Sometimes you have to look out of left field for inspiration. Keane Duncan, Tory mayoral candidate for York and North Yorkshire, looks to have taken that literally. His big proposal for decaying Victorian spa town Scarborough? Nationalise the old Grand Hotel. Maybe Marx was right when he said “democracy is the road to socialism”…

In 2023 the North Yorkshire Council External debt stood at £379.2 million. How does this fellow think he (with the taxpayer writing the cheque) will turn around the Scarborough hotel trade where others have failed? He must be taking his lead from the Tories at large in following Lenin’s advice: “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation”…