I never thought I’d be a wild camper

Wild camping is ‘a modish phrase meaning camping overnight in a place which is not a dedicated campsite’, according to Lord Justice Underhill in a Court of Appeal judgment in July – and isn’t it wonderful that there are still judges carrying on the fine judicial tradition of handling the colloquial as if were radioactive waste? The point at issue was whether wild camping came within the definition of ‘open-air recreation’ – which is legally protected on Dartmoor, even without the landowner’s permission, under the Dartmoor Commons Act 1985 – or not.

A nice question of statutory interpretation with no real repercussions, as the landowners promised that they would (at least for the moment) grant that permission, which was resolved by the Master of the Rolls. The judges reasoning was that a walker who stopped for a rest was still taking part in open-air recreation, even if he fell asleep; it was an essential part of his recreation. I also like judges who have a proper respect for the nap. 

It was after reading about the case that I decided to try wild camping. Not just because of my admiration for the judicial reasoning – although I admit I do get excited by jurisprudence; I once got off on a technicality – but I think my life was leading me there. During lockdown, my wife bought me a T-shirt from Mountain Warehouse with the slogan ‘Social distancing before it was cool’: I had never been walking in the wilderness, as the pictures of mountains and moors implied, but the misanthropy was all mine.

I once asked a lesbian chum, who had just returned from the South West coastal path, what it was about hiking that lesbians liked so much. And she thought for a moment, and then said, ‘Well, we’ve got the kit – the sensible shoes, the shapeless cagoule – we might as well use it.’ And I was the same. It might have stayed an ambition – one of those things I think that I must take up – and an aesthetic, had I not had to take my son to a cricket match one weekend in August. There was no room at the Travelodge; a tent was the only solution.

That first trip was an experiment. I could only persuade my family to wander a few hundred yards from our parked car. I cooked a boil-in-the-bag survival pack (‘chilli and rice’, apparently) over a camping stove – it would probably have tasted all right if you had actually been relying on it for survival – with water collected from a nearby stream. I made sure I left ‘no trace’, as the guides to wild camping enjoin. I even brought a trowel from my garden to make a cathole – which is what we wild camping types call the hole you dig for a toilet.

The idea is that you dig up a sod of earth and lift it to one side, and then replace it when you are finished, laying it down as if you were just planting turf. It is important, however, not to misjudge the size of the hole: you will understand why if you have ever made a Victoria sponge and overestimated the amount of buttercream you need for the middle. The first time I tried it (of course it had to be the middle of the night) my son was awoken from his sleep by my shouting about a stupid sod – which is not (I promised him) swearing when it refers to a slice of earth of moderate thickness together with the grass growing on it. 

And then, as I took the 70 recommended steps back to the tent, I realised that the cathole was the only blot on the landscape. I was in the middle of the most beautiful countryside in southern England, miles away from any house or streetlamp or person that I did not love. No one could text me or email me or ask me to do any DIY that couldn’t be completed within five minutes. I have never felt so at peace.

My family disagreed. My wife was bitten by midges all night; my son was traumatised that he’d missed Film Night for this. Even the dog had looked as if he were nursing a secret resentment for the whole weekend. Very well then – alone. I was back three weeks later to do it again.

I took the train to the end of the line (Okehampton station is very much the end of the line, not a terminus) and strode off in what my new compass told me was a southerly direction. I had hit Mountain Warehouse again – the importance of kit as a driver of this new obsession cannot be denied – and the man leaving the National Hiking Centre saw my brand new rucksack and managed, with visible effort, not to give me advice, for which I was very grateful.  

I walked through bracken and wooded valleys and moors and then, when I was tired and the light was fading, I just stopped where I was and slept. I didn’t realise what a perfect site I had chosen until very early the next morning, when I found I was next to a pool that was deep enough to swim in. (I am not going to use the modish phrase ‘wild swimming’, although doubtless the parade of middle-aged women who appeared later in the morning would. It was lucky that I was dressed by the time they arrived – the towel I had been recommended was the size of a face flannel: good to avoid carrying a wet bath towel all day, but not enough to protect your modesty from people with their own – or the Guardian’s – definition of ‘wild’.)  And then I got up and carried on walking.  

I’ve never really cared for camping before. But before I had always thought of camping as what you do if can’t stretch to a hotel. Wild camping makes you think the other way – instead of an inferior version of a hotel, it is a superior version of a hike. Or – and there is, for now, binding authority for this – as an essential part of it. The landowner has been granted leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Did my wife, 56, really need an emergency pregnancy test?

A team of nurses was trying to ascertain whether my wife was pregnant. It didn’t seem very likely. She’ll be 57 in a couple of months, went through the menopause over a decade ago and has been on HRT for several years. And she hasn’t had IVF. Insofar as one can be certain about such matters, I believe I have been her only sexual partner for two decades – and I’ve had a vasectomy. Furthermore, were she to be pregnant and go on to give birth she would leap straight into the global top 100 oldest mothers of all time list. So, no, it didn’t seem likely.  

The chain of events that led us to this point had begun in a pub carpark, outside The Anchor, a riverside pub in Barcombe Mill, Sussex, at around 5.30 p.m. last Saturday. We had been to see Virginia Woolf’s house in Rodmell then visited my sister in nearby Lewes and were planning to go on to see my mother in Tunbridge Wells. My wife dropped her handbag as she got out of the car. When she stooped to pick it up something happened. I knew this because she began screaming, bellowing in pain. This would be the first of many bouts of screaming in the ensuing hours. 

I came around to her side of the car to see her doing what looked like a badly executed version of the yoga crab position. Between gasping breaths, she managed to explain that she thought she had dislocated her (artificial – after early-onset arthritis) right hip. I was sceptical that she could have done this with such a routine movement but she was insistent, loudly so. 

We debated our options. These came down to either calling an ambulance which would presumably take us to Brighton, even more miles from home; or we could try to get her back into the car and press on Tunbridge Wells, nearer to home, and see if it became less painful. It was by now 6 p.m. We both had visions of her still lying face down on the gravel as the pub closed at 11.30 p.m. with no ambulance. So we managed to get her vertical and she wiggled while screaming – sounds I last remembered hearing from her when in childbirth – onto the back seat. 

By the time we got to Tunbridge Wells, it was evident that things hadn’t improved. If anything they had worsened. We went straight to the town’s hospital, just off the A21 in Pembury. I had worked there during the university summer break in 1986, cleaning blood and gore from surgical instruments after use, the most macabre job I have ever had. Years later I discovered that one of my then colleagues was a necrophiliac murderer. 

The hospital has since been knocked down and rebuilt. I wasn’t sure how to navigate its current incarnation. I spoke to the A&E triage nurse and explained the situation and that I would need help to get my wife out of the car. At her instruction, I drove into a bay meant for ambulances. An informal team of nurses and a couple of ambulance workers gathered together and managed to slide a gurney under my wife to lift her, while she screamed. One of the nurses asked me why on earth I’d put her back in the car and not called an ambulance. I stared at the floor, chastened. 

She was taken quickly into the back area of A&E and put onto a trolley. A doctor came while I was moving the car and said he agreed her hip did indeed appear to be dislocated. This shouldn’t happen to a newish (2020 vintage) artificial one, so my wife had to explain, several times over, that she hadn’t been doing any gymnastics. An X-ray was taken. An orthopaedic doctor then came and used his hands to act out a thigh bone no longer connected to a hip bone. It’s quite easy to put back, he said, it only takes five minutes: ‘It just pops back in. But you need to go under general anaesthetic to allow us to do it cleanly.’ 

Everything had been going quite quickly until this point. She was given morphine and the screaming volume dipped. But then he said that the procedure despite its brevity could not be done tonight. ‘It’s because it’s a Saturday,’ he explained. But hopefully she could be the first patient into theatre tomorrow, first thing, 8 a.m. ‘Get you in and out and home’. She was moved from the corridor into a bay with a curtain – a room of sorts. 

There was an old man sitting beside us who had had a fall and was told he could go home once transport had been arranged. He had waited four hours for this the last I saw him, despite regularly volunteering that he ‘could walk home from here’. I was tempted to take him myself. At 11 p.m. I was told I should leave and try to get some sleep. It cost £4 to exit the car park. I slept like a baby till 6 a.m. My wife didn’t. The ward was noisy with moans, groans and beeping. 

I was back at 7.30 a.m. Then 8 a.m. came and went. Nothing happened. No theatre trip. Several times she was asked if she wanted food. ‘I’m not meant to eat,’ she would reply, hungrily. An orthopaedic specialist came to talk to her and asked her detailed questions about what had happened. We said we’d been told she should be seen at 8 a.m. He said we might get in by 7 p.m. She told him that she had read that leaving a dislocated hip untreated for more than a few hours could cause serious life-changing complications. He said this didn’t apply to plastic hips. She said she wanted a second opinion. He said: ‘Who from? I’m the only hip specialist here,’ laughing. Then he walked away. 

I waited till he reappeared from his rounds. Please, I said, surely if it only takes five minutes it’s not good for anyone to have her waiting for 24 hours. He said it may be possible to do it at 3 or 4 p.m. but no sooner. He left on that compromise of sorts. We didn’t see him again. 

At 11 a.m. after much discussion with a nurse, she was allowed a few sips of water. At noon they transferred her from A&E onto a ward on the third floor. We were told there was a room there. But when we got to the ward we were further told that the room still had to be cleaned. In the meantime, she was put in a corridor.

After an hour in this corridor, she tried to accelerate matters and explained she hadn’t been to the toilet since the afternoon of the previous day. A team of three assembled to put screens around her so that she could urinate on her trolley. I could see through the screens from outside. ‘I’m not going to the toilet in the corridor’ she insisted. There was the sound of a phone ringing almost constantly. When it did stop it would start again almost immediately. No one ever appeared to answer it. An old man, apparently with dementia, in the adjacent room kept intoning ‘help me, help me’. I eventually went to ask him if I could help him but he didn’t look up and just kept repeating it. 

Someone in uniform came by intermittently. We asked them for updates but they said that we needed to speak to someone else. When we spoke to the right person there was more talk of the room not being clean. I asked if I could clean it myself. Apparently not. ‘It’s procedure,’ they told us. ‘There’s only one cleaner for the whole hospital so we have to wait,’ they said.  ‘It’s because it’s a Sunday.’

‘Why did you bring us from A&E – where we had a room to wait in – to a corridor where there’s no room?’ we asked. ‘So that you could be the next in line,’ they said. ‘That’s how it works. We can send you back to A&E if you want but then you’ll have to start again tomorrow.’ As an apparent sweetener, someone at this point produced a pillow, saying: ‘You’re lucky – they’re as rare as hens’ teeth in here.’ It was indeed a fortunate development. For the previous 19 hours, my wife had had only the trolley’s black plastic mattress for comfort. 

We had had our dogs with us when all of this happened and I was having to ensure they were fed and watered, unlike my wife. This meant a good deal of coming and going. Each time I went in or out of the ward there were two sets of secure doors to pass through. But there was no means to request access to open them. So I had to stand there peering through the glass and wait until someone passed then gesticulate to beg them to come over to admit me. A bell would have been quite the innovation – though whether anyone would answer is another question. 

Finally, the room became ready. It was a nice room, very clean. You couldn’t hear the phone ringing so loudly and there was a window with a view of the car park. At 3 p.m. they came to prepare her for surgery. This was when the hospital team insisted that they needed to test whether my wife was pregnant before they could treat her. It wasn’t clear why. This required a urine sample which in turn required her to move from the position in which she had been lying for the last 19 hours: face down on a trolley with her hip raised to one side. The only alternative was to take a blood test but this would require waiting another 24 hours. ‘I can’t move,’ she said. ‘We’ll move you,’ they countered. By the time I was ushered out of the room, there were five of them. I went as far as I could down the corridor to try to avoid hearing what followed but her screaming still reached me loud and clear. After several minutes of screaming it was established that indeed she was not pregnant. 

This was a relief not just because it meant she could be treated as planned but also because I could discard any thoughts of how to tell our children, 24, 21 and 17, that a sibling was on the way. It transpired that the anaesthetist had told the nursing team he wouldn’t put her under unless there was a negative test. They wheeled her away. 

I went out to get some supplies for her to return to. It was going to be £6 to leave the car park. Or for £10 I could get a week’s parking. Hoping I wouldn’t need a week, I paid the £10 and went to the car, drove to the barrier and inserted the ticket. It didn’t open. I got out and explained to the two drivers behind me that I was stuck. They reversed. I returned to my space, parked again, walked the 200 yards back to the machine and buzzed for assistance. A voice came on: ‘Oh those seven-day tickets never work,’ it said. ‘What’s your ticket number?’ It was too small to read. She agreed, finally, to let me out. 

I came back to find my wife was still not back in her room. It was 5 p.m. The signs said visiting finished at 7 p.m. Wales-Australia was going to be on at 8 p.m. I managed to turn it on and get the sound going. But when I tried to change the channel it said ‘feature not available’. I went to ask for help from the patient next door. ‘There aren’t any remote controls,’ she explained. ‘So you can only watch the channel it’s set on?’ I asked. ‘That’s right – and I’m lucky because mine is on BBC1.’ Countryfile was about to begin for her so I left her in peace to enjoy it and went back to our room. Our TV was set to BBC2. The rugby was on ITV. 

My wife was brought back on a trolley at 6.57 p.m. She was visibly woozy. I managed to ascertain that the pain had subsided and that she was hungry and thirsty. I begged them to let me out to get some drinks and let me back in even though it would be after 7p.m. It took 20 minutes to get out and back through the secure doors four times to deliver a lukewarm Diet Coke. I considered further trying for food, a pizza perhaps. But the hospital was now noticeably emptier and I doubted whether I would get back in at night. 

The hot food had finished. She was given a sandwich of sliced white bread, chicken with mayonnaise and a sweet yoghurt. There was no fruit. For breakfast, there was a choice of sweet cereals or toast. She asked for brown toast. They gave her white. There was still no fruit. 

She was told she could be discharged once she’d seen the occupational therapist, got her papers – she would be signed off sick for six weeks, which appeared to be thought a perk – and some drugs. The first two happened relatively quickly. The occupational therapist found her a toilet seat adaptor that she wasn’t supposed to give out. We were extremely grateful. 

But the drugs didn’t seem to be coming. They took her off the ward in a wheelchair to a ‘discharge area’ which doubled as an overflow for A&E. It wasn’t the most restful environment. I gave them 90 minutes before chasing up the drugs. It turned out they had been ready for some time. ‘It’s because it’s a Monday,’ they said. 

The drug medley was, according to the paperwork, to include ‘enough morphine to last ten days’. The dispensing instructions said to take 5ml every hour. The bottle contained 100ml. ‘That’s not going to last ten days – it’s only enough to last 20 hours.’ They looked confused and went away. Another long pause ensued. They came back. ‘It’s double strength,’ they said. ‘So it will last 40 hours – less than two days – whereas ten days is 240 hours,’ we pointed out. ‘So it’s not even a fifth of what she’s meant to have.’

Sensing that this impasse would lead us into another sustained delay we decided to leave and try to sort out any shortfall later. As I write the supply is getting very low. When I pressed the assistance button at the car park barrier once again to ask to be let out for a final time, I checked my watch. It was 40.5 hours since we had shown up seeking a ‘five minute treatment.’

As we drove home my wife’s phone pinged with an SMS message asking her to take part in a customer satisfaction survey for the hospital, asking whether she had been treated with dignity. She tried to fill it in but they had sent her the form for outpatients rather than emergency admissions. None of the questions made sense.

Rishi outlines Keir Starmer’s five ‘pledges’ in 1922 speech

Rishi Sunak’s first Conservative party conference as prime minister is off to a roaring start. Never one to miss a chance to stick it to his opponents, he marked the occasion by ribbing his opposite number Keir Starmer. 

This evening in Manchester Sunak was guest of honour at the 1922 committee and ConservativeHome’s drinks reception. Taking to the podium, the Prime Minister couldn’t resist the opportunity to poke fun at the Labour leader. 

Kicking off his speech, he said:

It has been a busy year and we are making a difference, making the right long-term decisions to put our country on a better trajectory and delivering on our five priorities – although after making that speech and setting out those five priorities, I couldn’t help but notice Keir Starmer had to come out with five of his own a month or two later. But I don’t know if you realise, they weren’t particularly as snappy as ours, for those of you who were paying attention. 

It’s pretty clear what they are: fuel inflation, grow the unions, reduce policy, cut British energy and, of course, stop the Rayner. So it’s nice to be imitated! 

But on a serious note, we should be proud of what we have achieved over the last year, not just stabilising things but passing the toughest ever laws that we’ve seen in parliament to allow us to stop the boats where we’re already making progress – numbers are down by a fifth this year; we passed new minimum safety laws to ensure that the public will not be held ransom by trade union barrons. And just most recently we have set out a new pragmatic, proportionate and realistic path to net zero which commands the support of the British people. 

I’m proud of all of that but it goes without saying that I couldn’t have done it without of many of you in this room, in parliament, my colleagues, but also in the wider Conservative family. 

So I’m very grateful to you and I want you to see that that’s what you’re going to see from me, that’s what you’re going to see from the government going forward. Cutting through the noise, doing what’s right for the long term, and that’s how we’re going to deliver the chance that this country needs, and at the same time we’re also going to highlight just how disconnected Keir Starmer is from common sense Britain. It is clearer every single week: this is a man so out of touch that he thinks the Angel of the North is a tube station in Islington!

When we face the electorate and you face your constituents, I want to make sure that not only will we have earned the right to be heard, but you will have an incredibly strong Conservative track record to defend and an incredibly inspiring vision of what this party is going to do to change our country for the better. 

So let’s get out there and work together and smash that general election!

Rousing stuff!

Tory peer: stop funding the Conservatives

It’s the first night of the Conservative party conference and (so far) the drama is yet to live up to last year’s mini-Budget mayhem. But just down the road from the official venue in Manchester, rebel grassroots’ group the Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO) tonight threw a black tie gala dinner. Some 300-odd attendees were in attendance, including Nigel Farage and around a dozen Conservative MPs including keynote speaker Priti Patel and deputy chairman Lee Anderson. Hopes of an appearance by Boris Johnson though, were sadly dashed.

But while Patel gave a characteristically punchy speech that included lengthy praise of GB News, it was the performance of CDO President Lord Cruddas that raised the most eyebrows. Cruddas, a former Tory donor and longtime thorn in the side of CCHQ, decided to give a ten-minute welcoming speech that attacked the current party as ‘corrupt and anti-democratic.’ The peer – who takes the Conservative whip in the House of Lords – even told attendees to stop funding his party until democratic reforms have been achieved:

The Conservative party needs to become more democratic and representative of our members. Under the present structure, the Conservative party has become autocratic, dysfunctional, corrupt and anti-democratic. And in doing so, it has lost its identity and who it represents… The Conservative party belongs to its members, not a small group of people that want to carve it up for their own benefit. So we need to start applying pressure on the Party Board to listen to us and make major changes now, before it’s too late and there is a very quick way to do this. The party is heavily reliant on donors. I know I used to be one.

So tonight I am asking all Conservative party donors, including individuals or groups, big or small, to stop funding the Conservative party until we can implement constitutional changes that reintroduces full members’ rights. It is time to stop funding our party because that is the only way they are going to listen. And that is the only way we are going to get change. It is not enough to say “Well, we have to keep Keir Starmer out of Number Ten so we have no choice.” We should be better than that. We have to be true to ourselves and not blindly support a Conservative party that no longer represents our values and is heading for electoral disaster. CDO has a full infrastructure and team of media, legal and constitutional experts as well as supporters, MPs, peers, regional chairs and donors. We are a growing force and we will provide you with support, including legal advice and a home for real conservatives.

Awkward perhaps for certain Tory MPs in attendance who will be counting on such funds to help save their seats next year…

Kemi Badenoch guns for Stonewall – and the charity sector

Kemi Badenoch’s war with Stonewall opened up on a new front this evening. Earlier this year, the business secretary incurred the wrath of the LGBTQ+ charity when she told government officials to withdraw from Stonewall’s top 100 employers’ scheme over the charity’s dubious positions on gender rights.

Now, speaking this evening, she has raised the question of whether Stonewall and other charities should be receiving any public money at all. Speaking at an IEA and TaxPayers’ Alliance event at Tory party conference, Badenoch drew attention to the latter’s report on the public subsidies Stonewall receives, and argued that several charities should not be receiving public money to support ‘people’s hobby horses’:

‘We need to get back to a situation where charities raise money privately and don’t take money from the government. This is not what government is there for: to support other people’s personal hobby horses. We are here to make sure the country is run well. We are here to provide support for those who need it – who are the most vulnerable. But I was quite shocked at how much we had been funnelling into an organisation so that they could mark our homework. And we have been working to remove so much of third sector organisations marking government’s homework while we pay them to do so. We are the government, we should be making our own homework, the only people we are accountable to are the electorate, the voters.’

Mr S suspects this one will go down well with the UK’s bloated third sector…

Ministers flirt with ECHR exit

It’s day one of the Conservative party conference and already Tory politicians are being probed on the tough questions. One of the hot topics in Manchester this afternoon was Kemi Badenoch’s declaration that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) needs to be ‘on the table’ as an option for the UK.

Among the first to be pressed on the subject today were Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove and Security Minister Tom Tugendhat at Onward’s ‘Future of Conservatis’m event. Both ministers intriguingly declined to rule such a move out. Asked if he agreed with Badenoch‘s opinion, Gove went first with a spritely ‘Keep every option open!’. Tugendhat answered more hesitantly, umming a little and coyly saying ‘I’m always happy to listen to ideas. I’d like to have the solutions that go along with them.’ Still not an explicit refusal…

Both were subsequently asked whether they did actually support leaving the ECHR given they had colleagues already proposing ideas and options for leaving. ‘There are cabinet ministers who are currently advocating leaving the ECHR’ said the Guardian’s Aubrey Allegretti ‘Can you both be clear whether or not you support it or not?’ – Gove answered ‘No’ and Tugendhat said ‘I’m afraid I’m going to leave it there.’

Will they, won’t they? No doubt this won’t be the last time this week that either minister will be asked about the ECHR. Mr S will be keeping his ear to the ground for any more developments over the next few days…

What Tories can learn from Alister Jack

A common complaint from traditional supporters of the Conservatives is that, after 13 years in power, their party has very little to show for it. There has been little roll-back of New Labour era legislation, or the Blair-Brown equalities agenda, or the expansion of the administrative state and taxpayer-funded third-sector organisations committed to progressive policy outcomes. (Not my priorities but what Tories tell me are theirs.)

There is a case to be made that the UK is more politically, culturally and fiscally left than it was when David Cameron took over in 2010. Were it not for Brexit and Rishi’s recent rollback on net zero targets, ministers would have had precious little to say to this weekend’s Tory conference that would be welcomed by the average delegate.

There is an exception to this and that is Scottish Secretary Alister Jack. Since taking up the role in 2019, the Dumfries and Galloway MP has broken with the Labour-Tory consensus of ‘devolve and forget’, i.e. handing more and more powers to the Scottish parliament while allowing the significance of the UK state to fade north of the border. His approach has prompted much wailing from the SNP and the sort of Unionist who is never happier than when he’s losing in a gentlemanly fashion to nationalists. His mere appointment — Jack is a Brexiteer and a Boris Johnson ally — caused fits of the vapours among the political class and commentariat in 2019.

And yet he is the Secretary of State with the best story to tell at Tory conference. He used his speech on Sunday afternoon to spell out what he’s been doing at the Scotland Office, a service he need not provide north of the border where his activities have not gone unnoticed. He described this ministry as ‘the most active and effective UK Government in Scotland in the devolution era’. Even if you’re not minded to give the Tories credit for anything — and I’m not — you would struggle to debunk that statement.

After introducing it to much fanfare, New Labour simply stopped talking about devolution. Maybe its aim of keeping the Scots happy was thought to have been fulfilled. Maybe the scandals around the budget-busting parliament building and the expenses row that forced the resignation of one Labour first minister soured Downing Street on the whole endeavour. Wherever the truth lies, devolution set sail in 1999 and may as well have been lost at sea for all that was heard of it at Westminster for the next decade.

The Cameron-era Tories swung recklessly in the opposite direction. They couldn’t leave the damned thing alone. They passed one bill giving Holyrood more powers; another holding a referendum on independence; and, despite the SNP losing that, yet another bill with even more new powers. Cameron’s ‘respect agenda’ was a six-year-long each-way bet for the SNP. Heads they won, tails the UK lost. From legislating the ‘permanence’ of the Scottish parliament to recognising in law Alex Salmond’s unilateral renaming of the Scottish Executive as ‘the Scottish Government’, the Cameron years were the lowest point of the devolved era so far.

Jack has driven a much-needed stake through the heart of this constitutional masochism. He told delegates:

‘Today I can announce the era of devolve and forget is over. It is dead. Finished. And I can promise you it is not coming back under my watch.’

He has replaced devolve and forget with a strategy of reassert and reinforce, building the UK Government’s activities in Scotland while facing down Scottish government overreach. In the former column, there is his idea to have the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the replacement for EU structural funds, go directly from the Treasury to Scottish councils and other organisations, bypassing SNP ministers altogether. He told conference this now represented £2.5 billion of direct spending over and above the block grant.

In the latter column, there is his intervention to prevent the SNP-Green Scottish Government imposing its deposit return scheme (DRS) on English businesses that sell to Scotland. In denying the required exemption under the Internal Market Act, Jack prompted Scottish ministers to abandon the whole enterprise, saving thousands of Scottish businesses from costs and regulations so unpopular that they even prompted some rare dissent within the SNP. He has also been the scourge of Scottish government efforts to promote independence in closed-door meetings with officials from foreign governments.

Laudable though these achievements are, he is still best known in Scotland as the man who blocked Nicola Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, siding with women’s rights campaigners and legal experts who warned the Bill could wreak havoc on the operation of Britain-wide laws. The backlash came not only from the Scottish political establishment and displeasure at Westminster was not limited to the benches opposite. The courts are currently considering a legal challenge to his actions but whatever the outcome Jack proved that Whitehall no longer needs to be afraid of the SNP.

The minister told conference that his view of devolution was ‘straightforward’ and meant ‘Scotland’s two governments, at Westminster and Holyrood, respecting each other’s roles and working together where we can’. It’s a well-meaning sentiment, and does underline the long-time businessman’s distaste for politics, but it reflects the limitations of even the most impressive Scottish Secretary of the devolved era.

The ‘two governments’ model is perilously close to the ‘respect agenda’, implying a parity between Westminster and Holyrood that is at odds with the constitutionally proper and politically wise. Yes, ministers in London and Edinburgh should have polite and professional relations but the central fact around which all devolved politics should revolve is that Westminster is sovereign and Holyrood ought to act accordingly. For devolution to be sustainable, it will require structural reform to make it more compatible with the political unity of the UK. That is a case I’ve been making for some time, but I have not been able to convince Jack or any other current ministers. No matter: the fight goes on.

His lack of radicalism on devolution reform aside, Alister Jack has been able to give conference tangible examples of his successes because he has been willing to do something many other ministers shy away from. He has used his ministerial powers in ways not only pursuant to his responsibilities and beneficial to the country, but in line with what voters might expect from a Tory politician. In a nominally Conservative and Unionist government, Jack can lay claim to being the most Conservative and Unionist minister of all.

Bully XL owners team up with anti-Brexit Steve Bray outside Tory conference

It wouldn’t be a Tory party conference without hundreds of protesters lining the streets. Manchester has not disappointed. From trade unionists, Steve Bray’s die-hard remainers, the Young Communist League, Extinction Rebellion and, of course, Just Stop Oil, anyone with a grievance appears to have made it to the Rainy City. Even Bully XL owners have trudged around Manchester today, chanting “muzzle Rishi, not our dogs!” – although Mr S can gladly report that they’ve left their hounds at home.

Beginning their marches an hour late, Mr S isn’t quite sure that the activists managed to capture the attention of the Tory politicians they were denouncing – particularly as most were already safely inside the venue for today’s big speeches. But for those readers desperate to find out exactly what the protesters outside were shouting about, fear not: Steerpike has collated all the best bits…

How a pro-Russia party triumphed in Slovakia’s election

The staunchly pro-Russian Robert Fico is back in power for a third time in Slovakia. Fico’s Smer party clinched at least 23 per cent of the vote – enough to lead a coalition government. His victory comes five years after Fico was forced to resign following mass protests over the murder of a journalist investigation corruption in his government. 

Fico has not been shy during campaigning about his views on Russia and Ukraine. His most striking pledge was to immediately end military support for Kyiv, promising to ‘not send a single round’ of ammunition to Ukraine if voted into power; now that he is, Ukraine’s allies are concerned about whether he will follow through – and what other trouble he may cause.

Until now, Slovakia has loyally followed the lead of its fellow Nato and EU members, supplying weapons to Ukraine, taking in Ukrainian refugees and beginning the process of weaning itself of Russian gas. So just why, in a population for whom Soviet rule and all its hardships is still within living memory for many, did Fico’s pro-Kremlin message resonate so strongly?

In his campaign for re-election, Fico was able to tap into a widely-held view that has been flowing through Slovakia’s population since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Before February 2022, the country was almost 100 per cent reliant on Russian gas and oil, both for domestic and industrial purposes. Although the country has managed to reduce its dependence on Russian energy by at least a third, it appears to have done so grudgingly, with many Slovaks resentful of the subsequent higher domestic energy costs and the potential impact on industry as a result. They blame Ukraine for this disruption.

The countries of central Europe, located between western Europe and Russia have, for a long time, found themselves in a tug of war between the two. The current war in Ukraine is over this very issue. But while the conflict has catalysed a hardening of sentiments towards Russia in Slovakia’s Baltic neighbours, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Bratislava, it appears, is slipping in the other direction.

Driving the divide between the hawkish Baltic states and central eastern European ones such as Slovakia, and indeed Hungary, is where they think Russia might target next. In a survey of Slovaks conducted earlier this year by GlobSec, 69 per cent said they believed helping Ukraine would bring them into Russia’s firing line. Discord in both the EU and Nato on Ukraine, but also wider-reaching policies such as the climate and net zero, have left many Slovakians with little faith that, if Slovakia was dragged into the war, either alliance would come riding to their rescue.

Fico’s victory in the early hours of last night would not have been possible without the insidious influence of pro-Kremlin disinformation that has been floating around the country for some time. Last week, European Commission vice president Věra Jourová called the Slovak elections ‘a test case’ for how vulnerable European elections could be to the ‘multimillion-euro weapon of mass manipulation’. Russian rhetoric, that Ukraine is run by Neo-nazis and that Washington, and not Moscow, is the primary aggressor, has been widely shared in Slovakia. 

Fico himself has directly propagated this damaging rhetoric. On the campaign trail in August, he told supporters that ‘the war in Ukraine didn’t start a year ago, it started in 2014, when Ukrainian Nazis and fascists started murdering Russian citizens in the Donbas and Luhansk’. Singing the praises of the Soviet Union, he said Russia ‘liberated us. We need to show some respect. We need to tell the whole world, freedom came from the East, war always comes from the West.’

Disinformation campaigns targeting ‘liberal’ views on sexuality and gender equality have also been widely circulated in Slovakia, particularly on social media. Designed to alienate Slovaks against the West and its views, this tactic seems to have worked – according to the GlobSec survey, 78 per cent of Slovaks view Russia as a fellow traditional Slavic nation with many shared cultural values. 

Support for membership of both Nato and the EU – which rose steadily between 2018 and 2020 – has started to slip this year. Just 58 per cent of Slovaks want to stay in the alliance; support for remaining in the EU is also waning.

Meanwhile, many Slovaks are not sympathetic to Kyiv: just 40 per cent believe that Russia is responsible for starting the war in Ukraine. Fico tapped into this view with his campaign rhetoric. 

So will the decision of such a small country, with just 5.5 million people and arguably little influence on the European stage, to vote in a pro-Kremlin leader affect Ukraine? Slovakia has few weapons left to give at the moment anyway, so Fico’s pledge to stop completely will supposedly make little material difference – that is if he even chooses to follow through with it.

But as a Nato and EU member, Slovakia under Fico’s leadership can cause trouble. Bratislava could make resolutions and support packages for Ukraine much more difficult if it decides to block votes and object to policies. In two weeks’ time Poland also heads to the polls; should the pro-Moscow faction win power there too, there is a reasonable chance that, together with Hungary, Slovakia and Poland could form a resistant bloc within the alliances.

What is clear is that Fico’s victory in Slovakia shows the enduring nature of Russia’s sphere of influence and the fragility of Western democratic values in central Europe. That after the country’s history under Soviet rule, and subsequent turmoil of the 90s and early 2000s, Moscow is still able to exert a pull over politicians and the population more broadly is as remarkable as it is concerning. Should this trend spread elsewhere, it is not only the West’s support for Ukraine that could be undermined. Fico’s victory in Slovakia should serve as a wake-up call not to take central Europe’s affinity with the West for granted.

Will Liz Truss ruin Rishi Sunak’s conference?

This time last year there was a notable absence at Tory party conference: Rishi Sunak. Fresh from losing the summer leadership contest, the former chancellor opted to stay away from the annual meet to allow Liz Truss to ‘own the moment’. It didn’t exactly go well for Truss – the then-prime minister faced various rebellions from her own MPs and cabinet. One year on Truss – now on the backbenches – has no plans to return the favour. She will be a prominent figure at this year’s conference.

Those close to the former prime minister explain that she loves conference and hasn’t missed one for years. However, several Tory MPs believe her presence risks being a big distraction as the party tries to regroup and focus on next year’s election. ‘I need her there like I need a hole in the head,’ one Sunak-sympathetic MP previously said to me. Given the attack line Starmer’s top team want to keep pushing is that Sunak is in Truss’s pocket, Labour aides are delighted she is attending.

So, how much of a headache does she pose for Sunak’s plan to make the conference – which starts today – a unifying event to boost party morale? The main event in Truss’s schedule comes on Monday when she will speak at the Great British Growth Rally alongside the former home secretary, Priti Patel, former business secretary, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and former environment secretary, Ranil Jayawardena. The line-up is a combination of Trussites and (Boris) Johnsonites. What they all have in common is little love for the Sunak agenda.

Truss is expected to use her speech at the event to call on the party to ‘make the case for conservatism again’. She will call for the Conservatives ‘to be the party of business again’ by reducing corporate taxes – including getting corporation tax back down to 19 per cent. ‘This is how we make Britain grow again. It is free businesses that will get us there, not the Treasury, not the government and not the state’.

Her planned intervention comes after Sunak used his speech at the Westminster Correspondent’s dinner to send his predecessor up. He joked: ‘I’m glad to see, actually, that Liz Truss has been quietly reflecting. Not least about who’s to blame. HMT of course – OBR, B of E, IMF… HMV, BFS… AC/DC… I can’t think of an acronym in British public life that hasn’t yet been blamed – except perhaps the IEA.’

Truss will argue that it is not too late to enact some of her suggested policies ahead of the election – or at least put them in the Tory manifesto. But the general sense in the party is that what influence she still has is more likely to be felt after the next election. Should the Tories lose, Truss and her like-minded colleagues want the party to find a candidate that reflects their thinking and who will ultimately change the direction of the party.

The reception she receives at conference will give an insight into how much influence she really has here. It’s no secret that the Tory grassroots are unsure about Sunak – he was, after all, rejected by them the first time around and then forced on the party by MPs without a membership vote.

However, it’s also the case that some members are still scarred by the Truss premiership and the chaos that ensued. If Truss receives a more enthusiastic reception than the current prime minister it will add to the idea being put forward by some of her remaining supporters that she could be a kingmaker in a post-election defeat leadership contest.

Is a path to victory opening up for Rishi Sunak?

A new Rishi Sunak is being launched at Tory conference and one I saw first hand being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Manchester this morning. This version is more feisty, ignores attempted interruptions and is, in general, spoiling for a fight. The Prime Minister is trying to ditch his timeshare-salesman image and is seeking to become a slayer of dragons but without (so far) any actual dragons. He’s not doing much, but his enemies react so wildly as to exaggerate what he’s actually doing.

I was critical of Sunak’s five pledges and still regard them as nonsense. But in this week’s Spectator our leading article is far more positive because we have been arguing, for years, for a sense-check to be applied to HS2 and net zero.

Today’s Sunday Telegraph is just as supportive. Sunak has broken the omertà: that you must never mention the cost or drawbacks of net zero. Or HS2. He has opened a discussion on whether either of these projects will deliver benefits proportional to their costs. But if he starts applying this test to the other Tory pet projects, how many would survive? That’s what concerns his critics: it’s the philosophy, not the reforms. Because the reforms, in and of themselves, are small beer.

Sunak is aligning with the EU on a 2035 petrol-car sales ban rather than the old, demonstrably unworkable 2030 target. He agrees with the Infrastructure Commission that HS2 in its current form has blown its budget so much as to be undoable and needs tweaked. He didn’t kill HS2. The project, in its original form, died when the budget moved from the £15.6 billion George Osborne promised at the 2008 Tory conference in Birmingham and closer to £100 billion now. For years, most cabinet members have seen this as a disaster – yet few dared say so out loud.

It’s worth considering what nonsense that 2008 Osbornian idea actually was. The pledge was to start HS2 in 2015 and have it finished in 2027 – to Manchester and Leeds. All billed as a green alternative to domestic flights. Some £20 billion has been spent on HS2 now, but not an inch of track has been laid. As Osborne knew, he’d be long gone by the time the real bill came in. The Spectator ran a 2012 cover saying the project had died, given that the real costs were clearer and an economic rationale was no longer possible. But we were wrong. HS2 has staggered on, undead, ever since. Sunak is simply trying to point out the obvious.

None of this is radical. But Sunak has been helped mightily by green lobbyists, corporates and Tory donors who act as if he’s just been caught with a chainsaw in the Sycamore Gap. He invites his opponents to explain why certain families should spend £5,000 to £20,000 on green upgrades that would make a negligible difference to the net zero target. Or why they think the overall agenda is affected in any way. They cannot because the net zero debate has so far been conducted in a hysterical fashion: either you go along with all of it, or you’re a denier. Most voters are stuck in the middle: with Sunak.

Sunak was opposing HS2 and net zero (and lockdown) while chancellor. He lost the argument and didn’t return to it, telling himself that Boris Johnson had the personal mandate. You can argue that Sunak should have quit before he actually did, given the widening chasm between his view and the PM’s. But his newly chosen campaign themes – moderating net zero, championing motorists, emphasising cost-benefit analyses – are his longstanding bugbears. Attempts to portray this as cyclical and poll-driven will fail.

He’s moving not to the right but to the centre. Uxbridge showed that people resent having their intelligence insulted by Sadiq Khan pretending that there’s an air quality emergency in London. When environmentalism becomes a tax-raising racket, with untruths dressed up as science, people notice. An Opinium poll puts the Tories just 10 points behind today, half the normal deficit. A freak poll, no doubt. But, as conference starts, a helpful freak.

Much more needs to be done. As we say in the leading article, the Triple Lock is, like HS2, an Osbornian bad idea that needs to go. But Sunak thinks it’s needed to bribe elderly voters so it will stay. He should also draw a dividing line on welfare reform given that Liz Kendall, the shadow secretary of state for Work and Pensions, may well emerge as a less formidable opponent than Jonathan Ashworth was. We have heard almost nothing from Kendall, so it’s hard to tell how effective she’ll be. But welfare reform is a topic that makes Labour feel queasy and it’s possible that the Tories have it to themselves.

For the first time in quite a few months, I can see a way through for Sunak – but he does not have much time to lose. His verbal positioning needs to be followed up by bigger, more significant reforms. It’s unlikely that Keir Starmer will follow. If Sunak can be mocked as ChatGBT with a wristband, Starmer is the spinning colour wheel of death: very slow to respond, and even when he does, not doing much. Starmer needs the benediction of the lobbyists and the NGOs who Sunak is now defining himself against. 

Sunak has come quite far posing as a radical by saying deeply ordinary things. At a time of hysteria, of course, stating the obvious can be a revolutionary act. For the first time since entering No. 10, he seems to have something to say. As a result,  he’ll actually have an audience this week in Manchester. We’ll soon see whether he has much new to say.

Sunday shows round-up: Sunak vows to ‘do things differently’

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg this morning, as the Conservative party conference gets underway in Manchester. With polls currently predicting an election defeat for the Tories, Sunak was noticeably combative in his interview, insisting that he would do what he ‘believes is right’ for the country.

When Kuenssberg accused him of shifting away from pledges made in 2019, Sunak acknowledged that people would be critical of him, but said he was ‘prepared to change things’. 

Sunak: ‘My job is to deliver for people’

Kuenssberg showed Sunak a word cloud indicating that the public heavily associate him with his wealth. She asked him if he was worried that people might see him as being out of touch. Sunak wouldn’t engage directly with the question, but said that his changes to the net zero policies showed that he was trying to ‘ease the burden on families’. 

PM: ‘You’ve got to take a stand on things’

Sunak was ‘uninterested in talking about personalities’ when asked by Kuenssberg to say one thing he admired about the leader of the Labour party. Instead, he went for something critical, implying Starmer didn’t say anything and was ‘hiding’. Sunak differentiated himself by claiming that people would have a clear idea of what he stood for. 

Gove wants tax cuts before the next election

Trevor Phillips pointed out to Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove that the tax burden had increased under the Tories, and suggested that they might be becoming a high tax party. Gove said the Conservatives cut taxes whenever they can. He came out in favour of making cuts before the next election, putting him at odds with the views of the chancellor and the prime minister. Sunak responded to Gove’s comments in his Kuenssberg interview by saying that halving inflation was the best tax cut he could deliver. 

Priti Patel: Braverman may just be trying to ‘get attention’

Former home secretary Priti Patel was critical of her successor Suella Braverman’s recent speech in which she claimed multiculturalism had failed. Patel said that pledges were ‘no substitute for action’ and that the government would be judged on delivery when it came to immigration. She also said that the country should be proud of its successes with integration and multiculturalism.

Wes Streeting defends Labour chopping and changing policies

Kuenssberg asked shadow health secretary Wes Streeting whether people could trust what Labour politicians say if they keep dropping policies. Her dig came after Labour this week changed its mind over the policy of removing charitable status from private schools. Streeting defended his party, saying they were ‘bomb proofing’ policies before they make it on to the manifesto, and that they wanted to make sure the promises they make at the election will be ‘promises they can keep’. 

Priti Patel accuses Suella Braverman of attention seeking

It’s Tory conference – which means the Conservatives are at each other’s throats once again. This morning, Priti Patel took a pop at Suella Braverman, accusing the Home Secretary of attention seeking. Patel also suggested Braverman was guilty of focusing on words over action. The slap down came a few days after Braverman used a speech in Washington to suggest multiculturalism had failed.

In an interview with Sky’s Trevor Phillips, Patel was asked whether Braverman’s comments were helpful to Rishi Sunak. Here’s what Patel had to say:

‘To me, this is very much making interventions, statements, but actually Trevor I think we have to be realistic here to know that is not a substitute for delivery on changes around policy in government. I don’t know what the intention was around that. It might just be to get attention, to have the dividing lines…as we go into the run up to a general election. I can understand that….But you and I are sitting here today, we are the actual product of integration, multiculturalism.’

Mr S thinks Patel might have a point. Perhaps it’s time for Braverman to focus on her day job and ‘stop the boats’?

Sunak comes out fighting on net zero in tetchy Kuenssberg clash

Rishi Sunak is in Manchester for what could be the final party conference ahead of next year’s election – and, if that vote goes as many expect, his last as Tory leader. In order to avoid that fate, the Prime Minister hopes to use the annual meet to enter a more pro-active stage of his premiership, in which he will start to change things (such as on net zero) and speak ‘hard truths’ even if it leads to a backlash in parts of his party. Sunak has been offered a small ray of light overnight with a new Opinium poll suggesting Labour’s poll lead has fallen to 10 points. Were the Tories to get to below a ten-point lead, this is the point ministers believe the next election starts to look competitive.

Appearing on the Laura Kuenssberg show, Sunak tried to set out his stall in what frequently became a tetchy exchange between himself and the BBC presenter – the PM spoke over her at one point as he argued inflation was a tax and therefore bringing it down amounts to a tax cut. He declined to promise further tax cuts ahead of the election. There was an uncomfortable exchange on HS2 as the Prime Minister refused to say what would happen to the proposed Birmingham to Manchester leg (despite much speculation it will be axed). This led to Kuenssberg accusing him of ‘wobbling’, to which he replied: ‘I reject that’.

Where Sunak sounded the most confident was on net zero. He declared that there cannot be a ‘war on motorists’ – but admitted that while he can change government guidance to councils on 20mph speed limits, it is ultimately a decision for democratically elected councils.

When Kuenssberg suggested that Sunak had reneged on a 2019 manifesto pledge by pushing back net zero commitments, he argued back that this was simply wrong – as the 2050 target remains, he was simply changing the method to get there: ‘They’re set in law, there are over a hundred different polices to get us to net zero’. He pointed to his record as chancellor – where he ‘cut fuel duty by a record amount’ – as evidence he has long held these views.

When she put to him that a word cloud of words voters most associated with Sunak saw ‘rich’ come out on top, he responded by saying that he was the one trying to save those who can’t afford £5,000 – £15,000 on electric vehicles or moving to a heat pump. It showed that Sunak is at least confident with his policy pivot, a theme he will elaborate on in his leader’s speech.

‘We’re going to do things differently, we’re going to change how we do politics,’ he said. The word ‘change’ was used by Sunak multiple in the interview. As I have previously reported, No. 10 believe the change candidate will win the next election – so he needs to convince voters he is that person. While Sunak has a new message he wants to talk about, a conference that will see his predecessors Liz Truss and Theresa May also attend will serve as a reminder that this is ultimately a party that has been in power for 13 years.

Why did the Observer bury a poll showing Starmer’s shrinking lead?

As Conservative conference kicks off, there is a crumb of comfort for the Prime Minister in the latest polling in the Observer – but you’d be hard pressed to actually find it in the newspaper’s write-up. The Opinium survey for the paper of more than 3,000 voters – including over 900 people who voted Tory in 2019 – shows that Labour’s lead has shrunk to just ten points over the Tories. Sunak’s party now has 29 per cent of the vote share, compared to Labour’s 39 per cent.

Mr S doesn’t think the Tories should get too excited just yet. But it does mark something of a turnaround in the party’s fortunes, given that a year ago Labour led the Conservatives by some 25 points. The Observer, however, seemed curiously shy about revealing this finding. Instead, the paper focuses on the revelation that a third of 2019 voters are considering walking away from the party. The Observer rightly points out that this ‘spells real danger for Rishi Sunak’s party’. But what about the finding that Labour’s poll lead – which was 19 points, according to a September 22 poll – appears to be shrinking? Only a close observer would be able to find that detail in the paper’s write up. Read all about it? Maybe not in the Observer…

How Britain fell in love with radioactive material

For most people today radioactivity is synonymous with bright yellow warning signs, explosions and poison. But there was a time when radioactivity was revered, not feared. And when it seemed like everyone in Britain was clamouring for more of it. 

In the late 19th century Wilhelm Röntgen discovered a previously unknown form of powerful radiation that was invisible to the human eye and so mysterious that he simply named it ‘X’. Working from Röntgen’s findings, the French engineer and physicist Henri Becquerel identified the phenomenon of radioactivity – both as a concept and as a force – and Marie Skłodowska Curie would later give it a name.  

In December 1898 Curie identified two new materials, which she named polonium and radium. These natural radioactive elements were shown to be capable of change: spontaneously turning into totally different substances without any intervention. Uranium, for instance, decays into thorium, which in turn becomes radium. After that comes radon. Eventually, after multiple transformations, the uranium decay chain ends with a ‘stable’ element – lead – which emits no more radiation. 

Wherever deposits of uranium rocks are found you can find natural sources of radioactivity. The gas radon is released into the environment after escaping through natural cracks in the ground. Radium can also be found in rocks which water trickles over: in which case it infuses the water with radioactivity. 

After Curie’s discovery, facilities and treatments began to spring up, all based on the theory that exposure to radium in small doses – most commonly administered by drinking radium laced water or by breathing in radioactive radon gas – was beneficial. It was believed that radiation triggered a chain of physiological reactions that boosted the immune system. 

You could have a radium mud bath in Harrogate, eat radium bread in Bath – ‘Britain’s Radium Spa’ – and drink radium water in Buxton’s Pump Room. And, if the fancy took you, you could even take a bottle of Buxton Natural Mineral Water home with you. The official guide to the town presented this as: ‘A British Water for British Whiskey!’ 

There were also a wide range of products and services that were aimed at the general consumer. There were health products such as the O-Radium Hat Pad (‘whenever you are wearing your hat, you are subjecting your hair to beneficent rays’). At Boots the Chemists, you could acquire Sparklet’s ‘Spa-Radium Bulbs,’ which turned tap water into carbonated radioactive water, a Nu Ray Radium Lamp (a combination of radioactive materials and a household electric lamp) or Radior radium toiletries (‘guaranteed to contain actual radium and remain radioactive for 20 years’).  

Radium also began to be used for decoration. When turned into radium chloride, the material glows in the dark, an effect caused by the radiation agitating nitrogen that is naturally present in the air. This vibration creates a buzz of energy, perceptible as a shimmer of light. Adding a sticky substance to these salts made a self-luminating, glow in the dark paint. One of the first experiments with radium paint was for the costumes for the 1904 Broadway production Piff! Paff! Pouf! The glowing paintwas also put on the costumes of The Pony Ballet, a vaudeville act of eight teenage girls who specialised in a style of dancing said to imitate horses’ movements. They performed to a piece of music written especially for the play: the ‘Radium Dance’ and were a huge hit. 

By 1915 radium paint was in widespread wartime use, on aeroplane instruments, compasses and binoculars.  

It was also recommended that members of the armed forces buy a glow in the dark radium wristwatch. Wristwatches were more useful in warfare than pocket watches, but they were dangerous if you had to light a match to check the time, giving away your position to the enemy. Watches with luminous dials therefore quickly became a must-have gadget and companies such as Ingersoll, J.C. Vickery and Mappin & Webb produced hundreds of radium watches during the first world war.  

Wearing a radium watch became a fashion that spread through wider society. It has been estimated that over four million glow-in-the-dark watches were produced in the United States by 1920. 

Demand for these watches continued to increase, which in turn led to more women being hired to paint the radium onto watch faces and dials. By the mid-1920s, it was estimated that there were more than 120 plants across the US employing more than 2,000 women.  

It was a coveted job – until they started dying. It emerged that workers at these factories had been encouraged to adopt a special technique. This involved ‘pointing’ the brush – using their mouths to get a fine point – so they could paint the tiny dials with fewer mistakes. Later, it was estimated that each painter might have ingested between a few hundred to a few thousand micrograms of radium in a year.

The case of the Radium Girls led to investigators learning a great deal about the behaviour of radium inside humans. It was discovered that it did not pass straight through the body, as had been previously thought, but accumulated in various organs. Because there was nowhere for it to go, it continually irradiated the surrounding cells. By 1933 medical associations began to withdraw their approval of radium for internal use and its use in consumer products and popularity in spa towns began to wane. Which brought to an end Britain’s own brief love affair with radioactive products. 

The endless myth of British decline

The former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, recently compared the British economy with that of Argentina. This was typical of those Remainers who cannot imagine that a country ignoring them could possibly succeed, and who often seem to will it to fail. That Carney’s sneer did not merely provoke laughter is because far from being a random remark, it stems from generations of negativity about Britain. This hangs albatross-like round our collective neck. So deeply has it penetrated our culture that I suggest it accounts for much of the failure to profit from the Leave vote.

Over and over again, British policy has been marked by apology, concession, timidity and lack of ambition. Now it appears that whether under a Conservative or a Labour government we are drifting back humbly towards the EU, hoping that they will in return forgive us for the 2016 rebellion. So we seriously contemplate the old French plan to make us an EU satellite, politically, militarily, economically and intellectually – just as the EU, serenely unnoticed by its British devotees, lurches from crisis to crisis.

Would we do this if our political establishment had not long convinced itself that we are a nation that has seen better days – a faded beauty, as Harold Wilson put it – and should not try too hard to assert its own interests? We as a nation know so little history that we are easily taken in by myths and exaggerations. The most damaging of these is the belief that once we were a ‘superpower’, but now, through political, moral and economic failures, we have become merely an insignificant offshore island.

This idea goes back a long way. Perhaps to our defeat in the Hundred Years’ War, which sparked the Wars of the Roses. Certainly it emerged again after the independence of the American colonies, when the First Lord of the Admiralty declared that ‘we shall never again figure as a leading power in Europe.’ Our more recent national pessimism dates from the 1870s, when cheap German manufactures began to invade British markets, and there began a chorus of economic lamentation that has persisted until today: we are always on the verge of economic disaster, despite somehow remaining one of the world’s richest nations.

Even worse was the fear of the Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain that Britain was a ‘weary Titan’, too small to bear its global burdens. ‘Lo, all our pomp of yesterday / Is one with Nineveh and Tyre,’ wrote Kipling, throwing a wet blanket over Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

After both the world wars, despite being victorious, the sense of vulnerability and decline soon returned. The motives for entering the European Community in 1973 included fear of becoming (in the words of the Foreign Office official who conducted the negotiations) merely ‘a greater Sweden’. Remainers assured us that outside the embrace of Brussels we would be a larger Albania, ridiculed by all. Leaving the EU seemed to them the delusion of idiots nostalgic for an impossible return to Empire – proof of how much the notion of national power has become linked to a memory of empire.

Yet this vision of our past, present and future is based on a gross misunderstanding of the past. There was never a golden age in which Britain was a superpower. As its rulers knew, it was a small country with a relatively small population. It spent money on the navy when it had to – though in the heyday of Victorian power the Royal Navy had only some 30,000 men, exactly the same as today. Consequently, the army was tiny: Bismarck joked that if it ever invaded Germany he would send the police to arrest it.

Statesmen constantly fretted about security. The French were always a bugbear, even to men as tough as Wellington and Palmerston, who built huge forts on the south coast. The War Office repeatedly vetoed a Channel tunnel for fear of a surprise French invasion. Coastal defences still stand in Australia and New Zealand, built to fend off attack by France, or America, or Russia. Then came fear of the Germans – a fear reflected in best-selling novels as well as in official reports.

All this was a world away from the confidence of a ‘superpower’. When Britain reluctantly went to war in 1914, it was largely through fear of being isolated and surrounded by enemies, whichever side won.

Victory led almost at once to appeasement of Germany and what now seems an absurd suspicion of France, Europe’s greatest military power, whose air force, it was feared, might bomb London. Terror of war reached extraordinary levels during the 1930s, with Italy and Japan adding to the threats. One 1934 novel had the whole population of Britain being killed by poison gas, except for a family visiting the Cheddar caves.

In 1939, when Britain at last decided it must stand up to Germany, it was militarily dependent, as in 1914, on the French, whose army was ten times the size of the British Expeditionary Force. Commented the French general staff, ‘it is for us to give them moral support, to organize the strategy of the campaign, and to provide the necessary planning and inspiration.’ When French inspiration failed, the British army – smaller than the Belgian or the Dutch – had to flee. Eventually, Britain mobilised huge forces: 90 per cent of men became part of the war effort, and 55 per cent of national expenditure. Evidently, this could only be done for a short time, and it would be absurd to consider British military power in 1945 as the norm from which we have declined.

Of course, Britain had the support of its vast empire. Empire, and the ‘loss’ of empire, have long been central to the perception of decline. Yet as the dangerous period from 1940 to 1942 showed, empire was a source of vulnerability too. Imperial Britain was fighting three major powers in a global war—more than any other state in history has ever attempted. To defend Asia and Australasia from Japan, it could only spare two capital ships, which were rapidly sunk off Malaya.

This disaster is often taken as the death-knell of the Empire, with some reason. But only because the empire always relied on being left alone by major predators and accepted by its subject peoples. It was never a powerful military force, and the troops it had were scattered in penny packets. The Afghans, the Zulus, the Boers and the Sudanese inflicted embarrassing defeats during the Empire’s high noon. The Royal Navy could not defend against major land powers, so a Russian invasion of India was a recurring fear: ‘compared to our empire’, lamented the first Lord of the Admiralty in 1901, Russia was ‘invulnerable’, with ‘no part of her territory where we can hit her.’ Britain, he concluded, could not be both a major naval and a major military power – the essence of being a superpower – and this at the time when British power was at its zenith.

But Britain’s imperial power was always largely a matter of show: as a disillusioned George Orwell put it, being a ‘hollow posing dummy… trying to impress the “natives”.’ The empire was based on trade and broad acquiescence. Yet it brought little economic benefit to Britain during most of its existence (though it enriched some of the colonies) and arguably it distorted economic development. Britain did not need an empire in order to trade: the United States has always been the bedrock of its global trade and investment, and Argentina was a major supplier of food.

There was no possibility, and little appetite, to make the Empire a permanent global federation. Expensive and potentially dangerous global strategies were required to defend it. There was no way Britain could maintain it by force, nor did most of its people and politicians wish to do so. When India became independent and broke up, its central provinces (bigger than England) had only 17 British officials, 19 British police officers, and no British troops. Only from a very peculiar viewpoint can the end of empire be seen as decline.

In short, Britain today is not a decayed superpower: it never was one. Empire was a burden at least as much as a benefit – ‘millstones round our necks’, said Disraeli. Britain today is what it has been for several centuries: one of the world’s half-dozen or so most powerful states. The great change in the world – predicted at least as early as Napoleon – has been the rise of America, the only global superpower in history. If America’s rise equates to Britain’s decline, then every other state has declined too, including China and India, in the 18^th century the world’s biggest economies. Britain’s relative power, compared with our traditional peers – France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain – has actually increased.

So let us and our rulers try to assess our power, interests and role in the world realistically, not based on fantasies about an ill-understood past. The Conservative party – which Disraeli called ‘the national party… the really democratic party of England’ – as it seeks to find a raison d’etre before it is too late, might well start here. Whether they like it or not, they are indelibly associated with Brexit. The Remainer/Rejoiner mindset, inside and outside the Conservative party, is founded on ‘declinism’ and a perverse obsession with the loss of empire. The Brexit vote, on the contrary, spurned declinism. Unless we have governments—especially Conservative governments – that can do the same, Brexit will inevitably fail.

National pessimism may then prove self-justifying. And the Conservative party will struggle to have a future.

Day one at Conservative conference 2023: The Spectator guide

It’s the first day of the annual Conservative party conference in Manchester. Grant Shapps, who is making his first major speech since being promoted to Defence Secretary, is the headline act on the main stage. Here are the rest of the highlights:

Main agenda – from 14:00:

1400: Greg Hands MP, Chairman of the Conservative Party

1415: Chris Heaton-Harris MP, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland 

1430: Andrew RT Davies MS, Leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd 

1445: David TC Davies MP, Secretary of State for Wales 

1500: Douglas Ross MP, Leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionists 

1515: Alister Jack MP, Secretary of State for Scotland 

1530: Grant Shapps MP, Secretary of State for Defence 

1545: James Cleverly MP, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs

Fringe events:

13:00 – Scottish Conservative and Unionist fringe

Douglas Ross MP welcomes Scottish members, Charter 4

13:00 – What should the Conservative manifesto offer schools?

NASUWT – The Teachers’ Union with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan and Sinéad Mc Brearty, Trafford Room – Midland Hotel 

14:00 – Centre for Policy Studies

The CPS interviews Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove MP, CPS Theatre – Charter Foyer

15:00 – Daylight robbery? Tackling economic crime in the UK

Security minister Tom Tugendhat MP joins a Bright Blue and UK anti-corruption coalition panel to talk about how to combat the spread of economic crime, Central 6

15:30 – Getting Britain working

Resolution Foundation panel with Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride, Seb Payne, David Willetts, Victoria Suite – Midland Hotel

16:30 – The Spectator Coffee House Shots drinks reception

Join The Spectator team for a gin and tonic to mark the start of conference, Exchange 11

17:00 – What is the future of Conservatism?

Onward panel with Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove MP, pensions minister Laura Trott MP, security minister Tom Tugendhat, Nick Timothy, Miriam Cates MP, Onward Marquee

17:00 – Is the Bank of England fit for purpose?

Centre for Policy Studies panel with Lord Frost, Dr Gerard Lyons, Szu Ping Chan and Tom Clougherty, CPS Theatre – Charter Foyer

19:30 – Maritime reception

Maritime UK invite you to enjoy a ‘tot of rum’ with Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, Transport Secretary Mark Harper and Nusrat Ghani MP, Derby Suite

20:30 – Bright Blue reception

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly speaks at Bright Blue’s ‘Drink Tank’. The reception’s focus is on the UK’s future relationship with Europe, Stanley Suite – Midland Hotel

Tory conferences don’t have to be dull

The former Tory MP Christopher Hollis wrote for The Spectator in 1960 that ‘a Conservative conference is, and is intended to be, the dullest thing that ever happened. Party members come not to hear their leaders but to see them. One sometimes wonders if it would be best to cut out the speeches altogether.’ Hollis duly recalled the view of former Tory leader Arthur Balfour, who claimed he would sooner take the advice of his valet than that of a Tory conference.

Among academics, the Balfour-Hollis view is generally endorsed. Compared to the annual conference of the Labour party, which officially ‘makes’ Labour policy, the Tories’ own gatherings have generally been portrayed as sterile affairs, comprising bland speeches from bored ministers and lengthy ovations from supine activists. As such, some predict that this year’s Tory conference will be relatively interesting: a four-day festival of dissent, perhaps, starring jilted supporters of net zero, tin-eared defenders of HS2 and a manically re-energised Liz Truss.  

Tory conferences have historically been fractious, not boring. Hollis’s type of conference only occurred between the numerous crises that have rocked Britain’s oldest party. Once a crisis erupts, the conference usually changes, quickly transforming into a shop window for rebel causes and wannabe leaders.

This was demonstrated in the early years of the 20th century when the party was split over tariff reform and free trade. Reporting in November 1910, and with reference to the Tory conferences of the previous seven years, the Times recalled ‘the endless agitation from advocates of protection’, egged on by maverick MP Joseph Chamberlain. During the inter-war years, when Ireland became a splinter issue, F.E. Smith MP saw conference as ‘a cockpit, where disgruntled members unloose their grievances and make the feathers fly’. At the 1921 conference, during a fiery debate on the looming Anglo-Irish Treaty, the Daily Chronicle even reported ‘an exchange of punches in the middle of the hall’. (Though punchy itself, Nadine Dorries’s new book, The Plot, is unlikely to have quite the same effect in Manchester.)

At this year’s conference, the government may face some criticism about its ‘timid’ response to recent strike action. Again, this would not be unprecedented. The conference of 1926 savaged Stanley Baldwin’s response to that year’s General Strike, urging his government to abandon its conciliatory tone in favour of anti-union legislation (the punitive Trade Disputes Act 1927 quickly followed). As Baldwin discovered, Tory conferences can easily turn nasty if they sense leaders are weak and wobbly. At the 1956 conference, Anthony Eden was ambushed by a series of angry speakers, frequently citing the Telegraph’s recent demand for ‘the smack of firm government’. According to his biographer, David Carlton, Eden felt obliged to appease these critics with an astonishingly hawkish speech about the Suez crisis – with calamitous effects a fortnight later.

Harold Macmillan and Edward Heath also found conference a tricky occasion. This was particularly noticeable during debates on immigration, where criticism of their respective governments was so marked that fresh legislation was needed shortly afterwards (hence the Commonwealth Immigration Act 1962 and Immigration Act 1971). But the party’s immigration rebels were seldom placated, especially once they found a figurehead in Enoch Powell. At the conferences of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Heath was routinely berated by both Powell and his constituency supporters, making those weeks at the seaside an ongoing test of Heath’s leadership.

In the Thatcher era, the relationship between Tory conference and Tory leader was somewhat anomalous. This arose because many activists felt their leader, though ‘one of us’, was repeatedly frustrated by ‘wet’ colleagues at Westminster. So, for many party members, the role of conference was to convince Thatcher that she should follow her instincts and ignore the fainthearted, safe in the knowledge that grassroot members had her covered. This was hardly a recipe for calm conferences, as shown by the howling down of Heath and other advocates of economic U-turns in 1981. Six years later, delegates turned on minister Nicholas Ridley’s plan to introduce the poll tax gradually, rather than with what they called ‘one fell swoop’. As she sat on the platform listening, a chastened PM told Ridley that ‘we need to think again, Nick’.

It was unsurprising that, following Thatcher’s departure, the Tory conferences of the 1990s became even more prickly. Instead of being praised for leading the party to victory at the 1992 general election, John Major and his ministers were heavily criticised at the 1992 conference by Thatcherite opponents of the Maastricht treaty. As a result, conference organisers tried to restrict the presence of Thatcher herself during the remainder of Major’s government; their fear being that she could have an incendiary effect on her assembled, Eurosceptic disciples.

In fairness to Hollis, the Tory conferences of this century have seemed quite bland (although Boris Johnson’s ‘chuck Chequers’ speech, in respect of Theresa May’s fated Brexit deal, did excite the conference fringe in 2018). This has something to do with the reform of party leadership contests after 1998; the ‘one-member-one vote’ contests of 2001, 2005, 2019 and 2022 served to divert internal tensions from conference into long, exhausting leadership campaigns. But this latest era of the ‘quiet conference’ could soon be over. As the Tories face electoral Gotterdammerung and the prospect of opposition, conference may soon be the place where ‘feathers fly’ yet again.  

Meanwhile, en route to Manchester, Rishi Sunak might ponder what happened to Arthur Balfour. After repeatedly failing to heed conference’s plea to clarify his policies, Balfour presided over one of the deepest splits in the party’s history, the subsequent collapse of his government, and annihilation at the 1906 general election. Rather than preferring the advice of his valet, Balfour really should have listened to the Tory conference.

Paris has become the city of love, rats and bugs  

There are said to be six million rats in Paris. I met one last week when I was retrieving some winter clothes from a bag in my cellar.  Neither of us was particularly keen to make the other’s acquaintance. 

Such a brief encounter may not please the Socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo. In the summer her office announced the establishment of a committee to study how the city’s three million human inhabitants can learn to ‘cohabit’ with their furry neighbours.   

Animal rights’ groups and green politicians expressed their satisfaction that the societal scourge of rat shaming is finally being challenged. Paris councillor Douchka Markovic has said the word ‘rat’ is pejorative and she wants them renamed ‘surmulots’. She added that rats are ‘useful’ in the ecosystem.

One initiative already underway is a research project involving the Natural History Museum, the Pasteur Institute and the Sorbonne, the purpose of which is to ‘combat prejudices to help Parisians live better with rats’. What form this unconscious bias training will take has yet to be revealed. 

In the meantime another invasion of Paris is happening: the summer bedbugs have been spreading their vestigial wings throughout the city. Described by the Encyclopaedia Britannica as ‘among the most cosmopolitan of human parasites’, the bugs’ presence was first felt in cinemas when they feasted on movie-goers. One cinema chain apologised, disinfected its theatres and promised ‘there is no more risk in our rooms than in any other public place in Paris’.

Having taken in a film, the cosmopolitan parasites are now riding the metro and the overground train in Paris, seeing the city’s sights while snacking on passengers. A metro driver has reported being bitten in his cab and, according to a report in Le Figaro, the spread of the bugs is such ‘that professionals are starting to worry’.  

Unlike many Parisians, who have long complained about the discomfort and cramped conditions of the metro, the bed bugs are so appreciative of ‘the fabrics of certain seats’ that they lay their eggs inside. On average a female bed bug lays around 200 eggs in a single reproductive cycle, and three generations may be produced in a year.   

Stéphane Bras, an expert in pest control, told Le Figaro that there has been a marked increase in parasite infestation. “We’ve been warning about the resurgence of bedbugs for several years now’, said Bras, who accused the authorities of not heeding these warnings.   

They are now, mindful of what is happening in Paris next year. On Thursday, one of Hidalgo’s deputies wrote to Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne to inform her of a ‘significant upsurge’ in bedbugs and demanding a plan of action at ‘a time when the whole of France is preparing to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024’.  On Friday morning Clément Beaune, the minister of transport, announced that he will hold a meeting next week to examine how best to tackle the bugs. 

Paris has long boasted that the 2024 Games will showcase the city’s ‘inclusion and diversity’. Who knew that would stretch to rats and bugs? Time for a new Olympic motto? Citius, Altius, Fortius, Rattus.