Visiting Robben Island where post-apartheid enthusiasm has been replaced by bitterness and disillusionment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

Labour election leaflet in Queens Park calls for ‘virile representation’

Following the resignations of the ‘Leicester Two’ from Brighton and Hove City Council, there are by-elections coming up in the Queens Park and the Kemptown wards.

I was reading a Labour leaflet from Queens Park, most of which I agree with. There was talk of lower rents, improving education, and the lot of people experiencing a cost-of-living crisis (“the lot of the poorer inhabitants” the leaflet said). There was a focus on unemployment, housing schemes, empty homes, and transport.

What struck me most was, according to the leaflet, the need for “representation of a virile type”, not something you read every day in election material.

In case you were wondering, this wasn’t a contemporary election leaflet from Labour’s Camilla Gauge, but one from 1935 when the Labour candidate was Richard Polling. I don’t know whether he was elected on that occasion but he did become a councillor, as did his son-in-law, Stan Fitch, and Stan’s son, the late Brian Fitch. It was Stan who gave me a copy of this leaflet.

Times have changed but the issues raised by Richard Polling – education, housing, rents, nursery education, etc. – remain as relevant today as they were in 1935. But as for ‘virile’ representation and leadership, I doubt it will be a concept that will loom large in Labour’s general election campaign!

“Doing good in Brighton”: honouring the educationalist and suffragette Mary Hare

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 27th March 2024)

When I was a councillor in the 1980s, I used to love door-knocking, both during election campaigns and throughout the year. But there was one exception, a street I never enjoyed visiting: St Michael’s Place in central Brighton. It was inevitably windy and raining. I was back in St Michael’s Place last Saturday. Not only was there a bitterly cold west wind, and not only did it rain, there was a most dramatic hailstorm the likes of which I have seldom experienced in England.

But Saturday was different. It was an uplifting and joyful celebration of the life of Mary Hare, a suffragette, the founder of an independent women’s police force in Brighton and, most importantly, a pioneering teacher of deaf children. The Mayor, Cllr. Jackie O’Quinn was there, the Brighton and Hove Bus that bears the name ‘Mary Hare’ was incongruously parked in this side street, and at least half those present were communicating through sign language. They were all there to witness the unveiling of a blue plaque to commemorate the life and work of Mary Hare.

17 St Michael’s Place was Mary’s home from 1895 to 1901, and was one of the sites of the school she had founded. According to the programme prepared for the unveiling, “Mary was ahead of her time in championing the rights and wellbeing of deaf children and women” and was “a revolutionary campaigner for the inclusion in society and education of deaf children who, at that time, were often abandoned in asylums, or considered by some as unworthy of education.”

Mary was a committed suffragette and a contemporary of Mary Clarke, the sister of Emmeline Pankhurst, Brighton resident and organiser, and the first suffragette to die for women’s right to vote. There is currently a campaign to have a statue of Mary Clarke erected in the gardens of the Royal Pavilion to commemorate her life and work. 

The Brighton Gazette of 1908 reports that Mary Hare chaired a Women’s Social and Political Union meeting on Queen’s Road where she said that suffragettes “were going to rouse Brighton”. In 1913 she became secretary of the Brighton Women’s Freedom League, which was prepared to break the law, but rejected violence.

In 1915 Mary Hare set up a volunteer uniformed women’s police force, much against the wishes of the local constabulary, to assist Brighton and Hove’s women and children. An article in the Brighton, Hove and South Sussex Graphic entitled  ‘Bobby – the Woman Policeman’ records her work and describes Mary as looking “particularly smart in her uniform and bowler hat”. Times have moved on and one of the speakers at the unveiling of the blue plaque in St Michael’s Place was Superintendent Petra Lazar from Sussex Police.

Her true passion, however, was as an educationalist for deaf children. She said that her efforts on behalf of these children “have been my greatest joy in life.” She established, originally in London, the Private Oral School for Deaf Children in 1895, taking mixed pupils of all ages from across the country. In 1916 the school moved to larger premises in Sussex, and then to Berkshire, where the Mary Hare Grammar School for the Deaf still operates.

A past student of the Mary Hare Grammar School is Brighton-born Margaret Stewart who lives with her husband John in Patcham. Margaret single-handedly set about fundraising for the blue plaque to recognise the pioneering work of the remarkable Mary Hare. ‘Remarkable’ can also be said of the formidable Margaret Stewart who herself should be seen as an inspiration to us all. She might be small in stature but she has displayed a steely determination to honour Mary Hare.

While Margaret was the driving force behind securing the blue plaque for Mary Hare, others have supported her including the influential Brighton Women’s History Group. Present, too, at the unveiling was the current Head of the Mary Hare School for the Deaf in Berkshire, Robin Askew, and the force of nature that is Victoria Garcia from Brighton and Hove Buses who does so much to ensure that the names of more of the daughters of the city are celebrated on our buses. 

About the independent police force, Mary Hare said that “we are out to do good work in Brighton, and we have had unsolicited testimonials to the effect that we have done good.” This could be said about all of her life’s work. It can also be said of Margaret Stewart, and those words should be a challenge to the rest of us “to do good in Brighton.”

Could a vote for ‘Rosie Duffield’ gain a head of steam in Brighton Pavilion?

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 20th March 2024)

Some people in Brighton Pavilion are considering voting for a surprise, unofficial, candidate. She will not be on the ballot paper, but people have told me that they might write her name at the bottom of the ballot. She is not seeking nomination here and almost certainly will not endorse this move. She might even publicly denounce it. What is more, she will be standing for the Labour Party in the Kent constituency she already represents.

So why are people in Brighton Pavilion considering voting for Rosie Duffield? She won’t be elected here, and any vote for her will be counted as a spoiled ballot and won’t count. ‘Vote Duffield’ was my wife’s proposal. Rosie Duffield is the Labour MP for Canterbury but she was vilified on social media and shunned by Labour’s leadership because of her gender-critical views. She, like many of us, does not believe that anyone can change their sex regardless of how they might choose to live their lives.  

Tom Gray and Siân Berry

I don’t know how many will vote for ‘Rosie Duffield’. It might be just a small handful or it could yet gain a head of steam. Much depends on what the official Labour candidate, Tom Gray, says on the protection of single-sex spaces for those born female, spaces such as hospital wards, changing rooms, toilets, refuges and rape crisis services.

Siân Berry has had a consistent take on this issue. Her view is that transgender women (those born male) should be allowed to use women-only spaces even if they have all their male bits intact (my words, not hers). The Greens have lost support amongst many women and men because they relentlessly prioritise trans rights over women’s sex-based rights, their failure to investigate a Green Party member, the paedophile David Challenor, and their unlawful discrimination against their former deputy leader, Shahrar Ali, who holds gender-critical views. 

Siân has said she will never compromise on trans rights. Tom Gray, on the other hand, seems very reluctant to say what he believes or if he believes anything at all!  He has been challenged on social media to say where he stands, and some constituents have written to him on the issue. I have been told that he has not replied. 

In my first column this year, I wrote about the potential for this to be an election issue in Brighton Pavilion: “Tom will need to say where he stands. The trans rights lobby, including those in his own party, is very vociferous, especially on social media, but they are not significant electorally.” I pointed out that Labour has shifted from its previous support for self-identification which would have allowed people to legally change gender without a medical diagnosis and has, instead, recommitted itself to ensuring that some single-sex services and places should be accessed by biological women only. 

I have written to Tom asking for his views on this matter but was referred to the regional press office. I wrote to the named press officer, several times over a few weeks, but have had no response. Are they still captured by the trans-rights activists? Why are they unwilling to repeat the party’s new policy? So I wrote again to Tom, as have others who have contacted me. Tom has not replied to them either. If I was still a Labour member in Brighton Pavilion (I resigned my party membership back in 1994) I would be thoroughly disappointed and disillusioned by Tom’s non-campaign.

Why can’t Tom say that he supports the policy of his Party (even if his leader, Sir Keir Starmer can’t quite bring himself to say “sex-based rights”, preferring to refer to “safe spaces”)? Perhaps he feels that he cannot go against those vociferous activists who hold a different view to the party’s policy, as does the MP for Brighton Kemptown, Lloyd Russell-Moyle. If Tom is running scared of his own Party members, what will he be like when faced with more formidable opponents and vested interests when he is an MP?

A recent opinion poll put Siân Berry at almost 50% with Tom Gray at 37%. He needs something to ignite his rather odd and lacklustre campaign. If he could harness the ‘gender critical’ vote, then the result could be closer than it is currently likely to be. But for now, imagine the scene at the election count as Siân narrowly wins the seat, aided by outraged ‘Duffield’ votes that could otherwise have gone to Labour. It would be too late for regrets.

The Labour Party should apologise for the unnecessary cost of by-elections in Brighton and Hove within a year of the local elections

Two by-elections are to be held in Brighton on 2nd May, the same day as the election for the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner. The by-elections in Queen’s Park ward and Kemptown ward come following the resignations of Chandni Mistry and Bharti Gajjar, the so-called Leicester Two who were thrown out of the Labour Party following allegations that they don’t actually live in Brighton. A referral alleging electoral fraud was made to Sussex Police who have recently said no action will be taken over the claims.

Labour’s candidate in the Queen’s Park by-election, Camilla Gauge, with ward councillor Tristram Burden (Photo credit: Tristram Burden X / Twitter)

Council leader, Labour’s Bella Sankey, told the Argus that she was “overjoyed” by the decision of the two councillors to “do the right thing and step down” and said they should “never have been selected as candidates”.  She said: “The people of Queen’s Park and Kemp Town can now elect new councillors that will listen to their needs and serve them properly.”

I’m not sure if “overjoyed” is the right word for it. This whole mess is the making of the Labour Party who really should be offering an apology for the unnecessary cost of two by-elections. A by-election, depending on the size of the ward, costs between £12,000 and £15,000. These by-elections, together with the one held in December in South Portslade, will bring the total to three by-elections caused by Labour since last May’s local elections, at a cost of between £36,000 and £45,000. What a waste of public money at a time when cuts are being made to essential service.

The apology should come from the national or regional Labour Party who took over the selection of candidates in Brighton and Hove. Perhaps the Labour Party should be offering both an apology and an offer to reimburse Brighton and Hove City Council for this unnecessary cost.

One person who should not apologise is Bella Sankey who was not the Leader of the Labour Group at the time of the selections and the election. She must be so frustrated by this and other decisions made by the regional Labour Party, such as not enabling someone with her qualities to be the Party’s candidate in Brighton Pavilion. 

As for the by-elections themselves, Labour should hold on comfortably to both seats. In Camilla Gauge, who is standing in Queen’s Park ward, Labour has chosen an exceptional candidate who will bring experience and great ability to the Council, not least her expertise in tackling violence against women and girls. As far as I am aware, the Party is yet to select its candidate in Kemptown ward.

The Greens have traditionally had some success in Queen’s Park. How close they come to challenging Labour will provide an indication as to the mountain the party has yet to climb in recovering from its worst election defeat in 20 years in Brighton and Hove.

As for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, they have about as much chance of winning as a lame and blind donkey would have had winning the Gold Cup at the Cheltenham Festival this last week.

Update: 4.45pm 16/03/2024 Theresa Mackey has been selected as Labour’s candidate for the Kemptown by-election.