Politics: a thin agenda

By Richard North - March 17, 2025

There is a peculiar sort of political hiatus at the moment. You can tell this when the newspaper headlines are all over the place, with no common theme to unite the front pages.

In a way, this is unsurprising. Labour’s welfare reforms – which feature on some front pages – are still very much work in progress, with the internal dispute amongst Labour politicians grumbling away in the background but yet to come to a head.

With around 6.9 million people claiming disability benefits of one sort or another, amounting to over ten percent of the population at a cost for England alone estimated at nearly £60 billion annually, even the thickest of Labour politicians – and there are plenty of they – realise that something must be done to trim the annual bill.

The problem is that anything but the most tentative cuts are going to raise squawks of protest and generate enough hard-luck stories to keep the media going for a decade – political suicide for any government brave enough to push for meaningful reductions in spending.

This means that the issue is going to grumble on, with ministers testing the water, in an attempt to work out what they can get away with and still have some small chance of winning the next general election – much less the forthcoming by-election in Runcorn. Like as not, it will be a long time before firm decisions are made, even if the need for cuts is urgent.

One can see why, therefore, that Starmer is anxious to assume the role of international statesman, leading his “coalition of the willing”, now engaged in planning the operation of the fictional “peacekeeping force”, that is going to enforce the ceasefire in Ukraine, as long as it has the backup of the US military – which it is not going to get, because Trump has refused to commit his troops to Ukraine.

Inevitably, therefore, the whole issue of the ceasefire is up in the air, even though Trump is optimistically asserting that he expects a deal “in weeks”, although that will depend on how many more Ukrainians Putin feels the need to slaughter. But, this is another issue which has yet to come to a head, leaving the media with little in the way of new developments to report.

Perhaps the only new thing of interest is the Guardian report that Zelensky has appointed Andriy Gnatov as chief of the general staff of the armed forces, replacing Anatoliy Bargylevych. Changes at the top, in the Ukraine armed forces, often indicate that the military situation is not going too well.

As regards the biggest domestic political story of the week – the Lowe-Reform spat – even that has gone flat, although this might only be temporary. The story is bound to pick up again when the Runcorn by-election campaign gets fully under way but, for the moment, we’re only seeing tail-end Charlie reporting on peripheral matters.

The Independent, for instance, is reverting to the standard fare of the British media – lightweight political gossip, featuring “revelations about Lee Anderson’s defection a year ago in a new book” that has “raised further questions about how Nigel Farage and his party have handled the Rupert Lowe row”.

Fortified by tales of Anderson’s defection from the Tories to Reform, the paper tells us that those in Reform (including Mr Anderson) now complaining about Mr Lowe’s rightwing rhetoric on “mass deportations” and “rape gangs”, suggesting the Great Yarmouth MP is “not a team player”, seem to have conveniently forgotten Anderson’s prior record of doing the same.

It thus reminds us that, on 22 February 2024 when Mr Anderson said on his GB News show that “Islamists…have got control of [London Mayor Sadiq] Khan, and they’ve got control of London”, he was challenged by the Tory chief whip, but refused to modify his rhetoric.

The paper then remarks that “there now seems to be some irony that Mr Anderson and other leading members of Reform are complaining about Mr Lowe refusing to tone down his rhetoric”, especially in the context of Anderson being the “chief whip” suspending Lowe.

The contribution of the Express to a flagging debate is to publish a column from megamouth James Whale, who opines that “Rupert Lowe is completely missing the point on Nigel Farage”.

The point, he says, “is Reform offers a wake-up call to career politicians and bloated political parties who have got away for too long taking the p*** out of the electorate”.

For the first time in a long time, he asserts, “there was a sense of change”, adding: “And, by God do we need it. So why are the likes of Lowe and Habib risking the destruction of Reform for petty internal squabbling? Surely neither thinks anyone but Nigel Farage could be leader?”.

The point that Whale misses is that Farage is the leader of a highly publicised personality cult which has yet to transition into a serious political party and, from past and present form, is unlikely to do so as long as Farage is at the helm.

What the Express and other media seem unwilling to do is chart what seems to be the steady erosion of the activist base, precipitated by the Lowe spat, which has the potential to cause serious damage to the party.

After the Stafford branch closure, we now have the resignation of Maria Bowtell, now former interim branch chairman of the Bridlington and the Wolds branch, as well as being a councillor for the East Riding of Yorkshire Council.

In her coruscating resignation letter, published on Twitter, she tells of how she joined Reform UK in March 2024, drawn by its policies and her trust in the leadership.

Since then, she writes, “I have poured my heart and soul into the party, working tirelessly to support its growth and vision”. However, she continues, “I have increasingly felt unsupported and abandoned in my role. I have been asked to deliver speeches with little notice and no preparation, while my attempts to seek clarity and support from senior party members have been dismissed or ignored”.

What is so significant about this letter is that it resonates with the days in Ukip when I was working to set up more branches in the North – including, oddly enough, in Bridlington – only to find an almost identical range of complaints from activists then, over the lack of support from the centre.

Any claims that Farage (or Muhammad Ziauddin Yusuf) might have been “professionalising” the party are entirely fanciful when it comes down to branch level, where the core activists are striving to build the party.

On a broader front, the Telegraph picks up, in a half-hearted sort of way, the Shipman story from Sunday, homing in on the “Unite the Right” plot to oust Badenough.

The bones of the story are a straight lift from the Sunday Times, although the source is scarcely acknowledged, and add nothing new, although at the tail end of the piece, it does reference Maria Bowtell’s resignation letter, but without making its own comment or offering any analysis.

With the political agenda being so thin, one might have thought that the media might devote a little time or space to reflecting on past events – but we have to look elsewhere for that. Pete ruminates on Twitter on the potential Lowe/Habib party to replace Reform, explaining why he doubts that would happen. Nor does he think it could succeed.

The nearest thing we get top contemplation in the legacy media is an opinion piece in the Guardian on the Runcorn election.

After making the usual points about the challenge from Reform, this paper ventures that even a narrow Labour win would help Starmer, take some wind out of Reform UK’s sails, and draw sighs of relief from Badenough.

However, a Reform UK win, it says, would cause turmoil in Labour and the Conservatives, convincing each that the principal threat is indeed from Farage, but dividing both parties over how to respond – and triggering leadership speculation.

What cannot be disputed, it says, is that the result will have big consequences, adding that that late-night punch in a Frodsham street may have changed the face of British politics. Who knew?