as conspiracy theorist hyperbole just a few months ago ultimately counted for nothing in terms of preventing legislation; but their stance marks them out as being in possession of a pair of bodily articles Keir Starmer sorely lacks. The Labour leader’s terminal inability to grow said articles is no great surprise; he’s the Deputy PM in all-but name, having enthusiastically supported every pandemic proposal like an even more supine Nick Clegg.

Last week, Sir Keir declared it was the public’s ‘patriotic duty’ to support ‘Plan B’ and the mandatory booster, so I guess those who weren’t prepared to queue up for hours at the crack of dawn like lemmings are guilty of treason – ditto those in Parliament who refused to sign-up to the strengthening of restrictions. These new rules make it compulsory for the vaccinated to produce papers and passes in order to gain access to specified venues, whilst those without are excluded. Yet, according to far more reliable medical testimony than can be found emanating from the likes of SAGE and their Communist manifesto, any vaccine is effectively ineffective against the Omnishambles Variant – which means the treble or quadruple-vaccinated who can mix and mingle at will are more likely to pass on the virus than the un-vaxxed looking in from the outside. Makes sense dunnit.

A majority of 243 – MPs voting 369 to 126 – was more than enough to give the Government a comfortable margin of victory to go ahead with everything they once swore they’d never introduce; but when one takes into account the sizeable number of backbenchers who chose to go with their conscience rather than opt for party loyalty, the humiliating scale of the rejection of their leader’s policy is telling – as is the fact none of this would have been possible without Boris’s lousy administration being propped-up by the so-called opposition. Other notable non-Tory MPs such as Caroline Lucas, Tim Farron, Layla Moran and Ian Paisley Jr combined to form the most surreal of coalitions, yet it is the party that is supposed to provide the main alternative to this lying, cheating, corrupt and thoroughly immoral Government that has missed every open goal presented to it, open goals that would have earned the electorate’s respect and – more crucially – their vote come the next General Election. But what else can Labour expect when led by such a contemptible cuck as Keir Starmer?

It goes without saying that the traditional way to assert one’s unhappiness with the leadership of one’s party is to register one’s disapproval during a crucial Commons vote, and it’s perhaps true to say the likes of Chris Grayling, Iain Duncan Smith, Liam Fox, Damian Green, David Davis, Esther McVey, Theresa Villiers and Andrea Leadsom were motivated by more than merely a sense of injustice when confronted by the further removal of civil liberties; there were undoubtedly old and long-standing axes hungry for grinding. At the same time, their votes need to be counted and remembered. None of those mentioned would have received an invite to last year’s Christmas non-party at Downing Street, yet their separate stances add up to a greater whole than just sour grapes at being excluded from airing their specialist subject whilst Boris got to play Magnus Magnusson.

As further evidence emerges of the abuse of restrictions the Government imposed on the rest of us in 2020 whilst they carried on regardless, the fact that prominent members of the governing party voted against even more punitive measures when confronted by one more variant while the majority of the main opposition party – bar a mere EIGHT opponents – saved Boris’s skin is a damning indictment of this nation’s political class. As if we needed another reminder. Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting – yes, the famous Wes Streeting – crowed at the PM’s loss of face within Conservative circles by claiming Boris’s authority is ‘shattered’ and went on to add, ‘This is an extraordinary, extraordinary rebellion. The Government has lost its majority. I think the size of that vote is a reflection of the shattered authority of Boris Johnson.’ Just in case you were wondering, the Wes Streeting voted with the Government. No alternate agenda there, then.

I saw a headline on the eve of yesterday’s Commons vote in which the ‘official’ Deputy Prime Minister (i.e. not Starmer) Dominic Raab was quoted as saying families could meet up at Christmas; I don’t know precisely when it was decided that the festive arrangements of people were dependent upon the say so of a Government Minister, but I think we all ought to raise a toast to Mr Raab after the Queen’s Speech on Xmas Day to thank him for his graciousness in allowing us all to gather together – even those who’ll be on their own. We are truly ‘umble. Of course, it’s thanks to the likes of the gracious Mr Raab that the quadruple-vaccinated will be spared the privations of last year; lest we forget, last Christmas I gave you my heart (even if the very next day, you gave it away) – not to mention the fact that last Christmas was also a time when most of us were subjected to the tiers of a clown and the instigators of the tiers were partying on behind closed doors; back then there was much talk of ‘social bubbles’.

In case you’ve forgotten, the bubble system was based upon limiting the number of folk one was allowed to come into contact with and mix amongst in one’s home. Conservative Party workers and MPs weren’t included in this system, naturally, even if we weren’t aware of that at the time, but many went along with the bubbles and rarely ventured beyond them. Some were already in them and had been long before any Chinese scientist ‘accidentally’ dropped a test tube, and the increasing unpleasantness of the wider world as this lamentable century progresses will probably see an ongoing reliance on the perceived safety of such bubbles. Speaking personally, mine is the sole source of comfort I can depend upon, and I guess I’m not alone.

The world beyond the bubble appears to be careering towards a very dark place indeed, resembling a runaway train on which the brakes aren’t working, with the pandemic being the oil on the wheels contributing towards its ultimate crash. I can’t look forward five, let alone ten years because all I can see is the once-free world reborn as the Soviet Union or North Korea. The seeds have already been sown in Australia and New Zealand as well as past offenders like Austria and Germany, and it’s creeping closer to England via Wales and Scotland. People are resisting in small doses, but they’re up against the weight of the State, the mainstream media and every imaginable corporation – none more so than big tech and big pharma. Right now, it seems as though we’re living through our very own 1939, and we all know what comes next. I’m just thankful I’ve only got about 25 years left at best. I think the worst thing in 2021 would be to be 18, knowing you’ve got perhaps 75 to go. No wonder I’m forever blowing bubbles.

© The Editor

Website: https://www.johnnymonroe.co.uk/

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