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Election news dominated British headlines on Friday, May 3, 2024 and will continue to do so over the weekend.
In Scotland, news concerned an SNP leadership contest following Humza Yousaf’s resignation on Monday, April 29 (see here, here and here).
South of the border in England, the Conservatives had a local wipeout at Thursday’s council elections.
Let’s look at both.
Scotland: more of the same
There seems to be little appetite for another SNP leadership election in just over a year.
The hapless John Swinney, a past Deputy First Leader, is the fourth ‘continuity candidate’ as the MSP and former finance minister Kate Forbes has decided not to run.
On Thursday, May 2, Guido Fawkes gave us the short version of the Scottish situation (red emphases and italics his):
UPDATE: On Kate Forbes, Swinney says: “I want her to play a significant part in the team” in a“very involved, senior position”.
UPDATE II: Kate Forbes announces she won’t stand for leader, saying:
I have concluded that the best way to deliver the urgent change Scotland needs is to join with John Swinney and advocate for that reform agenda within the Scottish Government. I can therefore today announce that I will not be seeking nomination as the next SNP leader. John will therefore have my support and endorsement in any campaign to follow.
Well, that settles that.
That day, The Times told us ‘Why Kate Forbes pulled out of the SNP leadership race’ (purple emphases mine):
The sun was streaming through the window of Kate Forbes’s Edinburgh flat as she sat with her family and watched John Swinney outline his pitch to be first minister.
By that point the deal between the pair was already done and she knew she was not going to stand. She just needed to hear it from him …
That confirmation, alongside his pledge to prioritise economic growth and listen to alternative voices across the party, was what she needed to make her decision final.
Swinney laid it on thick, about Forbes …
“She is an intelligent, creative, thoughtful person who has much to contribute to our national life and if elected I will make sure that Kate is able to make that contribution,” Swinney, 60, said of Forbes.
… and himself:
“And that will be part of a united team that draws together our whole party, which given my deep, deep devotion to the SNP I think I am best placed to put together.”
Forbes said later:
… the best way to deliver the urgent change Scotland needs is to join with John Swinney and advocate for that reform agenda within the Scottish government.
She also tweeted:
Forbes did not make any media appearances because of a family emergency:
… as she was making her final decision on Wednesday evening her daughter, Naomi, had a minor accident which led to the pair having to visit Edinburgh’s Sick Kids hospital.
That institution used to be the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital. The hospital administration changed the name to ‘Sick Kids’ to make it more user-friendly. I have news for them: no one, including a child, gets admitted to a hospital if he or she is well.
The article continues, telling us about what has been going on behind the scenes this week:
Her decision was the culmination of days of backroom talks through intermediaries, the ultimate conclusions of which had already filtered through into government.
Civil servants were told on Wednesday to prepare for a new first minister being sworn in next week. This suggests there was knowledge that a contest to be SNP leader was unlikely and Swinney would be the only person on the ballot at noon on Monday when nominations close.
That doesn’t mean that getting to this point has been easy. Swinney and Forbes had a face-to-face conversation on Tuesday aimed at ensuring there was understanding and respect between the pair.
Other conversations took place between two MPs serving as links between Swinney and Forbes. Sources said that Ian Blackford, the former SNP Westminster leader, and Stewart McDonald, the former defence spokesman at Westminster, played a role as go-betweens for each camp.
Discussions between proxies for Swinney and Forbes started tentatively on Sunday — before Humza Yousaf had even announced his resignation — and intensified throughout Wednesday.
Not only was time an issue but so was money:
It is also understood that it could cost the party up to £180,000 to run an election, an additional strain that it does not need given it is currently struggling to attract cash.
Not surprising, considering no one knows what happened to the £600,000 in SNP donations, missing since at least 2021.
I question the ethics of Forbes remaining a member of the SNP, given their crooked revelations that have come to light over the past three years.
The consensus is that Forbes can run again in the next leadership contest:
… she lives to fight another day and avoids a potentially bruising general election with Labour projected to win more seats than the SNP in Scotland.
“It is in her interests to play a slightly longer game,” said a source.
More of the same.
The Spectator‘s and the Telegraph‘s Fraser Nelson said that she has brought Christianity back into political conversation, ‘Kate Forbes has still won a significant victory — for religion in public life’:
It’s not just that she was born into the Free Church of Scotland: she converted into it, leaving the more liberal Presbyterian church. She disagrees with gay marriage, sex outside of marriage and even women [religious] ministers. She’d uphold everyone’s rights, she says – but her faith is real. And far more important to her than politics.
In 2023:
Forbes went on to almost beat Humza Yousaf, winning 48 per cent of the vote. She decided not to run this time and instead cut a deal with John Swinney, who will be seen as a caretaker first minister with her as the heir apparent.
She has unabashedly defended her faith:
A Cambridge graduate, appointed Nicola Sturgeon’s finance minister at the age of 29, Forbes has long stood out. Brought up in India to missionary parents, she first followed the normal pattern of dodging questions about her faith.
Three years ago, she changed tack. “To be straight, I believe in the person of Jesus Christ,” she told an astonished Nick Robinson [BBC presenter]. “I believe that he died for me, he saved me. And that my calling is to serve and to love him and to serve and love my neighbours with all my heart and soul and mind and strength.”
Many politicians think this, but none would dream of saying so in public – not in such language. Talking about religion can only alienate and damage your prospects, it’s argued: faith needs to be kept as a dirty secret. Not just in politics but the workplace or any public space. You’ll be accused of bigotry and it’s best just to keep quiet.
This is the quiet-Christian consensus that Forbes wanted to challenge with her campaign, even if it cost her the race. But in the end, she ended up drawing more admiration than condemnation …
Forbes may well never end up as first minister and, if she does, the SNP may still be doomed. But she has proven an important point: it’s OK, now, to do God.
There’s a hymn sung in her church about the need to “dare to be a Daniel / dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose / dare to make it known.”
Adding the word “don’t” in front of each of these lines would have seemed useful advice to any politician in recent years but it seems Forbes has written a new rule book. She won’t be the last to use it.
Well, we’ll see. As of now, Forbes is still an outlier, albeit a welcome one.
The Conservatives’ historic losses
Moving on to England, the trend in the emerging election results from Thursday — as I write in the afternoon, final counts are not in — shows that Rishi Sunak and his Conservatives are in deep, deep trouble with losses of 122 councillors thus far:
Guido Fawkes told us that Conservatives were downplaying what could happen, e.g. in the London mayoral race:
The main Conservative talking point of the past 24 hours has been that London is looking closer than thought …
Really? There was no campaign. The Conservatives did not support their candidate, Susan Hall, at all!
Guido adds:
… it seems very unlikely Susan Hall will ultimately beat Sadiq Khan clinching a third term.
Too right.
Here’s another Conservative delusion that Guido reported:
The Tories are pushing hard that these are ‘mid term’ results so are irrelevant for a general election – an odd choice of defence given it’s the end of the parliamentary term and a general election year. Whether Sunak is safe is unresolved…
The ‘mid term’ local election was in 2021!
Guido explained Thursday’s elections:
Voters head to the polls for local elections today to elect eleven mayors, 2,600 councillors, 37 police and crime commissioners, as well as a new Blackpool South MP. The results will be significant, setting the mood music for the upcoming general election – and how internal Tory politics plays out over the summer …
Labour is streaking ahead by a solid and consistent 20 points in the national polls. On that basis, it is fair to say the Tories are going to struggle almost everywhere …
The government is spinning hard that winning just one of the Tees Valley or West Midlands mayoralties would be an incredible success. Both are in doubt in the final polling. Labour is managing down expectations on both – a sign that they are attempting to increase the damage should the Tories lose them. A mayoral wipeout would trigger major incoming flak for Team Sunak – but holding Tees Valley alone (Ben Houchen is the least Sunakite of the candidates) may not help them much either …
Notably, all the Tory mayoral candidates have distanced themselves from Rishi in their campaigns. The media has lost track of what is happening in Blackpool South, where Reform could well beat the Tories into second place. The results will drip out over the next few days. Watch out for some neck breaking spin …
On Friday morning, Guido told us:
… things are (as expected) bleak for the Tories …
The remainder of the picture is basically a total clean up for Labour – gaining Hartlepool, Thurrock, Redditch and even deeply formerly Tory Rushmoor. The Tories are pointing to Oldham, where Labour lost overall control of the council – but that is due to local factors over Gaza. A loss of control over the London narrative – with Tory briefings widely quoted overnight as saying Susan Hall would win – now seems unlikely. Plenty of big results still to come in though…
… Whether Sunak is safe is unresolved…
Then there is Richard Tice’s Reform Party. So far, its potential star candidate, Nigel Farage, has shied away from saying whether he will stand as a candidate in the next general election which must be held by January 2025 at the latest.
As of Thursday morning, Reform’s popularity is rising, according to a YouGov poll. Guido reported:
Though it’s no surprise the Tories are sinking in the polls, perhaps the bigger news is that Reform are on 15%, just 3 percentage points away from the Tories. Though they’re only fielding 300 candidates in the locals, they could pip the Tories to second place in the Greater Manchester mayoral race and in Blackpool South …
Imagine the polls if Nigel stood…
The Blackpool South by-election results are final. Scott Benton, the Conservative MP who won overwhelmingly in 2019, had to stand down a few weeks ago. Everyone predicted a return of the constituency to Labour, and so it proved.
Note Labour’s historic majority albeit with a turnout of only 33% and how close the Reform candidate came to the second place Conservative one:
Guido told us:
… Blackpool South has been convincingly retaken by Labour after Scott Benton’s implosion, with a massive swing of 26.3 points. That’s the third biggest swing from Conservatives to Labour in post war election history. Reform were within a whisker (117 votes) of putting the Tories into third place. Reform has performed strongly elsewhere so far where they are standing…
Is it that everyone suddenly loves Labour or the Liberal Democrats? No. It seems that people who have voted Conservative in the past stayed at home. One commenter on a Guido post has probably nailed it with this analysis:
The swing was from Conservative to Stay at home.
The Labour vote dropped by 12 % over their 2019 vote.
The Conservative vote dropped by 80%.
The Reform vote increased by 56.5% over the Brexit party vote.
Did Not Vote increased by 57.5% over 2019.
A swing from Conservative to Stay at Home lets Labour in.
The challenge for Reform is to persuade the 25% of the electorate who stayed at home this year, but didn’t in 2019 that there is an option they can vote for. Then there’s the 45% that didn’t bother in either, and had no faith in the system at all.
The challenge for the psephologists is to start acknowledging the underswell of disgust in the whole system that is swirling around the country.
A lot of those who voted Conservative in 2019 did so because a) Boris Johnson was such an effective campaigner as the face of Brexit and b) they trusted that their voices would be heard once more as happened in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Since then — admittedly, the pandemic (not a Boris speciality) did not help — the status quo returned, beginning in 2021, and those voters have once again lost faith in the Conservatives.
Does Rishi Sunak care?
Probably not. He can leave the UK for California — or his father-in-law’s country, India. Either way, everything will come up roses for him. The rest of us will have to bear up under Labour’s rose.
Yesterday’s post examined the outgoing Scottish First Minister’s — Humza Yousaf’s — time in Holyrood.
The one before that discussed his resignation as First Minister.
Today’s will look at questions surrounding his personal life.
However, before we get to that, let’s look at the motions by Scottish Conservatives and Labour for a vote of no confidence as well as Kate Forbes’s chances of becoming the next First Minister. She ran against Yousaf in the 2023 leadership election and lost by a Brexit margin: 48% to 52%.
No confidence motions unsuccessful
Neither motion for a vote of no confidence on Tuesday, May 1, 2024 succeeded.
The Scottish Conservatives put forward one of no confidence in Humza Yousaf as First Minister.
Scottish Labour’s concerned the SNP government as a whole.
The Times told us that, with Labour’s motion, the Greens saved the SNP’s day (purple emphases mine):
Scottish Labour’s attempt to unseat the Scottish government has failed after the Greens voted against a confidence motion.
The Green co-leader Patrick Harvie said that the motion was “chaos for the sake of chaos” as his party voted against it. The motion was defeated by 70 votes to 58 …
If the motion had passed, the entire Scottish government would have been forced to resign, with Holyrood given 28 days to elect a new first minister before an election was called.
Yousaf has admitted in a BBC interview that he “paid the price” for the way he ended the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens. Speaking for the first time since announcing his resignation, the outgoing first minister said that ending the agreement was the right decision.
“But I have to acknowledge the manner in which I did it caused great upset and that’s on me,” he said.
Yousaf said it was clear to him that the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens was “coming to an end anyway” but said he regretted the manner in which he ended it.
At the confidence vote at Holyrood, the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, said Scotland that was “crying out for change” as he urged MSPs to back his motion …
Yousaf said he was proud of the SNP’s record in government, telling MSPs he had not “heard a single positive idea” from Labour in his 13 months in the top job …
But it was Harvie who put the final nail in the coffin of the motion, when he said: “This proposal portrays the true motives of others: chaos for the sake of chaos.”
He added: “Let’s just consider what would happen if it passed; a month to seek another government, then an election around the time that voters around the country were heading off on their summer holidays, a new government formed perhaps by August, leaving just a little more than a year and a half until the legally required dissolution for the 2026 election” …
Opposition members also used the opportunity to take aim at the potential next occupant of Bute House. Sarwar pointed to reports suggesting that Kate Forbes could struggle to appoint ministers and described John Swinney as “the finance secretary that broke the public finances and the worst education secretary in the history of the Scottish parliament”.
One has to hope that John Swinney is not the next First Minister.
Kate Forbes’s chances of succession
Most ordinary Scots and most Britons who know about Scottish politics think that Kate Forbes would bring common sense and stability to the SNP government.
During the 2023 campaign, her detractors complained that she, a thirty-something married mother, was a Wee Free, a member of a conservative Presbyterian breakaway denomination popular in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The same issues are coming up again.
One of my readers, dearieme, sent me a link to an April 30 editorial by Kenny Farquharson in The Times, excerpted below:
Kate Forbes is unfit to be first minister of a 21st-century Scotland. A 1920s Scotland, maybe. A 1950s Scotland, perhaps. But not Scotland in 2024.
Amid the machinations over who replaces Humza Yousaf as leader of the SNP, we need to keep this thought uppermost in our minds. It can’t be Kate …
What message would a Kate Forbes first ministership send? That single mothers are sinners? That sex outside marriage is wrong? That ghouls should be allowed to stand in the street outside abortion clinics muttering incantations? That most of us in secular Scotland are going to hell?
What comfort could be drawn from a Forbes first ministership by gay couples, given that this fundamentalist Christian politician has said she would not have voted for equal marriage? How secure would gay people feel about their hard-won civil rights?
On the day of Yousaf’s resignation Allan Kennedy, a lecturer in early modern Scottish history at Dundee University, said on Twitter/X: “Kate Forbes as first minister would be some impressive playing of the long game on the part of the Covenanters” …
I want a secular Scotland. I want this century to be the very first in Scotland’s story where religious belief and ecclesiastical power did not routinely dictate the way people were governed or lived their day-to-day lives. I want a Scotland that need not fear any US-style curbs on a woman’s right to choose an abortion.
Modernity is a concept worth defending. I did not think it would need defending in 2024, but apparently it does. During the last SNP leadership campaign I called Forbes “the MSP for the 19th century”. I stand by that. I would prefer a politician whose values chimed with the nation he or she sought to lead …
Forbes represents an authentic strain of rural Scottish presbyterianism. But she cannot successfully reconcile the moral strictures of the Free Church with the values of contemporary urban Scotland in all its diversity and dynamism.
Which is why I say again: in the third decade of the 21st century, Kate Forbes is unfit to be first minister of Scotland.
On May 2, Dr James Eglinton, the Meldrum senior lecturer in Reformed theology at the University of Edinburgh, responded in The Times:
Could Kate Forbes serve effectively as first minister of Scotland? In The Times this week, Kenny Farquharson argued she could not … In his argument, Scotland should “defend modernity” by setting a clear glass ceiling above Forbes and those like her.
Before we can defend modernity, though, we must define it — and herein lies the problem. The kind of modernity cherished by Farquharson was a product of the 18th century and died out in the mid-19th century. It does not capture how modernity functions in Scotland today, and says nothing about whether Forbes could serve well as first minister.
In Farquharson’s argument, modernity is monolithic, a package deal of views that all enlightened, right-thinking people will hold precisely because they are enlightened and right thinking. In that way, while modernity likes to talk about authenticity and individuality, it prizes and expects sameness of thought from those individuals.
When the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant advanced that view, his ideas were novel and captivating to many. By the mid-19th century, though, Europe grew tired of that rigid expression of freedom, and came to see it as attainable only through coercion, silencing and self-censorship. Whereas the 18th century idealised the uniformity of acceptable beliefs, the 19th century valued the unity of people whose freedom to think took them to radically different conclusions. In the process, it gave us liberal democracy and our freedoms of belief and expression.
From then on, modernity has been a very different thing. It depends on individuals negotiating life on their own terms and recognising that each other person does the same. In that way, it is a constant negotiation, a shared effort to extend the freedom to others that we demand for ourselves. Nowadays, academics talk of multiple modernities — as numerous as modern people themselves — rather than a single modernity.
Is Forbes rooted in the 19th century? Certainly, in that she represents liberal democracy. Good for her. Is she a 21st-century person? As a working mum from a theologically conservative church in frontline secular politics, she is as modern as any of us …
We shall see what happens in the weeks ahead. We don’t even know if Kate Forbes will run again.
Now on to remaining aspects of Humza Yousaf’s life.
Two SNP-related marriages
Interestingly, both of Yousaf’s wives, past and present, have links to the SNP.
In 2010, Yousaf married Gail Lythgoe, originally from Essex, who, somehow, caught the Scottish independence bug.
The couple divorced in 2016.
CaltonJock has more from his February 22, 2023 post:
Lythgoe, a graduate teaching assistant at Glasgow University’s law school, was convener of the SNP’s student wing from 2010 to 2012 and sat on the SNP’s ruling national executive.
She was also a parliamentary assistant to SNP MSP Joan McAlpine, and worked at the Yes Scotland campaign in the 2014 referendum.
The split was not made public and only only emerged after Yousaf blamed it when he was fined £300 and had six penalty points added to his driving licence, after being caught by police driving a friend’s car without insurance.
Pleading guilty to the offence he said the incident was the result of stress brought about by his personal circumstances during his separation”.
Yousaf said the final split with his wife was amicable but since then she has left the SNP and actively urged people to vote for the Scottish Greens in the local election instead of the SNP. She wrote: “Glasgow needs diversity not cult-like voting habits, vote green.”
Yousaf’s current wife is Nadia El-Nakla, a divorcée with one child when the couple married in 2019. El-Nakla is an SNP councillor — the equalities spokesperson — in Dundee.
The couple have a daughter together and, in March 2024, the Yousafs announced that they were expecting another child.
Born in Dundee, El-Nakla has a Palestinian father and a Scottish mother.
She is a qualified psychotherapist counsellor with an MSc in Counselling from Abertay University in Dundee.
Perhaps this is why Yousaf said last autumn that he had plans to resume counselling in order to build his resilience. He already had counselling when his first marriage broke down.
On October 15, 2023, The Sunday Times reported:
Humza Yousaf has said he plans to resume counselling for his mental health while first minister, saying “people shouldn’t wait until a crisis moment” to seek help.
In an interview ahead of the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen, Yousaf said previous help he had sought for his mental health had built “resilience” and would be something he would return to in the future.
The first minister told a show at the Edinburgh Fringe that he sought counselling in 2016 during his time as transport minister, when he was also facing the breakdown of his first marriage.
Speaking to Holyrood Magazine, he said he was not sure if he could have continued to be a minister if he had not sought help.
“I definitely think counselling has given me resilience. I was just talking to my wife, actually, last week about making sure I continue counselling as first minister,” he said …
Yousaf also said his therapist recommended he use an app to practice mindfulness, a type of meditation that attempts to focus the individual on being in the moment.
He also spoke of how he dealt with the personal impact of the job, in particular leaning on his family.
“On a personal level, my family is so, so important, and I make time to set some appropriate boundaries,” he said.
The first minister said during his campaign for the SNP leadership that he would try to keep Monday evenings free to spend with his family …
Speaking as someone who watches First Minister’s Questions regularly on BBC Parliament, I rather doubt that Yousaf is practising mindfulness or getting counselling for resilience. He is no different to Nicola Sturgeon in his aggressive responses to Conservative and Labour Party leaders, which, on occasion, are rather offensive. In the private sector, such a bulldog style would be called ‘unprofessional’ or ‘unacceptable’.
In-laws’ visit to Palestine
Incredibly, at least to many Britons who had read or heard about it in the media, Yousaf’s parents went to Palestine on holiday to visit family after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.
Yousaf then pulled rank as First Minister to make arrangements to have them evacuated and then went on to hold a meeting with Turkey’s President Erdoğan while his wife and Mrs Erdoğan met privately for tea.
Effie Deans of Lily of St Leonards reminds us that Yousaf is Scotland’s First Minister, not the UK’s Foreign Secretary.
She gave us the story on January 14, 2024:
Humza Yousaf’s wife Nadia El-Nakla is Scottish. She was born and brought up in Dundee. But unlike most Scots she has family living in Gaza. Her parents chose to ignore Foreign Office advice about visiting Gaza and ended up in a warzone after the 7th October Hamas attack on Israel. That was unfortunate and naturally Humza Yousaf and his wife were concerned about their safety. But it is important that we distinguish between a politician’s political role and his personal life. Humza Yousaf is First Minister of Scotland. His wife is a Dundee SNP councillor. The Scottish Government has no role in foreign affairs …
When El-Nakla’s family were trapped in Gaza Humza Yousaf contacted the British government and Foreign Office to expedite their rescue from Gaza, but he didn’t do so as a private citizen like the rest of us would have done if our family were trapped in Gaza, he did so as First Minister of Scotland. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with that role. Humza Yousaf’s wife’s family deserved no more extra special help than any other British citizens trapped in Gaza just because SNP members had elected him leader of their party.
In time El-Nakla’s parents were able to leave Gaza with the help of the British government. I don’t recall any thanks from either Humza Yousaf or Nadia El-Nakla nor indeed from her parents.
Next, we discover that Nadia El-Nakla went to Turkey in November to attend an international summit calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
It seemed rather odd that at the time that she should do so. It cannot be often that a Dundee councillor meets the First Lady of Turkey and other important figures. Indeed, it is rather surprising that they knew of her existence.
She is said to have attended in a personal capacity. One assumes therefore that she paid for the trip out of her own money and didn’t claim expenses for her iPad. But the truth is that El-Nakla would have been nowhere near this meeting if she had not been married to Humza Yousaf.
Next, we discover that Humza Yousaf has a meeting with Recep Erdoğan the president of Turkey at the COP28 meeting in December. Yousaf did so without permission from the British government and without Foreign Office staff being present as is required.
The reason for this is that the First Minister has no role in foreign affairs, which is reserved to the British government. The UK cannot have two foreign policies one directed from London and the other from Edinburgh. Yousaf is not the leader of a nation state and therefore Scotland has no international role at all. El-Nakla is no more the wife of an international politician than the leader’s wife of a province in Turkey, who doubtless does not get to meet Erdoğan’s wife.
There is more:
Scotland gives £750,000 in aid to Gaza and shortly afterwards El-Nakla’s parents get to leave Gaza. Then we discover perhaps why El-Nakla went to Turkey to meet Erdoğan’s wife and why later Humza Yousaf was so desperate that no one would be present at his meeting with Erdoğan.
El-Nakla has just admitted that the Turkish government helped her family in Gaza to move to Turkey. It’s an amazing coincidence. Such generosity on the part of President Erdoğan. What did he get in return?
… he went to a lot of trouble to make sure that Foreign Office officials were not present, but I do know this, it is not the role of the First Minister of Scotland let alone a Dundee councillor to have international meetings so that non-UK citizens can move from Gaza to Turkey.
However, that does not seem to be enough of a solution:
El-Nakla now wants her Gazan family to come to the UK. She points out that Ukrainian refugees are living near her, why can’t her Gazan family not also come here as refugees?
Well, if El-Nakla wants Gazans in general rather than her family in particular to escape Gaza why doesn’t she ask Egypt to open the border? Perhaps she could fly to Egypt to have a meeting with the wife of President el-Sisi. Humza Yousaf could then attend an environment meeting somewhere where he happens to meet el-Sisi and the border between Gaza and Egypt could be opened.
But there is a problem here. Egypt does not want to open its border to Gaza and nowhere else in the Arab world wants to take refugees from Gaza and indeed when Israeli officials suggest resettling Gazans elsewhere, they are condemned by the whole world including I imagine El-Nakla and Humza Yousaf.
Utterly extraordinary, to say the least. Who would have that much nerve?
Yousaf’s family makes the news
In March 2024, Yousaf’s family made the news.
On Sunday, March 17, Scotland’s Herald reported that Yousaf did not declare his family’s rental properties in his register of ministerial interests:
Humza Yousaf is facing questions about why he hasn’t publicly declared his family’s £1.3million rental property empire in his register of ministerial interests.
The First Minister lists a single rental property in Dundee owned by his wife, Nadia El-Nakla.
However he has not included the eight rental properties in Glasgow owned by his parents and their accountancy firm, Yousaf & Co. Limited.
He has also spoken about private landlords, rent caps and eviction procedures in parliament without orally declaring any interest.
The Scottish Government said Mr Yousaf had only declared his wife’s rental flat as he could be seen as a “direct beneficiary” of it.
However the Scottish Tories said the First Minister needed to be “fully transparent”.
There is no suggeston of any wrongdoing by Mr Yousaf’s parents.
MSPs must declare their own financial holdings, such as rental properties, in a Holyrood register.
But ministers are held to a higher standard and also complete a second, more detailed register overseen by the Scottish Government’s top official, the Permanent Secretary …
Declarations should “cover interests of the Minister’s spouse or partner, and close family which might be thought to give rise to a conflict.”
Immediate family includes “parents, siblings or children” where an interest “might be thought to give rise to an actual or perceived conflict” …
The property folio could potentially give rise to a perceived conflict of interest for Mr Yousaf.
In May 2020, he voted on and agreed to Coronavirus legislation that changed the rules on tenancies and evictions while one of the family’s tenants was heading for eviction as they had been in arrears for more than three months.
Records from Scotland’s Housing and Property Chamber show that a property agent acting for Mr Yousaf’s father applied to the tribunal for a payment order and an eviction order for the flat on Albert Road in Glasgow owned by Yousaf & Co Ltd.
The documentation said that the tenant was due to pay £450 a month in rent, but had run up arrears of £4,950 to August 2020.
In February 2021, the tribunal agreed to make both the payment order and eviction order.
A Scottish Government spokesperson disagreed with the call for the family’s properties to be included in Yousaf’s register of interests:
The First Minister includes his wife’s rental property in his listed interests in line with his commitment to be transparent about interests to which he could be perceived to be a direct beneficiary.
This is not the case with the rental properties owned by the First Minister’s parents, therefore they are not required to be declared.
Hmm.
Two days later, on March 19, The Times reported, ‘Yousaf family firm removes “antisemitic” Palestinian posters’:
Humza Yousaf’s parents have removed pro-Palestinian posters from their family shop after they were criticised by a Jewish group.
The Yousaf & Co accountancy firm, established by the first minister’s father, Muzaffar, after he emigrated from Pakistan in the 1960s, had a large pro-Palestinian window display at its prominent Glasgow headquarters.
It included images in which the Palestinian flag is imposed over the entirety of a map of the Israeli state, surrounded by two hands snapping a chain encircling the country, alongside the slogan Free Palestine …
When Hamas invaded Israel, Yousaf’s parents-in-law, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, became trapped in Gaza after a family visit coincided with the outbreak of war. They were eventually allowed to leave after spending almost a month trapped in the territory.
Yousaf’s wife, Nadia, has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza …
Yousaf & Co has been asked for comment.
Brother-in-law’s arrest
On January 16, 2024, The Sun, among other media outlets, reported that Yousaf’s brother-in-law had been arrested for a second time. The second arrest was in relation to a horrific murder in Dundee:
… Ramsay El-Nakla, younger brother of the First Minister’s wife Nadia, had secured bail after being accused of dealing heroin.
But officers stepped in as he got ready to leave the dock and nicked him in connection with another alleged incident.
He was among three arrested after a man reportedly fell from the window of a flat in Dundee last week.
A 36-year-old was seriously injured after he plunged from a tenement block on the city’s Morgan Street.
Emergency services rushed to the scene last Wednesday morning.
Cops taped off the street and locals reported a large police presence in the area.
Residents said they spotted a binman and a street sweeper going to help the injured man before paramedics arrived. He was then taken to Ninewells Hospital.
El-Nakla, 36, was first arrested last Thursday in connection with a different alleged incident …
On April 9, he was due to appear in Dundee Sheriff Court.
The Spectator‘s Steerpike told us:
Police Scotland has today confirmed that they have arrested Yousaf’s brother-in-law and charged him with abduction and extortion. It follows the death of a man who fell from a block of flats in Dundee in January.
Ramsay El-Nakla, 36, is the brother of Yousaf’s wife, Nadia El-Nakla and is due to appear in court later today. In a statement, Police Scotland said that:
A 36-year-old man has been arrested and charged with abduction and extortion following an incident where a man fell from a block of flats on Morgan Street, Dundee on Wednesday, 10 January. He died a week later in hospital. Three others were previously arrested and charged following the same incident. The 36-year-old man is due to appear in Dundee Sheriff Court today, Tuesday, 9 April, 2024. A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal.
It comes three months after El-Nakla first appeared in court on charges of supplying heroin and being in possession of cocaine and cannabis. Back then Yousaf said ‘It would be inappropriate for me to comment at this stage’ adding ‘I’m very keen not be seen to interfere with any court case, let alone one involving my brother-in-law.’
What will his line be now…?
Who knows?
In any event, the wheels have come off Humza Yousaf’s wagon in much the same way he came off his scooter in Holyrood when he had injured his leg a couple of years ago:
A man so sure of himself at the time … perhaps less so now — despite all his bluster at First Minister’s Questions.
Yesterday’s post discussed the resignation of Scotland’s First Minister, Humza Yousaf, on Monday, April 29, 2024.
Today’s entry looks back at his career in the Scottish Parliament.
Before that, let us look briefly at the February 22, 2023 post from CaltonJock which tells us more about Yousaf’s youth (purple emphases mine):
Humza Yousaf was born on 7 April 1985 in Glasgow, Scotland. He enjoyed a trouble free lifestyle being privately educated at Hutchesons’ Grammar School, a fee paying independent school in Glasgow then going on to study Politics at the University of Glasgow, graduating with an MA in 2007.
He left university to work as a parliamentary assistant for a number of MSPs and has been financed from the public purse ever since. He has no experience of work outside the public sector.
Ministerial appointments
Yousaf was fortunate to have held rather important ministerial appointments in the Scottish parliament, beginning in 2012. He was Minister for External Affairs and International Development under then-First Minister Alex Salmond. When Nicola Sturgeon succeeded Salmond, Yousaf retained the position but under a different title, that of Minister for Europe and International Development.
In 2016, Sturgeon made him Minister for Transport and the Islands.
In 2018, Sturgeon promoted him to Cabinet Secretary for Justice, a post which he held until 2021. The level of police recorded crimes rose from 244,504 to 246,511 in 2020-2021. During that time, he came up with the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill, further amended only recently, on April 1, 2024, by which time he had been serving as First Minister for a little over a year.
After the May 2021 elections, with Jeane Freeman MSP’s standing down, Sturgeon made Yousaf her replacement as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, a position he held until he won the SNP leadership contest after Sturgeon resigned in February 2023.
In July that year, the WHO declared that Scotland had six out of ten coronavirus hotspots in Europe.
In September 2021, news emerged that Scottish waiting times for an ambulance reached six hours. Yousaf urged the public to ‘think twice’ before ringing for one. Audit Scotland found that 500 elderly people in Scotland died that year because of delayed access to emergency treatment.
Let’s take a closer look at Yousaf’s actions during his time as an MSP (Member of the Scottish Parliament).
Transport Minister failings
While Yousaf was the Cabinet Minister for Transport, he was caught driving without car insurance.
On December 8, 2016, Scotland’s Herald reported:
TRANSPORT Minister Humza Yousaf has blamed the break up of his marriage after being caught by police while driving without insurance.
Mr Yousaf, who is already under pressure over poor service on Scotland’s railways, said he had made an “honest mistake” and would not contest the charge.
However, Yousaf had greater failings in the area of transport, as the aforementioned CaltonJock reminds us:
On 18 May 2016, he was promoted Minister for Transport and the Islands and was at the centre of controversy and public criticism over the poor performance of ScotRail, with its trains facing severe delays, cancellations and overcrowding.
Sturgeon was called upon to sack him over his shambolic handling of transport after the prolific Twitter-using Transport Minister admitted he knew nothing about his brief as he tried to defend his failings.
He was quizzed by MSP’s at Holyrood over his administration’s handling of the beleaguered network amid stalled projects and declining services after it emerged the bill for rail upgrades had rocketed by £379 million.
The intervention became necessary when a report from quango Transport Scotland revealed the cost of five schemes had risen to £1.5 billion from £1.1 billion.
The transport workers union Aslef called for Mr Yousaf to be sacked amid a growing crisis on the railway network.
Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said: “The Scottish government response to the rail crisis has been pathetic. Transport Minister Humza Yousaf has stood by while Abellio Scotrail takes Scotland’s passengers and taxpayers for a ride”.
Hate speech
As if coping with coronavirus were not enough, on October 29, 2020, Yousaf wanted to ban freedom of speech in one’s own home, something he finally realised on April 1, 2024.
The Scottish chronicler, Effie Deans, posted on her site, Lily of St Leonard’s, ‘Why does Humza Yousaf want to police what I say in private?’
She says:
Humza Yousaf has explained that he wants to punish Scots for having insulting conversations at home. While we would retain the right to be offensive anyone stirring up hatred against various protected groups will be prosecuted. What this means is that we would no longer be allowed to speak freely in our own homes.
Yousaf had cited some hypothetical examples of private speech that should be criminalised. Yet, Effie Deans pointed out that such instances of criminality are:
already covered by other laws.
True!
Interestingly, Yousaf himself made a speech at Holyrood which many Scots — and other Britons — found objectionable. He complained with escalating anger that white people occupy most of the prominent positions in Scotland. That should come as no surprise since between 94% and 96% of Scots are Caucasian:
Around a year later, on April 15, 2024, the Revd Stu Campbell, author of Wings Over Scotland, noticed that not all of Yousaf’s text for that speech reached the official Scottish parliament transcript. Last month, he wrote to Holyrood to find out why and told the story in ‘The mutability of history’.
Campbell says that the transcript, which he linked to, reads as follows:
That is not the case only in justice. The chief medical officer is white, the chief nursing officer is white, the chief veterinary officer is white, the chief social work adviser is white.
However, in reality, as can be seen on the video, Yousaf went through a whole list of examples, which I won’t quote here but which you can read on Campbell’s post.
Campbell also remarked on the disagreeable tone of the speech:
He issued a string of sharp, accusatory and exclamatory sentences, each clearly separated by pauses, in an angry manner. What the Report presents reads very differently, like a calm list with no particular inflection.
Tone is of course to SOME degree a matter of personal interpretation (although I doubt any reasonable observer watching the speech either live or on video would doubt or dispute the Cabinet Secretary’s anger), but no amount of personal interpretation justifies material ALTERATION, such as the addition of words to the speech or the combining of multiple sentences into one, in order to better fit that interpretation.
Yousaf displayed biases during his time as Justice Minister, too, according to CaltonJock:
His social media shenanigans on Twitter got him into several scrapes when he was Justice Secretary.
He rushed to slam Rangers football players on Twitter for being filmed supposedly making sectarian chants – a video which was subsequently shown to be a fake, for which Yousaf refused to apologise.
The rush to judgement which was all the more troubling in light of his responsibility for the Scottish prosecution service.
The malicious prosecution of Rangers Football Club Directors was the illegal prosecution of innocent men in Scotland by the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service, with taxpayers being hit with a £51million and rising compensation bill with every penny being taken from front-line services.
A senior police officer who abused his power resigned, and a sheriff who abused his power is also resigning. Sturgeon and Yousaf the Cabinet Secretary for Justice remain silent on a scandal that contaminates Scottish justice.
Identity politics
During the 2023 SNP leadership contest, Guido Fawkes did some digging around in Yousaf’s past votes in Holyrood which betray what he was saying on the campaign trail.
On February 22 that year, Guido told us about Yousaf’s absence from a 2014 vote on gay marriage (red emphases his):
Humza Yousaf has become the frontrunner in the SNP leadership race. The Scottish Health Secretary has been quick to present himself as a champion of the LGBT community – in contrast to his nearest rival – and the SNP has lapped it up. In the past, Humza’s support hasn’t always been so forthcoming.
In 2014 Yousaf didn’t turn up for the pivotal vote to legalise gay marriage. He claims this was due to an unavoidable meeting with Pakistan General Consul about a Scot on death row – a meeting he booked 19 days prior, just two days after he was told the date he would need to attend the historic gay marriage vote. Surely unrelated to the fact Glasgow imams, an influential voice within his constituency, opposed the reform.
Guido concluded:
Humza has also previously voiced his support for Imran Khan – the populist former Prime Minister of Pakistan who banned gay dating app grindr. It seems his unequivocal LGBT support only extends as far as it’s politically expedient…
On February 25, Guido posted the reason why Yousaf missed the 2014 vote, which came from Alex Neil, an MSP who remembers, via Times Radio:
We were having a free vote at stage three.. and any minister who wasn’t going to vote for the bill, or we wanted to skip the vote, had to get the permission of the first minister to do so. There was a request from Humza, because, in his words, of pressure he was under from the mosque for him to be absent from the vote. And Alex Salmond, the first minister, gave him permission to do that. And a ministerial meeting was arranged to take place at exactly the same time as the vote in Glasgow to give Humza cover for not being there. Now, I’m not saying Humza was against the bill or anything like that because he wasn’t, he had voted at stage one, but because he had voted in stage one, in his words, he was put under pressure by his words, put under pressure by the leaders of the mosque in Glasgow about the possibility he might vote for it at stage three, and he requested to skip and he was skipped and the meeting was arranged deliberately to give him cover for the timing of the vote. That’s all I’m saying. But the key point is, Kate, on the one hand has been brutally honest to her own cost, brutally honest about what her honest opinion is. Humza I don’t think has been so upfront. And I think he should just be honest, that he skipped a vote and the reasons why he skipped the vote, because I think what people want in this campaign is openness and transparency and honesty. And when I was asked the question, is it true that he skipped the vote, I’ve given the correct answer the true answer, he did skip the vote.
Afterwards, CaltonJock says that Yousaf posted a spurious explanation on Twitter:
“Meeting Pakistan Consul discussing Scot on death row accused under Blasphemy Law not one could/want avoid.” But Mr Ashgar was sentenced to death for blasphemy eight days after the meeting meaning his “death row” status was not known at the time the meeting was set up.
Yousaf’s pandemic as Health Minister
CaltonJock tells us about Yousaf’s time managing the pandemic as Health and Social Care Minister:
He disappointed the public with his response to the Covid pandemic with a botched attempt to grab a headline when he announced that ten children up to the age of nine had been admitted to Scottish hospitals in the previous week “because of Covid”.
Professor Steve Turner, Scotland officer for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, contradicted him and said that children’s wards were “not seeing a rise in cases with Covid” and added that the children in question had been hospitalised for other reasons.
Yousaf apologised for causing “any undue alarm”.
When the WHO declared Scotland the site of six out of ten European coronavirus hotspots:
The Scottish Government was accused of being ‘missing in action’ after it emerged that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister John Swinney and Yousaf himself were all away on holiday at the time.
Yousaf said he had promised to take his stepdaughter to Harry Potter World, tweeting that: “Most important job I have is being a good father, step-father & husband to my wife and kids”.
Half a million facemasks had to be withdrawn under his tenure because they were past their expiry date:
This represented, conservatively, a possible waste of public funds to the tune of £4.5Million, money that might have been spent on employing 130 nurses for a year.
And there is no hard evidence that a single life has been saved by the use of these masks; in fact, the very lack of PR by politicians or health executives since their unveiling suggests strongly that there have been no patient – or staff – benefits whatsoever.
However, perhaps not all blame can be laid at Yousaf’s feet. Professor Jason Leitch, Scotland’s National Clinical Director, gave some strange advice about mask wearing.
Considering that Scotland had some of the strictest pandemic rules in the UK, Leitch told Yousaf that masks were not needed as long as one was carrying a drink.
On January 23, 2024, The Telegraph reported on what emerged at Britain’s coronavirus inquiry that day:
Mr Yousaf said he knew that he did not have to wear a mask when seated but did not know the rules around whether he needed one when “standing talking to folk”, despite being the health secretary.
Prof Leitch replied: “Officially yes. But literally no one does. Have a drink in your hands at ALL times. Then you’re exempt. So if someone comes over and you stand, lift your drink.”
Jamie Dawson KC, counsel to the inquiry, challenged Prof Leitch that he was advising Mr Yousaf how to avoid the SNP government’s own rules using a “workaround”.
He asked: “If the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care didn’t understand the rules, what chance did anybody else have?”
Prof Leitch said it was a “tricky area” and argued that the advice “follows the rules” as people were allowed to stand and talk without a mask if they were drinking.
However, Mr Dawson said: “You told him to have a drink in his hands at all times whether he was drinking it or not.”
Then there were all the deleted WhatsApp messages from the pandemic months:
Prof Leitch also claimed he did not delete his messages every night as he had told colleagues in a WhatsApp group.
He was shown a message where he said that “WhatsApp deletion is a pre-bed ritual” but told the hearing it was a “slightly flippant” comment …
The inquiry was later shown another message where he urged colleagues to delete messages.
On Sept 30 2020, he told members of a WhatsApp group: “Thanks all…and my usual gentle reminder to delete your chat…particularly after we reach a conclusion. Thanks all…”
He said it was not his intention to avoid messages being obtained under Freedom of Information laws but admitted using the auto-delete function in one group chat.
The Ukranian women
On March 16, 2023, during the SNP leadership campaign, Yousaf met with a group of Ukranian women, refugees in Scotland.
Amazingly, he asked them where the men were. They politely explained that their men were back home fighting the Russians:
The Mail had more on the story:
Ukrainian men who are of military age are largely forbidden to leave the country as the war with Russia continues. This means that the majority of the displaced Ukrainians arriving elsewhere in Europe are women, children or the elderly.
Mr Yousaf told the BBC a number of Ukrainian men were elsewhere in the building when he made the remark. He said in an interview later: ‘They of course were rightly saying to me that for many of them their families are not able to make it, not all of their families are able to make it. I don’t think any of the women were at all offended or upset.‘
But opposition parties tore into the gaffe this afternoon, with Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie saying: ‘This is further evidence that Humza Yousaf is out of his depth. This is embarrassing.’
The Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton added: ‘From the man who would lead Scotland, this is clumsy and insensitive.
‘Many of these women could have male relatives fighting and dying on the Eastern front, defending not just Ukraine but the free democracies of our world. A worrying lack of awareness on display here.’
Yousaf as SNP leader and First Minister
On Monday, March 27, 2023, Humza Yousaf became SNP leader and Scotland’s First Minister.
Guido gave us the vote tally — a Brexit result of 52% to 48%. Amazing:
Humza Yousaf 52.1%
Kate Forbes 47.9%
Yousaf wins, 52% to 48%. The golden ratio…
Indeed.
That night, Dan Wootton, who was still on GB News, called Yousaf ‘woke’ and ‘useless’ in his editorial (full show available):
Two days later, Yousaf appointed his first cabinet. Guido noted:
Humza has added “NHS Recovery” to the Health Secretary title, presumably to reflect the urgent care it needs after his own tenure leading that department…
SNP issues
The SNP have had an unresolved financial scandal which first came to light a few weeks before the May 2021 election.
Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the Party’s executive, was arrested in connection with it on April 5, 2023.
That day, Guido told us that Yousaf had heaped praise on Murrell in the past:
With the news of Peter Murrell’s arrest breaking this morning, spare a thought for Humza Yousaf. Murrell wasn’t just a “proven election winner” for Humza’s party, he was also a “close acquaintance” of the First Minister. Just weeks ago, Yousaf was mulling over plans to keep him in post as the SNP’s exec, saying “anyone that doesn’t want a proven winner on their side, particularly in politics, I think that would be a little bit daft”. Yousaf’s praise for Murrell didn’t end there, he said the arrested SNP chief executive had done “more for our party and our movement than just about anybody else”. Clearly a great loss to the independence cause.
A few days later, Scottish police seized an SNP-owned motorhome vehicle which had been parked at Murrell’s mother’s house for well over a year. The Party had never used it for official purposes.
On April 11, it emerged that the SNP had been without auditors for six months.
Guido told us:
The SNP’s new era of “transparency” and “respect” is off to a roaring start under Humza Yousaf, who today claimed he had no prior knowledge that the party he now leads hasn’t had an auditor for the past six months. The same Humza Yousaf who sat practically an elbow’s length away from Nicola Sturgeon at the cabinet table while this was going on.
Following this morning’s news that Johnston Carmichael mysteriously quit as the SNP’s auditors “round about October“, Yousaf said:
“They resigned last year. I think it was in and and about October last year. But the fact that we don’t have auditors in place is one of the major priorities. You can imagine when I found that out, being the party leader, the party is quickly looking to secure another auditor […] When I learned about the fact that we don’t have an auditor in place, of course I’ve instructed the party to get on with finding another auditor, so we are working very hard to do that […] It’s certainly problematic. I won’t deny that at all.”
He added the situation was “extraordinary“, which is hard to disagree with. Extraordinary as it may be, Peter Murrell is nonetheless still a party member. Despite spending almost 12 hours in police custody last week…
On April 13, Guido posted a quote from Yousaf on the auditor situation; he claimed not to have known about it. Hmm:
Frankly, it would have been helpful to know beforehand…
Then the Party’s treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested in connection with the unresolved financial scandal.
On April 18, Guido reported the following, accompanied by a third-party video:
First Minister Humza Yousaf has spoken publicly for the first time since his party’s Treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested in connection with the SNP finance investigation. Yousaf is about to give a speech outlining his “priorities” for the Scottish government going forward, which he admits have been, erm, undermined somewhat by yet another arrest…
Yousaf said:
It’s clearly a very serious matter indeed, I’ve said already people are innocent until proven guilty… Of course I’m surprised that one of my colleagues has been arrested, but it’s a very serious matter indeed… it’s certainly is not helpful, of course… I’m not going to take away from the fact that the timing of this is far from ideal.
Guido concluded:
Yousaf stressed he does not believe the SNP is a “criminal operation“. This is where we are now. Colin Beattie, like Peter Murrell, still hasn’t been suspended from the party…
And, finally, on matters political, Margaret Ferrier, an SNP MP, had to stand down for violating coronavirus rules at the height of the pandemic. This was a parliamentary decision that was three years overdue; the process is the punishment.
As a result, a by-election took place in her constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West, which had a long tradition of voting Labour.
On the day of the by-election, October 5, Yousaf took his frustration out on Douglas Ross, an MP, an MSP and the leader of the Scottish Conservatives. The Presiding Officer demanded an apology from Yousaf.
Guido has the story and the video:
Humza Yousaf is obviously feeling the pressure from today’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. This afternoon the First Minister went on an manic rant at Douglas Ross, accusing the Scottish Conservatives leader of “post-truth […] lies“, and repeatedly refusing to apologise despite the demands of Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone. You can tell that by-election is on a knife-edge…
I know Douglas Ross, despite having three or four or five jobs – I’ve lost count, Presiding Officer – was down at the Conservative Party Conference this week. Or as others have rightly dubbed it, the conspiracy party conference […] His post-truth, his lies about the police service, it simply will not wash here in Scotland.
After three demands for an apology, Yousaf finally relented, claiming he was “happy to apologise to the chamber for any offence“. Which is not quite the personal apology Johnstone demanded…
Yousaf was worried about the SNP holding the seat, and he was right so to be. Labour’s Michael Shanks won.
There’s still a little bit more to the Humza Yousaf story. More on that tomorrow.
Yesterday’s post was about last Thursday’s three by-elections in England in Conservative-held seats.
Conservatives and Labour are both drawing conclusions about each party winning one of the three seats with the Lib Dems winning the third.
For both the two main parties, climate change — Net Zero — is important. It’s important for Lib Dems, too, but they are now in a distinct minority in the House of Commons. In terms of MP count, Scotland’s SNP is the third largest party after Labour.
However, other considerations will play a part in the general election (GE) to come either later in 2024 or at the last possible moment in January 2025.
This post will review the minor ones first, then move on to the larger ones.
By-elections: everything and nothing
All three parties are mulling over the by-elections.
If one looks at constituency by-election votes, readily available on Wikipedia, a lot of the time they are a protest vote before voters resume the status quo at the next GE.
A case in point from 2019 was the by-election in the Welsh constituency of Brecon and Radnorshire. On August 2 that year, Lib Dem supporter Mike Smithson, founder of Political Betting, gloated over his party’s win, ‘The LDs overturn the Tory 19.5% majority to win the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election’:
However, just four months later, on December 12, 2019, in the general election, Conservative candidate Fay Jones defeated the Lib Dem incumbent Jane Dodds, leader of the Welsh Lib Dems. In 2021, Dodds was elected as the only Lib Dem member of the Welsh Senedd.
Another factor is a much smaller turnout in by-elections than GEs. In 2022, Labour’s Paulette Hamilton won in Birmingham Erdington, continuing the party’s legacy after her predecessor Jack Dromey — Harriet Harman MP’s husband — suddenly died. Only 27% of voters made their way to the polls.
Are the doomsayers who predict that the Conservatives under Rishi Sunak will lose a GE correct? Only time will tell.
Rishi was upbeat as he shared breakfast on Friday morning with Uxbridge and South Ruislip’s latest Conservative MP, ex-postman and councillor Steve Treadwell.
Guido Fawkes brought us a video clip and soundbite from the Rumbling Tum café:
Rishi said (purple emphases mine):
Westminster has been acting like the next election is a done deal. The Labour Party’s been acting like its a done deal. The people of Uxbridge just told all of them that it’s not. No-one expected us to win here. But Steve’s victory demonstrates that when confronted with the actual reality of the Labour Party – when there’s an actual choice on a matter of substance at stake – people vote Conservative.
The Guardian also reported on the breakfast:
Rishi Sunak is in Uxbridge with Steve Tuckwell, the victorious Conservative candidate, PA Media reports. They arrived in a cafe to loud clapping and cheering. PA says:
The prime minister chatted to people sitting at the tables, celebrating the result which saw Tuckwell hold on with a majority of just 495, down from the 7,210 Boris Johnson secured in 2019.
“Are you all pumped?” Mr Sunak said to one group as he thanked Tory campaigners.
He also joked: “Normally when I get woken up at three in the morning it’s only bad news. So, it was a welcome change.”
Well, if Rishi wants to win, he will have to move his party back to core values, those that are truly conservative, not those of either Labour or the Lib Dems. As it stands, many Conservative MPs are more like Lib Dems, championing all the social issues without considering those of their voters. I could name names at this point, but why bother? Unless people watch BBC Parliament on a regular basis, most won’t know the personalities involved. That said, I am happy for readers to comment here on Conservatives who are clearly not conservative.
Incidentally, Boris Johnson — the best campaigner the Party has had in decades — tweeted his congratulations:
Just over a year ago, in June 2022, when Boris was still Prime Minister, the Conservatives suffered two stunning by-election defeats in Tiverton and Honiton in the West Country and in Wakefield in West Yorkshire. The first went to the Lib Dems and the second returned to Labour. On June 24 that year, The Telegraph reported that, while all was not lost historically, it was time for the Conservatives to pay attention:
In November of 1991, the Tories lost Kincardine and Deeside to the Liberal Democrats, as well as Langbaurgh to Labour.
Five months later, however, Sir John Major regained both seats en route to a surprise general election victory …
One of the many reasons that by-elections make for rather erratic tools of prediction is that, by their nature, the random seats at stake tend not to be all that representative.
Indeed, many go entirely unremarked upon because they are safe seats, where the incumbent party holds on without any trouble at all – and with an abysmally low turnout to boot.
Of the 36 by-elections between 2010 and 2019, the seat changed hands in only seven. Of those, perhaps only the two victories by Ukip in October and November 2014 proved to be of any long-term consequence.
Yet what is going on now seems altogether different. For one, the two by-elections held on Thursday could not have been better selected to target Conservative worries.
Wakefield was the archetypal Red Wall seat picked up by the Tories in 2019. Tiverton and Honiton was a previously impregnable Conservative fortress in the south-west.
… these two defeats are starting to fit into a pattern. They join the two enormous swings of more than 30 per cent to the Liberal Democrats in Chesham and Amersham, as well as North Shropshire.
This would appear to be evidence of genuine unpopularity, rather than mere by-election grumpiness. The three Liberal Democrat victories are all in the 20 biggest ever by-election swings of all time.
The pace of defeats is ramping up too. The Conservatives lost only five seats between 2010-19 period, but they have now lost four in just 12 months …
These defeats don’t defy the rules of politics, they fit well within them. That is not good news for the Prime Minister.
Rishi, take note.
Indeed, were Nadine Dorries to resign her Mid-Bedfordshire seat, as she said she would a several weeks ago, Labour could win, according to The Telegraph on July 1, 2023:
A survey by Opinium found that Labour would overturn Nadine Dorries’ 24,664 majority in a seat that has been held by the Tories since 1931.
The defeat would shock many Conservative MPs, raising the prospect that other seats thought to be “safe” may now be at risk …
Last week, Ms Dorries confirmed that she will be “gone long before the next election”, having announced on June 9 that she planned to trigger a by-election.
Labour commissioned the Opinium poll last month following anecdotal reports by canvassers that voters appeared to be deserting the Conservatives in vast numbers …
The poll put the Conservative candidate Festus Akinbusoye on 24 per cent, Labour on 28 per cent, and the Lib Dems on 15 per cent … while Reform UK’s candidate, David Holland, was on 10 per cent.
That’s pretty high for Reform, the former Brexit Party.
The youth factor: inexperience or opportunity
Keir Mather, 25, now representing Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire, is now the baby of the Commons, the youngest MP.
Labour’s Nadia Whittome now has a colleague younger than she.
During the campaign, Mather was somewhat unconvincing.
Guido Fawkes gave us the low down and a video:
Guido told us (red emphases his):
Labour’s candidate, the youthful Keir Mather, made a somewhat unconventional pitch for constituents to “lend me your vote”:
In about 12 months time we’ll have a general election. And if you’re not happy with how I’ve done as your MP, you’ll have a chance to have your say again…
It hardly fills you with confidence…
When you look at what voters already think of their candidate, the approach seems even more questionable. In Lord Ashcroft’s focus group, voters were concerned that Keir “looks about twelve” and that “he’s not very assertive. He might get eaten alive.” Leading with a pitch of ‘it’s only a year, what’s the worst that can happen’ won’t help assuage those doubts…
We shall see how he does in Parliament. After all, he was fortunate enough to attend Oxford University and be catapulted from there to Labour MP Wes Streeting’s office, where he has worked until now. No doubt Wes will be keeping a helpful eye on his protégé.
On July 18, two days ahead of the by-election on July 20, The Guardian went to take the constituency’s temperature. Conservatives there were deeply disappointed that Nigel Adams, who won by an amazing 20,000 majority in 2019, threw everything in the bin because Boris Johnson had not recommended him for a peerage. Stupid — and proud — man. He was old enough to know better. MPs do not automatically get peerages, and Nigel Adams was hardly up there with Conservative greats. (Nor is Nadine Dorries, for that matter, another one upset because she was not made a Baroness.)
The article said:
It is Sunak’s top priority out of the three contests, according to a senior ally of his who has helped rally the troops. Mark Crane, a Conservative councillor and leader of Selby district council for 20 years, also admits “Rishi will personally feel it” if the Tories lose …
“A lot of people are upset at the way Nigel resigned,” said Crane, sipping coffee on a bracing summer day in Selby town centre. “It was extremely disappointing that with about a year to go in this parliament, that he should seek to stand down and cause us what can only be a difficult byelection.”
Crane, who has been at the centre of the local political scene for decades, acknowledged apathy among Tory voters is likely to be a major problem. “It will happen. It’s just a case of how many thousands of people,” he believes.
I digress, but that was only to show that Conservatives probably stayed at home.
Back to Mather’s youth. On Friday morning, July 21, The Guardian reported on Conservative MP Johnny Mercer’s interview on Sky News that day. He criticised Mather’s lack of experience:
You’ve got to have people who have actually done stuff. This guy has been at Oxford University more than he’s been in a job.
You put a chip in him there and he just relays Labour lines, and the problem is people have kind of had enough of that.
They want people who are authentic. People who have worked in that constituency, who know what life is like, understand what life is like to live, work and raise a family in communities like theirs.
Well, Mather is from the constituency, even if he hasn’t worked there in a significant capacity.
Fortunately, Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands, who I am assured from one of his constituents is an excellent MP, knew better than Mercer:
Asked if he thought Mercer’s comment was appropriate, he told LBC: “I welcome young people coming into politics. We’ve got young Conservative MPs ourselves, young MPs in their 20s.”
Indeed.
Sara Britcliffe, 28, is one of the 2019 Conservative intake. She represents Hyndburn in Lancashire, ably winning the seat at the age of 24 from Labour’s much older Graham Jones, first elected in 2010. Britcliffe turned the seat Conservative for the first time since 1992, with a majority of 2,951.
Her father Peter had served as a Lancashire County Councillor and had been mayor of Hyndburn from 2017 to 2018. As he was a widower, Sara served as mayoress during his term in office. She then served as a councillor for Hyndburn Borough Council between 2018 and 2021, at which time she stood down because she was a sitting MP. Her only private sector employment was as manager of a sandwich shop in Oswaldtwistle.
Moral of the story: youth and inexperience are no barriers to entering Parliament. Britcliffe does very well as a backbencher and, as such, proves that a twenty-something can do a good job serving constituents.
Net Zero and ULEZ
Now we come to the heart of the matter: climate change policies.
Politicians from both the Conservative and Labour parties are wise to begin rethinking Net Zero by 3030.
Pundits said that ULEZ — Ultra Low Emission Zone — was a peculiarly London issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Elsewhere in the UK there are LEZ cities which will also charge motorists for being in the wrong type of vehicle.
On Friday, the day after the by-election, an article appeared, ‘UK clean air zones: the cities adding low emissions zones in 2023 and how to check if you are affected’:
Drivers are being urged to check if they are affected as a number of UK cities introduce or expand their low-emissions zones in the coming months.
Two cities will introduce all-new clean air zones in 2023, with another due to tighten restrictions and the possibility of a fourth coming into force as local authorities look to cut pollution. The changes have prompted a warning to drivers to check nearby local restrictions or face potential fines.
The ULEZ (ultra low-emission zone) in London has caused much controversy, with locals angered over the plans to cut down on cars in the capital. Labour even pointed towards this – a policy of Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan – as one of the reasons the party was unable to pick up an extra seat in the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.
Clean air zones apply charges to vehicles which do not meet minimum emissions standards. Most charge tolls of between £7 and £50 on non-compliant vehicles, although fines for non-payment can reach £2,000.
The minimum standards are petrol cars and vans which meet Euro 4 standards; Euro 6-compliant diesel cars and vans; HGVs, buses and coaches that meet Euro VI and Euro 3-compliant motorbikes.
The article has a map of the English and Scottish cities that have either introduced or plan to introduce LEZs or clean air zones.
In England, they are — in addition to London — Tyneside (Newcastle), Bradford, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, Bath and Portsmouth.
In Scotland, Glasgow’s LEZ came into force on June 1, 2023. Three other cities will follow in the months ahead: Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen.
There are other notionally eco-friendly — less human-friendly — measures being employed elsewhere. During the summer of 2020 in one of the daily coronavirus briefings, then-Transport Secretary Grant Shapps introduced the concept of the ’15-minute city’ as a reassurance that the pandemic was not going to waste, because England would ‘build back better’ in the years that followed.
Oxford will be trialling the ’15-minute city’ concept in 2024 by implementing six different zones.
Toby Young, founder of The Daily Sceptic and a graduate of Oxford University, was apoplectic. On December 5, 2022, he had a news round-up in ‘Oxford County Councillors to Introduce Trial Climate Lockdown in 2024’. He featured Watts Up With That‘s post:
Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to ‘save the planet’ from global warming. The latest stage in the ’15 minute city’ agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.
Under the new scheme if residents want to leave their zone they will need permission from the Council who gets to decide who is worthy of freedom and who isn’t. Under the new scheme residents will be allowed to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, but in order to even gain this every resident will have to register their car details with the council who will then track their movements via smart cameras round the city.
Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, secretly decided to divide-up the city of Oxford into six ‘15 minute’ districts in 2021 soon after they were elected to office. None of the councillors declared their intention of imprisoning local residents in their manifestos of course, preferring to make vague claims about how they will ‘improve the environment’ instead.
Every resident will be required to register their car with the County Council who will then monitor how many times they leave their district via number plate recognition cameras. And don’t think you can beat the system if you’re a two car household. Those two cars will be counted as one meaning you will have to divide up the journeys between yourselves. 2 cars 50 journeys each; 3 cars 33 journeys each and so on.
Watts Up With That introduced the following news items about Oxford, dated October 25:
This story is so crazy, I wanted corroboration. This is the same story published in the Oxford Mail:
ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six “15 minute” neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.
And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.
Duncan Enright, Oxfordshire County Council’s cabinet member for travel and development strategy, explained the authority’s traffic filter proposals in an interview in the Sunday Times …
People can drive freely around their own neighbourhood and can apply for a permit to drive through the filters, and into other neighbourhoods, for up to 100 days per year. This equates to an average of two days per week.
Toby Young commented:
This story is flat out insane. Why on earth would the residents of Oxford tolerate these sandal-wearing dictators? More to come on this, I’m sure.
Stop Press: Oxfordshire County Council has put out a statement to address concerns and ‘misunderstandings’ about the plans. Read it here.
The Telegraph‘s Zoe Strimpel wrote about the plan on December 11: ‘The green war on cars is about to take a mad new turn’.
In February 2023, Oxford residents rightly protested, so whatever the County Council did to allay fears and ‘misunderstandings’ did not work very well:
From this, we can see that clean air zones are the latest craze. They will certainly generate money.
Returning to the by-elections and eco-friendliness, Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared on the BBC last Friday morning to discuss these topics. The Guardian reported:
Jacob Rees-Mogg says Uxbridge result shows why Tories should drop ‘high-cost green policies’, including those in energy bill
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory former business secretary, is a Somerset MP, and he is being interviewed on the Today programme. Nick Robinson points out to him that, if the swing in the Somerton and Frome byelection were replicated in his seat at the general election, he would be out.
Rees-Mogg says byelections are not always a good guide to what will happen in a general election. He says his message is “don’t panic”.
He says in 1992 the Tories won back all the seats they had lost in byelections in the preceding parliament.
And the Tories should learn a lesson from Uxbridge.
Q: What lesson is that?
Rees-Mogg replies: “That high-cost green policies are not popular.”
Q: Greg Hands earlier defended government policy on the transition to green energy.
Rees-Mogg says he agreed with what Hands said about going with the grain of human behaviours. He suggests there is no need to rush the phasing out of petrol and diesel cars.
He repeats the point about the need for his party not to panic. They should support Rishi Sunak, he says.
Q: You used to criticise him as socialist.
Rees-Mogg says he wants the Tories to win the next election. No Conservative would want Keir Starmer in Downing Street …
UPDATE: Rees-Mogg said:
You should learn from where the government has done surprisingly well against the form book, and learn there that high-cost green policies are not popular.
I think the government should take away the power for these Ulezes, which is provided for by legislation … You should go with the grain of what voters are doing anyway. Voters are year in, year out, buying cleaner cars with cleaner engines. The development of engines in recent decades have been phenomenal.
You can do this by osmosis, rather than by hitting people, because actually all these charges hit the least well-off motorist rather than the rich motorist who buys a new car every few years anyway.
Lord Frost was the next to urge Rishi and the Government to ease up on green policies:
David Frost, the former Brexit minister, is also urging Rishi Sunak to scale back net zero policies. He tweeted:
I didn’t think much of Frost’s ten-point plan, most of which we’ve read before, but his point about Net Zero is worth noting:
3. Delay the net zero 2050 target. Abolish the deadlines on boilers and EVs. Get fracking and build low-carbon modern gas power stations and zero-carbon nuclear. Stop wasting money on green levies and if we must use renewables make them stand on their own two feet.
On Friday afternoon, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, defended his plans to expand ULEZ to the capital’s outer boroughs:
Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, has defended his decision to extend Ulez (the ultra-low emission zone) to outer London. This will lead to drivers with polluting cars having to pay £12.50 a day to drive them in places like Uxbridge, and campaigning against the move was almost certainly the factor that enabled the Tories to hold the seat.
Khan justified the Ulez extension, saying he was “determined to clear the air” in London …
Labour’s National Policy Forum met on Friday for a weekend-long session, and The Guardian pointed out that not everyone was on board with schemes such as ULEZ:
Alan Wager, a politics academic, argues that the Uxbridge result could make it easier for those in the party wanting to push back against more radical policy options.
Labour MP Emily Thornberry, shadow attorney general, gave her view on ULEZ that afternoon:
… Thornberry suggested the implementation of the policy was a problem. In an interview with the [BBC] World at One she said:
I think it’s the right policy – I suspect it’s the way it’s being done [that is problematic]. And I hope that Sadiq will look at it again, I know that we’re asking him to.
Thornberry also said that the government had given cities like Birmingham, Bristol and Bradford money to help fund scrappage schemes as part of low-emission policies, but that London had not received this help. She urged central government to work with the London mayor to ensure that air quality could be improved.
Just after 2 p.m., Keir Starmer had a message for Sadiq Khan about ULEZ:
Starmer urges Khan to ‘reflect’ on Ulez implementation, saying it was reason for Labour losing in Uxbridge
Keir Starmer has also urged Sadiq Khan to “reflect” on the implementation of the Ulez extension. Referring to the result in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, he told broadcasters:
We didn’t take it in 1997 when we had a landslide Labour victory. And Ulez was the reason we didn’t win there yesterday.
We know that. We heard that on the doors. And we’ve all got to reflect on that, including the mayor.
Asked what “reflect” meant and whether the scheme should now be scrapped, Starmer replied:
We’ve got to look at the result. The mayor needs to reflect. And it’s too early to say what should happen next.
Guido picked up on the quote in a post that afternoon and gave us deputy Party leader Angela Rayner’s opinion:
Senior party figures have been quick to turn on Sadiq and his punitive policy. This morning, Angela Rayner told BBC Breakfast that Labour should “listen to the voters” adding:
People are really concerned about how, during a cost of living crisis, that they’re going to be imposed with a Ulez charge that they can’t afford.
Early this week, it was the Conservatives’ turn to battle over Net Zero policies.
On Monday, July 24, Guido reported on Andrew Mitchell MP, who had the news round that morning:
The government’s policy to ban new petrol cars by 2030 appeared to stall this morning, as Andrew Mitchell couldn’t confirm they would stick to the eco-austerity plan. Speaking on the Today programme, Mitchell spluttered when asked if the ban would remain in place for the future:
All I can tell you is it is in place… But I’m afraid I can’t prophesy for the future
Start your engines…
On Tuesday morning, it was Michael Gove’s turn for the news round. He was adamant that Net Zero was firmly in place:
Michael Gove has insisted the government’s plan to ban new diesel and petrol cars will come into effect from 2030 after all, despite Andrew Mitchell stalling on the issue yesterday morning, and Rishi Sunak himself prevaricating on the question just hours later. As of today, it’s still pedal to the metal according to Gove…
Speaking on Times Radio, the Levelling Up Secretary gave an “absolute guarantee” the ban was going ahead:
I do agree that it’s important that the government does press ahead with thoughtful and important steps in order to safeguard the environment…
Asked if it was “immovable“, Gove gave an unequivocal yes – twice. Something two of his government colleagues didn’t do yesterday…
Hmm.
Gove’s comments on Monday about building more homes met with a crisp riposte from backbencher Anthony Browne, who represents a Cambridgeshire constituency. Guido has the story:
Michael Gove has just wrapped up his planning reform speech, vowing to build Britain’s “Silicon Valley” in Cambridge with 250,000 new homes and tear up red tape to tackle the UK’s housing shortage. Although not before Tory backbencher Anthony Browne tweeted he would do everything to stop “nonsense plans to impose mass housebuilding” on his own patch, obviously…
Gove confirmed the government would push ahead with plans to relax planning rules in city centres, allowing empty retail outlets to be converted into flats and houses with less pointless bureaucracy in the way:
We are unequivocally, unapologetically and intensively concentrating our biggest efforts in the hearts of our cities,” Mr Gove said in a speech. Because that’s the right thing to do economically, environmentally, and culturally. [We will] use all of the levers that we have to promote urban regeneration rather than swallowing up virgin land… We will enable brownfield development rather than greenbelt erosion.
He assured he was still committed to building 300,000 homes a year – without specifying which year – although someone should let CCHQ know before the next by-election leaflets are posted out. The PM himself also weighed in this morning, claiming it’s important to build “in the right way“, and “in the right places with the support of local communities and not concreting over the countryside“.
Everyone says Gove is so ‘intelligent’ and that he did a marvellous job as Education Secretary years ago.
Gove’s words put up a red flag for me. I suspect I am not alone.
Conclusions
Net Zero policies will divide Conservative and Labour MPs alike in the months to come, just as Brexit did.
The Conservatives have a chance to reverse punitive climate change policies such as ULEZ and make them a winning campaign issue for the middle and working classes. However, the question remains: will they take advantage of that golden opportunity?
On Thursday, July 20, 2023, England held three by-elections as a result of Conservative MPs who had stood down for various reasons.
These were held in London (Uxbridge and South Ruislip), the West Country (Somerton and Frome [pron. ‘Froome’]) and North Yorkshire (Selby and Ainsty).
Happily, these produced a win for each of the three main parties in England.
I stayed up until the early hours of the morning reading The Guardian‘s live coverage, excerpts of which follow — including tweets — purple emphases mine.
This was the paper’s summary at 1:50 a.m. on Friday morning:
A reminder of the stakes as we prepare to (probably) learn the results in two of tonight’s three seats at around 2am BST, in ten minutes’ time:
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Uxbridge and South Ruislip, on the fringes of London: Boris Johnson’s seat. Labour is the favourite to win. The Tory majority in 2019 was by just 7,210 votes.
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Selby and Ainsty, in Yorkshire in the north of England: Labour would need to defeat the Tories by more than 20,000 votes here. According to Britain Elects, this would be the largest numerical majority overturned by Labour ever in the party’s history.
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Somerton and Frome, southwest England. The Liberal Democrats are so confident of their win that they declared it tonight two hours after polls closed. That is not an official declaration. The 2019 Tory majority is 19,213 votes.
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Uxbridge and South Ruislip
I was especially eager to find out who won Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s old seat.
At 1:18 a.m., Labour were less confident of a win:
Evening Standard political correspondent Rachael Burford says, quoting a Labour source, that the Uxbridge result could be “recount territory”.
We’re hearing both the Uxbridge and South Ruislip and the Somerton and Frome results could be declared in the next ten minutes.
Minutes later, a recount was announced:
Recount granted in Uxbridge and South Ruislip
A recount has been requested in Uxbridge and South Ruislip – and that call has been granted, Lloyd White, the returning officer in Uxbridge has just said, per the BBC …
At 2:09:
Sky News political correspondent John Craig says, “We’ve been picking up Labour jitters throughout the evening” in Uxbridge and South Ruislip – and that those “jitters may be turning to panic”.
At 2:33, the candidates were called to hear the results:
Both the Tory and Labour candidates have arrived at the count in Uxbridge and South Ruislip:
At 2:40, we discovered that the Conservatives won — by 495 votes:
Uxbridge and South Ruislip results: Conservatives win
The Conservatives have held onto Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Boris Johnson’s former seat. Labour was hoping to win, with the Tories being holding the majority in 2019 by just 7,210 votes.
Conservatives: 13,965
Labour: 13,470
LibDem: 526
Independent: 91
I was thrilled. All the pundits had said earlier in the week that the Conservatives would lose.
The winner, Steve Tuckwell, a former postman, said that the election fight was over the imminent expansion of ULEZ — the Ultra Low Emission Zone — into outer London:
‘Sadiq Khan has lost Labour this election,’ says Uxbridge Tory candidate
Conservative candidate Steve Tuckwell is making his victory speech in Boris Johnson’s former seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip on the outskirts of London.
“Sadiq Khan has lost Labour this election,” with the Ulez policy, Tuckwell says.
Indeed, that was the issue that carried into the following week. To ULEZ or not to ULEZ, that is the question.
Most of the candidates campaigned on it:
Many of the seat’s candidates focused their campaign on London mayor Sadiq Khan’s plans to extend the ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) to Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Here is part of the Press Association’s (PA’s) analysis. Note that even the Labour candidate backed off from the ULEZ extension:
Here is some more analysis, via PA:
The Tories have held on to Boris Johnson’s former seat in a blow to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Labour had hoped to take Uxbridge and South Ruislip, which the former prime minister held with a majority of 7,210 in 2019, but Tory Steve Tuckwell managed to retain it for Rishi Sunak’s party.
The Conservative victory means that Sunak has been spared the prospect of being the first prime minister since 1968 to lose three byelections on the same day.
London mayor Sadiq Khan’s policy of expanding the Ulez low emission zone to outer boroughs – including Uxbridge and South Ruislip – has been blamed for the party’s failure to take the seat.
Labour candidate Danny Beales had distanced himself from the policy, saying it was “not the right time” to expand the £12.50 daily charge for cars which fail to meet emissions standards.
The failure to overturn the Tory majority in the seat was dubbed “Uloss” by a party insider in a sign of the unease at Mr Khan’s plan.
In public, senior Labour figures acknowledged Ulez had been a factor in the vote.
At 3:02, we discovered that Labour had missed their targeted swing in the vote:
There was 6.7 percentage point swing in the share of the vote from Conservative to Labour in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Labour needed a 7.6 point swing to take the seat.
At 3:22, The Guardian‘s Mabel Banfield-Nwachi analysed the result:
Labour had been expected to comfortably win Uxbridge, where Johnson’s majority had dwindled to 7,210 in the 2019 general election – his first as prime minister.
There was sufficient disbelief in the Labour camp that they had not in fact won the byelection that party officials demanded a recount. The second round delivered the same result: a slim Conservative victory, majority 495.
Former postman Steve Tuckwell, the local Conservative councillor who will now take Johnson’s place in Westminster, had declared the vote a “referendum” on London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) …
Banfield-Nwachi had more to report at 5:00:
Steve Tuckwell, the winning Conservative candidate for Uxbridge and Ruislip, said on stage after the victory was declared, “This message from the Uxbridge and Ruislip election is clear. Sadiq Khan has lost Labour this election and we know that it was his damaging and costly Ulez policy that lost them this election.”
Tuckwell argued that this byelection result boiled down to Ulez, and Labour’s “tactic … not to push Ulez” is what led to his victory.
“I’ve campaigned tirelessly to ensure that the voices of Uxbridge and South Ruislip have been heard. We’ve been ignored for many many months now, even years on a lot of issues that have come out of Sadiq Khan and City hall.
Asked whether Boris Johnson had any influence on the result, Tuckwell said: “Boris Johnson’s name was not on the ballot paper, mine was so there’s no influence there at all.
“From the outset of this campaign, I have been the underdog. The polls, the pundits have predicted a big labour win.
“I think there’ll be Labour MPs in outer London boroughs who will be looking at these results tonight with sweaty palms.”
“This election result is now the voice of the people of Uxbridge and South Ruislip and he [Khan] has to listen.”
Neighbouring MP David Simmons voiced his congratulations:
David Simmonds, the Conservative MP for neighbouring Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, said he is delighted with the results and believes Tuckwell won because he is a “community person first”.
“It shows the power of the local community, the strength of the feeling against Ulez, but also the sense that people have a high degree of confidence in the Conservatives.
The Tory’s win in this byelection should be seen as a “turning point”, Simmonds said. “I think this is yet another message that says that the Conservative party has a lot to offer this party and we will continue to work to show that message.”
Labour’s Danny Beales left after the count was announced.
At 5:19, the PA gave their analysis, which included this:
Uxbridge and South Ruislip has been held continuously by the Conservatives since the seat was created in 2010 and new MP Steve Tuckwell is the third Tory to represent the area, after John Randall and former prime minister Boris Johnson.
At 6:17, we got the full vote totals. Note that Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party beat the Lib Dems:
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, and I will be covering the reaction to the most important byelection results of the year.
But, first, here are the results in full. In all three byelections there were a lot of minor party candidates and so you might not have seen the numbers in full yet.
Here are the results for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Steve Tuckwell (C) 13,965 (45.16%)
Danny Beales (Lab) 13,470 (43.56%)
Sarah Green (Green) 893 (2.89%)
Laurence Fox (Reclaim) 714 (2.31%)
Blaise Baquiche (LD) 526 (1.70%)
Steve Gardner (Soc Dem) 248 (0.80%)
Kingsley Anti Ulez (Ind) 208 (0.67%)
Count Binface (Binface) 190 (0.61%)
No Ulez Leo Phaure (Ind) 186 (0.60%)
Richard Hewison (Rejoin) 105 (0.34%)
Piers Corbyn (LLL) 101 (0.33%)
Cameron Bell (Ind) 91 (0.29%)
Enomfon Ntefon (CPA) 78 (0.25%)
Rebecca Jane (UKIP) 61 (0.20%)
Ed Gemmell (Climate) 49 (0.16%)
Howling Laud Hope (Loony) 32 (0.10%)
Seventy-seven Joseph (Ind) 8 (0.03%)
Conservative majority: 495 (1.60%)
Electorate 67,067; Turnout 30,925 (46.11%, -22.37%)
2019 result: Conservative majority 7,210 (14.96%) – Turnout 48,187 (68.48%) Johnson (C) 25,351 (52.61%); Milani (Lab) 18,141 (37.65%); Humphreys (LD) 3,026 (6.28%); Keir (Green) 1,090 (2.26%); Courtenay (UKIP) 283 (0.59%); Buckethead (Loony) 125 (0.26%); Binface (Ind) 69 (0.14%); Utting (Ind) 44 (0.09%); Yogenstein (ND) 23 (0.05%); Burke (Ind) 22 (0.05%); Smith (ND) 8 (0.02%); Tobin (ND) 5 (0.01%)
The next bit came from a campaigner for Laurence Fox. The campaigner was deeply unhappy — and rightly so — that the BBC did not deign to interview Fox. As the lead in the detective series Endeavour and now a broadcaster on GB News, he has a rather high profile.
This post came a few days before the by-election:
At the election count, Fox himself tweeted:
At 8:10, The Guardian showed us Rishi Sunak’s congratulatory tweet:
Rishi Sunak has posted a message on Twitter congratulating Steve Tuckwell, the Conservative candidate who won the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection.
Someone from the Conservatives rang Rishi at No. 10 around 3 a.m. Rishi got up and enjoyed breakfast with Tuckwell in Uxbridge a couple of hours later at the Rumbling Tum café. This photo, I believe, was taken earlier in the morning (the sun rose around 5 a.m.), although it is time stamped at 9:12. Note that Rishi’s sleeves are rolled up to show he is a man of the people (oh, please).
Selby and Ainsty
At 2:14, no one knew who would win Nigel Adams’s seat. He stood down as an MP because he was expecting a peerage in Boris’s honours list. The man is old enough to know that most MPs do not get bumped up into the House of Lords. Conservative voters were not best pleased, Guardian political correspondent Helen Pidd said:
To Selby now, where counting is still in the early stages.
I’ve just been having a chat with Andrew Jones, the scrupulously polite Conservative MP for Harrogate and Knaresborough, who has been overseeing much of the Tory campaigning in Selby.
He said he was surprised how “policy-light” discussions had been on the doorstep, with “the main talking point being why we’re having this byelection in the first place, and that’s Nigel Adams’ resignation.” People are “really disappointed” that Adams quit in a huff because he didn’t get a seat in the lords, said Jones. So, added Jones, was he.
Both he and Judith Cummins, the Labour MP for Bradford South, who has been running the Selby campaign for the red team, agreed that by far and away the biggest concern among the electorate was the cost of living.
“It’s getting to a tipping point where it’s too much for everybody,” said Cummins.
She said she took heart from how many voters were willing to give Labour a hearing. “To be in with a fighting chance of winning here, shows such a massive improvement over the four years of Keir Starmer’s leadership. Making in-roads in a rural community like this is massive for us.”
Neither Jones nor Cummins could be drawn on who they think will win Selby. The wait continues.
At 4:06, the results were in:
Labour win Selby and Ainsty
Labour have won Selby and Ainsty, achieving a historic result by winning despite the Tories having a majority of more than 20,000 votes. Labour now has a majority of 4,161 – and the youngest MP in parliament. Keir Mather, 25, is officially the baby of the house.
35,886 votes were cast, with 69 ballots rejected.
The results are as follows:
Labour: 16,456
Conservatives: 12,295
Yorkshire party: 1,503
Reform UK: 1,332
Independent: 99
Shortly afterwards, Keir Mather spoke:
“People opened their doors to us and embraced our positive vision for the future,” Mather says.
“For too long, Conservatives up here and in Westminster, have failed us. And now that changes. It’s time for a fresh start,” he says.
He thanks his partner Euan, too.
He says he has encountered “so much hardship” while campaigning – hardship caused by the Tories.
Labour were pleased with the result, to be sure:
Labour win Selby, overturning largest numerical majority in post-war history
Labour’s victory in Selby and Ainsty is the “largest numerical majority overturned by Labour in post-war history,” according to Britain Elects’ Ben Walker.
Helen Pidd says that the highest Labour victory was more than 30 years ago:
More on what makes the Selby result historic: gaining Selby sets a record for the size of majority overturned by Labour at a byelection, according to Dr Hannah Bunting and Prof Will Jennings, Sky election analysts. The highest majority the party has overturned at a byelection is 14,654 votes in Mid Staffordshire more than 30 years ago.
It was good news for Keir Starmer, too:
Labour’s victory means Keir Starmer has become the first party leader since [then-Lib Dem leader] Paddy Ashdown in the 1990s to win four byelections, PA reports.
Keir Mather is another MP who has never had a real job. After he graduated from Oxford, no less, he went straight into the public sector:
He is a former researcher for shadow health secretary Wes Streeting.
As to why the Party leader and the new MP share the same first name:
Mather was named after Keir Hardie, the first leader of the Labour Party.
At 6:21, we received the full vote count, which did not look good for the fringe party Reform, of which Nigel Farage is president:
And here are the Selby and Ainsty results in full.
Keir Mather (Lab) 16,456 (45.96%)
Claire Holmes (C) 12,295 (34.34%)
Arnold Warneken (Green) 1,838 (5.13%)
Mike Jordan (ND) 1,503 (4.20%)
Dave Kent (Reform) 1,332 (3.72%)
Matt Walker (LD) 1,188 (3.32%)
Nick Palmer (Ind) 342 (0.96%)
John Waterston (Soc Dem) 314 (0.88%)
Sir Archibald Stanton (Loony) 172 (0.48%)
Guy Phoenix (Heritage) 162 (0.45%)
Andrew Gray (ND) 99 (0.28%)
Tyler Wilson-Kerr (Ind) 67 (0.19%)
Luke Wellock (Climate) 39 (0.11%)
Labour majority: 4,161 (11.62%)
Electorate 80,159; Turnout 35,807 (44.67%, -27.00%)
2019 result: Conservative majority 20,137 (35.69%) – Turnout 56,418 (71.67%) Adams (C) 33,995 (60.26%); Rofidi (Lab) 13,858 (24.56%); Macy (LD) 4,842 (8.58%); Jordan (Yorkshire) 1,900 (3.37%); Warneken (Green) 1,823 (3.23%)
At 7:04, we saw the congratulatory tweet from Sir Keir Starmer, who visited the constituency with deputy leader Angela Rayner several hours later:
Keir Starmer has posted a message on Twitter saying the result in Selby and Ainsty shows “how powerful the demand for change is” …
Somerton and Frome
The Liberal Democrats were confident that they would win this West Country seat from the Conservatives.
Edinburgh’s Christine Jardine, one of their few Scottish MPs, was on hand to give support. At 2:22, we received an update with an incoherent Lib Dem tweet. I wonder why Jardine was wearing red rather than the traditional Lib Dem yellow-orange:
We’re still expecting a declaration in Somerton and Frome within the hour – and likely sooner rather than later – where the Liberal Democrats remain confident of their victory.
At 2:51, the results were in:
Liberal Democrats win Somerton and Frome
The Liberal Democrats were right about that tractor – they have swept Somerton and Frome with more than 20,000 votes – a majority of 11,008 votes over the Conservatives.
Liberal Democrats: 21,187
Tories: 10,179
Labour: 1,009
Independent: 635
The Lib Dems have done well in the West Country in by-elections in this Parliament, which is not surprising, as recent history shows that many of the seats there are held by either them or the Conservatives.
At 2:56, the winner, Sarah Dyke, spoke:
LibDem candidate for Somerton and Frome, Sarah Dyke, says that the victory is that of her loved ones as much as it is hers.
“The Liberal Democrats are back in the west country,” says Dyke.
She thanks lifelong Conservative voters for voting LibDem for the first time. “I will not let you down,” she says.
“There is no doubt that our electoral system is broken, but your vote has shown the Conservatives can still be beaten under it.”
The party was quick to tweet the victory. Dyke is pictured with Lib Dem Leader Sir Ed Davey:
A victory tweet:
The victory was bad news for the Conservatives:
Tory result in Somerton and Frome is worst in history of the seat
Sammy Gecsoyler
In Somerton and Frome, the Liberal Democrats overturned a near 20,000 majority to flip their fourth Tory seat since 2019.
The Lib Dems won 21,187 votes with a 28-point swing while the Tories achieved their worst result in the history of the seat with 10,179 votes and 26% of the vote. Labour also achieved their worst result ever in the seat with 1,009 and 2.6% share of the vote, being beaten out by Reform UK who won 1,303 votes.
Spirits were high early on among the Lib Dems with party sources briefing they had “romped home” before counting had officially begun.
David Warburton, the former Conservative MP for the constituency, resigned last month after being suspended from the party in April 2022 amid claims of drug use and sexual harassment. He admitted the former but denied the latter. The allegations were being investigated by the independent complaints and grievance scheme (ICGS) at the time of his resignation.
Unlike other contests won by the Liberal Democrats this parliament which saw the party flip true-blue seats orange, Somerton and Frome had a Liberal Democrat MP between 1997 and 2015.
At 5:27, the PA gave their analysis:
Somerton and Frome is the fourth seat the Liberal Democrats have taken from the Conservatives at a byelection since the 2019 general election. All of the seats have changed hands on huge swings in the vote.
The swing at Somerton was 29.0 percentage points, or the equivalent of a net change of 29 in every 100 people who voted Tory in 2019 switching sides.
This is well above the 14.9 point swing the Lib Dems needed to win the seat.
Ed Davey is following in his predecessor Paddy Ashdown’s footsteps:
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey is the first leader of any political party to win four byelections since Paddy Ashdown – founding leader of the Lib Dems – did so in the early 1990s, PA reports.
The Conservatives were defending a majority at Somerton of 19,213 and it is one of the largest of its kind to be overturned at a UK byelection since 1945, sitting just outside the top five.
The result means the Lib Dems have regained a seat they first won at the 1997 general election and then held for 18 years – one of a number of constituencies in south-west England that once made up the party’s “yellow wall”, which was wiped out by the Conservatives in 2015.
However, new Lib Dem MP Sarah Dyke will soon face a fresh challenge, as Somerton and Frome is one of a number of seats being abolished at the next general election due to boundary changes.
It is being split in two to form the new constituencies of Glastonbury and Somerton and Frome and East Somerset.
At 6:19, we received the full Somerton and Frome results. Fringe third parties did badly:
Here are the full results from Somerton and Frome.
Sarah Dyke (LD) 21,187 (54.62%)
Faye Purbrick (C) 10,179 (26.24%)
Martin Dimery (Green) 3,944 (10.17%)
Bruce Evans (Reform) 1,303 (3.36%)
Neil Guild (Lab) 1,009 (2.60%)
Rosie Mitchell (Ind) 635 (1.64%)
Peter Richardson (UKIP) 275 (0.71%)
Lorna Corke (CPA) 256 (0.66%)
Lib Dem majority: 11,008 (28.38%)
Electorate 87,921; Turnout 38,788 (44.12%, -31.46%)
2019 result: Conservative majority 19,213 (29.61%) – Turnout 64,896 (75.58%) Warburton (C) 36,230 (55.83%); Boyden (LD) 17,017 (26.22%); Dromgoole (Lab) 8,354 (12.87%); Dexter (Green) 3,295 (5.08%)
Stay tuned for the conclusions about the implication of these by-elections, more about which tomorrow.
On Thursday, July 20, 2023, the Conservatives could well be facing defeat in three English constituencies where their MPs have stood down.
These are Uxbridge and South Ruislip in west London (Boris Johnson), Selby and Ainsty in North Yorkshire (Nigel Adams) and Somerset and Frome in the West Country (David Warburton).
Whatever happens should provide a useful barometer for the Conservatives in these three disparate parts of England, the Conservatives’ homeland.
On July 16, Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands MP told The Mail on Sunday (MoS):
… it was going to be ‘challenging’ but said time spent campaigning would not be ‘in vain’.
He also appeared to blame the former PM Boris Johnson for triggering one of the by-elections on July 20 after resigning as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Voters will also go to the polls in Selby and Ainsty after Mr Johnson’s ally Nigel Adams resigned, and in Somerset and Frome after David Warburton stood down following revelations about his private life.
Nevertheless, Mr Hands insisted the party could reclaim the seats – though he refused to make a prediction of Thursday’s results.
Hmm.
He would say that wouldn’t he?
Hands pointed out the difference between a by-election and a general election (emphases mine):
By-elections are traditionally not the same as a General Election. People know that a by-election – whatever the result – is not going to change who is the Prime Minister.
So I find most people respect what Rishi Sunak is doing and think he’s doing a good job, including here in Uxbridge. But they’ll know that the result isn’t going to change who runs the Government. They know that that’ll be a determination next year.
The MoS reminds us:
The battles come at a difficult period in the electoral cycle: after 13 years of Tory rule and some 15 months before a General Election.
As for the mood on the ground:
Add to that a growing cost of living crisis and endless party infighting, and it looks as though the Tories may struggle. However, there appears to be no enthusiasm for Labour and Sir Keir Starmer – and outright condemnation of London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan.
In outer London, where Boris’s former constituency is:
Mr Khan’s plan to extend Ulez (the ultra low emission zone) to outer London next month is deeply unpopular. Mr Hands insists the by-election is being treated as a referendum on the policy and that voting for the Tory candidate Steve Tuckwell will put pressure on Mr Khan.
Why voters are unhappy
The Conservatives have wasted their once-80-seat majority since December 2019. Granted, the pandemic landed early in 2020, which made them look Labour-lite with many policies, from lockdown to furlough.
Meanwhile, this year, Labour change their minds on policy positions nearly every week. As an example, they recently said they would increase child benefit allowance to a third child in a family rather than just two children. Now, they have changed their minds and said there is not enough money for more than two children per family to receive the allowance.
One of Guido Fawkes’s readers explains how child benefit allowance works:
The problem was that some people were knocking out sprogs to stay on benefit and get a nice handsome income out of it. Under universal credit mothers are not expected to work till youngest child is three, so if you timed it right you could stay on benefit for years; also the benefit cap was brought in to get control of this, but usually they manage to get around this with a “disabled“ child which stops the cap being applied, and a very wide range of conditions including many common mental health conditions can lead to being classified as disabled. Also you will frequently see the same father, who is absent, on the birth certificates of the children, this means that his income doesn’t get considered when applying for UC [Universal Credit], but in reality they are living as a family all together.
Disability these days even covers autism. Interestingly, more and more British children have been diagnosed with autism. Hmm.
Many English voters are suspicious of Labour’s wealth redistribution policies. Labour want middle class people to work hard so their money can be redistributed to others via tax increases. Pictured below are Keir Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner:
As for the Conservatives, Rishi Sunak’s most recent pledge, Stop the Boats, has not worked. Record numbers of dinghies are arriving on the southern coast of England every day from France.
Furthermore, inflation isn’t going anywhere soon. Interest rates have been rising — from 2.2% to 5%, so far — since November 2022.
Focus groups
On Monday, July 17, Guido Fawkes summarised the findings from pollster Lord Ashcroft, whose team interviewed various focus groups ahead of this week’s by-elections (red emphases in the original):
Lord Ashcroft has set up focus groups in Somerton, Selby and Uxbridge ahead of Thursday’s by-elections, and the participants certainly haven’t held back. Voters had some harsh words for Rishi Sunak, who was described as a “lame duck”, with another saying he was “just kind of place-holding“. Respondents went even further with their criticisms of the “hot mess” that is the government. The government was also called “dishonest”, “ineffective”, “a circus”, “paralysed” and “a shambles”. And these characterisations all came from Tory voters…
Other responses looked somewhat more positive for the Conservatives’ electoral prospects. Voters had some sympathy for Boris Johnson, who was ousted in a “politically motivated” campaign, as they also often bought up local issues. These including planning and hospitals as crime, the ULEZ and, above all, Sadiq Khan got mentions in Uxbridge. Although Rishi got some flack, voters weren’t exactly enthused by “drab” Sir Keir either …
North Yorkshire
Recently, Rishi Sunak invited members from the North Yorkshire Conservative Association to his home in his constituency of Richmond, not far from Selby and Ainsty. Note the sports complex in the back, complete with heated swimming pool. Photo credit — The Mail via Ben Lack Photography Ltd:
Fred Skulthorp — now, there’s a good Yorkshire name — wrote about the event for UnHerd on July 18 in ‘Westminster has failed Selby’:
It’s a rainy Saturday afternoon in North Yorkshire, and Rishi Sunak is trying to reassure the North Yorkshire Conservative Association gathered on his front lawn that all is not lost. Sheltered under a marquee, he’s like a cruise-ship crooner entertaining a ballroom full of pensioners: “Time is on our side,” he says to his audience, alluding to the discord beyond the rolling hills of Northallerton. “Eighteen months is a long time to turn things around.” After few words of reassurance, the raffle is announced with a sense of relief. A full 13 years of Tory rule have passed, and, amid the boozy, forgetful haze of the slow afternoon, the Sunaks’ garden party is mourning the decline of the modern British Conservative Party.
Labour activists have been swooping on Selby and Ainsty before Thursday’s by-election:
On Thursday, Labour will have a chance to overturn a 20,000 majority and lay the first meaningful stone in the path to a Tory electoral apocalypse. Two weeks ago, the race was compared to a coin toss. But since then, a great pilgrimage of shadow ministers and Labour activists has flooded the Yorkshire town, hoping to pull off the second-largest swing to Labour in electoral history. This would be the sort of decisive victory not seen in Selby since the days of the English Civil War, when a Royalist rout spelled the end of King Charles I’s rule in the North. The bookies now have them as favourites to win.
However, Selby is a mix of rich and poor. As such, nothing is guaranteed:
Selby, however, as both Labour and Conservative canvassers confess, is a “weird constituency”. It takes in pockets of poverty and comfortable Country Life villages. It is an area of contrasts and contradictions: a beautiful Norman Abbey within a stone’s throw of a high street garlanded with vape shops; a commuter belt to Leeds and York in the former industrial heartland once home to the most productive coal mine in Europe. A place where three-quarters of homes are owner-occupied, but the housing shortage and mortgage-rate crisis now make home ownership both untenable and undesirable. A place where you can find all of England’s problems and convince no one of their solutions.
… Selby is also a place where we can observe, in the form of political rebels and strays, the two unresolved forces of British electoral politics: the disbelief in the power of politics to change things, and a hatred of Westminster.
According to Fred Skulthorp, the locals are angry with Nigel Adams, the local boy made good in Parliament, who resigned because Boris didn’t give him a peerage:
“Good riddance, you shocking grifter,” read one of the kinder comments on a farewell post. The legacy of Adams, further tainted by his temporal association with the other more sleaze-orientated by-elections, has only contributed to a broad cynicism towards Westminster. Adams himself is now regarded as a political morality tale in the pubs of Selby: the local lad who went to London and got lost in its web in his pursuit of patronage.
The Conservatives have put up another local candidate, Claire Holmes, a lawyer and councillor. One of her campaign pledges is to protect the green belt, but it’s not enough:
“the sort of lazy politics that will stop anyone under 50 from voting for us”, as one senior councillor put it.
Labour’s candidate is also local. By happy coincidence, his first name, like that of the leader’s, is Keir. (The founder of the Labour Party was Keir Hardie.) He isn’t generating any enthusiasm, either:
Speaking in the Commons last week, Keir Starmer pointedly raised the case of a police officer from Selby forced to sell his home due to rising mortgage costs. And mortgage deals are coming to an end across the area as repayments rise by up to £400 a month. At the age of 25, the Labour candidate Keir Mather might seem perfectly positioned to court young voters stuck in the area and unable to get on the housing ladder. But — Oxford to public-affairs consultant via the office of Wes Streeting [Shadow Minister for Health] — he delivers his campaign video with the robotic flair of a sixth-former running for headboy. When I walk into his campaign office in the centre of the high street, full of students and the odd flat-capped local, Mather is whisked away into a backroom the moment I mention the word “interview”. It’s not hard to understand why. He is most effective when saying nothing and grinning weakly in front of a giant portable screen that reads: Conservative Mortgage Bombshell.
There is also an independant candidate, Nick Palmer, who, from the soundbites in the article, sounds rather foul-mouthed.
Then there is the fledgling Yorkshire Party, whose candidate is the former Conservative councillor Mike Jordan. He wants a parliament for Yorkshire. Hmm.
Near the railway station is a popular café. Skulthorp nipped in to escape the rain:
A clear “90% of the people who come in here won’t vote”, the cafe owner tells us. “Modern politicians have no power or control over the real decisions,” adds her husband. “So what’s the point?”
We are right back where we left off early in 2019, with the parliamentary chaos over Brexit and millions of Britons saying their vote doesn’t count. So what changed their mind, encouraging them to vote Conservative for the first time in their lives? Boris Johnson and his pledge, Get Brexit Done.
This time we have neither. We don’t even have a proper Brexit.
No wonder people are disappointed with Westminster, yet again.
More on the by-election result to follow, once analysis is in.
May I wish all my readers a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!
In 2023, there are three choices of readings for January 1, which falls on a Sunday.
One can choose from the Holy Name of Jesus, the First Sunday after Christmas Day (Year A) or New Year’s Day:
Readings for New Year’s Day — the Holy Name of Jesus (all Lectionary years)
Christmas 1 – Year A (all readings)
Readings for New Year’s Day (general, all Lectionary years)
I have chosen the last one, the Gospel for which is as follows (emphases mine):
Matthew 25:31-46
25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
25:32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
25:33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
25:34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
25:35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
25:36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
25:37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
25:38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?
25:39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
25:40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’
25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels;
25:42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
25:43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
25:44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’
25:45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’
25:46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Commentary comes from Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.
This is a long post, because there are important points to understand about this passage and Matthew’s Gospel in general.
How is it, one might ask, that we have a reading about Christ’s Second Coming when we are still in the Christmas period of the Church year?
John MacArthur explains the reason why:
Now let me say something that maybe you’ve never thought of in these terms. The remarkable thing about Christ is not His second coming. The amazing thing about Christ is not His return. The wonder of wonders is not that Jesus will come in glory and judge the world. The amazing marvelous incredible indescribable mysterious truth is not that He will come the second time, but that He came the first time to do what He did. It is amazing that a holy God came to forgive sinners, not that a holy God comes to judge sinners. You understand that? The wonder is not the second coming, the wonder is the first coming, that He condescended to redeem us, to love us when we were unlovely, to provide a salvation into which any man can enter, any woman can enter by a choice. The wonder of wonders is that He stooped to be what we are, that He stooped to die our death, to bear our sin, to be separated from God. That is the wonder of wonders. The fact that He comes back to judge sin is not remarkable at all. That is only utterly consistent with His nature. And if you go back to the Old Testament, you find that God has always been a God who judges sin. And so we are not surprised at all that He is going to come and ultimately do that and finally do that and deal with sin in a final way. What is remarkable is that He came to redeem sinners who were worthy only of His judgment. And so He will come and we should not be so surprised that He will, since He is an infinitely holy God. And when He comes to judge, it is going to be a scene that language has strained to attempt to communicate.
Those who know Matthew’s Gospel recall that Chapter 25 has two parables of warning, that of the Ten Virgins and that of the Talents, or Bags of Gold.
The Parable of the Ten Virgins has stuck with me since I was in my formative years, because it seems so contemporary. It is about preparedness, yet, as it was in my schooldays, there are always those who are unprepared and expect others to pick up the slack for their carelessness:
The Parable of the Ten Virgins
25 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish and five were wise. 3 The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. 4 The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. 5 The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
7 “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’
9 “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’
10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
11 “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’
12 “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’
13 “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.
MacArthur says that Jesus spoke these words the day before the Last Supper:
Here with the privacy of His disciples, having been found on the Mount of Olives, as He has left the temple ground and now talks with them in the privacy of the evening, Wednesday before His Friday crucifixion, He shares with them that He indeed is the Son of Man who is also the King who will come and judge to establish His kingdom.
Here we have our Lord’s description of His Second Coming. While our Lord has infinite love and will take His saints with Him to glory, He will also come in judgement for those who preferred to live a life of sin, in league with Satan and the world.
MacArthur explains what Matthew’s Gospel is meant to convey to the Jews, his primary audience:
Mark’s purpose was not to present Christ as King. Luke’s purpose was not particularly to emphasize Christ’s Kingship either and neither was John’s. The gospel which is intended to present Christ as King is Matthew. And that is why the great emphasis of the second coming comes in the gospel of Matthew because Matthew is wanting to present to us the triumph of the regal King, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is why Matthew is the one chosen to give this passage.
Let me just remind you of Matthew’s emphasis. Matthew has focused primarily on Jesus as the King – King of Israel, King of glory, the one with the right to rule, the majestic one, the regal one. That has been his emphasis. And it falls into three basic categories. First of all, Matthew treats the King revealed – the King revealed. In other words, as the person of Christ unfolds in Matthew, He unfolds as a regal person. Whereas Mark treats Him as human; Mark emphasizes His humanity; and Luke talks about His servanthood; and John emphasizes His deity. Matthew’s emphasis is on His royal character, His Kingship.
And first of all, he emphasizes that the King is being revealed. For example, it is Matthew that has His ancestry traced from a royal line. It is Matthew who has His birth being dreaded by a rival king who is threatened by another king coming on the scene. It is Matthew who makes great emphasis on the wise men, who are oriental king makers, who come and offer Jesus homage and present Him royal gifts. It is Matthew who emphasizes that He has a herald to announce His coming as kings always did. It is Matthew who tells us that in His temptation, as it reached its climax, Satan offered Him all the kingdoms of the world knowing that indeed He was entitled to them all. It is Matthew who emphasizes that Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount the standards of His kingdom. It is Matthew who uses the miracles of Jesus as His royal credentials, who emphasizes that His teaching was the royal law, that His parables are the mysteries of the kingdom of which He was the King. He is hailed by Matthew as the Son of David, a royal name. He claimed royal rights as the Son of God. He made a royal entry into Jerusalem and claimed absolute sovereignty. He told a story about a king’s son and He told it about Himself and it’s recorded in Matthew. And while facing the cross, Matthew records that He looked beyond the cross to the reigning and the glory that would follow. It is Matthew who emphasizes His commanding power over legions of angels. It is Matthew who records for us His last words, “All power has been given unto Me in heaven and in earth, go ye therefore” – in other words, He is commanding as a monarch who has all authority for such a command. So Matthew makes a great emphasis on the Kingship of Christ being revealed.
Secondly, on the Kingship of Christ being rejected. Matthew all the way through not only presents the regal character of Christ, but also shows how He was rejected as King. Before He was born, His mother was in danger of being divorced. Worse than that, she was in danger of being stoned as an adulteress. And so it could have been that His life would have been snuffed out before ever He could have reached the throne. At His birth all Jerusalem was troubled, and Herod who was threatened by the thought of another king on the scene sought to kill Him. And in the plains of Bethlehem, not longer after the angelic choir was absent and silent, those little hills began to ring again, but it wasn’t with the songs of angels, it was with the weeping and the mourning of mothers who were crying as their babies were being slaughtered, as Herod attempted to stamp out the would-be king by obliterating every child under the age of two.
And it is Matthew who tells us that Jesus had to escape for his life to Egypt. And then when He came back to His own homeland, He hurried away to live thirty years in obscurity in a non-descript off-the-road village called Nazareth where He was without honor and where on one occasion the people of the city itself tried to throw Him off a cliff and kill Him. Matthew makes a point of telling us that even His herald was imprisoned and eventually his head was chopped off. And it is Matthew who reminds us that Jesus had no place to lay His head. He was accused of being a drunkard. He was accused in Matthew of being gluttonous. He is accused of being from hell, from Satan, having a demon. And as he records His own parables, they mark out the rejection that was thrust against Him, how it was desired by people to take His life, to kill Him as they had killed the prophets who spoke about Him. And even in His death it is Matthew who has Him say, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” In none of the other gospels, then, is the regal presentation as complete or is the rejection as complete as it is in Matthew.
But finally, Matthew presents Him not only as the revealed King and the rejected King but as the returning King. And in chapter 24 and 25, there is this great sweeping sermon of our Lord about His second coming. And it is not the first time it is mentioned in the gospel of Matthew. It is mentioned previous to this on several occasions in our Lord’s conversations with His disciples. It was of major importance to the Lord and of major importance to Matthew as well. In Matthew 16:28, “Verily I say unto you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Verse 27, “The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels and reward every man according to His works.” Matthew 19:28 similarly says that He will come in the regeneration and the Son of Man will sit on the throne of His glory and that the disciples will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel and so forth. So He has spoken about it before to the disciples, but now in a great sermon embracing two chapters, the Lord speaks of His second coming and Matthew records it as the completion of His presentation of the royal character of Jesus Christ. He is coming as regal reigning sovereign King – that’s the message.
Jesus said that when the Son of Man — He Himself — comes in glory, accompanied by all the angels, He will sit on His throne of glory (verse 31).
MacArthur tells us:
And so Christ will come and not alone, but with His mighty angels in flaming fire. And He will take vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And they will be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of His power. And then He will be glorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe. So there will become a dividing then, there will be vengeance and punishment to those who do not obey, and there will be glory and honor and reward and respect toward Him for those who do know Him through Christ the Savior. So that is the judgment that occurs at His coming. It’s indescribable, but He comes with all of His holy angels …
Now Revelation 19 needs to be considered for a moment because this describes the scene itself in detail. In Revelation 19:11, “I saw heaven opened.” The doors of heaven all of a sudden swing open in the vision of John, and what is revealed is a white horse and one sitting on it called Faithful and True. By the way, this is the second time heaven opened in the book of Revelation – the second time. The first time heaven opened was in chapter 4 verse 1, “After this I look and behold a door was opened in heaven.”
Matthew Henry’s commentary discusses the term Son of Man, one which Jesus often used of Himself:
Here, as elsewhere, when the last judgment is spoken of, Christ is called the son of man, because he is to judge the sons of men (and, being himself of the same nature, he is the more unexceptionable); and because his wonderful condescension to take upon him our nature, and to become the son of man, will be recompensed by this exaltation in that day, and an honour put upon the human nature.
MacArthur says that Jesus called Himself the Son of Man so that we could relate better to Him and to avoid further blasphemy charges from the Jewish hierarchy:
So it is the Son of Man who is none other than Jesus Christ. I don’t think we need to take a lot of time, but only to remind you that the most familiar, the most common, the most used title by Jesus of Himself is Son of Man. He called Himself that all the time. That was His choice title for Himself. And I believe there were several reasons for that. Reason number one was that it confirmed His humiliation. It affirmed that it was an incarnation, that God had come all the way to being man. It was an affirmation of incarnation, of submissiveness, of the servant heart, the servant spirit, of coming not to be ministered unto but to minister and give His life. He became one of us. And Son of Man emphasized His condescension, His humiliation, His identification, His understanding, His sympathy with men. He became what we are. That was one reason He used it.
The second reason that I believe this was a good choice and common to our Lord’s use was that it tended to be less offensive then if He were to call Himself Son of God all the time. If He were to call Himself Son of God constantly, He would have created more hostility than He did, at least initially. Calling Himself Son of God continually in front of the Jewish leaders would have fomented problems beyond the problems He had. And of course, as you well know, after three years of ministry they finally took His life with great hostility. It’s very likely that had He continually called Himself Son of God, the whole plan could have been brought to a halt a lot earlier and things that God had intended to accomplish would not have been accomplished. And of course that kind of conjecture is only conjecture since He didn’t call Himself Son of God but may explain to us some reason why He didn’t.
Thirdly, if He had called Himself continually Son of God, not only would His rejectors have been more angry, but His friends might have been more pushy. Had He called Himself Son of God or had He even called Himself King, had He called Himself all the time Messiah, there would have been even a greater pressure put upon Him by the people to take over the kingdom, to take over and rule, to dominate, to overthrow the Romans. So I believe Son of Man was the lowest title, the lowest profile that Jesus could take. It is a denial of any significant title. It is simply saying, “I’m one of you. I’m a son of man.” That’s all. It is true He was also Son of God; it is true He was also King of Kings; but had He paraded those things outwardly, it would have changed the whole series of events. And so He communicates Himself as Son of Man to emphasize His humiliation and identification, to deflect hostility and to deflect those who would force Him to become a King, as obviously many wished to do and even tried to do in Galilee.
There’s another reason. I think He chose to use Son of Man because it provides such a profound contrast to the titles that He will have when He comes in His glory. And it helps us to understand the distinction between the first and second coming of Christ. It provides a marvelous contrast, which contrast is pointed up to us here in Matthew chapter 25. Notice verse 31, He calls Himself Son of Man; then in verse 34, “Then shall the King;” in verse 30 – verse 40, rather, “And the King shall answer.” It isn’t long now in this particular message before He turns from Son of Man to King. But He starts out with Son of Man so that they might know who the King is. Right? If He just said, “When the King shall come,” somebody might say, “Well, it’s other than Him.” So He says, “When the Son of Man comes, then will the King say” – and He affirms that He is both Son of Man and King. Son of Man, humble, condescending, humiliated; King, glorious, sovereign, reigning, judging, establishing His kingdom. And so here He turns a corner. Beloved, this is very, very significant. He does not call Himself King up to this point. He tells a parable about a King’s son. He tells a parable about a King who is God the Father. But now He calls Himself King. It’s time to talk about His return. It’s time to talk about His reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. It’s time to look beyond humiliation and beyond condescension and see the one who will come in blazing glory. So the emphasis is on the kingship.
And may I remind you, too, that He’s talking, as 24:3 tells us, privately to His disciples – privately to His disciples. He maintained the privacy of His message about Kingship.
MacArthur says that the number of all the angels is an impressive one:
When He comes with all the holy angels with Him, not some but all of them. Ten thousand times ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, an innumerable number, when He comes with all of them and all of His glory and all of His saints and when He sits on His glory throne – when He sits on His glory throne, that’s the time this judgment takes place.
Henry says the angels will be there to serve their Lord:
… his holy myriads, who will be not only his attendants, but ministers of his justice; they shall come with him both for state and service. They must come to call the court (1 Thess 4 16), to gather the elect (ch. 24 31), to bundle the tares (ch. 13 40), to be witnesses of the saints’ glory (Luke 12 8), and of sinners’ misery, Rev 14 10.
Jesus spoke here of all the people alive at His Second Coming. Unbelievers will not have a second chance to repent or believe:
So during that period there will be saved Jews and saved Gentiles. Those people will be persecuted by the Antichrist. Many of them will survive his persecution. So they will be alive at the end. There will also be the ungodly. The ungodly will be devastated by the judgments of God during that period. Some of them will survive. So at the end of the tribulation time you have saved and unsaved people, from all over the globe, who have survived the judgment of God and the holocaust of Antichrist. They have lived through the plagues. They have lived through the disasters, the diseases, the wars, the wrath of Christ and the wrath of Antichrist. They have lived through the judgment on the armies at Armageddon, and there are still multitudes, multitudes left. But all of those who are left, who haven’t faced God in death to be judged. will now face Him in His second coming. All the people. The word ethnē means peoples. So either a person faces God in death for judgment or at the second coming of Jesus Christ. And if you’re counting on waiting till then, remember this, it’s too late then. When the bridegroom comes, if you don’t have oil in your lamp, the door will be shut and you’ll never get in. There’s no second chance. And what happens here is irreversible, as verse 46 says, “Some go into everlasting punishment, others into everlasting life.” So what happens here is irreversible.
Also:
when He comes, in the moment of His coming there will be an instantaneous judgment. I don’t believe that when He comes there’s going to be a gap of time for people to decide what they want to do. It’s verse 31, “When the Son of Man comes.” Verse 34, “Then shall the King say,” and so forth. It’s when He comes, then He judges. There’s no reason to assume an interval.
Jesus continued, saying that all the nations of the world will be gathered before Him, and He will separate people from one another as a shepherd separates sheep from goats (verse 32).
He will put His sheep at His right hand and the goats at His left (verse 33).
Henry explains:
the Lord knows them that are his, and he can separate them. This separation will be so exact, that the most inconsiderable saints shall not be lost in the crowd of sinners, nor the most plausible sinner hid in the crowd of saints (Ps 1 5), but every one shall go to his own place. This is compared to a shepherd’s dividing between the sheep and the goats; it is taken from Ezek 34 17, Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle. Note, 1. Jesus Christ is the great Shepherd; he now feeds his flock like a shepherd, and will shortly distinguish between those that are his, and those that are not, as Laban divided his sheep from Jacob’s, and set three days’ journey between them, Gen 30 35, 36. 2. The godly are like sheep—innocent, mild, patient, useful: the wicked are like goats, a baser kind of animal, unsavoury and unruly. The sheep and goats are here feeding all day in the same pasture, but will be coted at night in different folds. Being thus divided, he will set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left, v. 33.
MacArthur has more:
All people are going to be separated. They’re only going to be separated into two classes: Sheep and goats, in this analogy. Sheep go into the kingdom, goats go out of the kingdom. So there will only be two classes of people. As my grandfather used to say, “The saints and aints.” Only two classes of people, the redeemed and the unredeemed, the saved and the lost, that’s the basic classification into which everybody falls ultimately and eternally. There are only two destinies, heaven and hell.
And so that division must be made in regard to all people. There is no distinction here, beloved, about Jew or Gentile. That is not a distinction made particularly in this text. It’s just all the people. And the distinction here has nothing to do with ethnic identity, it has only to do with relationship to Christ. All the people. Now you say, well who are these people? Well, they have to be people that are alive when Jesus comes again. That’s what I want you to understand. They will be people alive on the earth at the coming of Christ.
Jesus, referring to Himself as King, said that He will beckon those on His right hand — those whom His Father has blessed — to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world (verse 34).
That is a significant verse. Jesus spoke of election, predestination and inheritance as adopted sons and daughters of the kingdom of God.
Recall that, in those days, being adopted put one — always a man, in legal terms — ahead of the other family members. The adopted man became the head of the household and the man who adopted him took a back seat. The adoptive father’s sons took a back seat. The adopted son was in charge of everything: the estate, family decisions and so on. Why? Because the adoptive father considered him to have greater intelligence and capability than his own sons.
MacArthur addresses the importance of the right hand:
The right hand is the hand of blessing. The right hand is the hand of honor. The right hand is the hand – are you ready? – of inheritance – of inheritance. That is the preferred hand. The sheep here are preferred in the analogy. As I said, they are submissive; they are gentle; they are docile. The goats are unruly and rough and rugged and so forth and they represent those who are the non‑blessed …
By the way, in Greek, Roman, and Talmudic sources, the good people in any kind of adjudication, any kind of a trial situation, always went to the right side of the judge. So this fits that pattern. “Come you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the earth” – or the world.
Henry points out the individuality of our relationship with God through His Son and our inheritance of His kingdom. This is one of the few times Henry uses ‘you’ in his commentary:
It is prepared on purpose for them; not only for such as you, but for you, you by name, you personally and particularly, who were chosen to salvation through sanctification.
Henry discusses what lies behind election and predestination with regard to the kingdom:
It is prepared from the foundation of the world. This happiness was designed for the saints, and they for it, before time began, from all eternity, Eph 1 4. The end, which is last in execution, is first in intention. Infinite Wisdom had an eye to the eternal glorification of the saints, from the first founding of the creation: All things are for your sakes, 2 Cor 4 15. Or, it denotes the preparation of the place of this happiness, which is to be the seat and habitation of the blessed, in the very beginning of the work of creation, Gen 1 1. There in the heaven of heavens the morning stars were singing together, when the foundations of the earth were fastened, Job 38 4-7.
Secondly, The tenure by which they shall hold and possess it is very good, they shall come and inherit it. What we come to by inheritance, is not got by any procurement of our own, but purely, as the lawyers express it, by the act of God. It is God that makes heirs, heirs of heaven. We come to an inheritance by virtue of our sonship, our adoption; if children, then heirs. A title by inheritance is the sweetest and surest title; it alludes to possessions in the land of Canaan, which passed by inheritance, and would not be alienated longer than to the year of Jubilee. Thus is the heavenly inheritance indefeasible, and unalienable. Saints, in this world, are as heirs under age, tutored and governed till the time appointed of the Father (Gal 4 1, 2); and then they shall be put in full possession of that which now through grace they have a title to; Come, and inherit it.
MacArthur offers us this analysis:
First of all, “Come” – here comes number one point – “ye blessed of My Father.” That emphasizes the source of their salvation. You are blessed of My Father. You are entering into the kingdom because My Father has determined to bless you. Here you have sovereign grace beautifully expressed. By the way, the phrase in the Authorized, “You blessed of My Father,” in the Greek literally says, “My Father’s blessed ones.” You are coming into My kingdom because God predetermined sovereignly to bless you. He redeemed you out of His sovereign love. So verse 34 expresses the innate reality of redemption and salvation and justification.
And then it says, “Come you who are the blessed who belong to My Father, inherit” – inherit, which implies something very important. You inherit something because you are born into a family. Right? It implies again that they belong to the family of God, to which you belong by faith. You inherit what is yours because by faith you have become a joint heir with Christ, if we can sort of borrow Paul’s thought in Romans 8. So you are the elect by sovereign grace, the chosen to be blessed by the Father. And you are those who inherit because you belong to the family by faith, you are sons of God. And so you see the source of salvation and you see the gift of salvation given to those who are the children of God.
Further it says, “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” And that again emphasizes the selectivity of salvation. When God prepared the kingdom it was for you that He prepared it. You were chosen; you were ordained to this; you are those whom the Father designed to love. So you have the source of salvation in the Father’s blessing, desire to bless, you have the reception of salvation in the faith that brings you into the inheritance, you have the selectivity of salvation in the fact that the kingdom was prepared for those people. Let me tell you something, whoever it was prepared for are going into it. God isn’t going to lose any and He knows who He prepared it for.
And then a further thought. It was prepared from the foundation of the world. Now that emphasizes the eternal covenant that God made with Himself to redeem a people selected before the foundation of the world. Who are these people going in? They’re not just people who got involved in social action. They’re not just people who did good deeds on the earth. These are those chosen from the foundation of the world by sovereign God to receive His grace and be blessed and who responded by faith and became His heirs in the family. And all of that soteriological richness is compacted in verse 34. And that can’t be missed, that can’t be missed.
Jesus said that those inheriting the kingdom will have given Him food when He was hungry, drink when He was thirsty or a welcome when He was a stranger (verse 35).
They were the ones who gave Him clothing when He had none or cared for Him when He was sick or visited Him in prison (verse 36).
The righteous will respond by asking when they did any of those things (verses 37-39).
The King — Jesus — will respond by saying that when they did those good deeds towards ‘the least of these who are members of my family‘, they did them to Him (verse 40).
MacArthur explains:
The good deeds mentioned in 35 and 36 are not the primary emphasis. The primary emphasis in identifying these people is in verse 34. The good deeds are the fruit of the redemption defined for us in such simple yet profound terms in verse 34. And the people who get confused by this passage get confused because they perhaps haven’t looked as closely as they ought to look at verse 34. And looking at verses 35 and 36 alone might provide some difficulty …
The real fact of salvation is in verse 34. The proof of it is in verses 35 and 36. They are only outward evidences of an inward sovereign grace …
… it isn’t the deeds alone that qualify them. It’s their redemption which issues in those deeds. So when He says, “Come in on this basis,” He is judging them according to their works but only insofar as their works are a manifestation of the redeeming act which God foreordained in their behalf …
Verse 37, now watch this, “Then shall the righteous answer Him saying” – stop there for a minute. Who answered Him? The good deeders, the good doers, the philanthropists, the social activists? Then answered Him – who? – the righteous. And that is not just forensic. That is, it’s not just declared righteousness, it’s real righteousness. It’s imputed righteousness. And here again we are reminded that the reason these people do this is because they are made righteous in Christ. And this is the outflow of that miracle. It’s the righteous, it’s the blessed of the Father, it’s the inheritors of the kingdom, it’s the predetermined and foreordained who demonstrate their righteousness in good deeds …
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me.’” What a statement. Who are His brethren? Well Hebrews 2:11 and 12 says He’s not ashamed to call us who believe His brethren. I believe He’s referring to the redeemed people. I believe He is simply saying this, “Whatever you do to meet the need of a fellow Christian, you do to Me.” Is that not right? Because, “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit,” 1 Corinthians 6:17. “Nevertheless I live, yet Christ lives in me,” Galatians 2:20. Paul celebrates that again and again, we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Christ is in His people. What is done to me as a Christian is done to Him. He is so intimately identified with me.
Back in Matthew 18 He says, “When you receive one such little child,” Matthew 18 – I think it’s 4 and 5 there – “When you receive one such little child in My name, you receive Me.” And He means there not a physical child but a spiritual child. When you receive another believer and you open your arms and you meet their need and you embrace them and you take them in and you strengthen them and you encourage or you help them or whatever, you accept them, you do it to Christ. Whatever you do to another believer, you do to Christ. That’s the bottom line. That’s the simple yet profound truth that the Lord is endeavoring to communicate. Whatever you do to a fellow believer, you do to Christ. It’s that simple. And that is a truth that is oft indicated in the texts of Scripture. “He that receiveth you,” Matthew 10:40 says, “receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me.” Boy that’s another dimension. When you open your arms to a fellow believer, you’re receiving Christ. And when you’re receiving Christ, you’re receiving the Father whom Christ represents. It’s a tremendous thought. What you do to another believer is what you do to Christ.
After addressing the saints, Jesus will turn His attention to those on His left, saying that they, the accursed, will depart from Him into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (verse 41).
Henry answers all the questions of those who might think our Lord will offer a reprieve:
[2.] If they must depart, and depart from Christ, might they not be dismissed with a blessing, with one kind and compassionate word at least? No, Depart, ye cursed, They that would not come to Christ, to inherit a blessing, must depart from him under the burthen of a curse, that curse of the law on every one that breaks it, Gal 3 10. As they loved cursing, so it shall come unto them. But observe, The righteous are called the blessed of my Father; for their blessedness is owing purely to the grace of God and his blessing, but the wicked are called only ye cursed, for their damnation is of themselves. Hath God sold them? No, they have sold themselves, have laid themselves under the curse, Isa 50 1.
[3.] If they must depart, and depart with a curse, may they not go into some place of ease and rest? Will it not be misery enough for them to bewail their loss? No, there is a punishment of sense as well as loss; they must depart into fire, into torment as grievous as that of fire is to the body, and much more. This fire is the wrath of the eternal God fastening upon the guilty souls and consciences of sinners that have made themselves fuel for it. Our God is a consuming fire, and sinners fall immediately into his hands, Heb 10 31; Rom 2 8, 9.
[4.] If into fire, may it not be some light or gentle fire? No, it is prepared fire; it is a torment ordained of old, Isa 30 33. The damnation of sinners is often spoken of as an act of the divine power; he is able to cast into hell. In the vessels of wrath he makes his power known; it is a destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power. In it shall be seen what a provoked God can do to make a provoking creature miserable.
[5.] If into fire, prepared fire, O let it be but of short continuance, let them but pass through fire; no, the fire of God’s wrath will be an everlasting fire; a fire, that, fastening and preying upon immortal souls, can never go out for want of fuel; and, being kindled and kept burning by the wrath of an immortal God, can never go out for want of being blown and stirred up; and, the streams of mercy and grace being for ever excluded, there is nothing to extinguish it. If a drop of water be denied to cool the tongue, buckets of water will never be granted to quench this flame.
[6.] If they must be doomed to such a state of endless misery, yet may they not have some good company there? No, none but the devil and his angels, their sworn enemies, that helped to bring them to this misery, and will triumph over them in it. They served the devil while they lived, and therefore are justly sentenced to be where he is, as those that served Christ, are taken to be with him where he is … The fire is said to be prepared, not primarily for the wicked, as the kingdom is prepared for the righteous; but it was originally intended for the devil and his angels. If sinners make themselves associates with Satan by indulging their lusts, they may thank themselves if they become sharers in that misery which was prepared for him and his associates.
Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, will tell the condemned that they gave Him no food, no drink (verse 42), no welcome, no clothes and no visit in prison (verse 43).
Henry says that these are sins of omission, similar to the servant who buried his talent, the gold, that his master gave to him:
Now, [1.] All that is charged upon them, on which the sentence is grounded, is, omission; as, before, the servant was condemned, not for wasting his talent, but for burying it; so here, he doth not say, “I was hungry and thirsty, for you took my meat and drink from me; I was a stranger, for you banished me; naked, for you stripped me; in prison, for you laid me there:” but, “When I was in these distresses, you were so selfish, so taken up with your own ease and pleasure, made so much of your labour, and were so loth to part with your money, that you did not minister as you might have done to my relief and succour. You were like those epicures that were at ease in Zion, and were not grieved for the affliction of Joseph,” Amos 6 4-6. Note, Omissions are the ruin of thousands.
[2.] It is the omission of works of charity to the poor. They are not sentenced for omitting their sacrifices and burnt-offerings (they abounded in these, Ps 50 8), but for omitting the weightier matter of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. The Ammonites and Moabites were excluded the sanctuary, because they met not Israel with bread and water, Deut 23 3, 4. Note, Uncharitableness to the poor is a damning sin. If we will not be brought to works of charity by the hope of reward, let us be influenced by fear of punishment; for they shall have judgment without mercy, that have showed no mercy. Observe, He doth not say, “I was sick, and you did not cure me; in prison, and you did not release me” (perhaps that was more than they could do); but, “You visited me not, which you might have done.” Note, Sinners will be condemned, at the great day, for the omission of that good which it was in the power of their hand to do. But if the doom of the uncharitable be so dreadful, how much more intolerable will the doom of the cruel be, the doom of persecutors!
Then the accursed will respond by asking when they neglected the Lord (verse 44).
The Lord will respond by saying that whatever they neglected towards the least of His people, they neglected unto Him (verse 45).
MacArthur brings us back to the five foolish virgins and to the servant with the buried talent:
You remember the virgins? It didn’t say, “And five virgins went into the wedding and five were shut out for being vile, immoral, ugly, gross, evil, wretched sinners.” No, it wasn’t what they did that left them out, it was what they didn’t do. They didn’t get any oil. The point there was that they didn’t have oil. It was something they didn’t have, they didn’t do. Not something they did that damned them. There’s nothing you can do in terms of sin. No matter how gross that sin is that results in your damnation, it’s what you don’t do. It’s the failure to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s the same with the servant. The third one who got one talent, it wasn’t what he did, it was what he didn’t do. He just buried it and paid no attention to it that damned him and sent him to outer darkness.
The virgins weren’t vile they were just negligent. And the servant wasn’t immoral, he just did nothing. And people are damned to hell by what they don’t do. And what they don’t do is believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the absence of righteousness. It is the absence of the love of God that comes through faith in Christ. It is the absence of those kind of deeds that demonstrate righteousness and demonstrate God’s love. It is the absence of the sin of – it is the presence of the sin of unbelief, the absence of faith.
Jesus concluded by saying that those who neglected Him and His people will depart into eternal punishment, while the righteous will go on to eternal life (verse 46).
Of the former group and their fate, Henry says:
Note, (1.) The punishment of the wicked in the future state will be an everlasting punishment, for that state is an unalterable state. It can neither be thought that sinners should change their own natures, nor that God should give his grace to change them, when in this world the day of grace was misspent, the Spirit of grace resisted, and the means of grace abused and baffled. (2.) The wicked shall be made to go away into that punishment; not that they will go voluntarily, no, they are driven from light into darkness; but it bespeaks an irresistible conviction of guilt, and a final despair of mercy.
I also read this passage as a warning about death. We do not know the time or the hour for that eventuality, either.
MacArthur says:
when any person dies they immediately enter into that judgment right then. And the decision of their eternal destiny is rendered.
At the Second Coming, those of us who died previously will all appear to have our verdicts at death renewed and those who are saints, whose souls have been at rest with God since their death, will receive their glorified bodies, just as Christ received His at the Resurrection.
Henry says:
Note, The judgment of the great day will be a general judgment. All must be summoned before Christ’s tribunal; all of every age of the world, from the beginning to the end of time; all of every place on earth, even from the remotest corners of the world, most obscure, and distant from each other; all nations, all those nations of men that are made of one blood, to dwell on all the face of the earth.
While this is hardly the cheeriest passage for the New Year, it does provide food for thought as to a resolution for the coming 12 months.
We worry so much about resolving to do something about our physical appearance or health. Is it not time to pay more attention to our spiritual state in the year ahead? We know not the hour …
Candidates for the Conservative Party leadership race began putting their hats in the ring last weekend.
Many of those MPs are promising everything, and pundits are having a field day in the press:
While it is true to say that a lot of them are alike — yet not all — in policies, let us look at the diversity among the original 11 candidates:
Among those original 11, we had five women and six minority candidates.
No one can say today, as Theresa May did many years ago, that the Conservatives are the ‘nasty party’:
The Conservatives had no quotas. These MPs merely had to come forward and declare their interest in the leadership contest.
As I write in the early afternoon of Wednesday, July 13, we now have eight candidates.
Four are women and four are from racial minorities:
Brexit Leaver and former Labour MP Kate Hoey, now an unaffiliated Baroness in the House of Lords, told Mark Steyn of GB News how pleased she is that the Conservatives managed to accomplish what Labour only talk about:
How the winner is chosen
Late on Monday, Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, announced the Conservative Party leadership rules. The loud voice heard in the background is none other than the daily disrupter, Steve Bray:
Darren McCaffrey of GB News has more:
The goal is to have a new Prime Minister in place by September 5, when Parliament returns from summer recess.
Conservative MPs will participate in a series of voting rounds between now and July 21, when Parliament goes into summer recess. The final two MPs on the list will then spend the next several weeks going around the country to campaign to Conservative Party members.
Party members will receive a ballot with the final two names and vote for their choice.
GB News has more on how the voting will proceed, beginning on Wednesday, July 13:
Sir Graham said the first ballot will be conducted on Wednesday with candidates required to obtain backing from a minimum of 20 MPs.
In the second ballot, on Thursday, MPs are required to obtain support from 30 MPs in order to progress to the next round, accelerating to the final two as soon as possible.
Disillusionment and a wish for Boris to return
Conservative voters, including those who are not Party members, are disillusioned about this contest.
Many wish that Boris Johnson’s name were on the ballot. This petition to ‘reinstate’ him ‘as Prime Minister’ has garnered 15,000 signatures in only a few days. However, Boris is still Prime Minister, just not the leader of the Conservative Party.
Neil Oliver, not a Boris supporter, by the way, tweeted that the leadership decision has already been made:
It is rumoured that Bill Gates arrived in England just before Boris resigned. If true, that would not come as a surprise:
https://twitter.com/ians_phoenix/status/1545465676676087808
Bob Moran, the former Telegraph cartoonist, hit the nail on the head as he expressed the sentiment of many of those who voted Conservative in 2019. We also need an outsider to win so that we have some fresh thinking in Downing Street:
A number of the candidates have ties with the World Economic Forum. One is known to be friends with Bill Gates. Ideally, we would have transparency in this area:
Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been in the lead since the contest began. He was one of the first two main Cabinet members to announce his resignation last week. Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid was the first.
It has come to light that the photo of the Downing Street drinks party held during lockdown in 2020 was taken from No. 11, where Rishi Sunak worked. Some people think that Boris’s then-adviser Dominic Cummings played a part in getting those photos released to the press. Did Rishi know?
Sajid Javid declared his candidacy, possibly taking a pop at Rishi Sunak’s slick candidacy operation.
On Monday, July 11, GB News reported:
Former Health Secretary Sajid Javid addressed media gathered at Westminster this afternoon, outlining his leadership bid.
Mr Javid said “I don’t have a ready made logo or slick video ready to go”, adding: “I have a passion and desire to get Britain on the right course.”
Acknowledging his resignation last week, Mr Javid said “Five days ago I stood up in Parliament and I spoke from the heart and I believe I spoke in the national interest.”
Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson endured a series of scandals throughout his premiership, most recently Partygate and the allegations against Chris Pincher.
Addressing the ongoing investigations, the former Health Secretary said: “We need a leader who makes credible promises.”
He added that “our party has lost its way”.
Javid bowed out late on Tuesday. No one was disappointed:
Rishi, on the other hand, seems to have had his candidacy in mind for some time, since 2020. Interesting:
Note his professional campaign logo in the upper left hand corner of this tweet:
Guido Fawkes has a critique of the various logos, some of which have been rushed to market, as it were.
To make matters worse, rumours have circulated about infighting and dirty tricks among Conservative MPs. The public have taken note:
https://twitter.com/DonPedley1/status/1545861101191106560
The Sun‘s political editor, Harry Cole, tweeted:
On that note, is it possible that Conservative Party members might not even get a vote should one of the final two winners concede to the other? That is what happened in 2016, when Theresa May became PM. Andrew Bridgen MP thinks this is a possibility:
Voting records
This graphic (credit here) shows how the candidates have voted in Parliament on various issues:
Candidates who bowed out
Let us look at the candidates who have bowed out thus far.
Sajid Javid
Conservative voters thought that Sajid Javid was a safe pair of hands as Health Secretary until he started laying out his coronavirus wish list. Only last month, Desmond Swayne MP pointed out the online job advert for a national manager of coronavirus passports:
https://twitter.com/Somewhereinkent/status/1545728134720405504
On July 10, Javid appeared on a Sunday news programme.
He promised tax cuts. No surprise there. It was also unconvincing, considering the tax burden we have been under the past several months, possibly higher than we would have had under Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn:
Javid also discussed his non-dom status, which is curious, as he was born in Rochdale:
https://twitter.com/seethruthespew/status/1546406583701225473
On Tuesday, July 12, broadcasting from Northern Ireland, Mark Steyn said this about Javid’s bowing out of the race:
Rehman Chishti
Rehman Chishti had an even more lacklustre campaign.
He was still on the fence last Saturday, proving that dithering gets one nowhere quick:
He declared on Sunday. Unfortunately, the photo is not a good one:
https://twitter.com/Jimbo_A_Tweets/status/1546246235937554432
He dropped out on Tuesday:
Grant Shapps
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps declared his candidacy on Saturday, making much of his loyalty to Boris (Nadhim Zahawi is pictured below):
He appeared on Sky News on Sunday morning.
Meanwhile, viewers and voters rooted round to find out more about Shapps’s parliamentary career.
Cabinet of Horrors has a fascinating profile of him, the first half of which follows (emphases mine):
Grant Shapps resigned as a minister in 2015 following revelations of his involvement with a bullying scandal that had led to a young Conservative Party activist taking their own life. Few would have imagined he could ever be reappointed to cabinet, still less to a more senior role. But in July 2019 Boris Johnson replaced the hapless and incompetent Chris Grayling as Transport Minister with someone even more discredited: Grant Shapps.
Then again, Shapps is no stranger to the art of reinvention. Indeed, he has proved remarkably inventive with his own identity.
In 2012, one of his constituents noticed that, while working as an MP, Shapps had also been peddling get-rich-quick-schemes online under the assumed names ‘Michael Green’ and ‘Sebastian Fox’. The schemes, marketed by Shapps’ company How To Corp under such titles as ‘Stinking Rich 3’, promised unwary punters that they could make large amounts of money very rapidly if they followed ‘Michael Green’s’ instructions. These included the instruction to recruit more punters to sell get-rich-quick schemes to the public – a classic feature of pyramid-selling schemes.
Shapps at first attempted to deny this, saying: ‘Let me get this absolutely clear… I don’t have a second job and have never had a second job while being an MP. End of story.’ He also threatened to sue the constituent who had uncovered what he had been up to. Days later, he was forced to admit the truth, though he did this in a characteristically slippery manner, saying that he had ‘over-firmly denied’ the story.
One might think that being exposed as a liar, a huckster and a bully would have led to an immediate end to Shapps’ career in politics. Instead, he was demoted from cabinet but handed a more junior ministerial portfolio and allowed to continue as co-chair of the Conservative Party.
On Sky News’s Sunday news programme, Shapps presented his credentials.
He was squeaky clean. Hmm:
He took credit for Boris’s resignation as party leader. Really?
He promised a tax cut:
He said he was relaxed about identity issues:
And he was sure he had the numbers:
Then, suddenly, he didn’t.
Oh, well. Too bad.
Conservative Party voters name their candidates
Since the weekend, various polls have been conducted of rank and file Party members.
The results go against the MPs’ wishes.
This is where MPs are as voting opens on Wednesday afternoon. I’ll post results tomorrow:
A Conservative Home poll (image credit here) shows that Party members want either Penny Mordaunt or Kemi Badenoch to win. Rishi Sunak is a distant third on 12.1% support:
The next poll shows the wishes of Conservative members in Mrs Thatcher’s birthplace of Grantham, part of the Grantham and Stamford constuency. They are not fans of Rishi Sunak, either:
However, Rishi does top another poll of Conservative and other voters. Note the Don’t Know (read Boris?) percentage:
https://twitter.com/JohnCains1/status/1547191058169475072
Some dispute the results. However, as someone points out, this could have to do with name recognition from news programmes and the papers:
I’ll have more on today’s vote tomorrow.
It is apposite to follow my posts about Lee Anderson with a series on his fellow Red Wall MP Marco Longhi.
Among other things, they have in common a dislike of Steve Bray, the noisy anti-Brexit protester who had his amplifying equipment taken by police this week.
Steve Bray
This is where I left off yesterday:
I’ll get to the debate in which Marco Longhi said those words.
First, however, Steve Bray reappeared in the area around Parliament on Wednesday, June 29, 2022, with a new boombox:
Guido Fawkes had the story and a video:
His post says (emphases in the original):
Just when you thought it was all over, Steve Bray’s back for an encore. With his boombox ripped from his hands yesterday by a swarm of Met officers, it looked like it was finally time to say bye, bye Bray-by. Not so much.
Undeterred, and as promised during a BBC interview yesterday afternoon, Bray is back on his island outside Parliament, having found a new boombox to blast his tunes at full volume as MPs walk past. He’s also picked up a gang of new supporters to chant along with him. Presumably they don’t have jobs to go to either. Chopper [The Telegraph‘s Christopher Hope] even claims he’s seen pedestrians hand Bray some cash in solidarity. It’s not like Met officers have far to commute given New Scotland Yard’s just metres away…
On May 11, Marco Longhi mentioned Steve Bray, although not by name, in a parliamentary debate, Preventing Crime and Delivering Justice.
Guido covered the bit about Bray:
Guido wrote:
… Speaking in the Chamber yesterday afternoon alongside Bray’s arch nemesis Lee Anderson, Longhi said:
I will not dignify his existence by tarnishing Hansard with his name, but there is a noisy man outside who dresses up as a clown and harasses and chases Members of Parliament and our staff from his little camp on the crossing island on Parliament Street. He is someone else who serves no public benefit whatsoever… This person needs to have his loudspeaker system confiscated and to be moved on. Personally, I would like to see him locked up in the Tower with a loudspeaker playing “Land of Hope and Glory” on repeat at maximum volume. The Met really should deal with him.
Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle intervened to offer swapping offices with Longhi so that “there will be no problem and we will not need to shut down free speech either”…
Guido concluded by saying that, like Lloyd Russell-Moyle, he has no problem with Bray’s braying as it shows we tolerate free speech.
Personally, I disagree. After six years of his daily noise, the Met should put a stop to it.
Returning to the debate, which took place after the Queen’s Speech in May, Longhi discussed the people from his constituency, Dudley North, and their concerns, among them Brexit and re-establishing law and order (emphases mine):
I was going to confine my speech to the Public Order Bill, but I will follow up on a few comments that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made. The more I listen to him, the more I think he speaks a good deal of common sense. I would like him to know that I for one, and a number of my colleagues, agree with much if not everything of what he says, and we have a steely resolve to make sure that we are one United Kingdom. That is what we voted for when we voted for Brexit.
My daughters, for some unfathomable reason, sometimes describe me as a grumpy old man. I really do not know why. However, there are a few things that can make me a little bit miserable, and one thing that has really grated on me in recent years is the minority of protesters who have pretty much used guerrilla warfare to disrupt the everyday lives of the vast majority of our constituents—not just mine, but everybody’s.
The good people of Dudley North are ordinary folk, working hard to make a living, a living that is increasingly harder to make in the current climate. I cannot fathom how the privileged and entitled few think it is acceptable to stop our carers and nurses from being able to get to work to care for our sick and elderly, or to blockade a fire appliance from getting to a serious fire burning a local business to the ground—or, more tragically, perhaps preventing people inside the burning building from being saved. Of course, that applies to any blue light service, not just the fire service. That minority of criminals truly disgust me. They have no concept of the real world out there. They have no concept of the misery they bring to those less fortunate than themselves.
I hope that you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and those on the Front Benches will join me in making working here more bearable for our staff, myself and my colleagues. I will not dignify his existence by tarnishing Hansard with his name, but there is a noisy man outside who dresses up as a clown and harasses and chases Members of Parliament and our staff from his little camp on the crossing island on Parliament Street. He is someone else who serves no public benefit whatsoever.
Lee Anderson intervened:
I know the character my hon. Friend alludes to, and I have witnessed some ferocious verbal attacks on my hon. Friend from that character, who patrols Whitehall like a public nuisance. May I suggest telling him that, if he is interested in changing things in this country, he should come to Dudley North and stand against my hon. Friend at the next general election?
Longhi replied:
In fact, that invitation has already been made. I am going to print off a set of nomination papers, but I wonder about the 10 people this person might need for the form to be valid.
My staff cannot hear distressed constituents on the phone through the awful racket he causes. All our staff who have offices in 1 Parliament Street suffer considerable stress and anxiety from the disruption he causes to their, and our, work. I doubt that staff in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the buildings opposite, would say anything different—[Interruption.] Is someone wanting to intervene? I do not know. I heard some noises. It is like a Hoover—an irritating thing in the background. I do not know what it is.
This person needs to have his loudspeaker system confiscated and to be moved on. Personally, I would like to see him locked up in the Tower with a loudspeaker playing “Land of Hope and Glory” on repeat at maximum volume. The Met Police really should deal with him. He is causing misery to hundreds of staff, he is intimidating many—
Then Labour’s Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who is quite the leftie, intervened for a bit of to-ing and fro-ing:
Russell-Moyle: No, he’s not!
Longhi: I think someone wants to intervene, Mr Deputy Speaker. This person intimidates many who are passing by, going about our business and representing our constituents—
Russell-Moyle: No, he doesn’t!
Longhi: Would the hon. Gentleman like to intervene?
Russell-Moyle: The hon. Member clearly does not know how Parliament works, but we often make sounds across the Chamber when we disagree with someone, and I disagree with him. I am happy to swap offices: I will take his office and he can have my office. Then there will be no problem and we will not need to shut down free speech either. Win-win!
Longhi: I am actually very comfortable for the hon. Member to come to Dudley North and make those very arguments, because he would be out of office completely. Please do come and make those very arguments. I am not going to allow this kind of behaviour from someone outside, who is a public nuisance, to force us to have to make changes for him.
Our police, whether in Dudley, the Met or elsewhere, need the tools to better manage and tackle the dangerous and highly disruptive tactics used by a small minority of selfish protesters to wreak havoc on people going about their daily lives. Our police already have enough to be doing without the unnecessary burden of a privileged few who seek to rinse taxpayers’ money.
It will come as no surprise that I wholeheartedly support the Public Order Bill. If that disruptive minority want to glue themselves to anything, maybe the Bill should make it easier for them to have their backsides glued to a tiny cell at Her Majesty’s pleasure. They would be most welcome.
Kit Malthouse MP, the minister for Crime and Policing, concluded the debate. Malthouse, incidentally, worked for Boris Johnson in a similar position when the latter was Mayor of London:
… We have had a variety of contributions this afternoon, falling broadly into three categories. First, there were the constructive contributions. My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (James Sunderland) talked about antisocial behaviour in his constituency, a theme we heard from several hon. Members. The three graces—my hon. Friends the Members for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), for Peterborough (Paul Bristow) and for Dudley North (Marco Longhi)—expressed strong support for the Public Order Bill. The general theme was expressed pithily by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough:
“We want criminals to be scared of the law. We do not want the law-abiding majority to be scared of criminals”—
a sentiment with which the Government heartily agree. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) made his usual vigorous and wide-ranging contribution, illustrating neatly why his part of the world is becoming more of a Conservative stronghold with every month that passes …
I wrote about Jonathan Gullis in April.
Malthouse ended with this. I do hope he is correct when he says:
As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary set out earlier in this debate, the first job of any Government is to keep their people safe, which is why we are delivering ambitious reforms to do just that by cutting crime, delivering swifter justice and making our streets safer. We are backing the ever-growing numbers of police with the tools and support they need, making sentences tougher for violent and sexual crimes, strengthening victims’ rights and restoring confidence in the criminal justice system. We will ensure that we strike the right balance in our human rights framework so that it meets the needs of the public and commands their confidence, strengthens our traditions of liberty, particularly the right to free speech, adds a healthy dose of common sense and curtails abuses of our justice system. I commend the Government’s programme on crime and justice to the House.
In the beginning
Marco Longhi was born in the Midlands town of Walsall, Staffordshire, on April 22, 1967, to an Englishwoman and an Italian airline worker. He grew up in Rome.
He took after both parents in his personal choices.
Following his father’s interest in airlines, he trained as a pilot. Later, following the example from his mother’s family, he entered politics.
In between, he studied at Manchester University and worked in the oil and gas industry. Later on, he became interested in real estate and was the director of the lettings (rental) firm Justmove. He also owns ten houses in Walsall.
His grandfather Wilfred Clarke was mayor of Walsall in 1978. Longhi became a Conservative councillor for the town in 1999 and served two terms as its mayor, in 2017 and 2018.
Dudley North
Longhi ran successfully for election to Parliament in 2019, after the much-admired Labour MP, subsequently Independent, Ian Austin, stood down for Dudley North.
The constituency of Dudley North was created in 1997. Labour’s Ross Cranston served as its MP between 1997 and 2005. Afterwards, Ian Austin succeeded him until 2019. Austin became an Independent in February 2019. He resigned from Labour because he was troubled by its anti-Semitism, which prevailed in some factions of the party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Austin’s adoptive father Fred was a Czech Jew who was adopted by an English family, hence the surname change from Stiller to Austin. Fred Austin was the headmaster of The Dudley School from its foundation in 1975 to his retirement in 1985.
In December 2019, Marco Longhi handily defeated Labour’s appropriately named Melanie Dudley with a majority of 11,533, a swing of 15.8 per cent.
Maiden speech
Longhi gave his maiden speech to the Commons on February 26, 2020, during the debate on the Environment Bill.
Although coronavirus was seeping into the news narrative, getting on with Brexit was still the main topic of discussion among Conservative MPs. The debates were marvellous, imbued with optimism.
Everyone was also happy with the relatively new Speaker of the House, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, who was a breath of fresh air compared with his predecessor John Bercow who did so much to try and thwart Brexit.
Longhi’s speech tells us about Dudley and his hopes for the historic town:
Let me start by thanking you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to present my maiden speech today, and to thank your staff—and, indeed, all staff on the estate—for keeping us safe and looking after us so well and with such professionalism. I should like you to convey my more profound thanks, if that is possible, to Mr Speaker for the way in which he has signalled that he will carry out his office as Speaker of the House, in complete contrast to his predecessor. The conventions and integrity that he is restoring in such an unassuming way are having a much greater impact in restoring faith in our democracy than any commentators may be giving him credit for, which is why I want to do so today.
It is the convention to comment on one’s predecessor in a maiden speech. I shall do so, but not for that reason: I will because I want to. I am certain than many in this place will want to recognise Ian Austin for his integrity, and for the brave way in which he decided to stand up against antisemitism. There is not a person in my constituency to whom I have spoken who does not speak well of Ian, even when they disagreed with his politics. So I want to thank him for his efforts as a local MP, and for the example that he has set for many of us, on both sides of the House, in standing up to prejudice and hatred. I suspect that some of my colleagues on this side of the House—myself included—may wish to thank him for other reasons too.
I say with a degree of both pride and humility that I am the first ever Conservative Member of Parliament for Dudley North, the first ever Member called Marco, and the Member holding a larger majority than any of my predecessors in this seat. For that, I thank the people of Dudley, who, like the people in the rest of the country, decided to tell the House—yet again, at the umpteenth time of asking—what they wanted us to do.
The Dudley North constituency is made up of the town of Sedgley, the suburban areas of Upper Gornal, Lower Gornal and Gornal Wood, Woodsetton, and other conurbations around Dudley town itself. It has several attractions of national significance, including the Black Country Living Museum, Dudley Castle and Dudley Zoo.
Dudley has been a market town since the 13th century, and its fortunes over the centuries have ebbed and flowed with the economic cycles of the heavy industry that its coal-rich mines supported. This also means that it has suffered much since the decline of the traditional industries, which is why a focus on skills and future jobs is crucial if the economic prosperity of the area and the wellbeing of Dudley people are to be secured for the coming decades.
Dudley is also credited with being the birthplace of the industrial revolution, with the advent of smelting iron ore using coal instead of charcoal, which is manufactured by burning trees and therefore much rarer and more costly to obtain. Abraham Darby introduced this revolutionary method, which meant that iron and steel could be made in much larger quantities and more efficiently and cheaply. He effectively kick-started the industrial revolution, so Dudley’s heritage and legacy are second to none—notwithstanding what other people in this House might say! However, I will say that competing with Magna Carta and perhaps alienating a doctor might not be my smartest move. Abraham Darby was born in Woodsetton in 1678 and is reported to have lived at Wren’s Nest, which is now a site of special scientific interest—I had to practise that—and, since 1956, one of only two national nature reserves assigned on geology alone because of the variety and abundance of fossils found on the site.
However, although the new industrial revolution brought wealth, it also resulted in the area being named the most unhealthy place in the country in the mid-19th century, because of the dreadful working and living conditions. That led to the installation of clean water supplies and sewerage systems. Dudley had the highest mortality rate in the country. In the 21st century we are faced with the fourth industrial revolution, characterised by a range of new advancements in the digital and biological worlds, but with a different impact on human wellbeing.
Improving health and wellbeing and seeking to tackle mental ill health are some of the areas on which I wish to focus during my time in this House, for the benefit of everyone at home and in their workplaces. If we tackle the issue of poor mental health at its core and in its infancy, we can prevent crisis moments and the devastating consequences that they can have. That it is also why having an environment that we can all enjoy, which supports us in our own wellbeing and that we can leave as a positive legacy to our children and grandchildren, is so important. Mother Nature has been talking to us for some time, and it is time we did more than simply listen. It is time to take action as well, which is why the Bill is so welcome.
Mr Deputy Speaker, if you ever come to Dudley, the capital of the Black Country, you will be warmly welcomed, because that is the nature of Dudley people. You will also feel a sense of expectation—a feeling that change is about to happen, a feeling of optimism—and this is another reason why I am so privileged to represent the town and its people. In the near future, we will be seeing the demolition of the infamous Cavendish House in the town centre to make way for many new homes, the metro extension and I hope—subject to consent—a very light rail system.
Like many high streets around the country, Dudley’s has suffered much. Nobody has a silver bullet to fix that, but increasing footfall by attracting more people feels like part of the solution. If attracting more people into the town centre is part of the solution, and if the focus on skills for future jobs is key, I would like to see our plans for a university campus on the edge of Dudley town centre finally being delivered. I am pleased that the Prime Minister agrees with me on that. These game-changing plans were drawn up before my arrival, and some have been spoken about for many years. Now is the time to turn words into action and to deliver for Dudley. My pledge to all Dudley people is that I will fight every step of the way to make things happen and bring about the change that they want. It is Dudley’s turn now.
On May 12, 2021, he rightly objected to lefties trolling him over Brexit in the Better Jobs and a Fair Deal at Work debate, which followed that year’s Queen’s Speech:
“Your name isn’t English, why don’t you go back to where you came from?” That is a recent Facebook comment from an articulate but clearly limited left-wing activist, so I took some pleasure in replying in Italian “Che in realtà sono nato da un minatore di carbone del black country”—that I was in fact born to a Black Country coalminer.
More condescending left-wingers recently said this:
“You’d think Marco would understand why Brexit is bad. He’s lived in Italy and EVEN his Dad is Italian. Why is he such a strong Brexiteer? He must be stupid.”
Well, brownie points for working out that my dad is Italian. I did explain at length why Brexit is vital, but it became clear to me that there was a limit to their thinking, too—I mean Marco, Italian, therefore remainer, otherwise stupid is a bit of a “micro-aggression”, and is rather limited thinking isn’t it, Mr Deputy Speaker?
Here is my suggestion for the Labour party: set up an internal limited-thinking focus group to eradicate it from among their ranks, because how can they represent people who are clearly not limited? They may want to start in Amber Valley where the Labour leader blamed voters for their election results; it might prove more useful than rearranging the deckchairs on their Front Bench.
So, yes, my name is Marco, and, yes, my father is Italian, but here I am. How did I get here? Two words: opportunità e lavoro—opportunity and graft. My grandfather’s story is one of rags to riches and my parents are examples of blue-collar workers who for years lived hand to mouth. They bent over backwards to give me opportunities, and I put in the work.
Opportunity and work are two pillars of Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech. People out there do not want handouts; they want a hand getting back on their feet. More than anything, they want opportunities to do well. The lifetime skills guarantee is a massive investment in education and apprenticeships, readying people for the jobs coming their way. We may remember the Prime Minister—or “our Boris” as they say back home—visiting Dudley and going to the site of our new Institute of Technology, where he delivered his “jobs, jobs, jobs” vision. The pandemic has shown that fish can be necessary, but fishing rods are what people really need, and that institute will provide the rods.
The Queen’s Speech contained a vast array of steps that will take us out of the clutches of the pandemic, freeing us to be even stronger than when we entered it. The commitment to our NHS and continuing with our investment in the vaccination programme and in private sector life sciences are huge bonuses that this country will benefit from.
The roaring ’20s are upon us. Dio salvi la Regina—God save the Queen.
I hope he is right about the roaring ’20s being upon us.
One year on, and it’s hard to see. However, that is no fault of Marco Longhi’s.
I will have more on this gently witty and highly incisive Red Wall MP next week.
To follow this series, it is helpful to read parts 1 and 2.
We left off on Sunday, May 8, 2022. That day, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer had cancelled an appearance at an Institute for Government event on Monday in advance of the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday.
Labour’s campaign beer and curry event took place on April 30, 2021. The Sun made it public soon afterwards, but it did not get traction from other papers, namely The Telegraph and the Mail, until January 2022. Durham Constabulary only decided to really investigate it on Friday, May 6, 2022. Starmer took legal advice and cancelled his public appearance on Monday, May 9.
Journalists and pundits noted the length of time between the event, its wider coverage, the internal memo about the event leaked to the Mail on Sunday and Starmer’s reaction to the press coverage it received. No one forgot Starmer’s spending from December 2021 to May 2022 calling for Boris Johnson’s resignation over Downing Street events:
With the shoe being on the other foot, Labour supporters wanted Starmer’s event, held in Labour MP Mary Foy’s Durham office, to disappear from the public consciousness. Didn’t we know there was a war on in Ukraine? Didn’t anyone care about the cost of living crisis? Suddenly, breaking coronavirus restriction rules was something no one should care about unless it had to do with Boris and Downing Street.
Mail on Sunday journalist Dan Hodges noted the hypocrisy:
A YouGov poll published on Monday showed that the public thought Starmer should stand down if he gets a fine:
Guido Fawkes has YouGov’s breakdown of the public’s opinion on both Starmer and Boris. Not surprisingly, more people think that Boris should resign. That said, Conservative voters are more forgiving of Starmer than are Labour voters. That’s because most Conservatives believe in repentance.
Guido says a majority of the public think that Starmer broke the rules:
The general public is firmly of the view that Starmer should resign, at 46% agreeing versus 32% opposing. They also comfortably believe Starmer either did definitely or probably break the rules (54%) to probably didn’t or definitely didn’t (21%).
Guido conducted his own poll on Monday, May 9. Just under 50 per cent thought that the Labour leader — and Leader of the Opposition (LOTO) — should resign using the same standards that he applied to Boris:
Earlier on Monday, Starmer decided to issue a short statement to the media at 4 p.m. that day. By the time Guido closed his poll, there was a half hour left before that small, select event took place.
Guido’s post on the poll says (emphases in the original):
With Sir Keir expected to make a statement on Beergate at 4pm today, Guido asked co-conspirators how they’d advise Starmer if they were by his side in the LOTO office over the weekend. Resign right away? Wait for the police investigation? Tough it out…?
Thousands voted, and it turns out readers are divided. Half (49.6%) think Starmer should resign at the podium today – given he called for Boris’s resignation the moment the police launched their inquiry – 28.9% think he should resign only if fined, with a further 21.5% saying he should tough it out regardless of the police outcome. Guido’s own view is that the latter choice is politically impossible given his approach to Partygate. Demanding Boris and Rishi resign over a birthday cake set the bar incredibly high for his own behaviour – a bar he hasn’t met. If he’s not going to resign today, then his only real option is to promise he’ll go if Durham Police whack him with a fine…
Starmer invited only three journalists to hear his statement.
He said he would resign if fined.
Guido analysed that statement and said there was more to it than one might think:
Seeing as Charles — now Lord — Falconer is advising Starmer, Blairite tactics could come into play:
Sir Keir has just confirmed he will resign in the event of being given a fine, an unprecedented announcement from a Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition … Guido can see another obvious tactic at play from the pound shop Blair wannabee…
In 2007, when under investigation for the Cash For Honours scandal, Tony Blair’s team warned the Metropolitan Police that the PM would have to resign if interviewed under caution, forcing them to back off under such immense political pressure:
Sources close to the inquiry said that there were difficult discussions before a political intermediary made senior detectives aware of the serious implications of treating the Prime Minister as a suspect.
“Make no mistake, Scotland Yard was informed that Mr Blair would resign as Prime Minister if he was interviewed under caution,” said a source. “They were placed in a very difficult position indeed.”
On Saturday, when Guido exclusively revealed Lord Falconer has been tasked with putting together out Sir Keir’s legal defence, he didn’t expect Blair’s Justice Secretary to copy the tactic used by his old party boss so like-for-like. Unfortunately for Starmer one of his team accidentally explained the quiet bit out loud to ITV’s Daniel Hewitt, briefing “it puts some pressure on Durham Police who are being leant on in one direction”. Former DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions] Sir Keir knows a thing or two about letting police forces fudge an investigation and letting the culprit get away…
Hmm:
It will be interesting to see how a campaign team can justify alcohol at a notional working event, especially as a few overdid it:
Guido was referring to a Politico article by Alex Wickham, who wrote that he received no denials of the following account containing mentions of drunkenness:
On Tuesday, May 10 — Day 13 of Beergate — the Mail led with Starmer’s alleged piling of pressure on Durham police:
That day, fallout followed Starmer’s cosy Monday afternoon session with only three journalists.
The Sun‘s political editor Harry Cole was left out in the cold. ‘Lobby’ refers to the media:
Guido said this was but another episode in a long-running period in which Labour have not been transparent with the media:
Guido has been tracking this issue for some time:
Guido’s campaign to get Labour to publish their shadow cabinet meetings with media proprietors and editors, as pledged following Leveson, seems to be going nowhere, despite repeated promises from Labour HQ to pull their finger out. Yesterday Labour’s relationship with press transparency got colder, when Sir Keir invited just three tame broadcasters into the room, blocking any hacks who may have asked difficult questions from attending. GB News’ Tom Harwood was told this was due to “limited space”. Guido is old enough to remember when the Lobby was collectively outraged when only selected broadcasters were invited by Lee Cain [Boris’s former Downing Street Director of Communications] for a briefing…
Now Guido’s spotted another press frontier on which Labour’s dropping the ball: publishing press releases. Labour’s website hasn’t published a press release in over 40 days, the most protracted period of policy publishing paralysis since Starmer took over …
Perhaps not a good look when even the Labour-supporting press is starting to suggest Sir Keir needs some policies to win, not just claims of personal sainthood…
That day, YouGov published a new poll taken on May 5 and 6 that shows the Conservatives were one point below Labour. Other polls still show Labour in the lead, but here is YouGov’s take:
Guido wrote:
Margin of error territory as the public no longer perceives Sir Keir as “Mr Rules”. One poll so far so will be intrigued to see if this is a trend…
Prince Charles delivered the Queen’s Speech that morning for the State Opening of Parliament.
In the afternoon, both the Commons and the Lords began separate debates on the 38 proposed bills in the Queen’s Speech.
In the Commons, at least, the week-long debate, called the Humble Address, begins jovially, and it is an honour to be the MP selected to open it.
The lucky MP was Graham Stuart (Conservative), who represents Beverley and Holderness.
He cracked a joke about Keir Starmer as he reviewed Labour’s dominance in the North of England prior to the Conservatives’ breaking through the Red Wall in 2019 (emphases in purple mine):
Robert [Sir Robert Goodwill], of course, won selection in Scarborough. He then went on to overturn Lawrie Quinn’s 3,500 majority, and was, I think, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), the only Conservative candidate in the whole of the north of England to take a seat from the Labour party at that election. The Leader of the Opposition must wish it was so today. Instead the only thing opening up for him in the north is a police investigation. [Laughter.]
Guido has the video. Look at Starmer’s painfully forced smile:
Stuart had another go when discussing the corruption in his constituency in the 18th and 19th centuries:
Obviously the law did change. Free beer and cash inducements were the electoral controversies then, rather than, say, beer and curry today. Never in the history of human conflict has so much karma come from a korma.
Some time later, it was Boris’s turn to speak, introducing the important bills. Labour MPs intervened until he put a stop to them.
Of the energy bill, he said:
The energy Bill will create hundreds of thousands of new green jobs, taking forward this Government’s energy security strategy—it is about time this country had one—with £22 billion—[Interruption.] Labour did not want a single nuclear power station. Come on, be honest. Look at them, the great quivering jellies of indecision that they are. Our £22 billion UK Infrastructure Bank is supporting the transition to net zero and vast new green industries, in which our United Kingdom will again lead the world.
Boris quickly moved on to the economy and the Channel crossings of illegal migrants, during which he added a quip:
We are using our new freedoms to control our borders, with a new plan for immigration so that we can fix our broken asylum system, tackle the illegal immigration that undermines the legal immigration that we support and crack down on the vile people smugglers. I know that the Leader of the Opposition—perhaps I should, in deference to his phrase, refer to him as the Leader of the Opposition of the moment—likes to claim he opposes these plans …
Guido has the video, which is much more entertaining than reading the transcript. Boris was at his best:
That evening, The Guardian reported that Labour MPs were already talking about a change in leadership. Speaking personally, so far, Wes Streeting is the strongest candidate they have:
The majority of shadow ministers said they were grimly resigned to Starmer’s pledge – but said there were likely to be internal consequences. “I think once you start talking up the prospect of your own resignation you are on dangerous ground,” one said.
Another veteran MP, a Starmer loyalist, said they suspected ulterior motives from some shadow cabinet members. “If you fancy Keir’s job, this is win-win,” they said.
Rule changes pushed through at last year’s Labour conference mean a fifth of MPs must nominate any candidate for the party leadership in order for them to be put to a members’ postal vote – a higher threshold than under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and a move that was seen by those on the left as intending to disadvantage their candidates.
One MP said a snap leadership contest would put ascendant shadow cabinet ministers such as Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, in an advantageous position. “[Starmer’s] disappearance now would obviously benefit the Blairite right – [the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy] Burnham couldn’t stand, Sadiq Khan [the London mayor] couldn’t stand, Angela would be out of the picture for the same reason as Keir because if he goes on this she has said she will go too.”
If both Starmer and Rayner are forced to resign, there is no obvious interim leader. The most senior members of Starmer’s shadow cabinet – Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor; Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary; David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary; Streeting; and Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling up secretary – are all potential candidates in a contest. The party’s national executive committee would have to vote to designate an alternative member of the shadow cabinet.
A source close to Starmer said he was relaxed about the ambitions of his shadow cabinet. “I don’t think anyone is actively trying to undermine him. It says a lot about our party that there are so many potential candidates – look at the contrast again with the Tories. If people are ambitious, let them be.”
An ally of Streeting said: “Wes was on the media batting for Keir three times over the weekend and into Monday. He’s one of Keir’s most loyal and vocal supporters. After a great set of a local election results there is everything to play for at the next general election thanks to Keir’s leadership. This is no time for introspection.”
Senior figures in the Labour leader’s team are understood to have felt reluctant to advise Starmer he should raise the prospect of his own resignation.
On Wednesday, May 11, The Sun criticised Keir Starmer’s response to the Queen’s Speech. When responding to Boris on Tuesday, Starmer had no Labour policies to present. He merely criticised the Government at length and ended with this:
It does not have to be this way; it will not always be this way. A Labour Government would tackle the cost of living crisis head on, get Britain growing again after 12 years of failure, and improve public services so that they deliver for the people paying for them. A Labour Government would rise to the moment where this Government have badly failed.
The Sun‘s editorial, ‘Holey agenda’, said (bold in the original):
IS Keir Starmer chasing the wrong job?
He has no ideas anyone can detect, as his vacuous response to the Queen’s Speech proves. He clearly thinks it’s enough to be ‘decent’ and ‘honourable’.
Tribal Labour voters may lap up his preening sanctimony. Millions of others prefer leaders with vision and drive.
You’re auditioning for PM, Mr Starmer. Not Archbishop of Canterbury.
That day, digging around, Guido raised the matter of an early pandemic violation in Durham: that of Boris’s then-adviser Dominic Cummings at Barnard Castle in the Spring of 2020.
Durham Constabulary said at the time that there was nothing to investigate. They also stated that they did not issue retrospective fines.
As punishment, Boris made Cummings hold a lengthy televised press conference to explain himself. It lasted well over an hour and was most peculiar. At the end, after having asked many questions, one by one, reporters and broadcasters walked up individually to Cummings’s table to tell him what they thought of him.
Cummings’s press conference was his public penance.
Then again, parts of it were theatre for the public, most of whom didn’t know he is friends with many of those journalists, as is his wife. He addressed only one by his full name: Gary Gibbon from Channel 4 News.
Two years on with Starmer — and other Labour MPs in the frame — the Party’s ire was rising in Durham.
Mary Foy MP, who hosted the Durham gathering in 2021, had written a lengthy letter to Boris on May 28, 2020 about Cummings, who is pictured below in the background. The letter beneath it is recent. It is from the leader of Durham’s Labour Party to Red Wall Conservative MP Richard Holden, who had written to Durham Constabulary a few weeks ago to enquire as to whether they would investigate the 2021 Starmer event:
Mary Foy’s letter would have been better addressed to Durham Constabulary. It was up to them, not Boris, to take action against Cummings.
However, Foy took issue with Boris’s refusal to sack Cummings. In the event, he resigned a few months later for other reasons and was gone by the end of 2020.
Guido wrote about Foy’s letter, which can be viewed in its entirety on his post:
Now that Sir Keir is feeling the heat from his boozy lockdown curry night, Labour MPs are bending over backwards to explain why their leader’s Covid rule-breaking is somehow completely different to Boris’s, and why it’s right that Starmer remains in post provided he isn’t fined. One particular MP who might have some trouble with this is none other than the Honourable Member for Durham, Mary Foy…
Foy is probably best known for hosting the Beergate bhuna session in her constituency office, laughing and drinking merrily with her colleagues while the country was still in stage two of lockdown. She then went on to scream at Richard Holden for his asking Durham Police to reinvestigate the event. It turns out, however, that when Durham Police announced they wouldn’t fine Dominic Cummings over the infamous Barnard Castle trip, Foy had a few ideas about what should happen next. None of which involved Cummings keeping his job…
Here’s what Foy wrote in a public letter to Boris after the Cummings story:
The vast majority of constituents who have contacted me have expressed the view that Mr Cummings’ actions have been insensitive and unacceptable at best, and many feel that they warrant further investigation by the police.
While I understand today’s decision by Durham Police to take no further action, many of the constituents who have written to me would like Mr Cummings to resign or be sacked. Clearly, whether you stick by him or not is a matter for you, but the perception from my constituents, and I would hazard a guess that this is a common view across the North East, is that you are currently putting the interests of your chief adviser above that of the people of the region and the country as a whole.
Even though Cummings received no fixed penalty, and the police decided they’d take no further action, Foy still took the time to write a two-page letter informing the Prime Minister how upset her constituents are, and politely suggested Cummings lose his job. Presumably her office is inundated with similar letters now, all demanding Sir Keir does the honourable thing…
Labourites criticised Times Radio’s Lucy Fisher for mentioning Cummings and Starmer in the same tweet:
However, it would be wrong to think that Durham Constabulary never issued any fines — fixed penalty notices — for coronavirus violations.
On Thursday, May 12, The Times informed us of a fine Durham Constabulary issued to a bereaved woman in November 2020:
Some of Starmer’s supporters have assumed that detectives would not issue a fixed-penalty notice because they decided not to take retrospective action against Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s former adviser.
However, the force’s approach appeared to harden later in the pandemic and it issued a £10,000 fine to a woman who organised a balloon release in memory of her father-in-law, who died of Covid.
Vicky Hutchinson held the gathering on November 11, 2020, in a field opposite a church in Horden, Co Durham, where Ian Stephenson’s funeral was due to take place a few days later. Her £10,000 fine was reduced to £500, based on her ability to pay, when she attended Peterlee magistrates’ court on April 23 last year, a week before the Starmer incident.
A court report by The Northern Echo revealed that Hutchinson, in her mid-thirties, had urged friends and family to wear masks and stay socially distanced at the balloon release. It said that police did not attend the gathering of about 30 people and there was no disorder.
However, it appears that there was a retrospective investigation after a complaint. Durham police analysed a livestream video of the event before issuing the fine, the report said.
The approach to Hutchinson’s case raises fresh questions about how the Durham force might handle the case of Starmer, who has denied wrongdoing …
Durham police did not respond to requests for comment.
Also on Thursday, Guido returned to Dominic Cummings, specifically what Keir Starmer said about the incident in 2020:
Guido has the quote:
Here’s what he said of Cummings back in 2020 – before the police had even launched their investigation:
This was a huge test of the Prime Minister, and he’s just failed that test. He hasn’t sacked Dominic Cummings, he hasn’t called for an investigation, and he’s treating the British public with contempt… that’s not a reasonable interpretation of the rules, and the Prime Minister knows it. One rule for the Prime Minister’s advisers, another rule for everyone else… If I were Prime Minister, I’d have sacked Cummings.
One rule for the Prime Minister’s advisers, another for Sir Keir…
And finally, London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed that they have now issued more than 100 fines for Downing Street events. Neither Boris nor his wife Carrie received one in this tranche:
Guido wrote:
A month on from their last update on Partygate, paused thanks to the local elections, the Met’s confirmed “more than 100″ fixed penalty notices have now been handed out. Downing Street say Boris has not received another fine…
Later that afternoon, GB News’s Colin Brazier and his guests discussed the Met’s issuing of fines to people who were at Downing Street gatherings.
It’s a bit rich for Brazier’s contributors to say that the Met want to channel their resources elsewhere. There are few police forces these days, including the Met, who want to investigate actual crime. This massive dispensing of fines also looks rather selective:
https://twitter.com/JohnTay09512763/status/1524784820014010368
There is also the issue of double standards which irritate many members of the public:
Personally, I think the way the pandemic was handled was dystopian. I don’t know what to think about these fines. Part of me wants to see all of them refunded and any related criminal record for violations erased.
On the other hand, it seems only right that, if Labour have done wrong, they, too, should be fined.
So far, only the Conservatives have been. The Met have made them look positively criminal. Well, that’s par for the course in Labour-controlled London.
I’ll update this in due course.
End of series
Churchmouse Campanologist 