The London mayoral campaign continues apace, but I feel something has changed over the last few weeks. All the polls have shown Sadiq Khan quite a way ahead of Zac Goldsmith, although the latest one in the Standard shows the gap narrowing. It seems to me this campaign is mirroring last year’s general election campaign, and that by polling day things may be very close indeed. Of course, in the end it will all come down to second or third preferences. Khan remains well ahead on second preferences so the Goldsmith campaign still have a lot of work to do, but you just get the feeling that Zac is now up for the fight in a way he didn’t seem to be a few weeks ago. You may recall that I wrote that he needed to show a bit of fire in his belly and stop looking so depressed in media appearances. Winning elections is all about the candidate having a bit of fire in his belly. In recent times he’s looked much more ‘pumped up’ to coin a phrase and that has given his supporters a much needed boost. There are a lot of undecided voters out there to be had, along with a lot of undecided second preferences. I sense that the Zac campaign have their strategy worked out. It may not involve loud ‘look at me proclamations’ but a lot is going on under the radar. Just like in the general election.
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So Dan Jarvis has made a speech. A big speech. The speech potential party leaders make. I like him. He’s a man of integrity and may be just what Labour need. However, there were elements of this speech which were too crowdpleasing. He came out with that old canard about important decisions being taken out of the hands of politicians. What a load of bollocks. This all started with the ‘agency’ programme under the Major government and has continued apace ever since. We are now told by politicians of all parties that we must ‘take the politics out of the NHS’, for instance. Why on earth would we do that? I don’t want to give power to a bunch of unelected bureaucrats who are accountable to no one. Look at what’s happened to the Highways Agency. It’s a complete law unto itself. We elect politicians for a reason – to make decisions and choices on our behalf. If they get it wrong and we don’t like what they do, we can chuck them out and elect a new bunch. Agencies just hoard power and try to make their independence from politicians a virtue. I can’t think of a single agency that has performed better as an independent body than it did under political control. The lamentable Border Agency is a good case in point. So when you hear a politician like Dan Jarvis trying to divest themselves of power understand that it is all for cosmetic PR reasons. In reality it never leads to better government.
Stuart Ramsey from Sky News deserves to win broadcast journalist of the year for his investigation into Daesh and the fact that he has procured the details of 22,000 Daesh fighters. It’s a massive story which should have been on the front page of all newspapers and led all broadcast news bulletins. Unfortunately, viewers and readers were short-changed because of journalistic jealousies. The Times put it on their front page, but you had to turn to page 2 to find out it was a Sky News original story. The Daily Mail put it on page 6. Scandalously it didn’t even merit a mention on the BBC website, even under that most annoying of phrases, ‘the BBC has learned’. Inter media competition and rivalry is all very well, but this story is a potential game-changer in the fight against Daesh terrorism. That means it’s news, whoever the originator is. Some editors should look themselves in the mirror and consider what they’re in this game for. Surely it should be for their readers, listeners or viewers. Rather than their own insecurities or vanities.
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Can it be too long before Suzanne Evans looks Nigel Farage in the eye and tells him he stuff his party where the sun don’t shine? She’s been sacked from yet another position by Farage and yet continues to take it on the chin. Quite why she puts up with it is anyone’s guess. In a similar vein, Farage called Douglas Carswell “an irrelevance” this week. How can UKIP’s only MP be an irrelevance? I like and admire Nigel Farage. I’ve published his books. I’d count him as a friend. But his behaviour towards Suzanne Evans, Douglas Carswell and others is quite outrageous. I suspect that after the referendum things will come to a head. Could it be a matter of months before we see both Suzanne Evans and Douglas Carswell back in the Conservative Party?
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David Cameron’s announcement that he intends to stand at the next election is a welcome one. The trend for ex PMs to stand down from parliament immediately is a regrettable one. Parliament needs their experience, and you never know when the call might come again. I hear Tony Blair regrets standing down and thinks he could have made a comeback at some point. If that’s the case, you have to give thanks to God that Gordon Brown stood down when he did.
