Kent Police has admitted ignoring intelligence on Dover disruption

Kent Police has admitted receiving intelligence about a planned disruption in Dover four days before it took place, reports Metro:

A woman has said she warned police about the masked mass protest in Dover days before it happened, despite officers calling it 'spontaneous'.

Kent Police has been criticised for its 'slow response' after hundreds of masked protestors in balaclavas wearing all-black halted traffic at the port on Saturday.

The force defended their handling of the 'spontaneous protest', but Metro has spoken to an anti-racism campaigner who said officers should have been more prepared.

In a statement to Metro, Kent Police admit getting a tip-off late on Friday evening that a protest could take place in the town the following day – but that intelligence was not fully assessed.

Maz Garside, from Portsmouth, claims she told Counter Terror Police about action planned in Dover involving men in balaclavas, led by Tommy Robinson's 'right-hand man' Daniel Thomas, on the Tuesday before the protests.

And Hope Not Hate has posted an account of demonstrators massing in a Kent village the evening before the protest and talking freely about their plans in the pub.

Matthew Scott, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Kent has issued this statement:

Kent Police has acknowledged that an opportunity was missed that could have enabled the Force to mobilise sooner and bring the disruption to an end more quickly. Matthew Scott, Kent’s Police and Crime Commissioner, said: 

"I welcome an independent learning review by the College of Policing. I have asked that this examines how information is triaged by the Force and the communications strategy the Force deployed in response to the event. I look forward to receiving the findings of that review. I will ensure that Chief Constable is held to account for any findings and recommendations that it makes. 

"It is essential that we understand how this happened, and that lessons are leant. 

"This is separate to the response of Officers, Staff and Specials on the ground, who did the best they could, in the circumstances they were presented with, to bring the disruption to an end as soon as they did."

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Who are the goons in balaclavas who turned up in Dover and Portsmouth? Hope Not Hate explains: "In 2016, he [Danny Tommo] pleaded guilty to attempted kidnapping and was sentenced to two years in prison after taking part in an armed attempt to abduct a man during a drugs-related dispute."

Rosemary Runswick argues that the Liberal Democrats should fight the Holborn and St Pancras by-election hard and answers her critics in the comments.

Cathy Young pays tribute to Gloria Steinem: "The vision Steinem shared in 1971 of a humanist and egalitarian future may have been simplistic in its idealism. But in 2026, it’s a far more humane vision, and better for it, than what her right-wing detractors have to offer."

"During the 1868 election his opponent suggested that McLagan was 'not a Scotchman' and a racist cartoon was circulated in the constituency depicting McLagan as a slavedriver with a blackened face, flogging a topless man in a kilt. The cartoon played on the status of McLagan’s father as an enslaver, local perceptions of McLagan's racial identity and statements McLagan made during the 1868 election in support of flogging in the military." Martin Spychal has researched the career of Peter McLagan, whom he calls "Scotland’s first Black MP".

"She was multifaceted in a way that few are: she was a popular, well-respected, beloved iconoclast, a true original, and she also radiated the self-referential camp of a celebrity impersonator. She operated both as a person and as an idea: Dolly seemed to consciously 'do' Dolly. A songwriter, musician, actress, philanthropist, advocate, mogul and more, she was always pivoting between different aspects of herself, and twirling those impressive embellished skirts and dresses all the while." Niela Orr celebrates the life and music of Dolly Parton.

The Secret Cricket Coach asks where the hell Rob Key is: "For years he was paid to tell us what was right and wrong with English cricket. Now he is responsible for much of it, but recently we haven’t heard much from him. England have had a difficult period, questions are being asked about behaviour, standards and leadership, and it is Joe Root who seems to be answering them. I find that quite strange."

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"Someone who attended a private school in London or the South East is 24 times more likely to become a permanent secretary than someone educated at a state school in the North. For a seat in the House of Lords, the gap is 23-fold. That is not class inequality plus regional inequality. It is what happens when they multiply." Nick Harrison asks if No 10 North will change who runs Britain.

Janice Mak says American schools are increasingly questioning whether every student needs a laptop: "This distinction between passive consumption and purposeful use is increasingly shaping school policy. Updated policies also reflect an emerging emphasis on age-appropriate screen use, student well-being and ensuring that technology can support, rather than replace, direct instruction and student collaboration."

Adam Sherwin reports on the plans to turn off Freeview television and the threat that poses to Talking Pictures TV.

Scott Barry Kaufman argues that the role of luck in successful lives is far greater than we realise.

"Do not be lulled into complacency by the family-film aesthetics. When Mom the Sheepdog instructed Babe the Pig to dominate other animals by abusing them, demeaning them, and telling them what to do, and Babe refused because disrespecting another living creature would be wrong? That moment might have radicalised a generation." Roxana Hadadi discusses the politics of Babe (1995).

"From the end of the Victorian period, Broadstairs was strategically marketing its Dickensian connections through postcards, guide books and festivals. In 1897 Alfred Harmsworth (founder of the Daily Mail) was one of the organisers of a ‘Dickens Village’, which recreated scenes including Defarge’s wine shop, Peggotty’s boat, the Great White Hart at Ipswich and the Old Curiosity Shop. The festival was successful enough to be repeated the following year." Carolyn Oulton on the long history of Dickens tourism in Broadstairs.

GUEST POST In praise of outgrounds: How cricket in small towns made a roaring comeback

The Hundred may be struggling for spectators, but cricket's One-Day Cup is thriving by using grounds that do not usually see professional cricket. Matthew Pennell explains why.

Neath, Mansfield, Gosforth, Farington, Arundel, York and Cheltenham. Towns and cities you wouldn’t normally link together, but what they have in common is they all hosted sell-out games of cricket in the first week of the One-Day Cup. 

These are a combination of brand new, rediscovered or longstanding outgrounds that are proving very popular with fans. This is despite relative indifference from the ECB and county squads being depleted by the existence of franchise cricket being played on test match grounds.

This year sell outs mean a crowd of between 4,000 and 6,000. Now, football fans might be dismissive of such numbers, as they're equivalent to fourth-tier attendances in the English league, but they represent a historic high for cricket and many outgrounds are in small towns where no other professional team sport is played. 

For perspective, in 2003 the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) got very excited at crowd numbers for the first season of T20 cricket (played on county or test match grounds at evenings and weekends). These averaged around 4,000 and were far higher than the tournament it replaced, the Benson & Hedges Cup, which had an average attendance of 1,100 in 2002. At the time ECB Marketing Manager, Stuart Robertson crowed in Wisden magazine, "We are delighted by the response we have had so far."

I doubt we'll see such a positive statement from the ECB about bumper One-Day Cup attendances. It’s somewhat awkward for them that numbers are up for the Cup in provincial grounds, but down for their precious franchise tournament.

In many ways outground cricket is the antithesis of the Hundred. Crowds are dedicated and knowledgeable, you're likely to bump into parents of players (hello David Fulton’s dad), ex-players (hello Martin McCague – you are as wide as you are tall), BBC local radio commentators (hello friendly BBC Radio Gloucestershire team). It’s a pleasure to rub shoulders with people who don’t have to ask what’s going on and have been to every home game this season, so have seen every player talked up into England reckoning.

Outgrounds are small enough, without the surge in popularity, to create a good atmosphere, Maidstone with 800 people spread evenly across the grass bank didn't feel sparse. As cricket in England is not played in enormodomes the competition isn't so much about numbers as experience.

Which is the prettiest ground? Certainly Abergavenny, Arundel and Tunbridge Wells would be in with a shout (please comment below if you think I’ve missed a good one). I remember the Guardian making a

point of covering every county game at Abergavenny, despite its remoteness, because the surroundings were so lovely.

Food is a big factor in the cricket experience, I recall cupcakes and cakes supplied to a hospitality marquee by club volunteers at Guildford at reasonable prices, coupled with relaxed rules and regs about bringing your own provisions. Across the piece, it's great value for money – you’re not getting ripped off by ticket prices, car parking charges or catering.

While administrators talk of T20 and the Hundred bringing new fans to grounds, it's also the case that franchises alienate many established fans and the bigger counties absolutely need to play in several venues to reach out to their entire catchment area. In an ideal world the 18 counties would play at more than 60 venues a season, visiting several locations not covered by football or rugby. For example, Yorkshire play in Leeds, Scarborough and York. They could easily sell out in another half dozen venues, and some members would say they’re ignoring South Yorkshire altogether.

Is this year a one-off or part of a trend? Certainly the early summer heatwave in Europe has encouraged staycations and our own summer weather has made people more confident about getting a full day's play. Hopefully in a few years time I'll revisit this and talk of counties wrestling with fitting more temporary seating in the grounds that are bursting today.

Matthew Pennell blogs at Return of the Liberal.

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"Multiple sources inside the children’s home division said that, as they prepared for sale, they were pressed to rapidly open more homes and take on more children, even when they didn’t have the staff to keep up. They claim they were told this was so the company could be sold for the maximum amount of money." Jessica Murray says that when private equity takes over a UK care home it can mean the children are treated like cattle.

Ben Worthy argues that, if he is to succeed as a prime minister who takes over in mid-parliament, Andy Burnham will need to create a clear sense of change and offer new policy quickly.

"Surbiton itself is no longer a byword for Toryism. Each of its councillors is a Liberal Democrat, with only two Conservatives elected across the entire Royal Borough of Kingston. At a parliamentary level, the successor seat of Kingston and Surbiton has been Tory for just two years since 1997, that brief period of 2015-17 when the Lib Dems fell away. An area which was once considered a safe base for Conservatives with ministerial ambitions and ability is now the home seat of Sir Ed Davey." John Oxley mourns the Conservatives' loss of the Margot Leadbetter vote.

Danielle Williams on how the US lost its public swimming pools to racism: "When legally required to share public pools with Black children, many white families decided they’d rather not go at all. Closing public pools to avoid racial integration became official policy for many cities across the US."

Sintija Brence salutes the Queen Of Southern Gothic, Bobbie Gentry.

"About most of the rescues Gregory is brisk but particular. An elderly couple in a broken-down yacht press biscuits on the crew; a woman makes eyes at the coxswain ('the problem was an open seacock, swamping their bilge'); in failing light a small boy – 'my mum said I should stay with the boat' – is scooped from a flimsy inflatable dinghy just in time." Susannah Clapp meets a literary lifeboatman at Dungeness.

How four bison brought new life to ancient woodland in Kent

Here's a video from Dr Edmund Hale that makes rewilding seem not a flight of fancy but common sense:

Bison reintroduction in England began in 2022 when four European bison were released into West Blean Woods near Canterbury, Kent – the first wild bison in Britain for thousands of years. This rewilding experiment had one goal: save a dying ancient woodland that conventional conservation, chainsaws, and machinery had failed to fix. What these ecosystem engineers did next with bark, hooves, and pure instinct stunned the scientists monitoring them.

Within weeks, the bison tore open the sealed forest canopy, stripped bark to create life-giving deadwood, and churned the soil into new habitat – and the woodland responded almost instantly. Dung beetles, rare plants, and wildlife began returning to ground that had been silent for decades.

But here's the twist: this species was once down to just 12 animals on Earth. The four bison rebuilding this English forest are the living end of a 100-year fight against extinction – and their return is forcing conservationists to rethink everything about how forests should be saved.

And the stern tone Dr Hale adopts here makes him sound much as you imagine a European bison who had made a deep study of the sufferings of his species would sound.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Fire

Fire was included on The Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1967 album Are You Experienced. Under the title Let Me Light Your Fire, it was released as a single in 1970.

Wikipedia, citing Harry Shapiro's book Jimi Hendrix: Electric Gypsy, tells the story behind it:

Despite its sexual overtones, the song had an innocuous origin. Noel Redding, bass player for the Experience, invited Hendrix to his mother's house on a cold New Year's Eve in Folkestone, England, after a performance. 

Hendrix asked Noel's mother if he could stand next to her fireplace to warm himself. She agreed, but her German Shepherd was in the way, so Hendrix let out with, "Aw, move over, Rover, and let Jimi take over."

There's a book to be written about the mothers of rock stars.

GUEST POST Councillor defection scores on the eve of polling day

Augustus Carp offers something to whet your appetite – a curtain-raiser, a short not-too-dramatic offering before the Grand-Guignol horror show that awaits us as the results start to trickle in from late on Thursday night until the following evening.

In the first four months of 2026, the procession of councillors resigning from the political parties that helped them to get elected has continued apace. So far, 299 "events" have occurred; not just defections, but also a few expulsions and suspensions. "Double-hatted" councillors who change their affiliation have been counted twice, as have councillors who resigned and then re-joined (48 hours later, in one celebrated case in North Northamptonshire.)

That’s an average of nearly 18 a week, or 2.5 every day. I doubt if most political pundits realise that the figure is quite so high, which might explain why the subject does not get the attention given to the half-a-dozen local council by elections held every week. An exception is Mark Pack’s regular update of Reform UK defections, but those resignations are indeed worthy of serious inspection because of the novelty value, fuss and general hoop-la associated with the new insurgent populist party.

From an objective perspective, defecting councillors are a significant indicator of a change in local party morale. When they go, they take valuable resources with them, such as knowledge of their wards, help with campaigning and general goodwill towards their former party. Worse still, they might be taking their families and friends with them – perhaps into a rival organisation. They may only constitute a handful of votes, but they could represent hundreds of hours of solid campaigning at a future election, against the former party’s new candidate.

Big parties, big losers

Reasons for defections can be many and various, and can range from the principled to the ridiculous, but the damage can still be significant, regardless of the circumstances which cause it. 

The main losers so far this year have been the Labour party (down 59 councillors) and the Conservatives (down 52). The Labour figure seems to have been exacerbated by the impending London Borough elections, where reselection processes have put some noses and egos out of joint. As one might expect, excluding councillors who have opted for Independent status, most Labour councillors have gone to the Greens, with Conservatives tending towards Reform UK.

The Greens have acquired an additional 21 councillors via defections, with the Reform UK tally rising by 32. On balance, the Lib Dems have lost 13 and the Nationalists are down 2. The balancing figure in the equation is 73, representing various "Independents" (loosely described).

Straight swaps

Three Reform UK councillors have moved to the Conservatives – but 33 have gone the other way. One Tory has joined the Lib Dems, whilst one Lib Dem has travelled in the opposite direction. Four Lib Dems have joined the Greens, with one going against the tide. Eight Labour councillors left for the Greens, two for the Lib Dems, and one (in Hartlepool) for Reform UK.

Although not (yet) counted as a separate party in my system, it is worth noting that Restore Britain has attracted 21 councillors, from the independents and Reform UK. This includes a bulk membership event on Kent County Council in February. Similarly, there has been a handful of moves to Advance UK, mainly from Independents but also one from the Workers Party. (No, I don’t understand it either.)

If the local elections on Thursday pan out according to the pundits, with a large number of Reform UK and Green Party successes, then I confidently forecast that there will be many more resignations and defections over the summer, once the new councillors realise that theirs is a thankless task, with lots of work but little chance of changing anything to do with small boats or Gaza.

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

Sir Walter Scott invented "The Wars of the Roses"

Here's an interesting passage from Chris Given-Wilson in a recent London Review of Books:

There are several earlier references, dating back at least to the early 14th century, to red and white roses being used occasionally as insignia by the families later associated with the Lancastrian and Yorkist causes, but it was not until Shakespeare picked up on the idea in Henry VI Part I... that it entered the popular imagination. ...

It was another two hundred years before Walter Scott’s novel Anne of Geierstein, published in 1829, brought the idea of the ‘wars of the White and Red Roses’ into common usage. Since then it has become synonymous with the political turmoil which, between 1455 and 1485, saw four English kings deposed (one of them twice) and fifteen internecine ‘battles’ – some of them in reality just skirmishes – fought on English soil, from Dartford in Kent to Hexham in Northumberland to Mortimer’s Cross on the Welsh border.

There are those, of course, who would like to bin the label, but that is a vain hope. During the last quarter of the 20th century at least seven British historians published monographs entitled The Wars of the Roses, and scholars in the 21st century appear to be trying to keep pace.

Sure enough, Given-Wilson was reviewing The Wars of the Roses: A Medieval Civil War by John Watts.

Obliging reader's voice: I gather the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth is accepted as having marked the end of these wars. Have you by any chance contributed an article that touches upon it to Central Bylines recently?

Liberal England replies: Why yes! Yes I have.

Powell and Pressburger's most bizarre moments

The British Film Institute's blurb on YouTube says:

In this video essay director Will Webb highlights scenes from Powell and Pressburger films – including The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death, I Know Where I'm Going and Black Narcissus – that tilt us off-balance, shaking what we thought we knew about the world's that one of cinema's greatest filmmaking partnerships created.

Don't worry. It also includes something from A Canterbury Tale – the first shot of the glue man here is really a boy, to make him look further away on the studio set. We also see Jennifer Jones on the Stiperstones in Gone to Earth.

GUEST POST Local councillors changing party: Augustus Carp’s review of 2025

Augustus Carp finds the Conservatives are losing local councillors, but not as fast as Labour are losing them, and Reform UK are gaining.

Back in January we were solemnly assured by the nation’s leading political commentators that 2025 was going to be a tough year for the Conservatives, and a good one for Reform UK. 

That’s pretty much how it panned out, but why didn’t anyone predict that, when it comes to political defections, the biggest losers were going to be the Labour Party?

The figures are stark. The Conservatives lost a net 212 councillors in 2025, but the Labour Party lost a net 275. For the others, the figures are Reform +138, Greens +32, Lib Dems -14 and the Nationalists -5. The balancing figure is Independents on 336.

To be clear, my methodology treats every single change in status as a recordable event. So a councillor leaving Party A to sit as an Independent in January, and then joining Party B in August is regarded as two separate data points. Suspensions, expulsions and readmissions are all included in the tally.

By my reckoning there were defections in 271 local authorities during the year. Councils where eight or more councillors have changed their allegiance are 

Tameside                      20

Kent                       16

Dudley                      13

Durham                      10

Sevenoaks              10

Wakefield              10

Bolsover                        9

Buckinghamshire        9

Hounslow                9

Oldham                        9

South Kesteven              9

Tamworth                        9

Cornwall                       8

Dumfries & Galloway      8

Portsmouth                     8

Solihull                            8

The figure for Tameside is perhaps a bit misleading – seven Labour councillors had their status changed for them when they were suspended and subsequently reinstated after being caught up in the Shiver Me Timbers WhatsApp fiasco/scandal. Nevertheless there were other goings on there to ensure that Tameside would still rank highly in the table.

Kent and Durham have trouble retaining councillors within their Reform UK groups, and Dudley has seen movements from Labour to Independent and from the Conservatives to Reform UK. Wakefield saw councillors move from Labour, Lib Dems and Conservatives to Independents, and a few suspensions and readmissions in the Labour Group added to the complexity there. Bulk defections have occurred in Sevenoaks (from the Conservatives) and in Buckinghamshire (from the Lib Dems).

Labour defections in the London boroughs increased towards the end of the year, once the reselection season started. Councillor defections in areas which still have two levels of local government (for example Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire) might deserve more attention, as some councillors there wear two hats. 

Watch out in 2026 for problems with party discipline if local government reform is pushed through against local opposition, as has already happened in Suffolk.

It is very difficult to identify how many defections arise out of personality clashes rather than ideology.  There have been 92 defections straight from the Conservative Party to Reform UK, which would seem to be driven by ideology or the survival instinct.

There have also been 28 straight swaps from Labour to Greens in 2025, with another 14 councillors making the slow-burning transition from Labour to Independent to Greens. This, together with the number of ex-Labour councillors forming their own Independent groups, would seem to indicate that politics is more significant than personalities at the moment. That matters when it comes to fielding troops in a general election ground war.

As ever, these figures are provided on a best endeavours basis, so E&OE and DYOR. Perhaps if readers have any simple questions on the goings on in any particular authority, they could put them in the comments below and I will answer them if I can.

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

Iain Sinclair reviews David Seabrook's All the Devils Are Here

Backlisted has devoted a second podcast to David Seabrook's book on Kent, All the Devils Are Here.

Iain Sinclair wrote about it for the London Review of Books when it was first published in 2003:

His book, the first to do justice to the transcendent weirdness of this boot of land that isn’t London, should be treasured. By living so long in the immediate past, by digging and listening and making the phone-calls, Seabrook has hallucinated an alternate English history. 

Margate Sands as the pivotal moment for Modernism, nothing connected to nothing. The Mystery of Edwin Drood not so much solved as rewired: John Jasper as schizophrenic dreamer, the paradigm for Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde, the divided man of future gothic. Artist/driller killer. Choirmaster/opium addict. A De Quincey stalker who rehearses his crimes in drugged sleep, thereby infecting Richard Dadd. So that the site of the murder is more significant that the identity of the murderer. 

Dig through the rubbish of seaside junk pits and pinball arcades, Seabrook suggests, read the shilling-shockers, and the pattern will reveal itself. English fascism hidden in the pages of John Buchan. A schoolteacher living in retirement who remembers William Joyce as a benevolent father.

You can see David Seabrook in Sinclair's short film The Cardinal and The Corpse (from 11:40).

After the rail accident: Godmersham and Crundale Village Hall

It's almost 10 years since I was given a late-night cup of tea in this imposing village hall. It's Godmersham and Crundale Village Hall, and if you go to the gallery on its website you will see what an impressive space it is.

I was there because my train had been derailed - I may have blogged about it once or twice at the time.

Looking for media reports about the accident today, I found one on Kent Online I had not seen before:

Residents and Southeastern employees have been commended for their actions after a train derailed near the village earlier this year. 

The awards have been handed out following an incident in July that saw a late-night train hit a herd of cows that had wandered onto the track near Chilham. 

None of the 70 passengers on-board were hurt but they were taken to nearby Godmersham village hall afterwards while alternative transport was arranged. 

Now Godmersham villagers together with Southeastern employees working on the night, have been given a special executive award for their actions in the aftermath of the collision, that included offering shelter for shocked passengers in the village hall and providing refreshments for those affected. ...

Matthew Gee, the resident responsible for unlocking the village hall for the passengers, said: “When we heard the train had derailed nearby, we immediately wanted to help in whatever way we could.

“It was a real team effort between the Southeastern team and the members of the village hall and I’m really proud of the local residents who helped provide hot drinks and food for the passengers.”

The award also recognises the quick-thinking and conscientious efforts of Southeastern employees Warren Wills, Tim Hewitt, Michelle Harris, and Paul Harris who led the passengers to safety and train driver Daryl Ryan who leapt from his cab to halt an approaching train after realising the derailment had caused his own train’s radio system to stop working.

To get to the village hall, we had to climb down from the train, walk across a field and then wait in a lane for transport to arrive.

I travelled in a police van - in fact in the narrow compartment where they put people they've arrested - with Daryl Ryan, and he told me he thought the train was going down the embankment after it hit the cows.

Reading the official report on the accident, I am reminded how lucky we were that this wasn't a more serious incident:

The RAIB’s [Rail Accident Investigation Branch] analysis of the derailment path suggests that the consequences were mitigated by two external factors. The first was the impact with Trimworth Bridge, which deflected the train back towards the railway. Secondly, the path of the leading carriage was constrained by the right-hand wheels running against the inside face of the left-hand rail. These factors reduced the probability of the train falling further down the embankment.

I needed another cup of tea after reading that.

Reform council leader pleads for government to soften new visa regime for care workers - Welcome to the real world

The Reform UK leader of Kent County Council has written to the home secretary expressing "grave concerns" about government proposals to reduce health and social care visas. 

In the letter, which was also signed by the council's cabinet member for social care Diane Morton, she said:

“Across the contracts for the council’s adult social care and health services there are approximately 150 providers we are aware of who have sponsorship licences which is equal to 20-25% of our social care workforce being from overseas. 

“There are a number of displaced social care workers who may have lost their jobs, or the sponsoring provider has lost their licence. 

“Kent Integrated Care Alliance has advised us that the Government has ringfenced £2m for the south east so providers could pick up these displaced people and get them into work. 

“They would receive £5,000 each, however in three years’ time or when the visa expires, they are currently expected to pay the care worker £41,000 a year. This is £10,000 more than a band five nurse in the NHS.”

It would be easy to laugh or call her a hypocrite, but let's welcome a Reform politician being prepared to recognise reality. Too many of them believe that outside consultants or their own parties DOGE are coming to save them. They're not.

Kent Online quotes the Liberal Democrat group leader on the council supporting her letter:

“KCC has rightly acknowledged the importance of overseas workers to the care sector. 

“Under the plans in the government’s immigration white paper, care providers will be able to apply until 2028 to extend their workers’ visas, but will have to pay the Home Office’s Immigration Skills Charge, which the Government is raising to £1,320 for each worker per year of their visa.

“Imposing crippling Home Office fees on top of the Government’s misguided jobs tax (the national insurance increase) will just make the crisis even worse, pushing many care homes to the brink and leaving our loved ones in the lurch.

“People who have moved to the UK to look after our elderly and disabled people are doing tough jobs and helping to keep our NHS on its feet. They should be thanked for their contribution, not demonised.”

I foresee a split opening in Reform between the leadership, which will go on talking bollocks and making impossible promises, and those of their councillors who are trying to do the job conscientiously.

John Rogers takes a stunning walk along the White Cliffs of Dover

John Rogers forsakes psychogeographic London and walks along the white cliffs from Dover to Deal.

As his blurb on YouTube says:

The glorious walk takes us over the famous White Cliffs of Dover. We get amazing views across the Channel to the coast of France around Calais. I stopped for lunch at South Foreland Lighthouse then strolled through St Margaret's Bay, Kingsdown Beach, Walmer with its castle and the site where Julius Caesar led the Roman invasion of Britain in 55BC. Our beautiful South Coast Kent walk ends at Deal.

John blogs at The Lost Byway and has a Patreon to support these videos.

Is Reform UK relaxing its vetting of election candidates?

Embed from Getty Images

Rejected Reform UK candidates in East Thanet are being encouraged to apply again under what are described as a new set of “common sense” standards.

Josiah Mortimer on Byline Times reports:

A post on July 4 by Reform UK’s official East Thanet Facebook page stated the party has adopted a new set of vetting standards as of July 7, which are “more proportionate than before”. They claim to give more weight to “individual freedom of expression” – despite following a slew of scandals involving Reform candidates posting racist content online. 

In a call for candidates following the apparent overhaul of their vetting standards, the East Thanet Reform post states: “We’re treating this as a blank slate. If you have previously failed vetting, you are strongly encouraged to reapply under the new standards…Priority will be given to re-vetting” – i.e. giving people previously rejected as unfit for office a second bite of the cherry. 

The question is whether this is the first sighting of a new national Reform policy on candidate approval, or just one local party going rogue or getting hold of the wrong end of the stick.

If it is a new national policy then, given the problems Reform was having with the candidates who emerged from its more restrictive system, we'd better lay in supplies of popcorn.

Listen to Mike Martin on the Strategic Defence Review

Talk about an eyeopener...

Mike Martin, the Liberal Democrat MP for Tunbridge Wells, is Arthur Snell's latest guest on his Behind the Lines podcast. And he paints an alarming picture of Britain's armed forces.

You would hope that the Conservatives would at least care about the defence of the realm, but it turns out they left defence in as big a mess as every other area of government.

The Navy, for instance, has aircraft carriers, but no planes to launch from them, and at any one time can have only five ships at sea.

If the RAF had to fight tonight, it could muster 30 planes, and none of our airfields as any air defence.

And the Army is shrinking. It currently has only 12 artillery pieces.

Mike is very good on the way the top brass always thinks that new technology will replace the need for boots on the ground - in the 1920s it was biplanes - but it never does.

Colpeper does receive a blessing in A Canterbury Tale after all

I think I've gained a new understanding of my favourite film. Most commentators take their mark from Mr Colpeper's answering to a question at his lecture:

"These ancient pilgrims came to Canterbury to ask for a blessing or to do penance."

They observe that, while Alison, Peter and Bob travel to the city to receive their blessings, Colpeper goes their to do penance.

As it turns out, Colpeper doesn't have to do penance because Peter, having rediscovered his vocation as a musician, loses interest in his plan of reporting him to the authorities.

I now believe that Colpeper receives a blessing too. And to see it we have to go back to the two scenes that run beneath the films closing credits. (If you click play in the video above, you'll be taken to the very end of the film.)

Last month I blogged about the second of them: 

But right at the end of the film, the closing credits play over another scene of the boys who fought a battle on the river. It may be significant that they are no longer playing war but football.

But what about the first of them?

In it we see men and women, some arm in arm, going to an event at the Colpeper Institute. And, though it's hard to read the poster advertising the event, it's similar in typograph and layout to a poster we see clearly earlier in the film. And that is the poster advertising Colpeper's own lecture there.

So Colpeper has been given his heart's desire too: an audience for his opinions on Kent and its history. And he has found it because he met Alison and realised that he should welcome women to his lectures - rather than pour glue on their hair to keep them at home.

I looked again at these closing titles because I read Deconstructing the Imagined Village: A Canterbury Tale, a long post on the film by Paul Banks.

He writes about the these final scenes:

After a series of increasingly distant views of the exterior of the Cathedral, the closing credits appear over a shot of the Chillingbourne boys paying soccer with the new football paid for by Bob. In fact this closing section was originally planned as being rather longer, with striking visual recapitulations and an explicit concluding message:

We see the bells, great and small, shaking the timbers of the roof with their clamour.

We see the towers of the Cathedral, the Angel Steeple, the mass of the building. The bells are still ringing. There is no sign to show whether the time is 600 years ago or today.

We see the Cathedral, far away across the valley of the Stour, the houses of Canterbury huddled round it.

The bells sound faintly, but the Organ is still playing.

High up white clouds are sailing in the wind. A small black speck appears in the sky. It’s familiar hum breaks through the organ music. It is a Spitfire.

The camera sweeps down from the sky, down to Chillingbourne Camp.

A new battalion of SOLDIERS are marching in to take over.

This time they are Americans.

We see their faces as they march: faces not very different from the faces we left in prayer at Canterbury. Only the uniforms are different.

Here the story ends.

As the usual Credit Titles appear at the end we glimpse a little bit more:

A brand new football! There they go! Leslie, Terry and the other boys, one side, with berets, fighting unequal odds.

Here is the ‘Colpeper Institute’.

There is a new poster up, advertising a series of lectures.

And – believe it or not! – soldiers and girls are going in.

The shots of the Cathedral (a few of which do appear in the released version) and the recapitulated Spitfire sequence reinforce the atemporal symmetrical structure of the film, and seem to be designed to close off the narrative, but the last two images behind the closing credits  – the boys and the poster – for all their ambiguous status both within and outside the ostensibly completed chronicle, seem to be intended as glimpses of an imagined sequel and the last would have suggested that Colpeper’s penance was genuine and that for him the pilgrimage had indeed been a significant learning experience after all. 

However, by omitting that final image (which would have revealed what the outcome would be) Powell and Pressburger encourage viewers to make up their own minds about the character’s ultimate spiritual fate.

But the shot of the crowds going to Colpeper's lecture did make it to the final film, though it is shown before the boys playing football. So Colpeper did receive a blessing after all.

Does A Canterbury Tale end with a glimpse of a better future?

 

It's time to revisit Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's film A Canterbury Tale. Here's Xan Brooks, whose favourite film it also is, writing in the Guardian in 2011:

On beginning this blog, I was going to write that the story of A Canterbury Tale is a bit like the legend of the Arthurian knights asleep on the hillside, waiting to be called forth at the hour of greatest need. 

But that’s not quite right, because the film implicitly suggests that there is no hillside, no sleeping knights, and no magical horn to call them forth. 

The only world is the one we’re in, bashed about and bent out of shape, and the only heroes the people around us: frail and fearful, sometimes misguided, and coping as best they can. But if we can learn to trust them, and invite them to trust us back, then we may just be OK. 

More than that, we might even be blessed; rattling through the ruins to uncover miracles in derelict caravans and hear the voice of angels in the train whistle’s yelp.

I'm sure I've quoted Brooks before, but in recent days I've come across some new discussion of A Canterbury Tale.

There's a good edition of the podcast Made in England on the film, with the American writer Dan Kois as the guest. It's well worth a listen.

The host, Jack McInroy, talks enthusiastically about an article on A Canterbury Tale by Kim Newman, and I've managed to find it on The Powell & Pressburger Pages:

My choice for Powell's most audacious film - not a perfect masterpiece like several of the other [films] cited, but still a work of dazzling, bewildering genius - is A Canterbury Tale (1944), a mystical meditation on what it means to be English, set during WWII. 

Eric Portman is a local magistrate who pours glue into girls' hair during the black-outs, dissuading them from fraternising with the American troops, a barmy crusade that is first seen in horror film terms, and then transformed into an endeavour at once insane, transcendent and saintly. 

The film, in luminous black and white with shining daylight and pitch darks, is imbued with magic from its first shot: a mediaeval falconer releasing a bird, which the camera follows as it does a 2001 stunt transforming into a Spitfire before returning to the face of the man, who has become a '40's ARP warden. 

It catches perfectly the feel of its time, peeling back the layers of history like a Nigel Kneale curse to disclose something primal and awesome in the heart of Kent, even to the extent of winding up with the modern pilgrims - an amiable American soldier played by an amateur, a shopgirl turned farmhand for the duration, and a poetic tank sergeant-cum-organist played by Dennis Price - each rewarded with a peculiar kind of miracle. 

It was reviled and boycotted on its release, far more so than the controversial Colonel Blimp, accused of pretension and silliness. But it looks far better now than many an accepted classic of the British cinema, isolating in a truly English setting the deep feelings and powers missed by the tidiness of David Lean or Ealing comedies, turning hedges and streams into a landscape as mythic and cinematically vibrant as John Ford's Monument Valley, opening up a strain in our national cinema that lead to Robert Hamer, Seth Holt, John Gilling, Dennis Potter, Peter Greenaway, Derek Jarman. 

The sequence where the adults are drawn into a children's battle game upon a glowing stream is at once lyrical, funny, moving and subtly dark, the way Peter Pan or A Wind In The Willows were before Uncle Walt got his syrup-spoon to them. 

Like all great narrative art, it transcends genre and seems to contain all possibilities of fiction - erotic, horrific, funny, religious, wise, historical, pastoral, political, cynical, naive - and indeed,of human behaviour, being about the persistence of peace in wartime and the relevance of the distant past to a jitterbugging present. 

And like all the films listed in this section, a lot of people hate this film a lot. But I love it. I loved it when I first saw it on television in the '70's, I loved it when I interviewed Powell over the phone in 1985, I loved it the day in February 1990 I heard its director had died, and I love it on video now. 

Films aren't books; they are more than words, and this film has something it's hard to convey, dodging around the intellect it engages so easily and playing straight to the heart and guts.

Finally, a post on The Movie Screen Scene has noticed a little glimpse of a better future in the film.

A Canterbury Tale was set and made in the period before D-Day. The American amateur actor Sgt John Sweet couldn't attend the premiere in the city in May 1944 because he was on Eisenhower's staff in London and planning D-Day for real. So, as the Made in England podcast reminds us, we don't know what was to become of his character or Dennis Price's or of Sheila Sim's fiancé. 

But right at the end of the film, the closing credits play over another scene of the boys who fought a battle on the river. It may be significant that they are no longer playing war but football.

The James Taylor Quartet and the Rochester Cathedral Choir: The Rochester Mass

I discovered James Taylor through a Guy Hamper Trio track that he played on, and that led naturally to the James Taylor Quartet.

They are widely described as pioneers of acid jazz, but this is something different. Arcana explains:

Ever felt the need for a ‘funk mass’? Well James Taylor has, and this year The Rochester Mass received its premiere at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in April, before a performance in the cathedral of its home city in June. 

It was the South Bank who commissioned the work, which James wrote in memory of his late father Clive. The recording features choristers from Rochester Cathedral, as well as the fulsome organ.

If it works - and I think it does - one reason for that is given by Taylor. The young choristers were familiar with contemporary as well as church music and so found it natural to groove with the quartet.

Here, in two parts, is the Sanctus - for some reason Taylor decided to reverse the usual order of a requiem mass.