Ed Davey and the Dinosaurs: The cheesy Lib Dem post-election stunt is in

Thanks to Liberal Democrat Voice for this photo of Ed Davey and some dinosaurs.

Lord Bonkers tells me the party's original plan was to use his old friend Ruttie, the Rutland Water Monster, but in the event it proved impossible to agree a fee.

Learning to celebrate St George's Day

I miss blogging in scuzzy internet cafes. I was in one in King's Lynn when I looked out the window and saw the town's Conservative Club was flying the flag of St George.

As I then wrote:

Until a very few years ago it would have been unthinkable for it to have flown anything but the Union Jack.

We never used to be so keen on St George. I remember the saint's day being a big deal in the Cubs - we took part in a parade and the mayor was there in full fig - and churches would fly his flag, but that was about it.

The modern renaissance in the use of St George may date from 1996, when both England, the hosts, and Scotland qualified for the European Football Championship.

England fans, it is argued, showed a grasp of the politics of the Union that their countrymen have not always matched and realised they could not brandish the Union Jack. So they rallied behind the Flag of St George instead.

Certainly, by 2014 Leicester felt it ought to mark the day with a St George's Festival, which I went along to:

With its morris dancers, knights and dragons, there was perhaps something contrived about the whole affair. But I was pleased to see it taking place for two reasons.

First, there is variety of left-winmething that whites, particularly the white working class, do not have.

So is good to see St George taking his place alongside Vaisakhi, Diwali and Hannukah in Leicester's roster of municipally recognised festivals.

And perhaps the idea that other people's festivals are authentic while yours are contrived is part of the same faulty view of multiculturalism. After all, every festival was invented if you go back far enough.

Second, if people of goodwill do not take up 23 April, then others will.

In 1979 the National Front staged a march of around 1000 people in Leicester on St George's Day. There were clashes with anti-fascist demonstrators, 40 injuries and 80 arrests.

Even if you don't care for morris dancing, you have to admit it's preferable to a National Front march.

The recent row over England's kit for Euro 2024 was an example of patriotism gone sour, but I stand by these words today.

Time to say "Evenin' all" to the police and crime commissioners

Police and crime commissioners have not lived up to the hopes for them when the role was created, so it should be scrapped.

In 2012 David Cameron told us:

"This is a big job for a big local figure. It’s a voice for the people, someone to lead the fight against crime, and someone to hold to account if they don’t deliver."

And:

"This isn’t just for politicians, but community leaders and pioneers of all sorts. People with real experience who’ve done things and run organisations, whether they are charities or companies.

"Whatever their background, they will need to be outstanding leaders ready to take a really big role on behalf of all of us."

While the Home Office press release those quotes are taken from said:

PCCs will bring a democratic voice to people in 41 police forces across England and Wales (outside London), replacing the current system of police authorities. They will not interfere in operational decisions, but will set the direction for chief constables. 

PCCs will be driven by one clear aim - to use the backing they have received from the public to deliver a real, tangible difference to the lives of the people they serve by cutting crime.

Yesterday saw the third round of PCC elections, and I believe we can now say that the experiment has failed. It has not delivered any of what Cameron and the Home Office promised.

Not only that, it has proved an expensive experiment. PCCs have discovered the need to appoint a deputy on a generous public salary as well as the need to employ researchers.

Here in Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, there was no visible campaign - on the doorstep or online - for the PCC election. And the Labour and Conservative candidates were both party hacks who have never made it to Westminster.

Though to be fair to Labour's Rory Palmer, he has, unlike his Conservative opponent Rupert Matthews, never been a lecturer on the paranormal for the International Metaphysical University or expressed the view that "the evidence for UFOs and for the humanoid creatures linked to them is pretty compelling".

It seems that who wins the PCC contest here depends on what other elections are taking place at the same time. 

In 2016 it took place at the same time as Leicester City Council elections, so the Labour vote came out there and we got a Labour PCC. Five years later it coincided with county council elections, so the Tory vote came out and we got a Tory PCC.

Yesterday there were no other elections and Rupert Matthews won a second term with a majority of only 860. Rory Palmer would have won for Labour if the Tories had not changed the voting system since last time.

As to what we put in the place of PCCs, I suggest we go back to something like the old police authorities, which included various interest groups like local councils and magistrates.

I've seen no evidence that the system that replaced them has been better at overseeing local police forces.

Hugglescote: An Edward VIII post box with horns

I've been to Leicester's Saffron Lane Estate. I've to Earl Shilton. And now I've been to Hugglescote, so I've photographed all three Edward VIII post boxes in Leicestershire.

Since you ask, Hugglescote is a village that has now been absorbed into Coalville.

Oss Oss Wee Oss!: May Day in Padstow

This is a lovely film from 1953 about the 'Obby 'Oss festival, which is held every May Day in the Cornish town of Padstow.

Those taking part are convinced of the festival's ancient roots, though historians (well, Wikipedia) say there's no evidence to suggest that it began earlier than the 18th century.

But that has never taken away from anyone's fun on the day or in the run up to it, and no one gets burnt in a wicker man.

The Joy of Six 1225

Jamie Driscoll’s challenge to Labour in the North East mayoral contest may be a taste of things to come if a Starmer government disappoints, argue Joe Guinan and Martin O'Neill.

Martin Roche says Ofcom is not fit for purpose and must be replaced: "The entire entity is unfit for purpose. It must be replaced with a new body with a stiff backbone and sharp teeth, one that acts without fear or favour and is impervious to political pressure. This is about democracy and truth. Both those elements must be bigger than regulators and bigger than demagogue politicians."

Megan Kang shows that America's love affair with guns is a surprisingly recent phenomenon.

"As a child I used to swim in the River Wye and I remember the clouds of mayflies in the summer, as well as huge leaping salmon." Oliver Bullough on the Welsh government's lack of concern for the despoilation of this once-beautiful river.

"Women in philosophy​ have always needed a special stroke of luck. Like men, they have usually had to be well-born, well-off, talented and - in the European tradition at least - white. But most women philosophers before the late 20th century needed something more: access to a man who held the uncommon view that women - or at least certain women - could be serious thinkers too." Sophie Smith reviews two books on female philosophers.

Lindsay Anderson looked back over his career as a director in an he interview he gave in 1989.

Hastings's two funicular cliff railways

A short film on the two cliff railways of Hastings. When I was in the town the other week, I went up to the clifftops on the West Hill Railway but didn't get to travel on the East Hill Railway.

The latter enjoys some great sea views because it doesn't run through a tunnel.

The British right is increasingly attracted to the idea of forced labour

Isabel Oakeshott published an article in the Telegraph this morning under the headline:

Get benefits claimants back to work - cleaning our filthy streets

That article is behind the paper's paywall, but Vox Political has a few quotes. If they give a fair representation of the piece, it is designed to evoke disgust, not just of dirty streets, but of the people who live in them.

But Oakeshott's partner Richard Tice was in no doubt of its quality, retweeting it with the words:

Let’s make Welfare work…..

Let’s get Benefits claimant’s cleaning Britain….

Let’s ignore the howls of woke lefties….

And his deputy as leader of Reform UK, Ben Habib, chimed in:

Absolutely right Richard. 

The human condition requires work to be settled. It is good for the people and good for the country.

I like clean streets too, but I like them to be cleaned by people who are paid a good wage for doing the work and who belong to trade unions.

But this hankering after an army of unpaid workers is creeping in on the right of British politics.

When I saw tweets about Oakeshott's article, I was reminded of a an article by my own MP.

Blogging is what Neil O'Brien seems to do most of the time these days, which pleases me as a fellow exponent of a dying art. But this was not on his own Substack but Conservative Home.

And there he wrote:

In the 1990s, the visionary New York police chief, Bill Bratton, put Broken Windows policing into effect, and crushed crime. It has two elements: creating orderly places, and making sure lower level crimes get swift and certain punishment.

To create orderly places, community payback offenders shouldn’t simply beput (sic) into charity shops. Instead, they should be helping deliver a massive national drive to reduce graffiti and tidy town centres.

So there's another reserve army that can clean up Britain while undercutting council workers: prisoners.

What will be suggested next? Making this free labour available to private companies? That's what already happens in the vast US prison system - see this article from the American Civil Liberties Union.

And you could read Crime Control as Industry by Nils Christie, which long ago alerted me to look for this trend. It's one we should all fear.

Chess Masters sees the return of the game to the BBC

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News from the BBC Media Centre:

BBC Factual today announces an exciting brand new Factual Entertainment competition format, Chess Masters, for BBC Two and iPlayer. Across eight episodes, passionate and highly-skilled players from all backgrounds will battle it out across a series of rapid chess games before one will be crowned the title of Chess Master. ...

Catherine Catton, Head of Commissioning, Factual Entertainment and Live Events, says: "In a market of competitions that celebrate physical feats we’re really excited to back an idea that foregrounds strategy and smart-thinking. Curve has devised a format that makes chess both entertaining and accessible for all."

Camilla Lewis, Executive Producer, Curve Media, says: "Chess Masters has been a joy to develop with the BBC. We are delighted to be making this warm, inclusive and clever series, where the emotional as well as strategic stakes are high. There is untapped talent out there. Amateurs from 8 to 80 will get the opportunity to compete with the best and the audience will get unique insights into the psychological and practical gameplay of this age-old but highly accessible game played by all cultures and by people of all kinds."

Malcolm Pein from the English Chess Federation adds:

The world’s oldest game has evolved into a 24/7 365 activity as well as a big money e-sport that has appeal across the generations. The way chess almost uniquely crosses all boundaries of age, sex, language and culture convinced me that our national broadcaster is its natural home.

"The chess community has waited over thirty years for the game to return to our screens and everyone is hugely excited at the prospect of creating an innovative format with the best broadcasting professionals to bring the 64 squares to life for the millions of new players and for those whose chess journey has not yet begun."

It is indeed 30 years since chess featured on the BBC in the shape of its coverage of Nigel Short's unsuccessful challenge to Garry Kasparov for the world championship.

And back in the Seventies, the BBC screened the innovative programme The Master Game. As I blogged last year:

When the BBC tried to sell The Master Game, a series of televised chess tournaments, to other national broadcasters, they were told: "We've tried doing chess on television, but it doesn't work." Then the representatives of those stations heard the players apparently voicing their thoughts during the game and bought the programme.

What format the new programme Chess Masters will take remains to be seen, but the return of chess to be BBC has to be welcomed.

Phil Edmonds's fairy-tale debut for England in 1975

Here in 1975, introduced by John Arlott, is Phil Edmonds in his blond Adonis phase, making his test debut. In his first 12 overs for England he took 5 Australian wickets for 17, his victims including both Chappell brothers.

He was to bowl much better than this for England, but never with so much luck. Still, his sudden appearance on the test scene was part of the revitalisation of the team under Tony Greig's captaincy.

From his debut until his last test, against Pakistan in 1987, Edmonds only played 51 of a possible 126 games for England.

In part this was because we rarely played two spinners, though Edmonds and John Emburey were fixtures in two successful Ashes series in the 1980s. But it was also because he came to be seen as a difficult character.

Sometimes the selectors went to ridiculous lengths to avoid picking him. In 1982 Edmonds took 80 first-class wickets for Middlesex, but three off spinners (Eddie Hemmings, Vic Marks and Geoff Miller) were taken to Australia that winter and there was no place for him.

Jacob Rees-Mogg was hidden from voters during the 2019 general election campaign

The prime minister's critics in the Conservative Party, reports the Telegraph, know what he needs to do:

Tory critics are urging Rishi Sunak to promote Right-wingers to an “election war Cabinet” after the local elections, which are predicted to deliver sizeable Tory defeats.

Two Tory MPs have endorsed the idea to The Telegraph, with Priti Patel, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Robert Jenrick put forward as possible names to be in contention.

One name jumps out here: that of Jacob Rees-Mogg. That's because he had to be hidden from the public during the last general election campaign.

On 11 December 2019, the eve of polling day, a Guardian article looked at the politicians who had been prominent during the campaign and those who had been absent from the fray.

This is what it said about Rees-Mogg:

From being a near-perennial fixture of political coverage in 2019, Rees-Mogg vanished from the airwaves following uproar over his comments about the Grenfell tragedy.

His presence among the top 20 most prominent campaigners in the press and TV in the campaign’s first week was largely a result of coverage of the Grenfell issue – and by the second week he had disappeared.

Instead, a series of pictures on the politician’s Twitter account suggests that he has been instructed to largely restrict himself to his safe seat of North East Somerset.

And it wasn't just the Guardian that notices. When Rees-Mogg took his mini-me son with him to the polling station the next day, the Express reported:

Mr Rees-Mogg has rarely been seen during the last few weeks of campaigning.

This may have been due to controversial comments about the people who died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy. 

The Tory MP told LBC host Nick Ferrari that the victims would have survived if they’d have just ignored what they were told by London Fire Brigade. 

He added that he would have left the building as “it just seems the common sense thing to do”.

Mr Rees-Mogg then did not attend the Tory manifesto launch at the Telford International Centre, despite other Cabinet ministers attending. 

If bringing back Rees-Mogg is the best card the Tories can play now, they're in even more trouble than we thought.

GUEST POST So far this year, 49 councillors have left the Tories and 42 have left Labour

Augustus Carp gives his latest bulletin on councillors who have changed party. Individually, these moves may be insignificant, but the overall totals do show which way the tide is running.

It’s odd the things that political journalists think important, isn’t it? On Saturday evening a somewhat obscure Suffolk MP crosses the floor, and it’s headline news. Meanwhile, nearly 100 councillors have defected since the New Year, and it barely gets a mention in their local paper.

Obviously, the actions of a former health minister have more immediate impact than those of a sometime chair of the highways and byways subcommittee on Slagthorpe Borough Council, but the cumulative effect of numerous small-scale defections might, on balance, be rather more significant.

So far this year there have been net defections of 49 Conservative councillors, 42 Labour, 1 Lib Dem, 5 Greens and 2 Nationalists. The balancing figure is a net increase of 99 'Independents', broadly defined.

There are only 12 examples of councillors defecting directly from one political party to another - five prefiguring Dan Poulter MP and moving from Conservative to Labour, four from Conservative to Lib Dem, one from Lib Dem to Labour and one each from the Conservatives and Labour to the Greens.

My thesis is a simple one: a councillor defecting from a political party means that they will be less likely to vote - and, more importantly, to work - for that party at a general election. Their families and friends might withdraw from the fray as well, and their local knowledge of their ward will be lost to the party they formerly represented.

Does it matter? Well, that depends on how important you think leafleting, canvassing and sitting outside polling stations might be for a parliamentary election. A winning team in a close contest needs to expend thousands of volunteer hours, a process which is very difficult to organise, manage and motivate.

Perhaps that’s why some bright young things would rather try to maximise support and get voters to the polling stations via social media alone, but personally I still think a bit of physical effort is required.

The well-reported mass defections of Labour councillors have continued this year, notably the 10 in Pendle. This action has been replicated on a smaller scale elsewhere, with some Labour defectors expressing dissatisfaction with the party’s position on Gaza and other, undefined, 'leadership issues'.

As a consequence, several new, ostensibly 'Independent' groups have been established in some authorities by ex-Labour councillors. Meanwhile, Reform, the People’s Party and Alba have all attracted new converts, but they remain scarce.

The local election results on Thursday and Friday will no doubt overshadow Mr Poulter’s resignation, and all of those tallied above, but it might not be long before pressures, personalities and politics create fissures in the newly elected council groups.

Augustus Carp is the pen name of someone who has been a member of the Liberal Party and then the Liberal Democrats since 1976.

The US is living through its own version of the Jeremy Thorpe Affair

Readers of a certain age will remember Rinka. She was the dog shot to persuade her owner, Norman Scott, not to talk about his affair with the Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe.

Now it's the US's turn to live through a political scandal about a shot dog.

Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, was one of the favourites to be Donald Trump's running mate this November. But she appears to have ruined her chances of becoming Vice President by publishing a book.

The Guardian takes up the story:

"Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old," the South Dakota governor writes in a new book, adding that the dog, a female, had an "aggressive personality" and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.

What unfolds over the next few pages shows how that effort went very wrong indeed – and, remarkably, how Cricket was not the only domestic animal Noem chose to kill one day in hunting season.

By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going "out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life".

That's a picture of Cricket above.

The Guardian report goes on to say: 

"I hated that dog," Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself "untrainable", "dangerous to anyone she came in contact with" and "less than worthless ... as a hunting dog".

"At that moment," Noem says, "I realised I had to put her down."

Noem, who also represented her state in Congress for eight years, got her gun, then led Cricket to a gravel pit.

"was not a pleasant job," she writes, "but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realised another unpleasant job needed to be done."

Yes, she also shot a goat the family owned.

According to Noem, it was "nasty and mean", because it had not been castrated. Furthermore, the goat smelled "disgusting, musky, rancid".

Donald Trump is 77.

Karl Popper, the Post Office Horizon IT scandal and solutioneering

Private Eye reminds us of the genesis of the Post Office Horizon IT scandal:

Conceived in 1996 as one of the first private finance initiative contracts, between the Post Office and the Benefits Agency on the one hand and computer company ICL on the other, the Horizon IT system had an unpromising start. It had been set up to create a swipe card system for payment of pensions and benefits from Post Office branch counters. 

When, in May 1999, the plug was finally pulled on what the Commons public accounts committee called 'one of the biggest IT failures in the public sector', taxpayers had lost around £700m. Something had to be salvaged, however. 

So, against the better judgement of its IT specialists, the Post Office decided to use the system to transform its paper-based branch accounting into an electronic system covering the full range of Post Office services. The new Horizon project became the largest non-military IT contract in Europe.

And, though I can't find the reference today, I have read that considerable pressure was put on the Post Office. Its executives were told they could whistle for more government investment if they didn't buy Horizon.

All of which reminds me of Roger James, who wrote a book seeking to apply the insights of Karl Popper's philosophy to public affairs. That 1980 book, Return to Reason, can be found online.

One of the useful concepts James introduces is 'solutioneering', which he characterises as:

Jumping to a solution before clearly formulating what the problem is (or indeed if there is one at all) or how success or failure are to be judged. Achievement of the solution then becomes the goal; and, when opposition develops, the problem becomes how to get the solution accepted, while the question of how best to solve the original problem, if there was one, never gets discussed at all. I call this mistake solutioneering.

Horizon wasn't a solution to one, clearly defined problem, but the Post Office was nevertheless determined to defend its reputation at all costs. Anyone who raised doubts about whether it could do all that was being asked of it was treated as a threat to the organisation.

Trader Horne: Here Comes the Rain

Judy Dyble was the original female singer with Fairport Convention, but was ousted when the band met Sandy Denny.

Jackie McAuley was the keyboard player with Them and played on their most famous records - Baby, Please Don't Go, Gloria and Here Comes the Night - alongside Van Morrison.

In 1970 the two got together as Trader Horne and recorded a single album, Morning Way, which Wikipedia claims "has reached legendary status and it is considered one of the lost gems of the 1960s", though someone has added 'by whom?' and 'citation needed' afterwards.

Here Comes the Rain is not on the album but is the second of two singles that Trader Horne released.

According to Wikipedia:

The band was named after DJ John Peel's nanny, Florence Horne, nicknamed "Trader" in reference to explorer Trader Horn.

I suppose there should have been a Nineties band called Tiggy Legge-Bourke.

The Joy of Six 1224

Bill Browder, in a video interview by Kyiv Post, argues that: "Putin is a little man, who has stolen too much money, who is terrified of losing power. If he loses power he will go to jail, lose his money and die."

"The learning process of having your opinions tested, being exposed to new information, or accepting there are multiple, nuanced but rational positions on many contentious issues, should be an ongoing lifelong pursuit, but if children and young people are not exposed to this approach within schools, how do we expect them to achieve this?" Claire McGuiggan and Peter D'Lima make the developmental case for free speech in schools.

A right-wing political and media ecosystem pushing a US-style anti-abortion agenda is gaining traction in the UK, says Sian Norris.

Michael Bacon found going to a child psychoanalyst four times a week for three years bad enough: reading what she wrote about him was worse. His article a powerful indictment of the harm that 'therapy' with no scientific basis can do.

"Being a gardener means learning how to care for and appreciate the little things in nature. This involves a sense of pride in your work as well as respect for the space around you – an approach you can carry into other areas of life, the environment and interpersonal relationships. Our species is more fragile than we often like to think but we have a greater chance of survival if we learn to work with nature and not try to be its master." Susie Porter on the mental health benefits of gardening.

A London Inheritance visits the Waterman's Arms on the Isle of Dogs: "The audience at the Waterman’s Arms attracted not just the locals, but also those from the West End, and a global set of celebrities from the early 1960s. Names such as Lord Delfont, George Melly, Groucho Marx, Lionel Bart, Trevor Howard, Tony Bennett, Mary Quant, Norman Hartnell, Judy Garland and Clint Eastwood (who wrote the word ‘rowdy’ in the guest book)."

Overmedicalisation is a problem, but not for the reasons Rishi Sunak thinks

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The Guardian published a number of letters in response to the prime minster's claim that Britain is suffering from a "sicknote culture".

One of them, from the associate professor of psychology and medical anthropology, Dr James Davies, got it exactly right:

Rising distress may not be a medical problem, as Sunak claims, but it is certainly a social one, as Sunak ignores.

We need to stop overmedicalising mental distress. As a psychological therapist, I know first-hand that most people seeking help aren’t suffering from “mental illnesses” in any biologically verifiable sense, but from understandable reactions to life and work conditions that are harming and holding them back; conditions that medicine was never designed to treat. 

By misrepresenting socially caused distress as a medical issue, we run the risk of wrongly individualising, pathologising and ultimately depoliticising that distress, and so exonerating social conditions from responsibility.

Overmedicalisation is indeed a problem, but not for the reasons Sunak thinks.

I've not read the book, but Dr Davies is the author of the book Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis.

The 1931 floods and the history of Winchelsea Beach

This is an interesting little video. Winchelsea Beach, where we had a family caravan holiday when I was seven, is a small resort that has developed on land that was reclaimed as the sea retreated.

Winchelsea, which was once a major port, now finds itself a couple of miles inland, but the sea used to lap at the foot of the cliffs on which it stands. It is Winchelsea Beach that stands by the sea and is at risk from its moods.

I suspect these floods in 1931 inspired the plot of Malcolm Saville's third Lone Pine story, The Gay Dolphin Adventure, which was published in 1945.

You will see at least one old railway carriage in the video, which makes me think that Winchelsea Beach may have begun less as a holiday resort than as plotlands of the sort which Jonathan Meades led me to at Bewdley.

A post on English Buildings suggests I was right.

Remember Calder Womble, Remember Calder Womble

I have learnt from my addiction to the livestream of the proceedings of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry that there is a transatlantic law firm called Womble Bond Dickinson.

Indeed, two of its partners are due to give evidence to the inquiry in June - I believe the firm was retained by the Post Office for a time. (No doubt someone will be on hand to whisper "Remember you're a Womble" in their ear before they take the stand.)

Naturally, I was curious about a lawyer called Womble, and the Womble Bond Dickinson site does give some of the family history in a 2016 obituary for William F. Womble, Sr. - or Bill Womble, Sr. if you knew him well.

Bill's father, and the first of the lawyer Wombles, was B.S. Womble. That's Bunyan Snipes Womble.

And Bunyan Womble had a brother, also a lawyer, called Calder.

I shall not forget Calder Womble.

Incidentally, if you follow the Womble family back through American genealogy sites, and it's surprisingly easy to do so, it seems their name was originally Wombwell.

Hooked on the livestream from the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry

Imagine a cross between Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the interview episode of The Apprentice. That's what you get from the hearings of the Post Office Horizon IT Inquiry.

The inquiry's website carries a livestream during the day and also has a complete archive of recordings of all the hearings to date. It's well worth exploring. I won't pick out any names, but I doubt you'll come away impressed with the quality of Post Office personnel at any grade.

To whet your appetite, I've chosen part of this afternoon's evidence from Angela van den Bogerd, former People Services Director at Post Office Ltd and Programme Director for the Branch Support Programme.

Asking the questions is the impressive Jason Beer KC, counsel to the inquiry,

Disgraced MPs should resign from the Commons not their party

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Mark Menzies has resigned from the Conservative Party but is to remain as a member of the House of Commons until the general election.

This is what generally happens when an MP gets into hot water, but it has long seemed to me that it gets things the wrong way round.

It's being a member of the Commons that requires a degree of probity, not belonging to a political party. I suppose if your behaviour while a party member is bad enough you will be slung out in disgust or from fear you will become a liability, but all parties have members they would not dream of putting up as Westminster candidates.

Menzies has denied the allegations against him, but he still strikes you as an unhappy bunny. I suspect he's going to need his friends in the coming weeks, whatever action the authorities decide to take.

And if he's anything like most politicos, many of his friendships and much of his social life will have been found through his party. Now he has resigned from the Conservative Party, he is much less likely to meet those friends.

I suppose I'm saying political parties have a duty of care towards candidates who get elected, and that duty becomes more important when those successful candidates run into personal trouble.

Mason Crane, England's forgotten man, on how to encourage spin bowling in the County Championship

It's a podcast with young men, so there's lots of top bantz, but in between Mason Crane - England, Hampshire, Sussex and now Glamorgan - has some interesting things to say about how we can encourage spin bowling in the County Championship.

GUEST POST In old age a shared past is rich and comforting

The Secret Support Worker discusses what older people in care homes need to thrive - and what they are given.

Well, gentle reader, I did it. I walked away from the most amazing and most magical (and most badly paid) of jobs.

I don’t really know how it happened, but for the last few months I have been in a different world, working in a care home remembering the Britain of the 1940s to the 1970s with a group of my most elderly fellow citizens. 

It was a bit like being Dominic Sandbrook but without the podcast and the Daily Mail rants. We walked back to happiness, we had never had it so good, we were so cheerful it kept us going and, most of all, we laughed in the face of dementia and we cocked a snook at the grim reaper.

The home is kind and warm, but with me gone it loses its last member of staff with any British heritage of any kind. It loses the Beatles, the rationing, the 1966 World Cup and the nostalgia which is a vital anchor for those with dementia.

If you have Alzheimer’s the short term is hard, but a shared past becomes ever more rich and comforting.

The retro noticeboard featuring the Grand National, D-Day, homemade lavender bags and silly snaps has been replaced with corporate photographic prints and a cheesy hotel lounge vibe. 

On the wall behind some of the frailest residents, the new slogan reads: It's a Good Day to be Happy.

Homes Under the Hammer flickers on to the omnipresent telly as I leave. What are they are all going to do all day now? 

The Secret Support Worker, a Liberal Democrat member, was paid £11 an hour and had a budget per activity session per resident of 3p. The home has an annual turnover of a million pounds and the proprietor a flash car with personalised number plates.