A bit of sour grapes, Nigel?

Many people in Labour will have mixed feelings about Christian Wakefield. But his defection was no sudden decision. He's been unhappy with Tory policies for a while (a mind-changer, definitely, on some) and has been contemplating this move for months. He's also worked closely with Barry Gardiner, who likes him and who encouraged him to join Labour. He's a Lancashire lad, from Burnley, hardly the most affluent area of the country, though his forays as a Tory in local government politics in the area centred more around the rural (Tory) parts around Pendle. I'm confident that he'll find that his true, natural home will be in Labour.

I know that constituency better than any other (as Dave will know). My mum was brought up in Whitefield, in a street that would have been just behind Morrisons, and went to school in Prestwich at Our Lady Of Grace. My grandad and uncle both played in Besses brass band, and grandad and grandma lived in a tiny council house in Whitefield. I was born and bred in Radcliffe, where my mum and dad lived all their 67 years of married life until my dad died in 2018, so I was up there an awful lot even though I moved away half a century ago. I watched the awful decline of Radcliffe from being a bustling and vibrant mill town with an amazing sense of community into a sorry, hollowed-out backwater with no secondary schools and just about the dowdiest town centre you've ever seen, made worse by being sliced in two by a huge arterial road, all-in-all a typical plight of many a northern town ignored by politicians.


On the day of his defection, Wakeford wrote, "the policies of the Conservative government that you [Johnson] lead are doing nothing to help the people of my constituency and indeed are only making the struggles they face on a daily basis worse." He wrote that he had no doubt his constituents would best benefit from his "joining a party that genuinely has their interests at heart."

I strongly feel, knowing the area as I do, that he's the sort of MP that's sorely needed there. As long as he remains sincere. A big if...