A swift resolution

Andrew moves motion to restore bird habitat

Motion passed on a free vote with cross-party support

 

Earlier this month, I received an email from a Billericay resident on behalf of the Essex Birdwatching Society, inviting me to sign their petition to help save the swift by urging the Government to make it a requirement that 'swift bricks' be installed in new housing. I am not a big fan of signing petitions, to be frank. I get sent quite a few of them as a councillor and they are often a bit cranky and eccentric. I am also not one to get particularly 'touchy-feely'. I have kept pets and like animals. I still eat meat and use animal-based products but I have, I hope, a healthy appreciation for animal welfare. But I am certainly not an ornithologist or a bird-fancier. Other than a couple of lovebirds we had when I was a kid, I have never been much interested in birds. I am, of course, aware of what a swift is, though I have never been particularly interested in them, any more than the clouds in the sky. Like most birds, to my mind, they are just up there, flapping about, not bothering me and I am not bothering them... Or so I thought.

The statistic that caught my eye was that 50% of our swift population is gone. Halved! That figure shocked me. Like I say, I was vaguely aware of the swift. It is a fairly iconic bird. I had no idea, however, that they were so imperiled and, despite myself, I found myself reading and researching. The plight of these birds, I discovered, is no great mystery. They have lost their nesting sites, pure and simple. These were typically under the eaves of buildings. This took me back to my own childhood. Growing up, we always had birds nesting on our bungalow - probably not swifts, as they like high, deep crevices, but we certainly had nests! Alas, many of those nesting sites are now long gone. We have lost so many of our old houses and buildings, or the eaves have been blocked off in refurbishments. Roof spaces have been filled and swift numbers have declined accordingly.

So our friend the swift now finds himself on the U.K. Red List as a species of 'conservation concern' and he is not alone. Many similar bird species suffer the same problem. It is not an insoluble one though. In my researches, I discovered a similar motion that had been passed earlier this year by Cllr. Robert Nemeth, a Conservative councillor on Brighton & Hove City Council. His motion also included the installation of 'beebricks' to help our endangered pollinators.

So I decided to do the Essex Birdwatchers one better and I moved the following motion at Full Council last week:

 

To be moved by Councillor Schrader –

Council notes:

The ongoing challenges faced by our bee population and the positive contribution of our Pollinator Action Plan.

That the iconic and irreplaceable swifts, which define our summers, have declined by over 50% across the U.K.

That swifts spend more time airborne than any other bird, sometimes only landing when returning to their nests in our walls from Africa but that modern building methods block swifts out.

That every Local Planning Authority has a statutory duty to have regard to conserving biodiversity as part of the planning process and planning policy at both a national and local level strongly supports the need to protect and conserve biodiversity and to seek enhancements, including measures to extend existing and support for new or isolated habitats but the current metric for calculating biodiversity net gain does not include existing nesting sites in buildings.

This Council calls

· For swift boxes and bee bricks to be required in all new housing, to provide homes for these birds as well as other red-listed species, such as house martins, starlings and house sparrows. These can be designed into buildings without conflicting with insulation and should be made a requirement for new housing in the borough; and

· Tasks the relevant officers to consider what changes may be needed to local planning policies and processes to ensure a majority of new developments in the borough incorporate swift boxes and/or bee bricks as an inexpensive and easily achievable biodiversity net gain for the borough.

 

It made sense to me to include beebricks, as the trials and tribulations of our beleaguered bee population are now well-documented. Indeed, it was my friend and colleague the Mayor of Basildon, Cllr. Luke Mackenzie (Con, Pitsea South-East), who moved a motion at a previous Full Council that Basildon adopt a Pollinator Action Plan to help our struggling bees and, indeed, I seconded his motion and it was precisely what the Council did (and quite rightly so). It occured to me that environmentalism is high on the agenda at the moment and in many respects not helped by the divisive antics like the Extinction Rebellion loons or the Just Stop Oil nutters gluing themselves to roads and carrying out acts of criminal damage. But the plight of the swifts has nothing to do with global warming or the 'climate crisis' and we do not all have to live in wigwams or adopt vegan diets to give the swift a ‘liveable future’. The cause is simple - loss of habitat - and the solution is equally simple. Restore the habitat.

Adult swifts, I have learned, are known for their site-fidelity. They return to the same niche year after year and live for up to 20 years. They spend more time airborne than any other bird, sometimes only landing when returning from Africa to their nests in our walls and they are tidy and quiet neighbours. Modern building methods have blocked the swifts out. The solution is simple. You could attach a swift box to the side of a building but we can also easily build swiftbricks into new buildings. They do not conflict with the insulation and are about the size of an ordinary brick. They can even make them to match just about any brick, stone or other material, are relatively inexpensive and extremely versatile. They do not require any maintenance or cleaning - no piles of droppings or anything like that - and surveys show they are also used by other red-listed birds, such as house martins, great and blue tits, starlings and house sparrows.

 (a swift brick)

Now, although I am a frontbencher nowadays, I moved the motion in a personal capacity and Conservative colleagues were given a free vote. It was not universally supported on my side, as Tories tend to be weary of over-regulation and imposing onerous and pettifogging rules. Nonetheless, I was pleased to be seconded by the Leader of the Council, Cllr. Andrew Baggott (Con, Burstead), who spoke eloquently in support, as did the Cabinet Member for Strategic Planning & Infrastructure, Cllr. Dr. Richard Moore (Con, Burstead). I was also gratified to receive cross-party backing from the Labour Group, accepting an amendment by Cllr. David Kirkman (Lab, Fryerns) so that bats, hedgehogs and other wildlife also be given consideration. I did find myself, however, in scholarly disagreement with my friend and colleague Cllr. Kevin Wingfield (Con, Laindon Park), who moved an amendment to remove beebricks.

In a pun-laden speech ("'To bee brick or not to bee brick', that is the question that Councillor Schrader has put before this council this evening..."), Kevin articulately contested the efficacy of beebricks. Although supportive of the introduction of swift boxes and in full agreement that helping the bees is essential, he was concerned that research suggests the beebricks may not be effective and, indeed, could be counterproductive and suggested that we take the time to watch what happens in Brighton & Hove.

Of course, I suspected some smart Alec would ask me a load of befuddling technical questions and bamboozle me with the science and, to be frank, it was always bound to be Kev Wingfield. I am, of course, not an ecologist or any kind of expert and I am content to be guided by those far cleverer than I - and, to be frank, they don't come much cleverer than Kev! It is a shame that former councillor Chris Allen is no longer a member of the Council, as I believe he is a trustee of the Essex Beekeepers’ Association. But there was clearly an abundance of caution in the room, as when put to the vote, the Wingfield Amendment passed. I was reminded of something said by Councillor Nemeth, a beekeeper himself, during the debates on this in Brighton & Hove: “There’s a well-known saying in the beekeeping world that if you ask 100 different beekeepers a question then you get 101 different answers.” So I was content to press ahead with my motion, as amended, and keep an eye on the experience of Brighton & Hove and see how the science around beebricks progresses.

On being put to the vote, my motion on swift boxes was eventually passed by 21 votes to 9 (with 2 abstentions).

I leave the niceties and the details to our planning officers but I believe in Brighton & Hove it applies to all new developments over 5 metres tall and they provide guidance to help developers and designers incorporate them into their designs and sets out the types of boxes or bricks that can be installed, how they should be selected, how many are required for each scale of development and where they should be sited, with appropriate advice from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (R.S.P.B.) and others. So, hopefully, I've done my little bit for the swifts at least!

What brings down a Prime Minister? *Updated*

The P.M. has been forced from office...

Either by a cabal of bitter opponents and disloyal M.P.s or the inevitable consequences of his own conduct, depending on your point of view. Is this a democratic outrage or simply par for the course?

I do not generally use this blog for opinion pieces or articles on anything other than local politics; very rarely national politics, much less so political history! But the resignation of Boris Johnson on July 7th prompted a flurry of outrage among the hearty band of Boris fans that populate my Twitter feed. Many of them were appalled that a P.M. who won an 80-seat majority, got Brexit done and led us through an unprecedented global pandemic could be removed by a 'cabal' of M.P.s, rather than by the British people at the ballot box.

Rt. Hon. Boris Johnson, M.P. (P.M., 2019-22)

I have already blogged about Boris' resignation and so the nuances of my own rather more sanguine thoughts on the circumstances of his fall from grace have been well trod and need not be rehearsed here. But, I wondered how unusual this situation really is. In my own lifetime, that colossus Margaret Thatcher was forced from office in 1990 (when I was 8 years old), arguably knifed in the back by her own side (albeit in her case after 11 and 1/2 years in office rather than only 3). Similarly, Tony Blair was cajoled into departing 10 Downing Street in 2007, despite having won three successive election victories but having become increasingly unpopular with his own rank and file. More recently, David Cameron and Theresa May were undone by Brexit - Mr. Cameron resigned in 2016 having lost the E.U. referendum and Mrs May in 2019, having failed to deliver on the outcome. Only John Major and Gordon Brown lost office at a General Election (in 1997 and 2010 respectively). So, of the seven P.M.s of my lifetime, most have been forced to resign by circumstance rather than by the voters.

But what does history tell us? After all, my lifetime only covers 40 of the 300-year history of the premiership, from Robert Walpole taking up the seals of office in 1721 and Boris handing them back in 2022 as the 55th holder of the post. Being an appalling nerd, of course, I set about finding out and I thought it was interesting enough to share with others (my wife tells me that I abuse the word 'interesting' a lot but, hey, reading on is not compulsory).

Sir Robert Walpole (P.M., 1721-42) ~ first and longest-serving P.M.

It makes sense to start at the beginning and the office of Prime Minister dates back to the 18th-Century. The aforementioned Mr. Walpole was the first holder of the office but never known officially as 'Prime Minister'. Most historical P.M.s held the office of First Lord of the Treasury (and, indeed, still do). The term 'Prime Minister' did not become official until the 20th-Century. It was originally intended as an insult, implying the holder was little more than chief lackey to the King. Sir Robert Walpole, however, was one of the most skilled politicians ever to bestride British politics. A member of the old Whig Party, he headed the government for an as yet unbeaten, uninterrupted run of 20 years and, for most of that period, had King George I and later King George II eating out of his hand and exercised near-total mastery of the House of Commons. But all things end and advancing age caused his domination of Parliament to wane and increasingly political factions worked against him. The curiously-named 'War of Jenkins' Ear' with Spain made him unpopular and reduced his parliamentary majority. Ultimately, he lost an important vote following a naval disaster, which was treated as a vote of no confidence and he was forced to retire (albeit as the Earl of Orford, with a seat in the House of Lords - only time will tell if Boris will be so lucky).

This became a fairly typical way to leave office. Indeed, it was nearly 130 years until a British P.M. was removed simply by losing an election. When the Victorian prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, lost the General Election of 1868 he was the first P.M. in history to lose power directly as a consequence of losing an election. This created a run, as his Liberal successor, William Gladstone, lost office in the 1874 G.E. and Mr. Disraeli (later ennobled as the Earl of Beaconsfield) went on to lose again in 1880. Lord Beaconsfield has the distinction of being both the first P.M. to lose office in an election and the only one to have done so twice.

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (P.M., Feb.-Dec. 1868 & 1874-80) ~ first P.M. to lose office in an election

Apart from Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone, only ten more of the 55 P.M.s have lost power in this way - Ramsay MacDonald in 1924, Stanley Baldwin in 1929, Winston Churchill in 1945, Clement Attlee in 1951, Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1964, Harold Wilson in 1970, Edward Heath in 1974 and James Callaghan in 1979. Mr. Major and Dr. Brown, I have already referred to. The late Sir Edward Heath was the last P.M. to both enter and leave office at a G.E.

So what about the rest?

Well, some were simply dismissed by the monarch - back in the days when monarchs had an unfettered ability to do this. A repeat offender was King George III, who removed the Duke of Newcastle in 1762 essentially due to personal animosity and a preference for his new favourite, the Earl of Bute, who became the first ever Tory P.M. Likewise, the King dismissed George Grenville and replaced him with the Marquess of Rockingham (both Whigs) in 1765 more or less out of preference for the latter over the former. Mr. Grenville's son, William, Lord Grenville, also served as a Whig P.M. and, like his father, was dismissed by the King in 1807 in opposition to Lord Grenville's policies on Catholic Emancipation. King William IV was the last monarch to sack his prime minister when he dismissed Viscount Melbourne in 1834 in opposition to his proposed reforms. Queen Victoria, though she often interfered in politics, never directly sacked a P.M. and neither have any of her successors (so far at least).

King George III (1738-1820) ~ serial sacker of P.M.s

Some P.M.s resigned (at least ostensibly) because of ill health. The first was the Earl of Chatham, perhaps better known to history as 'Pitt the Elder', in 1768. He suffered ill health for many years, typically gout but also severe bouts of mental illness. He nevertheless lived for another ten years, famously collapsing whilst delivering a vituperative speech in the House of Lords on the subject of American independence. A further eleven P.M.s resigned over the years under similar circumstances. Some, like Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman in 1908, died soon thereafter. Indeed, Sir Henry died at Number 10, having been too ill to move out. Others lived a good while yet, like Harold Macmillan, who resigned ostensibly on health grounds in 1963. He was purportedly so convinced he was about to die that the Queen had to break with protocol to visit him at hospital to accept his resignation. He nevertheless lived for a further 23 years, leading some to suspect his resignation had more to do with the fallout from the Profumo sex scandal. Privately, he regarded himself as having been hounded from office by a backbench minority (sound familiar?). The last P.M. to resign explicitly on health grounds was Mr. Wilson, who resigned in 1976 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

A small number of P.M.s actually died in office, including both Lord Orford's two immediate Whig successors, the Earl of Wilmington in 1743 and Henry Pelham in 1754. Lord Rockingham served two terms of office, resigning due to internal dissent in 1766 and then returning to office in 1782, only to die fourteen weeks later in a 'flu epidemic. Lord Chatham's son, William Pitt the Younger, also served as P.M. He was, at 24, our youngest ever premier and died in office in 1806 aged just 46 with a cumulative length of service of 18 years, second only to Lord Orford himself. Spencer Perceval earned a place in the history books by being the only P.M. to be assassinated - shot in the lobby of the House of Commons in 1812 by a disgruntled merchant with a grievance against the Government. George Canning, meanwhile, became a pub quiz footnote by having the shortest tenure of any P.M., dying in office in 1827 after just 119 days in power. The last P.M. to expire in office was Viscount Palmerston, who enjoyed rude health in his later years and remained in office at the grand old age of 80, until he died suddenly of a chill in 1865 just shy of his 81st birthday.

Spencer Perceval (P.M., 1809-12) ~ only P.M. to be assassinated

Apart from Lord Orford, I calculate a further sixteen P.M.s were forced to resign by a so-called 'Vote of No Confidence' (known nowadays by the acronym 'VONC'). Some of them more than once - the record being held jointly by Mr. Gladstone and the Marquess of Salisbury at three each. Some of these were straightforward confidence votes while others were important votes, the loss of which was deemed to constitute a VONC. Lord North, for example, was removed in a VONC in 1782, following the British loss at the Battle of Yorktown during the American Revolution. By comparison, in 1846, Sir Robert Peel failed to repeal the Corn Laws and the loss of the crucial vote on the repeal Bill, whilst not explicitly a VONC, caused him to resign. In recent years, VONCs have become far less frequent and the most recent P.M. brought down this way was Jim Callaghan in 1979. Following several by-election defeats, which had chipped away at his majority, a vote was triggered by Mrs Thatcher as Leader of the Opposition, which Mr. Callaghan lost by a single vote (311 to 310). This was the first VONC since 1924, when the National Government of Mr. MacDonald fell apart. The events of the 1979 VONC were so dramatic, they were immortalised in a stage play called This House by James Graham. There have been several unsuccessful VONCs since then. Mrs Thatcher survived five plus a vote of censure. More recently, Mrs May survived one in January 2019 and, just last month, Boris Johnson survived a vote moved by Leader of the Opposition Sir Keir Starmer (the P.M. having already announced his intention to resign).

The rest? Well, they can basically be filed under 'misc.' The Duke of Devonshire, for example, was brought down in 1756 by a variety of factors, not least of which was the execution of Admiral Byng during the Seven Years' War, widely seen as a miscarriage of justice. The Duke of Portland resigned after a scandal in 1809 when two of his Cabinet ministers, Mr. Canning (later P.M. himself) and Viscount Castlereagh, fought a duel. Some, such as the Earl of Shelburne in 1783, were brought down by the shifting allegiances among the various parliamentary factions of the day. For some, such as David Lloyd George in 1922, it was the breakdown of a temporary coalition. Others, like Earl Grey in 1834 or Arthur Balfour in 1905, were undermined by Cabinet splits and internal party disunity. Viscount Goderich, meanwhile, resigned in 1828 simply because he was completely inept and knew it.

Viscount Goderich (P.M., 1827-8) ~ who reportedly begged King George IV in tears to be allowed to resign

Boris' fall is difficult to categorise. He certainly was not incompetent and desperate to go, like Lord Goderich, whatever his opponents may say. As I said in my blog, he has been a by and large successful P.M. Like most P.M.s, he was unpopular among certain sections of his own party but one does not detect the kind of fatal internal disunity that plagued Mr. Major's final days or that broader sense of dissatisfaction that characterised the death throes of Mrs Thatcher's government. His Cabinet did not seem particularly split. Rather, Boris' is a whole new category of resignation in having been prompted by apparent weariness amongst ministerial colleagues with the constant trickle of entirely avoidable controversies. Some of his supporters claim he was 'hounded' from office by unprecedented press hostility but, while there is some truth in that, I recently read a short biography of Lord Bute and few P.M.s before or since could claim to match the relentless and deeply personal animus that was directed at Lord Bute, largely on account of nothing more than his being a Scotsman.

So, in conclusion, while I think the Conservative Party may yet regret the fact that Boris Johnson has been forced out of office, the truth is it was not that unusual.

UPDATE

Fifty days after succeeding Boris Johnson, Elizabeth Truss was forced to resign in the face of widespread opposition to her economic policies. Her resignation, after just over a month in office, makes her officially the shortest-serving Prime Minister in British history. She has displaced George Canning, who set the previous record at four months and has held the dubious distinction unchallenged for the past 195 years. Miss Truss' new record is going to take some breaking!

Rt. Hon. Elizabeth Truss, M.P. (P.M., Sept.-Oct. 2022)

She is also the eighteenth British Prime Minister never to have won a General Election, following on from Gordon Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair upon his resignation in 2007 and went on to lose the 2010 General Election. Miss Truss is, however, the first Prime Minister since Neville Chamberlain to have served as Prime Minister without ever even contesting and losing a General Election. Mr. Chamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin in 1937 and resigned in 1940 following the outbreak of World War II, with no intervening election. Mr. Chamberlain was replaced by Winston Churchill, who would lead Britain through the war only to lose office at the General Election of 1945.

Perhaps more significantly from a constitutional point of view, as I outlined above, it is by no means unusual for the governing party to switch leaders between elections - indeed, if anything, it has been the norm'. In my lifetime, Margaret Thatcher was succeeded by John Major, Tony Blair by Gordon Brown, David Cameron by Theresa May, Theresa May by Boris Johnson and then Boris Johnson by Liz Truss. What is more unusual is for this to happen twice between elections. In fact, until I researched it, I felt sure it must be unprecedented. I have discovered, in actuality, that there is ample precedent, though it has become highly unusual.

For the most recent historical example, we must go back to the aforementioned changeover from Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. Churchill in 1940 - over 80 years ago. That was the last time a Prime Minister succeeded a Prime Minister who had themselves succeeded a previous Prime Minister without either of them having fought an election.

Still, none of this is as bad as the period between the General Elections of 1761 and 1768, when there was no less than FOUR changes of Prime Minister. This was when the office of Prime Minister was still relatively new and the system of political parties less well established. In those days, M.P.s sat in factions and loose alliances rather than organised political parties. Despite having won the General Election of 1761, King George III dismissed his Whig Prime Minister, the Duke of Newcastle, the following year and replaced him with his new favourite, the Earl of Bute (a Tory). Lord Bute proved so wildly unpopular that he had to be sacked after less than 10 months in office and was replaced by George Grenville. Even by the factional standards of the time, the Whig Party had by then begun to splinter into several warring cliques, centred around the leading men of the day - principally the 'Grenvillites', 'Rockingham Whigs' and 'Chathamites'. As they vied for power, Mr. Grenville was dismissed by the King a couple of years later in preference for the Marquess of Rockingham and, only a year after that, replaced Lord Rockingham with the Earl of Chatham. Lord Chatham suffered a nervous breakdown in 1768 and the subsequent General Election returned a new coalition government nominally led by the new Chathamite Whig leader the Duke of Grafton but in reality dominated by the Tory leader Lord North.

Rt. Hon. Rishi Sunak, M.P. (P.M., 2022-present)

The principle here is that it is not the Prime Minister of the day who wins a mandate at an election, as prime ministers are not directly elected. Fortunately, we now have properly organised parties rather than factions and, although there are many who dislike the party system, as I have always said, if we did not have political parties then we would need to invent them. It is the party they lead that wins the mandate in an election rather than the person of the Prime Minister. The sole qualification for the office is to be capable of leading the largest party and commanding a majority in the House of Commons. As Rishi Sunak is now the Leader of the Conservative & Unionist Party and enjoys an 80-seat Commons majority, King Charles III has invited him to form a government in His name and serve as our new Prime Minister (the second of His Majesty's reign). Mr. Sunak is, incidentally, the first British Asian and the first Hindu to serve as Prime Minister and, at 42 years of age, the youngest P.M. since the Earl of Liverpool took office at the same age in 1812. Over all, he is our sixth youngest P.M. ever.

I have updated my list of prime ministerial downfalls below. [I shall continue to update the list below as new P.M.s bite the dust but I shall leave the article above as is. A.S.]

 

Partly for my own entertainment, I've compiled a list of prime ministerial downfalls:

 

The Earl of Orford (Whig) – Resigned after 20 years in office in 1742 after losing an effective VONC. *Better remembered as Sir Robert Walpole; died in 1745 aged 68

The Earl of Wilmington (Whig) – Died in office in 1743 aged 69, after only a year in power.

Henry Pelham (Whig) – Died in office in 1754 aged 59, after 10 years in power.

The Duke of Newcastle (Whig) – Forced to resign after 2 years in office in 1756 following the loss of Menorca in the Seven Years’ War.

The Duke of Devonshire (Whig) – Forced to resign after less than 8 months in office in 1757 for various reasons including the execution of Admiral Byng. *Died in 1764 aged 44

The Duke of Newcastle (Whig) – Dismissed by King George III in 1762, largely due to personal animosity, after a total of 8 years in power. *Died in 1768 aged 75

The Earl of Bute (Tory) – Resigned after less than 10 months in office due to his intense unpopularity and having lost the confidence of King George III in 1763. *Died in 1792 aged 78

George Grenville (Whig) – Dismissed by King George III after 2 years in power in 1765 in preference of Lord Rockingham. *Died in 1770 aged 58

The Marquess of Rockingham (Whig) – Resigned in 1766, after only a year in office, due to internal dissent within the Cabinet.

The Earl of Chatham (Whig) – Resigned nominally due to ill health in 1768 after 2 years in office. *Died in 1778 aged 69

The Duke of Grafton (Whig) – Resigned in 1770 due to a number of crises and public attacks after only a year in office. *Died in 1811 aged 75

Lord North (Whig) – Resigned after 12 years in office in 1782 after losing a VONC following the defeat at Yorktown during the American Revolution. *Later succeeded his father as Earl of Guilford; died in 1792 aged 60

The Marquess of Rockingham (Whig) – Died in office in 1783 aged 52, after just 14 weeks.

The Earl of Shelburne (Whig) – Forced to resign after less than 9 months by an alliance of Charles James Fox and Lord North in 1783. *Later created Marquess of Lansdowne; died in 1805 aged 68

The Duke of Portland (Whig) – Lost a vote in the Lords on reform of the East India Co. in 1783 and forced to resign after just 8 months in power.

William Pitt (Tory) – Forced to resign after 17 years in power in 1801 in the face of opposition from King George III to Catholic Emancipation.

Henry Addington (Tory) – Forced to resign after 3 years in office following the return to favour of Mr. Pitt in 1804. *Later created Viscount Sidmouth; died in 1844 aged 86

William Pitt (Tory) – Died in office in 1806 aged 46, after just over a year back in power.

Lord Grenville (Tory) – Dismissed after a year in office in 1807 due to ongoing disagreements over Catholic Emancipation. *Died in 1834 aged 74

The Duke of Portland (Tory) – Resigned after 2 years in office following the scandalous duel between George Canning and Viscount Castlereagh in 1809. *Died 3 weeks later aged 71

Spencer Perceval (Tory) – Assassinated in 1812 aged 49, after 2 years in office.

The Earl of Liverpool (Tory) – Resigned after 15 years in power due to ill health in 1827, dying shortly thereafter aged 58.

George Canning (Tory) – Died in office in 1827 after less than 4 months in office aged 57.

Viscount Goderich (Tory) – Resigned in favour of the Duke of Wellington in 1828, just 5 months after taking office, due to his ineptness. *Later created Earl of Ripon; died in 1859 aged 76

The Duke of Wellington (Tory) – Lost a VONC in 1830 and resigned after 2 years in office.

Earl Grey (Whig) – Resigned in 1834 after 4 years in office over Cabinet splits. *Died in 1845 aged 81

Viscount Melbourne (Whig) – Dismissed by King William IV in 1834, after less than 4 months in office, in opposition to reforms.

The Duke of Wellington (Tory) – Caretaker Prime Minister from Nov.-Dec. 1834, resigned on the return to England of Tory leader Sir Robert Peel, who had been in Sardinia when Lord Melbourne fell. *Died in 1852 aged 83

Sir Robert Peel (Tory) – Resigned after less than 100 days in 1835, having failed to win a majority in the 1835 G.E.

Viscount Melbourne (Whig) – Lost a VONC in 1841 and resigned after 6 years in office. *Died in 1848 aged 69

Sir Robert Peel (Tory) – Resigned after 5 years in office following defeat in a vote on the Corn Laws (effective VONC) in 1846. *Died in 1850 aged 62

Lord John Russell (Whig) – Lost a VONC in 1852 and resigned after 6 years in power. *Later created Earl Russell

The Earl of Derby (Conservative) – Lost a VONC (Budget) in 1852 and resigned after just 10 months.

The Earl of Aberdeen (Peelite Tory) – Lost a VONC (concerning the Crimean War) in 1855 and resigned after 2 years. *Died in 1860 aged 76

Viscount Palmerston (Liberal) – Lost a VONC in 1858 and resigned after 3 years in office.

The Earl of Derby (Conservative) – Lost a VONC in 1859 and resigned after just over a year.

Viscount Palmerston (Liberal) – Died in office in 1865 aged 81, after a total of 9 years in power.

Earl Russell (Liberal) – Resigned in 1866 due to party disunity after only 8 months. *Died in 1878 aged 85

The Earl of Derby (Conservative) – Retired from public life on medical advice in 1868 and died the follow year aged 70. He served a total of 4 years as P.M. over three terms.

Benjamin Disraeli (Conservative) – Lost the 1868 G.E. just 10 months after taking over from Lord Derby.

William Gladstone (Liberal) – Lost the 1874 G.E.

Benjamin Disraeli, later the Earl of Beaconsfield (Conservative) – Lost the 1880 G.E. after a total of 7 years in power. *Died in 1881 aged 76 

William Gladstone (Liberal) – Resigned in 1885 after 5 years in office following the murder of General Gordon in Khartoum.

The Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative) ­– Forced from office in 1886 after only 7 month when the Irish Nationalists switched their support to the Liberals.

William Gladstone (Liberal) – Forced to resign in 1886 after just 5 months back in power due to internal party splits over Irish Home Rule.

The Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative) – Lost a VONC in 1892 and resigned after 6 years back in power.

William Gladstone (Liberal) – Resigned for the last time in 1894 over internal party disputes around naval rearmament and tax matters, capping off a total of 13 years in power. *Died in 1898 aged 88

The Earl of Rosebery (Liberal) – Resigned in 1895 after losing a vote on the army supply after just over a year in office. *Died in 1929 aged 82

The Marquess of Salisbury (Conservative) – Resigned in 1902 in failing health and heartbroken by the death of his wife and died the following year aged 73, after a total of 14 years in office.

Arthur Balfour (Conservative) – Resigned after 3 years in office in 1905 over internal party disputes around free trade. *Later created Earl of Balfour; died in 1930 aged 81

Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (Liberal) – Resigned after 2 years in office in 1908 due to ill health and died shortly afterwards aged 71.

H. H. Asquith (Liberal) – Resigned after 9 years in power in 1916, during W.W.1, having lost the confidence of coalition partners. *Later created Earl of Oxford and Asquith; died in 1928 aged 75

David Lloyd George (Liberal) – Forced to resign after 6 years in office in 1922 after the Conservatives withdrew from the coalition. *Later created Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor; died in 1945 aged 82

Bonar Law (Conservative) – Resigned just 6 months into office in 1923 due to ill health and died shortly thereafter aged 65.

Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) – Lost a VONC (King’s Speech) in 1924 and resigned, after 8 months in office.

Ramsay MacDonald (Labour) – Lost the 1924 G.E.

Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) – Lost the 1929 G.E.

Ramsay MacDonald (Labour) – Resigned after 7 years in power in 1935 due to ill health. *Died in 1937 aged 71.

Stanley Baldwin (Conservative) – Retired for the last time in 1937 following the Abdication Crisis and questions around rearmament, after just over 7 years in total. *Later created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley; died in 1947 aged 80

Neville Chamberlain (Conservative) – Resigned after 3 years in office in 1940 due to ill health and lack of support following the outbreak of W.W.2 and died six months later aged 71.

Winston Churchill (Conservative) – Lost the 1945 G.E.

Clement Attlee (Labour) – Lost the 1951 G.E., after 6 years in office. *Later created Earl Attlee; died in 1967 aged 84

Sir Winston Churchill (Conservative) – Resigned in 1955 due to ill health, after 9 years in power. *Died in 1965 aged 90

Sir Anthony Eden (Conservative) – Resigned after 2 years in office in 1957 due to ill health, exhausted by the Suez Crisis. *Later created Earl of Avon; died in 1977 aged 79

Harold Macmillan (Conservative) – Resigned after 6 years in office in 1963 due to ill health, also exhausted by the Profumo Affair. *Later created Earl of Stockton; died in 1986 aged 92

Sir Alec Douglas-Home, formerly the Earl of Home (Conservative) – Lost the 1964 G.E., just under a year after succeeding Mr. Macmillan. *Later created Lord Home of the Hirsel; died in 1995 aged 92

Harold Wilson (Labour) – Lost the 1970 G.E.

Edward Heath (Conservative) – Lost the 1974 G.E. *Later knighted; died in 2005 aged 89

Harold Wilson (Labour) – Resigned in 1976 due to ill health, after 8 years in office. *Later created Lord Wilson of Rievaulx; died in 1995 aged 79

James Callaghan (Labour) – Lost the 1979 G.E. following a VONC, after 3 years in office *Later created Lord Callaghan of Cardiff; died in 2005 aged 92

Margaret Thatcher (Conservative) – Ousted by Conservative M.P.s in 1990, after more than 11 years in power. *Later created Baroness Thatcher; died in 2013 aged 87

John Major (Conservative) – Lost the 1997 G.E., after 7 years in power. *Since knighted

Tony Blair (Labour) – Resigned after 10 years in power in 2007 under internal party pressure. *Since knighted

Gordon Brown (Labour) – Lost the 2010 G.E., after 3 years in office.

David Cameron (Conservative) – Resigned after 6 years in office in 2016 following defeat in the Brexit Referendum. *Now Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton

Theresa May (Conservative) – Resigned after 3 years in office in 2019 under internal party pressure over Brexit. *Now Baroness May of Maidenhead

Boris Johnson (Conservative) – Resigned after 3 years in office in 2022... for reasons still being hotly debated!

Elizabeth Truss (Conservative) - Resigned after just 50 days in office in 2022 due to widespread opposition to her economic policies.

Rishi Sunak (Conservative) - Lost the 2024 G.E., after 2 years in office.

Boundary Review *2nd Update*

Boundary Commission publish draft recommendations

The Commission are now consulting on the proposed new warding arrangements for Basildon Borough

 

Doubtless you will all remember my last blog on this subject back in August, following the vote at Basildon Council in July on new ward boundaries (you could scarcely have forgotten something so riveting and memorable). These proposals were submitted to the Local Government Boundary Commission as part of their review - the first of its kind in Basildon for 20 years. The purpose of the review is to ensure borough councillors represent similar sized electorates. Those proposals have now been considered, along with other submissions made in the recent consultation, and the Commission has published its draft recommendations. These are now open for further public consultation and some of you may have seen the Facebook ads (sadly, the comments from the public on the ads continue to evince little understanding of the purpose of the exercise and underscore the ongoing difficulties in enabling non-politicos to engage constructively with this process).

Just as a reminder, the current ward boundaries are below:

CURRENT WARD BOUNDARIES (since 2002):

 

 

 

 

 

Billericay and Wickford

I suppose the headline for my own ward in particular, and Billericay in general, it that it is mostly 'no change'. Fortunately, the Commission has rejected the wacky counter-proposals put forward by Basildon Labour, which would have entailed wholesale change to the Billericay wards. Under the proposals put forward by the Conservatives, adopted by both the Council and now the Commission, the boundaries of both my Billericay East ward and neighbouring Billericay West will remain unchanged. The only change proposed to Burstead is the inclusion of Steeple View to the south. The A127 will then form the southern boundary of the ward.

This is a very sensible outcome for Billericay. It means that the East and West borough wards will continue to be coterminous with the Town Council wards. Burstead is already physically large, comprised of the South-West ward of the town and the separate parishes of Little Burstead and Great Burstead & South Green. Despite that, the ward still has too few electors but Labour proposed a ridiculous 'uber-ward' that would have stretched almost the entire length of the borough into Wickford. Bringing Steeple View alone into Burstead is a more sensible and measured solution.

Another consequence of the Commission’s wise decision is that the A127 will remain the natural boundary between the north and south of the borough, whereas Labour proposed moving both Steeple View and Noak Bridge into Laindon Park to create a new ‘Laindon North’ ward, which would have straddled the arterial road. It made no sense to do that when the arterial is a natural and obvious boundary feature.

Looking at some of the consultation comments from Billericay residents there was, predictably, a suggestion that Billericay should be removed from Basildon Borough altogether. That would, however, not fall within the scope of a ward boundary review but would require a ‘Principal Area Boundary Review’, reviewing the boundaries of whole districts and boroughs, which is an entirely separate (and much more complicated) process. There were also suggestions from Billericay residents that Queen’s Park should have its own ward or that South Green should be included in a Billericay ward rather than Burstead. Queen’s Park is not big enough to be a ward on its own but it does form the bulk of Billericay West. South Green is part of the Parish of Great Burstead & South Green and has its own parish council, so its continued inclusion in Burstead is also sensible – though I grew up in South Green, so I am well aware that most South Green residents make no such distinctions and regard themselves firmly as Billericians! 

I realise that the changes to the rest of the borough are of limited interest to my constituents in Billericay but, for the purposes of this blog, I shall go through them. Having divested it of Steeple View, the proposal is that the remainder of Crouch – namely the parishes of Noak Bridge, Ramsden Bellhouse and Ramsden Crays – will be combined with the western area of Wickford that currently falls within Wickford Castledon. This ward is being provisionally called ‘Crouch’ though I have said I think ‘Castledon & Crouch’ would preserve the separate identity of the part of Wickford joining the ward.

The only area in which the Commission has demurred with the Council in Wickford is in the precise allocation of polling districts, apparently arising from a miscalculation of electors in the Bromfords area. The Commission proposes transferring an area around Wickford High Street into an enlarged Wickford Park ward instead, using the River Crouch as a boundary. With Wickford North remaining unchanged, I had proposed that it would be sensible to rename Wickford Park as ‘Wickford South’ but this has not been adopted by the Commission as this time. The Commission report would seem to indicate, interestingly, that I was the only consultee who commented upon ward naming at all! So none of my naming suggestions have been adopted, as I was the only one who suggested them.

Laindon, Basildon and Pitsea

Moving south of the '127, the Commission have endorsed our proposals that the current Laindon Park, Lee Chapel North and Pitsea North-West wards should remain unchanged and have rejected Labour’s extensive proposed alterations. The Commission has slightly modified our proposals for Langdon Hills by moving the Westley Green area into the ward as well as Lee Chapel South.  

The Commission's proposals for the New Town itself differ substantially from those proposed by both the Council and Labour. Instead, it has opted for a modified version of proposals put forward by an unnamed local resident (which just goes to show it is well worth having your say!). With Westley Green moving into the new Langdon Hills ward, the Commission propose a modified Nethermayne ward, with the boundary running along Clay Hill Road and London Road, with the southern part of Vange transferred into that ward. The remaining northern part of Vange around Honeypot Lane would then be tacked onto the end of St. Martin’s. Whereas we had proposed to break up Fryerns, the Commission propose no changes there.

The resident proposed renaming St. Martin’s as ‘Barstable’. There was formerly a ward by that name but it was abolished in 1979. I have no idea what the boundaries looked like but I believe it became part of what was later known as ‘Fryerns Central’ (that too was abolished in 2002).

Pitsea South-East remains largely unchanged, as we advocated, but the Commission propose to snip a little off the western tip, north of London Road and west of Clay Hill Road, and add that into their new ‘Nethermayne’ ward.

 

PROPOSED NEW BOUNDARIES (Draft Commission Proposals):

Conclusion

The Commission recommendations seem measured and sensible. I am pleased that Labour’s wacky counter-proposals have been rejected and the Commission is not advancing widespread changes in the main Billericay wards, the boundaries of which have now been firmly established for well over 40 years. The addition of Steeple View to Burstead is a measured and reasonable solution there and the changes proposed for Crouch and the Wickford seats are minimally disruptive. I am gratified, also, that Laindon and Pitsea emerge relatively unscathed. The Commission proposals for the New Town differ from those we proposed but make sense. It is, however, a shame to lose Vange. There has been a ward named Vange ever since the formation of Basildon District Council in 1973 and the areas has a very strong sense of identity.

In my August blog, I asked ‘What’s in a name?’, referencing the passionate protestations of Councillor Davies (Lab, Fryerns) over the loss of his ward. Reading through the various submissions to the consultation, it does seem that I was the only respondent to make proposals in respect of what wards should be called. These things, of course, are not necessarily at the forefront of people's minds but I do think that they matter hugely, as that sense of identification within local communities is essential to effective political engagement.

The Commission did not take up any of my naming submissions, as nobody else commented on that aspect. For what it’s worth, I still think the name Burstead can safely be retained under the new ward boundaries but I remain of the view that it may be worth considering ‘Castledon & Crouch’ for the new ward. I shall defer to people from there, obviously, but it seems to me that there was a separate Castledon ward from 1973 until 1979, after which it became part of the new Wickford South ward. This, in turn, became Wickford Castledon in 2002. With much of that ward now being added to Crouch, the rest of which is made up of small hamlets and villages, all of whom have their own local parish councils and many of which identify more closely with Billericay than Wickford, I think it might be prudent to retain the Castledon name.

Westley Green is already closely identified with Langdon Hills but I still think it should be 'Langdon Hills & Lee Chapel South'. There were actually a few comments around the Pitsea seats, particularly relating to the Parish of Bowers Gifford & North Benfleet. Looking at the interactive map on the Commission website, which allows you to overlay the ward boundaries with the parish boundaries, again I shall defer to the affected residents, but I think it might be sensible to rename Pitsea North-West rather more straightforwardly as ‘Pitsea North’ and Pitsea South-East as ‘Pitsea South, Bowers Gifford & North Benfleet’ – rather long, I grant you, but with an elegant ring to it.

As for the New Town wards, in my previous submission I advocated ‘Basildon Town East’, ‘Basildon Town North’ and ‘Basildon Town South & Vange’. In light of the Commission’s revised proposals, it does seem sensible to retain the name Fryerns for the unaltered ward. One resident suggested St. Martin’s be renamed ‘Barstable’. This was another old pre-1979 ward and might be an artful solution. Likewise, somebody suggested that Nethermayne be renamed ‘Clay Hill’ but that is just swapping one road name for another. 'Kingswood' might be a more salubrious name for the ward. I did consider proposing that this ward be called 'Vange' but, although the proposed boundaries are not dissimilar to the old pre-2002 Vange, a large part of the area that people generally regard as Vange is effectively going to be split in half. One solution might be to rename St. Martin's as 'Vange North & Barstable' and Nethermayne as 'Vange South & Kingswood'. I suspect I may be alone in caring, however. 

 

What next?

Residents can comment on the Commission’s draft proposals via the consultation portal or by emailing reviews@lgbce.org.uk

Alternatively, as ever, if you are ‘old school’ you can write to:

The Review Officer (Basildon)
LGBCE
P.O. Box 133
Blyth
NE24 9FE.

 

The consultation closes on December 12th, 2022.

 

When this second consultation is concluded, the Commission will analyse the submissions and form its final recommendations, which will be published in February 2023. An Order will then be laid before Parliament and, once approved, those will be the boundaries on which we will fight an ‘all-out’ election in May 2024 and elect all 42 borough councillors under the new warding arrangements.

 

Sexy, exciting stuff, I’m sure you’ll all agree!

The Queue and I

Reflections on the lying-in-state

Andrew paid his respects in person at Westminster Hall after queuing for 12 ½ hours

 

We are witnessing events unlike anything seen in this country for 20 years. I was a young university undergraduate in March 2002, when Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, known almost universally as ‘The Queen Mum’, passed away at the very grand old age of 101.

She was the widow of King George VI and the last Empress of India and her death triggered Operation TAY BRIDGE, a full ceremonial State Funeral, including a lying-in-state at Westminster Hall. The queue stretched for over a mile and an estimated 200,000 people marched past the coffin. As I said in my recent blog about the Queen, I was already a convinced monarchist by then and yet I was not among them. Because I was also 20 years of age and lazy! I just couldn’t be bothered. I watched the Queen Mum’s magnificent funeral on television from my uni digs but have regretted not attending the lying-in-state ever since.

With the death of Queen Elizabeth II, Operation LONDON BRIDGE has commenced. As a local councillor, I have signed the Books of Condolence at both The Basildon Centre and also at the Chantry Centre in my Billericay East ward and I attended the Accession Proclamation ceremony in Basildon Town Centre but I was determined not to repeat past mistakes and miss the opportunity to pay my respects to Her Majesty in person.

"We are told ‘the British love a queue’ and all our collective expertise was in evidence that night. It was as if this was the queue that we had all been training for: like the final boss in a computer game."

The queue for this lying-in-state is not just a queue. It is ‘The Queue’. It has completely dwarfed the queue for the Queen Mum. It has generally been between 4 and 6 miles long at any given time, stretching all the way to Southwark. At times, they had to stop allowing people to join the queue because it was at capacity and there was a queue to join the queue (which some wag christened ‘The Queuey 2’). It was, therefore, not without considerable trepidation that I decided to join. Indeed, I pretty much resigned myself to not doing so until Friday, around midday, when I found out that my wife’s aunt and her daughter were going with a friend. I messaged my ‘cousin-in-law’, Emily, to ask if I could tag along and the decision was made.  

I had completely forgotten I was being interviewed by Johnny Jenkins on Gateway F.M. at 3:30 p.m., so after that it was a mad dash to log off work, get ready, get provisioned, meet up with Emily, ‘Aunty Lou’ and their friend Yvonne at Shenfield and then head up to London. By coincidence, it was around this time that one of my Facebook friends posted “Surely people joining The Queue now have got to be verging on the clinically insane?” I replied “Very possibly. I shall let you know when my psych evaluation comes back.”

We initially had a job finding the end but, eventually, hailed a black taxi and, without further explanation, said to the cabbie “Take us to the back of the queue!” and, with a weary roll of his eyes, he drove us to Southwark Park, where we joined the Great Queue at almost precisely 6 p.m. and began a 12 ½ hour marathon through the night.

The tales of The Queue will be something recounted by myself, Emily, Louise and Yvonne for the rest of our lives and, indeed, by everybody else who was in it. It was a thing in and of itself. It probably has its own rating on TripAdvisor. We are told ‘the British love a queue’ and all our collective expertise was in evidence that night. It was as if this was the queue that we had all been training for: like the final boss in a computer game. Possibly because we elected to queue through the night, there was not that almost carnival atmosphere some have reported. I was rather happy about this. One of my Facebook friends had referred, rather acidly, to the queuers as “grief junkies” and I would not have approved of any boisterous nonsense.

The mood was mostly good-natured and good-humoured; jolly and chatty. The British entrepreneurial spirit was there, with some locals having set up makeshift tables from which they were selling cups of tea or coffee for a quid. The mix of ages and ethnicities in evidence was quite striking. There were two young families immediately behind us, both with relatively young children (the children were variable in their levels of enthusiasm for being there, it must be said). We befriended a lady in front named Michelle, who had come alone. There was a family with a young lad in his 20s, who had special needs and whose infectious enthusiasm kept up our spirits. There was a particularly funny moment when, it having become quite dark, he mistook Aunty Lou for his mum and tried to cuddle her (much laughter ensued). There was an elderly lady named Sylvia, I’d guess in her late 70s/maybe early 80s, who was cheerful throughout despite clearly finding it a bit of a struggle. We thought she was with her very attentive daughter, only to discover that Sylvia had travelled all on her own from Southampton and the girl we thought was her devoted daughter was in fact just some kind person she had met in the queue, who had ‘adopted’ her. It was the most incredible mishmash of people I have ever been amongst.  

The Great Queue of 2022 had, for me and many others, all the hallmarks of a mediaeval pilgrimage. It was long, at points tedious – we were held behind the old County Hall at 3 a.m. and, in the absence of any alternative, sat upon the cold pavement for over an hour – and painful; my right foot, which after years of political campaigning, has long given me gip with plantar fasciitis and seemed determined to make a martyr out of me! It felt a bit like how I imagine the Camino de Santiago must feel. The purpose of that long walk from the south of France to northern Spain is not just the payoff of seeing the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. You could just as easily drive there! There is something about that physically demanding penitential walk that is fundamental to whole thing and so too queuing for the lying-in-state. As gruelling as The Great Queue was, I do not think I would want to sacrifice that part of the experience. One particularly memorable moment came just before we were held at County Hall. Yvonne went to avail herself of the porta-loos but returned saying “There’s a massive queue”. I replied, “The past few hours have made me radically revise my conception of what constitutes a ‘massive queue’…”. We all had a toilet break.

"The one other thing I have to commend is the extraordinary organisation and the unflagging cheerfulness of the volunteers." 

Finally, at a little after 4 a.m., we crossed Lambeth Bridge and began our 2-hour ‘snake’ through the Victoria Tower Gardens. This winding monstrosity alone was, we were told, the equivalent of 3 miles condensed, trudging back and forth, up and down, walking on large plastic flooring (that just about finished off my poor foot). The one other thing I have to commend is the extraordinary organisation and the unflagging cheerfulness of the volunteers. They were lined all along the route, dispensing the coveted wristbands that meant you could leave the queue occasionally without losing your spot, offering support and encouragement to those who were flagging (albeit often disingenuously telling us we were ‘nearly there’ when this was very much not the case!). At Victoria Towers Gardens, they offered blankets and food and refreshments but, while it may sound cloying, their sunny dispositions were more warming than any cup of tea or coffee. They were simply amazing.

Finally, we reached the end and, having donated my uneaten food to the foodbank set up nearby (a particularly brilliant idea, I thought), passed through security in Old Palace Yard. There was a moment of mirth when the security guard, whilst searching my now mostly emptied bag, said “I’m going to assume that’s sugar and not cocaine”. My packet of Jelly Tots had spilled out.

At around 6:25 a.m., we entered the Palace of Westminster via the great imposing archway of St. Stephen’s Entrance, the large, vaulted portal that takes most members of the public into Sir Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin’s 19th-Century Gothic Revival masterpiece. But Westminister Hall is not part of Barry and Pugin’s palace, which was rebuilt following a devastating fire in 1834. No, no. Westminster Hall is the last remaining part of the old palace and one of the oldest structures in the country. Once the largest hall in Europe; built for William Rufus – son of the Conqueror – over 1,300 years ago. The first thing that hits your eye is the exquisite hammerbeam roof – the greatest creation of timber architecture from the Middle Ages left anywhere in Christendom. We started to file through, down the steps into the great hall. All the chattering jolliness that had characterised the past 12 ½ hours was gone. We entered in almost sepulchral silence, yet the room was humming with a thousand years of history and tradition.

The emotion of it I can hardly describe but I had a lump in my throat the moment I saw the coffin, draped in the Royal Standard, topped by the Imperial State Crown glinting in the candlelight. Also atop the coffin were the Orb and Sceptre, seldom seen outside the Tower of London since the Coronation in 1953, and the whole thing was raised up on the majestic catafalque. At each corner of the raised dais stood a guardsman; their hands resting on their swords, bearskins bowed. In front of each of them, one of the famous ‘Beefeaters’ – Yeoman Warders of the Tower and members of the Sovereign’s Body Guard – in their distinctive Tudor uniforms. Then, at the head of the coffin, stood two lofty Gentlemen-at-Arms in their gold helmets bedecked with huge white swan feathers, heads bowed, clasping their inverted battle-axes. It was an image of poignant, reverent, solemn splendour. I have had the good fortune to walk through Westminster Hall on many previous occasions and, even when completely empty, the sheer weight of history in the place bears down on you. The experience of passing through it yesterday will never leave me. We missed by some hours the ‘Vigil of the Princes’, during which King Charles III and his siblings stood around their mother’s coffin. But the scene could scarcely have been more touching or magnificent.

I consider myself fortunate to have been able to pay tribute to Her Majesty the Queen in this deeply personal way. Like probably almost everyone who walked past that touchingly small casket, my mind raced with a multitude of thoughts, feelings and reflections. In the end, however, there was not much to say or do. Under the watchful eye of those carved oaken angels on the great roof, I walked past the catafalque, paused to make my obeisance, bowed my head and then, in a hangover from my High Church Anglican days, crossed myself and, in a whisper as I exited, said “Thank you, Your Majesty”. And, just like that, 70 years and 12 ½ hours, all passed in a few mesmerising seconds. We emerged into New Palace Yard in a sort of moony state, sensitively but forcefully moved along by the police. Many people were sniffing and dabbing their eyes. Eventually, we walked out onto Parliament Square and somebody broke the silence with “Right, which way is the train station?” and that was the end of our odyssey.

The journey home was quiet and uneventful – we were all exhausted. Occasionally on the Underground, I recognised people from The Queue and acknowledged them silently with a nod as they alighted at various places along the way. My ‘queue buddies’ and I parted ways and, as I clambered off the train at Billericay and hobbled home, I thought about how glad I was that I had decided to do it and wondered at the sheer, fascinating oddity of it all. So exhilarating and improbable.

"We entered in almost sepulchral silence, yet the room was humming with a thousand years of history and tradition."

It has long been said that the British do ceremonial better than any other country on earth and we will see more of that when the funeral takes place, as it will doubtless be rich in that perfect marriage of colourful pomp and circumstance and deepest solemnity and reverence at which the British monarchy has become so incredibly adept.

That great hall in which our late Queen currently rests is very much like the monarchy itself – an antediluvian relic of a bygone age that miraculously still exists. Despite everything that has been thrown at it, from fires to the Luftwaffe’s bombs, it is still standing, proud and defiant. A large part of the reason for that miracle over the past 70 years has been down to the Queen and the impeccable way in which She conducted Her long reign. As we have seen throughout this period of National Mourning, Queen Elizabeth II has bequeathed to this nation a monarchy that remains stubbornly secure. Even in the cynical technological age in which we all live, in which social media and apps that should bring us closer together have tended to serve only to isolate and drive us apart, the monarchy has once more displayed its unequalled ability to offer a genuine mass collective experience. We see it every time there is a royal birth, royal wedding, jubilee and, yes, even a death. We saw it with the birth of Prince George, the death of Prince Philip and during the recent Platinum Jubilee. There is still nothing that unites us quite like the Crown. This is the human power of monarchy and a testament to the extraordinary personality of the Queen.

My final thought, as I limped through my front door, was to consider how many people under normal circumstances would be prepared to join a queue over 4 miles long, knowing full well they could end up standing in it for a day or more. Then, I considered how many of those would even be physically capable of doing so. I then mused over what would have to be at the end of such a queue to make people consent to putting themselves through such an ordeal. Certainly, one would typically imagine it would need to be more than a little old lady in a box. I read today an estimated 1 million people have taken part in this lying-in-state; queuing for longer than they have probably queued for anything in their lives to spend mere seconds with the Queen. I received many kind messages from friends and constituents alike, congratulating me on doing it, and my reply has been simple and thoroughly sincere.

It was the least She deserved.

Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

Reflections on a unique reign

Like most people alive today, I shall never forget where I was on September 8th, 2022, when I heard that Queen Elizabeth II had died.

I was in a meeting in the boardroom at the Basildon Centre with my colleagues Cllrs. Hedley and Gascoyne and three officers. I was there in my capacity as Cabinet Member for Housing and the meeting was regarding a particularly tricky bit of casework Councillor Hedley has raised with me. Tony and I were also due to attend Cabinet at 7 p.m. but, a little after 6:30, an officer walked into the room, his face ashen, and broke 'the bad news' that the Queen had passed away. I was instantly reminded of Winston Churchill's reaction to being informed of the death of the Queen's father, King George VI, "Bad news? The worst!.." and, pushing away his papers, "...How unimportant these matters seem now."

The six of us who were in that room are now forever bound together by the experience of being there when we heard that awful news. It is so hard to describe. A couple of us remained stoic. A couple of us just went quiet and numb. A couple of us wept. I was not among the stoics. Colleagues were by then arriving for the Cabinet meeting, which was of course cancelled, and many were in tears. I shall never forget it.

The Queen – and it was to Her that any such unqualified reference undoubtedly pertained – has been a fixed point in our national life for as long as most of us can remember. You would have to be well into your 70s or 80s today to remember a time before Elizabeth II sat upon the throne. She had already been Queen for 30 years when I was born in 1982. My father was born in the year of the Coronation and, with my grandparents now all gone, there is no-one left alive in my family who can remember a monarch before Her. Three generations, one Sovereign.

"My father was born in the year of the Coronation and, with my grandparents now all gone, there is no-one left alive in my family who can remember a monarch before Her. Three generations, one Sovereign."

She was the longest-reigning and longest-lived monarch in British history and the longest-serving female Head of State in the world. Her reign has seen 15 British prime ministers, 14 U.S. presidents and 7 popes. Her first Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, was born in 1874 and Her last, Liz Truss, was born 101 years later in 1975. She must have been the most widely travelled and universally respected world leader ever to have lived. Between Her accession in 1952 and her decision in 2015 aged 89 to cease making overseas trips, the Queen visited more than 100 countries and made over 150 visits to the Commonwealth (Canada alone 22 times). She visited France on 13 occasions and spoke French fluently. She was the first British monarch to visit mainland China and the first to visit the Irish Republic. Indeed, it was the Queen who, arguably, drew the definitive line under the Troubles in Northern Ireland by shaking hands with the late Sinn Fein politician, Martin McGuinness.

Of course, beyond Her sense of duty, the other two great pillars of Her life were Her husband and Her faith. She was Supreme Governor of the Church of England and stated many times how Her Christian faith had sustained Her and She was happily married to Her late husband, Prince Philip, for 73 years. His death last year at the age of 99 must have been a terrible blow and it is of some comfort that they are now, God willing, reunited. Her late Majesty will be laid to rest in the King George VI Memorial Chapel within St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The remains of His late Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, which have rested in the Royal Vault beneath the chapel for the past 17 months, will be moved to lie beside those of his treasured wife, so that they may rest side by side. The Queen's late parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, also rest in the chapel along with the ashes of the Queen's late sister, Princess Margaret. They will all be together again.

The Queen was only 25 years old when Her beloved father died in his sleep at Sandringham at the age of only 56, exhausted by the stresses of the war and ravaged by lung cancer. Thus, from a treehouse in Kenya where She was on a State Visit, deputising for the King, Elizabeth II began Her long years of service; always seeking to follow the example of Her father, whom She so revered. During Her reign, She carried out tens of thousands of public engagements, assented to around 4,000 pieces of legislation, hosted hundreds of state visits and garden parties and met every world leader you can think of.

With superlative canniness, the Queen was able to provide us with a fixed point in our national life whilst remaining broadly ‘current’ and relevant (but not too much!). Amid all the tumult and change of the past 70 years, Queen Elizabeth II remained an anchor to Her peoples. That did not mean that She was static – She was the first monarch to send an email in 1976, the first to have a website in 1997 and sent Her first ‘tweet’ in 2014. Just three years ago, She made her debut on Instagram. Perhaps most notably, She is the only Head of State anywhere in the world to have jumped out of a helicopter with James Bond and co-starred in a comedy skit with Paddington Bear. But She kept the same hairstyle for about 60 years! She was always recognisably and unmistakably Her.  

Her late Majesty in a 'virtual meeting' last year

The Queen remained an unchanged and undaunted beacon of stability and continuity. Indeed, only a few days ago She presided over the seamless transition from one Prime Minister to another, acting, as She had so many times before, as the ‘dignified part’ of our Constitution. Yet the Queen was no mere figurehead. She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and, ultimately, a great-grandmother at the head of a Royal Family and it is this that makes ‘The Crown’ so much more than just an overdecorated piece of millinery but an institution that forms the lynchpin and lodestar of our national life. It is the Sovereign and the Royal Family that injects the essential humanity of our constitutional settlement. It is the person of the Queen, rather than the institution of the Crown, that made Her someone we trusted as the guarantor of our laws and liberties, the head of our Armed Forces, whose face adorns our currency, our postage stamps and whose signature is borne on every law passed and international treaty ratified and to whom every soldier, statesman, jurist, policeman, clergyman and various other public servants swear their allegiance. Her service to the nation was unparalleled – from 1940, when at the age of only 14 She broadcast to all the children evacuated from their homes during World War II (during which She served in uniform), to Her now famous ‘We will meet again’ broadcast during the pandemic in 2020. Through all the decades, She has held our hands, cheered and comforted us, as the Mother of the Nation.

"She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother and, ultimately, a great-grandmother at the head of a Royal Family and it is this that makes ‘The Crown’ so much more than just an overdecorated piece of millinery but an institution that forms the lynchpin and lodestar of our national life."

It would be fair to say that I have always been a fanatical monarchist (except for a brief flirtation with republicanism during my misguided teens). I remember as a very young child, hearing about some terrible conflict somewhere in the world and asking my mother why the Queen did not just order them to stop! To my innocent mind, the Queen was Queen of the entire world and everybody had to do what She said. Can you imagine how much better a world it would be if it were only so? By the time I was at university, I was a convinced monarchist and when other undergraduates might have been joining sporting or social societies, I became a fully paid-up member of the Constitutional Monarchy Association (you can imagine what a riot I was to be around in those days).

I have always made a distinction between being a ‘royalist’ and a 'monarchist'. I am not just a slushy sentimentalist about the Queen and the royals (though I am probably that too). I believe deeply and profoundly in constitutional monarchy as a system of government and in the legitimacy of history and its inherent wisdom as an institution. If one were designing a system of government from first principles, one probably would not turn instinctively to hereditary primogeniture but therein lies the organic genius of it. From the antiquity of the ancient traditions of tribal chieftains, feudal kingship and amaranthine royalty, has emerged a modern, functional, yet elegant system that delivers us an apolitical Head of State, rich in colour, pomp and circumstance but above petty partisan politics, through whom the relationship between Parliament and the Armed Forces is mediated and maintained, and who enables us to damn the Prime Minister and damn the Government but still cheer the Head of State. As the 5th Earl Russell once put it, “There is a lot of sense in choosing the referee by a different principle from the players. It lessens the danger that the referee might try to start playing!”

"From the antiquity of the ancient traditions of tribal chieftains, feudal kingship and amaranthine royalty, has emerged a modern, functional, yet elegant system that delivers us an apolitical Head of State"

One of the greatest honours of my life was being asked by the Leader of Basildon Council to chair the Council’s Platinum Jubilee Working Group last year. One of my earliest conceptions was for a new piece of public art to commemorate for posterity Her late Majesty’s momentous milestone. I was struck by the simple elegance of the memorial to the Queen’s grandmother, Queen Mary, the widow of King George V. It is mounted outside Marlborough House, where Queen Mary lived until her death in 1953, just prior to her granddaughter's coronation (it is now home to the Commonwealth Secretariat). It is a relatively simple plaque featuring an effigy of the old Queen Dowager. I forwarded a picture of it to officers in December and by April this year I was visiting the workshop of local artist Aden Hynes to see his clay model before it went off to the foundry to be cast in bronze. Sadly, I missed the formal unveiling by the Lord-Lieutenant (it clashed with my wedding; the only conceivable thing that could have made me miss it short of being run over by a bus) but every time I walk past it, I feel proud. I am so glad that Her Majesty lived to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee and experience that outpouring of love and affection from all the people, both here and around the globe.

My feelings over the last 24 hours have been strange. My heart is obviously heavy with sadness and a curiously personal sense of loss but also, somewhat to my surprise, I have been almost overwhelmed by an incredible feeling of gratitude. I have found myself reflecting with immense thankfulness upon Her late Majesty’s long life and peerless contribution to our country. The new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, has called the Queen “The rock on which modern Britain was built” and today in the House of Commons, Her most recent former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, referred to the Queen as “Elizabeth the Great”. She really was. Good Lord, how very, very lucky indeed we all were to have had Elizabeth II as our Head of State for all these long years! What astonishing good fortune to have had such an amazing woman and such a wise and faultless leader, who also loved us; I mean really loved us. What we have lost in incalculable and I consider myself privileged to have been an Elizabethan.

"What astonishing good fortune to have had such an amazing woman and such a wise and faultless leader, who also loved us; I mean really loved us. What we have lost in incalculable and I consider myself privileged to have been an Elizabethan."  

On Her 21st birthday in 1947, the young Princess Elizabeth made a famous broadcast in which She said: “I declare before you all, that my whole life, be it long or short, shall be devoted to your service.” Her Majesty kept Her promise. She was granted a long life and gave to all of us the most devoted and loving service. The Second Elizabethan Age has now drawn to its close. The Third Carolean Age begins. The Queen is dead, long live the King!

Her late Majesty has done us one last great service by passing, secure and unsullied, a throne of undiminished dignity and splendour to Her son, His Gracious Majesty King Charles III; a man who has already shown - not least in His moving Address to the Nation on Friday evening - that He is equal to His late mother in His devotion to duty and service and who has been in training for the role literally His entire life. Indeed, it is scarcely possible to conceive of a person more qualified for any job than His Majesty, our new King, who has served a 7-decade apprenticeship under the careful tutelage of the most noble Lady ever to have graced these isles. I feel sorrow but also huge optimism for the forthcoming reign. His Majesty the King, with the love and support of Her Majesty the Queen Consort and of Their Royal Highnesses our newly-created Prince and Princess of Wales, I have no doubt will serve us all with the same steadfast dedication that characterised the reign of the late Queen.

"Her late Majesty has done us one last great service by passing, secure and unsullied, a throne of undiminished dignity and splendour to Her son, His Gracious Majesty King Charles III; a man who has already shown - not least in His moving Address to the Nation this evening - that He is equal to His late mother in His devotion to duty and service and who has been in training for the role literally His entire life."

On Sunday, His Worship the Mayor of Basildon will join other civic leaders across the realm by reading the Proclamation of the Accession of King Charles III and on the following Sunday, September 18th, Her late Majesty will be laid to rest. May She rest in everlasting peace and well may we invoke, with heart and voice, the prayer and the anthem…

GOD SAVE THE KING!