As Guido noted, the knives were out yesterday following the unsurprising defection of former Rossendale and Darwen MP Jake Berry to Reform. Most reactions were a bit flat: “oh, hasn’t he already gone”…
Insiders point to the upcoming potential creation of a directly elected mayor of Lancashire. Angela Rayner is overseeing the reforms in the government’s programme on English devolution. Ironically, Labour is creating a mayoralty that Reform will have a very strong chance of winning…
The establishment of the mayoralty is controversial. It is currently unclear whether Labour will create the post from central government powers – or leave the decision to local authority leaders in the county. The new Reform UK leader of Lancashire County Council Stephen Atkinson, a former Conservative, has called for a public referendum on the matter. If that all goes ahead it could be game on for Farage’s party, but candidacy for such a powerful post would not be uncontested inside Reform…
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”