You can still see the precise moment this summer when politics slid off-script and in a new direction. It occurs in a video that opens in an old gym, where a returning officer is enjoying his big moment. Uxbridge in July, and the drama over who succeeds Boris Johnson as local MP is reaching its climax. The mood is less election night, more exhausted carnival: centre stage stands Count Binface; up front is the Monster Raving lunatic, almost hidden under his stetson – and here comes Laurence Fox, braced to lose yet another deposit.
Off to one side stand the two main men. They make an odd pairing: Labour’s Danny Beales, young, slim and stiff-backed, side by side with his Tory rival, Steve Tuckwell, who is some 20 years older. Both look queasy as the officer reads the numbers. By a tiny margin, the reds have lost. A government on death row, Johnson in disgrace, the buoyancy of Keir Starmer: none of it has been enough.
