Meeting held on Wed 15th July 2026 at
Five people were present. Three sent their apologies.
We discussed the forthcoming by-election in Clacton which arises as a result of Farage resigning his seat and then standing in the consequential by-election. The other major parties have refused to put forward candidates which leaves Count Binface as his main competitor for the seat. The election will clearly be a farce. It is difficult to see how Farage can gain from the situation whatever the outcome, except that it will provide a distraction from the issue of Farage’s corruption regarding finances. It is becoming increasingly clear that Reform’s success is the consequence of massive funding from (mostly overseas) billionaires. Dale Vince has offered to fund Binface. According to opinion polls Reform is still in the lead although it seems that Farage’s personal ratings have dropped.
On Monday Burnham will become PM, at a difficult time. Despite it being said in many places that he lacks a clear set of policies, we felt that his political values had been made very clear by his record as Mayor of Manchester and what he has said about other matters (particuarly on foreign policy). We discussed ways in which he could fund the changes he wants to make by raising various forms of indirect taxation and reducing subsidies which benefit the rich, such as the pension fund contribution tax relief. It will be interesting to see if he really is able to redistribute some wealth from the rich to the poor (or indeed the majority).
Burnham has made it clear that he will lead a more open form of government in which the Whips have less control and policies are subject to open discussion.
Creating the kind of changes that Burnham has indicated will take time, but he clearly needs to show some progress quickly. This might be done by changing the ways in which immigration (a ‘problem’), education (job training), taxation (a bad thing), and so on are talked about in political circles, indicating a more humane approach.
Meanwhile Badenoch has taken steps to get rid of any Tory MPs who do not agree with her environmental policy of abandoning net zero, as she takes the Tories further to the right.
In this environment we need to bear in mind that if Farage’s reputation collapses as a result of the Clacton fiasco, the danger would be that Reform supporters (and MPs) could move to the Restore Party, even further to the right.
The next meeting will be on Wednesday August 15th