It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Fungus lost to science for 42 years found again in Chilean mountains
The big puma fungus hasn't been seen since it was discovered in 1982 in Chile’s Nahuelbuta mountains – now an expedition has finally rediscovered these tiny, elusive mushrooms
22 May 2024
Mushrooms of the big puma fungus found in Chile more than 40 years after their last sighting
Fungi Foundation
A tiny, elusive mushroom native to Chile’s mountains has been found again, more than 40 years since its only recorded sighting in 1982.
In the early 1980s, mycologist Norberto Garrido collected more than 200 species of fungi during expeditions to the mountainous forests of southern Chile. Among Garrido’s haul was a previously unknown fungus that he called the big puma fungus (Austroomphaliaster nahuelbutensis) after the region in which it was found, the Nahuelbuta mountain range, which means the big puma range in the local Mapadungun language.
Garrido formally described the fungus in 1988, highlighting its unique grey-brown colour with a hint of red. The cap of its mushrooms has a slight depression in the middle and white gills underneath. Each one stands around 4 to 5 centimetres tall and the stems are thicker at the base.
“It is the only species of fungi in its genus,” says Daniela Torres at the Fungi Foundation in Chile. “So that makes it very special.”
The big puma fungus hadn’t been officially spotted since its discovery more than four decades ago and was thought to be lost to science. So Torres and her colleagues set out to find it again.
Sir Ed Davey: The leader hoping to end the Lib Dem wilderness years
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey (Joe Giddens/PA)
By Gavin Cordon, PA
Today
Doggedly determined Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has spent much of his life struggling to overcome setbacks and adversity.
Having risen to become a cabinet minister in David Cameron’s Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, he suffered the humiliation of losing his Commons seat when his party suffered a near wipeout in the 2015 general election.
His first attempt at the party leadership ended in defeat when he was well-beaten by Jo Swinson – by a majority of almost two to one – in the 2019 contest to succeed Sir Vince Cable.
(PA Graphics)
More recently his efforts to lift the Lib Dems out of the political doldrums, where they have languished for most of the last decade, have been hit by disclosures over his role as minister amid the Post Office Horizon IT scandal.
From early childhood Sir Ed became accustomed to adversity, losing his father when he was just four, followed by the death of his mother from cancer when he was 15.
Along with his two brothers, he found himself thrust into the role of unpaid carer during her final illness – a role he was to repeat first for his grandmother and then, years later, with his wife Emily when their first child John was born severely disabled.
Sir Ed Davey on the campaign trail (Andrew Matthews/PA)
Difficulties at home, however, did not stop him excelling academically, becoming head boy at the fee-paying Nottingham High School and winning a place at Jesus College, Oxford, where he got a first in philosophy, politics and economics.
Having worked for the Lib Dems as an economics researcher, at the age of 31 he entered Parliament at the first attempt, taking the Tory-held seat of Surbiton at the 1997 general election.
He later admitted his victory, by a margin of just 56 votes, had come as something of a shock and that he had been banking on another five years as a management consultant before committing to a full-time career in politics.
At Westminster, he was associated with the “Orange Book” group of Lib Dems – including future leader Sir Nick Clegg – who argued for an economically liberal, free market approach to dealing with social problems, to the consternation of some on the left of the party.
Sir Ed Davey with then-Lib Dem leader Sir Nick Clegg (Steve Parsons/PA)
He was an outspoken critic of what he described as the “nanny state” policies of the Labour government to ban all smoking in pubs and to impose new restrictions on gambling machines.
More widely he made a mark tabling the clause which repealed Section 28 – the Thatcher-era law banning the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools.
Having held a series of frontbench posts under Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell, he was given the foreign affairs brief by Sir Nick when he became leader in 2007.
His argumentative streak surfaced when he was suspended from the Commons for a day for contesting a ruling by the Speaker excluding a Lib Dem motion calling for a referendum on the UK staying in the EU (which they supported).
When the Lib Dems joined the Conservatives in forming a coalition following the 2010 general election, he entered government in the relatively lowly position of a junior business minister.
However when fellow Lib Dem Chris Huhne was forced to resign for illegally dodging speeding points, Sir Ed was promoted to the cabinet as energy and climate change secretary.
Sir Ed Davey celebrates the Lib Dem by-election victory in the Tory ‘blue wall’ seat of Chesham and Amersham (Steve Parsons/PA)
In that role, he championed the expansion of both renewables and nuclear to reduce carbon emissions as well as foreign investment in the UK energy sector by countries such as China.
He was so vigorous in his support for deregulation and energy market liberalisation that even one Tory minister complained that he was “a bit right wing for me”.
When, in the 2015 general election, the Lib Dems paid the price for their support for the Conservatives – losing all but eight of their seats – Sir Ed was among the high-profile casualties.
As consolation, he accepted a knighthood.
His return, however, was swift, regaining his seat – which had been redrawn as Kingston and Surbiton – in the 2017 election on another otherwise disappointing night for the Lib Dems.
He chose not to run in the ensuing leadership contest, citing family reasons, but following the resignation of Sir Vince two years later he threw his hat in the ring only to lose out to Ms Swinson.
When she too quit following the Lib Dems’ “high-speed car crash” of a campaign in the 2019 general election, Sir Ed was by far the most experienced contender to succeed her, beating Layla Moran by a similar margin to that by which he had been defeated in the previous contest.
He has benefited from the turmoil which has engulfed the Conservative Party, with the Lib Dems notching up an impressive series of by-election victories in hitherto safe Tory “blue wall” constituencies.
Sir Ed Davey (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
He suffered a knockback however when he was criticised by Alan Bates, who led the campaign for justice for sub-postmasters wrongly convicted in the Horizon scandal, for initially refusing to meet him when he was business minister with responsibility for postal affairs.
The disclosure led to calls from Tory MPs for the Lib Dem leader – who has never been slow in calling for others to quit – to stand down and to hand back his knighthood.
The Lib Dems insist it is unfair for him to be singled out in this way, arguing that he was only one of a series of postal ministers, from all three main parties, to hold office over the course of the scandal.
Sir Ed himself has apologised for failing to see through the Post Office’s “lies” but complained that he, like other ministers, was deceived “on an industrial scale”.
With his eyes set firmly on restoring the Lib Dems as a serious political force at Westminster, he will be hoping such controversies do not dent his chances. Election means early test for Swinney weeks after becoming First Minister
The general election will mark an early electoral test for John Swinney – who only returned as SNP leader earlier in May (Andrew Milligan/PA) By Katrine Bussey, PA Scotland Political EditorToday at 10:30
Labour seems to be the party best placed to make gains in Scotland in the general election.
New SNP leader and First Minister John Swinney has vowed to work to get his party into a winning position, but pollsters have warned he faces a “major uphill task”.
The Westminster election will therefore mark an early test for Mr Swinney – who only took over as leader of his party earlier this month, returning for a second shot at the job.
(PA Graphics)
The SNP has for so long been the dominant force in politics north of the border, but a recent YouGov poll put Labour, led in Scotland by Anas Sarwar, 10 points ahead.
In the last general election in December 2019, Scots returned just one Labour MP – down from seven – with Ian Murray holding on to his Edinburgh South seat.
Since then, support for Labour has been on the rise, with the research by YouGov earlier in May putting the party’s share of the vote in Scotland at 39% – up five points from its April poll.
Analysis suggests that could see Labour, which currently has two Scottish MPs, win 35 seats north of the border.
Labour’s hopes of electoral success under Anas Sarwar, right, were boosted when Michael Shanks won the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election in October (Jane Barlow/PA)
With support for the SNP said to be down to 29%, its tally of MPs could fall to 11.
That would represent a massive drop in representation at Westminster for the party, which at the peak of its success won all but three of the constituencies north of the border.
That was the result in 2015, when the SNP swept the board in Scotland, winning 56 of the 59 seats up for grabs, leaving Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories with just a single MP each.
Their electoral dominance has continued in Scotland since then – though subsequent election results have seen the party fail to achieve such stratospheric success.
John Swinney, right, only became First Minister earlier this month (PA)
In the December 2019 election, the SNP won 48 of the Scottish 59 seats, however defections and the loss of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat in a by-election mean it currently has 43 MPs.
Labour won Rutherglen with a swing of just over 20% from the SNP, boosting the party’s hopes it can once again send a significant number of Scottish MPs to Westminster.
Boundary changes mean that when Scots go to the polls, they will elect 57 MPs, down from 59.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems also believe they can make gains in Scotland at the SNP’s expense.
In 2019, the Lib Dems won just four seats in Scotland, with then UK leader Jo Swinson losing her Dunbartonshire East constituency to the SNP.
But under the leadership of Sir Ed Davey at UK level and Alex Cole-Hamilton in Scotland, the party is targeting success again, focusing efforts on local councillor Susan Murray’s bid to win the Mid Dunbartonshire seat.
Liberal Democrats also hope they can gain from the SNP in the Highlands, with the party seeking success in the Lochaber, Skye and Wester Ross seat – an area previously represented by former Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy before he lost his seat to Ian Blackford of the SNP in 2015.
Pollsters have warned Nicola Sturgeon ‘and everything her time in power is now associated with will continue to hang over’ the SNP (PA)
Mr Blackford is one of a number of prominent SNP MPs who are quitting the Commons, with current SNP Westminster deputy leader Mhairi Black stepping down, along with former SNP depute leader Stewart Hosie and Philippa Whitford, who has served as the party’s health spokeswoman.
Earlier this month, Chris Hopkins, political research director at pollsters Savanta, warned of the “major uphill task” Mr Swinney faces going into the election.
Mr Hopkins said: “While our research suggests that the SNP continues to have a solid base, they’re likely to fall quite far from the 43 seats they currently hold at the next general election, as things stand.
“Even if Swinney can begin to turn things around, the spectre of Sturgeon and everything her time in power is now associated with will continue to hang over the party and hamper any recovery.”
Humza Yousaf, who stepped down as first minister and SNP leader earlier in May, had already cited the Police Scotland investigation into the party’s finances as one reason why the SNP lost the Rutherglen by-election in October last year.
Since then Ms Sturgeon’s record as first minister has come under further scrutiny, with confirmation that she deleted WhatsApp messages during the Covid pandemic, sparking criticism.
With the election also taking place during the school holidays – most schools in Scotland finish for the summer at the end of June – parties will also be concerned about the impact this could have on voter turnout.
General election 2024: Read first Keir Starmer speech and key messages of Labour campaign to ‘turn the page’
Keir Starmer 22nd May, 2024
Tonight the Prime Minister has finally announced the next General Election.
A moment the country needs – and has been waiting for. And where, by the force of our democracy power returns to you.
A chance to change for the better. Your future. Your community. Your country.
It will feel like a long campaign – I’m sure of that. But no matter what else is said and done. That opportunity for change is what this election is about.
Over the course of the last four years – we have changed the Labour Party. Returned it once more to the service of working people.
All we ask now – humbly – is to do exactly the same for our country. And return Britain to the service of working people. To that purpose.
We offer three reasons why you should change Britain with Labour.
One – because we will stop the chaos.
Look around our country. The sewage in our rivers. People waiting on trolleys in A&E. Crime virtually unpunished. Mortgages and food prices – through the roof.
It’s all – every bit of it – a direct result of the Tory chaos in Westminster.
Time and again, they pursue their own interests. Rather than tackling the issues that affect your family.
And if they get another five years, they will feel entitled to carry on exactly as they are. Nothing will change.
A vote for Labour is a vote for stability – economic and political. A politics that treads more lightly on all our lives. A vote to stop the chaos.
Two – because it’s time for change.
Our offer is to reset both our economy and our politics.
So that they once again serve the interests of working people.
We totally reject the Tory view that economic strength is somehow gifted from those at the top.
Over the past fourteen years – through all the crises we have had to face – sticking with this idea has left our country exposed, insecure and unable to unlock the potential of every community.
But a vote for Labour is a vote to turn the page on all that. A vote for change.
And finally, three – because we have a long-term plan to rebuild Britain. A plan that is ready to go. Fully-costed and fully funded.
We can deliver economic stability. Cut the NHS waiting times. Secure our borders with a New Border Security Command.
Harness Great British Energy to cut your bills for good. Tackle anti-social behaviour.
And get the teachers we need in your children’s classroom.
But most of importantly of all, we do all this with a new spirit of service.
Country first, party second.
A rejection of the gesture politics you will see in this campaign, I have no doubt from the Tories and from the SNP.
I am well aware of the cynicism people hold towards politicians at the moment.
But I came into politics late, having served our country as leader of the Crown Prosecution Service.
And I helped the Police Service in Northern Ireland to gain the consent of all communities.
Service of our country is the reason – and the only reason – why I am standing here now – asking for your vote.
And I believe with patience, determination and that commitment to service there is so much pride and potential we can unlock across our country.
So – here it is – the future of the country – in your hands.
On 4th July you have the choice. And together, we can stop the chaos.
We can turn the page. We can start to rebuild Britain. And change our country.
Sir Keir Starmer: The one-time ‘lefty lawyer’ with his eye on No 10
Sir Keir Starmer (Stefan Rousseau/PA) By Gavin Cordon, PAToday at 10:36
Three years ago Sir Keir Starmer seriously considered throwing in the towel after seeing Labour crash to a humiliating defeat in the Hartlepool by-election.
A little more than a year into the job as party leader, even allies were questioning whether he had what it took to return them to power after the Tories romped home in the formerly safe Labour stronghold.
The setback was compounded by a series of losses in council elections taking place in England the same day.
The Blairite former minister Lord Adonis suggested he was no more than a “transitional figure” without the “political skills” needed to make it to the top while critics on the left were openly gloating.
Sir Keir Starmer emerges from his home following the Hartlepool by-election. He considered quitting following Labour’s defeat (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
Badly bruised by the result, having made repeated visits to campaign in the constituency – “I felt like I had been kicked in the guts” – he told aides that it was a “personal rejection” and he had to go.
In his hour of darkness, his wife, Victoria, was among those who rallied round and persuaded him to carry on.
Having pulled round from that “near-death experience”, and dragged his party back to the brink of electability in the process, he is now preparing for the final push that could see him become the UK’s next prime minister.
But while his trademark grey quiff has become a fixture at Prime Minister’s Questions, he remains in the eyes of many voters an unknown quantity who has yet to define what he truly stands for.
An avid football fan – he is an Arsenal season ticket holder – he may now be challenging for the top honours, but like the team he supports he has struggled to shed the “boring” tag.
A one-time “lefty lawyer” from north London, he has been depicted by opponents as the epitome of a self-satisfied liberal metropolitan elite, remote from the concerns of ordinary voters.
However he grew up in very different circumstances sharing a cramped, ramshackle “pebble-dash semi” with three siblings and a mother who was seriously ill for much of his childhood.
Keir Starmer when he was the director of public prosecutions (Lewis Whyld/PA)
When he stood for leader in the aftermath of Labour’s crushing 2019 general election defeat, he ran on a leftish platform with commitments to renationalise water and energy and scrapping university tuition fees.
He has since been accused of systematically abandoning his principles, dropping key policies one by one, as he has tacked steadily to the right.
To his supporters, he is a pragmatist utterly focused on taking Labour back to power, believing real change cannot be achieved from the impotence of opposition.
And while some on the left have cried betrayal, his critics in the party have been largely sidelined as it recovered to establish a commanding lead in the opinion polls.
A late entrant to politics after a high-flying legal career – including a five-year stint as director of public prosecutions – Sir Keir has seemed to some too “lawyerly” and buttoned up to connect with voters.
His friends insist that such a characterisation is unfair, saying that in private he is warm and engaging, whether propping up the bar, pint in hand, at his local or cooking a meal at home with his family.
A recent biography by journalist and former Labour spin doctor Tom Baldwin cast new light on his apparent reticence in public, describing a difficult childhood growing up in straitened circumstances in the Surrey commuter-belt town of Oxted.
Sir Keir Starmer with Jeremy Corbyn during the 2019 General Election campaign (Jonathan Brady/PA)
Named after the first Labour leader, Keir Hardie, his father, Rodney, was a toolmaker and his mother, Jo, an NHS nurse who suffered from a rare condition which left her with a debilitating form of rheumatoid arthritis normally associated with someone much older.
In constant pain, it meant that for much of his childhood she was in and out of hospital – an experience that was to have a profound effect on him.
At the same time his younger brother, Nick, suffered from learning difficulties, leading to fights at school as Keir and his sisters sought to defend him from bullies.
His father meanwhile was a distant, uncommunicative figure who banned the children from listening to pop music or watching TV shows such as Tiswas or Starsky And Hutch and who hated Margaret Thatcher.
It was only after Rodney died and he discovered a scrapbook of press cuttings he kept chronicling his career that the adult Sir Keir finally understood the pride his father had taken in his achievements.
Difficulties at home did not stop him doing well at school – passing the 11-plus to gain a place at Reigate Grammar School, while his prowess at sport and music earned him the nickname “Superboy” from his siblings.
Sir Keir Starmer demonstrates his football skills during a campaign visit to Glasgow (John Linton/PA)
Determined to break away from his small town background, he won a place at Leeds studying law – a course chosen largely to please his parents – making him the first member of his family to go university.
He drove there in a battered Morris Minor, paid for by a summer spent “punching holes in metal” for his father.
He was at times uncomfortable in his new surrounds – while fellow students talked knowledgeably about which branch of the profession they hoped to follow, he realised he had never even met a lawyer and had little idea of what they did.
Typically he responded by simply working harder than anyone else, his efforts being rewarded with a first honours and a place at Oxford on a postgraduate degree course in civil law.
He was also becoming increasingly involved in politics, helping run Socialist Alternatives, an obscure Trotskyite magazine, and writing articles earnestly proclaiming Karl Marx was “of course” right over the way to achieve real societal change.
After being called to the bar in 1987, three years later he was among an idealistic group of progressive lawyers who formed the Doughty Street chambers, specialising in human rights with half their cases either paid for by legal aid or free of charge.
Mr Starmer, as he then still was, was soon involved in advising the so-called McLibel Two, a pair of environmental activists who famously took on McDonald’s in a marathon David v Goliath defamation case.
He also made repeated trips to Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean and Africa to represent defendants facing the death penalty, work which helped win him a “QC of the year” award, and drew up legal arguments against the Blair government’s 2005 invasion of Iraq.
At the same time, he belied the conventional “lefty lawyer” image by serving as an adviser to the Association of Chief Police Officers and newly formed Northern Ireland Policing Board, and in 2008 he was appointed director of public prosecutions.
Sir Keir Starmer and deputy leader Angela Rayner (Danny Lawson/PA)
The Tories are reported to have compiled a dossier on his time at the Crown Prosecution Service with a view to embarrassing him during the election campaign, although his supporters remain confident he has nothing to fear.
In 2022 Boris Johnson was forced to row back on a claim that Sir Keir failed to prosecute Jimmy Savile for child sex abuse after even some Tories were angered at the then prime minister’s attempt to make political capital of the issue.
Among the notable decisions he was involved in were the charging of cabinet minister Chris Huhne for seeking to evade speeding points and the fast-track prosecutions of offenders following the 2011 riots in London and other English cities.
It was only after his term of office – for which he was awarded a knighthood – came to an end in 2013 that he turned seriously to politics.
In 2015 he was elected MP for the safe Labour seat of Holborn and St Pancras only to see the party suffer its second general election defeat in a row.
He was made a shadow home office minister by new leader Jeremy Corbyn, but was among a wave of frontbenchers to resign in the wake of the tumultuous aftermath of the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU.
After Mr Corbyn saw off the ensuing leadership challenge, Sir Keir – an ardent Remainer – agreed to return to the fold as shadow Brexit secretary.
Pressed subsequently by Tories about why he had done so when he had discarded so much of Mr Corbyn’s left-wing agenda, he claimed he had a duty to help mitigate the effects of withdrawal, fighting to keep open the option of a second referendum.
Sir Keir Starmer with his wife, Victoria, following his 2021 Labour Party conference speech in Brighton (Andrew Matthews/PA)
Not all were convinced by such arguments, but his stance did nothing to damage his prospects within the party.
Following Mr Corbyn’s resignation after leading Labour to its worst result in more than 80 years in the 2019 election – fought on Mr Johnson’s pledge to “get Brexit done” – Sir Keir quickly emerged as the overwhelming favourite to replace him.
One of his first pledges on being elected leader was to rid the party of the “stain” of antisemitism which had taken hold under his predecessor.
He soon revealed a ruthless streak when Mr Corbyn complained that a damning report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission had overstated the problem by sacking him from the Parliamentary Labour Party – an ultimate act of distancing.
His start as Labour leader was overshadowed by the Covid pandemic while the party’s rise in the polls has owed much to the Tories’ implosion, first with Mr Johnson and the “partygate” scandal and then Liz Truss’s calamitous whirlwind premiership.
His allies however insist that credit must also go to his forensic examination of Mr Johnson’s handling of the pandemic and the reassurance he was able to offer in response to the financial chaos created by Ms Truss.
After the nadir of Hartlepool, he has systematically strengthened his grip, with a string of by-election victories while steadily moving to claim the political centre ground, promoting a clutch of Blairites in last year’s shadow cabinet reshuffle.
His hold over the party was underlined by the relatively muted response to his decision finally to drop a flagship £28 billion “green” investment pledge, seen as too easy a target for Tory claims of Labour fiscal profligacy.
If that seemed to some overly cautious, the biggest challenge he has had to face in recent months has come from the war in Gaza, which prompted a series of frontbench sackings and dismissals over his reluctance to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Away from Westminster, Sir Keir’s passion for football runs deep: at the age of 61 he continues to organise and play in regular eight-a-side matches with a group of old north London friends.
On the pitch, he is described as a highly competitive, box-to-box, midfield dynamo: his supporters will be hoping that he has the drive to propel him all the way to No 10.
Rishi Sunak’s summer election call is suicide for the Tories
Calling an early election is an admission of defeat — and that, on everything from public finances to public services, the worst is yet to come
When Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, told the House of Commons that “there is going to be a general election in the second half of this year,” nervous Tory members spotted a problem: that could mean the Fourth of July, which the prime minister has now announced will be the election date.
Calling an early election is an admission of defeat — and that, on everything from public finances to public services, the worst is yet to come
With every opinion poll pointing to a Labour landslide, it’s unclear what the prime minister is seeking to gain…
With every opinion poll pointing to a Labour landslide, it’s unclear what the prime minister is seeking to gain by a summer poll — unless he has given up hope of victory. Calling an early election is an admission of defeat — and that, on everything from public finances to public services, the worst is yet to come.
To be sure, holding the line until November would have been tricky. The Tory Party is in demonstrable disarray. Every week there have been rumors either of a new defection to the Labour Party or a freshly brewed scandal. Some Tory members are already taking new jobs, being unable to bring themselves to wait for the last few months of this political torture. Displays of sleaze and selfishness serve to throw more mud on the conservatives’ reputation. Sunak’s approval rating, meanwhile, is lower than that of almost any prime minister since records began.
Many Conservative members think that the choice of the next election is between a defeat that is survivable (that is to say about 200 Tory Members of Parliament down from the current 344) and one that could be an extinction-level event (close to fifty). Gallows humor is now the main force sustaining the Tory tea rooms, with more seasoned campaigners quoting Tennyson (“Into the valley of death rode the six hundred”) and would-be Tory opposition leaders openly canvassing support.
When Sunak became prime minister, he had hoped that the Tories would by now have narrowed the opinion poll gap to about ten percentage points — at which stage the race would be (as he put it) “contestable.” He had hoped that his presence in No. 10 would lower UK borrowing costs: this was not to be. He had hoped that the national health agency’s waiting lists would be falling fast by now: this has not happened either. He had hoped Labour would self-immolate, but Keir Starmer has proved to be resilient.
So why, then, wait for a November election? Because there are, even now, credible grounds for believing that things will seem better by then. Net migration will start falling fast as the tighter visa regime kicks in — with the number of visas for study and skills down 25 percent year-on-year. But this will only become clear when the figures are collated in the fall. The obvious story at the moment is of a party that “took back control” of the borders via Brexit, only to promptly lose control of them again.
The National Health Service’s waiting list — 7.5 million at the last count — is expected to fall below 6 million by the end of this year and to a ten-year low by the end of next year. But again, this success — the result of extra NHS capacity — will only be apparent in the fall as the effect of the junior doctors’ strikes will take time to unwind. A summer election means that the official line on the NHS appears to be one of unmitigated failure.
Then we have the cost of living. With inflation fast heading back to the 2 percent target, the average salary is now rising faster than the CPI index. This means that the long contraction in living standards is finally over – and the prediction is that they will steadily rise over the next four years at least. But none of this is, to put it mildly, evident at present. It wouldn’t have been much more so in a November general election, but at least there would have been some positive data to point towards.
How much do people trust the Conservative Party now, after the mayhem of the last few years and with the largest tax burden in living memory?
The prime minister may yet succeed in deporting failed asylum seekers to Rwanda — stranger things have happened — but that won’t happen for several weeks. To call an election now means Sunak seeming to have failed to deliver on his promise to “stop the boats:” there have been more arrivals so far this year than in any other. Even if he does manage to outwit the campaigners and send a flight to Rwanda, any effect on refugee numbers will take months to be noticeable. The Labour Party will have no shortage of sticks with which to beat him.
There could be a deeper problem for Sunak: the country has stopped listening to the Tories. This happened to John Major, who engineered a strong and long-lasting economic revival only to find that it was, as he put it, a “voteless recovery.” Perhaps the biggest question when the general election comes will be: how much do people trust the Conservative Party now, after the mayhem of the last few years and with the largest tax burden in living memory?
Sunak has positioned himself as a results-based prime minister: more perspiration than inspiration, perhaps, but someone who can nonetheless be relied on to get things done. As he put it when he released his five pledges: “We’re either delivering for you or we’re not.” To call a summer election before he has anything to substantiate any claim of having “delivered” is a concession of defeat. That is why the best option would have been to wait and hold a November election: not because it would be enough to save the Tories, but as the least bad option.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
Sunak’s election announcement sounded more like a rueful farewell
He struggled to summon more than a sense of readiness for the last battle
‘The news of a snap election, which reached me via a special adviser’s gossip network in the morning, seemed to take a lot of Sunak’s closest Cabinet by surprise’ (Photo: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The weather gods had not received the No 10 message that sunlit uplands awaited if the election, abruptly called for 4 July, were to to produce a continuation of Tory government. The Prime Minister’s suit glistened with a sheen of falling rain. That sleek Sunak hair was soon as wet as a riverbank otter’s fur.
An alfresco announcement may turn out to have been the first bad call of the upcoming election campaign. It is hard to sound confident and decisive while sopping wet.
Keir Starmer, by contrast, had been hustled into a wood-panelled room, flanked by two union flags – just in case anyone doubted Labour’s reburnished patriotism credentials.
It was just over four years ago, Sunak reminded us, that he had first entered Downing Street as Chancellor, before a lot of rumination about his personal journey from there to prime minister. The problem with this was that it sounded like a rehearsal for a proud but rueful farewell speech: lots of self-exculpation with “who would have thought?” rhetorical questions about the impacts of the Ukraine crisis and the trials of the pandemic.
It did not feel like a speech crafted over weeks of thought – and indeed, the news of a snap election, which reached me via a special adviser’s gossip network in the morning, also seemed to take a lot of Sunak’s closest Cabinet by surprise too. The Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron, a close confidante in the past months, was whisked back from Albania and ministers were told to drop travel and show up for a special cabinet at 4pm.
The net effect of this has been to upend Sunak’s reputation as a steady hand. He now has to prove his instincts in gambling on an early vote. He has two key arguments to wield. The economy is picking up, based on a healthy fall in the inflation rate announced this morning and a decent first quarter for the UK economy. These can be deployed against the “things are only getting worse” narrative of Keir Starmer’s attack, though voters have not had time to feel much relief in their bank accounts.
The second is the scare tactic – namely that the world is in too dangerous a spot to risk a Labour government, and that beneath the surface, the Opposition has more uncertainty about its approach to matters from the nuclear deterrent to how to handle an unstable Middle East.
There are really only two fundamental arguments in a campaign – “time for a change” and “don’t risk upheaval”. The problem with this parsing, as Starmer noted, was that Conservatives have delivered a lot of over-eventfulness, without much sense of betterment to follow.
If Sunak has “stop the boats” as his calling card, Labour has “stop the chaos”.
The hardest challenge for leaders can be establishing themselves in the public mind as a figure that can feel comfortable with as Prime Minister. In that sense, both of them are novices – neither has a long track record at the top of politics.
Sunak now has to bank all on a negative campaign against the jeopardy of a Labour government to have a fighting chance of exiting the doldrums.
For that reason, expect things to get rough, with more personal jousting as soon as the main campaign swings into action. Both of them have have vulnerabilities. Labour does need a very decisive swing to emerge with a solid mandate. Conservatives, including the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will be all too aware that a seat with a majority of just under 9,000 now feels very unsafe indeed. This is an election which will change many personal fates and a very different parliament is likely to be the result.
Having watched Sunak often speak with energy and earnestness, my sense was that he was struggling to summon more than a sense of readiness for the last battle.
There was one mildly exciting attempt to bring a bit of game-show pizazz to the proceedings: “One of us will be your Prime Minister on July the fifth.” With that thought hanging in the air, the rain kept on coming.
Anne McElvoy is host of the Power Play podcast for POLITICO
Echoes of Clement Attlee with first July election since 1945
The Labour party gained a 145-seat majority in 1945. CLEMENT ATTLEE (PA) PA ARCHIVE
The last general election held in July saw a Labour landslide in which Clement Attlee swept to power to oust Winston Churchill after the end of Second World War hostilities in Europe.
The 1945 election – which took place on July 5 – came within two months of VE Day and initiated a political transformation that saw the creation of the NHS and the building of social housing.
Parliament was dissolved only three weeks before Britons went to the polls, in contrast to the six weeks to go until July 4 this year.
The Labour Party gained a 145-seat majority and the Liberal Party leader, Archibald Sinclair, lost his seat.
Clement Attlee, the Labour MP for Limehouse who replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister, introduced sweeping reforms such as the nationalisation of public utilities and the formation of the National Health Service.
A new generation of MPs who came to define 20th century British politics entered Parliament, including James Callaghan, Michael Foot and Harold Wilson.
A bad omen for Rishi? The last time a general election was held in July was in 1945... when Clement Attlee's Labour scored a landslide win over Winston Churchill's Tories
Rishi Sunak is sending the country to the polls for a general election in July for the first time since 1945.
The Prime Minister announced a contest for 4 July this year as he said it was 'the moment for Britain to choose its future'.
It means voters will head to polling stations across the UK almost exactly 79 years since the last time a general election was held in July.
But the 1945 contest holds few good omens for Mr Sunak, as the post-Second World War general election saw Labour secure a landslide win over the Tories.
The 1945 election - which took place on July 5 - came within two months of VE Day and initiated a political transformation that saw the creation of the NHS and the building of social housing.
The Prime Minister announced a contest for 4 July this year as he said it was 'the moment for Britain to choose its future'.
It means voters will head to polling stations across the UK almost exactly 79 years since the last time a general election was held in July. But the 1945 contest holds few good omens for Mr Sunak, as the post-Second World War general election saw Labour secure a landslide win over the Tories led by Winston Churchill.
Clement Attlee, the Labour MP for Limehouse who replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister, introduced sweeping reforms such as the nationalisation of public utilities and the formation of the National Health Service.
Parliament was dissolved only three weeks before Britons went to the polls, in contrast to the six weeks to go until July 4 this year.
The Labour Party gained a 145-seat majority and the Liberal Party leader, Archibald Sinclair, lost his seat. The Conservatives lost 189 seats.
Clement Attlee, the Labour MP for Limehouse who replaced Winston Churchill as prime minister, introduced sweeping reforms such as the nationalisation of public utilities and the formation of the National Health Service.
A new generation of MPs who came to define 20th century British politics entered Parliament, including James Callaghan, Michael Foot and Harold Wilson.
Starmer needs to outdo Blair to win majority
as new boundaries make task harder
The remodelled constituencies would have given the
Conservatives a bigger majority in 2019 than they achieved.
Sir Keir Starmer will need a bigger swing than Sir Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide to win a majority at the General Election, with his task made more difficult by changes to constituency boundaries.
The Labour leader will have to achieve a swing of 12.7 points from the Conservatives to become prime minister – larger than the 10.2 point swing that brought New Labour to power in 1997 and more than double the swing at any other election since 1945.
His task will be made harder by the impact of the boundary changes, the first since 2010, which are intended to ensure that constituencies have similar numbers of voters. Sunak’s majority
This has left Rishi Sunak defending a notional majority of 94, compared with the 80-seat margin actually secured by the Conservatives in 2019 – although this has subsequently been chipped away at by by-election defeats.
Labour's 'plan to change the country' < >
The new parliamentary constituencies were drawn up by the permanent and independent Boundary Commissions for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and fewer than 12 per cent of the 650 Commons seats were left untouched.
The boundary changes give Mr Sunak’s hopes a modest boost, analysis by election experts Professors Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher suggests, after they compiled notional results for what would have happened at the last general election in 2019 had it been fought on the new constituencies.
“Broadly speaking this reflects a pattern where the East, South East and South West of England have gained seats reflecting the increase in electorates, and Wales has lost them, following the implementation of the new rules,” the academics said. Net gain for the Conservatives
According to the analysis, the Conservatives would have made a net gain of seven seats from the new boundaries; Labour a net loss of two seats, the Liberal Democrats three and Plaid Cymru two.
The changes mean England is allocated 543 seats, an increase of 10; Wales will have 32 seats, a reduction of eight; Scotland will have 57, down two; and Northern Ireland remains unchanged with 18.
Despite the cut in the number of seats in Scotland, the SNP remains on 48 seats, and there is no change in Northern Ireland, with the DUP on eight, Sinn Fein seven, SDLP on two and Alliance on one.
The four Boundary Commissions were obliged to ensure the new constituencies have an electorate within 5 per cent of 73,392, which is the total number of voters on March 2 2020 divided by 650, the number of Commons seats.
This gives all constituencies between 69,724 and 77,062 electors with just five “island seats” exempt – Orkney and Shetland, Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Western Islands) in Scotland, Ynys Mon (Anglesey) in North Wales, and the two seats allocated to the Isle of Wight.
The Conservatives won 365 seats in the snap 2019 December election, with Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour on 203, giving Boris Johnson a majority of 80, and 162 over Labour. 2019 general election
Following the 2019 election, a direct swing of seven percentage points from the Conservatives was needed for Labour to become the largest party in a hung parliament, and the boundary changes mean this rises to 8.3 percentage points.
For an overall majority, Sir Keir’s 12.7 point requirement is up from 12 on the old boundaries, and any uniform swing from the Tories to Labour greater than 4.2 and less than 12.7 is likely to produce a hung parliament.
However, focusing only on the direct swing between Conservatives and Labour makes the assumption there will be no change in the share votes cast for the other parties, which is highly unlikely to be true.
For instance, a 10-point swing from the SNP to Labour would give Sir Keir 15 gains under the new boundaries, easing his path to Downing Street, according to Professors Rallings and Thrasher.
They compiled their notional results on behalf of BBC News, ITV News, Sky News and the PA news agency.
