Tag: Conservatives

An early Election looks increasingly likely. But EVERYTHING remains up in the air and the more things change the more they stay the same…

Politically speaking, Friday (5th September) was quite the day in the U.K.

With what felt like a conveyor belt of macro and micro stories kicking off first with the anticipated and then confirmed resignation of Angela Rayner; Nigel Farage bringing his conference speech forward (to try and capitalise); The Format and flavour of the Reform Conference itself; and then Keir Starmer’s second (and far more substantial) reshuffle of the week certainly left the political pundits with a weekend to ponder which story will have really stuck most in people’s minds.

Perhaps the speed of both Farage’s and Starmer’s reactions are telling in the sense of just how important they both now feel it to be that they be seen to be out front on the news pages and airwaves. Even if Starmer and his Party almost certainly now know that the narrative is no longer theirs to control, and despite having proven himself to be quite canny politically, when real power was never at stake, Farage is now taking for granted that even a clown show will get taken seriously when he’s the obvious king in waiting.

What is striking to anyone looking at the theatrics of both Labour and Reform yesterday, as well as the attempts by what’s left of the quickly disintegrating Conservative Party to sound relevant and be heard, is there is a distinct vein of commonality that goes through all their actions just the same. That they all remain obsessed with how everything sounds and how everything looks – to the point, in Reforms case, of even being prepared to make it look and sound like they’ve already won.

As one who can recall the run up to the 1992 General Election, Reform’s approach to their Birmingham Conference this weekend sounds very reminiscent echos of Labour’s Rally held in Sheffield, about a week before, when it was very clear to all watching that Kinnock’s party took it as read that the election was already in the bag.

The Spitting Image Election Night Special nailed it completely. With one sketch focusing on the Rally being akin to something like the presidential campaigns coming out of the USA, and then a rather prescient sketch with Neil Kinnock sat on a tree branch with Roy Hattersley asking him what he was doing, only to be told that winning this election would be as easy as falling off a log – at which point Kinnock then fell and his legs tied, leaving him dangling.

That said however, the question this time isn’t about whether Reform can win.

Right now, and I mean as we look at all this today in early September 2025, it really does look like Reform can win and will win, when the next General Election is called.

But if Reform does win the next General Election, what can we really expect and what happens next?

It’s important to recognise that one key reason ALL of the political parties we have today are so obsessed with media time, being seen and being heard online, and running the narratives that are sticking in peoples minds, is because this vector that basically contains little more than the distraction of noise, does indeed reflect how they all expect people to behave and in turn to think – not looking beyond the messaging that will be obvious and therefore taken as read at immediate glance. With the overall impact of their efforts seeming to be more geared towards getting away with shallower consideration the whole time.

For all the glitter and spotlights pumping their way onto our phones from the midlands yesterday, the phrase ‘you can’t polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter’ came very much to mind. Not because of anything or anything we could hear or see (no matter how many ex-conservative MPs and Councillors have no declared that our saviours from what they were part of causing will be their version of Reform). But because the substance of the policies we are hearing about and where it’s clear Farage’s objectives and approach lie, aren’t suggesting anything other than more problems ahead:

  1. because the motives behind them and the other parties are pretty much the same and
  2. because just like something out of the Trump playbook, where Trump appears to be trying to return the world to what he sees as US hero worship and subservience based on his reading of the dynamics of free-world politics having been around the time of Breton Woods 1944, Reform have this idea that the same fundamentals are ok for the UK and you just need to bully your way through removing everything that has been added in the past 80 years, that will then keep the public quiet or which simply doesn’t work for Farage and his vision.

In case you were wondering, these are also resets in both Trumps and Reforms case – with both resets not being about changing anything for the better, nor anything quite like the ‘Great Reset’ of the WEF; just turning back the clock (and thereby giving the corpse of a system that’s running only on latent momentum the chance to hurt even more normal people and keep them in the limelight until the whole thing finally runs out of time)

The biggest tragedy and with it the problem going forward for all of us, is that Reform could be getting everything right AND putting together a government in waiting that was prepared and able to deal with what really needs to be done. Rather than coming up with what are intended to sound like very clever ideas, such as the UKs very own DOGE and bringing in people from outside politics, just to move the chess pieces around the board so that ultimately it will all just resemble the same shit show with all the wrong things happening just as it is right now.

We should be under no illusion that where things stand today – even with all of the ministerial changes that have now taken place, Labour have created for Reform, what is pretty much an open goal, that this new home and hotbed of restless quasi-Tories will be only too willing to fill with new (and returning) MPs who will very quickly realise, post-election, that saying and doing are two very different things. And that no matter what talents Farage and Reform HQ try to buy in, the only way to change anything will be by changing it all.

We don’t have any politicians big enough to take on the job at hand

The quality of our politicians today is generally poor, right across the political spectrum. But with Reform still recruiting in pretty much the same way that UKIP and the Brexit Party did before, it would be fair to anticipate that there will be a lot of anger – and understandably so – from all those who have rushed to the Reform banner and put themselves forward as candidates, expecting everything they have been promised, to be delivered overnight, just as soon as they are through Westminster’s doors. Quickly finding that instead, their expectations could take decades to deliver – if indeed it will be possible with the intended approach, to ever deliver them at all.

Predictions about the timings of General Elections may be sensible to avoid. Not because it’s impossible to see where things are going at any moment in time; but because even the smallest factor can and probably will have the most profound implications and change the direction of everything at any stage. Meaning the longer the time between now and then, the chances are that what looks certain today could easily be left well and truly behind.

That said, with Labour having outed themselves for not being in any way representative of the people who elected them last year, and instead having all sorts of different agendas they are following, that probably just include their affiliation with the Fabians and WEF – but will never be about doing what’s right for me and you, there’s every chance that this government will collapse and a general election will be called much sooner than 2027 – which Reform have been talking about in the past 24 hours.

However, with Reform changing nothing they are doing now and continuing to approach the run-in towards government, either as a majority or lead partner, and as they openly intend right now, we should not be in any way surprised if their new government doesn’t then itself collapse within 12-18 months. When it will become resoundingly clear, even to them, that the Councils they have run since the Local Elections in May weren’t just a plaything or game.

Indeed, since May, Reform have given us all a very clear warning about what will happen under a Farage premiership. Where the strategy isn’t any more about the people than what we have now.

What awaits us, without change, will be the collapse of everything, as jobs for real leaders are filled to breaking point with people who may have taken them with good intentions, but don’t have the foggiest idea what they hell is expected of them or what they are going to do.

Desperate Times – Desperate Resets
No, the UK doesn’t need DOGE. We need an entirely different approach to restoring Public Service provision
The unfolding tragedy of the UKs political right
Neither this government nor the next can or will stop the coming collapse and that’s when you may well end up owning nothing and be forced to be happy about it
An early Election looks likely PDF_Vers1_6Sep25Download

Yes, Reform are looking good. But the Tories could out reform Reform, IF they can remember what being conservative really is

Reform’s performance in the Local and Helsby and Runcorn by Elections really does look good.

Anyone looking on can immediately see why so many of the political pundits and members of the opinionati are now backing Reform for a similarly groundbreaking General Election result in 2029.

The uncomfortable truth that many supporters will fail to recognise is the only reason that Reform could achieve a seismic turnaround of the kind that would instantaneously drop Nigel Farage into No.10, would be that when compared to all the others, Reform could still be the only real unknown quantity, and therefore different enough to hoover up the majority of a very fatigued Electorates votes.

Unfortunately for the Electorate, without a significant change in their direction, voting Reform into power at the next General Election would once again be voting without due regard for the Law of Unintended Consequences. Just as it was last July when those who did vote put Labour into Government.

Nonetheless, it could and may well happen.

The real depth and direction of Reform are being hidden by Britain’s Political Perfect Storm

It won’t matter what problems the new Reform Administrations in Local Government create, being directed from Reform HQ, as if everything must now be run and controlled from the very top.

The unavoidable disintegration of the UK public sector that is already well underway will almost certainly hide whatever Reform Councils do from public scrutiny and view.

Because Labour, the Tories and Lib Dem Councils are going to struggle in this climate either not to go bankrupt or find other ways to avoid royally stuffing things up.

Reform aren’t reforming anything other than the public discourse over the issues that the majority of people can see and associate with the effects of the problems that are effecting society.

No matter how far detached those perspectives might be focused from the real cause.

Farage’s approach might at best be viewed as becoming increasingly aligned with the establishment and the global thinking that sits behind so many of the problems and the direction of travel that even this Labour government has.

The irony of this should not be lost, that whilst the parts of the political right that are falling in behind Reform either believe Brexit didn’t happen or that under a Reform government Brexiteers will get to finish the job, the reality is that everything that drove the EU project that Farage’s UKIP and Brexit Party so vocally championed against, also had globalism and the centralised global political model at its heart.

Once it becomes clear that a UK version of the Trumpian DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) has no basis within the realities that underpin how our current dysfunctional public sector works, there may well be a moment when those Reformers with elected roles, who are taking their responsibilities to local electors seriously, will realise that there are many things that can still be done. Whilst there are many others that simply cannot.

At some point, the rather large penny must drop, that there is a very careful and considered game to be played that without otherwise torching the entire system and structure of government delivery and bringing it all to a halt, will require the buy-in of key Government officers, nonetheless.

To those watching closely, Farage has already shown his hand.

Whilst it might not be prudent to visit the bookies and begin trying to get odds just yet, as far as the next General Election goes, whenever that actually will be, the perfect storm that has engulfed British politics may well deliver a Reform win.

But it will be the U.K. and our people, rather than whatever is left of the political opposition, that will lose in that Election if Reform have ‘won’ under their current modus operandi and plans.

A Zero-Sum Game?

A rather interesting perspective of the seemingly unassailable position that Reform now has, is that as far as the future goes for the Tories, they currently face a zero-sum game. One that applies whether they capitulate to Reform or carry on as they have done before. As they clearly are continuing to do so, now.

Yes, there remains truth in the suggestion that Reform might never govern without the cooperation or collaboration of today’s Tories in some way.

However, Farage is unlikely to ever accept anything less than remaining in control. And as head of any collaboration and apparent PM in waiting, the real difficulties will begin for us all just as soon as the leadership has a lucid post-victory moment. Probably not unlike like Starmer et al did on the 5th of July last year, when those who had arrived in No.10 realised that unless they were big enough to risk precipitating an immediate collapse of the entire system, pretty much everything would still need to go on as before, and that even though they were in government, they themselves would be required simply to do as they are told.

Picture it now; a coalition that includes what is left of the Conservative Party, all subservient to a government of the kind that will almost certainly be filled with very angry activists. Ideologues who will have been promised much from outside of power, who took it all at face value; all without any of the understanding of how government really works. People who will quickly be looking for someone else to blame.

Now may be the Tories only available Watershed Moment

To say that the choice the Tories have sits between change immediately or die, might sound extreme. But it is a genuine reflection on where the future of this once revered political machine now lies.

The way the Tories would now out reform Reform, would be to reject and distance themselves from the establishment, globalist and accepted positions on just about everything. And not just say, but put everything about the UK and our people, first.

The choice to change cannot mean anything other than putting people and our communities back at the very heart of everything they do.

The Conservatives must return to the basic principles of conservatism and remember what it is to lead and deliver for others, selflessly, and with the key motivation to conserve.

The caveat would be that the Conservatives will also be required to restore and return a model of U.K. governance and related infrastructure to us that can recapture the sense of cultural belonging and shared feeling that our system is fair, balanced and just.

The point being missed across all of British politics today, is that by engaging the public correctly and re enfranchising people and communities appropriately and restoring real trust, people would quickly focus on a very different model of political engagement.

They would not need the myths, false promises and clever narratives to explain away the pain that disenfranchisement has caused for so many before.

Can the Tories actually change, rather than just talk it up?

Whilst being able to stand up and say ‘We have for too long got this all wrong’ is a very important part of getting any credibility back, it will be the actions of Today’s Conservative Party that count.

The rump of what’s left of the Conservative Party must stop pretending that with the level of uncertainty in the world as we have now, they actually have 4 years to try out and give wasted chances to new leaders who still believe that all the Tories need do to remain relevant, is wait until the political merry-go-round does its thing and it’s ‘their turn’ to return to power, once again.

No politician who is a genuine public servant has time to waste. And as it would be correct to say to any would-be political leaders who are ready and willing to do the right thing by the people who put them there, the time to change and begin working as they always should have, is now.

The Contemporary Politicians Dilemma
No, the UK doesn’t need DOGE. We need an entirely different approach to restoring Public Service provision
The unfolding tragedy of the UKs political right
The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government | Full Text

No, the UK doesn’t need DOGE. We need an entirely different approach to restoring Public Service provision

Depending upon which side of the fashionable side of the divide you currently sit on, you could be looking in horror at the work and changes that Elon Musk has already made to US Federal or government spending structures.

Alternatively, and as many on the right of the UKs political spectrum currently are, you might be so enthralled by how the sweeping changes of the new Trump administration looks, that you are already championing a similar approach for the UKs Public Sector, just as soon as the next government has been installed.

That wastage, the pursuit of projects that should never have been pursued, and the existence of many public servants who have never once served the best interests of the public at all is a problem across government, public services, NGOs and anywhere that the public purse picks up the bill across the UK, is most certainly true.

However, to suggest that ‘the problem’ would be solved, merely by taking an arbitrary glance at what money has and is being spent on, then stopping the cheques without question where anything doesn’t resonate, is utterly foolish.

Expecting some unseen force to pick up the slack from any action that could shut down public service provision overnight, is the food upon which anarchy and civil unrest are built on.

Those seriously minded about finding the solutions to the mess that the UK is now in would do well to remember that sharing a language and words that we use with our American cousins is in many respects where the real similarities between the way that we are governed and how our very different countries are run simply ends.

Whilst many of us fall into the trap at election time of believing that we are voting for one Prime Minister or another, the UK doesn’t have a Presidential system like the United States.

Even though it can be interpreted as being exactly that way, when one minute Rishi Sunak goes and is replaced just an hour later by Keir Starmer in No.10.

The sweeping powers that the American President appears to have just don’t manifest in the UK in anything like the same way – even if that’s how they genuinely work in the USA.

A mistake that we can be reasonably confident that most of the Prime Ministers over the past 3 decades are likely to have made would be that they have headed from The Palace to No.10, with the belief that once the famous door closes behind them, it will be as simple as saying whatever they want to say, and that whatever they then goes’.

No decision can be made in any form of government without consequences – as many of us like our Farmers are now openly in the process of finding out.

Yet many would be amazed at how simple many of the politicians that we have today really believe that making reasoned and meaningful change in and across government really is.

To say that the public sector is a monster of our politicians’ own making would be an understatement of seismic proportions.

But to begin to understand what anyone who really wants to ‘fix’ anything is up against, it is essential to recognise that the public sector is little more than a patchwork of massive, money-burning fiefdoms, where nothing more than overarching ‘policy’ direction is set and paid for by central government (That’s the Westminster lot).

Every little thing that can be interpreted and managed in some way differently, will be. To suit the needs of an overwhelmingly protectionist sector that has truly forgotten what it was created for.

Decisions overtly made by public representatives are followed and implemented in ways that would only ever be recognised as being corrupt if and when it could be proven that the decisions made were directly paid for.

If the reader can appreciate this, it is also just as important to understand that very little of anything the public sector does is technically or legally wrong. Because the system, the rules, the regulations and the directions that they are given have evolved over decades of time so that all of these organisations can apparently be run in any way that those managing them choose, as long as it appears that they are doing what they have been told.

The reason that the public sector serves itself isn’t because the Councillors, Mayors, Boards, CEOs and Executives have all decided that they will go it alone.

It’s because the UK has been a rudderless ship when it comes to leadership at the very top of government for so long that the system is now one that it is almost impossible for anyone at the very top to lead.

The UKs public sector and system of government delivery has become far too centralised and hierarchical for the distance between decision maker and decision implementor to work efficiently and work in the best interests of all those who genuinely need it in any way.

No, it’s not as simple as placing someone at the head of government who means what they say. Even though there are many existing and would-be politicians who are desperate for us all to see it that way.

Besides the fact that the UKs ‘executive’ really should always understand what they are doing, the technical structure of government and service delivery it ‘leads’ also needs to be of a size and nature where decision making is genuinely in touch with reality.

Public delivery systems need to respond and feedback in ways that are not only seen as being effective, but actually do work.

If you are minded that it’s the delivery that is the most important thing when it comes to Public Service provision, you may also be able to see that it’s the way that our government is structured, that is and has led to the problems that we now have, right from the very start.

Centralisation of power has created circumstances where poor politicians can hide the poor decisions that they make. Because the chain of authority is simply too big for whoever is genuinely responsible for the damage that is caused by ineptitude to take the blame.

Lack of real accountability is a problem throughout the public sector as a direct result. And when public servants look for an example to follow, many see what today’s politicians are doing, rather than what they are saying they are doing, and then interpret that model of behaviour as being perfectly acceptable to define how they approach their own workload.

So, whilst the talk coming from Reform, what is left of the Tories and what we identify currently as the ‘right’ may be suggesting that they all intend taking an axe to all that’s wrong with the UKs public sector, the hard truth that sits behind the veil of electioneering rhetoric is the problems we face are much more severe and structurally embedded than anyone is currently prepared to publicly admit.

Knee-jerk cost reducing strategies enacted in isolation will end up hurting people, if not actually leading to chaos. And as public policy solutions go, a DOGE for the UK will not really take anyone wishing to be successful in government all that far at all.

The correct solutions for everyone are not always obvious. But fools with power will inevitably believe that they are.

The problem also isn’t a new one. It’s just that it is becoming clearer to normal people today in ways that it never has done before.

The system works as it does, because it benefits certain interests for it to do so. People have always missed out. But the number has steadily increased to the level where the problems caused can be seen today. Because every lie has to be hidden by many others, until no lie can hide the others anymore.

***

I first saw these issues over 25 years ago running charity-based services that were funded by public sector partners and then as a local government officer where I designed and set up a service to benefit not-for-profit organisations. I quickly realised that the system at that time was likely to have been four times as productive with a quarter of the people, if it wasn’t protectionist in every conceivable sense and encouraged public servants to serve the public rather than the organisations themselves.

Twelve years as a Councillor with four as a Licensing Chair served to develop my view and understanding much further and I have previously written in detail about the problem and will link those blogs below.

Jail terms for public servants who overlook their safeguarding responsibilities sounds tough. But if the cause of the problem is actually government wide, should David Cameron be volunteering himself for 5 years in prison rather than another jolly in No. 10?
Public outcry over Grenfell may ensure prosecutions, but the root causes of public sector indifference are cultural and injustices are destined to continue
The Way of Awakened Politics for Good Government | Full Text
Manifesto for a Good Dictator
Our Future IS Local

The unfolding tragedy of the UKs political right

You may have read the title of this blog and immediately wondered what I’m on about. After all, Reform UK are running level with the Labour Government in the polls; the gap is opening up to the Conservatives behind them, and it’s all looking rather like Nigel Farage’s prophecy that Reform will form the next government in 2029 is unfolding in front of them like a political itinerant’s dream come true.

Anything is of course possible. And with the result and consequences of the General Election only six months ago plain for all to see, there is just as much reason to believe that Reform could sweep to victory on a 2029 landslide, that a majority vote for, simply because they appear to then be the better option out of a very bad bunch.

However, could it really be as straightforward as that?

My guess today, as someone whose political background is the ‘right’; who was elected into local government twice as a Conservative and who has dealt with evolutions of reform that include UKIP and the Anti Federalist League before Farage himself was even around, is a considered no.

Not because a new political party from outside of the traditional mainstream cannot smash the current triopoly. But because both Reform and those who are riding off the idea that they can profit from being like Reform are still playing the establishment game and offering too much of the destructive sameness that the establishment demands.

Whilst the reader would need to be watching all forms of media closely to see a very different reason for Reform’s future unfolding differently, the other problem that Reform – and therefore the whole of the right or conservative family has, is that there are already two further parties emerging that to one degree or another could easily split the Conservative Party and Reform axis even further. Leaving it ever more realistic that a left-wing or rainbow coalition will form the next government, with an even weaker Labour Party leading and ‘in charge’ than the one being accused of crashing the economy right now.

What Andrew Tate, and whatever Dominic Cummings has cooking, the current mentality of the Conservative Party and Nigel Farage’s Reform all have in common is their belief that they are different. Whilst the only difference they offer or look like they will offer, is a distilled version of policies which are no better than calling out the issues facing the UK as they see them. Which in terms of being the difference that the majority of people now need and want is the same thing as no difference at all.

Whilst the polls create a constant source of excitement for political anoraks, they do not indicate that a sweeping aside of petty rivalries and egos is now or is currently likely to take place.

That means all the right is offering today is all it has done for living memory:

Whichever version you choose, it’s all about the politicians themselves rather than people – which is what we all so desperately need.

Being able to talk about the uncomfortable issues that the government today and the last conservative government would not, is no longer enough.

That much has been quickly proven by the reality that the Labour Cabinet is massively out of its depth with the problems and realities of the establishment machine that they face. When they also rode a wave of good faith-based voting that led them to believe that they were equipped and ready to take on what faced them on the 5th of July.

It will not be different for any of the politicians currently coveting the keys to No. 10. As will be the same case for all of their understudies who sadly show all too easily what we can expect from them through their ambition and failure to genuinely connect.

If the political right is going to gain a meaningful result at the next election, rather than contributing to the creation of greater damage to the UK and what may then be an unnavigable mess, they have to be ready to fight the next general election together.

More importantly they will have to work together in a very different, people orientated way.

2029 is not a long time, assuming that the next general election will be then, rather than much before.

The time to deal with the differences and find common ground is now. Not in 3 years and certainly not during the fall out of the next general election where on current trajectories, things are going to be hideously worse than they are even now.

I’m not convinced that a coalition of the right is possible as things stand. Because nobody in politics can face up to the truth that it’s the outcome that is the most important factor to consider. Not how they take us there or who becomes the name that everyone then thinks about as being in charge.

The one thing we can be sure of is that change of the kind that the UK currently needs and what getting there really means, isn’t going to be offered or achieved by any political vehicle constructed with the same motives and way of looking at the electorate as the Political Parties who have been swapping power between them up until now.

The Tories have no future and the only discernable difference between them and the other parties is they are in government today

It doesn’t take much reading of today’s news and social media streams to work out that the Conservatives are now fully into clutching at straws mode when it comes to saving themselves and the forlorn hope that they will somehow find the credibility to deliver a record fifth victory in the next General Election – whenever it should come.

That a government that was elected with an 80-seat majority in December 2019 (yes – it’s actually the same one!) should have fallen so far in the polls in less than 5 years is in itself a very profound tell about the state of the conservative party today. And that’s before we consider that we are on the third Prime Minister to have welded themselves to the keys of No.10 during the time between.

To believe that their demise is all down to a poor run of leaders would be foolish of us all, for no better reason than the Tories have themselves elected as leaders (and therefore as Prime Ministers), the best that they have got.

Yes, it could be argued that the right person didn’t get the chance when they should have got there. But that itself sends just as powerful a message that tells us the Party is filled up with people who don’t work in a democratic way, or in anything like the sense we should be able to expect from an organisation that brings people together to do the best possible for the electorate.

The truth nobody will face in politics is that the days of the big beasts of politics are now long gone. The ability to look good carrying a ceremonial sword or time served as an establishment public servant in a top job are not qualifications for leading a country at any time, least of all when we are facing the uncertain and turbulent times that we are now in.

Decades of weak leadership, then awarding top jobs to politicians who are even weaker than they are, has meant that the politicians we see leading all the political parties today, keep getting even weaker leaders. Each and every time that there is a change.

Under the current system, the only way that politics can therefore change is if the political parties change themselves. And that would mean the current crop of politicians that we see in the news each day giving up their seats and walking away in the same way that we might ask turkeys to vote for Christmas.

There is a good chance that the result of the General Election will be nothing like the polls are currently suggesting. And we should all be minded that the collapse of one 80-seat majority and the numbers that underpin it in less than 5 years can also work the other way.

However, if the Tories want to be taken seriously by anyone other than themselves again, they will have to accept that it has been a long time since any of their politicians have behaved like they are genuine conservatives.

Both the public and their own membership are crying out for genuine public representation and leadership. Not more glory-chasing and media headline obsessives who believe that they are the only ones that matter and that politics is nothing more than a game.

image created using Microsoft Designer