The Tribune

WITH so much significant international news in the media almost daily, there is no shortage of fresh material to comment on in this weekly column. One important example was US President Biden’s withdrawal on Sunday from the presidential election race. But, having recently returned from a visit to England, I should like, as earlier planned, to write about that trip today – and, in particular, about Britain’s general election which took place on July 4.

BACK TO FAMILIAR HAUNTS

Our trip to England did not begin well. One evening last month, the overnight British Airways flight to London on which my wife and I were booked was cancelled, literally at the last minute.

The passengers were not only already at the airport but we were on the point of boarding when, with no earlier hint of any problem, the BA captain suddenly appeared in front of the assembled passengers and announced that because of a technical fault our flight could not leave as scheduled that evening.

The vociferous reaction of some of our fellow passengers was predictable. But, I wonder whether others like me were only too glad that the fault, whatever it was, had been discovered in advance of the flight rather than during the course of it - at 30,000 feet in the darkness of a long night halfway across the Atlantic. What is more, my wife and I could simply go home again and not suddenly have to find a hotel at midnight though we admitted to ourselves that such selfish thoughts were hardly very admirable. The flight duly left the next evening so all was not lost despite the substantial, though temporary, inconvenience.

The advantages, benefits and joys for foreigners of living in The Bahamas are, of course, well documented and widely appreciated. At the same time, however, what a pleasure it was to be able to make this summer visit again to England and to see family and friends in familiar surroundings, not least because this was something we were denied during the years of the COVID pandemic.

Soon after arriving at Heathrow we set off on the three-hour car journey to the village of Eardisland in deepest Herefordshire near the border with Wales – to which my parents had retired many years ago - to stay with family.

Rural England was looking at its best with the countryside in full bloom in high summer. It is, of course, the fickle and unpredictable weather for which Britain is known that keeps it that way, with rainfall throughout the year that is “good for the garden” but encourages families with young children, in particular, to seek sunnier and more stable weather elsewhere for their own summer holidays.

In the county of Herefordshire, which is famous for its black-and-white half-timbered houses, it seems that almost at every turn there are fine views of hills, woods, fields and farmland with livestock feeding on the lush grass of rich pastures produced by the fertile red soil that helps, in turn, to produce famous Hereford beef.

Eardisland is less than an hour’s drive from the city of Hereford whose cathedral houses the famous Mappa Mundi. This medieval European map is claimed to be the largest of its kind still in existence. It is one of Britain’s finest medieval treasures and an important part of the nation’s heritage.

During this visit, it seemed from the newspapers and television that just about everything was happening in Britain all at once, including a general election on July 4. Under the Westminster system, such elections have to be held at 5-year intervals but can take place more frequently according to the choice of a sitting prime minister. They do not normally happen during the summer when people are likely to be on holiday, but this year was an exception.

How interesting it was to watch at first hand the frenetic activity of the 6-week campaign period in the run-up to polling-day itself. It is often claimed that a particular general election is a notably important one for the country. But this time such a claim was surely justified in so far as the pre-election opinion polls predicted a landslide victory for the opposition Labour Party that would herald a major change for Britain as a nation after the Tories had been in power for 14 years.

As things turned out, the polls were accurate, with Labour winning a massive majority over the sitting Conservative government. Since this has shown itself to be of interest here in The Bahamas, I have written about the election elsewhere on this page. Then, next week I intend to offer some thoughts about the new government’s policies – both about what it is already doing under new prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and what his government may have in store for the country in the longer term.

A TRUE SPORTING NATION

During our visit to the UK, much was happening, in addition to the election, on the sporting front as well. True sporting aficionados in Britain tend to boast that everything in the sporting world originated in their famous islands and they are often genuinely disappointed – if not supposedly outraged - when, in the real world, British individuals and teams are defeated in some sport or other by foreigners. But the breadth of British involvement and success in a variety of sports cannot be denied.

To name a few major events during this July, the Wimbledon tennis championships (the most famous in the world) were on; England’s football team was prospering in Euro24 - the European championships held every four years - but eventually lost to Spain in the final; the Open golf championship, one of the four “majors” of world golf, was taking place in Scotland; England’s rugby team lost narrowly to New Zealand’s famous All Blacks at Eden Park in Auckland, the tabernacle of NZ rugby; Britain’s Formula One motor Grand Prix took place at Silverstone, the nation’s famous motor racing circuit – and the only thing that prevented this MCC life member from watching England play the touring West Indies cricket team at Lord’s, the home of world cricket, was limited mobility following recent surgery.

All this also led one to reflect on Britain’s broader history and the extraordinary role the nation continues to play in the world in so many different spheres. But this is not the time or place to describe what is today called the country’s “soft power” for which Britain has been ranked highly this year.

For the purposes of today’s column, suffice it to say that our summer visit to England in June and July more than lived up to my wife’s and my expectations at a personal level even though for various reasons we had to bring forward our return. It had been a good trip, but we both found that we were also glad to be back!

LABOUR TRIUMPH IN UK ELECTION AS PREDICTED

As noted separately on this page, having been away for a summer holiday I was not in a position to offer comment about Britain’s general election earlier this month. But, given the comprehensive world media coverage, it would be superfluous now to write about it in any detail. Nonetheless, it might be useful to offer some reflective thoughts about what was a seismic political event as the Conservatives were roundly defeated after such a long period in office – and, as already mentioned, I should also like to offer some thoughts next week about the likely policies of a Labour government under Starmer. He is Labour’s seventh prime minister in history and Britain’s fifty-eighth overall.

Briefly, with 376 seats needed for success, Labour, as widely predicted, won a crushing victory while the Conservative Party as the sitting government fell to its lowest number of seats in the modern era. The final figures of seats were Labour 412, Conservatives 121, Liberal Democrats 71 and the Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) 10. Thus, the Lib Dems surged and the SNP collapsed while the other smaller parties each did better than expected. Labour won around a third of the votes in a relatively low turnout overall.

In the run-up to the election it was interesting to study in the UK press the background to the shockingly negative opinion polls for the Tories and the reasoning behind their predicted heavy defeat, with many saying that the Tory leader, Rishi Sunak, was on a hiding to nothing.

From reading a cross-section of news and opinion in the media, it appears that the Tories essentially lost this election rather than Labour winning it as comprehensively as they did because of the voters’ sudden great liking for Starmer and his policies. Various reports suggest that centre-right voters wanted to punish the Tories for throwing away their large 2019 majority based not just on Brexit but on their manifesto of traditional Conservative policies which Tory governments had failed subsequently to adhere to. This - together with internal party squabbling, lack of unity and scandals including “Partygate” - seems to have pushed some exasperated Conservative supporters to vote for the right-wing Reform Party, who won five seats, or not to vote at all.

Historically, Britain has shown itself to be generally a conservative (with a small ‘c’) nation opposed to extremism and marked by patriotism and family, fairness, self-reliance, personal responsibility and respect for the rule of law. Traditionally, people have trusted the Tories to represent and defend those values while Tony Blair, for example, won office for Labour in 1997 on a ticket of moderation after Party guru Peter Mandelson had moved it on to the political centre ground away from left-wing extremism.

Put simply, at this month’s election vast numbers of the electorate showed that they had become fed up with the many failures of the Tories and disappointed, if not infuriated, by the behaviour of some Conservative MPs. Moreover, the evidence showed that the quality and efficiency of public services under the direction and overall control of the Tories had deteriorated. Change was needed across-the-board and reports suggest that in parts of the country there has been widespread relief at the outcome of the election – even among some Tory supporters.