Mountebanks of Reform

Crashing out is becoming a habit for the leader of the Mountebanks

Back in January, the then Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, refused to allow Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester,  to stand in the Gorton and Denton by-election that was subsequently won by the Greens. He claimed it was to avoid an expensive and time-consuming by-election for the Mayor of Greater Manchester if Andy Burnham had won the by-election. At the local elections in May, the Reform Party took 30.7% of the votes in the 10 local authorities that make up the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. Labour received 23.6% of the vote and the Greens 19.1%. The Reform Party had become the dominant party in Greater Manchester. Keir Starmer had signed his own dismissal notice.

By the time of the next by-election in Makersfield, caused by the resignation of Josh Simons as the MP, Andy Burnham was allowed to stand, and won in a seat that had been expected to be won by the Reform Party after the results of the May local elections. Within days, Starmer had resigned, the election for the new Mayor of Greater Manchester was called, and six months had been wasted. Starmer's vision of time was metronomic but set in months and years, not days.

Meanwhile, Andy Burnham had become the new PM and was cooking up a storm of new initiatives and zealously dominating social media. He was generating some hope after the moribund days of decline under Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer. 

Starmer had not been wrong about the cost, or the slow pace of the election count as we waited up until 11pm on the day after the poll to get the result. His handling of calling by-elections characterised his period in office: mindful of cost, devoid of imagination and always cautious. His demise was his failure to inspire or provide a glimpse of hope that the UK needs in these troubled times. The Reform Party had become the gathering post for the Mountebanks who amplified the problems with all the deceit to be expected from their leaders, who are hard-core members of the very establishment that they mock.

Like so much else in the UK, the pace of the count was diabolical. The technology is there to do this count electronically; we piloted the technology for the Electoral Commission in 2002 for a ward by-election in Stirling. It led to the use of the technology in the 2007 combined Council Multi-Member Ward Election System and Scottish Parliament Additional Member Voting System. Both of these are much more complex than the Supplementary Voting System used in Greater Manchester. We had the results for both elections completed and the counters released from the count by 3am, just 5 hours later than the close of polls, not 25 hours later.

The Labour candidate, Bev Craig, won the Greater Manchester Mayor with 66.3% of the share of the vote, including the second preferences. Reform took 33.7%. The respective figures for first preferences were 47% to 21%, with 12% for the Greens. Yet at the Council elections in May the results were the other way round. Labour had 23.6% and Reform 30.7%; these should be most realistically compared with the first preference votes.

Once again, the Grand Old Duke of the Mountebanks, Nigel Farage, had marched his latest wheeze, the Reform Party, to the top of the hill, to see them have a great fall. He has lost his fabled ability to popularise the zeitgeist of despair, and even the sympathetic right-wing media and senior Reform members are distancing themselves from him.  Can all Nige's crypto and all Nige's friends ever put Reform together again? Well, there is plenty of evidence that this is unlikely, especially if Count Binface chips away at his vote share in the Clacton by-election he brought upon himself. His previous incarnations as leader of the UKIP party died away in 2019, and the Brexit Party was killed off in 2021. It would appear that each of his regenerations to cheat death gets darker as he ages. Expect him to emerge from a TARDIS with a new gang of Mountebanks sometime soon. Perhaps he could call it the Dalek Party or, better still, the  Underworld Party as it fades out and he finally stops bleeping.

Dalek Party unveiled

Commonwealth Games and Broadcasters

Tunnocks Tea Cake Lands in The Hydro

I had switched to Channel 5 to watch the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. The games had crept up without the pizzazz that normally accompanies major events. Partly because Victoria State in Australia had pulled out as the hosts for the 2026 event and Glasgow had stepped in with less than 2 years to rescue the 'friendly games'. Advance publicity was then scuppered because the BBC had been outbid for coverage of the event by TNT Sports in partnership with Channel 5. 

I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the opening ceremony, although nothing could compete with the London Olympic Games. For the first time, it was an indoor ceremony held at the Glasgow Hydro. It was classy and sassy. The King and Queen arrived in a TARDIS, and the First Minister joined in the singing of the UK national anthem by the excellent Scottish Youth Choir. This provided both humour and, in the absence of the Flower of Scotland as the national anthem, a certain edginess.

A Scottish Nature Garden provided the centrepiece of The Hydro for the arrival of the 3000 competitors from 74 Commonwealth countries and was inspiring, as were the changing images on the massive screen. The competitors were regaled by pipers, dancers and a raucous Glasgow crowd with not a traffic cone in sight. It was the arrival of a TARDIS and the landing of a Tunnocks tea cake from the roof void that typified Glasgow's comity and brutal self-deprecation.

But, being Channel 5, there were adverts, and when the wannabe influencer, Emma Radacanu, popped up on yet another advert, I switched off. Radacanu will cash in on her fleeting shelf life to advertise anything. It prompted me to think about all the superb broadcasters we have in the UK who have moral integrity that forbids them from behaving like Raducanu, Beckham, and their ilk.  They are as irritating as broadcasters who flaunt their self-seeking importance or those who are just crap at broadcasting.

I have listed those for whom I reach for the zapper and immediately tune out when they appear on TV or the radio. To achieve balance and offset the critique of influencers with no shame or irritating broadcasters, I have first listed plaudits for the worthy TV, radio, or podcast broadcasters of news, knowledge, and facts, 

In no particular order, here is a list of broadcasters that I most value and respect as worthy bringers of news, knowledge and facts as I watch TV, listen to the radio or seek out podcasts.

Jeremy Hardy (deceased)

Anna Foster, BBC Today

Evan Davies, BBC PM

Helen Lewis,  Atlantic and Private Eye (p94) Podcast

Gary Gibbon, Channel 4 News Political Editor

Anoosh Chakelian, New Statesman Podcast

Jeremy Bowen, BBC International Editor

Emily Maitliss, Newsagents Podcast

Steve Rosenberg, BBC Russia Correspondent

Anushka Asthana, Channel 4 US Editor

Steve Cram, BBC Athletics

Mishal Hussain, ex BBC Today

Mark Chapman,  BBC TV and Radio 5 Sports presenter

Katya Adler, BBC Europe Editor

Andrew Marr,  LBC

Pipa Creaar, Guardian and Politics Weekly Podcast

Dominic Sandbrook, The Rest is History Podcast

Orla Chennaoui, TNT Sport cycling presenter

Andrew Rawnsley, Observer and Newsnight

And a list of those self-important or crap broadcasters and influencers that I switch off instantly 

Emma Barnett, BBC Today

Robert Jenrick, Farage apologist

Laura Kuensberg, journalist

Nigel Farage, GB News

Naga Munchetty, BBC Radio 5

Micah Richards, BBC Football pundit

Fiona Bruce, BBC News and Question Time 

Robbie Savage, BBC Radio 5

Helia Ebrahimi, Channel 4 News

Michael Owen, football pundit

Emma Raducanu, former future tennis star

David Beckham, King of sponsorship and advertisement deals

Influencers: add cost and stymie facts

Best 2026 World Cup Advert 

Watching the World Cup forced me to watch some games on ITV, which means that I have been bombarded by adverts fronted by a baleful bonanza of influencers. What are they for? What do they add other than cost? Davis Beckham has appeared in 11 adverts for products, some of which he has probably never consumed or used. Companies believe that celebrities sell products, and perhaps they do if they are authentic. Those promoting charities are probably doing it because they have a genuine commitment to the cause. Footballers promoting a make of boot are probably sponsored by Nike or Adidas; Nigel Farage promoting Crypto Investments is a genuine attempt to reward himself. I am less sure about Alan Shearer advertising Betfair, Coral or McDonald's, or Micah Richards promoting We Buy Any Car when he drives a Lamborghini.

In the days of newspaper adverts, we got pictures and some facts about the product or service, and we could easily skip over them. TV adverts gave us colour and sometimes humour. World Cup adverts give us fantasy, and they cost a bomb for filming, payments to influencers, and FIFA's broadcasting charges passed on by the TV and streaming advertising costs. Who pays? The supporters for tickets and TV networks. And we all have to suffer the intrusion of adverts not only at half-time, which can last 25 minutes, but also before and after the games and during hydration breaks. FIFA created as many opportunities as possible to fire adverts at us. 

The result: I only managed to watch 5 games from end to end. The others I gave up at half-time or, on some occasions, at the first hydration break. The prospect of watching David Beckham and similar money-obsessed influencers raking in even more dosh was a complete turn-off.

I was delighted to see that the best-ranked advert in the World Cup was a home-based product that had no influencer other than Susan Boyle, and she was an AI insert as she swayed about on the girders of the Forth Railway Bridge. Pure Dead Brilliant.

Irn Bru World Cup Advert

Andy's Prehistoric Adventures

I switched on the BBC News to catch up on the new Prime Minister's cabinet appointments, and on came Andy's Prehistoric Adventures. I presumed that Laura Kuensberg had been re-employed to deploy her cynicism on the appointments before I realised that I had dialled into CBeebies. 

Alas, the News was an interview with Robert Jenrick; he was once the supposed saviour of the Tories but is now relegated as Nigel Farage's apologist. He was telling porkies about immigration, despite having been the immigration minister when net migration reached its peak of 745,000 in 2022; it fell to 171,000 in 2025. I had watched the transfer of power from Sir Keir Starmer to Andy Burnham earlier in the day. I welcomed the new PM's promise to work in collaboration across political parties and his instinctive commitment to devolving power to localities. I suppose that could be called a prehistoric adventure with democracy! The importance of place and less tribalism are vital ingredients for gaining pace and releasing the energy of both the public and private sectors working in step with each other at the local level, as they did before Westminster and Holyrood centralised business taxation and controlled and froze local expenditure. 

The responses to the new Prime Minister from world leaders and the devolved governments within the UK were positive and welcoming. They expressed a desire to work collaboratively, unlike the immediate messages from Reform and the Conservatives, which respectively called for an election and criticised policies that had not been announced. The UK media had a cynical tone; they were peeved that they had not been able to obtain leaks about new cabinet members and policies.

Most of the management of the transition has been well handled, apart from the hasty and populist announcement by Lucy Powell, the deputy leader of the Labour Party, that digital identity will be abandoned. This will make it more difficult to manage immigration, voting reform, and information sharing among health, police, education, and social work. This could vastly improve our response to child abuse, community care and special education. Most of the other broad hints of new policies address issues that have hindered progress and been the reason Keir Starmer lost the support of the press, voters and Labour MPs. They seem to have landed well, and the optimistic mood in the Downing Street sunshine was enhanced by a crowd of scousers, being respectful to Evertonian Andy Burnham. They should have sung You'll Never Walk Alone!

It is 3pm and still no announcements. I desperately hope for ministers who will not be afraid to instigate some disruption in the tax system and speed up the pace of change.  The new PM needs competent ministers brave enough to drive change, unlike some of the moribund crew who supported Keir Starmer.. 

Digital Boycotting

It was when the US President phoned Giovanni Infantino, President of FIFA, and asked him to rescind the red card given to the US player, Folarin Balogun, and allow him to play the next game against Belgium that I thought things had gone too far. The rules of football were being trashed by an unholy alliance between two narcissistic men behaving like autocrats. Objections rained in from Belgium, Germany, UEFA, and the football press. All to no avail, but Belgium had the final say, beating the USA 4-1. Justice was done. The United States had treated the Iranian team with similar disrespect by refusing to let them stay overnight in the United States, a violation of international sports protocols.

If the World Cup teams had threatened a boycott, would Infantino have caved in to the pressure from the US President? Who knows, boycotts are seldom observed by all and can take years to yield results. I recall a sleep-in at the Senate House at Liverpool University in 1970, organised by Jon Snow, to persuade the University to relinquish its investments in South Africa; effectively a boycott of apartheid. Jon was red-carded, and it was 24 years before Nelson Mandela became President and 41 years before the University apologised and awarded Jon Snow an honorary degree. 

National and International boycotts have had sporadic successes since Rosa Parks sparked the Alabama bus protest after she was told to sit at the back of the bus. Long-standing boycotts of South African products as part of anti-apartheid protests and the boycott of Russian oil and gas have had success over longer periods. Twitter (X) lost half its advertising revenue after companies boycotted it for inaccurate and toxic content.

On a personal level, I have boycotted many things, notably anything owned by Rupert Murdoch, American fast food and coffee chains, Virgin Trains, many companies owned by American hedge funds, Heathrow airport, Israeli produce since the genocide in Gaza and companies that have provided poor service or refused to refund payments like Booking.com. Does personal boycotting have any effect? Not a lot, but like voting, it is more effective than just abstaining, and it gives you a sense of doing the right thing.

I noticed that Lisa Nandy, the Secretary for Arts, Culture and Sport, has boycotted the use of X by her department. I cannot understand why the government and other organisations haven't done the same. Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart constantly air their gripes about X, where they are routinely abused for their moderate views. Still, they seem too worried about losing their followers to do the virtuous thing and deactivate their accounts. UK users of X have fallen from 8 million to 5.6 million since Musk took over. Notable company withdrawals from X include the majority of Higher Education organisations, many Councils, The Guardian, Sport England, London Marathon and British Red Cross. X responds by claiming to be the custodian of free speech, but its algorithms are surprisingly incapable of identifying abusive tweets and toxic rants. 

Most MPs seem to be frightened of losing their followers if they switch to Blue Sky or Threads. Perhaps we need a European microblogging site that banishes the use of algorithms that promote toxic views. In the meantime, I will stick to my own digital boycotting. I have never been tempted by X or, in its time, Twitter.  I seldom visit Facebook and LinkedIn; there are far too many unwanted adverts and mindless shared posts. Unlike our precious time, which is finite, tweets are for those more concerned about losing followers; they know neither the cost nor the value of time.

Lakes, Central Fells

Derwentwater from Brown Knotts

Thursday, 2 July 2026

Ascent:      690 metres
Distance:   12 kilometres
Time:         3 hours 42 minutes

High Tove Summit

Armboth Fell, a bogtrotter's heaven

Heigh Seat Summit

Blencathra from High Seat

Looking South to Scafell from High Seat

Gatbells and Grizedale Pike from Bleaberry Fell

Derwentwater from above Ashness Bridge

Ashness Bridge

I had been contemplating a longer hill walk all week and took the plunge, nothing ventured...

It was 12:40pm when Gregor dropped me off at Watendlath. It would reduce the height to be climbed, and I optimistically said I would be back at Ashness Bridge in 4 hours, the time predicted for this walk. I could always (gladly) opt out of Armboth Fell if things were too hard. There was a stiff breeze from the north-west that helped during the steep ascent to High Tove from Watendlath. There is a good stone path to begin with, then a paddle across some boggy ground to reach the uninspiring summit. Wainwright was spot on: "It is hard to imagine that anybody feels any affection at all for High Tove...water cannot drain away from it...everywhere is shockingly wet". 

Well, not quite as wet as the route to Armboth Fell, I went south and then turned east to avoid the more direct route over boggy ground, but ended up tramping along sheep tracks that were essentially streams. There are two rocky tops, and I topped them both before stopping for a drink at the more impressive, but not necessarily the higher, of the two. Four walkers from Lincolnshire were far less kind about High Tove than Wainwright, but they had taken the direct, waterlogged route from High Tove to Armboth Fell. Nevertheless, I decided to return to High Tove by this route. They were not wrong. I was not going to stop at High Tove, a barren stack of stones on a hump of a hill, despite it being well past 2pm 

The initial path to High Seat had been improved by large blocks of stone, presumably dropped off by helicopter. Only the final 60 metres of climbing were on grass, and the ground was sufficiently steep to minimise the bogs that had been the recurring feature of the walk so far. A large trig point and excellent views made it a worthwhile summit. The Helvellyn range to the east, Skiddaw to the north, and the Scafell range to the south competed for attention. But best of all was the profile of Blencathra to the northeast.

It was decision time: did I make the direct descent to Ashness Bridge to collect my lift or visit Bleaberry Fell, a good mile away on a boggy twisting path, which would leave me with another 4 kilometres to get back to Ashness Bridge via Falcon Crag?  I was taught by my friend Keith Adams in 1990, when in doubt, always try to do what you planned, otherwise you will have to return to complete the missing hills. After reaching Bleaberry Fell and admiring the views of Skiddaw, I charged down the initial steep rocky path and then upped my pace to Falcon Crag, where I doubled back on the path to Ashness Bridge. A kilometre short of the bridge, Gregor arrived running at pace up the steepish path; he was loosening up for an evening run up the Langdale Pikes. 

He turned back whilst I lingered, mesmerised by the views over Derwentwater and pleased that I had managed the walk in 4 hours, including the two stops for drinks and food.  I took a photo of Ashness Bridge that I had first visited during a primary school holiday when a man called Vivian Fisher with a Jay sitting on his shoulder would open the gate for passing travellers. We used to visit with our young family to admire the views of Derwentwater. (see below). Today would replenish my memory bank and inspire future memories and perhaps convince me that there is still life in the legs and lungs.

View from Ashness Bridge 1986