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Local’ MPs can’t give leadership we need

Administrator Uncategorised
 
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‘Local’ MPs can’t give leadership we need

 
7–8 minutes

Most voters will have noticed by now that a general election is taking place and that the key date is July 4, polling day. But for would-be MPs there is another date that is just as important, or even more so: June 7. That’s this Friday, the day nominations close at 4pm. By then, all candidates must be chosen.

This is the week, therefore, when the identity of the next MP is, in many seats, effectively decided. It’s the week in which Labour HQ can use temporary powers to shoehorn high-flyers loyal to Sir Keir Starmer into seats that otherwise would not have selected them; the week for Diane Abbott to torment her leader after his botched attempt to stop her standing; the week for Conservative bosses to check that none of their new candidates will defect to Labour like some of the old ones.

 

It’s the week in which smaller parties scramble to ensure they have candidates at all — particularly Reform UK, which had to apologise for admonishing a candidate for inactivity only to find that he’d been dead for several weeks. Behind the scenes, it’s a frantic week.

As a result, by Friday we will have confirmation of an important trend in the composition of our next parliament. Not which party will command it — that really is up to you on July 4. But we are highly likely to see that, whichever party wins, there will be more MPs than ever before who claim a close connection with their seat, that they are a true “local” representative. Never mind whether they could sit down with Joe Biden or eyeball Vladimir Putin — they will show, in their rapid response to your emails, they know about that months-old pothole from those recent roadworks. They will prioritise the parish meeting no matter what is going on in the wider world.

Taking up local issues, even though they are usually matters decided by councillors or other local bodies, has always been part of an MP’s role. But something has changed in the past 20 years: it has become most of an MP’s role. Answering the torrent of messages has taken over from legislating in MPs’ daily work. Voters increasingly demand a truly local MP. The parties obligingly respond to this by providing one.

It’s an understandable trend: people are mystified about who is accountable for what. They seek someone who will at least campaign for something locally in a world where bigger issues seem impossible to resolve. Yet the overall effect is very worrying. Instead of a national parliament, we are moving towards a meeting of local representatives, each pleading for their own area. The House of Commons is being turned into Birmingham city council on a bigger scale, and we all know what just happened to that.

Assiduous research by others has shown the trend. Analysis by Philip Cowley showed that at the last election 43 per cent of new Conservative MPs and 52 per cent of new Labour MPs were councillors — much higher proportions than in the past. In this election, those percentages will go higher still. Michael Crick’s work suggests that, prior to the election announcement, the great majority of Labour’s new candidates were “local” and perhaps two thirds of Conservative associations had picked a serving or former councillor when selecting a new candidate. Sir Ed Davey’s first appeal in the election was to say the Liberal Democrats would offer “local champions”. It’s a far cry from Gladstone rousing the nation with a vision of liberal values for the world.

I would not deny that many councillors make good MPs, nor understate the importance of an MP being responsive to constituents. In my time as an MP I toured my constituency almost every weekend, even when foreign secretary. But that does not mean that parliament should be dominated by former councillors. The prime minister who had the most distinguished local government career was Neville Chamberlain, famously described as viewing everything “through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe”.

The problem is that the obsession with localism, in Crick’s words, “greatly restricts choice. Budding candidates have fewer seats they can realistically try for, while the party has less choice, so it reduces the quality of the candidates”. The parties seem to understand this, which is why the last-minute selections of recent days involve the imposition, in Labour’s case, or a very short list, in the Tory case, of promising future politicians who have run think tanks, been special advisers or been close to the party leaders. This brings the opposite problem — of limited local input into the choice of an MP — but is a reaction to the underlying trend of localism at all costs.

Britain does need vibrant local democracy, which is why elected mayors with more powers are a good idea. It also needs, however, a strong national parliament, with members who can get there on account of their great ability, irrespective of where they grew up. We will need in the future our Churchill, Thatcher, Callaghan, Cameron or Macmillan — none of whom represented a local constituency.

There is a danger of parliament becoming more like a conference of many pressure groups than a gathering of leaders. Starmer’s commitment to ban almost all second jobs for MPs threatens to accentuate that trend, with fewer experienced MPs staying in the Commons and a public sector outlook predominating. Future MPs, it seems, must not only be predominantly focused on local matters but not allow anything to distract them. The paradox is they will face dangers that are overwhelmingly global and must seize opportunities that require the promotion of entrepreneurship.

What made the biggest impact on all our lives in the last parliament? Covid. Its origin was international. The defences against it relied on the ingenuity of business and science. What might be the greatest dangers of the next five years, the term of these candidates being nominated this week? A new pandemic, a rampant Russia, a crisis with China, a financial meltdown, a climate catastrophe, uncontrolled mass migration — take your pick. They are all global in nature. Where will the greatest opportunities lie? Leadership in AI, transforming the modern state and public services, developing the best talent in the world — all require leaps of imagination in national leadership.

As the issues become more global, our expectations of future leaders have become more local. There is a widening mismatch that political parties must address more coherently than rushing high-flyers into seats this week. In the meantime, we all have a part to play. When the candidates come to the door, ask something more than if they went to the school down the street. Ask how they will lead in a world where the events that change your life come from much further away than that.

 

 
 

Who are Reform UK - The party seen through its candidates' words

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politics.co.uk
 

Who are Reform UK - The party seen through its candidates' words

William Bracken
14–17 minutes

Reform UK is now the third largest political force in the country.   According to the BBC’s latest figures, the party is polling at around 11%, half that of the Conservatives, more than the Liberal Democrats, and double that of the Greens.

As we head towards a general election on July 4th, Reform is set to field a candidate in every seat across England, Wales and Scotland. Indeed, over 510 of these aspirant MPs are now in place.

Yet, despite all this, very little is known about Reform UK.

Having analysed the 242 candidate statements that were pinned to the Reform UK website at the start of May, this article seeks to address that imbalance.

***Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.***

Reviewing the people of the Reform UK though their own words, we take one of the deepest dives yet, to try to understand what makes our newest political party tick.

What we find is something quite removed from anything Britain has seen before.

The background of the party’s candidates, the language they use, and their disparate (and sometimes conflicting) policy priorities are the very antithesis of the traditional political machine.

Instead we give you the underbelly of Britain’s very own ‘MAGA’ movement.

A very different type of candidate…

Pitching itself as the antidote to the political establishment, Reform UK has attracted a very different type of political candidate.

Amongst the most interesting, this crop of Reform candidates includes an interior designer who has once worked with the Houses of Parliament (Beverley England, South Suffolk), a former blackjack dealer at the then Playboy Casino in Park Lane (Antony Love, Ipswich), and a contracted Immigration Overseas Escort (Steven Adelantado, North East Hertfordshire).   Bucking the trend in coming from the corporate world, Martin York (Congleton) informs everyone that he was once a ‘direct report’ to the late Steve Jobs of Apple fame.

Where Polimapper’s recent Class of 24 study showed the mainstream political parties to have selected a sixth of their new candidates from those with a background in academia or the law, with close to another third having spent their working lives in and around politics, this is emphatically not the Reform UK way.

Amongst our pool of 242 Reform candidates, there are double digit numbers of teachers, nurses, sales people, IT developers, accountants and engineers.  With tradesman (electricians, plumbers, builders) accounting for the largest number of Reform UK candidates, our sample also threw up 2 lorry drivers, 2 chefs, a black cab driver, a tree surgeon, a driving instructor and a pub landlord.

On top, a sixth of our Reform candidate pool (15%) are military veterans, triple that of any other national political party, and quadruple that seen across the population as a whole.

Within these candidate’s personal statements, there is also a notable army of returning ‘ex pats’.  Indeed it is striking quite how many Reform candidates reference their time working and living abroad. So much so, that you can’t help thinking that these experiences must be part causal to the political outlook on offer.

Yet where most new MPs can’t swear themselves into Westminster fast enough, this isn’t as yet a given with Reform UK….

Paul Hopkins (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) states that, “I don’t want to be a politician, I have no choice”.  Nick Taylor (Norwich North) tells us that “I don’t need a new career in politics”’ before adding, “Frankly I’m busy enough already”. Introducing himself to the voters, Darren Selkus (Hertsmere) draws on a double negative with a pitch that goes, “I’m not politician and to be honest don’t want to be one”.

Very different political language

Beyond the contrasting make-up of this candidate pool, the second factor that demarcates Reform UK from the field is the language deployed by its aspirants for public office.

Reading through these 242 personal statements, each of which is hosted no less on the official Reform UK website, you are struck by the bluntness, and indeed basic hostility, within some of the messaging.

Cutting straight to the chase, Robert Reaney (Bolsover) describes how he is sick of watching “car-crash politics”, lambasts “ambulance-chasing politicians, who leap on the latest disaster to score some minor political point”, before going on to ask in terms of law making, “how much further on are we than the Magna Carta?”

Steve Attridge (Coventry South) rails against the “Westminster feeding frenzy of salaries, expenses, privileges”, whilst Saba Poursaeedi (Harpenden and Berkhamsted ) accuses the political class of “robbing us blind and selling off the rest at half-price”.   Bill Piper (South Leicestershire) and Ian Edward Hayes (Leicester West) are just two who echo the Trump mantra of needing to clear the “swamp” not the people.

With consensus politics having exited the building, Sam Woods-Brass (Houghton and Sunderland South) describes how the word Conservative turns his “stomach into fits of rage”, whilst his colleague Peter Storms (Bournemouth West) writes how “A Labour government, being communists at its core, wants to destroy Great Britain”.

Before we go on, remember that according to the BBC figures, this is the UK’s third largest political force.

Yet as these candidates ratchet many notches away from the mainstream of UK politics, we have seen little if any scrutiny of the phraseology being deployed within the Reform UK personal statements.

Nowhere is that more prevalent than on immigration.

Detailing his thoughts on the official Reform UK website, Michael Bagley (South Devon) asserts that, “the dependents of migrants tend to be non-working and reliant on state support”.  Jonathan Thackray (Dewsbury and Batley) advances that “illegal immigrants don’t have to worry about putting bread on the table”. Helen Rose O’Hare (Sherwood Forest) bemoans hotels full of illegal immigrants who are “almost entirely fighting age males”.

The drive to net zero is also on the receiving end of this style of Reform UK treatment.  Characterised as a “dangerous false ideology” by Robert Hall-Palmer (Newark), it is a “demented” distraction for Barry Morgan (Barrow and Furness), and “Net Stupid” for Andy McWilliam (Loughborough).   Turning words into action, Prabhdeep Singh (Feltham and Heston) details his recent week long “hunger strike” outside Uxbridge tube station, all in the name of ULEZ opposition.

With many a Reform UK candidate hell bent on tackling the ‘woke revolution’, so the theme continues.

Anthony Mack (Clacton) fumes of “discrimination against the people of Britain in favour of foreign arrivals or minorities”.  Martin Hess (Hove and Portslade) maintains that “the wokerati have made us a more colour conscious society through their obsession with white guilt and critical race theory”.

As Simon Evans (West Lancashire) likens “woke doctrine” to the arrival of the “Orwellian state”, Barry Morgan (Barrow and Furness) abhors the Equalities Act such that he will press “to expunge from these shores all reference to the divisive antiphrastic diktat of diversity, equity and inclusion”.

If they had been uttered within an alternative UK political party, a good number of these statements would likely have cost their proponent the party whip, or led to candidate de-selection.  Lee Anderson MP (Ashfield) can testify to that.

Yet having been published on the party’s main website, in the world of Reform UK, it seems there is little for a Reform UK candidate to worry about. Not least of course, because within Reform UK, there is also no such thing as a ‘party whip’.

A very different approach to party policy

This very different approach to collective policy is the third factor which so differentiates Reform UK from the political mainstream.

Paul Donaghy (Washington and Gateshead South) champions the “NO whip system” as the basis for him being “free” to make decisions that are in the best interests of his constituents, in turn begging the question as to how Reform UK expects to magic up decisive government.

In practice, this ‘no whip’ system also serves as a convenient approach for the party.

Based on the ferocity and diversity of the personal statements that we have reviewed, it is hard not to conclude that Reform UK would simply be ‘unwhippable’.

For although many of the candidates hail from a Conservative background, with 19 in our sample referencing their former Conservative Party membership (including the onetime Chairman of David Cameron’s constituency association), they are not universally so.   Amongst the candidate pool we also found at least three former Labour Party members.

Bridging the divide, James Crocker (Stratford on Avon) can probably claim a political first by simultaneously stating that his “heroes and influences” include both Milton Friedman and Brian Clough.  The first being the free market monetarist economist once so adored by Margaret Thatcher, the second being the late football manager to whom socialism famously ‘came from the heart’, and whose comments are tweeted out by Jeremy Corbyn.

With the term collective responsibility absent from the index of the Reform UK playbook, we also discover a whole variety of tunes being sung out.

Christopher Thornhill (North East Cambridgeshire) considers himself an “environmentalist” and writes about the “need to ween ourselves off fossil-based fuels”.  Noting how it “might sound contradictory” to Reform’s more commonplace attitude toward net zero, James Grice (Rushcliffe) references his business interest in renewable energy.

On constitutional matters, one has the suspicion that Roger Clark (Harrow East) is going further than many of his colleagues, when he states that “many serious reforms are urgently required at every institutional level” adding the “Head of State and the Royal Family” to his list.

Far from pampering to the concept of laissez-faire government, one that is so revered by many a Reform UK candidate, others appear to have taken an economic branch line. Chris Eynon (Sunderland Central) references the “national shipbuilding strategy”, whilst Teresa De Santis (Chichester) writes how “Reform will rebuild Great Britain by investing in industry like the British Steel we were once so proud of”.

This freedom for Reform UK candidates to espouse their own personal programmes for office, all published on Reform UK’s own website, exudes none of the stage management that typifies the launch of a conventional party manifesto.

Moreover it also throws up a very wide range of random policy priorities.

Raj Forhad (Ilford South) urges investment in “free mobile gyms for young generation”. Leslie Lilley (Southend East and Rochford) – not incidentally the only candidate who loves a capital letter – focuses on the “need to deal with the FLOUIDE in water (POISON English Dictionary)”. James Crocker (Stratford on Avon) is animated about “uncoordinated roadworks”, whilst Sarah Wood (Spen Valley) lambasts the banking sector for “when and how I may withdraw my money”.

Looking to the past as well as the future, Jack Brookes (Birmingham Erdington) advocates “bringing back the gold standard” to tackle inflation, whereas Ash Leaning (North Dorset) asks, “What happened to national service?” before positing the question (post Brexit), “Why do I need a visa to go on a slightly longer holiday or travel in Europe?”

And so we could go on, but I suspect you get the gist.

The grass roots movement and the absent leader?

Across the 242 personal statements we sampled, the comparison with the ‘Make America Great Again’ movement is striking.   Rather than being driven and united by an ideological belief system, these disparate candidate statements are better seen as being tied together by their emotions, variously venting out both fury and indeterminate sentiments of despair.

Joseph Kirby (Birmingham Edgbaston) and Pamela Walford (Maldon) are amongst a number whose very call to arms is “Let’s Make Britain Great Again!” Andrew Southall (Dudley) exhorts, “I want my country back. I want to prise it out of the hands of the woke, globalist establishment and give it back to the citizens of this country”.

For American born Teressa De Santis (Chichester), we are told that the 2024 general election is a “once in a lifetime vote to save Great Britain”.  Fortunate then, that her colleague David Robert Burgess-Joyce (Wallasey – and one time Chief Officer of the Merseyside Police Special Constabulary), believes that there is a “strong chance Reform UK will win big” in the impending contest.

Yet in this ‘Make Britain Great Again Movement’, there is currently, no Donald Trump.

Although the party’s formal leader, Richard Tice (previously Hartlepool – now suddenly Boston and Skegness) has been slightly more visible this year on our television screens, there have long been questions as to whether a grass roots movement like Reform UK could meaningfully ever progress without a heavyweight political figurehead.

Known by 98% of the public, and according to YouGov still popular with 38% of them, in Honorary Party President, Nigel Farage, Reform UK had its potential Donald Trump.

Flashing like a beacon on the Reform UK website, Boston and Skegness, the highest ‘Leave’ voting constituency in the whole of the UK, has for some time been lacking a Reform UK candidate.

Having written here recently about how all the cards appeared to be coming together for a future Farage roadmap, reflecting therein on the extent to which Nigel Farage appeared to be (so brilliantly) ’gaming’ the Conservative Party, yesterday’s draft of this article was penned with the conclusion that the Boston and Skegness seat was surely being reserved in his name.

But in the end I was wrong.

Having “thought long and hard”, Nigel Farage has just announced that he won’t be joining the collective of Reform UK candidates standing for election on July 4th.

As Honorary Party President, Farage can of course still be expected to make a few choice media appearances during the upcoming campaign, but ultimately, actions speak louder than words.

Even for one of Britain’s most canny and successful political operators, the prospect of leading the folks in Reform UK, appears to be, just one challenge too many.

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our free daily newsletter here.

 
 

Voting in Blackpool Bi-election 2024

Administrator Uncategorised

IN CASE you have not had the time to dig out the actual figures for the voting in Thursday’s Blackpool South by-election, readers might be interested to see them – by that I mean the hard data. 

The MSM (especially the mendacious and deceitful Beeb) have been very keen to tell us how the electorate registered (by implication) a massive 26 per cent swing from the Tories to Labour and how their margin of victory was 7,607 votes, overturning the 2019 general election Tory majority of 3,690. But what they are very keen to keep hidden and will definitely not highlight for us are the actual number of votes cast for each party compared with 2019.    

So, here they are:

(There were a number of other minor candidates.)

These figures cast a somewhat different light on the picture as no doubt they would too nationwide, if checked. Contrary to the impression given by the broadcasters, no ‘extra’ people voted for Labour in Blackpool South. In fact their vote dropped by 14 per cent but they took the seat because the Tories’ vote collapsed. Of course, you could argue that it is excellent news that they lost the seat and, hopefully, this is a harbinger of a massive Tory wipe-out when the useless Sunak eventually calls a General Election. However Labour should not get too cocky on the basis of this result. The Tories stayed at home; they didn’t switch to Labour.  

The only party to increase the absolute number of votes were Reform UK, who added over 50 per cent to their figures. Sadly this is nowhere near enough to give them even a sniff of victory. I suppose one can take some comfort from the fact that both the Lib-Dems and the Greens suffered a significant fall in support, too.

The figures given by the MSM for the London mayoral election are equally misleading. Labour’s Sadiq Khan polled just over one million votes but the 40 per cent turnout means that only 17.7 per cent of registered voters supported him. Put another way, he is in office for the next four years with the endorsement of fewer than one in five Londoners. 

This of course was not as Sunday Times chief political commentator Tim Shipman told it in his newsletter yesterday. He simply reported how Sadiq Khan had wrapped up ‘a comfortable win by 44 per cent to 33 per cent over Tory Susan Hall’.