I am sorry to say that ‘Tommy Robinson’, that grim and worrying man, is far more likely to dominate the years to come than the new Robert Redford of Reform, Danny Kruger.
I’ll explain Mr Kruger’s drawbacks later. But I talked to some of Robinson’s supporters and saw the size of his march. And I think it’s very worrying that so many perfectly decent people can put themselves under such a crude, cynical leader.
Nothing I could say would persuade them he was not like them. How big will this movement get?
I fear it.
Mr Kruger, on the other hand, neatly symbolises the uselessness of official political conservatism, always half a mile behind reality.
What was he saying when the Tory Party was being taken over by liberals? Why, he was helping out. He was a senior hanger-on of the ‘Heir to Blair’, David Cameron. He wrote his woeful ‘hug-a-hoodie’ speech. He then became a senior hanger-on of another liberal, Alexander Johnson.
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage smiles alongside newly appointed MP Danny Kruger
Tommy Robinson attends his Unite the Kingdom rally in London
And while he enjoyed these activities, I spent many long and lonely years trying to warn that it was desperately necessary to ensure Cameron’s defeat at the polls and the Tory Party’s replacement with something better.
Four years ago Mr Kruger – who was then already on the path to office as a Parliamentary Private Secretary – turned up at a Manchester debate on the Tory Party, in which I was taking part.
He sneered at me for sticking to my guns over so many years.
And he proclaimed that the Tory Party was ‘the vehicle of the people’ and was ‘different in this generation’.
Well for some reason (what can it be?) he obviously doesn’t think that any more.
Now Nigel Farage is his vehicle of choice. I looked up this debate and find I said, ‘What I fear and have always feared is some sort of British Trumpism, a loud, raucous, yelling substitute for conservatism which might come stamping over the fields once everybody’s lights have gone out and their wages have shrivelled or they lose their jobs. There is, as things get worse, always a danger of fake populist politics which lead nowhere but misery.’
Well, at the time, the most worrying populist force I could see in Britain was the movement led by the shallow, liberal crowd-pleaser Nigel Farage. I did not like the look of him. And I also knew from history that these movements get worse as things get worse.
Nigel Farage might seem worrying enough to begin with, but then along comes ‘Tommy Robinson’, an alias of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.
And beside Tommy/Stephen, Nigel looks like a pussycat. Have things become so bad that Tommy might become a serious political force and elbow Nigel aside? It now seems possible.
Or is there someone still worse, who we will meet in the next few years, heading an even larger crowd of perfectly decent people, who want action much more than they want the rule of law or freedom?
And if so, should we all be chasing these people downwards to wherever they will take us?
It may well happen anyway, especially when the eye-watering bills start to come in for the current bout of economic lunacy.
And many in our political class –who for decades refused to listen to the concerns of the people – will be to blame.
Can I hear the sound of breaking glass? Is that the smell of smoke?
Ailing Trident and the cost of power
HMS Vengeance departs its base in Faslane, Scotland
Some time in the next seven years or so, the First Sea Lord will hurry to No 10 to demand a meeting with the Premier.
He will reveal that Britain’s only functioning Trident submarine has run out of food and its crew have been submerged for 250 days, nearly three times as long as they were ever intended to do.
They cannot be expected to endure any more. The boat must come home, though there is no other sub to take its place. If it surfaces to take on supplies, our enemies will see it and be able to track it. Its planned replacement is so worn out it cannot be readied for active service for months. The other two are even worse.
I base this prediction on the following facts I reported here in March when a Vanguard-class sub returned to its Faslane base in Scotland crusted with barnacles.
She had been at sea for a record 204 days. Her ship’s company of 135 had last seen natural daylight in August 2024. She was relieved by another boat whose refit had taken far longer than planned. All four Trident boats which entered service in the era of John Major, including HMS Vengeance, should have retired by last year.
They only keep going thanks to a great deal of money, time and hard work. If we are to keep one of them at sea, at all times, then the patrols will just get longer – until a new generation of missile boats arrives around 2032 (probably later), at colossal expense.
I reported this six months ago. Last week the former head of the Navy, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, publicly confirmed these fears, admitting ‘our sailors are having to put to sea for extraordinarily long patrols’.
If he is openly saying so, things must be really bad. But here’s the harsh truth. Britain can’t afford to be a superpower anymore. If we want to continue to be any kind of power at all, we must think very hard about the planned replacement of Trident.
HMS Vengeance departs its base in Faslane
Beware fatbikes
An e-bike rider tries to steal a phone. The Dutch have a word for the plague of riders who defy the speed limits – the Fatbike
There is something even worse than the horrible e-scooters and e-bikes which are fast turning major British cities into a drearier version of Saigon (roads jammed with cars and pavements full of lunatics on heavy, powered two-wheelers).
That something is the souped-up e-bike, usually driven by a masked rider in defiance of speed limits.
Now the Dutch, who also suffer this plague, have a name for it. They call it ‘the Fatbike’. I hope it catches on here, though ‘Deathbike’ would be just as good.
