More or ULEZ a Good Night

Just over a week ago Rishi Sunak narrowly avoided being the first prime minister since Harold Wilson to suffer three by-election defeats on the same day, so why is it that Labour are on the back foot? It explains a fair bit of British political history that Labour can manage that; a party that can never quite believe it’s on its way to power. Even back in 1996 on the cusp of a landslide Tony Blair would spend sleepless nights fearing a Conservative comeback.

On the face of it, it was a terrible night for the Conservatives. Firstly, in Selby and Ainsty, there was a 24% swing from the Conservatives to Labour, which is the second-highest swing to the main opposition in any government seat since 1945, with only the 1994 landslide in Dudley West (29.1%) being larger. Secondly, in Somerton and Frome the swing was even this larger – 29% – this time towards the Liberal Democrats in an area they will be pumping General Election resources into. The third contest of the day, Uxbridge and South Ruislip, somewhat surprisingly was held by the Conservatives, although the majority was down to just 495 votes, with a swing of just under 7% to Labour.

The latter of those contests has led to criticism of Labour, their leader Keir Starmer, and also the combination of Sadiq Khan and the expansion of ULEZ across the capital. Uxbridge has always been a tough seat for Labour and wasn’t even held by them in the Tony Blair landslide years. It’s a seat with tough demographics for the party – Brexit voting, older, homeowners. It’s worth noting that even if the Uxbridge swing were replicated across the country, it would make Labour the largest party and the Tories would lose more seats than Brown did in 2010. If a swing like Selby’s was replicated, the Tories would be in wipeout territory.

Who Won the Leader’s Debate?

On Friday evening, as sane people went out to the pub, enjoyed the weather, and watched the football, I sat down to watch the Channel 4 Tory Party leader’s debate. I must be a fool, but someone has to do it. Taking part in the debate were Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, and Tom Tugendhat. Heading into the event Sunak was the current ballot leader with MPs, Mordaunt seemed to be the members’ favourite, Truss was vying to be the candidate for the right of the party, and both Badenoch and Tugendhat were there with nothing to lose.

The debate started with the usual opening statements, and the main areas of the discussion focused on trust, the economy and cost of living situation, and the climate crisis, and thankfully steered clear of banging on about Brexit – despite Truss trying to raise it multiple times. One of the more striking moments was when Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked the candidates if Boris Johnson tells the truth: the three candidates with the most to lose gave a mealy answer, Badenoch said ‘sometimes’, and emphatically Tugendhat said no whilst shaking his head. One of the few moments that garnered applause.

The least well-known of the contenders was Badenoch, and she definitely attempted to use the platform to introduce herself. Some people run for leader to be leaders, some for a senior position, and she is definitely in the latter group. Heading into the debate she was being talked about as someone who could ruffle some feathers, command the stage, and have her Nick Clegg moment. To me, she fell flat. She got her zingers in where she could, but ultimately seemed to play it safe – with eyes on a place in the cabinet of the eventual winner.

Why is everything so bloody bleak?

I found myself scrolling through Twitter a couple of days ago just after the Roe v Wade decision came through from the Supreme Court, and suddenly thought to myself why is everything so bloody bleak? Why is it getting worse? And where on earth does this end? We seem to be on this rollercoaster cycle of news that just increases its misery and its peculiarity in a way I can’t remember.

So where did it start? Some people believe with Brexit and Trump in 2016, but it’s arguable that it was a couple of years before that. The 2014 Scottish Referendum is widely touted as being the event that started some of the abuse, and despicable behaviour we see constantly on social media these days. Even the 2015 general election seemed to continue this pattern but to a lesser extent.

If these events were the initial starting point, 2016 was the year where it took off. The Brexit referendum turned social media into a cesspit and unleashed vile views/personalities into the public that are still there now. It was the start of the idea that all you need to do to gain prominence is spout lies and right-wing nonsense because you’ll get onto shows in the name of ‘balance. We still have it today with the likes of younger commentators such as Sophie Corcoran.

The model is simple: tweet something horrible that will gain you engagement, gain followers, and delete the tweet. Repeat again and again, and suddenly you have a following willing to pander to you. It’s incredibly disheartening. Sophie’s Twitter page shows her as having tweeted 300 times, the actual number is a lot higher than that. But the problem is that it works, she is regularly on GB News, and was even recently on Good Morning Britain.

An England Team to be Proud Of

I would say I gave up with international football after 2010. I grew up as a child watching the ‘golden generation’ of the mid-late noughties, who constantly seemed to let us down. They didn’t of course, but after being repeatedly hyped and having our hopes inflated, the team always fell short. It seemed to be that each time we ran into a big team, that was it.

Between 2010 and 2018 I didn’t watch the vast majority of friendlies or tournament qualifiers. I would watch us at major tournaments, but as an uninterested spectator who frankly couldn’t care whether the team won or lost. In fact, it reached points where I thought it would be more interesting and funnier to me if we did lose. I think it peaked against Iceland, I found it hilarious.

This team has changed that.

It’s not happened overnight. In 2018 I went into the tournament again pretty indifferent. But as the tournament progressed, I got more involved, but still wasn’t fully back in. “We had an easy route”, “every time we faced a decent team we lost”, those were my post-event thoughts. They were both true, but still the team had the nation in the palm of the hands, and I was invested once more.

Johnson’s Biggest Risk Yet

COVID has disappeared. It has given up trying to infect us, put on its coat, and left the United Kingdom. Or that’s what government policy would have you believe. On July 19^th, we are going back to normality. The government earlier this week announced that freedom day would go ahead, and Britain would ‘learn to live with the virus’. Clubs, casinos, large events, and festivals have been given the green light, masks will no longer be mandatory – although premises can enforce them, the one metre rule is abandoned, and there will be no restrictions on sports events.

This is, quite frankly, terrible timing, and a big risk. Cases are currently soaring due to the arrival of the Delta variant earlier in the year, with numbers reaching the same levels as January. Hospitalisation numbers and deaths are now starting to rise too, although not the extent of previous waves thanks to the incredible vaccine rollout, which is proving to be effective against all current variants. We are seeing record numbers of people isolating from track and trace, and an increasing number of children learning from home due to breakouts of the virus at schools.

The government is forecasting record case numbers over the next few weeks, but says it is necessary to live with the virus going forwards in the same way we do with flu. But we shouldn’t forget that this isn’t the flu. The mortality rate is much higher, and there’s also long covid, something we don’t even know the full extent of yet, and the toll it takes on our bodies. We also can’t forget the groups of people who couldn’t have the vaccine for various reasons – and will be put at risk.   

A Year of Keir

Just over a year ago Keir Starmer was elected the new leader of the Labour Party, taking 56% of the vote, a landslide. It’s fair to say that Starmer’s first year in the role has been unprecedented. Usually, a party leadership victory would ensure front-page headlines, interview spreads, and immense exposure across the various news channel. However, the extraordinary times we were in meant that the leader sat on the backfoot as the country sat in the grip of a pandemic. Where most opposition leaders could stamp their vision, Keir Starmer did not have the opportunity.

This is especially unhelpful when you consider the state of the party he inherited from his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. When Starmer became leader last year Labour was roughly 20-25% behind in the polls. His task was an immense one. Slowly but surely however, the Labour leader found his voice, his own vision, and both he and the party began to eat into the lead.

Simply by not being Jeremy, and by coming across as clearly competent, able to lead and so on, he made great strides in the general standing of the party in the country. Add in his performances within PMQ’s, and the governments shoddy handling of the pandemic, and the early period was a success. Starmer was able to put in place a brand-new general secretary of his choice and built a majority on the party’s NEC. The Labour leader also able to show his ruthless side by sacking Rebecca Long Bailey after she failed to conform with his demands following her support of an anti-Semitic quote, and took the whip away from the former leader, Jeremy Corbyn.  

By the end of 2020, the average Conservative poll lead had dropped from 20-25% to just a couple of points, Starmer was enjoying the highest opposition leader ratings since Tony Blair, and he was even ahead of the PM in most ‘Best PM’ polls. Although only the first step had been taken, it had been a great first calendar year in the role.

Year in Review – 2020

This has obviously been a difficult year for everyone, myself included, but I do look back at the year as a mixed bag with rather a lot of bright spots. I have been incredibly lucky that from March onwards I have been able to work from home full time, so I have not been affected financially by COVID-19, and I have been able to carry on relatively as normal.

One goal I mentioned in last year’s review was that I was hoping to sacrifice less personal time to work this year, as I racked up a few hundred hours of overtime in 2020. Although I averaged less per month this year, I did still sacrifice a lot of time to work in 2020, there were a mix of causes for this. Hopefully in 2021 I will be finally able to work on that and free up some more personal time.

My mental and physical health was tested hugely this year. As I live alone it meant that I spent the first lockdown alone, and I spent a lot of the year not seeing family, friends, and I missed a lot of my nephew’s first full year. I have put on a fair bit of weight in 2020, so that is something that will be front and centre at the start of 2021. One huge positive that really made my year was that I leave 2020 in an amazing relationship, and I am looking forward to the experiences that brings this year.

Below are as usual some of my favourite things I have watched, read, written, and listened to over the last year.

Keir’s the Antidote

Usually, a party leadership victory would ensure front-page headlines, interview spreads, and immense exposure across the various news channel. However, the extraordinary times we are in meant that until recently Keir Starmer’s leadership had been a quiet one. Nevertheless, Boris Johnson has now been served notice by his opponent that he means business.

Last week the Labour leader put the PM to the sword over the death toll in care homes, unearthing the pre-March 12 government guidance to care homes that stated: “it remains very unlikely that people receiving care in a care home or the community will become infected”. Then, referring to ONS figures that suggest at least 40% of COVID-19 deaths have occurred in care homes, he asked the PM to take responsibility and accept the government was too slow to act.

Instead of accepting, Johnson falsely claimed that the government advice put forward by Starmer was not true, but the leader of the opposition had the evidence to hand. After PMQs Starmer also issued a letter to the PM asking him to correct the record, but Johnson again refused to do so. Seemingly the PM is forgetting he is now standing across from a lawyer at the despatch box, and you would have thought he would have learned his lesson from the warning shot the previous week.

Two weeks ago, again at PMQs, the Labour leader asked the PM why he could possibly think the UK’s handling of COVID-19 has been a success considering we now had the second-highest death toll globally. When the PM responded by saying now was not the time to make international comparisons, Starmer waved around the government’s own comparison charts, highlighting his initial point.

The Turning Point on Coronavirus

Tonight, Boris Johnson is set to announce a slight easing to Britain’s lockdown after just 7 weeks. These changes look set to include a new set of slogans, increased exercise time, and the possible reopening of garden centres, should they be able to conform to social distancing. On social media, there has been a huge backlash towards the expected measures, and to many, this feels like the latest car crash in what has been catastrophic handling of the pandemic since the start.

As of today, Britain has the highest death rate in Europe, and the second-highest worldwide, after the US. The current figure stands at 31,587 deaths, although this is the minimum, the number is likely to be a lot higher. Should the lockdown be eased too early, this number could skyrocket to 100,000 by the end of the year, as highlighted by John Johnston for Politics Home today.

The big question on everybody’s lips is whether Britain is ready to ease lockdown, and most statistics point to no. It is important to remember that Britain was one of the last countries to enter lockdown, yet we are one of the first to contemplate easing lockdown. There is no doubt we have passed the peak of wave 1 of the coronavirus, which hit around 4 weeks ago, but the descent of the curve is noticeably much less steep than the ascent.

Modelling the daily numbers has always been difficult due to under-reporting at weekends, however, as per the government’s slides the 7-day rolling average is currently around 580, the peak was around 900-950, and we entered lockdown when the rolling average was around 60. If we model this with death per million persons in the graph below courtesy of Our World in Data, we can see there is still a long way to go to reach pre-lockdown levels.

2019 End of Year Review

This year has been an incredibly successful year at work in which I’ve had two promotions, but a very busy one in which I have sacrificed a lot of personal time to my job, something I’ll be working on in 2020. My personal goals and activities have been on the backburner this year but will be very much front and centre over the next year. I’ve also become an uncle for the first time this month which is amazing, and I’m looking forward to watching him grow up. Here are some of my favourite things I’ve watched, read, written and listened to over the last year.

Things I’ve Watched
Line of Duty – Before series 5 aired this year I binged watch the other 4, and it really is remarkable TV, especially series 3-4.
This Time with Alan Partridge – Alan was back on our screens again this year and back to his best. A new series on the way this year.
League of Gentleman – I can’t believe it took me so long to watch this show, it’s brilliantly written, a bit silly, and just a good laugh.
Fleabag – The show is just as good as everyone was saying.
Taskmaster – Another show I’ve been meaning to watch for a long time, and I binged all 10 series earlier in the year. Such an easy watch.