#ITVDebate - Lord help us, they are both useless

 I've just watched the #ITVDebate with my missus. We are both horrified. The pair of them were completely useless. In short, the whole thing was embarrassing. The host was completely ineffective, allowing both to constantly interrupt each other, Sunak was particularly bad at this. For some reason, they were only allowed 45 seconds to answer a question. For several questions, this was nowhere near long enough, although for others it seemed far too long. 

The difficult truth is that one of these men will be the next Prime Minister. I couldn't really see any knockout blows. I doubt anyone changed anyones mind, which clearly favours Starmer. They both talked about their "plan". Oddly neither really used the opportunity to say what their plan was. I'm none the wiser.

Rishi Sunak seems to think that saying Labour will put up everyones taxes by £2,000 is a winner. I suspect that he'll have to do a lot better. A couple of observations. Rishi Sunak clearly seems to be used to talking across people. At the end Sunak said "Lower taxes, protected pensions". In short, he's putting the house on the OAP's of the UK. Starmer doesn't seem to be quite so sure who his main target audience is. 

One thing I guess I now know. Whoever the pair are trying to appeal to, it isn't me!

Rishi Sunak's big Election gamble

 This afternoon, I went to the gym at around 2pm. I was listening to music in the car after lunch. I did my 5km row, my 12.5km cycle, 10 minutes in the Sauna, half an hour in the Jacuzzi, a quick run around to the studio in the car with music on. I sat down to do some paperwork, only to be greeted by the news that Rishi Sunak had called an election. I was completely taken aback. My money had been on October. This morning, there were inflation figures were good and we had a bunch of tweets from the Tories celebrating this. I nearly wrote a blog saying that this almot guarantees an October election, as things are improving and we may all feel more optimistic after a holiday and a few months where things picked up.

So why has he taken this big punt? He has one more month worth of inflation figures. He must expect these to be good. Wages are now rising faster than inflation, again adding to the prospect of a feel good factor, but this has fed through to no one I know. There really is no feel good factor around the country. 

One interesting factor is that it is bang smack in the middle of the Football Euro's tournament. The round of sixteen is a couple of days before. Half of the country may will be glued to the telly and not exactly keen on having people knocking on the door. There will also be a month where the news cycle will see the campaigns competing with the football. As the tournament will not have concluded, there is no real prospect of a bounce if England win. As the polls show Sunak has to change a lot of people's minds, it strikes me as a silly time to do it. Just a personal feeling, but many canvassers as well as voters will not be receptive to knocking on or having their doors knocked on. This reinforces my view that Rishi Sunak does not really understand ordinary people, who were looking forward to the football and then the summer. 

I sat in studio reception for a couple of hours after the gym. The main response of my customers was total apathy. My whatsapp was alight with messages. From the sublime to the ridiculous, with one friend suggesting that Rishi Sunak was quitting for the Chelsea job. 

I am not taking a huge Labour victory for granted. I checked my blog from when Theresa May called an election in 2017. I made a series of predictions. I made a series of predictions, most of which I'd have put my house on but were completely wrong. The campaign changed things completely changed the landscape and that may well happen again.

So what were they and how did I do?

Big Tory majority. - Totally wrong. The Tories lost their majority
Lib Dem gains in pro remain areas 50ish seats - Wishful thinking
Labour reduced to core areas - Againg totally wrong. Labour did far better than expected, largely due to young people, who upset the pollsters model
SNP to maintain stranglehold on Scotland - This was spot on
Greens to poll well - Again wishful thinking
The Borough of Barnet to stay blue - Spot on

Like many, when the election was called I misread the mood of the country. I didn't realise the strong appeal of Corbyn to a failed generation of students and recently left Uni.  I also misread the mood in LibDem and Green target seats. It was a binary choice in England. Corbyn didn't switch soft Labour voters to them.

Given that Theresa May's dream soon became a nightmare, what could turn Keir Starmer's dream into one? I am struggling to see anything, but here are a few possible things.

1. World events causing widespread panic and moving people away from a change agenda.

2. A seismic Labour scandal. The Tories and Labour always have a few up their sleeves. The Tories may decided that a nuclear option may be worth the risk of a Labour tit for tat. The Tories voters are almost immune to any more scandals.

3. The public decides that Labour are not what they seem and Rishi Sunak has hidden talents that none of us have henceforth realised.

No, I can't see it either, but you never know. In truth, I am glad he's called it. I just want to see the back of this awful administration. 

Can you say what you like if you give the Tories ten million quid?

 What is the worst job in the UK? I think that is an easy one. It is being Diane Abbott. There are over 600 MP's and they seem to say stupid things almost every time they open their mouth. A stack of them have been sacked for various misdeeds, leading to a spate of by elections. Can you name any of them? All of these crooks, villians, etc, yet the one politician who is always fair game for a kicking is Diane Abbott. I am  not a fan of hers, but as someone who hates bullying, I cannot help but think the singling out of Abbott, who's biggest faults are that she puts her foot in her mouth sometimes, can't add up and is a bit of hypocrite in wanting the best for her kids, seems to me completely disproportionate, when so many get off scot free, when they've been doing actual criminal acts. I am not an apologist for Abbot, but lets have some perspective. The right wing press always choose pictures where she looks like she's been sleeping in a bin and been stung by a wasp. My mate, the Rev Emily Kollveit, Vicar of St Judes, used to work in Hackney and told me Abbot was the best and most helpful constituency MP she'd met. She told me that she really cared about people and was quite sensitive, so the criticisms got to her. Hearing Emily's stout defence made me reassess my previous view of her. I don't know Abbott, but I do trust Emily's judgement, she was a the former landlady of the Chandos Arms, before becoming a  Vicar, so is probably the most streetwise vicar in the C of E.  

The former deputy chair of the Tories made blatantly islamaphobic comments whilst moonlighting on a TV show, but he's still an MP. It took the Tories an age to figure out that it was beyond the pale. When they finally suspended him, he had a hissy fit and quite for the 'Reform' Party. What do they want to reform? Perhaps they want the UK to become a place where blatant racism is acceptable, as it was in the 1970's. On Monday I wrote a blog about nostalgia. In the 1970's, we had blatant racism on TV on a daily basis. Bernard Manning on the comedians, Love they neighbour and Alf Garnett were all perfectly acceptable TV viewing. I saw an interview with actor Warren Mitchell, AKA Alf Garnett, where he said that the character was written to be so pathetic that no one would be able to empathise with him, only to find that everywhere he went, people would say "You are spot on with that Alf". In many ways, the BBC was more 'Woke' in the 1960s than it is now. Swear words were banned and they genuinely tried to make Alf Garnett look like an idiot. Even Love Thy Neighbour, an ITV show, did their best to portray the white racist as a fool, whilst the aspirational black couple next door were shown as intelligent and well to do. Where the wokeness stopped was with sexism, but that is another discussion for another day. 

So fast forward to 2024. The words which formed Bernard Mannings act have been banned. Now we simply say "The N word" or "The P word" and heaven help anyone who uses such things in a humourous manner. Things have moved on. I do wonder what would happen if the BBC decided to have a 70's day and showed all of the worst examples of 70's TV in a marathon show. Would it be funny, or would we say "how could we possibly think that wasn't utter crap". I think my kids would have a heart attack at most of it.

But, there seems to be one group of people that the rules don't apply to and the 1970's are still in full flow. I am talking about Kevin Hester OBE. Why can he say what he likes? Because he gave the ruling party in the UK a bung of ten million quid. When can you say a black woman should be shot in a public forum, and it's OK? When you've bunged the government party ten million quid. Would Bernard Manning still be on TV (yeah I know he's dead, but you know what I mean) if he'd bunged Rishi Sunak £10 million? Would he have got an OBE like Hester. 

I am not someone who is easily offended. I grew up in the 60's and 70's. My Dad run a crash repair business, where I worked as a kid. I was surrounded by working class guys, who's language would make many youngsters hair curl and turn white. The jokes they would share would make Manning seem tame. I stood on football terraces, as racist chants, monkey noises etc were order of the day. I recall watching Black Manchester City goalie have bananas thrown at him at Fulham FC. It all seemed normal back then. It was only when Rock Against Racism called out Eric Clapton for racist comments at a gig in Birmingham, that it even occurred to me that it might not be OK. The Specials and other bands educated me and a generation. You can't love music made by black people, have black mates and think that its OK to treat them like shit, like second class citizens. When Diane Abbott puts her foot in her mouth, if it makes you want to 'hate all black women', you are actually a little bit sick in the head. When I was at FCHS, a bully of Irish origin beat me up in 1976, when they saw me at an England Vs Republic of Ireland match wearing an England scarf. Did that make me hate all Irishmen? No, it made me think that bullies are reprehensible. 

Kevin Hestor has an OBE - That is an Order of The British Empire. He has brought the order into disrepute. He should be stripped of it. As for the Tories, should they give the £10 million back? This is dead simple. The answer is "If the Tories want to be associated with this man and his views, they should keep the cash and say so. If they want to prove that they find them abhorrent, then give it back". Earlier in this blog I mentioned 30p Lee Anderson. If Rishi Sunak wants to appeal to his constiteuncy (people who agree with him, not who live in his area, to clarify), keep the cash and shout it out proudly.

It is easy really. Rishi Sunak needs to demonstrate what the Tories stand for. That is what leaders do. 

The 'Small boats crisis' is a manufactured scam to distract voters from the real econmic crisis working people are facing

 Nothing disgusts me more than politicians who talk about 'patriotic duty' whilst they work to shaft vast swathes of the population they are supposed to care about. Today we have seen the worst example of this in my lifetime. The language of Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman has been deliberately inflammatory and many working people, who consider loyalty to their country to be fundamental to their being have been taking to Twitter and Facebook to speak about how pleased they are that finally 'something will be done'. The sad truth is that by any measure, they have been mislead by the Conservative government. Not only this, but the timing has been cynically designed to distract from the absolute failure of their economic policies, which has seen massive inflation, shortages in shops and record breaking high energy bills.

The first point to note is that the 'Small boats crisis' is completely a result of the policy of the Conservatives, who have been in power for almost 13 years. If you believe it is the fault of 'lefty lawyers' such as Sir Keir Starmer, you really need to look at the facts. The government has a huge civil service and even Suella Braverman has described the resources at her disposal as 'an army of lawyers'. It is the governments job to make laws. The truth is that over 13 years, they have not used this 'army of lawyers' to address the issue of illegal immigration. Every year, we have a new initiative and the facts and figures prove none have worked. If you had a mechanic who fixed your car five times and each time, it broke down on the journey home, you'd get a new mechanic. You may well hate Starmer and his team, but it is simply untrue to blame them. 

I don't blame people who see the headlines in our press or the stories on the TV for being horrified by what they see. What sane person would think that people crossing the channel, managed by people traffickers is a good thing. I spoke to a leading expert on the subject. I asked how you fix the problem. What they told me was quite interesting. The first thing they said we need to do is have proper international co-operation. This does not mean French policemen on beaches. It means serious, cross border action to sieze the assets and cash of people smugglers. Interpol was set up to prevent cross border crime, so it needs a massive revamp. The second thing, is we need to process applications in France and other third countries. If there are genuine refugees, who have a genuine reason to come to the UK, it should be easy and safe for them to get here. This should never involve perilous journeys across the channel. If they know that starting the process abroad will make it easier and cheaper, this will remove them and the profits of their passage from unscrupulous trafficers. The third thing we need to do is to employ far more people to process applications. We need to process people who have no right to stay here quickly. If someone is shown to have entered illegally, with no good reason, then they should be deported to the country of origin and forbidden from re-entry for five years. If they do re-enter, they should be immediately deported.  Schemes such as the Rwanda scheme are a complete waste of resources. If the cash had been spent on more staff to process applications, that would have been a far more sensible way forward. As it is, millions has been spent on legal fees, with nothing achieved.

The truth is that this is not about small boats, or immigration. It is about making decent people feel threatened, so they re-elect a Conservative government that does not have their interests at heart. Any sane person would conclude that had they really wanted to fix the problem, they would have done so long ago. The current government is measurably corrupt. The money spent on dodgy schemes such as track and trace and dodgy PPE, with big name donors to the Conservative party has clobbered public finances. My learned friend said something rather amusing and very true. In times gone by, local villains would give cash bungs to the local bent coppers to look the other way, when they were up to no good. These days, you bung the Conservative party a million pounds, and you get all manner of dodgy deals passed your way, with a peerage thrown in for good luck. If you want to see an end to illegal immigration, I'd suggest that re-electing the mob who got us to the situation is the last way to fix it. Given that Sir Keir Starmer is meant to be such a clever chap, I struggle to understand how he's managed to fall into the Conservatives trap on this. 

If all you do is look backwards, you'll walk into a lampost - What would my Tory Dad have made of the failure of Conservative Britain

 My Dad, who was a WWII RAF pilot was not someone who was sentimental about the past. He once explained to me that when you were involved in an armed conflict, you soon realised that every improvement to your plane, be it an engine upgrade, better radar, a better plane, etc meant that your chances of making it home from your tour of duty was better. He loved innovation. He was a brillaint photographer and had a stack of old, manual, top notch cameras. We'd have slide shows after holidays etc. Many of the pictures of the 50's and 60's I use are ones he took. When automated cameras came out, with autofocus, inbuilt flashes and light meters, he bought them and never used the old, manual ones again. He explained that you took better pictures, as you didn't have to muck about. As a business owner, he embraced progress, realising that new innovations meant you could do jobs quicker and make more money. Dad was a Conservative, in the 1960's/70's Conservative tradition. He beleived that the Tories were a forward thinking party, who would pull Britian forward and keep us at the centre of innovation. He believe Labour were luddites, wedded to Trades Unions who resisted change. One of his sayings was "If all you do is look backwards, you'll walk into a lampost".

Dad passed away in 1987. Thatcherism and the 'Loads of money '80's, were at their height. Many of the guys who worked for him at his car business, were buying their own council houses in Burnt Oak and Edgware. Dad probably went to his deathbed believing he was politically vindicated. Dad was a major influence on me. I was diametrically opposed to his politics, but I fully understood that many of the the arguments he made were reasonable and well argued. Last night, I had a dream about Dad. It was very vivid. I still dream about him quite a lot. I always wake up, almost in tears, realising that he's not here and we can't continue the conversation. So what did he have to say? Well, as ever, he was putting me right. You may have noticed that I've had nothing much to say about the current woes of the Tory Party.  There are two reasons for this. The first is that I have always tried to keep the focus of the blog on local and London issues. The second is that I felt I have little insight into National politics and other people can do it far better.  Well, Dad was not too impressed. He said "The country is going to the dogs at the moment, people read your blog, why are you sitting on your hands". He went on to say that "Don't you care that a man appointed Chancellor of the Exchequor had fiddled his taxes, what sort of message does this send out". He then said "I always supported the Tories Conservatives because they were forward looking and good for business, but you run a business and you know how they are killing it. You know that Brexit is a backward looking concept and you know that it is damaging the country. Why aren't you shouting this from the hilltops". He finished off by saying that there are always dodgy spivs in politics on all sides, the difference now is that they are not being slung out of office. That is the politics of a banana republic, not the UK.  I asked him if he was still a Conservative, he said that unless they sort themselves out, nobody should vote for them, until they rediscoved a degree of morality and have some sort of vision for Britian to take us forward. 

At that point, Clare woke me up with a cup of tea and the morning papers. As usually happens when I dream about my Dad lecturing me, it takes me 20 minutes to get my head around what I was dreaming. Was I just projecting my left wing prejudices onto Dad? What would he say? I have no doubt at all that he'd be appalled by Mr Zaawi's dodgy behaviour. I am sure that he would have had a good rant about a bloke being let off evasion payment of millions of pounds of non payment of tax with no more than a slapped wrist. I have no doubt that as someone who lost mates fighting to end division in Europe and someone who hated bureacracy at borders (he worked as a commercial pilot after the war, he had his fill of paperwork), he'd be horrified at how Brexit is panning out. I had a meeting on Saturday with the group leaders of the charity I volunteer for, that takes people living with disablities to France. We were told that new regulations coming in to place in May, will mean that everyone entering the EU will have to have their biometric profile taken, with fingerprint and retinal scans. This could add up to 90 minute to our journey through passport control, as most people are likely to be passing through an EU border for the first time on our flight. When you have a large group of people who are in wheelchairs, etc this will be, shall we say difficult. I believe he'd have been completely unimpressed with the weakness of the PM, who should have sacked Mr Zahawi. The facts are not in dispute. If you need an 'Ethics advisor" to tell you to sack a tax dodger, then you shouldn't be in the job. 

When I woke up, I read the papers. The front page of the Daily Express was a story about an old lady freezing to death and how Ambulance workers are regularly taking other OAP's to A&E with hypothermia. This is the Express, a Tory backing paper. On their website is a story that business leaders are slating the governments handling of Brexit. There is a poll on the Express website asking whether Rishi Sunak is a weak PM. At present 94% of people say yes. If Express readers are saying this, the game is up

Dad was a Daily Express reader, so I can only assume that his message from beyond the grave was spot on. I think the Tory party needs to get it's act together and quick. Much as I disagree with them, if they are wiped out at the next election, we will have no effective opposition and we all know that is not a great thing. The only senior Tory at the moment with any credibility at all seems to be Jeremy Hunt. He has experience and is a safe pair of hands. I genuinely don't know whether the public would accept another Tory coronation, but I am starting to think that if they don't do something radical, they might find that there are none of them left after the next election.

By the way, at the start of the year, I made the following predictions for January. From what I am seeing, the thermals I've had to wear and watching PMQ's yesterday, I can only think I should put a tenner on the 5,15 at Kempton Park if you know what I mean

The year starts as the year ended. We have the funeral of Pope Benedict. In some ways, this draws a perfect line under a terrible few years. The Weather starts mild, but by the 21st we are back to freezing temperatures, snow, ice and train strikes. Normal politics returns with Labour leader clobbering Rishi Sunak at PMQ's on a weekly basis. Tory MP's, especially those on the right start making noises. We see the start of Nigel Farage's return to front line politics, with his land grab for that area formerly known as UKIP.

All I can really think is that I'm more psychic than I could have predicted (forgive the pun)

Suella Braverman - Rishi Sunak's lightening rod

 Like everyone else, my jaw dropped to the floor when I heard that Rishi Sunak had been appointed. How could he appoint someone who had just 'resigned' for breaching the ministerial code.

Why did she resign a week ago?
Why was it right to resign then but OK to come back now? What's changed?

So much for everything stated in this letter. pic.twitter.com/jxvnxW3Fni

— Mags Campbell (@writersblock08) October 26, 2022

When I thought about it, I realised that he is a smart cookie. Every shrewd Prime Minister employs a lightening rod (google it if you don't know what it means). Blair had John Prescott, Heath had Enoch Powell, Wilson had Barbara Castle and Tony Benn. All people admired on the edgess of their own party and loathed by the opposition. As in the case of Powell and Benn, sometimes it can bite you on the backside, but having a team member who is absolutely hated by the other side, means that they take all of the focus. I've no idea what Sunak thinks of Braverman, but he clearly knows the value of having someone to take the bile. 

So what can we conclude. Sadly it isn't good. It's not Braverman's obnoxious views that really bother me, although I find them repugnant. What bothered me is that she resigned last week for a serious breach of the rules. Sunak is a Tory and I fully expect him to appoint people who's views I disagree with. I did, however, think that in appointing someone who doesn't beleive the rules apply to them, he has shown that he's not interested taking a new broom to concepts such as standards in public life and following the rules. 

He may find it useful having someone to deflect the lightening, but the person he's chosen is a lightening rod for all the wrong reasons. A Tory Prime Minister choosing hard line Tory is not a problem. A Tory Prime Minister choosing someone who has shown they think the rules don't apply to them is a huge error. The mere fact she has taken the job shows that she thinks she did nothing wrong. That is the problem

A Playlist to welcome Rishi Sunak

 I am sure that there will be a million comments and opinions on the new PM, Rishi Sunak. I have to say that it's perhaps the strangest feeling I've had about a new Tory PM taking over. The good things? Well it shows that the Tory party is less racist than I thought, which has to be a good thing. Whether Sunak will do for equality what Margaret Thatcher did for feminism has yet to be seem (just in case you didn't guess this is called irony). He is also not Liz Truss. He did not tank the economy as chancellor, something Liz Truss managed more or less as soon as she got her feet under the desk. 

The bad things? He's yet another unelected PM, he's a Brexiteer, he happliy supped with Boris Johnson.I am all out of comments though, so I thought I'd put together a playlist to say what I thought of it all. Draw your own conclusions.

A second lockdown is pointless with these clowns in charge

This may be the blog where I lose ALL of my friends. But the bottom line is that if I can't tell the truth, then I am as nothing. I've always felt that you can't judge a government on a single decision or a single day. To really get some perspective of them, you need to look at how they deal with something over a period of months. In an unprecedented crisis such as covid, where not even the worlds best scientists knew anything in January, a bit of leeway needs to be given. It is now October. They've known about all of this for six months. We have more than enough information to objectively judge the performance of the Government. 

The big debate at the moment is whether there should be a second "circuit breaker" lockdown. Under any normal circumstances and any normal government, I would agree with Sir Keir Starmer, but we are not in normal circumstances and we do not have a normal government. We have one that is beyond incompetent. Let us look at the reason why the infection rate is currently going through the roof in the UK. Given that there is an increase across Europe, it might be tempting to say "well we are just following the global pattern and we always knew there would be a second spike in the Autumn".

This ignores the evidence of what our government has done. The key moment in the UK was when Dominic Cummings was given a free pass to ignore the rules. This sent a signal to the country that it is OK to ignore the rules if you have powerful friends. For people suffering financial and mental hardship, this was a complete insult. The concept that a rich and powerful man can flout the law, when ordinary citizens can't was the moment the government lost our trust and people decided that it was up to them to 'interpret the rules'. The fact we are still mentioning Cummings shows the damage done. Whereas prior to that, we'd all been responsible, Cummings gave us the excuse to flout the law. What could a Police Officer say to anyone breaking the law, when it was clear that for the rich and entitled, it didn't matter. A lockdown in the UK needs the support and consent of the people and it is clear to me that with this administration, it will destroy businesses, without changing the behaviour that spreads covid. For covid to be beaten, we need people to take the decision to not meet friends and family and the sad truth is that for many, they will simply ignore those rules.

Back in July, the UK was finally getting on top of covid. All we really needed was a functional track and trace system to keep it under control. The country spent £12 billion on trying to make this work. It still doesn't. Without such a system, the "Eat out to help out" scheme was an act of criminal negligence by Chancellor Rishi Sunak. Had he waited until the App worked, and said that installing the App and using it in restaurants was how you got the tenner off, it may have worked, but he sent us flooding back to restaurants, without any mitigation whatsoever. 

Then there was the decision to send students back to college. Only a fool would think that student accommodation would not be a fertile breeding ground for covid infections. We have a friend who's daughter is in Liverpool at Uni. She has tested positive for covid, thankfully she's asymptomatic, but reports that everyone in her student block has the virus. Liverpool council have sent food parcels. I cannot believe that this was anything other than entirely predictable.

We have a Conservative government with a huge majority. There is no prospect of a change of party running the country for at least four years. But we desperately need a change of regime. I am not a fan of the man, but at least someone like Jeremy Hunt would not have the baggage and may be able to rebuild trust. Until we have a Prime Minister who people believe in and can trust, all a lockdown will do is damage the economy. When we had the first lockdown, the government bought time. They should have had a coherent plan to lead us out of lockdown and to restart the economy. They should have been cautious and they should have been able to give clear guidance. They should have anticipated a spike when Universities reopened and students left the relative safety of homes, to mix with dozens of strangers from across the country. 

Surely students should have been tested before being allowed access to student accommodation?  Surely people entering the country should be tested? Surely there should be fines for breaches of self isolation? Surely there should be support for people self isolating, so that they have no reason to breach?

Under the Boris Johnson/Rishi Sunak regime, if there is a second lockdown, it will devastate businesses, but as the police lack the resources to enforce any rules, the population will flout it. If you don't believe me, simply stand outside Tesco's in Mill Hill and see how many people are wearing masks in the shop. I would absolutely support a second lockdown, if we had a competent government, but we don't. We have one that long ago lost the trust of the people. The Rishi Sunak bung in August (Eat out to help out), was a hugely expensive PR stunt for Boris that has gone horribly wrong. 

The only way out of this that I can see, is for the Conservatives to act poste haste and find a new PM with a degree of integrity and trust and for Keir Starmer to work with him to sort this awful mess out. Anything else will just end in a cycle of chaos, where people die needlessly and the economy is trashed.