Natalie Elphicke’s decision to join Labour is mind-boggling, Starmer was a plonker, berk, nitwit, numpty and a stupid git to accept her

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 15th May 2024)

Last week we learned that young people are not familiar with certain insults that were common in my youth. They don’t know what ‘plonker’, ‘berk’, ‘nitwit’, ‘numpty’ and ‘git’ mean. These are just the polite ones. I was reprimanded once by the then Mayor of Brighton for calling another councillor an “a…”. I can’t say the word as this is a family newspaper!

Labour activists, especially here in Sussex where Labour is pitching itself as a fresh alternative to the Conservatives, will be at a loss for words to describe their bewilderment, confusion, perplexity, bafflement, bemusement, puzzlement and befuddlement that Sir Keir Starmer has welcomed the hard right Tory MP, Natalie Elphicke, into the Labour Party.  Perhaps some are privately, and some not-so-privately, are calling Starmer a plonker, berk, nitwit, numpty and a stupid git for this mind-baffling decision.

When I first heard that Elphicke had defected to Labour I had to check the date. It was May 8th, not April 1st. I couldn’t have been more surprised had Nigel Farrage joined George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain!

But what a pyrrhic victory it is proving to be for Starmer. He will have relished the momentary befuddlement of Tory MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions when they realised that Elphicke had defected to Labour. Her following Lee Anderson to Reform UK was a more likely scenario.

Within minutes Labour MPs were expressing incredulity that one of the most right-wing Conservatives MPs, a member of the European Research Group, someone who was staunchly pro-Brexit, had been so warmly welcomed into their party.  Elphicke is not a good fit for the Labour Party. Just a year ago she wrote an article calling Starmer “Sir Softie” and she accused Labour of wanting “open borders”. She wrote: “Not only have Labour got no plan of their own to tackle illegal immigration, they simply do not want to.” Now Labour is having to resist Tory calls for an enquiry into Elphicke’s past behaviour.

Listening to Labour front benchers’ feeble attempts to justify the decision to accept Elphicke’s defection has been painful in the extreme. A regular on the airwaves, Anneliese Dodds, lost whatever remaining personal credibility she had as she failed to explain away Elphicke’s gaslighting of the victims of her husband’s sexual assaults and harassment, victim-blaming them. While Elphicke got the mildest censure from Parliament for this, surely someone with her record should have no place in Labour.  Dodds, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equality, should be calling out Elphicke on this, not minimising it.

I often wonder why Labour fields lame performers such as Dodds, Pat McFadden and Jonathan Reynolds (the so-called Minister for the Today Programme). Does the party have a cunning plan to bore listeners into submission, believing that if we zone out before the end of their first sentence we won’t be left confused, perplexed, baffled, bemused, puzzled and befuddled by their tortuous non-answers. This strategy seems to be working as Labour extends its lead in the polls. Either that or, as is more likely, the Conservatives are now so discredited that not even a modern-day Churchill could possibly save them from their inevitable defeat come the general election. 

It won’t be this easy for Labour once in office. The banality of their spokespeople will be exposed. Fortunately Labour has some secret weapons who are not being utilised for fear of them looking dynamic and interesting when compared to Starmer himself. One is our own Peter Kyle who is intelligent, interesting, thoughtful, and charming in person and on the airwaves. 

As for the Green Party, the decision of their Brighton Pavilion candidate, Siân Berry, to resign from the Greater London Assembly a mere three days after being re-elected, will leave Londoners confused, perplexed, baffled … you get the idea. Labour activists are suggesting that it shows a lack of commitment, with some asking how can one support a candidate with so little staying power. But perhaps this is all part of a cunning plan by Berry. Gone at a stroke is her only source of income, but she is demonstrating her total commitment to Brighton Pavilion. It also shows her increasing confidence, supported by the polls and Labour fielding what appears to be a paper candidate, that she will retain the seat comfortably.

Back to Labour. Is there anyone that it wouldn’t accept as a member? Yes there is. While Starmer welcomes Elphicke with open arms, Britain’s first black woman MP, Diane Abbott, continues to be excluded. That alone suggests a lot about Starmer’s Labour Party. 

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?

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.)

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.

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!

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.

Labour seems to have given up on winning Brighton Pavilion

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 6th March 2024)

Over the last 45 years I have closely observed and, on occasions, participated in eleven general election campaigns in Brighton Pavilion. Yet never before has there been such an odd campaign as that being run by the Labour Party. The party is giving every impression that it doesn’t want to win!

The constituency had become a safe seat for the Green Party because of the huge personal vote built by Caroline Lucas. But her decision to stand down at the election opens up a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Labour. Not only has the Green Party suffered its worst local election defeat in fifteen years, in Siân Berry it has selected a candidate previously unknown in Brighton. Ms Berry is hedging her bets by standing, once again, for a seat on the Greater London Assembly. 

I had previously forecast a Labour gain in Brighton Pavilion at the general election, but three things have made me rethink this. The first is the energetic and high-profile campaign being run by Siân Berry backed by Caroline Lucas. The second is the inexplicable decision of Labour to delay its selection until mid December, thereby giving Siân a free run for five months. Then thirdly, the launch of the Labour campaign was delayed, for good reasons, until February, thereby extending the Green’s unopposed run for a further two months.

The latest prediction from Electoral Calculus, which analyses recent opinion polls, forecasts a Green win with Siân Berry securing almost 50% of the vote to Tom Gray’s 36%.

There is a further reason why I think Tom Gray will lose. Now that the Labour campaign has been launched, what a strange campaign it is providing to be. There was a well-supported launch event when Labour activists from all over came to support Tom Gray and to knock on doors. At the time of writing, there have been just a few other campaign events, one which Tom apologised for missing as he was at a conference in London, and another the weekend before last. I am assured by Labour Party members that he is out campaigning several times a week. 

But where is the momentum for his campaign? Siân Berry is forever appearing on social media, at events, and in The Argus. We have received several leaflets and reports from her, and she is popping up all over the place. I’ve bumped into her in the street, at a vigil, on the bus, and in a local cafe. By contrast, we have received just one leaflet from Tom Gray saying he was sorry to have missed us when he called (although it wasn’t he who did call).

Unlike Siân, Tom’s supporters say he is not a professional politician and that he works full time running a national organisation. I had hoped to meet with Tom, as I have with Siân and other parliamentary candidates but, in spite of several requests, his diary hasn’t permitted it. I had hoped to get a better understanding of Tom himself, how his campaign is going, and his views on some key issues. In the absence of a meeting, I sent him some questions about policy and his campaign. The reply from ‘Team Tom’ did not answer any of my questions but hoped that “you and he can find time for a chat soon”. 

Tom Gray (right) with Cllr David McGregor and Lloyd Russell-Moyle at the British Kebab Awards (photo: David McGregor / X formerly Twitter)

I was told that he is spending his evenings and weekends canvassing constituents. However, he had time to attend the British Kebab Awards in London. Meanwhile there are complaints from constituents who have not had responses from Tom, such as Siân Rees who said on Twitter that Tom should “answer queries from his future constituents … Still trying, 30+ messages in, no luck so far.” So it’s not just me!

I tried getting a response from the regional Labour Party to one of my questions. In spite of a chaser email, I heard nothing other than an acknowledgement that my email had been received.

One has to ask, therefore, whether Labour, and Tom for that matter, are really committed to running a winning campaign in Brighton Pavilion. From my experience of elections, Labour looks perilously close to having given up on their best chance of winning the seat in over a decade.  The only explanation for the poor campaign is that Tom Gray and his backers believe that while flying under the radar that they will be swept to victory in a Labour landslide. If that is their strategy, they will be handing the seat to Siân Berry and the Greens for the next fifteen years.  Tom Gray and the constituency Labour Party must really up their game.

Was Sir Keir Starmer being honest about Labour dealing with homelessness and rough sleeping in Brighton and Hove?

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 28th February 2024)

Tent outside Brighton Station (photo credit: The Argus)

Last week The Argus reported that a large four-person tent had been put up outside Brighton Station. The homelessness campaigner, Daniel Harris, was quoted as saying that the council cannot promote Brighton as a business and investment hub “while the first thing people see when they get here is a tent.”  He correctly points to the daily safety risks facing homeless people especially those in tents. As someone who has worked in homelessness services for over thirty years, I was also quoted in the article as saying: “(Tents) are not safe for people living in them or those working to help them. If someone has an emergency inside a tent, it can’t be seen.”

The answer, of course, is the provision of housing with the right support. But as Daniel points out, “limited housing options” in Brighton means it is difficult for people to escape rough sleeping. He says that what is needed is a strategic approach which “involves building more council homes, council-owned emergency accommodation to modern standards ensuring safety, and relocating those without genuine local ties where feasible and safe to so.”

The City Council was alerted to the presence of the tent on Monday of last week and it was gone by the weekend. The Chair of the council’s housing committee, Councillor Gill Williams, said: “Our street homeless outreach service always works with tent dwellers to help them find accommodation. Our primary concern is … the welfare of people living in them. We have a welfare first approach and offer help if those in tents are homeless, and always take action to remove encampments as soon as these circumstances and due legal process allow.”

When the leader of the Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, on a visit to Sussex last week, was asked by The Argus what a Labour government would do to tackle the homelessness crisis in Brighton, he said that given Labour has formed the administration locally, it was now in a position to help people get off the streets. He said: “I do think in Brighton, in particular, before we took over the council they didn’t put the support in place to deal with this. Luckily, we are now in a position to now turn this around. And that means providing not just a roof but also the support that people need.”

I was shocked by this disingenuous and misleading statement from the Labour leader. Under the previous Green administration, the one area where there was excellent collaboration and joint-working between the Greens and Labour, was on housing, homelessness and rough sleeping. Credit for this should go to the former Green councillors David Gibson and Siriol Hugh-Jones, and their Labour opposite number, Gill Williams. This joint approach often enjoyed all-party support including from the Conservative Mary Mears. But the council’s efforts were frustrated by the government’s squeeze on local government finances. Nevertheless, under successive Conservative, Labour and Green administrations, the council has continued to fund accommodation for over 700 people who have been, or might otherwise be, sleeping rough. In its budget agreed last week, the Labour administration is not investing anything extra into homelessness prevention. In fact, funding to help people move away from Brighton is under threat. 

For Keir Starmer to have made such a misleading assertion suggests that he was either badly informed or being dishonest. Perhaps he should set the record straight and give credit to the Greens where credit is due rather than make this cheap and dishonest bid for votes. 

A question that Sir Keir Starmer must answer is: will a Labour government provide the resources to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping by funding the necessary accommodation and the support homeless people need to get people off the streets, address underlying issues, and to help them into employment?  I fear that with Labour’s self-imposed spending restrictions, tackling rough sleeping and homelessness will not receive the priority it did under the Blair government when the Rough Sleepers Initiative saw a massive fall in the number of people sleeping rough. 

And critically, will Labour invest in the building of council houses, in their hundreds of thousands? Without this, the UK’s housing crisis will only get worse.

Given Sir Keir’s assertion that the Labour administration is now in a position to turn the homelessness problem around, let us hold the City Council to account by seeing whether it is providing enough accommodation for homeless people and also the support they need to move away from homelessness and into employment. Sir Keir says you are in a position to do so. Now let’s see you do it.