What’s happening within the right of UK politics?

Things have been slowly shifting on the right of UK politics ever since the Referendum Party appeared many moons ago. The pace of change has increased a lot since the 2016 EU/Brexit Referendum through various iterations of further right/far right parties ending up recently in Reform.

The political movement of the right is often and in my view wrongly spoken of as being a changing of the guard between the failing Tories and Reform. In simplistic terms this may be a significant part of the case but it also masks the movement of right-wing Labour supporters first to back Brexit, then to back Johnson and now with them standing with Reform. And don’t forget it was this section of Labour’s ‘support’ which delivered Brexit for Johnson.

Labour has been able to rely on a pretty solid working class vote for generations across the UK and that includes many supporters who have been, to varying degrees, right-wing. Having said that the East Midlands, where I hail from, is an obvious area where Labour has never really been able to secure/rely on working-class right-wingers.

Ever since I became involved in politics and the trade union movement in 1980 it has been clear to me that Labour has had a significant number of right-wing working-class members/supporters. Indeed, a reinforcement of my view came from a Labour Party member in the early 1980s who told me that Labour had more racists than the then Tory Party. I appreciate that racism is only one factor that can denote people with right-wing opinions and that some right-wingers may well not be racists, but let’s face it racism amongst genuine progressives should be a rare thing.

The Tories have pretty much destroyed themselves in recent years, not least because they had no plan whatsoever to deliver the Brexit they campaigned for. Again, I accept that not all Tories backed Brexit but very many did. Reform has been on the Tory’s heels for a while now and it has effectively forced them to tack further and further to the right so to compete with Reform – it hasn’t worked!

It was often said up to a couple of generations ago that the Church of England was the Conservative Party at prayer and I think that sweeping generalisation was actually not so far away from the truth. Yes, of course not all CofE worshippers were or are Tories by a long chalk but many used to be and as a choirboy in the late 1960s/early 1970s I’d say I think I saw that. Nowadays I suggest that saying is probably way off mark with only a minority of Conservatives being CofE. In part that’ll be a consequence of declining religious participation generally but the present day Tory Party is very different from the one of the 1970s. It’s now much further right, the One Nation Tories have either left or been invited to leave and the rhetoric from Tories these days is hardly consistent with religious teachings especially when it comes to immigration! My view is that the CofE influence held back many Conservatives of the past from pursuing less inclusive ideas which are very much to the fore now sadly.

But now let’s look at Labour’s shifting support. I’ve lived on Merseyside since I was 10 and a county more devoted to Labour you’d do well to find. Yes, there’ve been some significant Lib Dem successes across Merseyside but they were pretty much snuffed out by Clegg’s leadership of the party and are only now being rebuilt. I reference Merseyside because it’s the area of the UK where I’ve been politically active for 45 years.

There was a Town Council by-election in Maghull last week, in its West Ward. Unbelievably, there was no Labour candidate and the serious contest was between the mainly socialist Community Independents and Reform. The two other candidates were also rans, in horse racing terms. The Community Independents won with 339 votes but Reform came from nowhere to gather 309 votes. Whilst there was a Tory candidate, right-wing voters pretty much ignored them to back Reform and I’m sure Reform also got significant support from former Labour voters with right-wing views. Reform actually won a by-election in the Merseyside Borough of St. Helens in recent weeks. Let’s be face it, if Labour’s vote is collapsing to the point where it can’t field a candidate and it loses a seat too then things are looking grim indeed for Starmer’s Party on Merseyside and probably beyond.

Labour, like the Tories, has found itself leaking votes and support to Reform. It’s why Starmer has, like the Conservatives, been tacking towards the right in what looks to be fruitless attempt to keep or even pull back discontented right-wing leaning Labour supporters, or should I say former supporters. Of course, by tacking right, Starmer has been alienating his progressive, left of centre and socialist supporters. Indeed, the emergence of the Community Independents is very much caused by Labour tacking right. Also, the Lib Dems have been picking up centre-left former Labour voters/supporters whilst those with a socialist inclination, who have not gone towards the Community Independents have shifted to the socialist leaning Green Party.

Our two major political parties of long memory are in deep, deep trouble and we could be close to the effective death of one or both of them akin to the demise of the old Liberal Party in the 1920s/30s.

Many who look upon themselves as working-class are now drawn towards the further and far right in significant numbers. This despite the politics they’re now backing being manipulated by wealthy right-wing extremists who look upon public services as something to be cut back to enable further tax cuts for the wealthy. This scenario could well lead to such voters effectively shooting themselves in both feet via making the rich richer and helping with the deconstruction of the public services they rely upon. And all this because they’re just fed up with mainstream politicians, be they Conservative or Labour, for not delivering what they want to see.

 

Whatever happened to integrated public transport?

I recall this lofty aim from the 1970s as being something I thought of as a brilliant idea. Little did I know that UK politics would soon head in exactly the opposite direction via Bus Deregulation in 1986 and Rail Privatisation in 1993.

 

A Merseyrail train on the Ormskirk Line

I’m not sure what those behind these two Acts of Parliament actually wanted to achieve (other than to save money, of course) but driven by political dogma what they actually achieved was pretty much anti-everything integrated public transport, as buses and trains were put in competition. But we were told that market forces would lead to better transportation. Well, that didn’t happen because the real objective was little more than cutting government transport costs, whilst favouring the private car. Yes, there have been some limited successes with rail but it has led to a fragmented railway with huge costs still requiring big government subsidies. In my humble opinion had British Rail been modernised and enabled to be successful like most other developed public transport systems across the world (USA & Canada being notable exceptions) we would now have a much better railway and decent bus services.

Moving on, the fact that each railway operator in the UK procures their own trains means that the costs must be higher than having a coherent large scale purchasing process with all the associated economies. Why, one set of trains purchased not so long ago by TransPennine Express has been parked in sidings and is now unused!

Passengers not being able to use tickets bought from one operator on a competitors train also mitigates against use of the railway system and don’t get me started on the myriad of tickets available via differing operators.

Bus deregulation, which was interestingly not imposed on London, has likewise been pretty much an unmitigated disaster with the number of bus routes dropping pretty much every year, not least because of austerity. And of course we’ve continued to developed car-centric communities where to get anywhere you need to have a car.

The logic of running poor quality public transport services and thereby forcing many to own and maintain highly expensive cars, who otherwise would not need to have them, has long beaten me. Our roads are so congested and every new road built leads to more traffic rather than solutions to traffic jams that by-passes etc. are meant to achieve. Plus, people who really can’t afford to run cars pretty much have to have one making their household budgets stretch too far.

In 1980, as a someone new to politics, I listened to the former Liberal MP David Alton talk about integrated public transport and indeed the need for local public transport to be free. I was sure he was right then and I’m damn sure he was right as we move into 2025, but as I’ve already said just after hearing his views integrated public transport was pretty much abandoned in favour of the private car.

Of course, having created the myth that if we all have cars transportation will be far more convenient etc. how do we change direction, as we surely must do, to recreate what we once used – buses, trams and trains? Folks like their cars, they believe that with more road building congestion will be sorted out, when the opposite is true. They’ve moved further away from where they work allowing for long driving times to get to their place of employment in their own car. Doing that journey by public transport could well be all but impossible. Now, significant numbers work from home much of the time thereby changing travelling habits, yet our roads are still choked with traffic.

Trams have returned to some UK cities but probably with the exception of Greater Manchester the lines are far too limited, Nottingham being an example of a city requiring significantly more lines for Nottingham Express Transit (NET) to really be effective in reducing car usage.

Merseyside and Tyne and Wear have redeveloped old railway lines and have significant Metro-type systems but they are not as extensive as they need to be. Merseyside for example desperately needs to extend its Merseyrail system to places such as Preston, Wigan, Wrexham, and Liverpool Airport and its main Station, Liverpool Central is very much at capacity and can’t really cope with greater passenger numbers.

And what about buses? Each year routes across the UK shrink, they’re too infrequent (even non-existent in rural areas) and buses, of course, get stuck in traffic jams too. I was struck, and not in a good way, by an ‘idea’ from the Liverpool City Region Mayor during 2024 to introduce ‘Gliders’. They’d actually be buses made to look like trams! Such a timid ‘solution’ for Merseyside brought with it rather too many public laughs and little backing you’ll not be surprised to hear. In my world, buses should be very much integrated with trains and often feeders to rail services.

In my own Merseyside community we have circular community buses that link with one of our local railway stations but the buses don’t meet every train and often they seem to leave the station just as a train is pulling in! And surely such buses should be electric as they follow shortish regular routes. Oh, and yes of course Mr Alton, they should be free to get on as passengers using them, other than pensioners, have to pay twice to use the bus and then the train meaning the joint cost mitigates against jumping on them in the first place. In turn, locals who would use them just get their car out and even run a car they may not otherwise even need in joined up transportation world!

Our new government is taking some tentative steps in the right direction but sadly with no money in their/our piggy bank to make a significant impacts. Our stalled economy is at odds with the likes of the Irish Republic, for example, where public transport ambitions (and the money to pay for them) are significant indeed. We have to be optimistic and keep pushing a sustainable transport agenda because more road vehicles really are putting us on the road to ruin.

 

Cars make us unhappy, unhealthy, selfish, mean spirited

 and petty criminals, yet we’re addicted to them

I can hear you regressive libertarians who love our car dependent culture sputtering all kinds of protests already! But let’s just try to look at things unemotionally…..

Cars are expensive to buy, run and renew so they put a huge strain on household budgets unless, that is, you are comfortably well off. If public transport was at say the standard of many European cities or Greater London you may not even need to buy one but the deeper you live in commuter-land (outside of London) and particularly out in the countryside the more a car is all but a necessity in the UK due to our public transport being generally poor or even non-existent.

Cars make us insular and disconnected from our neighbours especially if we use them for even the shortest of journeys. That isolation from those around us can make us unhappy and even lonely. Why some of us even battle with our neighbours over scarce on-street parking spaces, literally driving a wedge between us and our neighbours.

Cars make us unwell because we don’t walk or cycle enough to keep us healthy thereby putting more strain on health services because we, in effect, we are making ourselves unwell. Pollution from petrol and diesel powered cars also makes us unwell, of course. Oddly, we kind of know we’re not getting enough exercise, due to excessive car use, as we go to gyms where we then pay to get the exercise we need. Indeed, we usually go to the gym in our cars, when often they are can be accessed via walking or cycling. However, our (at best) poor safe cycling networks often mitigate against cycle use and women in particular will be concerned about walking to a gym on dark winter evenings.

Cars make us selfish and mean spirited towards other road users whom some drivers see as getting in their way or slowing them down. Other road users doing the speed limit or less than it are a pain. Cyclists, horse riders and even pedestrians are often not seen as being vulnerable more important road users, which they are, but as a damn nuisances who should not be on or crossing our roads. When cycling I’ve been told to ‘get off the road and onto the pavement where I belong’ by enraged drivers thereby pressing me to cycle illegally.

Cars turn us into anti-social petty criminals because we break speed limits, drive without insurance/licenses, run red lights, some of us even steel cars. We also use them to show off and create danger for anyone around us. As an aside a chap I know seems to collect speeding tickets. On hearing he was to get his 2^nd current one and not wanting to lose his licence he said that I’ll now be late for everything’, meaning that he usually plans to break speed limits and only the threat of losing his licence stops him from doing that!

Cars play to our worst instincts such as one-upmanship, by us seeking a car that’s better than someone else's. We use them as status symbols to emphasise wealth and perceived/desired standing in our community/amongst our friends. We copy those who buy whatever is the present most fashionable make and model so to ‘fit in’ and make us look like those that have ‘made it’.

Cars need huge amounts of public money to be spent on roads, ever more complex highway safety measures (because we drive so poorly), the use of extensive police, fire & rescue and NHS resources because so many of us are killed and injured on our roads each day. Insurance companies and solicitors do make a good living from car drivers though!

We readily accept that our roads are dangerous, indeed we don’t really think about it. However, we want the roads we live on/use and those used by our children on their way to school (assuming we’re not trying to make the next generation unfit/unwell by taking them everywhere by car) to be safe. At the same time we’re shocked when there’s a rail accident where someone is injured/killed as our railways are meant to be safe. We know rail accidents are extremely rare and that our roads are many, many, many times more dangerous but still we ignore the risks and go by car.

We like to abandon our cars pretty much wherever we want. On zag-zag lines, on dangerous bends, on double yellow lines, on pavements, on grass verges, across driveways etc. etc. and if we get a fine it’s the damn council/police chasing the poor old motorist when they should, in our view, be doing something more important. A motorist I know was recently heard to say ‘that policemen must have been hiding in the bushes’ as though he genuinely thought they did this to catch speeders!

We decide to live many miles away from where we work and/or where our children go to school because we can use the car, whilst we grumble about anything that gets in our way on the roads as we try to get to work and/or do the school run.

We kind of like our car dependent culture and new housing estates with no alternative ways of getting around, we may even protest if there’s a suggestion that a bus route goes down our road. We don’t need nasty smelly buses, anyway they’d have trouble getting past all our parked cars and may bump into them, not to mention they’d bring poor people into our estate.

We look upon buses and suburban trains as being for those who can’t afford a car and we resent money being put into public transport/safe cycle routes as it should be spent building more roads, even though we know that more roads means more traffic/more congestion. We dislike buses in particular as they keep stopping to pick the poor up or drop them off. Why can’t they run on roads where they don’t slow me up in my car?

We can be made to feel a little guilty about our cars contributing to environmental problems and global warming but well it’s up to others to get rid of their gas guzzlers, not us. We might spend a small fortune on an electric car but probably more because they’re currently a status symbol rather more than them being less polluting. But are they less damaging to the environment? We don’t really want to look at what gets destroyed by mining for the stuff they put in batteries; that’s the next generation’s problem to address.

Our politicians know all of the above of course and the many unscrupulous ones amongst them try to exploit our love affair with the car. They play to our car-centric prejudices. Our tabloid press is always there too, going on about the poor motorist being done down and we think ‘yes that’s right, that’s what I think too’!

An old saying still holds good, ‘your car is a convenience to you and an inconvenience to everyone else’.

The author is a driver, cyclist and pedestrian, in case you’re wondering, who favours significant investment in an integrated public transport system. He also acknowledges that cars are a tremendous asset for people with disabilities who otherwise would not be able to get around well at all. As an aside he used to drool over a Triumph Dolomite Sprint and he does enjoy watching Bangers & Cash on TV.

 

A Broad Church or one stretched too far?

It seems that some progressive voters who backed Labour at the recent election thought the party leadership was just telling fibs when they came over, prior to the election, as effectively pro-Brexit.

We’re told that polling indicates that around 70% who voted Labour want the UK to at least join the Single Market but Labour is doing what they promised and they’re sticking, in effect, to Teresa May’s red lines.

Of course, Labour have placed themselves in this position to try to stop more of their right-wing, working-class voters defecting to Reform. They started to lose right and indeed even further right supporters back when Brexit was all the rage amongst right-wing voters generally. They then lost more to the Tories under Johnson and then again to the further right Reform Party at the 2024 GE.

Logically, Labour are not going to get them back and it’s doubtful whether trying to appease such voters will work at all. History tells us that appeasing the further and far right is never a good idea but that’s where Labour is. Ironically, in trying to hang on to their right-wing and further right supporters Labour’s leadership is, of course, alienating it’s progressive supporters who may well defect to progressive parties such as the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens.

And all this is because Labour has always seen itself as being the party of the working-class no matter what views those voters actually have. Labour has been a broad church with supporters ranging from the further right through to the far left and everything in-between and it’s why the party is riven with factional infighting.

The problem for Labour is that even via our warped first-past-the-post electoral system, which has helped keep Labour’s warring factions in the same tent for generations, things are changing and Reform and at one point the Tories have been taking Labour’s right-wing supporters. At the same time the Lib Dems, SNP and Greens have been nibbling away at the party’s progressive left of centre supporters. Remember, whilst our mad electoral system has given Labour a massive majority in the House of Commons only 34% of those who turned out to vote in 2024 actually voted Labour and clearly many of those did so just to be rid of the appalling Tories. So Labour’s support is weak at best.

Despite it being a broad church, Labour has usually positioned itself left of centre but now it’s outlook is centre-right. At some point it will try to reposition itself again, although where is open to debate. Labour’s roots are its history and its present day problem as in multi-party democracies trying to appeal to such a vast political range is going to be ever more difficult.

The electorate may well be starting to leave Labour behind and the blind loyalty it once relied upon through many generations, within working-class families in particular, is looking unsustainable going forward. If the party’s progressives say ‘no more’ as they can no longer stomach Brexit and centre-right politics then Labour is in deep trouble indeed.

 

I’ll be there – My life with the Four Tops – Book Review

Having been a lover of the Four Tops music for pretty much as long as I can remember I obtained a copy of Duke Fakir’s biography of the Motown group, their lives and musical ups and downs.

 

 

To be honest I found it a compelling yet somewhat odd book. Fakir was clearly a very religious man and goodness me did he write about it! From my perspective, as an atheist, he over did it but then again was he just typical of his fellow American Bible bashers? The use of profanities throughout the text jarred a little not least because it was alongside his religious views.

I was only really interested in the music, Motown and how this super-group built their incredibly long-lasting relationship with each other. A relationship which literally lasted until death they did depart one by one with Fakir bring the last to pass on quite recently. And speaking of them passing on, I learned from the book that they were all booked onto that fateful flight which crashed at Lockerbie but their tickets had to be cancelled due to recording taking place in London.

I recall seeing the Tops in Southport, Manchester and Liverpool on five occasions and they always put on a great show. My favourite of their hits is probably their first one – Baby I need your Loving and here’s a YouTube link to them singing it:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUOntQocGWk

I wasn’t surprised to read that Levi Stubbs, their lead singer, had been offered solo recording contracts, he was after all a great singer with a natural and powerful baritone voice. However, he refused anything that did not include them all; a loyalty which you don’t see a lot of in the music industry.

Lawrence Payton, the first to pass on, was the group’s musical expert and Duke was their day to day manager/organiser. At the time Duke’s book was published, in 2022, he was the last of the original members left alive and performing. The passing of Obie, Lawrence and Levi clearly left a huge hole in his life. They’d performed together, originally as the Four Aims, since 1953!

Unsurprisingly there were references to their experiences of the racial divide in the southern US states but at the same time their music was, of course, crossing such divides as many white Americans loved their songs.

We’ll never see their like again and I’m so glad I saw and heard all of the original members 4 of the 5 times at concerts and despite my reservations this was a book well worth reading.

Here's an interesting British Library interview with Duke about his life:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Ud0E2n13I&t=4222s

 

RIP Terry Baldwin

I’ve received the sad news that former Aintree Village Parish Councillor Terry Baldwin has passed on.

I recall sharing a great community campaign with Terry as we and indeed many others, I might add, tried to save Aintree Library from closure. We lost, but Terry was a great public speaker and quite a character too. Here he is in full flow at an outdoor protest meeting about the then proposed closure of Aintree Library -

I also recall that he, like me, had a trade union activist past and it was probably one reason why we got along well. Terry was Chairman of Aintree Village Parish Council when a new GP surgery was opened. Here’s Terry at that event in 2006 -

 

Away from politics and community campaigning Terry was involved, at high level, with St. John Ambulance and I recall seeing him standing proudly in his uniform at civic events at Maghull Town Hall where St. John Ambulance volunteers practised their skills. Indeed, I think it was Terry who presented me, in my year as Mayor of Maghull, with a model of a St. John Ambulance vehicle which still sits in a display cabinet in the Council Chamber of Maghull Town Hall. It was to celebrate their acquiring a new ambulance, if I remember correctly.

Terry was presented with the Maghull Town Council Civic Award in 2004 and it was very much because of his volunteer St. John Ambulance work.

So goodbye Terry, yours was a life well lived and you were liked and respected by so many people.

 

A terrible loss - The Southport – Preston Line – A new booklet 

marking 60 yrs since the electric services to Crossens ceased.

I’ve just read an excellent booklet produced by the Class 502 Preservation Trust to mark 60 years since the loss of the 3^rd rail electrified service from Southport out to Crossens in September 1964. The following day the whole route from Southport to Preston closed; all part of the short-sighted Beeching cuts.

Front cover of booklet

 

The line is now lost to housing in so many places that reopening is impossible yet in 1963, just one year prior to closure, the booklet tells us that the line was carrying 2m passengers a year! With all the building along the line from Southport through Crossens to Preston it would clearly be viable 2024. 

Back cover of booklet

 

Even if closure was seen to be the right thing to do in 1964 the trackbed should, like with so many other lost lines, have been safeguarded for future possible reopening but UK politics has always been short-term and short-sighted.

Anyway, back to the booklet which runs to 40 plus pages. It’s full of colour photos, great captioning and is a wonderful insight into what has been lost. I really enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to railway enthusiasts, and those interested in Southport’s history.

It’s available from the Class 502 Preservation Trust priced at £8.50 and their online shop is via this link - 

  https://www.class502.org.uk/shop/