With a little help from Bob Dylan…

Particularly the opening lines of the second verse, “Come writers and critics… Who prophesise with your pen… And keep your eyes wide… The chance won’t come again… And don’t speak too soon… For the wheel’s still in spin…”

Maybe it was also in the mind of Andrew Marr, a man who has hosted several discussions about Dylan’s cultural influence in his time. ‘I thought Labour would fix everything. I was wrong… Britain has become ungovernable,’ was the headline over his cover story New Statesman column announcing he is stepping down as the pro-Labour flagship’s political editor (October 22).

It was six days before the latest YouGov poll delivered another body blow to Keir Starmer, showing his rating as prime minister the lowest on record, beating even Boris Johnson before his downfall in disgrace. It was also a new low for Labour, revealing a 3-point drop in a week that brought them level with the floundering Tories on 17%, just a point ahead of the surging Greens and 10 points below Farage’s Reform UK on 27%.

Inevitably it was gleefully seized on by the right-wing papers but — more significantly — it turbocharged the speculation in Labour’s own ranks and supportive titles like the Guardian about the prime minister’s survival chances. While the majority view is that his fate hinges on the outcome of next May’s Scottish, Welsh and English local elections, even some junior ministers I know aren’t ruling out him “being gone by Christmas”.

In his farewell, column Andrew Marr, currently also an LBC radio host and former BBC political editor and onetime Independent newspaper editor, begins: “The postwar British political establishment is collapsing. The Conservatives threw themselves into a death spiral last year, though it had been a long time in the making. Now in government, Labour is heading in the same direction, corkscrewing downwards, touching 15 points in one recent poll and haemorrhaging votes in every direction.”

Andrew Marr predicts

Later on, Marr concludes: “For now — perhaps for the rest of our lifetimes — the two-party system lies in ruins. On the right, Reform, we must assume, will continue to reshape itself for power. Policy after policy is being reassessed, including the extreme deportation proposals. Reform is discussing the future with the commanding heights of the British establishment, from Whitehall to the BBC and the Bank of England. The recent jettisoning by Nigel Farage of £90bn of promised, incredible tax cuts was a significant moment.

“Yes, it’s possible that we are living through a Reform bubble that will burst. But the belief in some Labour circles that, offered a choice between Starmer or Farage, the country will inevitably choose the former is grossly complacent. From once-Labour Wales to inner city London, people who a few years ago would not have given Reform the time of day are privately reassessing, due to impatience and despair. Unless something substantial changes, we are heading for a Reform government.

“Starmer, I insist, is a decent man with strong public values who is doing his level best. But thus far, he has been a managerial leader, unable to catch the nation’s attention and unwilling to force through the drastic changes Britain now requires. These are days for eloquence, fire and argument.”

The very inspirational, narrative delivering attributes this column, among others, has long argued Keir Starmer lacks. As a far from uncritical Labour simpatico columnist, I am certainly no champion of Reform and sometimes I’m a left leaning protagonist of Nigel Farage on his eponymous GB News show. But readers may recall I predicted months ahead Reform’s spectacular surge in last May’s English council elections and the ‘distinct possibility’ of Farage as our next prime minister. If forced to place a bet today, it would have to be on that as ‘probability’ but not quite the certainty Andrew Marr foresees.

The Caerphilly Senedd by-election this month was a major disaster for Labour and the Tories, especially Labour who have dominated Welsh politics for a century. But it was also a big disappointment for Reform who threw everything into the fight, including four Farage campaign trips, were the bookies favourites to win but lost out to Plaid Cymru who captured an unexpectedly high 50% of the vote.

Undoubtedly, tactical voting was a factor with supporters of other parties determined to keep Reform out. The lesson from Caerphilly is that tactical voting by anti-Reform electors in an increasingly fragmented political landscape could figure heavily in the next UK general election whenever it comes.

Reform is also facing the reality that with local election success comes greater scrutiny. The leaked video of foul-mouthed in-fighting among Reform’s councillors in Kent — its biggest flagship win last May — not only went viral but resulted in eight Reform councillors being expelled for “dishonest and deceptive behaviour” this week. The Reform-controlled council has also had to reverse its fanciful boast it wouldn’t be increasing council tax by the maximum amount allowed. Kent is far from alone as a Reform-controlled council with screwball characters capable of damaging the party between now and the general election.

Is Pochin a racist?

While this week the fallout escalated over Reform’s only female MP Sarah Pochin saying on Talk TV: “It drives me mad when I see adverts full of black people, full of Asian people… it doesn’t reflect our society and I feel that your average white person, average white family is not represented any more. How many times do you look at a TV advert and you think there is not a single white person on it?”

Later, under pressure from Nigel Farage himself, Pochin, who won the Runcorn & Helsby by-election in May and openly aspires to be home secretary in any Reform government, denied being a racist and apologised for her remarks being “phrased poorly”. Never having met her, I can’t judge whether she is or isn’t racist. But as an MP and an intelligent woman, she can’t be so naïve as to not realise her remarks would go viral, generate huge headlines and ignite a firestorm of phone-in debates and certainly delight those of a racist tendency.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, doing the Sunday political show studio rounds, was the first cabinet minister to publicly accuse her of “blatant racism” while Keir Starmer himself then weighed in by describing her remarks as “the kind that will tear our country apart”. Going on to say: “And Nigel Farage has some questions to answer. Either he doesn’t consider it racist, which I think is shocking in itself, or he does think it is and shows absolutely no leadership.”

With Labour, LibDem, Green and SNP MPs calling on him to suspend Pochin, Farage was spooked sufficiently to publicly condemn his close ally, saying he was “very unhappy” with her while refusing demands to take disciplinary action, arguing “I don’t like the way in which she did it. I was very unhappy with her, and if I felt the intention was deliberately and genuinely racist, I would have taken a different course.”

But clearly conscious that the online, on-air reaction of many Reform supporters was to strongly agree with Pochin’s outburst, Farage offered the tightrope walking mitigation of saying his protégé’s rant should be viewed “in the context of DEI madness”.

Nevertheless, the Reform leader was clearly frustrated when media questions at a press conference he had called to attack the government over its handling of the grooming gang national inquiry crisis and to promote his own idea for a parliamentary investigation alternative focused rather more on the Pochin ‘racism’ furore.

The Kebatu calamity

If nothing else. Farage’s discomfort offered some badly-needed cheer for Labour MPs reeling from the combination of the Caerphilly humiliation, the collapsing grooming gang inquiry and the headline-swamping fiasco over the mistaken prison release of migrant hotel sex offender Hadush Kebatu — The Kebatu calamity, something even Armando Iannucci wouldn’t have dared dream up for a ‘The Thick Of It’ plotline. There were huge sighs at No 10 and the Home Office when Kebatu, who had arrived in the UK on a small boat, was deported back to Ethiopia overnight on Tuesday.

But a new political storm erupted when it emerged the home office gave Kebatu a “discretionary” £500 payment after he threatened to disrupt his deportation aboard a commercial flight and despite him being accompanied by five guards!

Has Andrew destroyed the age of royal deference?

Then there’s the prime minister’s perceived deferential ‘leave it to the Royal Family’ response to calls for Prince Andrew to be formally stripped of his dukedom and other titles via an act of parliament. Many Labour MPs were frustrated seeing rival parties making the running on that. Ironically, Rachael Maskell, who represents York Central in parliament, was the first out of the traps calling for it, but although elected as a Labour MP, she’s currently sitting as an independent after being suspended for rebelling over the government’s welfare policy. She revealed many of her constituents were furious about their city’s name being associated with Andrew’s dukedom.

Among other things, Maskell wants parliament to demand the palace explains where the £12m out of court settlement the prince infamously reached with Virginia Giuffre, Epstein’s best-known victim, who also claimed she was forced to have sex with Andrew himself, came from. Unconfirmed reports have always suggested the late queen forked out the money, but it’s never been clear whether only the monarch’s private wealth was involved or if any taxpayer-funded money was used.

One of the more sensational attacks on Prince Andrew was delivered on TV by the Conservatives’ shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, admittedly a man on permanent leadership manoeuvres. Not for the first time, he kicked in harder than his leader, Kemi Badenoch, with Andrew and his ex-wife’s rent-free occupancy of the massive Royal Lodge mansion on the Windsor Castle estate, the thorny subject of cross-party disgust.

Ironically, too, it has been the right wing papers who have been the fiercest over the ballooning revelations about Prince Andrew and his live-in ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson. Take, for example, The Times main leader of October 21st, headlined, ‘Dear Mr Windsor… Prince Andrew has mired the royal family in scandal through his appalling lack of judgement, and possibly worse. He must cease styling himself prince and disappear’. The leader’s payoff line: “It would save everyone time if the eighth in line to the throne (yes, that too must go) declared himself plain Mr Windsor and took himself off to some sunny spot where he can live a life of golf and quiet self-reflection.”

Take the headline on the scorching op-ed (October 18th) by the Daily Mail’s editor at large and leading royal expert, Richard Kay: ‘Grasping. Entitled. Sleazy. Ignorant. But his biggest problem was a total inability to read the room — and see how things looked to ordinary people.’ Sentiments shared inside parliament and among the great majority of the public, according to the polls.

Predictably, Andrew also provided the perfect cover topic for the latest Private Eye. With an image of him in full pomp and ceremonial garb under the headline NEW TITLE FOR PRINCE ANDREW and the speech bubble, ‘It’s the Order of the Boot!’.

Heckling the king goes viral

On Monday this week, King Charles was heckled and ambushed by a protester as he left Lichfield Cathedral over Andrew’s relationship with the late paedophile billionaire Jeffrey Eptsein. It was only one man with an apparent Republican agenda but the footage of him shouting at the King: “Have long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew? Should MPs be allowed to debate the Royals in the House of Commons?”, inevitably made mainstream TV bulletins in the UK and around the world as well as going viral online.

Meanwhile good sources now suggest that the King is poised to tell Keir Starmer that he’s no longer opposed to the idea of parliament debating Prince Andrew and his titles or even potentially a cross-party parliamentary committee quizzing his disgraced brother under oath in what would be an historic twist if it does come to pass. It’s suggested Prince William is urging the shift toward greater transparency / accountability. Presumably because the future King is tuned in to the polls showing faltering support for the monarchy among younger generations. A trend the Andrew fallout can only reinforce.

(At the time of King Charles’s coronation, I wrote that Prince Andrew was the ticking timebomb who posed a far bigger threat to the future of the monarchy than Prince Harry on whom so much media and political focus had switched. As a lukewarm monarchist, being proven right isn’t a cause for celebration! I’m also one of the many acknowledged sources for historian Andrew Lownie’s best-selling book ‘ENTITLED’ which has done so much to expose the scale of the various Andrew / Fergie scandals.)

Last word goes to a very senior Labour backbencher resigned to the idea the prime minister will need replacing either after next month’s budget backlash or next May’s elections who put it to me: “Not for the first time, the prime minister misread the public and political mood music with his over deferential response to the Andrew revelations. But at least Keir displayed some fire in his belly over the ugly, divisive Pochin / Farage business. Whether he would have gone the full racism charge route without Wes Streeting leading the way is an open question.

“But the R-word is a valid weapon we’ll have to mobilise in the electoral battles to come against Reform whoever our leader is. So is the B-word … Brexit and Farage’s role in that disaster for our economy. It’s good to see Rachel Reeves finally linking the negative Brexit legacy to her tough budget to come.

“While strategically we need to capitalise on Farage’s history of praising Putin and originally mitigating his war against Ukraine. And we can’t keep running scared of condemning the dark underbelly of Donald Trump for fear of upsetting him and in the hope of future favour.

“The stark reality is that if his longtime pal Farage is ahead in the polls closer to the next general election, then Trump is very likely to interfere by urging the British electorate to vote Reform. Which could well backfire given the president’s deep unpopularity with the great majority of the public here. Here’s hoping anyway!”

Byline Times targets Farage

The Byline Times’ latest print magazine features a cover story headlined ‘NIGEL FARAGE’S PUTIN PROBLEM’ triggered by the September Old Bailey trial of Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, who pleaded guilty to eight charges of taking bribes for making pro-Russian statements when he was a UKIP party MEP and a close friend of Nigel Farage.

Later, Gill followed Farage when he quit UKIP in December 2018 and announced his new Brexit party with Gill the first UKIP MEP to defect to join him. It was during 2018/19 that Gill was finally convicted this September of having been secretly working for the Russians. It was an explosive case, claims the Byline Times, that was somewhat downplayed by pro-Farage UK newspapers. It did, however, get bigger play in the Welsh media, leaving Reform strategists trying to figure out how much it might have contributed to the party’s unexpected setback in Caerphilly.

Although there is no suggestion Farage knew of the looming bribery scandal when he appointed Gill as Reform’s Welsh leader, it’s nevertheless an embarrassment opposition party strategists plan to capitalise on during campaign battles to come. During the 2016 referendum campaign, Farage sang Gill’s praises telling the BBC his close ally “never ever let me down” and is “as honest as the day is long”.

The Farage / Gill connection

Over ten inside pages, the Byline Times investigation chronicles Farage and Gill’s history as close confidantes along with Farage’s record of praising or defending Vladimir Putin. While it’s true that the Reform leader has condemned Putin’s full invasion of Ukraine, during the referendum campaign, he sympathised with the Russian leader’s illegal annexation of Crimea, partly blaming it on ‘EU expansionism’ — a mitigation line also taken at the time by a certain Boris Johnson!

The Byline Times article revives Farage’s record as a paid broadcaster for the Putin-backed Russia Today TV channel until it was banned by the UK government as a Russian propaganda operation. It also recounts how at a plenary session of the EU Parliament on 16th September 2014, following Putin’s invasion of eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, both Farage and Gill made almost identical statements claiming that an “uprising” had overthrown the “democratically elected pro-Russian president”, Viktor Yanukovych. Their statements criticised the EU for supporting Ukraine’s Maidan Revolution.

For the record, the Maidan Revolution was a series of mass protests by pro-Democracy, pro-European Ukrainians that led to the downfall of the unpopular Kremlin puppet president at the cost of around 100 protesters’ lives. Yanukovych fled to Russia but was touted by Putin to return to lead Ukraine if his 2022 invasion had succeeded in overthrowing President Zelensky’s elected government,

Falling out of love with Nigel?

The Byline Times article also suggests the Gill scandal fallout has slightly cooled the Daily Telegraph’s “love in” with the Reform leader. In a stinging op-ed entitled ‘Farage has a Russia problem’, the Torygraph’s chief foreign affairs commentator, David Blair, warned: “Now that Nigel Farage is a potential prime minister, his views on international crises suddenly matter a great deal…And the problem is that Farage has a long record of falling for even the most inventive of Kremlin cock-and-bull tales. His response to Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 proved his willingness to believe Russian propaganda.”

Blair stressing that, although Farage has indeed condemned Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, his initial reaction on the day Putin’s troops crossed the border was to still repeat the Kremlin’s “cover story that the whole tragedy was a consequence of EU and NATO expansion”.

Interestingly, Reform UK’s initial reaction to Nathan Gill’s September Old Bailey conviction was to state that Nigel Farage barely knew him. But when a series of photos of them together on key occasions emerged to tell a different story, Farage effectively corrected the party’s misleading original statements, although it took a fortnight in the midst of the Caerphilly election campaign for him to do so. The Reform leader has been at pains to deny that he had any knowledge of Gill’s history of secretly visiting Ukraine to liaise with pro-Putin allies active there.

Needless to say, copies of the Byline Times special issue have been circulating widely this week among the ranks of anti-Reform parties in the corridors of Westminster. The Gill case was also the main thrust of LibDem leader Ed Davey’s PMQs questions on Wednesday with Keir Starmer responding with the claim Reform’s Putin friendly history would undermine NATO’s trust in Britain.