2019-08-11_The_Week

6 NEWS Politics

THE WEEK 10 August 2019

Controversy of the week

By-election blues

It wasa“gift for those who want to see Boris Johnson fall

flat on his face”, said the Daily Mail. Brecon and Radnorshire

–arural seat that the Tories won just two years ago by a

comfortable 8,038 votes–was lost last week inaby-election

to the resurgent Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dem candidate

Jane Dodds took 43.46% of the vote, giving themamajority

of 1,425 over the Conservatives (on 38.98%), with the Brexit

Party comingadistant third (on 10.47%) and Labour almost

losing its deposit (on 5.28%) in fourth. The result castsadeep

shadow over Johnson’s future,said Jessica Elgot in The

Guardian.Tory defeat reduces the party’s working Commons

majority to just one, posinga“grave threat”to his control of

parliament.It also hands him the unwanted title of shortest-

serving PM ever to loseaby-election–after amere ten days.

Actually, the main surprise was not that the Tories lost–but “how close they came to holding on”,

said Katy Balls in The Guardian. After all, this vote was triggered byarecall petition when the

incumbent Tory MP, Chris Davies, was found guilty of submitting fake expenses claims. The party’s

mind-boggling response–tore-select him asacandidate, rather than opt foranew “baggage-free”

contender–could have been drawn froma“beginner’s guide to how to lose by-elections and alienate

voters”. And there were other factors at work, said Robert Shrimsley in the FT. This may have been

aTory seat, but the Lib Dems have long been strong here. They also benefited from an electoral pact

with the Greens and Plaid Cymru, who stood aside to concentrate the anti-Brexit vote, and from

tactical voting by Labour supporters. It wasalack of any such strategic cooperation among Brexit-

supporting parties that proved crucial toaRemainer victory: if only half of the 3,331 Brexit Party

votes had gone to the Conservatives, the Lib Dems would not have won.

The big question is what happens next, said Henry Zeffman in The Times. More defections by Tory

Remainers are likely. And with the Government hanging on by its fingernails,aCommons majority

against leaving the EU withoutadeal, and Labour and the SNP hinting atapact to oust Johnson in

an autumn election, shadow chancellor John McDonnell said it was “almost inevitable” that Jeremy

Corbyn would tableano-confidence motion when MPs return to the House on3September. That’s

all in the future–but for now, the lesson of Brecon and Radnorshire is simple, said Matthew Parris

in the same paper: “It’sapact, stupid.” The events of last week show that neither Remainers nor

Leavers can be confident of winning power without making cross-party alliances. The People’s

Vote campaign is even now busy planning the biggest display of tactical voting in electoral history,

designed to oust 100 Eurosceptic MPs. As the two sides contemplateasnap election, both need to

embrace the new political reality: “no party is likely to make it on its own”.

Anti-Brexit: new MP Jane Dodds

Spirit of the age

Good week for:

Painted lady butterflies,tens of thousands of which have been

sighted across the UK. The insects mostly live in Mediterranean

regions, but thanks to warm weather and favourable wind

conditions have stageda“once-in-a-decade migration”.

Jack Allsop-Smith,the 11-year-old “Lewis Hamilton of hen

racing”, who triumphed for the sixth year inarow at the world

hen racing championships. His bird Cooked It beat 50 others to

win the event at the Barley Mow pub in Bonsall, Derbyshire.

El Salvador,which last Wednesday celebrated its first murder-

free day in two years. The crime-ridden Central American nation

appears to be making progress in its fight against gang violence.

Netflix and YouTube,which are now the third and fourth most

popular channels in the UK, after BBC1 and ITV. According to

Ofcom, the newcomers have eclipsed BBC2 and Channel 4.

Bad week for:

McDonald’s,with the news that its new cardboard straws

cannot be recycled. Its old plastic straws were recyclable.

George Freeman MP,the new transport minister, who took to

Twitter to complain that he was kept offatrain byatruculent

guard. Freeman and others were seconds late for Greater Anglia’s

Cambridge to Attleborough service on Tuesday, he said, but “the

guard watched us running, closed the doors, waved off the train,

leaving us stranded for an hour, then smirked and ignored us”.

Severn View services,on the M48, which was named the

worst in England by the Motorway Services User Survey. Its

toilets were singled out for criticism as “grim” and “dismal”.

Whaley Bridge dam

More than 1,500 people were

evacuated from their homes

in the town of Whaley Bridge

in the Peak District last

Thursday, owing to fears

that the dam above the town

would burst. Heavy rain had

led to an excess of water

pouring over the spillway –

the overflow channel–which

began to erode as concrete

slabs were ripped off it.

Firefighters, police and

engineers raced to pump

water out of the Toddbrook

Reservoir, and an RAF

Chinook helicopter dropped

hundreds of bags of sand to

shore up the spillway. This

Wednesday, police gave the

all clear for residents to

return, but many questioned

why the spillway came close

to giving way whenafull

inspection in November had

found that no “immediate

repairs” to it were needed.

Heathrow strike chaos

Planned strikes over pay by

workers at Heathrow Airport

on Monday and Tuesday

were called off after the

airport reachedadeal with

the Unite union. Passengers

demanded compensation

after they needlessly

rearranged plans when 172

flights were cancelled, only

for some to then go ahead.

BA pilots are also threatening

to strike this summer (see

page 48), and further strikes

at Heathrow remain on the

table for 23 and 24 August.

Poll watch

52%of Scots would vote to

split from the UK inafresh

independence referendum,

and48%would vote not to

(with the undecided and

those who wouldn’t vote

excluded).47%of Scots say

there should beasecond

referendum within the next

two years;45%disagree.

Lord Ashcroft/The Times

53%of Britons believe it

is necessary to limit the

number of children you

have for the sake of the

planet.29%say it isn’t.

YouGov

Only athirdof Germans

think the UK isareliable ally

–adrop of17 percentage

pointssince Boris Johnson

became PM. In 2008, the

figure was85%,and it

remained above50%during

Theresa May’s premiership.

Deutschland Trend/

The Daily Telegraph

The meanings of several

words relating to nature,

such as “tweet”, “web”,

“stream” and “cloud”, have

chiefly been replaced by

technological ones in the

last generation, linguistic

researchers have found.

While mentions of the

word “tweet” all referred to

birdsong in the 1990s, just

one in 100 uses in the 2010s

retain that meaning, with

the rest referring to social

media posts.

Artists coming to the UK

from abroad for the

Edinburgh International

Festival are refusing to be

paid in sterling because of

its current volatility. Fergus

Linehan, the director of the

72-year-old festival, said

arrangements now often

had to be made in dollars

or euros. “No one,” he

said, “wants to do deals

in sterling any more.”