It’s now 40 days since Yvette Cooper announced the launch of Labour’s ‘new Border Security Command’ which was touted during the election as Starmer’s key to ‘smashing the gangs’ and solving small boat crossings. Labour says the entire project relies on having an “exceptional leader” to do all the work:
“Reporting directly to the Home Secretary, the Border Security Commander will provide strategic direction to work across agencies, drawing together the work of the National Crime Agency (NCA), intelligence agencies, police, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force, to better protect our borders and go after the smuggling gangs facilitating small boat crossings.”
The only problem with the commander is – there still isn’t one. After former terror cop Neil Basu snubbed Starmer by refusing the position the government has failed to produce a plan B. The ‘command’ is so far exactly the same as the one set up by the Tories, with no additional officials. Labour has had to externally open up applications for the position as boat crossings tick up to their highest levels under the new government. Good luck finding anyone willing to take that job…
Given the shrunken Tory activist base and the few Tory MPs still remaining are furious with Reform it is entirely unsurprising that the Tory leadership candidates seeking their votes are signaling “no deal” and saying words to the effect that they will have no truck with the catalyst for their general election thrashing. However if the Tory leadership contenders really don’t have a Farage strategy they are going to remain in opposition for a long time. Whilst Reform take votes from all quarters, research by YouGov immediately after the last election shows they took most of their voters from the Tories. That is the reality of the political predicament the next Tory leader will find themselves in.
Half the candidates standing are implicitly saying that they will occupy the same policy ground as Reform on immigration and somehow this will displace their rivals. Guido’s not so sure voters will trust them to execute on the policies better than they did last time. The other half of the candidates say the party must not occupy the same ground and that “elections are won from the centre”. The latter is a centrist’s nostrum that Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson might dispute.
There is no evidence that Nigel Farage is going away, he’s been in politics a quarter century and he’s now inside the Westminster parliament. There is arguably as much chance of Reform displacing the Conservatives as vice versa. Some argue that the British political system has a two-party centre of gravity and two-party politics will reassert itself, that may be true, however there is no guarantee the Tories will be one of those parties and the precedent of the SDP keeping Labour out of government for over a decade is not one many right-of-centre voters will relish.
The contenders for the Tory leadership have to articulate a real strategy for what to do about Nigel. Or else Nigel will do for them…
After managing to get 2% of his targeted affordable housebuilding projects started, Sadiq Khan is giving up. The mayor is pushing Labour for permission to impose rent controls on the capital – requests Labour is minded to accept. A long-running campaign of his…
An act of parliament would be needed to hand over the keys to the rental market. Rent controls fail wherever they are implemented, most recently in Scotland, where rents rose higher than anywhere in the UK by a large margin after their imposition. They went so badly in Berlin that the courts declared them unconstitutional. Caving to socialist impulses at the first sign of pressure is standard…
According to Labour sources a new SpAd is about to enter Downing Street – John Stevens, the current Mirror political editor, is leaving the Lobby to spin for the government. Stevens is going to work for Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Labour heavyweight Pat McFadden…
No stranger to a scoop, Stevens will have to fend off his Lobby colleagues from inside government. From memory the last Mirror political editor to make the jump to Downing Street was Bad Al Campbell, the jury is out on how well that went. Guido has approached Stevens for comment…
UPDATE: Move confirmed.
Alastair Campbell left the internet’s town square on tenterhooks last night as he revealed he was thinking of leaving Twitter because “Toytown Trumpy Fashboy” Elon Musk is running it. Displaying the level of analysis Alastair is known well for…
Like a lot of people, am thinking about leaving Xitter (copyright @LeightonAndrews ) given how truly awful it has become since Toytown Trumpy Fashboy @elonmusk took over. Staying for now on the grounds you should fight the far right wherever they are. But meanwhile have set up…
— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) August 14, 2024
Campbell was encouraged by former Change UK candidate Jessica Simor to join the alternative Bluesky platform. A great decision for Bad Al as his potential audience will be 1% the size of Twitter’s…
Other fans of Campbell said: “No one is forcing you to stay,” “No, just go, you won’t be missed by anyone,” and “Good riddance moron.” As usual Campbell says he’ll stay on the platform to “fight the far right wherever they are“. Dominic Cummings’ “SW1 NPCs” are best known for their insistence that they will leave Twitter without ever actually doing so. Despite Twitter apparently being like “Paris under Nazi occupation” the Musk-hating loons just can’t keep away…
New figures from the Office for National Statistics show GDP rose 0.6% in the second quarter, following a 0.7% uptick in the first. Growth was led by services which outstripped shrinkage in construction and production…
Rachel Reeves issues the same tired line: “We are under no illusion as to the scale of the challenge we have inherited from the Conservatives after more than a decade of low growth and a £22 billion black hole in the public finances.” Unconditional pay hikes for the unproductive public sector seems a strange way to fix that black hole…
Hunt says the figures “are yet further proof that Labour have inherited a growing and resilient economy“. Crickets from Sunak as usual…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”