Shrinkflation: chocolate bars, my waist, and political spokespeople

At Easter there were a number of stories about the ever-reducing size of chocolate eggs being sold for the same price as their previously larger versions. Apparently most chocolate bars are getting smaller, as are the size of other everyday items we might buy. The price might not be going up but you are getting less for your money. This is known as ‘shrinkflation’.

I have my own personal experience of shrinkflation: I was alarmed to be told at a recent medical appointment that I am no longer 6’6”, but a mere 6’5”. So you are now getting less of me for the same price! Not all shrinkflation is bad. I went from 20 stone in weight to 16 stone following a radical change in my diet when I was diagnosed as being Type 2 diabetic. Cutting out daily double packs of custard creams, donuts, large packs of Doritos Chilli Heatwave, six bananas a day, and much more may have had something to do with that rapid weight loss. (It might also have had just a little to do with me becoming diabetic in the first place …).

There is shrinkflation amongst our political classes, too. Whereas in the past a government had bid names and big hitters in its ministerial ranks, this has now shrunk to a presidential style of politics, with the Cabinet, that once replace the party, has now been replaced by the all-seeing wisdom of the Leader. I shout at the television or radio when allegedly bright party spokespeople preface their answers with: “Rishi has said that …” or “Keir has made it clear that …”.  At least the Liberal Democrats don’t do this. After all, who would want to repeat anything that Ed Davey has to say! As the Beloved Leader of North Korea was saying just the other day: “Always look on the bright side of life”. 

I’ve written more about party spokespeople in my column for next Wednesday’s Argus saying that it seems as though the Labour Party has a policy of fielding the most boring, uninspiring people to do the morning shows. In the past Labour politicians said things that would be remembered. Now they say things that can’t be recalled 10 seconds after it has come out of their mouths. Does Labour have a cunning plan to bore the electorate into submission, hoping that we will zone out before we realise that the party stands for little these days and has very little to say?

St Peter’s Church runs through the histories of many Brighton families

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 8th May 2024)

Two hundred years ago today, the foundation stone for St Peter’s Church in Brighton was laid at “the entrance to the town”, now the city centre in York Place.  The church was formally consecrated (declare sacred) and opened for business in January 1828.

This coming Sunday (12th May) there will be a service at 10.30am to celebrate this 200th anniversary.

I first attended St Peter’s 45 years ago shortly after I had arrived in England. I didn’t become a regular attender as I wasn’t keen on the style of worship at that time. The vicar in 1979 was Canon John Hester who had close links with the entertainment industry. He was a friend of Peter Sellers who had originally found fame in The Goon Show, and was godfather to Victoria, the daughter of Sellers and Britt Ekland. Canon Hester also officiated at Sellers’ funeral in 1980 where he introduced ‘In The Mood’, saying that it was a piece of music that must have meant a great deal to Peter as he had left a specific instruction that it should be played at his funeral. He was surprised when the congregation burst into laughter as he had not known that Sellers actually detested ‘In The Mood’ saying he wouldn’t personally have to endure it if played at his own funeral. My wife has made a similar request that the ‘Match of the Day’ theme be played at her funeral!

Canon Dominic Walker succeed John Hester as the Vicar of St Peter’s. Under his pastoral care, the church flourished. Dominic, who is our daughter’s godfather, was able to draw in many people for whom the church would otherwise have had little relevance. He held services for animals, a humanist memorial service for an atheist, and vigils for people who had died while being homeless and for the victims of domestic violence. He allowed a meeting to be held in support of striking miners, and he supported a councillor who was facing disciplinary action by her own party. Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve was always rammed to the rafters even if the more inebriated worshippers needed a police presence to keep the peace! He was on the Board of Brighton Housing Trust for many years, a member of the Labour Party, and active in the Christian Socialist Movement. At the same time he was a close friend of Sir Andrew Bowden, the Conservative MP for Brighton Kemptown and, together, they participated in a demonstration at Shoreham Harbour against live animal exports.

After Dominic was appointed Bishop of Reading in 1997, St Peter’s seemed to lose its way and the Diocese seemed determined to close it as a place of worship. A campaign was launched to save St Peter’s, led by my wife, Jean Calder, along with Isabel Turner and others. Over several months our teenage daughter, Clare, collected signatures in London Road to save the church. She spoke to many dozens of people who told her what St Peter’s meant to them and their families, how their parents and grandparents had been married there, and that they had been baptised at the church. St Peter’s runs through the family history of many old Brighton families.

Thanks to that campaign, St Peter’s did find a future as a place of worship when it partnered with Holy Trinity Brompton in London. A new priest, Archie Coates, arrived. Together with his wife, Sam, curate Johnnie Gumbell and Johnnie’s wife, Tara, a new congregation was built and St Peter’s is, once again, a thriving church community. I have to confess that I’m not keen on its current style of worship. I’m more of a “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46) type of believer than a “Praise Him with loud cymbals” (Psalm 150) type.

When Archie arrived he came to see me in my previous role as chief executive of Brighton Housing Trust. He said that he was keen to do work in the community. My advice was to avoid doing anything about drugs or homelessness since there were already too many such services locally, and to focus the church’s work on people who were poor and/or lonely. He said my advice was helpful. Three weeks later he announced that St Peter’s would be setting up a homeless drug project! I am glad he ignored my advice because St Peter’s has filled a gap, particularly for homeless women or those with addictions.

For 200 years St Peter’s has touched and improved the lives of so many people. Here’s to the next 200.

Some Immediate Reflections on Election Results in Sussex

Last Thursday’s elections (the results in Brighton and Hove and for the Police and Crime Commissioner were announced in the last two hours) have raised some intriguing considerations for the pending general election. The key points are:

• The re-election of Katy Bourne as the Police and Crime Commissioner
• Labour winning a majority of seats on Adur District Council
• The Greens’ and Independents’ successes in Hastings
• Labour holding both seats in by-elections in Brighton

Katy Bourne (photo credit: Felice Southwell / Brighton and Hove News)

It is the re-election of Katy Bourne that probably has the greatest significance. While some dismiss the election for the PCC as irrelevant and that the low turnout renders the result inconsequential, I think otherwise. This election covered every ward and constituency in Sussex. While the Conservatives currently hold every constituency in Sussex other than the three seats in Brighton And Hove, there are forecasts that they will hold just seven of the 17 seats at the general election with Labour winning seven, the Lib Dem’s two and the Greens holding on to Brighton Pavilion. 

Yet in the largest test of popular opinion, the Conservatives held on to the PCC. I suspect Katy Bourne won because she has done a good job as the PCC and is respected for her record since first being elected. This is as more a personal victory than it is a party one. As a Conservative, her vote plummeted as one would expect. But an unknown candidate might not have won for the Conservatives.

Like Katy, several of the defending Tory MPs will have a personal vote. For example, had Tim Laughton stood again his personal vote could have partially offset the hostility to the Conservatives who have just lost control of Adur District Council to Labour. I suspect, though, that even that would not have saved him.

The PCC election shows that there are still large numbers of Conservative voters across Sussex. The challenge for the Tories is to get them to actually vote, something they are more likely to do in a general election than in a local council or PCC election. That prediction of just seven Conservative MPs in Sussex might be an underestimate.

Quite remarkably, in votes cast in Brighton and Hove in the Police and Crime Commissioner 

Election, the Conservatives came second with 10,308 votes with the Greens third with 9,042 votes. One explanation was that there was tactical voting and some Green supporters lent their votes to Labour. In the general election, the same might happen in Hove & Portslade and in Brighton Kemptown, but in a straight fight between Labour and the Greens in Brighton Pavilion, that won’t happen. Who knows, some Conservatives voters might even vote Green to minimise Labour’s parliamentary majority.

Given the lacklustre campaign being run by Labour in Brighton Pavilion, the Greens and Siân Berry are coasting to a comfortable win. The only thing that might change that is for Labour to replace Tom Gray who appears to be a mere paper candidate.  I would suggest a more viable candidate would be Bella Sankey who understands campaigning and engagement. Now a Berry/Sankey duel would make for a very interesting contest.

In the two by-elections, Labour did well to hang on to both seats given the incompetence of the regional Labour Party in selecting the two candidates for the 2023 elections whose resignations triggered the by-elections. I am sure that Milla Guage and Theresa Mackey will add to the strength of the Labour Group.

Adrian Hart, of the Brighton and Hove Independents did well to increase his share of the vote in Queens Park while Labour and the Greens saw their votes go down in both wards in greater proportions than the lower turnout.

Valerie Mainstone: a campaigner who remains a true colossus

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 1st May 2024)

It takes some courage, in one’s mid-40s, to go to university. It takes some attitude to then get involved in student politics. And it takes someone of extraordinary ability and personality to become the oldest person to be elected as President of the Students’ Union. But then Valerie Mainstone was, and still is, a one-off.

Valerie Mainstone (front) at the unveiling of a blue plaque in Montpelier Crescent for Elizabeth Robins and Octavia Wilberforce

Forty years later, Valerie continues to make her mark and be noticed. In our society, women, especially those who are retired, can become invisible. But not Valerie. At just under five feet tall, she stands out from the crowd, including at women’s events and public occasions such as the recent unveiling of the plaque in St Michael’s Place, Brighton, to commemorate the life of Mary Hare (the pioneering teacher of deaf children and campaigner for women’s right to vote). Valerie, as is her custom on such occasions, wore a suffragette outfit. 

Now in her mid-80s, she does not stop, campaigning for the NHS, in the peace movement through the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and as a founder member of the Brighton Women’s History Group. So who is this remarkable woman?

Born in Edinburgh in 1941, she and her family moved to Southwick when her father was posted overseas during the war. An early memory was of standing on the one part of the beach at Southwick that hadn’t been closed and fortified to hinder a German invasion. Looking out across the Channel, she said to herself that one day she would go to France.  The war itself was to have a lasting impact on her. Even today she can’t stand the sound of police or ambulance sirens. “It chills me to the bone”, she told me. 

Valerie, her youngest sister and her Mainstone cousins have inherited a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, a condition which affects more women than men in her family. The BRCA1 gene protects one from getting certain cancers, but some mutations prevents them from working properly. If you inherit one of these mutations, you are more likely to get breast, ovarian, and other cancers. She speaks of her huge relief that she did not pass on the mutations to her son and daughter, and so her four granddaughters and two great-grandsons are free from this particular risk.

Valerie did well at school but had her mind set on getting married, which she did at 19 much to her mother’s disgust. She worked as a shorthand typist for the Federation of British Industries where her fluency in French and German saw her working with the Oversees Director of the Federation. It was at the Federation that she met people who had been members of the French Resistance during the war, thus deepening her Francophile tendencies that started on that beach in Southwick.

She worked at a local dairy where, she says, sexual harassment was endemic. It reenforced her belief in union membership.  A Workers’ Education Association course was the start of her academic aspirations. 

When she divorced her husband in the early 1980s, she enrolled as a mature student at the University of Sussex studying European History with French. Her year abroad was in Marseilles where she researched and wrote her dissertation ‘Professional Equality of Women in the Sugar Refinery In Marseilles’ for which she won the prestigious Peggotty Freeman Memorial Prize for the Best Year Abroad Dissertation. And it was at Sussex University that she was elected as President of the Students’ Union which is where I first met her, even though I was not a student.

After graduation she worked for Women Against Sexual Harassment where she continued her advocacy work and gave talks at schools, universities and workplaces. She spoke at a conference in Paris on the fight against sexual harassment, surprising the organisers by delivering her speech in fluent French.

Today she remains as active as ever. Her diary is much busier than mine, as I discovered when we tried to find time to meet. After our meeting, she had to dash off to a demonstration outside Hove Town Hall. In the previous fortnight I had seen her at an event where she was dressed as a suffragette, and at the International Women’s Day event at the Corn Exchange where she spent time staffing three stalls, for Sussex Save the NHS, the Brighton Women’s History Group, and the Mary Clarke Statue Appeal.

Many people do their bit to make this world a better place. By comparison, Valerie’s activism is that of a colossus.  

Visiting Robben Island where post-apartheid enthusiasm has been replaced by bitterness and disillusionment

A year ago today, I visited Robben Island for the second time. We were taken by coach around the island with a tour guide who had been a political prisoner for eight years from 1977. He was in parts funny, moving and inspiring although with a touch of bitterness as his five-year contract as a guide had been terminated from the end of the following week.

We were shown the house of Robert Sobukwe, the leader of the Pan African Congress (a breakaway from Mandela’s ANC). He was kept separate from all the other prisoners as his black nationalist ideas were seen as particularly dangerous. We toured the lime quarry where Mandela worked and where his eyesight was severely damaged because the apartheid prison authorities refused to issue sunglasses to protect the prisoners’ eyes from the glare of the sun.

Mandela’s cell on Robben Island

After the tour of the island we went into the prison itself where another former political prisoner (who served five years from the age of 18) told us about the degradations experienced by black prisoners. Finally, we were taken to the courtyard where Mandela and the other ANC leaders had been forced to break stones with small hammers, and then along the corridor past Mandela’s tiny cell.

We spoke to the guide who said that he relives the horror of his imprisonment with every tour and that he would leave if only he could get another job on the mainland. 

Currently the only guides who show people around the actual prison are former political prisoners but they are getting older and one day there won’t be any.

I have been to Robben Island before and had had a similar tour, back in 1998. However, at that time there was enthusiasm for the future. Mandela was still President and there was none of the bitterness and disillusionment that we detected today. Nevertheless, it was an inspiring and moving experience.

(Postscript: As a teenager growing up in Cape Town in the 1970s, from my bedroom window I could see Robben Island in the distance out to sea. But it wasn’t until I arrived in England that I first saw a photograph of Mandela – an old black and white photo taken many years before.)

I might sound like Victor Meldrew but I can’t believe it! The shameful decisions to end FA Cup replays and the exclusion by the ECB of Sussex Women from the top tier of English cricket

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 24th April 2024)

I’m told that I am rapidly turning into Victor Meldrew, grumbling and complaining at the smallest incident that annoys me. On Saturday, I was unable to find the stream for a rugby game from Cape Town that I had been looking forward to watching. Apparently, according to my wife and daughter, I kept muttering: “I don’t believe it”. The daughter’s boyfriend even called me Victor, thus making us two peas in a pod. I finally found the stream on BBC Wales but the commentary was in Welsh. My mood wasn’t helped by my beloved Stormers being beaten by the Ospreys from Cardiff.

In mainstream sport, there have been two decisions taken in recent weeks that have put me in Victoria-Meldrew-on-steroids mode. These decisions demonstrate that both football and cricket are run for the benefit of elite clubs rather than for all.

In football, the Football Association and the Premier League have decided that no longer will there be replays in the FA Cup.  There was no consultation with Football League, National League or grassroots clubs for whom the competition represents not only their best opportunity to create life-long memories for supporters but also a hugely important source of income. FA Council members were not consulted about the changes.  The decision, and the way it was taken, demonstrate a total lack of respect for the football pyramid and its fans. Football belongs to all of us and decisions should not be taken in back room deals in which only the very wealthiest clubs are allowed to participate.

Those behind this decision are the clubs that compete regularly in European football competitions. They complain that there are too many fixtures and, for them, the FA Cup is a minor irritation, especially in the early rounds when they run the risk of slumming it with the likes of Yeovil Town, Crawley and Stoke City. After all , what sums up the FA Cup better than a replay on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke?  Even worse, the foreign-owned clubs might get drawn away against a non-League side. My fantasy fixture would be either of the Manchester teams, City or United, being drawn away at The Dripping Pan to face the Mighty Rooks, Lewes FC. A replay could mean that their pristine grounds being contaminated by teams from the lower leagues and, worse still, plebs like me who support the likes of Lewes.

In cricket, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed last week the eight First Class Counties who have been successful in their bid to be awarded Tier 1 women’s team status from 2025: Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey, and Warwickshire. Joining them, by 2027, will be Glamorgan and Yorkshire, who have been named as the first two Tier 1 expansion teams. Sussex and Kent, who have done so much to nurture women’s cricket in this country, have been excluded. As longstanding Sussex supporter Steve Hanson said, “Sussex were the forerunners for women’s cricket” and that “we staged matches when no-one was interested and now they don’t want us.”

The decision on who to include was not taken on cricketing performance. Had this been so, Sussex, led so well by Georgia Adams, would have definitely been included. They have won the Women’s County Championship six times since 2003 (twice as many championships than the Sussex men have ever achieved), and have won the Women’s Twenty20 Cup twice in the 15 years of that competition. Last year, playing as the Sussex Vipers, coached by the former England captain Charlotte Edwards, they won the Rachel Heyhoe Flint Trophy and retained the Charlotte Edwards Cup.

The ECB has announced that First Class Counties like Sussex, who were not awarded Tier 1 status, will now be involved in a process to determine the composition of Tier 2 and Tier 3 which will also involve National Counties (i.e. not First Class Counties) in the new-look women’s domestic competition structure.  But what is as egregious as the decision to exclude the likes of Sussex and Kent, is the decision that for the duration of the 2025-2028 seasons all three tiers will be ‘closed’, with no promotion or relegation.  How ridiculous and how protectionist it is that the favoured few will be guaranteed a spot in the elite Tier 1, no matter how poor their cricket and how deserving the winners of Tier 2 might be.

Clearly merit is not something the ECB cares about, and women’s cricket will be the poorer for this shameful decision.

Lewes Women: relegated from the Women’s Championship but the club continues to be a beacon of enlightenment in women’s sport and a challenge to the football hierarchy

Yesterday (21st April 2024), a record league crowd of 2,614, packed the Dripping Pan for the final home game of the 2023/24 season to watch Lewes Women against Crystal Palace. The Rooks needed a draw or a win to have any hope of avoiding relegation, and Palace a win to all but secure the championship and promotion to the Women’s Super League.

But it was not to be with Lewes losing 2-0. Congratulations to Crystal Palace and best wishes for next year in the best women’s league in the world. But for Lewes, next season will see us in the Southern Premier League, with trips to Plymouth, Cardiff and Oxford.

I can’t express the level of my disappointment and sadness, for the players and staff, and all the loyal supporters who stuck with the Rooks through a difficult season. It could have been so different. In at least least three games we conceded equalisers in the 90th minute or later, thus squandering six points. Worst came at league leaders Sunderland where we squandered a 3-2 lead to lose 4-3 with goals in the 94th and 95th minutes. 

Lewes signed a number of exciting players over the last year or so, not least our keeper, Sophie Whitehouse. But it says something that she was regularly named as our player of the match. There was also Maltese international, Maria Farrugia, who was named Barclays Player of the Championship for March, not a bad achievement for someone playing in a team struggling in the relegation zone.  I always enjoyed the combative approach taken by Hollie Olding and Lois Heuchan. I wonder how many of these players, and the squad as a whole, we will be able to retain for next season.

But there was something missing. The team didn’t always gel as a unit and seemed to lack some imagination in its football in a league where the standard of play improved faster than that of our team.

Lewes FC has brought something special to the Women’s Championship and to women’s football as a whole. Equality FC – the clubs commitment to equality between our women and men’s teams (equal pay, equal access to facilities, marketing, etc.) – continues to be a beacon of enlightenment in women’s sport and a challenge to the football hierarchy. It inspired me to become a co-owner and an enthusiast for everything the club stands for.

What will remain as we contemplate football in the third tier of the English game, is the spirit of the club personified by the enthusiastic support that the team gets week-in, week-out. For most of us, we have stuck with the team through thick and thin, and we will be there when the new season commences. And as an eternal optimist, back-to-back promotions to the Championship and then the Women’s Super League over the next two years is an exciting prospect …! COYR!

Corrupting our language, where care and concern for children is called ‘hate’, and mutilating and poisoning them is ‘love’

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 17th December 2024)

It was George Bernard Shaw who said: “The British and the Americans are two great peoples divided by a common tongue.” That might not be quite true, but we have had different dialects, but these, too, are merging with the Americanisation of the English language. This is nothing new. Speaking on the wireless in 1935, Alistair Cooke declared that “Every Englishman (sic) listening to me now unconsciously uses 30 or 40 Americanisms a day”.

Dr Hilary Cass with her report on NHS services for children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria

When I first came to the U.K., even though I was a first generation South African from an English-speaking family, I used words and phrases that were not understood in Brighton. ‘Red robots’ and ‘circles’ in the road meant nothing to Brightonians who said ‘traffic lights’ and ‘roundabouts’. Before then, my father and his brother who were born and brought up in Stoke-on-Trent, could communicate with each other in the North Staffs dialect that the rest of us struggled to comprehend. A more famous saying, now available as an inscription on mugs, asks: “Cost tha kick a bo agen a wo an yed it til thee bost eet?” It means: “Can you kick a ball against a wall and head it until it bursts?” My aunt Dorothy, who lived in the Potteries, would call me “duck” – a common term of affection towards both men and women as in “Tow rate owd duck?” meaning “Are you all right dear?”

Our language and local dialects are being lost thanks to our arrogant cousins from across the Atlantic. We no longer have tomato sauce but ketchup. Chips are now fries (though not in South Africa where crisps are called chips). Mac and cheese, keeping you across all the news, and cookies are just a few other examples. Why can’t we say macaroni cheese, keeping you up-to-date, and biscuits? Computers have given new meanings to common words like apple, windows, mouse and cookies.

‘Sussex as she wus spoke’ is a delightful guide to the Sussex dialect by Tony Wales. I learned some gems from this book: ‘all mops and brooms’ (to be in a muddle), a ‘bum-freezer’ (short coat), and ‘so drunk he couldn’t see through a ladder’ (very drunk). Many of the words and sayings are, to me, ‘wimwams for goose’s bridles’ (something not understood). This column gets its shares of ‘balsam’ (uncomplimentary remarks) but I hope I will be spared on this occasion.

In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, ‘Newspeak’ limited a person’s ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will, which were described as ‘thoughtcrimes’, acts of personal independence that contradicted the ideological orthodoxy.  Orwell explained that Newspeak is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary where complete thoughts are reduced to simple terms such as Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), and Miniplenty (Ministry of Plenty). 

Political discourse today has adopted a similar approach. The most obvious recent example has been the ability to close down debate on women’s sex-based rights by accusing someone of being a TERF (a trans-exclusionary radical feminist) or being ‘transphobic’ when questioning the ideological orthodoxy of trans-rights. 

After the publication last week of the thoughtful and authoritative Cass Report on NHS services for children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria, it has been interesting to see which politicians have backtracked on their previously-held views. These same people never lifted a finger to defend the likes of Professor Kathleen Stock (hounded out of Sussex University for her gender critical views) or the Labour MP Rosie Duffield (ostracised and abandoned by her party’s leadership). These latter-day converts are yet to apologise to Kathleen or Rosie, or the countless other women and some men (like Father Ted creator, Graham Linehan) who have spoken out so bravely. Yet some of those who said nothing are now calling for a ‘kinder’ dialogue when through their previous silence they were complicit in a hateful ideology.

This ideology has, for almost a decade, captured politics and, most alarmingly, the NHS. Children have been put on toxic medication that can lead to an increase in cancers and infertility, and young people have been mutilated by the removal of perfectly healthy organs.  And here again language has been corrupted. As my friend, Helen Saxby, explained, “it’s urging caution and research in the treatment of children that has been smeared as ‘hate’, and playing fast and loose with children’s health that has been rebranded as ‘love’.” It is people like Helen who will be judged as being on the right side of history, and that history has begun to be written through the Cass Report.

Becoming a generous friend and wise mentor wasn’t on the job description when Hugh Burnett became the High Sheriff

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 10th April 2024)

I had no idea what to expect when I went to meet the High Sheriff of East Sussex. I didn’t have a clue what a High Sheriff did. I later discovered that the High Sheriff is the Monarch’s judicial representative in the county. They have a ceremonial role in overseeing judges, magistrates and others. It is a non-political role and is appointment by the Monarch for one year and is unpaid.

And so I met Hugh Burnett, that year’s High Sheriff. He was waving off charity walkers who were raising money for advice and legal services in Brighton and Hove. He and I went for a coffee while waiting the walkers’ return, and thus began a friendship that has lasted to this day.

Tessa and Hugh Burnett

Hugh has had an extraordinary life. He was born in Monte Carlo and lived in Marseilles until his family were evacuated back to Britain at the outbreak of war when he was six months old. After the war the family returned to France before he was sent to school in England.  Later he qualified as a chartered accountant but never worked as such, finding a niche in early computing where he worked as a salesman and trainer. He worked for various companies in Brighton including Gross Cash Registers and Cash Bases where he was part of a management buyout. In business he specialised in taking companies with a £2 million turnover and building them to have a £15 million turnover.

He has twice been awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise, the first time as part of Cash Bases and then in a personal capacity. In 2001 he was made an Officer of the British Empire for his services to the community in Newhaven. He was a member of the Newhaven Economic Partnership and was vice chair of Lewes Tertiary College.  After his year as High Sheriff, he became a Deputy Lieutenant for East Sussex where he assisted the Lord Lieutenant and his friend, Sir Peter Field, in his role. It is the duty of the Lord Lieutenant to arrange visits of members of the Royal Family. They also seek to promote and encourage voluntary organisations and charities, and to take an interest in the business and social life of their counties.  Both Peter and Hugh excelled in these duties.

The Hugh Burnett I know is a most generous man, giving his time freely and has shared his wisdom with a number of charities, including BHT Sussex where he was a Trustee for almost a decade. He  became my unofficial mentor and I have many reasons to be grateful for his encouragement and wise counsel.

When he became a BHT Trustee it was in response to an article in The Argus.  I explained to him that there was a process that had to be followed, including an interview. He seemed delighted, saying that he hadn’t had a job interview since 1964! At the interview itself, we were assisted by a friend from London, Brenda, a large Jamaican-born woman with an infectious laugh who was a trainer in equalities. In response to an equalities question, Hugh said that in business “one would be foolish not to appoint the best man for the job.” Hugh and Brenda then the most delightful exchange of views. After Hugh had left, Brenda said that we had to appoint him, saying: “That man doesn’t have an ounce of prejudice in his body.”

Hugh has no time for consultants, saying: “Why pay someone to steal your pocket watch so that they can charge you to tell you the time?”  He also was outspoken on the ever-increasing trend of boards to focus on process rather than on entrepreneurship and outcomes, a view with which I wholeheartedly agree.

They used to say that behind every successful man is a strong woman. In Hugh’s case there is Tessa. When my wife and I first went to their home for dinner, we expected the raconteur Hugh to dominate the evening. But we hadn’t accounted for Tessa who kept us royally entertained while Hugh looked on, adoringly. Tessa herself has served the community as a dedicated charity trustee and a longtime volunteer at Citizen Advice. The last year hasn’t been easy for them but they have been sustained by the love and support of their two daughters and their grandchildren about whom both Hugh and Tessa speak with such joy, love and pride.

So when I met the High Sheriff, I didn’t expect to meet such a generous friend and wise mentor. Hugh Burnett was truly the best man for the job! 

Any politicians who says “There is no magic money tree” is treating the electorate as children and idiots. And now Rachel Reeves is acting like a latterday snake oil saleswoman.

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 3rd April 2024)

Whenever politicians say “There is no magic money tree”, they are treating the electorate as children and idiots. And all who use this pathetic, empty phrase should forfeit the right to be regarded as serious politicians because it closes down legitimate debate on their political priorities.

The politician who most famously used the phrase was Theresa May in 2017 when attacking Jeremy Corbyn. It has subsequently been used by Rishi Sunak and, most recently, by Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner. Labour is also prone to say that the Conservatives have “maxed out the government’s credit card”, an equally stupid concept. The government does not have a credit card and government finances are not the same as those of a household, itself another simplistic and wrong concept favoured by politicians. Proof of this is that there is always money to fight wars.

The household comparison dates back to Margaret Thatcher who, as far back as the 1979 general election campaign, said: “Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country”. Running a home and running the country are not the same, but what an inspired election slogan! 

There is nothing wrong with a country borrowing for investment, even at times of financial instability. What is not right is to borrow to fund tax cuts or day-to-day spending, at least in the long term. I can think of many occasions when nations, in the wake of economic turmoil, have borrowed to fund huge public investment.  One example, in the wake of the 1929 financial crash, was President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ that promoted economic recovery and put Americans back to work through Federal activism. New Federal agencies controlled agricultural production, stabilised wages and prices, and created a vast public works programme for unemployed people. 

The post-war Labour government, at a time of huge debt, made massive investment in creating the NHS, expansion of state education, the building of council housing, and so on. There was a bipartisan approach, not least in housing. During the 1950s, Churchill’s Conservative government delivered new council housing at a rate not seen before or since. Investment in public housing through subsidising the cost of building new homes pays for itself over the years, with lower rents and less public subsidy to help people meet overblown rents. The economics of investment in housing is actually very simple. Investment in bricks and mortar retains value, whereas rent subsidies do not. This bipartisan approach was broken by Margaret Thatcher who began the dismantling of the social housing sector through the politically popular but economically disastrous Right to Buy programme. 

A new bipartisan consensus in favour of financial austerity has been created following the election of the Cameron government in 2010, and Labour front benchers have meekly performed lemming impersonations by following the Conservatives (and until 2015, the Lib Dems) over the austerity cliff. Historians will look back at this era with astonishment – that the major parties were so economically short-sighted and inept that the wellbeing of the nation was sacrificed in the pursuit of power.

If, as expected, Labour forms the next government, it will have voluntarily tied its own hands by adopting Conservatives financial rules. Labour supporters are not enthused by the wooden and lacklustre Sir Keir Starmer – “Sir Crasharooney Snoozefest, the Human Bollard” as Boris Johnson called him. They are destined to be as disappointed by the failure of Labour in government as they have been appalled by the Conservative’s demolition derby antics. 

Following the 2007-08 global financial crisis, the country needed investment but got austerity. When the country needed “strong and stable Leadership” as promised by Theresa May, we had a succession of circus clowns prime ministers unable and unwilling to invest in public services or to control the privatised monopolies. Successive Conservatives promised growth but had absolutely no idea how to achieve it. Now Rachel Reeves, acting like a latterday snake oil saleswoman, promises growth but rules out investment (not least in housing), promoting a valueless and fraudulent remedy that is destined to fail.

Labour will win the forthcoming general election, not because the electorate has any high hopes that “things can only get better” (to quote the 1997 Blairite strap line) but because voters are sick to the back teeth of the chaos of Conservative ‘rule’. And when Labour inevitably fails in government, it will be responsible for a massive swing to the right, by-passing a Conservative Party in mortal decline, to Reform UK and, even more worryingly, to parties on the extreme right.