Well, my city’s mayoralty – a newly created one – has fallen to an ex-professional Olympic boxer (he won gold in the bantamweight class in 2012), who was a bit of a hero here in Hull, but so far as I know has had no political experience or serious political ideas. He was the right-wing Reform Party’s candidate, and was obviously chosen because of his local appeal, which brought him victory in yesterday’s election by a landslide.

On the other hand, the turnout for the election was under 30%; and his share of that only 35.8%. So this was hardly the major endorsement of Nigel Farage’s movement that he (and more neutral commentators) are claiming. In each of the elections that took place yesterday, Reform was competing against a number of parties, who between them will have ‘split’ the anti-Right vote. (The party I voted for was one of them.) With any other system of voting, Reform would probably have lost. But that’s what you get with ‘First Past The Post’ (see https://bernardjporter.com/?s=first+past). (You could say the same, incidentally, about last year’s British General Election).

The reasons behind this bizarre result are, of course, the low state in which traditional politics have fallen recently (’they’re all the same’); people’s political ignorance generally; and the trivialisation of the electoral process, which is seen as a popularity contest rather than a serious choice between serious politicians and their policies. Boris started this trend; now Nigel Farage is exploiting it. Hence Luke Campbell’s appeal to the good people of Hull and the East Riding.