After an epidemic of epidemics, you may have been wondering whether another rhetorician’s unsettling (and slightly weird) reference to a hurricane was part of a trend.

Hansard lists eighteen references in Parliament to a ‘hurricane’ in the last twelve months. Here’s a breakdown of what each mention was about:

• Windy weather (18)

I’m not blown away.

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.

Here in Newcastle, there’s been a long-running saga about a massive new housing estate—Great Park. In fact, ‘massive housing estate’ considerably undersells it: with more than 4,000 homes planned, it is essentially a whole new suburb of the city.

Construction started in 2001 and has continued apace. A town centre was constructed some years ago, but until recently it was the subject of great controversy because there were virtually no shops or services open in the units built along it. Residents were very upset that they had no local services. Earlier this year, Morrisons opened in the town centre to great fanfare.

It’s against this backdrop that I read over the weekend that Rishi Sunak disapproves of services being close to where people live. To quote BBC News:

The Government said its plan would stop councils implementing “15-minute cities”, where essential amenities are always within a 15-minute walk.

Apparently, Sunak considers building essential amenities close to people’s homes to be part of a

war on motorists

A war we can only assume is being waged by the Government. Imagine how angry he will be when he realises who’s in charge of that.

Now, Newcastle hasn’t had so much as a Conservative councillor for almost three decades, so perhaps I’m out of touch. Indeed, in the latest round of local elections, their percentage share of the vote didn’t make it into double figures, their 27 candidates averaging fewer than 300 votes apiece. I walk past my local Conservative club most days, and their brass plaque is frequently defaced with amusing, topically critical slogans written on masking tape, which always strikes me as a politely British form of protest.

Yet: I can’t imagine that a desire to put essential amenities further away from people’s houses is likely to be a vote-winner. I don’t know anyone who has ever said “I can’t rent this place, the GP is less than 15 minutes’ walk away!”

This is Sunak pandering to ridiculous conspiracy theorists, seemingly without any insight into the fact that the Government is assumed to be part of the conspiracy. It is literally laughable: I was sitting on a park bench when I read that BBC line, and I laughed out loud.

Today, we get to see whether he has enough similarly insane policy ideas to turn his first—and, I’d happily wager, last—conference party leader speech into a stand-up comedy act.

Here’s hoping.

Over recent years, we’ve all become quite used to the language of epidemiology. There are few people who would be flummoxed by the word ‘pandemic’ these days, and unlike 2018, no-one accidentally refers to ‘breakouts’ instead of ‘outbreaks’ these days.

Hansard lists fifty-seven things described in Parliament as an ‘epidemic’ in the last twelve months. When arranged in order of frequency of mentions, there is quite a long tail.

I wonder how many of them you could name off the top of your head.

Could you guess the top ten?

• Violence against women and girls (described an epidemic 17 times)
• COVID-19 (16)
• Vaping (10)
• Fraud (9)
• HIV/AIDS (9)
• Avian influenza (8)
• Obesity (7)
• Eating disorders (5)
• Loneliness (5)
• Bowel disease in the North East (5)
• Pornography (4)
• Allergy (3)
• Homelessness (3)
• Self-harm and suicide (3)
• Tuberculosis (3)
• Child sexual abuse (2)
• Cholera (2)
• Illicit use of Monkey Dust in Stoke-on-Trent (2)
• Mental illness (2)
• Pandemic influenza (2)
• Rape (2)
• Sewage spills (2)
• Sexual harassment (2)
• Youth violence (2)
• Arson (1)
• Antisemitism (1)
• Brain injury (1)
• Brain tumours (1)
• Bullying in the armed forces (1)
• Crime committed by young people (1)
• Crime in Blackpool (1)
• Dental ill-health (1)
• Discrimination against women at work (1)
• Dumping food and drink packaging in parks (1)
• Ebola (1)
• Exhaustion among NHS staff (1)
• Executions in Iran (1)
• Food and mouth disease (1)
• GPs moving to ‘ring-road’ locations (1)
• Heat stress (1)
• High street bank closures (1)
• Illicit use of nitrous oxide (1)
• Illness related to the Bhopal disaster (1)
• Knife crime (1)
• Lung disease in among children living near Heathrow Airport (1)
• Malaria (1)
• Misogyny (1)
• Moral injury among military personnel (1)
• Mpox (1)
• Name changes among sex offenders (1)
• Polio (1)
• Potential future injuries related to exposure to asbestos in unaudited rubbish dumps created by the Ministry of Defence (1)
• Seasonal influenza (1)
• Short-sightedness (1)
• Teenage nicotine addiction (1)
• Type 2 diabetes (1)
• Workplace harassment (1)

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.

The UK Government doesn’t see the climate catastrophe as one of its ‘priorities’—‘stopping the boats’ is more important than protecting the future of life of Earth. Perhaps, then, I shouldn’t be surprised by the newspaper reports this morning that Sunak is descending further into populism by ‘watering down’ his climate commitments.

Liam Byrne’s ‘there’s no money left’ note has been a millstone around the neck of the Labour Party for the last 13 years.

We’re often told that the Conservative Party is an election winning machine. It is incredible that their strategists can’t see that this policy is their own equivalent if they are hoping to return to Government in 2029 or 2034—after five or ten more years of growing floods, fires, and climate-related chaos.

Writing for the Financial Times yesterday, George Parker and Lucy Fisher said:

Next year, Sunak will ask the public at a general election to trust the Tories with another five years in power. Even many in his own party believe he is doomed to fail, that he will be dragged under by the legacy of 13 years of Conservative rule: public sector austerity, Brexit, the chaos and lies of Boris Johnson, the Covid-19 lockdown parties and the economic meltdown of Truss’s brief tenure.

Nonetheless, Sunak remains bullish about his chances of defying the sceptics, with the economy faring better and inflation coming under control. A revamped Number 10 operation is determined to deliver a fifth consecutive Tory election victory. “He really believes he can do it,” says one Downing Street insider.

I think—and hope—Sunak is wrong. I don’t think the Government he leads represents the best group of people to run the country. But Sunak’s confidence gives me optimism.

I worry that Sunak’s best chance of retaining power is a snap, single-issue election in the next handful of months, the issue being the European Convention on Human Rights. A pretext can be manufactured easily, and may even be handed on a plate by a Supreme Court decision that deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda contravenes the Convention. The fact that withdrawal would be controversial provides a strong pretext for “putting it to the people” at a general election. It’s not hard to imagine the right-wing press campaigning fervently in support: “you might not like everything about the Tories, but this is our one opportunity to get this done.” It’s also not hard to imagine that message cutting through.

The logic of enacting this plan this autumn is also straightforward: Sunak can argue that he is “making progress” on his “priorities” and it bounces Labour onto the turf on which they are currently least comfortable, before they’ve worked out their election position. With the press behind them, the Conservatives can define the terms of the debate and largely keep the election as a single-issue vote.

The most dangerous thing for a party heading to an election is ennui introduced by low expectations. The clear narrative based on polling is that Labour is on course to win the next election. The best way to suspend those expectations is by doing something unexpected: calling an early election and redefining the terms of that election to something where the majority view is less clear-cut. Suddenly, the narrative becomes that “it’s all to play for”—inflating the perception of the popularity of the Conservative vote.

This would be a horrible thing to happen. It would spark a distressingly toxic debate and—by definition—give voice to some of our most inhumane tendencies. For what it’s worth, I also don’t think it would work: I don’t think moderate Conservatives would fall into line, I don’t think this sort of campaign would energise large sections of their base, and I think Labour would find ways to cut through with strong ‘change’ messages. This ‘nuclear option’ might be Sunak’s best shot, but I still think it’s a long shot.

If Sunak “really believes” he can win conventionally, then this bet—not to mention the damage it could do to Sunak’s reputation and future earning potential—is not worth the risk. And if Sunak’s confidence avoids us taking a disastrous path, then it’s hard not to like it.

In the two decades over which I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve covered—at least in passing—five general elections. In the intervening times, I’ve written more than even I would care to read about UK politics.

And yet, it is only today that I’ve realised that we use the word ‘majority’ in UK politics to mean two entirely different things.

The first, and to me, the most intuitive, is defined by the OED as

The greater number or part; a number which is more than half the total number, esp. of votes; spec. (in a deliberative assembly or electoral body) the group or party whose votes amount to more than half the total number, or which has the largest share of votes; the fact of having such a share.

The outcome of the general election held in 2019 was that the Conservative Party won a majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons. That is, they had 80 more seats than all the other parties combined: the Conservatives had 365 of the 650 seats, while all other parties together had 285. The excess number of seats—the majority—was 80 seats.

But—set your phasers to ‘stun’—we use the word ‘majority’ to mean something completely different at the individual constituency level. We use this, more recent, OED definition:

The number by which the votes cast for one party, etc., exceed those for the next in rank.

To take a topical example, Nadine Dorries won her Mid Bedfordshire seat with a reported majority of 24,664. Dorries garnered 38,692 votes, her nearest competitor won 14,028 votes, and the difference is reported as the majority. We ignore the rest of the votes.

This leads to some oddities. For example, in the 2005 election, Dorries won 23,345 votes—that was 11,355 more votes than her nearest competitor. She therefore won a ‘majority’ of 11,355. Yet, a much larger number of votes—27,075—were for other candidates. Like many candidates, Dorries therefore simultaneously won a minority of the votes, yet secured a stonking five-figure majority.

This weird convention makes sense in terms of the numbers it prioritises. A government with a healthy majority can command increased confidence in its ability to pass legislation. Similarly, a legislator with a health majority can command increased confidence in their re-election prospects. It makes little difference how far ahead the government is compared to the official opposition, and it makes little difference how far ahead (or not) the legislator is versus the entire field of opponents.

But, blimey, how have I lived for thirty-eight years without noticing this quirk?

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.

I was tickled this week when I noticed that Donald Trump’s supporters were selling merchandise with his mugshot on it, with the text “never surrender”. The juxtaposition of a photograph of someone taken as part of the process of surrendering with an exhortation never to do so was simply too much.

But then I came to understand that the Trump campaign itself was selling this merchandise… and it became a lot less amusing.

I sometimes have reflective moments when I wonder whether I’m too critical of politicians: after all, I wouldn’t want to be one, so it seems a bit petulant to be critical of those who do step forward.

It’s in that spirit that I’m choosing to assume that Grant Shapps is genuinely the best person in the country to have held no fewer than five Cabinet positions in the last twelve months:

• Secretary of State for Transport
• Home Secretary
• Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
• Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
• Secretary of State for Defence

There may be those who say he is the ‘Minister for the Today Programme’, a useful mouthpiece who will repeat whatever lines he is given while in front of a microphone. He is, they say, being promoted in a ‘jobs for friends’ culture of rewarding loyalty.

I’m choosing not to believe that. I’m choosing to believe that he is a multi-talented superstar politician able to turn his hand to anything from boats to power stations to aircraft carriers as the moment demands.

Our nation is lucky to have him.

Le Monde had a great editorial on Friday about the UK government’s attitude to asylum seekers. Its conclusion:

In the UK, as in other countries such as France, debates on immigration are in urgent need of candor, especially in light of labor shortages. The UK, far from being “overrun,” as Braverman claims, registers far fewer asylum seekers than France or Germany. London suffers from a lack of efficiency in processing applications, 166,000 of which are pending. Brexit has led the British to deprive themselves of European coordination tools, and to a policy that favors migrants from distant countries over Europeans.

As for the real ways of managing migration, they mainly involve improving European cooperation policies and our relations with the countries of origin. Unless they have the courage to speak the truth, the leaders of developed countries risk continuing to put on, like Sunak, a pernicious show of powerlessness.

I find it hard to disagree with a word of that. The government’s profound lack of seriousness is hard to fathom at the best of times, but becomes uniquely distressing when applied to the treatment of vulnerable people literally fleeing for their lives.

It’s also hard to imagine any of the editorials of the British press focusing on the substantive issue, as Le Monde has done, if the ‘fuck off to France’ shoe had been on the French foot.

Yesterday, I felt sad as I read Tom Nichols’s response to the indictment of Donald Trump in The Atlantic Daily, particularly the following parts.

The rest of us, as a nation but also as individuals, can no longer indulge the pretense that Trump is just another Republican candidate, that supporting Donald Trump is just another political choice, and that agreeing with Trump’s attacks on our democracy is just a difference of opinion.

We can no longer merely roll our eyes when an annoying uncle rhapsodizes about stolen elections. We should not gently ask our parents if perhaps we might change the channel from Fox during dinner. We are not obligated to gingerly change the subject when an old friend goes on about “Demonrats” or the dire national-security implications around Hunter Biden’s genitalia. Enough of all this; we can love our friends and our family and our neighbors without accepting their terms of debate. To support Trump is to support sedition and violence, and we must be willing to speak this truth not only to power but to our fellow citizens.

Every American citizen who cares about the Constitution should affirm, without hesitation, that any form of association with Trump is reprehensible, that each of us will draw moral conclusions about anyone who continues to support him, and that these conclusions will guide both our political and our personal choices.

This is painful advice to give and to follow. No one, including me, wants to lose friends or chill valued relationships over so small a man as Trump. But our democracy is about to go into legal and electoral battle for its own survival. If we don’t speak up—to one another, as well as to the media and to our elected officials—and Trump defeats us all by regaining power and making a mockery of American democracy, then we’ll all have lost a lot more than a few friendships.

Firstly, how can it possibly be that one of the tied favourites to win the next US Presidential election can be someone involved in a conspiracy which contemplated deploying the American military against its own people? How the hell did we end up here? How did the US elect someone like that in the first place? Why isn’t the idea of re-electing that person unthinkable? What does this mean for the future of the USA? What does this mean for the future of democracy?

Secondly, should we really be worried? Democracy and the constitution passed the stiff test posed by Donald Trump the last time; ought we not to be confident that the same tactics will fail a second time? Should we really be that threatened by someone contemplating something awful, but deciding not to do it? Isn’t the outcome more important than the contemplation? Is Trump really a threat to democracy, or is he just a very naughty boy?

Thirdly, isn’t it depressing that the ‘threat to democracy’ that Nichols cites has become such a common refrain? Not from Nichols, not even really from The Atlantic, but from—well—everywhere? The New York Times has used the phrase 590 times. The Times of London has used it 155 times. Even the bloody Financial Times has used it 216 times. Some of these uses are legitimate references others are not. Even as long ago as 2006, the transfer of ownership of ITV was called a “threat to democracy”—it wasn’t one. There’s no space left to amp up the rhetoric. Rage sells, and anger drives online engagement. The media hit peak rage too soon. The papers have cried ‘wolf’ once too often. And it means that if and when there’s a real threat to democracy, the rage and anger and language is just the same as when the threat was little more than tepid air. We need the reasonable voices, the ones willing to say “there’s nothing to see here”, “this isn’t a crisis”, and “it’s more complicated than that”—but they’re drowned out, because calm rationality is boring.

Fourthly, does the failure of journalism explain the failure of democracy? Can democracy survive without reliable information? Or in an environment where reliable information is drowned out by hysterics? And is there any route to improving any of this in the current environment? Or are we in a complete spiral of doom?

The image at the top of this post was generated by Midjourney.