Disability Is Analogue Not Digital. by Les May

IN March of this year the Daily Express published four pictures of Paul McCartney struggling to rise from a lying position to a sitting position on a Caribbean beach. They were captioned by ‘Help! I need somebody’ and ‘Twist and clout’ in an attempt at humour. McCartney is the same age as me and in my experience there is nothing particularly amusing about trying to get up from the ground or floor if there isn’t something conveniently placed to give a bit of support. That’s why every so often someone who lives alone is found dead or severely dehydrated after a fall. McCartney’s face did not suggest he found it terribly amusing either.

I’m not going to suggest that the pictures were ‘offensive’ or generate some synthetic outrage in the hopes of provoking a ‘Twitter Storm’, but I am doubtful that the paper would have published similar pictures of some well known figure struggling to rise from a wheelchair. A wheelchair says ‘disabled’ and no one wants to to be accused of mocking the disabled. There’s even talk of making such boorishness a ‘hate crime’.

The editor of the Express is not alone in viewing disability in simplistic terms like this. Someone is either disabled or not; it’s a binary thing like some digital ‘on off switch’. But as many people, some old and some not so old, will be happy to testify, it’s not, it’s analogue. You gradually lose the ability to do the things you used to take for granted in your younger days.

There’s no cliff edge moment, leg muscles just become that bit weaker and it becomes more difficult to stand up without something to push on with your arms. Knee joints begin to show signs of wear and it becomes painful to walk Or you find you cannot read the small print, or you need the subtitles on TV programmes because you cannot hear so well as you once could.

One of the best descriptions I have heard of what life is like for older people came from the biologist Jared Diamond who at the time was 81, he said he lives a life of ‘constructive paranoia’. What he meant was that before putting your feet somewhere, check there’s nothing to fall over, when going down steps always hold the handrail, make two journeys not one when carrying things from one place to another and always put your keys in the same place.

Mostly the ability deficit that comes with age can compensated by these little tweaks to everyday life, but some cannot. In the late 1970s the bioengineer Heinz Wolff initiated a project he called URINE, an acronym for Uninteresting Research Into Necessary Equipment which looked at ways of overcoming the ability deficit which comes with age. More recently the Sports Department of Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) started a project to examine the link between loss of muscle strength and propensity for falls in older people. But in spite of all the talk about diversity there is little evidence that there has been any widespread recognition of the impact of the incremental decline in abilities which many people experience as they age.

Not all supermarkets ensure there are plenty of smaller trolleys for people who struggle to handle the ‘family shop’ size. Some directors of TV films and dramas have them filmed in what looks like ‘Mudochrome’. Businesses and local councils arrange for Public Notices to be printed with the smallest possible font size to save money. For several years the ‘i’ newspaper regularly ran a page which had parts of the text printed in pale blue or pale yellow on a white background. Web pages frequently have text on a patterned background. These things may look great, but they are purgatory for anyone whose visual acuity isn’t 100%.

No doubt all these organisations have some well paid individual to draw up a policy document on disability and diversity, but until these individuals begin to stop thinking about disability in digital, on off, terms and begin to realise that for most people it’s not, it’s analogue, life will be just that bit more difficult than it need be for some people because it’s the slow decline in their ability to do everyday things like what McCartney was trying to do that matters.

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BATLEY & SPEN IDENTITY POLITICS MESS

by Paul Stott on 'SPIKED' 24th June 2021

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde on the death of Little Nell, one must have a heart of stone to read about Labour’s campaign in Batley and Spen and not laugh. With the Conservatives making headway, and George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain targeting both Muslim voters and Old Labour Brexiteers, one opinion poll has the Conservatives ahead by four per cent. Galloway has high hopes of pushing Labour into third place.

This is a constituency twice in the national headlines for the wrong reasons: the 2016 murder of its MP, Jo Cox, by a far-right extremist and the March 2021 Islamist protests outside Batley Grammar School, sparked by a teacher showing Muhammad cartoons to his students, which led to three teachers being suspended. The teacher at the centre of it all is still in hiding. Outgoing Labour MP Tracy Brabin said little of any real substance in support of the Batley teachers, handily clearing the way for her canonisation as the inaugural mayor of West Yorkshire. Her anointed replacement as MP, Kim Leadbeater, styled herself as the candidate the Tories feared. Born and bred locally, and the sister of Jo Cox, Leadbeater seemed the ideal person to protect the Red Wall from further Tory encroachment. Instead, her campaign has lurched from disaster to disaster.

A politician of the old school who works on the stump, George Galloway initially placed the conflict in Gaza centre stage. This soon rallied Muslim activists and Workers Party canvass teams. Labour then took the fateful decision that Leadbeater should fight Galloway on his preferred territory. Labour leaflets began to stress the three core issues the party thought mattered most to Muslim voters – Palestine, Kashmir and Islamophobia. The road to Westminster was to be taken via Al-Quds and Srinagar. A letter from Leadbeater to voters, carrying the words ‘From Batley and Spen for Batley and Spen’ and the Labour logo, opened with the text: ‘As Batley and Spen’s Labour MP I will be a strong voice for Palestinian human rights and statehood.’ None of this has worked. In matters of politics, voters tend to prefer the original to the copy.

There are accusations of prejudice in the constituency – that Leadbeater’s sexuality is an issue for some voters, and even that Keir Starmer’s wife being Jewish has been raised on the doorstep. Last weekend Labour descended into an unedifying bout of infighting after party briefings to the Mail on Sunday, suggesting that it was ‘haemorrhaging’ votes in the contest because of ‘what Keir has been doing on anti-Semitism’. The reaction to this claim was one of fury. The briefings were quickly denounced as ‘Islamophobia’ by the Labour Muslim network and as ‘astonishing’ by Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain. Versi praised Angela Rayner for her ‘strong leadership’ in denouncing comments from one of her own staff.

How to analyse this? In Labour’s civil war, Hackney is now furious with Hampstead. For the Corbynistas, Labour’s heartlands are less the old strongholds of South Wales or County Durham, nor the urbane intelligentsia of Bloomsbury or Hampstead. What matters are those areas that are ethnically diverse and have activist constituency Labour parties. To those more Hackney than Hartlepool, any loss in Batley and Spen, a seat which the 2011 census showed was just under 19 per cent Muslim, is inexcusable, especially at a time of mass protests in support of the Palestinians. A leadership challenge to Keir Starmer, almost certainly coalescing around his deputy Angela Rayner, is sure to follow.

There are accusations of prejudice in the constituency – that Leadbeater’s sexuality is an issue for some voters, and even that Keir Starmer’s wife being Jewish has been raised on the doorstep. Last weekend Labour descended into an unedifying bout of infighting after party briefings to the Mail on Sunday, suggesting that it was ‘haemorrhaging’ votes in the contest because of ‘what Keir has been doing on anti-Semitism’. The reaction to this claim was one of fury. The briefings were quickly denounced as ‘Islamophobia’ by the Labour Muslim network and as ‘astonishing’ by Miqdaad Versi of the Muslim Council of Britain. Versi praised Angela Rayner for her ‘strong leadership’ in denouncing comments from one of her own staff.

How to analyse this? In Labour’s civil war, Hackney is now furious with Hampstead. For the Corbynistas, Labour’s heartlands are less the old strongholds of South Wales or County Durham, nor the urbane intelligentsia of Bloomsbury or Hampstead. What matters are those areas that are ethnically diverse and have activist constituency Labour parties. To those more Hackney than Hartlepool, any loss in Batley and Spen, a seat which the 2011 census showed was just under 19 per cent Muslim, is inexcusable, especially at a time of mass protests in support of the Palestinians. A leadership challenge to Keir Starmer, almost certainly coalescing around his deputy Angela Rayner, is sure to follow.

The Starmerites and the Corbynistas are both receiving a harsh political lesson. They haven ridden the tiger of identity politics together, and each happily abandoned the Batley religious-studies teachers in order to secure the party’s electoral base. They are now finding identity politics is beset with dangerous paradoxes.

Political parties, especially those on the left, once sought to deliver primarily on economic aspirations, while also recognising the importance of the nation state and its endurance. The identitarian left, on the rise in the Labour Party since at least the 1980s, has deliberately downplayed economic questions and ostentatiously rejected any concept of the national, in favour of the idea that all lifestyles and cultures are equal.

For liberal democracies to function, however, it is often necessary to politely but firmly say ‘No’ to interest groups. That is what should have happened at the gates of Batley Grammar. That it did not is now catching up with the Labour Party.

Paul Stott is a writer and commentator. Follow him on Twitter: @MrPaulStott

The UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment

ACADEMICS FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM

6th June 2021 Dennis Hayes News

The decision to lift the suspension of the Batley Grammar School teacher does not necessarily mean he can safely return to work. As the second half term begins, we do not know if he will return. Whatever happens, he will have to live under constant fear. His possible return is not helped by the wording of the decision, which is a victory for mob rule, intolerance and contains a recommendation that the teacher and the school self-censor and the avoid giving offence in class in the future. The independent inquiry convened by the school found that the teacher and his colleagues did not show the Charlie Hebdo cartoons in a lesson on blasphemy with the ‘intention to cause offence’. But the school felt it had to make an abject apology, recognising that ‘using the image did cause deep offence to a number of students, parents and members of our school community. The Trust deeply regrets the distress this has caused’. (Executive Summary).

This is not the end of what we could call the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment as some may hope. What happened at Batley Grammar School is a triumph for those who do not merely shout “That’s offensive!” but physically intimidate students and teachers while making demands for disciplinary action or the sacking of those they believe have caused offence. Mob rule by Islamists and others will be encouraged by this decision and by the cowardice of teachers and teacher unions to stand up for the freedom to teach.

The Charlie Hebdo moment began with a mob

Thursday 25 March 2021 was the day when the UK began to experience its ‘Charlie Hebdo’ moment. A mob gathered outside Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire to demand the sacking of an RS teacher who had apparently shown students the cartoons of Muhammed that had appeared in the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. This was during a lesson on blasphemy. It seems perfectly reasonable to illustrate ‘blasphemy’ with reference to these cartoons that incensed Islamists to slaughter 12 of the writers, editors and cartoonists at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris on 7 January 2015. What is happening in the UK is less violent but equally frightening.

A Muslim Charity calling itself ‘Purpose of Life’ had written to the school head teacher demanding that the RE teacher – who they named – be sacked. It appeared to be behind the protests at the school gates. They were offended that the Prophet Muhammed had been depicted and saw it as blasphemy. They did not care that there is no blasphemy law in Yorkshire (or the UK) and that criticism and satire about any religion is allowed. They did not care about freedom of speech!

The weak head teacher, Gary Kibble, caved in immediately and had a statement read out unreservedly apologising for what had happened. He said that the use of the cartoons was ‘completely inappropriate’ and would not happen again. The teacher was suspended pending an investigation.

If Mr Kibble thought that an abject capitulation to a mob would resolve matters, he was incredibly naïve. The next day another mob of mostly Muslim men, unconnected with the school, turned up outside and vowed to stay there until the teacher was sacked. The consistently weak Mr Kibble closed the school.

There were death threats against the teacher, whose name and address were known. He went into hiding with his family in the early morning of Friday 26 March, possibly under the direction and protection of the police.

This tragic situation resembled the persecution of the French teacher of history and geography, Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by Islamists in October 2020 for allegedly showing his class the Charlie Hebdo cartoons to illustrate his country’s commitment to freedom of speech and expression. The letter from parents and Muslim groups that preceded the murder of Paty has a parallel in the early response to the lesson by the RS teacher. In France, a fatwa was issued condemning Paty. There was no need for a fatwa in Batley. The head teacher had internalised the fatwa in his thinking.

The silence of the teacher unions

As happened in the case of Samuel Paty, the teacher unions were silent. A teacher was driven into hiding in fear of his life and they said nothing. They could not bring themselves to defend a fellow teacher for fear of being called ‘Islamophobic’. They were as cowardly as the head teacher and a disgrace to the profession and failures to what could be a brilliant moment for free thinking and debate.

The heroes of the moment

The real heroes of the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment were the Batley Grammar School students. They launched a petition on Change.org to demand their teacher be reinstated. Within hours it had over 10,000 signatures and at the time of writing has over 71,400 signatures.

Putting the teacher unions to shame a union branch of bin-men kicked up a stink about the suspended by putting forward a motion from their trade union branch to Shamefully, the National Education Union, the largest teacher union, tried to get them to withdraw it.

AFAF, the Free Speech Union, and several individuals, wrote to the head teacher and demanded that the RE teacher be reinstated immediately and allowed to return to work. They received no response.

The fatwa determines future practice

Not only the head teacher and the teacher unions but the barrister leading the ‘independent’ inquiry have internalised the fatwa. The executive summary of the enquiry states:

“The Trust will not avoid addressing challenging subject matter in its classrooms, but it is committed to ensuring that offence is not caused and that this is always done with care and sensitivity, enabling students to build empathy, mutual respect and understanding” [italics added].

No one has the right not to be offended and if a curriculum is designed to avoid offending anyone then it will be no more than a political tract.

If fear of the mob determines what we are free to teach and silences trade unions, then freedom in education will be under threat from future mobs. It is not good enough to hope the UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment will simply go away. Cowardly capitulation can only encourage more Islamist, and other, offended mobs.

The Batley and Spen parliamentary by-election is a chance for all candidates to speak up for free speech. The UK’s Charlie Hebdo moment is far from over. #JesuisBatleyGSteacher.

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Artist, 81, known as 'The Original Banksy': jailed for 4-years for stalking former model & ex-girlfriend

A reader, Kevin Brenan, asked NV to follow up on the sentencing of the octinarian artist Walter Kershaw and he says:

'I thought the sentence was harsh for a man of 81. I hope he appeals it.

'I also hope he is in an open prison rather than Strangeways.

'I am sure he would like to hear from you.

'I always thought his work was very original.

'It may help to find out where he is. Hopefully within travelling distance.

'Its difficult when you get in the grip of an obsession. You can see the danger to yourself.'

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As a consequence of Kevin's e-mail above N.V. contacted a retired prison officer and he suggested we talk to Walter's solicitor to try to get a request for a visit, but Walter seems not to have used a local firm of solicitors and it has not yet been possible to get hold of them. We would agree that the setence seems harsh, but we didn't attend the trial. We were reassured that in recent times owing to the tendency of courts to extend sentences there had been an increase in the prison population of elderly jail-birds and this had led to the need fot the provision of special facilies for older people. Another worry we have is that the complainants in this case tend to repeat the diffficulties they have in moving around the town were they all live without bumping into Walter, and they continually say they are forced to trudge across muddy fields and spend a fortune on taxi fares in order to avoid meeting him in the village of Littleborough near Rochdale. When some time ago I did discuss this difficulty with Walter he pointed out that Littleborough was a small place and it was hard to avoid bumping into local people. As his solicitor has argued in his defence Walter: 'There is no offer of violence and no physical intimidation.'

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For the benefit of our readers we reproduce below a report by Jacob Thorburn for the Mailonline published on 30 April 2021:

A popular British painter has been jailed for four years after a 'predatory stalking campaign' dating back to 2008.

Walter Kershaw, 81, who was dubbed Britain's 'original Banksy', repeatedly hounded Catherine Mitchell, 51, after their affair ended in 2007.

Rochdale-born Kershaw conducted a 'predatory' stalking campaign lasting 13 years, which included pursuing his ex-lover around their hometown and telling her she was beautiful.

The painter would also send life model Mitchell love letters and romantic cards and would drive slowly passed her home blowing kisses at her.

Despite Mitchell's best efforts, which included taking taxis around town and using muddy fields at the back of her home, she could not avoid her prolific stalker.

Kershaw was jailed for four years at Minshull Street Crown Court after admitting to breaching his restraining order and stalking.

The couple's relationship began in 2006, after former life model Mitchell asked 'unpredictable and controlling' Kershaw to paint her portrait.

The following year she broke up with Kershaw after she was hit by a motorbike and suffered life-threatening brain and leg injuries in a collision outside his gallery.

But Kershaw - who once counted George Best and Bob Monkhouse as friends - continued pursuing Miss Mitchell around the town and put an oil portrait in the front window of his art gallery in Littleborough, Greater Manchester.

The court heard how he would drive past Miss Mitchell's home on a regular basis, and would blow kisses towards her and also sent her love letters and cards.

He began to attend church where she and her mother were members of the congregation and appear regularly in their local supermarket.

When Miss Mitchell moved out of her mother's house into her own place, he would turn up on her doorstep uninvited and ask to take her out.

Police issued Miss Mitchell with a hand-held panic alarm and she used it when he turned up outside the house.

Eventually in January 2009 he was spoken to by police and warned not to contact her and in the following year Kershaw was instructed not to contact Miss Mitchell and her mother.

In 2013, the father of two was ordered to pay the two women compensation after he approached Ms Mitchell as she was sat in her car but in 2015 was given a suspended sentence for hounding her again.

He was eventually jailed for 26 weeks in 2017 after he approached Ms Mitchell at a Co-Op supermarket and tried to strike up a conversation with her saying: 'You've got a new cat and so have I.

'I think about you all the time. Let's pick up where we left off'.

But after being freed, Kershaw accosted her again over the Christmas period of 2018 when she was shopping in the town and told her: 'I adore you and I spent every day in prison thinking about you and I never meant any harm'.

The following year he was sentenced 20 weeks, suspended for 12 months and banned from contacting her for life, but in 2020 he twice flouted the order and was given another 12 weeks jail suspended for two years.

The latest incidents took place between July and August last year, just ten days after the suspended sentence was imposed.

In a statement to police Miss Mitchell who called Kershaw 'the Devil man' said she was so terrified of the artist she had to quit her home and subsequently spent £65,000 building an extension at the home of her mother Marjorie, 77, so she could move in with her.

Ms Mitchell said: 'Walter Kershaw has continued to stalk us relentless to the present day.

'The very fact he has dismissed the various restraining orders we have against him as mere folly is a sure sign that he only lives by his own rules in a self-centred untouchable world where the law is irrelevant.

'The last time he was sent to prison we felt free and it felt like a release from the perpetual panic and anguish which has sadly become a customary aspect of our lives.

'When he was in jail, no longer was it necessary to take expensive taxis or cross a muddy field as avoidance strategies.

'We desire to live our lives without the continuous worry for this arrogant, predatory person who has affected out peaceful lives for over a decade with his narcissistic attitude and behaviour.

'His behaviour is obsessive distressing, disturbing and alarming and we simply do not know where or when we will encounter him next.'

Kershaw had shot to fame in the 70s with his large-scale murals on houses and later was dubbed 'the Original Banksy' with his work displayed as far afield as Sao Paolo in Brazil.

In mitigation, defence lawyer Anthony Morris said: 'There does not seem to be anything done that is intentionally malicious.

'There is no offer of violence and no physical intimidation. From his point of view, he was trying to build bridges and was not consciously aware of the fact the victim was suffering from psychological distress.

'He lived in the hope that he could break down barriers and build a friendship again.'

But sentencing Judge Mark Savill told Kershaw: 'It is extremely sad to see a gentleman with a great skill as an artist before the court for such serious matters.

'Catherine was doing what any normal citizen should be allowed to do and yet you have caused very serious harm or distress.

'Your age does not justify your appalling behaviour in this case.

'Two women have had to suffer with their lives blighted and ruined by your selfish behaviour.

'The time has come where you must receive the message from this court that this behaviour cannot continue.'

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POVERTY, A FACTOR IN EDUCATION?

by Cliff Jones

THE Labour MP for Riverside in Liverpool does not like the report from the Tory dominated Commons Education Committee that downplays poverty as a factor in education. I taught in that constituency for eleven years. If there was a single dominant factor at work it was poverty. That had been the case for a very long time.

Local people rolled up their sleeves and began to build the then largest housing co-operative in Western Europe. I designed and obtained government approval for a Community Studies GCSE to support young people working on committees designing that co-operative. I felt so professionally happy.

The Tory government abolished it. Young people were to be taught only what government wanted them to be taught in ways that government approved and assessed only on what government wished them to be assessed. There is only one F in Ofsted.

When Tories talk about catching up they set the rules of the educational game in which young people AND teachers must participate and then tie together the shoe laces of some but not others. This is why I was a founder member of the Liverpool group of teachers examining the impact of unemployment on the curriculum. Long gone. Only for a while were we listened to.

A society that is more equal is what is needed. A society that is more equal is both healthier and happier. Alongside that must be an educational system that is fulfilling. Mere measurement of performance does not fulfil.

I admit that I have not yet read the Report that is causing all the fuss. I also admit that, as a member of the working party that produced the Report on Political Literacy in 1978, I have, since the arrival of Thatcher in 1979, failed to do enough to counter the effect of policies that have widened gaps in society. Widen those gaps and you produce poverty. It is a big factor in education.

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Union Action Halts Electricians De-Skilling Plans

Unite the union have welcomed confirmation by contractors Balfour Beatty and N.G. Bailey that they remain committed to the existing Joint Industry Board (JIB) agreement and the training of fully qualified electricians. 

The union said it had raised concerns about de-skilling earlier this year after it emerged that the two companies working on the Somerset Hinkley Point C project were seeking to introduce  training standards for a new position of 'electrical support operative'.  The union warned that the new role amounted to de-skilling of electricians and had not been discussed with Unite. The proposals led to widespread protests  by Unite electricians across the UK. Jerry Swain, Unite national officer for construction said: "Unite would oppose any efforts to weaken the skills set and training of electricians.

This is not the first occasion where there has been efforts to introduce dilutees into the electrical contracting industry and to undercut the wages of skilled electricians. During pay negotiations in 1997-1999, between the AEEU and Electrical Contractors Association (ECA), the employers demanded the introduction of a new semi-skilled electrical grade of 'Skilled Mechanical Assembler' (SMA), despite JIB policy stating that only qualified electricians should carry out electrical contracting work.

In  2011 eight of the largest M&E contractors decided to withdraw from the JIB and unilaterally set up new terms and conditions for the industry called the 'Building Engineering Services National Agreement' (BESNA).  The new agreement would have allowed unqualified workers to carry out work currently done by skilled and qualified electricians and cut the JIB rate from £16.25 p.h. to £10.00 p., a 35% pay cut under BESNA.

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Hitchens schools a Muslim on free speech

What chances do the Tories have in Batley and Spen by-election? A pollster gives his verdict

The Tories will be hoping to take a seat held by Labour since 1997

By Alexandra Rogers on YORKSHIRE LIVE website - 1 JUN 2021

When the Tories talk about how tough the Batley by election is going to be for the party to win, it probably isn't solely a lesson in expectations management - for once.

Batley and Spen is a highly unpredictable contest for the Conservatives, as pollsters and psephologists know despite its erroneous categorisation as a "Red Wall" seat that now forms the Tories' stomping ground.

One such expert is James Johnson, a private pollster at JL Partners who, as a former adviser to Theresa May while she was prime minister, knows all about how the party will target Batley and Spen.

Mr Johnson describes the West Yorkshire constituency as "Red Wall 2.0 - that next tier of Labour held seats... that could go Conservative".

What separates Batley from Hartlepool, where the Tories pulled of a resounding victory earlier this month, is that the Brexit party vote share in the 2019 general election was low by comparison.

In Hartlepool, it accounted for 25 per cent of the vote share. Naturally, what happened in that by election was votes transferred from the Brexit party to the Conservatives to allow the party to cross the finish line.

"One of the reasons Batley didn't fall in 2019 and is 2.0 rather than 1.0 is because it doesn't have quite as a high a Brexit party vote share, it has more people from different ethnic groups rather than people from white British backgrounds, and it is in an area that is more suspicious perhaps of the Conservatives," Mr Johnson explains.

It's in the second tier which is a much harder challenge for the Conservatives."

National issues such as the success of the vaccine rollout and the appeal of Boris Johnson will undoubtedly help the Tories, but Mr Johnson's message to the party if they want to win is "get local".

"Everything will be informed by research on the ground," he says.

"In Hartlepool, you saw such a focus on jobs in the area and on Ben Houchen, because their research was telling them that they would like more jobs in the area and that people liked Ben Houchen.

"The Tories will emphasise jobs and investment, there will be reference to the vaccine rollout and we'll probably see this message about voting for change - really positioning the Conservatives as the change candidate to residents who feel like Labour have represented them for a long time but not done much for them."

The 'get local' message might have been missed by the Tories, who have selected Ryan Stephenson, a Leeds councillor and chair of the West Yorkshire Conservatives as its candidate.

Some may believe the importance of having a local candidate has been exaggerated, but Mr Johnson is not one of them.

"The unspoken rule for successful by-elections is you are helped enormously by having a local candidate," he says.

"And that was actually one of the problems for both parties in Hartlepool. There was a lot of kick back that neither candidate was not from the area - the Labour candidate was seen as second-hand goods from Stockton and the Conservative candidate was from North Yorkshire.

"If we're in a situation where one candidate is local and one candidate isn't, that is a real advantage to whoever has got that local candidate."

Labour too faces a battle to retain Batley and Spen, where its majority has declined to number just 3,525 votes going into this election. Their difficulties could well translate into success for the Tories.

The Conservatives face one main threat in Mr Halloran, while the Labour party faces several: the Liberal Democrats, the Green party and of course, leftwing firebrand and party exile George Galloway.

"If Labour are losing votes to the Lib Dems of Greens, who had a good showing in the locals, or if Labour are losing votes to a a George Galloway candidacy, then that is going to be difficult for Labour," Mr Johnson says.

"Even if a Lib Dem or Green candidate isn't particularly good, or out there or visible, their very presence on the ballot paper does take away votes - we saw this in the 2019 general election where actually, some of the Lib Dems weren't actually campaigning that much."

Regarding George Galloway, Mr Johnson says: "Lots of people are very fed up.

"A big reason why people voted Conservative in Hartlepool was because they were fed up with the status quo and wanted a change.

"It is very easy to see George Galloway becoming that person for people who don't like Labour but don't want to vote Conservative. Although he didn't do particularly well in Scotland where he last stood, he is noisy, he is on the ground and he also puts a lot of effort in - he doesn't just sit back and pop up and do a few visits, he really goes for it.

"And he doesn't need to take that many votes from Labour to cause a problem. It really could be just a matter of a couple of thousand of votes and you would see it coming perilously close for Labour."

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