The Saturday List #447 - The first seven things I'd do if I became Prime Minister (not policies or appointments)

 Have you ever thought about it, what you'd do if you were Prime Minister? I'm not talking about policies or who I'd put in the cabinet. I'm talking about the practical things, which might send some sort of signal to the country. 

1. Play some music before I made my incoming speech. You have spent years working for this moment. You arrive at No 10 and there is an adoring crowd.  Why not have a bit of a party. I'd love to walk up to the podium to the Vibrators tune Into The Future.

2. Paint the door of No 10 Downing Street in Rainbow colours. Give the haters something to rant about. It looks so boring in black.  It would also give the Tories a chance to show how boring they are if they ever came back, they could paint it black again. 

3. Buy the Coppers who stand on Guard duty a nice bottle of scotch each. I'd want to stay onside with them.

4.  Put a cat flap in for Larry. He's on the team, he should have his own door!

5. Repaint the railings in light Blue. I'm a Man ity fan and I think it's only right to show this. Also blue is a much less boring colour than black.

6. Buy all of the press camped outside some sandwiche and donuts and have a chat with them. Get them onside. 

7. Change the National Anthem to something less dirgy. As PM you must hear it all the time. It would annoy me intensly. 

Labour wins a landslide and the Borough of Barnet turns red!

 Before I wrote this blog, I re-read the blog I wrote after Boris Johnson won a hefty majority in 2019. How things have changed. At the time, it seemed like Labour was damaged beyond repair. It seemed like the Tories would be in power for another decade. Boris Johnson's popularity was at it's height and locally it seemed to me that Labour was finished. The anti semitism in the Labour party had seemingly done for Labour locally. The election had been rather toxic locally and the Hendon Labour candidate David Pinto-Duschinsky had been given a proper duffing up by voters at the ballot box and  a very hard time at the local hustings. In Finchley, the Lib Dems parachuted in Luciana Berger and would have won had Labour not run a hard kamikaze campaign. In Chipping Barnet, Theresa Villiers got a nasty scare and the Lib Dems returned the favour for Finchley, keeping the Tories in. I despaired.

Since then, things have changed beyond all recognition. Boris gave way to Truss, who was outlasted by the lettuce. Rishi Sunak came in and gave us all an object lesson why being clever does not necessarily mean you have any common sense. I wanted to say some nice things about Sunak's time as Prime Minister, out of fairness and balance, but I genuinely cannot think of anything positive that he's done in that time. Imagine spending your life building a political career, reaching the pinnacle and then achieving nothing apart from the virtual destruction of your party. At a stretch, you could say that he's undone some of the economic damage that Liz Truss inflicted on the UK. The UK isn't seen as quite the basket case it was when he took over. Should we congratulate him for undoing the chaos his own party inflicted on us?

Anyway, enough of the past. Lets have a look at last night. On Tuesday, I gave my predictions for the local seats.

My prediction is as follows

Hendon - Labour by 5,000 votes

Finchley - Labour by 3,000 votes

Chipping Barnet by 2,500 votes. 

So how did I do? Lets start with Hendon. I got the result right but the margin rather wrong. 

The turnout was 55.4%

Here are the results in order of the candidate's surnames.

• BAILEY, Gabrielle Louise     Green Party     Votes: 2,667
• ENDERBY, Clareine     Liberal Democrats     Votes: 1,966
• GIBSON, Jane     Social Democratic Party     Votes: 139
• JOGIA, Ameet     Conservatives     Votes: 15,840
• PALEKAR, Imtiaz     Workers Party     Votes: 1,518
• PEARL, Joshua Leon     Reform UK     Votes: 3,038
• PINTO-DUSCHINSKY, David (ELECTED)     Labour Party     Votes: 15,855
• REND, Ben     Rejoin EU     Votes: 233

Labour's David Pinto-Duschinsky won by a mere 15 votes after three recounts. I am amazed by this result. Just about no one I know who previously voted Conservative was doing so this time. Last time out Matthew Offord won by 4,000 votes. 

OFFORD, MatthewCon        26,878    48.8%

PINTO-DUSCHINSKY, David    Lab    22,648    41.1%

ENDERBY, Clareine    LD    4,628    8.4%

VINCENT-KIRBY, Portia    Green    921    1.7% 

Turnout 66%

The first thing to note is an 11% drop in turnout. The Tories have shed 11,000 votes since 2019, which is massive. It appears that 3,000 of those went to Reform, and 8,000 simply stayed at home. As for Labour, David Pinto-Duschinsky has shed 7,000 votes. It seems that all of them simply stayed at home. As you will see from my predictions, I did not anticipate this. I assumed that he would get around 22,000 votes and Jogia would get 17,000 when I was doing my sums. I can understand why local Tories would be so fed up, I thought there would be more excitement for Labour given the prospect of winning. I have to surmise that the tory strategy of talking up the risks of a supermajority, to some extent, worked.

In our political system, if you win by one vote, you win. As he goes home for a bit of rest, Pinto-Duschinsky will not really care too much about the margin. He has the gig for five years and he has time to make a name for himself. Ameet Jogia, the Conservative may feel he 'did well' coming so close. I think this would be a huge mistake if the Tories think that. He's shed over 11,000 votes. I thought his campaign was awful. I have no doubt that, on these numbers, Matthew Offord would have won, had he not legged it. He had a very strong personal vote, mostly amongst our most conservative religious groups. I would have expected Offord to have got 2-3,000 more votes than Jogia, just through alliances he's built up over the years. Jogia's campaign strategy was appalling. Making a campaign against McDonlads in Mill Hill was plain idiotic. If he'd highlighted Labours plans to allow green belt development as a central plank, I have no doubt, he'd have got more than the 16 extra votes he needed to win. It is clear that Hendon is a very Conservative leaning seat and that Jogia threw it away, rather than doing well to keep it so tight.  I spoke to one of my friends from Mill Hill Synagogue yesterday. I asked how the hustings there went. He said "They hated all of them". When the local Tories do their post mortem, I'd suggest that they see this as a missed open goal, rather than a great performance.

As to the other parties. Reform clearly nicked enough votes to let Labour in. I am not exactly sure that their supporters will be too chuffed, although it must be said that the Green/Lib Dem vote is bigger than Reform, so both sides could claim that they've suffered from this effect. 

The Turnout was 63%

• DEANE, Alex     Conservatives     Votes: 17,276
• DONNELLY, Brendan Patrick     Rejoin EU     Votes: 486
• HOYLE, Sarah     Liberal Democrats     Votes: 3,375
• MURPHY, Katharine Margaret     Party Of Women     Votes: 318
• PARSONS, Steve     Green Party     Votes: 3,107
• PEZZULLI, Bepi     Reform UK     Votes: 2,598
• SACKMAN, Sarah (ELECTED)     Labour Party     Votes: 21,857
• SHAD, Michael     Independent     Votes: 272

Sarah Sackman comfortably beat my prediction of 3,000, winning by 4,500. More heartening for Sarah was that even if every Reform voter went back to the Tories, she'd still have won. It was great to see both the Lib Dems and Greens beating Reform. I consider Sarah to be a friend and am delighted. I suspect that she'll get a top job at some point in this parliament. In truth, this seat went exactly as I expected it to.

As you can see from the results last time, Freer got in due to a split vote. The Lib Dem vote was boosted by anti Corbyn candidate Luciana Berger. This factor disappeared this time. I must note a classy tTwitter post in Finchley from Alex Deane, the Tory. this is how you do it ( I note no such tweet in Hendon or Barnet) - Well done Alex

Not the result we’d hoped for but I’m proud to have been the candidate for @Finchleytories. Thanks to everyone who helped the campaign.

Many congratulations to @sarahsackman who will be a great MP for a great part of our city.

— Alex Deane (@ajcdeane) July 5, 2024

 Here are the results from last time

*Mike Freer (C) 24,162 (43.84%, -3.11%)

Luciana Berger (LD) 17,600 (31.94%, +25.33%)

Ross Houston (Lab) 13,347 (24.22%, -19.58%)

The Tories shed around 7,000 votes. This was very much in line with my expectations. I have to say that I am more than happy to see the back of Mike Freer. My personal experience of him was of a very unprincipled, thin skinned and dishonest character. His rather nasty comments about my family when my Mum died in 2008 in the Hendon Times were perhaps the most disgusting thing I've personally experienced (with the exception of his mate Brian Coleman taunting me about my prostate cancer). 

And finally we go to Chipping Barnet. 

Turnout was 65.5%

• DURRANT, Mark James     Liberal Democrats     Votes: 2,614
• FARBEY, David Samuel     Green Party     Votes: 3,442
• HADDOW, Hamish     Reform UK     Votes: 3,986
• HEWISON, Richard     Party: Rejoin EU     Votes: 379
• LAUER, Kay     Independent     Votes: 182
• TOMLINSON, Dan (ELECTED)     Labour Party     Votes: 21,585
• VILLIERS, Theresa Anne     Conservatives     Votes: 18,671

Of the three seats, this had the highest turnout and the biggest Tory vote. I expected this, given that Theresa Villiers was the incumbent and has a bit of a loyal following. My prediction was pretty close. the Reform vote technically could have saved Villiers, had they all voted Tory, but to be honest I suspect most of them were sick of the Tories and would probably have stayed at home. In my estimates, incumbency can give you 1,500-2,500 votes if you do a decent job. If an MP helps someone, they generally are well disposed towards them. Villiers has been active in protecting the green belt and associated with a few local campaigns. It wasn't enough to save her in the current circumstances, but I think she can draw some comfort in outperforming her fellow Barnet Tories.

A few things I note. Firstly, why was the turnout 10% higher in Chipping than in Hendon? I suspect this was actually down to the fact that there was a perception the Tories had a chance. It was in play. I suspect that many in Hendon assumed that the Tories would simply lose and couldn't be bothered to vote. If I was Labour, I'd take a long look at their strategy in Hendon, when the dust settles. My guess is that 15,840 people who voted Tory are the absolute hard core, who would vote for a Donkey if it had a blue rosette. David Pinto-Duschinsky should have polled 18-20,000 this time by my estimates. I do think that locally Labour make a mistake by concentrating on getting their hardcore vote  out, rather than reaching out to those who are there to be persuaded. This nearly cost them.

And finally a few words on the national results. As a Lib Dem, I am delighted with the party's performance. In terms of seats, the best in my lifetime. I am also rather chuffed to see some rather horrible Tories consigned to the dustbin. Top of the list, Jacob Rees-Mogg (who was my brothers MP). I was not surprised that Jeremy Hunt survived. He has often given the impression that he's the last sane and rational Tory left in Parliament. The Lib Dems ran a strong campaign, but it was always going to be harder to unseat someone on the left of the Tories. As I suspected, Reform performed atrociously in terms of seats. It was clear to me after their Nuremberg Rally style event on Sunday, that the party is very badly run as a political machine. No doubt Farage will claim he is the real victor, but he isn't. He's put together an organisation that gets millions of votes, but he is really the only recipient of the benefit. It will be interesting to see how he gets on with 30p Lee as they jostle for attention. Both men seem very vain and narcissistic to me. Is Reform big enough for both of them. I predict that by the end of this Parliament, one will be an Independent (or a Tory). 

And as for the Conservatives? A period of bloodletting will follow. The right will want them to move to the area occupied by Reform. The sensible ones will point out that it is the Lib Dems that did the damage and these voters will not return if the swivel eyed mob take over. 

And finally. Thank God it's all over. Not just the election, but the fourteen years of Tory misrule. I really don't think it will be easy for Sir Keir Starmer. He may well find that by the start of next year, he's got to deal with a Fascist government in France, Donald Trump in the USA and heaven only knows what else. We already have a Fascist in Italy. It could be that he's alone as a liberally minded leader in the G7. I don't envy him.

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Wrong! How everything and nothing has changed since the 1979 election

I was clearing out some old papers yesterday. I am the worlds worst horder, and I found a box of very old lyrics from the earliest days of the band, back in very early 1979. Back then, like today,  there was politlcal chaos, the country seemed as if it was literally falling apart. I was a sixteen year old at Orange Hill School and I'd just formed the False Dots with Pete Conway. We were obsessed with Punk and bands like Crass, anarchists who believed that the whole system was rotten. They were a brilliant live band, one of the best I've seen and many of their political messages resonated with me (many still do "Fight war not wars" being the best example). When we started the band, we wrote "The False Dots manifeso" which was directly influenced by Crass.  The songs we wrote were like very bad Crass songs. I think our hearts were in the right place, but our musical abilities were very limited and in truth trying to sound like Crass was very much a dead end for us. By the end of 1979, our tastes and talents had moved on. We binned all of the overtly political songs and started again.

I was a sixteen year old at Orange Hill School when the band started. My knowledge of the world, politics and life was shaped by punk rock attitudes, Rock Against Racism and The Anti Nazi League. Incidents like when we reacted badly to Eric Claptons racist comments, that launched Rock Against Racism shaped our mindset. Clapton had been known as "God" by Hippies in the 1960s, but to quote Monty Python, he wasn't the messiah, he was a very naughty boy. We decided that we'd never want to be like him (I still don't). The Callaghan government of the day was useless, we had the winter of discontent. Thatcher seemed like a malignant demon, set to rip apart society and put us paupers in our place. She talked of smashing union power. To us, Unions represented the people. Do you really want to smash your own people? was the obvious question for me. She talked of privatisation. That was taking things owned by the people and giving it to profiteers which just seemed plain wrong headed and still does. Her manifesto said "We need more compulsory attendance centres for hooligans at junior and senior levels. In certain detention centres we will experiment with a tougher regime as a short, sharp shock for young criminals.". As Punks, this seemed aimed at us. The term hooligan was one that had all manner of connotations at the time. We took it to mean people that Thatcher didn't like the look of.

Having written the False Dots manifesto, we wrote a song that encapsulated it. The song was simply called "Wrong". It was one of the songs we abandoned at the end of the year. It has sat in a box ever since. Unused and unloved. Until yesterday. I read it, with the benefit of fourty five years distance. I was transported back to 1979 and the death of the Callaghan government and the rise of Thatcherism. And reading it, I had to ask myself  "Who was wrong"? In many ways, 2024 mirrors, but reverses the scene in 1979. An encumbant government that has all but collapsed and run out of energy, up against an alternative that offers little hope for young people. The big difference between Starmer and Thatcher is that Thatcher was shouting from the rafters what she wanted to do. Starmer has nothing to say at all. Does he plan a Thatcher style dismantling of the Tory legacy of the last fourteen years? To be honest, the more I look at it, the less legacy there is to dismantle. We just need things to start working properly. Maybe what we need is an unabitious, competent manager? Maybe a Thatcher style bonfire of the last 20 years will finish us off. 

One big difference between now and then is the access to information. There was no internet and only three TV channels. People got news from the papers. You read the papers that reflected your views. In my house, my Tory Dad read The Daily Express and my Socialist Mum read The Guardian. I read both. I was always struck by how two different, supposed honest papers could present news about things in such different ways. In truth, I preferred the populist, less wordy approach of the Daily Express, with it's comic strips such as James Bond and Jeff Hawke and snappy football coverage. I tended to agree more with the Guardian, but being dyslexic, found the wordy style a bit offputting. I perservered and still get both. One day, I sat down with Pete Conway to write new songs. We started comparing stories in the Express and The Guardian and noticed the difference. The Express was demonising 'lefty unions'. The Guardian was sympathetic to downtrodden workers. But it was clear that neither side was telling the whole story. We speculated as to what the ordinary man could possibly make of it all. The first verse of Wrong summed up our view of this truth deficit.

Do you consider yourself a thinking person

Or an object for others to manipulate

Nobody's immortal

No one is unreplacable

Consider yourself in the middle of the sea

You can scream all you like

But no one cares

Bear in mind, Pete and I were sixteen. The song is about the attitude of authority and power to ordinary people. They hide the truth from us, spin stories and tug on our heart strings. The Tories rely on our personal greediness to win votes, Labour rely on exploiting our good nature, Reform scare us with tales of the tiny percentage of immigrants who are not nice, The Lib Dems leap into lakes full of shit to catch our attention. But no one is saying "As a nation, we are fucked unless we spend a lot more money on health, social care, roads, railways, education and the environment. All of this lying has lead us to a situation where we rely on other countries for electricity and food. There has been more debate about whether women can have penis's in this campaign than how we can ensure the elderly members of society are safe and secure. Who decided that we'd ignore the fundamental problems facing the UK?  In 1979, we had really limited channels of information. Now we are deluged. In some ways, we get less now, because it is so much easier to live in an echo chamber. 

It is imperative that we all vote. I will be crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I may sound very despondent about the choice. The truth is that I do have hope, but I am prepared for it to be shattered. Whatever comes next must be better than the last few years, mustn't it?

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We don't ask for any cash from anyone to support my work writing this blog. It would however be appreciated if you gave my band a bit of love. You can follow us on Spotify by clicking here. 

The False Dots are playing at 5pm at Fortune Green Park in West Hampstead this Saturday for the 50th Annual Jestefest. 

If you need a pick me up, come down for a party!

A weekend of amazing music, food and fun - The East Barnet Festival 2024

 What were you doing last weekend? I can tell you what I was doing (when I wasn't watching England). I was at the East Barnet Festival. If you've never heard of it, it's the biggest community festival in the London Borough of Barnet. For the last few years, I've been involved with the festival and helped get the line up together, with Al Pascal of Al Pascal music school and local musician Dave Towler. We spent six months listening to submissions and trying to sort out three days of interesting and different music. I think we did a pretty good job. There were some amazing performances. My picks of the day were The Alan Warner Band, Brook Law, Subverse and Visions of Order. Alan is the band leader of 60's icons The Foundations, this is his other band, where he plays the covers he loves. Brook Law is a truly awesome female singer. If there is any justice in the world, she will become a massive star. Maddie from Subverse is a brilliant vocalist, The show was opened by Visions of Order who did an great selection of their self penned ballads. 

It was not just the bands. On Sunday there was an amazing classic car show, if you are a petrol head and you like nice motors. There was an amazing selection of cars, as you can see from the picture and a huge amount of interest in them. Cars have become a bit of a dirty word in political circles, every single change that has been made in the transport policy in the last 20 years, has been designed to get these sort of motors off the road.  I happen to think many classic cars are things of great beauty and long may we have such car shows!

There was also a funfair. I am sorry to say that I am past the stage in my life where I enjoy such rides, but for families having a fun fair in the park is a wonderful thing and many parents were throughly enjoying the day. 

There were also some amazing food stands. I very much enjoyed the Pastel De Nata (my fave pudding) from the Portuguese stall. I also had a Moroccan beef wrap from the Moroccan stall. The owner was a lovely bloke. He'd watched the False Dots play and gave me a free wrap as he enjoyed us so much!

I've been reluctant to put us on the bill since I got involved with the festival. I didn't get involved to promote my own music, but several people suggested it was time The False Dots made an appearance. We've been rather active recently and when we played at the Bull Arts Centre in April, many people said we should do it, so they could bring the whole family to see us for free. So at 5pm, we found ourselves onstage. The area is huge, there were probably 2,000 people watching us. It was glorious weather and everyone was in a wonderful mood. I have never really thought the False Dots were an open air band. I'd seen us as 10pm in a small, smoky club sort of band. Since Tom Hammond joined the band on Trumpet, we've really widened and broadened our sound and within the first couple of minutes of us playing, I realised that we've changed and we are very festival friendly band these days. People got up and started bopping and it seemed everyone was videoing us. Here is one of the highlights of the show, our last single, We all Love a Party!

It seemed that the whole of East Barnet loved a party. When we came off, dozens of people came up to say how much they enjoyed the set. We are playing againg this coming Saturday at the 50th Annual Jesterfest Festival in Fortune Green, West Hampstead at 5pm. It is completely free. Rather annoyingly, it clashes with England, but given that the first half of every England game has been dire so far, why not come along and then adjourn to the pub for the good bit. 

Like many local businesses, my business (Mill Hill Music Complex) sponsors the festival. It costs £55,000 to stage such an event, and a huge amount of planning. This year, due to the escalating costs of insurance, there is a small funding gap. If you came along and you enjoyed it, please help plug this. Even a £3 donation makes a difference. When the False Dots learned of the shortfall, we waived our agreed appearance fee (we are professional musicians and this is how we pay the bills). The bigger picture is that we need festivals and we need to do our bit. All I got was a couple of cans of Fosters and a lovely Moroccan Beef Wrap, but I had a glorious day and you'd pay £100 to see such great music at some festivals, so I don't feel too bad. 

A lot of people put a lot of time into making East Barnet Festival happen. These amazing volunteers don't get paid. If you enjoyed the Festival and want to see it happen next year, please help out

The Barnet Eye Election 2024 general election commentary - final edition

Oh how the world had changed. I thought I'd take a little journey back to the final commentary blog I wrote in 2019, before the last General Election. It is fascinating (to me at least)

This whole election has been the most demoralising and disheartening of modern times. In the early Autumn, I had hopes that the fact that the opposition parties and even sane Tories were working together to prevent a hard #Brexit might mean that the national interest might take precedence over tribalism. I had hoped that this experience, demonstrating that working together might deliver results that could not be achieved by digging a hole and standing in it shouting at the world couldn't. I was right, but sadly not in the way I hoped for, or even expected. The party that learned the lesson was the Brexit Party. Sadly it seems that what they wanted to achieve was peerages and plum jobs for themselves, standing down against the Tories. Although this may only account for 3-4% of the vote in some seats, that could be decisive. This should have caused a period of reflection within the other parties. Being fair to the Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru, they did. Deals were done to stand aside in seats where one of the parties had a realistic chance. Sadly, the Labour party has decided it wants nothing to do with sensible deals and pacts. Their logic is that the Lib Dems got into bed with the Tories in 2010, so they will have nothing to do with them. Ever. Furthermore, they have decided that every single policy of the Tories between 2010-2015 is entirely the fault of Lib Dem Leader Jo Swinson. This message has been tweeted and facebook'd relentlessly. What has always disgusted me about this strategy is that it is totally dishonest. Swinson was a junior member of a junior coalition partner. All parties operate whip systems and if you look at all of the things that many Labour MP's voted for under Blair, there are far worse. Labour took us into an illegal war. Whilst many solely blame Blair, he was chosen by the party and his policies embraced by the Labour NEC. A majority of Labour MP's would have him back tomorrow if it was a choice between him and Jeremy Corbyn. They tried to deselect Corbyn twice. Labour gave us the Iraq war. Labour raised tuition fees. Labour brought privatisation to the health service with PPI. I could go on, but is it really helpful? We are now living in 2019 and we have a massive crisis facing us.

And what happened? Boris won a Landslide and the rest is history. But the world has spun on it's head since then. I see no Labour attacks on Ed Davey in the vitriolic manner of those at Jo Swinson. Jeremy Corbyn is no longer a member of the Labour Party and is standing as an Independent. We've seen what Brexit really means and we are picking up the tab for it. I thought Labour would be out of office for a generation. What Johnson, Truss and Sunak have done to the Tories beggars belief. I can't say I am at all pleased because they have shafted us all in the process. 

The catastrophe is not on any one of them. It is on the whole of Conservative Party. I do not wish for their complete annihilation as that would open the door for Reform, who are Tories on steroids. I do hope that they get genuinely clobbered and are out for at least two terms, to allow sensible people to repopulate the party. It seems an age ago that Cameron was raging against global warming, hugging hoodies and passing legislation for equal marriage. Every iteration of Tory leadership since has drifted further right and this is where it has got them. I especially hope that the Lib Dems clobber them in "Blue Wall" seats. The Tories compeletely tucked up the Lib Dems in coalition, so for me it would pleasing to see the Lib Dems exact revenge at the ballot box. In truth, all of the coalitions best and most progressive policies were courtesy of the Lib Dems. The party made some huge mistakes, but the nine years that followed the coalition have shown us what the Lib Dems prevented. At least when the Tories were free to bugger the economy up, some degree of sanity in public finances had been restored.

Much as I'd love to see Lib Dems win in Barnet, they won't. I am an advocate of tactical voting and the one thing I will say is that wherever you are, vote for whoever will keep the Conservatives out (unless you live in Clacton, where even I would vote Tory to keep Farage out). 

In the London Borough of Barnet that means voting for David Pinto-Duschinsky in Hendon ward, Sarah Sackman in Finchley and Dan Tomlinson in Chipping Barnet. They are the Labour candidates. 

I will say a few words about each.

David Pinto-Duschinsky is a decent man. I know him as he's been around in Barnet Politics for a good few years. He had a terrible time at the hustings in 2019, trying to defend a Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn in an area where a substancial segment of the population hated Corbyn for his views on Israel. David was always calm and dignified in the face of some very harsh abuse. The fact he stuck around says a lot for him. 

Sarah Sackman, I've known since the Save Friern Barnet Library campaign. She is far and away the most capable and competent politician we've seen in the Borough since Thatcher (who I didn't like but you cannot argue with her impact). I suspect that Sarah will one day be a minister. She is everything you'd want an MP to be and if she wins, I will be absolutely delighted. 

I don't really know Dan Tomlinson, but I do know Theresa Villiers and her career is long past it's sell by date. Lets be charitable and say that she deserves to enjoy her retirement. I am sure that Dan Tomlinson will bring new energy to the job and at least try and represent everybody in the constituency properly. I don't think he'll have to work terribly hard to do a better job than his predecessor, should he win.

And remember that nothing is guaranteed in politics. In 2010, when the Tories came in, Labour thought Hendon was a shoe in. Andrew Dismore lost by 103 votes. Don't make the same mistake again.

My prediction is as follows

Hendon - Labour by 5,000 votes

Finchley - Labour by 3,000 votes

Chipping Barnet by 2,500 votes. 

But HEY HO, what do I know, I'll just be glad when it's all over.

Environment Monday - Rishi Sunak is so scared of Reform that he won't even boast about his green successes

Saturday was an absolutely monumental day in the industrial history of the UK. In any other circumstances, the Prime Minister would be shouting about it from the rooftops, but our Prime Minister is so scared of the Reform vote and 'appearing Woke' that there are only a few mentions of this from rail enthusiasts. What am I talking about? This...

28th June 2024 and the final coal train to Ratcliffe PS(last coal train in the UK)headed by 66781(now named Ratcliffe Power Station)pulls out of Toton Yard and heads for its destination in the background @GBRailfreight @railcamlive @FreightmasterUK @Freightonrail @Clinnick1 @RAIL pic.twitter.com/He0OSs8kH3

— Darren Wetherall (@MrDeltic15) June 29, 2024

That's right. The last ever coal train has run in the UK. When Ratcliffe Power Station burns it all, the power station will shut and that will be the end of coal fired power generation in the UK. This has been a long standing policy of the UK governments, both Tory and Labour and Sunak has achieved it just before the election. If it was the Greens that Sunak felt were the threat, this would be front page news, but as he's more scared of Reform, it's been buried.

I've seen all manner of rather daft comments saying we should have maintained coal fired power stations for days when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. The thing is that coal fired electricity is not an on demand source. You have to keep the furnaces hot at all times. For sporadic demand, gas stations are far more sensible. They can be sparked up at a second's notice. You can check where our energy is coming from in realtime today by clicking here www.energydashboard.co.uk/live

What does concern me is that nearly a quarter of our energy is imported. It doesn't say how it's generated or how green it is. If any of this is coal driven, I personally would prefer it to be UK coal from UK mines. I do not believe the UK should be dependent on imported energy, which we clearly are. If all of this was from green sources on long term contracts, I would be less bothered, but as the purple export line is fairly solid, I suspect that it is either nuclear, gas or coal. We need an energy plan that ensures we generate this in the UK and that we generate it sustainably. That is the secret to not having massive energy bills.

It is clear to me that Rishi Sunak is scared to death of his own shadow. Since 2010, the Tories have actually had a few sensible ideas and good initiatives, but they seem to have rowed back from all of them. When the last fourteen years are picked over, things such as this and the equal marriage act of 2014 will be looked back on as successful implementations of sensible policy. It will also be noted that Rishi Sunak made a name for himself peddling furiously right, only for the right to turn around and eat him. I do wonder whether if Reform win, whether the train in the tweet at the top may not actually turn out to be the last coal train in the UK.