Anne Marie Waters
Friday 24th June 2022
Two Parliamentary by-elections that took place this week have been rather revealing.
The first obvious development is the loss by the Tories that has resulted in more calls for Boris Johnson to go. Johnson doesn’t seem to be paying attention however. For his part, he said “As a leader, you have to try to distinguish between the criticism that really matters and the criticism that doesn’t.”
Following a confidence vote recently, that he won, the Prime Minister seems somewhat emboldened: “Actually, what’s happened is that I’ve got a renewed mandate from my colleagues, and I’m going to continue to deliver.”
The two contests took place in two very different parts of the country: Tiverton and Honiton in Devon, and Wakefield in Yorkshire. How the seats came up for grabs is shameful and indicative of the type of people who sadly make the rules. In Wakefield, Tory MP Imran Ahmed Khan was jailed for sexually assaulting a 15 year old boy, and in Devon, the MP quit when found watching pornography in Parliament.
Telling, isn’t it?
Wakefield was taken by Labour this week. It was Labour’s first by-election gain since 2012. Round and round we go. It seems the people have forgotten why they abandoned Labour and went Tory in 2019. Why the same people don’t give someone else a chance is a great mystery to me and many others.
And there are opportunities.
The second interesting aspect of the Wakefield election was the number of candidates that stood. There were 15 candidates in all, listed below:
Nadeem Ahmed – Conservative Party
Akef Akbar – Independent
Paul Bickerdike – Christian Peoples Alliance
Mick Dodgson – Freedom Alliance. Real People. Real Alternative
Sir Archibald Stanton Earl ‘Eaton – The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Jayda Fransen – Independent
Jordan James Gaskell – UK Independence Party
David John Rowntree Herdson – Yorkshire Party
Therese Hirst – English Democrats
Christopher Richard Jones – Northern Independence Party
Simon Robert Lightwood – Labour Party
Jamie Luke Needle – Liberal Democrats
Ashley Theo Blue Routh – Green Party
Ashlea Simon – Britain First
Chris Walsh – Reform UK
That’s a long and varied list, and people do have choices, but they are comfortable with the two party state and fear moving beyond it. Just one or two alternative voices in the Commons could be transformative, but the public isn’t buying it, partly because people know nothing about these candidates, and that’s where the corrupt biased press comes in. People just aren’t informed. It’s sad, and it’s dangerous.
Down in Devon, the Liberal Democrats made a comeback. Our Frankie Rufolo stood here, and we’re all very proud of him, but despite his hard work and enthusiasm, not enough people are aware of what he stands for. The BBC didn’t even mention Frankie in some of its coverage. It’s one thing if a private paper takes a particular position, but when the public broadcaster is this biased, it’s a problem that needs to be addressed and corrected.
Richard Foord won the Devon seat with more than 22,000 votes after the constituency saw a swing of almost 30%. Once again, people seem to have forgotten what the Lib Dems were like before, and once again, didn’t opt for someone new, they stuck to the status quo.
The country is facing real hardship. Mass illegal immigration, a cost of living crisis, breakdown of law and order, oppressive censorship, violent left-wing thugs on our streets. There are people who have the policies to fix this, but you’d never know it thanks to the biased media.
Perhaps it all needs to get worse. Perhaps a tipping point will come. For those of us who love this country, that tipping point cannot come soon enough.
Anne Marie Waters
Leader
For Britain
