Westminster Views | rogergale

Gale's View

Summer 2026

If the purpose of the Parliamentary summer recess is to provide politicians with a period of peace and quiet then somebody plainly forgot to tell the politicians.

July and August, together with the first few days of September, have provided enough material to keep the political commentariat in gainful employment for months and, rather more importantly, have seen Britain acquire yet another Prime Minister.

For those who have lost count – and I would not blame you – Andy Burnham is our seventh Prime Minister in ten years.

I have served in the House of Commons under Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer and now Mr Burnham.

I am beginning to feel that perhaps it is not them. Perhaps it is me.

EXIT SIR KEIR

The departure of Sir Keir Starmer can hardly have come as a complete surprise.

Having led the Labour Party to an enormous Parliamentary majority in 2024, he managed the remarkable feat of converting electoral triumph into political misery in remarkably short order.

There were mistakes, U-turns, rows over welfare, continuing difficulties over immigration and, perhaps most damagingly, an increasing sense that the Government had lost both its direction and its ability to communicate with those who had elected it.

Sir Keir is, I believe, a decent and honourable man. I disagreed with much of what his Government did, naturally, but those who now seek to rewrite history should remember that he led his Party from the wilderness into Government and, internationally, was a steadfast supporter of Ukraine at a time when President Zelenskyy needed friends.

Politics, however, is an unforgiving business.

Andy Burnham’s return from Greater Manchester, via the Makerfield by-election, transformed the Labour leadership contest and on 20 July he entered Downing Street as Prime Minister.

The “King of the North” is now King – metaphorically speaking, of course – of rather more territory.

I wish him well.

That may sound a strange thing for a Conservative Member of Parliament to say about a Labour Prime Minister but I have never subscribed to the increasingly fashionable view that everyone wearing a different coloured political rosette must therefore be either an idiot or a villain.

Mr Burnham and I will disagree about a great deal. His enthusiasm for returning great swathes of the economy to public control does not, I confess, cause my Conservative heart to beat faster.

But his determination to move power away from Whitehall and to reconnect politics with communities is something with which I have rather more sympathy.

Whether he succeeds is another matter.

THERE IS NO MONEY TREE

The new Chancellor, John Healey, has inherited a Treasury cupboard that is not exactly overflowing.

He has promised fiscal discipline while the Prime Minister has simultaneously promised greater investment in public services, social care, defence, transport, energy and goodness knows what else.

Both propositions are individually attractive.

Making them coexist is the clever bit.

Mr Healey will deliver his first Budget on 28 October and has wisely declined to spend the intervening weeks providing a running commentary upon which taxes he may or may not alter. He has, though, recommitted himself to the fiscal rules and says that economic growth must reach every part of the country.

Those of us representing coastal communities have for far too long watched Governments of all colours talk about “levelling up”, “regional growth”, “devolution” and a variety of other fashionable phrases while investment continues to gravitate towards the metropolitan centres.

Mr Burnham understandably believes that Manchester demonstrates what devolved government can achieve.

Manchester, however, is not Herne Bay, Sandwich, Thanet or rural Kent.

Devolution that simply transfers decisions from one remote bureaucracy to another is not devolution at all.

Real localism means trusting real local communities.

That is a distinction about which I suspect I shall have cause to remind the Prime Minister.

THE ECONOMY

Inflation has fallen considerably from the painful levels experienced following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent energy shock, although nobody struggling with a supermarket bill or mortgage needs a politician to tell them that prices remain too high.

The Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75 per cent at the end of July.

Unfortunately, renewed instability in the Middle East threatens once again to push energy prices and therefore inflation upwards.

Governments like to claim credit when inflation falls and blame international events when it rises.

The truth, inconveniently, is usually somewhere between the two.

What matters to my constituents is not an economist’s chart but whether the weekly shop costs less, whether their mortgage or rent is affordable, whether businesses can invest and whether their children can find decent jobs and somewhere remotely affordable to live.

Those are the tests against which Mr Burnham’s economic programme will ultimately be judged.

IMMIGRATION

Then there is the issue that successive Governments appear capable neither of resolving nor escaping: illegal immigration.

By the beginning of September some 16,500 people had crossed the Channel in small boats this year.

While that is substantially fewer than at the equivalent point last year but it remains 16,500 too many.

But let’s not kid ourselves.

For those of us living on the Kent coast this is not some theoretical Westminster debating point. We have witnessed at first hand the consequences of a broken asylum system and criminal gangs prepared to make fortunes by placing desperate people into dangerously overcrowded boats.

Britain has a proud history of offering sanctuary to those genuinely fleeing persecution.

We also have every right – indeed an obligation – to control our borders.

Those two statements are not contradictory.

Nor, however, should legitimate concern about immigration ever become an excuse for intimidation, hatred or violence.

The scenes surrounding some recent anti-migrant demonstrations have been deeply depressing.

Attacking police officers does not make somebody a patriot.

Wrapping yourself in a Union Flag while behaving like a thug merely insults the flag.

REFORM

Which brings me inevitably to Mr Farage and Reform UK.

I have never doubted Farage’s considerable ability as a political campaigner.

He has identified and exploited a very real sense of frustration among voters who feel that Westminster has stopped listening to them and the mainstream political parties would be extraordinarily foolish simply to dismiss those people.

We Conservatives in particular have to understand why voters who supported us in the past have looked elsewhere.

But identifying grievances is not the same as governing.

It is very easy to stand outside the tent explaining that everything is hopeless and that everybody inside it is incompetent.

Eventually somebody asks what you would actually do.

Reform has also discovered during the summer that a Party which makes much of the alleged shortcomings of the political establishment will itself be subjected to scrutiny.

Two senior officials have been suspended following allegations concerning attempts to circumvent political donation rules. Farage says that Reform has broken no law and that must, of course, be properly investigated before conclusions are drawn.

The presumption of innocence applies to politicians too – even Mr Farage.

But there is a wider lesson here.

Politics is generally rather more complicated than the people offering simple answers would have you believe.

UKRAINE

Away from Westminster, Vladimir Putin’s murderous war against Ukraine continues.

There must be no weakening of Britain’s support.

One of Sir Keir Starmer’s strengths as Prime Minister was his steadfast commitment to President Zelenskyy and Ukraine and I am pleased that Andy Burnham has made clear that Britain’s position will not change.

The Ukrainians are not simply fighting for territory.

They are defending the principle that a larger country cannot invade its neighbour, murder its citizens, seize its land and then expect the democratic world eventually to become bored and look away.

Putin believes that time is his ally.

We must demonstrate that he is wrong.

Mr Burnham’s early visit to Kyiv and reaffirmation of British support was therefore welcome.

GAZA AND ISRAEL

The tragedy in the Middle East is infinitely more complicated but no less appalling.

I have condemned without qualification the barbarity perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October and I shall continue to do so.

Israel has a right to exist.

Israel has a right to protect its people.

But Palestinian children did not carry out the atrocities of 7 October and the suffering of innocent people in Gaza cannot simply be dismissed as an unfortunate consequence of war.

Britain formally recognised Palestine last year.

Recognition alone, of course, creates neither peace nor a viable Palestinian state.

Ultimately there has to be a secure Israel living alongside a viable Palestinian state and political leaders on both sides prepared to recognise that neither people is going anywhere.

That may presently seem hopelessly optimistic.

The alternative is another generation of bloodshed.

And Argentina is once again seeking to lay claim to the Falkland Islands while the petulant man in the White House demonstrates a singular lack of solidarity with his transatlantic ally on the grounds that " you didn't support me" over his disastrous expeditions in the Middle East.

SOME SUMMER SPORT

Thankfully, the summer has not consisted entirely of politicians shouting at one another.

The Commonwealth Games returned to Glasgow between 23 July and 2 August and the much smaller, cheaper model appears broadly to have worked.

The Games featured ten sports rather than the nineteen staged in Birmingham four years ago and cost a fraction of previous editions. Whether that becomes the blueprint that secures the future of the Commonwealth Games remains to be seen, but Glasgow deserves considerable credit for stepping in and making it happen.

Wimbledon once again provided its annual mixture of triumph, heartbreak, strawberries and spectators apparently prepared to remortgage their homes for refreshments.

The football season has returned.

For some this will be a source of great joy.

For others, presumably, the season has already lasted too long.

And the Edinburgh Festival Fringe once again demonstrated that reports of the death of live entertainment have been greatly exaggerated.

Politics occasionally benefits from being reminded that there is a world outside politics.

BACK HOME

For us, of course, the summer recess is not really a recess.

It means rather less Westminster and rather more Herne Bay and Sandwich.

And there remains plenty to occupy us.

I have written before about my very considerable concerns surrounding National Grid’s Sea Link project.

What I find particularly unacceptable is the commencement of so-called “preparatory works” before the Secretary of State has even determined the Development Consent Order.

That appears to me to put the cart some considerable distance before the horse.

So on Parliament’s return I raised the matter directly with the new Prime Minister and asked him to intervene.

I am grateful that Mr Burnham undertook to look at the issue and I have written to him to seek to make certain that he does.

National infrastructure may be necessary but that does not give large organisations carte blanche to ride roughshod over local communities.

The people I represent are not an inconvenience to be managed.

They are entitled to be heard.

AND FINALLY…

Sir Keir Starmer has now announced that he is leaving Parliament altogether.

Having entered Downing Street with one of the largest Parliamentary majorities in modern political history, he leaves the House little more than two years later.

That is an extraordinary reversal of political fortune.

It should also serve as a warning to anyone who begins to believe their own publicity.

Political power is borrowed.

It belongs to the electorate and they can reclaim it with considerable enthusiasm.

Andy Burnham begins his premiership with a degree of public goodwill. Indeed, polling during August suggested that he was enjoying better personal ratings than any new Prime Minister for some considerable time.

Goodwill, however, has a notoriously short shelf life in politics.

He now has to govern.

For the Conservative Party the challenge is equally stark.

We will not regain public confidence merely by telling people that Labour is dreadful or by trying to out-Reform Reform.

We have to demonstrate that we have listened and learned.

I believe profoundly in a Conservative Party that is patriotic without being nationalist, fiscally responsible without being heartless, supportive of enterprise while recognising our obligations to those who genuinely need help, internationalist in outlook and rooted firmly in the communities that we represent.

Some might call that old-fashioned.

At my age I am unlikely to be troubled by the accusation.

Parliament is back.

The new Prime Minister has taken his place at the Despatch Box.

Kemi Badenoch is getting the measure of her new adversary.

The Chancellor is sharpening his pencil for October.

And your Member of Parliament remains, as ever, on the case.

FOR INFORMATION:

Assisted Dying

Not surprisingly I have received many communications about what has become known as the 'Assisted Dying Bill' which is due to be debated in the House of Commons on Friday.

As the senior member of the Speaker's Panel of Chairmen I presided over this piece of legislation in committee during its previous incarnation and in accordance with the rules of the House did not participate in further stages of the Bill.

I have offered my services to again chair the committee stage should the new bill pass its second reading and again in accordance with the rules will not be speaking or voting on this matter.

Historically my views are a matter of record but cannot and will not be allowed to affect my impartiality in the chair.