Conservative Leadership 2022

The race to replace Boris is underway

The runners and riders in the 2022 Conservative leadership contest.

 

At the 2019 leadership contest, I did a write-up of the hustings event I attended in London as a member of the National Convention. Unfortunately, as I am no longer a local association officer or a member of the Essex Area executive, I am no longer a member of the National Convention, so won't get an invite! But I thought I'd do a 'Runner & Riders' blog for it anyway.

I shall not here dilate upon the reasons for this contest, which I have already written about here. We are where we are and the outcome of this election will, once again, determine not only the next Leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party but also the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The stakes are, therefore, decidedly high.

The process has been outlined by the 1922 Committee (which is essentially the parliamentary group of the Conservative Party in the House of Commons and their main decision-making body). Nominations opened and closed yesterday (July 12th), with each candidate needing to have nominations from at least 20 Conservative M.P.s to reach the first ballot, which will be held this afternoon.

Under the new rules agreed by the '22, each candidate will need to win at least 30 votes in the first ballot in order to avoid dropping out and proceeding to the second round. In each subsequent round, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated. This is what is known as an 'exhaustive ballot'. In the end, when only two candidates remain, there will be a balloting of the Conservative membership, on a 'one member, one vote basis'. The candidate who receives the most votes, wins. The Party is hoping to have this all done and dusted in time for the recess, so that there can be public hustings during the summer holiday. The new leader is expected to be announced by September 5th, in time for the return of Parliament and the Party Conference in October.

The Runners & Riders:

KEMI BADENOCH **ELIMINATED IN THE FOURTH BALLOT**

Kemi Badenoch, M.P. has been M.P. for Saffron Walden since 2017 and was formerly Minister of State for Local Government, Faith & Communities and Minister of State for Equalities under Boris Johnson until her resignation last week. I have generally found Mrs Badenoch highly impressive and I actually met her a few years ago at an event at C.C.H.Q., where she talked passionately about her politics and the hoops she had to jump through to become an M.P. Her backstory is that she was born in Wimbledon. Her late father was a G.P. and her mother is a professor and the family lived for a time in the U.S. and in Nigeria but she returned to the U.K. when she was 16 to live with a friend due to the political instability in Nigeria. She worked for a time in a McDonald's before completing a Masters in Computer Engineering at Sussex. She later obtained a law degree by studying part-time at Birkbeck. She joined the Conservative Party at 25 and worked in I.T. as a software engineer and as a systems analyst in the financial services sector. She was briefly a member of the London Assembly before being elected to Parliament. She supported Brexit, calling it "the greatest ever vote of confidence in the project of the United Kingdom". She is generally seen as being on the right of the Party, advocating "strong but limited government". Mrs Badenoch is among the less experienced of the candidates, having been first appointed to the frontbench in 2019, when Boris Johnson made her a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Education. The following year, he promoted her to Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury with the additional role of Minister for Equalities. In the latter role, she made headlines in a Black History Month debate by outlining the Government's opposition to primary and secondary schools teaching 'white privilege' and similar "elements of critical race theory" as uncontested facts. She was promoted to the rank of Minister of State last year. She is running on a platform of 'limited government'. She is not a fan of the 'Net Zero' stuff. I find her very compelling.

 

SUELLA BRAVERMAN **ELIMINATED IN THE SECOND BALLOT**

The Rt. Hon. Suella Braverman, Q.C., M.P. has been M.P. for Fareham since 2015 and is currently H.M. Attorney-General. Mrs Braverman was born in Harrow to first generation Indian immigrants. She read law at Queen's College, Cambridge and was chair of the Cambridge University Conservative Association. She later studied at the Sorbonne on a scholarship. Called to the bar at the Middle Temple, she was a practicing barrister until her election to Parliament. She campaigned for Brexit and was chair of the E.R.G. until her promotion to the frontbench in 2017 (she was replaced by Jacob Rees-Mogg). She served under Theresa May as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Treasury until the 2018 reshuffle, when she was promoted to Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union but in November that year she resigned alongside the Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, in protest at Mrs May's proposed deal. Very much a figure on the right of the Party, she was appointed Attorney-General by Boris Johnson in 2020. Since announcing her leadership bid, she has pledged to cut tax, cut government spending, tackle the cost of living, solve the Channel crossings problem, deliver on Brexit opportunities and "get rid of all of this woke rubbish".

 

JEREMY HUNT**ELIMINATED IN THE FIRST BALLOT**

The Rt. Hon. Jeremy Hunt, M.P. has been M.P. for South-West Surrey since 2005 and is currently Chairman of the Health and Social Care Select Committee. He was, of course, previously Foreign Secretary under Theresa May and is one of the more experienced candidates, being the only veteran of the 2019 leadership contest, when he came second to Boris Johnson. Mr. Hunt was also famously the longest-serving Health Secretary in our history under both David Cameron and Theresa May. His background is undeniably that of the English landed gentry. His father was the late Admiral Sir Nicholas Hunt and he has a number of illustrious ancestors. He was educated at Charterhouse and read P.P.E. at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a contemporary of both Messrs. Cameron and Johnson and active in the Oxford University Conservative Association. After university, he worked as a management consultant and became an English teacher in Japan, where he met his wife. On returning to Britain, he became an entrepreneur and a self-made millionaire. After his election to Parliament, he became an early supporter of his old university chum Mr. Cameron, who appointed him Shadow Culture Secretary - the brief he retained when the Coalition Government was formed in 2010. As Culture Secretary, he oversaw the successful 2012 Olympic Games in London. Later that year, he was appointed Health Secretary, a post in which he remained for six years (a record). During his tenure, Mr. Hunt pursued an ambitious agenda to address patient safety, regional variations in premature deaths, health tourism and A&E waiting times and oversaw increased spending on the NHS but attracted the ire of the usual vested interests, as Tory health secretaries always do. He campaigned for Britain to remain in the E.U., which is the principle reason I personally could not vote for him though I will say that, both when I met him years ago at a Tory dinner and again when I heard him speak at the hustings in 2019, he is very impressive and was easily the candidate who looked most like a Prime Minister. If I were not worried about the N.I. protocol and securing Brexit, I would probably be minded to vote for him. He replaced Boris as Foreign Secretary in Theresa May's government and stood against him for the leadership after Mrs May resigned. He subsequently returned to the backbenches and has served as Chairman of the Health Affairs Select Committee for the past two years. 

 

 

PENNY MORDAUNT**ELIMINATED IN THE FIFTH BALLOT**

Capt. the Rt. Hon. Penny Mordaunt, F.R.S.A., R.N.R., M.P. has been M.P. for Portsmouth North since 2010 and is currently Minister of State for Trade Policy, as well as a serving officer in the Royal Navy Reserve. Miss Mordaunt - or Captain Mordaunt, as I feel she should rightly be called - was born and raised in Torquay as the daughter of a paratrooper and was reportedly named after a battleship (H.M.S. Penelope), which probably tells you all you need to know! She was educated at a Catholic comprehensive and, when her mother died of cancer when she was just 15, she became the primary caregiver to her siblings and worked as a magician's assistant to pay her way through sixth form. She later read philosophy at Reading, becoming the first member of her family to go to university, and was President of the Reading University Students' Union. Prior to her election, she worked in P.R., including for the Conservative Party under both John Major and William Hague. Following her election, David Cameron appointed her to his frontbench as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Communities & Local Government in 2014, before promoting her to Minister for the Armed Forces the following year - the first woman to hold the post. She campaigned for Brexit and, under Theresa May, served as a Minister of State at the Department for Work & Pensions before being promoted to the Cabinet as International Development Secretary in 2017. In 2019, she was promoted as the first ever female Defence Secretary. Following Mrs May's resignation, she initially returned to the backbenches but return to serve under Boris Johnson in 2020 initially in the sinecure role of Paymaster-General and latterly as Trade Minister. I am a bit of a fan of Captain Mordaunt, not least because of the delicious way she dealt with Angela Rayner in the Commons but it would be fair to say that she is firmly on the 'liberal wing' of the Party. She has, however, already got herself into bother with the tiresome question of whether trans-women are women. Personally, I find this 'identitarian' politics tedious and I hope it will not absorb too much of the campaign, particularly when there are such pressing matters that face the country.

 

RISHI SUNAK

The Rt. Hon. Rishi Sunak, M.P. has been M.P. for Richmond (Yorks.) since 2015 and was, until recently, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Sunak was born in Southampton to Indian immigrants, who prospered. He was educated at Winchester and read P.P.E. at Lincoln College, Oxford and later obtained an M.B.A. from Stanford as a Fulbright Scholar. It was at Stanford that he met his wife, Akshata, who as we all know is the daughter of an Indian billionaire. Mr. Sunak later worked for Goldman Sachs as a hedge fund manager before being elected to Parliament. Since then, he has risen rapidly through the ranks. He campaigned for Brexit and, following the 2017 General Election, Theresa May appointed him a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government. When Boris Johnson became P.M., he appointed Mr. Sunak to his Cabinet as Chief Secretary to the Treasury - an extremely rapid promotion. Just a few months later, he was suddenly promoted to Chancellor - one of the Great Offices of State - following the sudden resignation of Sajid Javid. Mr. Sunak ended up presiding over the Treasury during the Covid-19 pandemic, implementing unprecedented financial measures, including the furlough scheme. Perhaps most famously, his post-lockdown 'Eat Out To Help Out' scheme earned him the nickname 'Dishy Rishi'. Personally, I think he stepped up to the plate at a difficult time and showed considerable talent and ingenuity. I was not, however, a fan of his proposed tax rises and I suspect the F.P.N. he received as part of 'Partygate' and his perceived treachery to Boris by resigning and triggering a record-breaking series of mass resignations will play against him if and when his candidacy is put to the Party faithful but, for now, he is leading the pack. Having been widely seen as the dauphin under Boris for so long, his campaign hit the ground running early on and I suspect he will be in the final two.

 

LIZ TRUSS

The Rt. Hon. Elizabeth Truss, M.P. has been M.P. for South-West Norfolk since 2010 and she is currently the Foreign Secretary. She was born in Oxford as the daughter of a mathematics professor and grew up in Scotland and later Leeds. She attended a comprehensive school and read P.P.E. at Merton College, Oxford, where she was actually President of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats but joined the Tories shortly after she graduated. She worked as an accountant prior to being elected to Parliament and served one term as a Greenwich councillor. She joined the frontbench in 2012, when David Cameron appointed her a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Education. She was later promoted to the Cabinet as Environment Secretary in 2014 and supported remaining in the E.U., though is now a strong proponent of Brexit (having been endorsed by arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg). Theresa May appointed her as the first female Lord Chancellor in the 1,000-year history of that office and, following the 2017 G.E., she was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It was probably around that time that I met her, actually. She came and did an afternoon campaigning with us in Laindon and I got paired up with her when we were out leafleting. She was very chatty and pleasantly down to earth. After Mrs May resigned in 2019, Miss Truss backed Boris for the leadership and he appointed her International Trade Secretary before promoting her to Foreign Secretary last year - only the second woman to hold the post. She has said she wants to cancel the planned rise in Corporation Tax and reverse the N.I. increase, funded by delaying the date by which the national debt is planned to fall, as part of a "long-term plan to bring down the size of the state and the tax burden". She stuck with Boris to the bitter end and is probably the closest to a 'continuity Johnson' candidate.

 

 

TOM TUGENDHAT**ELIMINATED IN THE THIRD BALLOT**

Lt.-Col. Tom Tugendhat, M.B.E., V.R., M.P. has been M.P. for Tonbridge & Malling since 2017 and is currently Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. His background is undeniably plummy. He was born in Westminster and is the son of Sir Michael Tugendhat, a retired High Court judge. His uncle is Lord Tugendhat, a former Tory M.P. who later became Vice-President of the European Commission. His grandfather was an Austrian jew who came to Britain after World War I and later converted to Roman Catholicism. Colonel Tugendhat was educated at St. Paul's and studied theology at Bristol before doing a Masters in Islamic Studies at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, learning Arabic in the Yemen. He worked in journalism and P.R. in the Middle East before entering Parliament and also joined the Territorial Army part-time and saw active service in the Intelligence Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan, later working for the Foreign Office with the Afghan Government and serving as a military assistant to the then Chief of the Defence Staff, Gen. Sir David (now Lord) Richards. Following his election, Colonel Tugendhat has become a respected voice in the field of foreign affairs and defence matters and has chaired the Foreign Affairs Select Committee since 2017 (the youngest holder of the post). He supported Britain remaining in the E.U., which is clearly an area where he and I disagree, but there is no denying he is an impressive figure. He is a trenchant critic of Russia, China and Iran and a strong supporter of Israel and is generally regarded as a foreign policy 'hawk', though otherwise he is seen, politically, as part of the moderate 'One Nation' faction of the Party. He won a lot of plaudits for his speech following the fall of Kabul last year, describing it (rightly) as our "biggest foreign policy disaster since Suez", and was one of five M.P.s sanctioned by the Chinese Communist Government (a badge of honour). He is running on a platform of cancelling the N.I. increase and cutting fuel duty. His lack of ministerial experience will likely play against him.

 

 

NADHIM ZAHAWI **ELIMINATED IN THE FIRST BALLOT**

The Rt. Hon. Nadhim Zahawi, M.P. has been M.P. for Stratford-on-Avon since 2010 and is currently Chancellor of the Exchequer, having replaced Rishi Sunak last week. He is a first generation immigrant, being an Iraqi-born Kurd who came to Britain at the age of 11, when his family fled the Saddam Hussein regime. His father was a successful businessman and Mr. Zahawi was public school educated before studying engineering at U.C.L. Starting off as a chemical engineer, he went on to have a very successful business career himself, founding YouGov. He was also a Wandsworth councillor before being elected to Parliament. Following his election, Mr. Zahawi joined David Cameron's No. 10 Policy Unit. He campaigned for Brexit and joined the frontbench under Theresa May as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Department for Education in 2018. The following year, Boris Johnson moved him to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and during the pandemic he was put in charge of the successful rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine. Last year, he became Education Secretary and was in that post until last week, when he replaced Mr. Sunak as Chancellor. Mr. Zahawi has pledged to increase defence spending, as well as "protecting [children] from damaging and inappropriate nonsense being forced on them by radical activists". He has announced he would cut Corporation Tax, Income Tax and N.I., funded by 20% cuts to every government department.

Bye, Boris, and thank you

I set out my thoughts on the PM's resignation

While he has made mistakes, we owe him a debt of gratitude for the important things he got right

 

Much has been written about Boris Johnson. I am sure much more will be written in the days and weeks to come, as the Conservative Party moves to elect a new leader to replace him as Prime Minister, following his dramatic resignation last Thursday. This blog, august though its readership undoubtedly is, will not even register as a footnote in that plethora of opinion pieces and editorials across newspapers and blogs up and down the land but I want to set out my own thoughts on the sad events of last week, nonetheless.

I should start by saying that last week was an unedifying spectacle and, while Boris still has (and will always have) many fans and admirers and some of them will be keen to attribute his fall from grace entirely to a combination of the nefarious machinations of the BBC and the rest of the 'MSM', treacherous Remainer types, woke activists, lefty political opponents and envious colleagues, the simple fact is that these events were largely of the PM’s own making. Oh, sure, plenty of people have been vociferously gunning for him and willing him to fail and many of the charges they level at him are mendacious and unfair – but he did supply them with rather a lot of ammunition!

It is, I should stress, fair to say that I was never a natural Boris backer, though I did support his 2019 leadership bid. That, of course, was in the context of 3 years of infuriating parliamentary deadlock over Brexit. The 2017-19 Parliament, the longest and most unproductive parliamentary session in over 300 years, should go down in history as ‘the Zombie Parliament’. Despite 80% of MPs being elected on an unambiguous pledge to deliver the referendum result, a large cross-party contingent of Remainer MPs used every trick in the book to try to prevent us leaving the EU. Boris took up the leadership with an unambiguous mission to smash that intransigence and end the legislative torpor.

Interestingly, Theresa May was forced from office by a series of Commons defeats and, in no small part, the damage to her authority caused by the 51 resignations that took place during her premiership, 33 of them directly relating to Brexit. The pace and number of these resignations was described at the time as “unprecedented”. So that puts it into perspective when you consider that last week Boris received 63 resignation letters in 24 hours!

Obviously, the events of last week were ostensibly triggered by the Chris Pincher affair but I suspect discontent in the Parliamentary Conservative Party has been fomenting for some time, probably at least since the Chesham & Amersham by-election defeat in June 2021. In October, we had the bad mishandling of the Owen Paterson lobbying affair but, worst of all, was the hugely energy-consuming ‘Partygate’ scandal, which has rumbled along for much of this year. Boris weathered these storms with his usual insouciant charm but the damning Sue Gray report and further by-election losses culminated in the confidence vote in June. He survived this too but 41% of his MPs voted against him and it smelled to many like the beginning of the end. He achieved a worse result than Mrs May in 2019, than John Major in 1995 or Margaret Thatcher in 1989. As one of his predecessors as leader, Lord Hague, described it: “A greater level of rejection than any Tory leader has ever endured and survived”.

Mr. Pincher was the final straw, I think, for colleagues. Not explicitly because of his deplorable actions, or the questionable slowness with which the whip was withdrawn. I believe what ultimately did for Boris was his insistence he had known nothing about Pincher’s proclivities prior to appointing him Deputy Chief Whip. This denial was blown apart when Lord Macdonald, the former Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, wrote an open letter to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner advising he had been present when the PM (who was Foreign Secretary at the time) was briefed in person about allegations made against Mr. Pincher when the latter was a Foreign Office minister in 2019. As he subsequently admitted, it was not an appointment made out of ignorance but rather a bad failure of judgement. He should have said that from the get-go and much of what has happened since might have been avoided.

One of the many letters the PM received last week was from nearby Colchester MP, Will Quince. In it, he says: “Thank you for meeting with me yesterday evening and for your sincere apology regarding the briefings I received from No 10 ahead of Monday’s media round, which we now know to be inaccurate. It is with great sadness and regret that I feel that I have no choice but to tender my resignation as Minister for Children and Families as I accepted and repeated those assurances in good faith.”

And therein, I suspect, lies the rub. Tory MPs have put up with a lot. They were prepared to because this was a Prime Minister who won an 80-seat majority – the biggest since Mrs Thatcher in 1979! – and had an unquestionable mandate. He had, as we have heard many times over the past few months, ‘got the big calls right’ (quite true, in my view), getting Brexit done, leading us through the pandemic, rolling out the furlough scheme and then a world-beating vaccine, brought us out of lockdown and then showed real leadership on Ukraine. At the end of the day though, trust, honour and integrity in politics do matter and Government ministers found it appreciably hard to accept being passed disinformation by Number 10 and then being sent out to repeat it to the press.

When considered in the context of the Gray report and the upcoming Privileges Committee investigation into whether the PM lied to Parliament (a long-standing constitutional deal-breaker for any Minister of the Crown), it is understandable but regrettable that many felt the PM had to go. It started with the Chancellor and the Health Secretary but soon expanded to numerous ministers and junior office holders. By the end of the following day, as it became painfully clear the PM was determined to cling on, and clearly feeling they had no other choice but to force the issue, 30 ministers had quit within a matter of hours.

This historic mass resignation now has the distinction of being the largest number of ministerial resignations in a 24-hour period, more than tripling the previous record of 11 resignations, set in 1932 during the collapse of the 2nd National Government of Ramsay MacDonald!

So, on Thursday, no longer capable of populating his ministry, Boris Johnson stood outside the famous door of 10 Downing Street and announced that he would resign as Leader of the Conservative Party and as Prime Minister. The Party is now holding an internal election to select his successor. Under the process agreed yesterday by the 1922 Committee, Boris will leave office on September 5th. I cannot help admitting, I feel sad about it.

In my June 2019 blog, I said of Boris: “It would be futile to pretend that Boris is not, to say the least, a somewhat controversial and polarising figure.” That was probably something of an understatement. Boris is, without doubt, one of the most iconoclastic politicians of our lifetimes. Possibly since Lady Thatcher herself. He elicits strong reactions. People either love him or positively loath him.

For my own part, I think history will be kind to Boris Johnson. I for one will never forget the sense of elation in December 2020, when Boris actually did get Brexit done with the signing of the trade deal that cemented our withdrawal from the EU. It is important to recall that many people, including fellow Tories, claimed that it would be ‘impossible’ to negotiate a new Withdrawal Agreement, until Boris did it. They also said it would be ‘impossible’ to negotiate a trade deal with the EU, until Boris did it. Even with the problems that have since emerged with the Northern Ireland protocol (entirely down to Brussels’ bad faith implementation, by the way), it was an incredible achievement. In my blog, I compared it to Benjamin Disraeli at Berlin in 1878, which smacked of hyperbole at the time but, when I reflect upon it, I still feel it was a once-in-a-generation, era-defining foreign policy triumph.

Many commentators, media talking heads, future biographers and blokes down the pub will undoubtedly focus on Boris’ personality quirks and foibles, and his undeniably less than savoury qualities, such as what Sir Winston Churchill might have called his “terminological inexactitudes”, but when I think back on the past few years and what the Johnson Ministry means to me, I think about that extraordinary, visionary 2019 Conservative Manifesto.

As I have already said, in that manifesto Boris promised to Get Brexit Done in January and we left the EU at 11pm on January 31st, 2020. He delivered. Then, despite getting thrown into an unprecedented global health crisis, followed almost immediately thereafter by the largest-scale land war in Europe since the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, you might be forgiven for assuming that little progress had been made on the rest of manifesto, but you would be wrong.

Boris said he would put extra funding into our NHS, with 50,000 more nurses. Since then, funding has risen steadily and he has delivered over 25,000 more nurses (half-way there). He also promised 50 million more GP appointments per year. Last year, this increased by 31 million. Even with the impact of Covid lockdowns and 40 million fewer face-to-face appointments, 70 million more took place virtually online or over the phone.

He promised 20,000 more police officers by March 2023 and the latest figures show we are two thirds of the way there, with 14,000 recruited so far. He said he would pass laws for tougher sentencing for criminals and the Police, Crime, Sentencing & Courts Act was brought into force this year, including measures for whole-life orders for child murderers and ending automatic release of dangerous offenders (all of it opposed by Labour and the Liberals).

He promised an Australian-style points-based immigration system and this was implemented as soon as we left the EU.

There is more. Promises relating to investment in schools, more support for science and apprenticeships, measures to boost our energy security and protect the environment, with investment in clean energy and green infrastructure. All have schemes in the works. It is a shame that, having accomplished so much already, Boris will not be able to see these things through.

I said earlier that I thought ‘history will be kind’ to Boris and, as I glance over at the bookshelf, to my copy The Dream of Rome by a certain Boris Johnson, I am reminded of another Churchill quote. “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” I look forward to reading the memoirs.

Basildon Borough Boundary Review

Have your say on new ward boundaries

Residents have until July 18th to let the Boundary Commission know what they think

 

Some of you may or may now be aware that there is currently a consultation taking place as part of the electoral review of Basildon Borough Council being undertaken by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England. The consultation is specifically around the warding arrangements for the borough. A ward is basically the geographic area each councillor represents.

This will be the first time the boundaries have been reviewed in 20 years and the purpose of the review is to ensure that each councillor represents a similar number of electors. Inevitably, over time, the population of each ward fluctuates. This can lead to situations where some councillors represent significantly more electors than others.

Another element to the review is to address a particular anomaly that exists in boroughs like Basildon, where the council is elected by thirds. At the present time, Basildon Council has 42 councillors elected across 16 electoral wards - namely Billericay East, Billericay West, Burstead, Crouch*, Fryerns, Laindon Park, Langdon Hills*, Lee Chapel North, Nethermayne, Pitsea North-West, Pitsea South-East, St. Martin's*. Vange*, Wickford Castledon*, Wickford North and Wickford Park*. Borough elections are held in three out of every four years, electing a third of the seats each time (with at least 22 seats needed to command an overall majority).

Although most wards elect three councillors, there are currently six smaller wards that only elect two (indicated above with an '*'). This means that at local elections there are two-member wards that do not have elections at the same time as everyone else and this can be very confusing to local residents in these areas. You can imagine the alarm, when there are elections going on all around you but you do not have a vote. See map below for current warding arrangements:

 

 

As Basildon Council has determined to maintain the system of electing by thirds, the review is now seeking to abolish the two-member wards to ensure that all wards have elections at the same time. Basildon Council has also decided to maintain the total number of councillors at 42. So, clearly, that means that there will have to be 14 wards moving forward – a reduction of two. The review, however, cannot simply be a shallow numbers game. It is also necessary to ensure that the new boundaries are appropriate and reflect existing community ties. That is why the input of residents is vital to inform the Commission’s considerations when deciding the warding arrangements for our borough. It is important that wards, as far as is practicable, are reflective of local people’s identity; where they go to access local facilities, such as shops and leisure, and where they identify as a local community.

Anyone wishing to contribute to the review can do so by visiting the consultation website at www.consultation.lgbce.org.uk.

You can also email reviews@lgbce.org.uk or write to:

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

To give you an indication of the relative importance of this review, since the establishment of Basildon District Council in 1974, this is only the fourth such review to be undertaken. In fact, Basildon was originally established with 46 councillors elected across 14 wards – Barstable, Billericay, Burstead, Buttsbury, Castledon*, Central, Fryerns East, Fryerns West, Laindon*, Langdon Hills, Lee Chapel North, Pitsea, Vange* and Wickford*. Most of these were three-member wards but, curiously, four of them (marked with an '*') elected four councillors each.

New boundaries were introduced in 1979, which kept the number of wards at 14 but reduced the number of councillors from 46 to 42, the number at which it has remained ever since. The new warding arrangements created Billericay East for the first time, along with Billericay West, Burstead, Fryerns Central, Fryerns East, Laindon, Langdon Hills, Lee Chapel North, Nethermayne, Pitsea East, Pitsea West, Vange, Wickford North and Wickford South. These were all three-member wards. The boundaries were reviewed again in 1984 but the number of councillors and the ward names all stayed the same.

The most significant change came in 2002, when the number of wards was increased to 16 and the two-member wards were introduced. This established the wards as we know them today. One of the consequences of boundary changes is that it necessitates what we call an ‘all-in’ election using the new boundaries, in which all 42 councillors are elected at the same time. Thereafter, councillors are elected by thirds, with the sitting councillor who won with the least votes facing re-election the following year and the runner up councillor the year after that and the top ranked councillor enjoying the full four-year term. In 2002, Billericay East elected my ward colleagues David Dadds and Stuart Sullivan and the late Tony Archer, with David fighting re-election in 2003, Stuart in 2004 and Tony in 2006 and so on and so forth thereafter. I succeeded Tony in 2013, following his sad death.

This means that, in 2024, Basildon will hold its first all-in election for over two decades. So, even though I was re-elected in May and would not normally face re-election for another four years, I shall have to fight for my seat alongside everybody else in two years’ time. (Spare a thought for all those standing in 2023, who will only be elected for a one-year term and will have to fight re-election 12 months later!)

The Results, 2022

Results of the Local Elections held on May 5th, 2022

Conservatives retain control of Basildon Council!

It was a night of high drama but, save one exception (namely, the sad loss of an exceptionally hard-working Conservative councillor in Langdon Hills), last night was a terrific vote of confidence in the Conservative Party across Basildon. As you can see from the above graphic, Basildon Conservatives have retained control of Basildon Council, having won nine of the ten seats we were defending and gained a seat from Labour in Pitsea North-West, unseating the Leader of the Labour Group. This means that we remain at 25 seats, which gives us the overall majority we need to remain in Administration.

All told, Basildon Conservatives secured nearly half of the popular vote across the Borough, which is exactly the same as last year. Labour broke even at 10 seats (24% of the vote). In fact, all the parties remained more or less the same, with the Smithites retaining their seat in Nethermayne and gaining the second Langdon Hills seat from us, taking them back to 5 seats in total (9%). Having made no gains, the Wickford Independents remain at just two seats (6% - a doubling of their vote share from last year). The Liberal Democrats increased their vote share from 9% to 11% but failed to win any seats (it has now been 6 years since a Liberal has sat on the Council). 

 

 

The detailed breakdown of results is as follows:

 

BILLERICAY EAST – Con HOLD

 SCHRADER, Andrew (Con) – 2,062 (67%) *Elected
 CLARK, Laura (LibD) – 604 (20%)
 BUNYAN, Peter (Lab) – 405 (13%)

Turnout: 33% (-3)

I was elated to be re-elected by the good burghers of Billericay East with a majority of 1,458. However, my share of the vote was down 3 points on last year (and 11 points down on what I achieved when I was last re-elected) and I have had nearly 600 votes shaved off my majority. So I take nothing for granted. The Liberals, by contrast, enjoyed a 9-point swing and beat Labour into third place. Not bad going, considering their candidate spent all her time campaigning in the neighbouring ward. Labour's share has slumped 4 points on last year, with the Liberals seemingly the beneficiaries of the absence of any fourth party candidate (last year, we had a 'Kipper on the ballot and those protest votes appear to have gone the Liberals' way). Mine was, nevertheless, the largest Conservative majority of the evening (the second largest overall). I never take my voters in Billericay East for granted and I am gratified and humbled by their continued faith in me and look forward to being able to carry on serving them.

 

BILLERICAY WEST – Con HOLD

HEDLEY, Anthony (Con) – 2,005 (57%) *Elected
NICKLIN, Timothy (LibD) – 1,329 (38%)
BUNYAN, Sally (Lab) – 206 (6%)

Turnout: 38% (-2)

Conservative Deputy Leader Tony Hedley was returned in Billericay West with a majority of 676 - a testament to Tony's hard work and dedication and massively increased visibility since he joined Facebook a year ago. This was still, nonetheless, a close result by Billericay standards. Although both Tony's vote share and majority was 7 points up on last year, when we came within 200 votes of losing the seat, it is still a far cry from from the 2k majority he won back in 2018. It will have been a disappointing result for the Liberals, who have been executing a classic Lib Dem 'decapitation strategy' in Billericay West for the past few years but their decision to change candidates, coupled with the withdrawal of the unpopular Local Plan, seems to have cost them. Their vote share was down 7 points. Meanwhile, the needle hardly moved for Labour.

 

BURSTEAD – Con HOLD

BAGGOTT, Andrew (Con) – 1,948 (66%) *Elected
DAFFIN, Christopher (LibD) – 687 (23%)
REID, Malcolm (Lab) – 332 (11%)

Turnout: 34% (-2)

Our Glorious Leader Andrew Baggott was re-elected in Burstead with a relatively modest majority of 1,261 but the Liberals put in a surprisingly strong showing, with a 10-point swing from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems, pushing Labour into third place. Labour's vote share has hardly budged (but then they never really try to budge it).

 

 
CROUCH – Con HOLD

SARGENT, Terri (Con) – 1,311 (76%) *Elected
HILTON, Tracey (Lab) – 408 (24%)

Turnout: 26% (-10)

Terri Sargent was re-elected in Crouch with a majority of 903. Our vote share was up 4 points here but that can probably be accounted for by lack of alternative candidates. In 2021, we also had a Liberal, an Independent and a Reform UK candidate. This year, it was a two-horse race between Terri and Labour, which probably accounts for the 10% reduction in turnout, with many voters choosing to sit on their hands. Nevertheless, it was gratifying to see Terri comfortably returned.

 

FRYERNS – Lab HOLD

KIRKMAN, David (Lab) – 1,074 (56%) *Elected
 SANDHU, Sandeep (Con) – 624 (33%)
HOWARD, Vivien (LibD) – 209 (11%)

Turnout: 19% (-4)

Somewhat astonishingly, Labour's David Kirkman (who has attended no meetings since September due to illness and logged very little casework) was, nonetheless, re-elected to his safe Labour seat of Fryerns with an increased majority of 450 and well over half the popular vote - doubtlessly cashing in on the fact that the Basildon Community Residents Party and Reform UK did not field candidates this year. Those votes have pretty much gone straight back to Labour. Alas, our valiant candidate, Sandeep Sandhu, fought a hard campaign but to essentially nil effect. Our vote share has remained infuriatingly static. The Liberals came a distant third.

 

LAINDON PARK – Con HOLD

HENRY, Jeff (Con) – 1,123 (52%) *Elected
GODDARD, David (Lab) – 763 (35%)
McCARTHY, Stephen (LibD) – 136 (6%)
BATEMAN, Christopher (BDem) – 100 (5%)
MURRAY, David (TUSC) - 47 (2%)

Turnout: 22% (-7)

Popular local folk hero Jeff Henry, saviour of the Laindon Community Centre, was comfortably re-elected to his Laindon Park borough seat (Jeff is also the local Essex county councillor for Laindon Park & Fryerns) with a majority of 360 and more than half the popular vote. Although our vote share was down 3 points on last year, this was a great result in a seat that has, for many years, been regarded as a key marginal. Not any more. By his continued hard work and efforts, along with his ward colleague Kevin Wingfield, Laindon Park has returned to the fold. The aim now is to win the third seat next year and make Laindon an 'all blue' ward for the first time in over a decade. Labour's vote share was up 8 points but not enough to unseat our Jeffers. The Liberals made little impact and the two fringe party candidates made no impact at all.   

 

LANGDON HILLS – Ind GAIN from Con

BROWN, Walter (Ind) – 1,201 (50%) *Elected
ALLEN, Christopher (Con) – 883 (37%)
ZWENGUNDE, Clarence (Lab) – 237 (10%)
MAY, Christopher (LibD) – 68 (3%)

Turnout: 34% (-4)

In an absolutely gutting result, my friend and colleague, tireless local champion Chris Allen, lost his seat to Kerry Smith cipher Walter Brown. Despite having only won the seat in a by-election last year, Chris has made a massive impact over the past 12 months but, sadly, even being the only candidate who actually lived in Langdon Hills was not enough to buck the inscrutable voting habits of the voters there, who would elect a blancmange if it was endorsed by Kerry Smith. Councillor Brown enjoys a majority of 318. Labour and the Liberals were spectators here. It was very much a two-horse race. 

 

LEE CHAPEL NORTH – Lab HOLD

CAIRA-NEESON, Susanna (Lab) – 1,006 (56%) *Elected
SHUKLA, Deepak (Con) – 649 (36%)
SAGGERS, Norma (RUK) – 157 (9%)

Turnout: 18% (-7)

This was another very disappointing result. Despite having been within 45 votes of winning the seat last year, our plucky candidate Deepak Shukla came a distant second behind Susanna Caira-Neeson, who won the seat with a majority of 357 and well over half the popular vote. I can't even blame the silly Reform candidate for taking votes away from us! It wouldn't have made any difference. It is a shame, because the Conservative Administration is spending an absolute fortune in the ward, yet they keep electing Labour councillors who vote against it. Councillor Caira-Neeson returns to Basildon Council after a 22-year absence, having previously been a one-term Labour councillor for Langdon Hills between 1996 and 2000. That may very nearly be a record. The only person I can think of to match that would be Cllr. David Harrison (W-Ind, Wickford Park), who lost his seat in 1988 and did not return to the Council until 2014 (a 26-year hiatus).    

 

NETHERMAYNE – Ind HOLD

SMITH, Kerry (Ind) – 1,946 (70%) *Elected
WRIGHT, Dylan (Lab) – 402 (14%)
OKORAFOR, Chima (Con) – 334 (12%)
NICE, Stephen (LibD) – 106 (4%)

Turnout: 27% (-4)

Local demagogue Kerry Smith was, of course, comfortably re-elected to his Nethermayne seat, with a resounding majority of 1,544 (the largest majority of the night) and a freakishly massive 24-point swing to the Independents from last year - a testament to his titanic personal vote in the ward. Sadly, our candidate was pushed into third place by Labour, despite a 3-point drop in their own popular vote. Our vote was down a dispiriting 8 points on last year. Dear old Steve Nice for the Liberals got more or less exactly the same result as last year. The Smith phenomena continues.

 

PITSEA NORTH-WEST – Con GAIN form Lab

GASCOYNE, Sam (Con) – 931 (47%) *Elected
FERGUSON, Jack (Lab) – 911 (46%)
HOWARD, Martin (LibD) – 133 (7%)

Turnout: 21% (-4)

In easily the most stunning and dramatic result of the evening, the Leader of Basildon Labour, Jack Ferguson, lost his seat to first-time Conservative candidate and Internet sensation Sam Gascoyne, overturning a 300-plus Labour majority. As I said in my Runners & Riders blog, this was always going to be a tough fight for Jack Ferguson, as his predecessor only narrowly clung on last year with a badly reduced majority and then, when he quit only a few weeks later, we won the resultant by-election, electing Stuart Terson with a majority of 364. Stuart has since proved an exceptionally hard-working and highly visible ward councillor for Pitsea North-West and it is probably to him that Sam owes at least a portion of his electoral success, albeit with a rather more modest majority of just 20! For what it's worth, I regret that Sam winning his seat necessitated Jack losing his. Jack is actually a nice guy and is in politics for the right reasons, plays a reasonably straight bat and was certainly a far better leader than his ignominious predecessor. But that is politics... and Sam will be great!

 

PITSEA SOUTH-EAST – Con HOLD

MACKENZIE, Luke (Con) – 1,327 (60%) *Elected
BAKER, Michael (Lab) – 896 (40%)

Turnout: 25% (-5)

The Deputy Mayor of Basildon, Luke Mackenzie, was comfortably re-elected to his Pitsea South-East seat with a massively increased majority of 431 and 60% of the vote, in a two-horse race against Labour. The skuttlebutt from the campaign trail was that Labour threw everything at trying to retain Jack Ferguson's seat in North-West and barely touched South-East. Consequently, their vote share is down 5 points, while ours is up 13 points. I did not want to say anything in my Runners & Riders blog, lest it be held against him, but Luke is actually responsible for bringing me into politics, having recruited me over a decade ago, way back in 2010, when he was the organiser of Basildon & Billericay Young Conservatives and I was, believe it or not, still considered technically 'young'. He was a councillor at the time but I was elected in 2013, the year after he lost his seat. It was a delight to see him return to the Council in 2018 and I was chuffed to bits to see him re-elected last night.

 

WICKFORD CASTLEDON – Con HOLD

MYERS, Alex (Con) – 1,030 (52%) *Elected
WRIGHT, Matthew (Lab) – 458 (23%)
SANSOM, Charlie (WInd) – 420 (21%)
MOTT, Stewart (LibD) – 68 (3%)

Turnout: 31% (+1)

Alex Myers has been comfortably elected to replace retiring long-serving Tory stalwart Malcolm Buckley with a majority of 572 over Labour. Meanwhile, Basildon resident and Tory turncoat Charlie Sansom was relegated to what must have been a rather disappointing third place (made all the more galling by the fact that, prior to quitting the Tory Party in a fit of pique, he had been selected to stand in Pitsea North-West, which his replacement won that same evening). I hope, dear reader, that I shall not be judged too harshly for my schadenfreude but, while I have no strong personal animus against Charlie (I always tried to get on with him personally), I am unashamedly Dantean in my attitude to political defectors. I shall be fascinated to see what he does next. The Lib Dems made no impact here.

 

WICKFORD NORTH – Con HOLD

HOLLIMAN, Peter (Con) – 1,224 (42%) *Elected
HAMMOND, Trevor (WInd) – 1,115 (38%)
NEMETH, Joseph (Lab) – 415 (14%)
HOAD, Nicola (LibD) – 188 (6%)

Turnout: 30% (+3)

Peter Holliman was re-elected to Wickford North with a majority of 109, in what as quite a close contest with the Windies. Our vote share was down 10 points on last year, with the other three parties all doing slightly better but not enough to unseat Peter, who is now serving his third term as a Conservative councillor for Wickford North. The Liberal candidate was entirely negligible. Incidentally, this was the only ward in which turnout was actually up!

 

WICKFORD PARK – Con HOLD

JEFFERY, George – 874 (48%) *Elected
BALL, Alan – 598 (33%)
WEBB, Brenda - 348 (19%)

Turnout: 25% (-4)

George Jeffery was re-elected here with an increased majority of 276 over former Windy councillor Alan Ball. George is the youngest member of the Conservative Group and has just completed his first term of office but has already established himself as a stalwart for his ward. Mr. Ball's hopes of a comeback have been dashed, with Labour's paper candidate bringing up the rear.

 

CONCLUSION:

So another night of highs and lows. Clearly devastating to lose Chris Allen in Langdon Hills and we wish him well for the future. Hugely gratifying to see so many colleagues returned, however, and to have kept a majority on the Council and retained the Administration. We look forward to welcoming our two newly-elected members into our ranks - Cllr. Sam Gascoyne (Con, Pitsea N.-W.) and Cllr. Alex Myers (Con, Wickford Castledon). Overall, nationally, it does not seem to have been quite the disastrous bloodbath that many of the talking heads were predicting.

Clearly, this was a catastrophic night for Labour. In Basildon, they regained the third seat in Lee Chapel North, which had been held by an unaligned former Labour councillor, but lost their own leader in Pitsea North-West. Who will now lead the Labour Group at Basildon is anybody's guess. The smart money is on Cllr. Adele Brown (Lab, Fryerns) but she was MIA last night, just as she has been for over half the council meetings last year, and she served as Labour leader previously and was manifestly uncomfortable in the role. But I am not sure that leaves Labour colleagues with many options! Nationally, as well, Sir Keir Starmer will now be feeling the pressure. After twelve years of a Conservative Government and everything that has been going over the past few years, Labour should be much further ahead than they are. Some of the folderol they are campaigning on is, I think, not cutting through with voters in the way they seem to think it is.

Turnout across the Borough remains depressingly low, at 27% (3 points down on 2021!). As I mentioned earlier, the Conservatives won nearly half the popular vote across Basildon Borough (though all the parties vote shares were essentially static from last year).

Just enough time for some pointless stat-crunching! The single highest number of votes won by any borough candidate was yours truly (Con, Billericay East). I received 2,062 votes. The lowest was David Murray, the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition candidate in Laindon Park, who received only 47 votes. He, not unsurprisingly, also has the lowest vote share (2%). The largest share of the vote went to Terri Sargent (Con, Crouch), who commanded 76% of the popular vote. The single largest majority (1,544) was won by Kerry Smith (Ind, Nethermayne). The honour of the smallest majority goes to Sam Gascoyne (Con, Pitsea North-West) at just 20 votes.

The Conservative Group will now hold our AGM and put together an Order Paper, including our nominees for Leader of the Council and Mayor of the Borough, to present to the Annual Meeting of Basildon Council scheduled for May 26th. In accordance with our stated aims, this Order Paper will restructure Basildon Council, dispensing with the Committee System and re-establishing the Cabinet. Basildon Conservatives will continue to use our strong mandate to build upon the positive improvements we have made over the past twelve months.

We are, as always, hugely grateful to everyone who voted for us.