A shadow has fallen over Metroland. It has an ample belly and a distinctive outline of carefully unkempt hair. If shadows had colour you wouldn’t need me to tell you this one is blond (but not dyed, it would insist pointedly). Poor Uxbridge and South Ruislip, what did it do to deserve this? The answer is: be a Conservative safe seat sat in by Boris Johnson.
His dramatic resignation last month has focused the eyes of the world (genuinely) on this patch of north-west London. The circus has come to town. Labour’s candidate, Danny Beales, has fielded (and rejected) requests from Le Monde, the New York Times, as well as German media. When I visit I can’t stop bumping into fellow journalists. But Johnson’s presence is a ghostly one. Even the man hoping to become his successor, Tory candidate Steve Tuckwell, has only had 30 seconds on the phone with the former PM. Johnson asked him if he’d read his Daily Mail column.
Johnson’s gravitational field still exerts pull after his (political) death – everyone wants to know who will replace him. They will find out the answer tomorrow, though the deeper question — of who will replace him in our politics — will remain. The funny thing is, neither of the main two parties in the running for this seat want to talk about him. Beales, the young sharp Labour man with a moving personal history (he was made homeless twice while growing up), chooses to focus on the cost of living crisis. Likewise, his Tory opponent Tuckwell refuses to be drawn on the partygate farrago.
It’s a reflection of how closely fought — and totemic — this battle is that both men, as soon as the Dictaphone starts recording, stick artfully to their scripts. They are media trained to within an inch of their lives. Ulez, cost of living, Hillingdon Hospital — these they will talk about at length, but not Johnson.
There is one candidate I speak to, though, who will. Blaise Baquiche, a former Tory adviser turned Lib Dem, tells me, “I wanted to send a message to the Tories about partygate. It’s personal for me. I lost my father, who I lived with, to Covid in the very week that Johnson partied.”
Baquiche, though, doesn’t seem to be finding much support for his message. One woman, when he told her he was the Lib Dem candidate, cooed at him as if he were an exotic bird, or a puppy. He stands no chance of winning but is fighting the seat not just out of anger over partygate but because of the somewhat unfashionable reason that he believes in Liberal principles. He has a believable plan for what he’d do in the unlikely event of victory.
If only the same could be said about some of the other candidates making up the 17-strong by-election list. Apart from the mainstream parties, what voters have got looks like a kaleidoscope of chancers, loons and jokers.
Count Binface claims to be an intergalactic space lord, though he strikes a very nuanced position on Ulez
For the latter, take Count Binface, who wears a bin on his face. He claims to be an intergalactic space lord, though he strikes a nuanced position on Ulez. “There are numerous constituents who truly cannot afford to pay the new levy during the cost of living crisis, yet at the same time London’s pollution is a threat to public health. Speaking as a lifeform with a bin for a head, I know a thing or two about breathing difficulties.”
At least he’s raising money for the charity Shelter. Then there’s Laurence Fox and his Reclaim party. Actor- turned-politician Fox (who is a vaccine and climate change sceptic) has been making embarrassingly unfunny and creepy videos about looking for Labour’s Beales to ensure he’s “safe”.
There are a couple of anti-Ulez campaigners. One, Kingsley Hamilton, was charged with smashing up a Ulez camera last year. There’s the Christian Peoples Alliance, Ukip (remember them? Camilla Long once described Nigel Farage as “100 per cent political herpes. Back in six months whatever you do” — his ex-party Ukip are a similarly chronic condition), the Climate Party, the Social Democratic Party, Rejoin EU, and the Monster Raving Loony Party. Oh, and also Piers Corbyn, who once claimed Bill Gates was part of a conspiracy planning to cull the world’s population through the coronavirus vaccine. Corbyn was reprimanded at a recent hustings for heckling. Everyone, you see, wants a slice of the attention.
But the winner will be one of Steve Tuckwell and Danny Beales. Away from the stiff, formal interviews they loosen up. The likeable Tuckwell is playful with our photographer when we shoot him in the Conservative club, pulling poses from the Austin Powers film (including a hilarious, rather camp, tiger).
Beales, who seems wholly decent, confesses to me he’s struggling to sleep — and when he does he’s beset by dreams about the count. You realise how great the pressure must be on him, as Labour are favourites to take a seat they haven’t won since 1966.
While out canvassing with Tuckwell he tells me about his love of TikTok — “It’s a great way to relax, you can spend ages trying to find something on Netflix. It’s educational too”. He learnt a fact about Dick Turpin from TikTok (which he flexes into a rather trite anti-Ulez point) and knows a lot about bees, the result of watching a popular American beekeeper. I would like to tell you what it’s like going canvassing with Beales, but I only see him speak to a voter once.
Labour refuse to let me join them canvassing — they’re simply too busy (the same excuse they also tell other journalists). At my first meeting with Beales his press man doesn’t take his sunglasses off once.
One political journalist tells me it’s closer than Labour would like, which is why they’re skittish. It’s hard, too, not to see the firm hand of Keir Starmer and his office here. They don’t want to fumble this one. You can also understand why a party that’s had a tricky relationship with the media would be wary.
As for the actual voters, the ones the Tories meet in an affluent drive in Hillingdon are not Ulez fans. “I think he should be taken off this planet,” says one, coldly, about Sadiq Khan. Some just want a bit of integrity back. “Anyone but Boris,” says another, who is voting for Tuckwell. Others are unconcerned about Ulez but bothered about taxes, crime and schools.
It’s been an exhausting contest. The Tory man has racked up around 15,000 steps daily, the Labour man around 25,000 at his peak. Tomorrow, at last, this will end — and the circus can pack up.
