Why Labour did surprisingly well in the South of England yesterday

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One of the features of yesterday's local elections in England was that Labour managed to hold on to what the Telegraph calls "key southern outposts like Exeter, Southampton, Crawley and Slough".

Earlier today I heard someone on radio or the television suggest that this was because Jeremy Corbyn's views go down better with university-educated Southern voters than they do with more traditional working-class voters.

And I thought of the Richmond and Barnes constituency in the 1983 general election.

This was a knife-edge contest between the Conservatives and the Liberal Party (or Liberal Alliance, as we called ourselves in those days).

I was to find myself arriving on a doorstep 10 minutes before the polls closed, just as a Conservative activist arrived there too. We compared notes and found we were chasing the same voter.

The Liberals were eventually to lose by 74 votes and I am convinced we would have won with a more dynamic candidate.

On the last weekend of the contest the young activists (this was a long time ago) were sent out to call on the Labour supporters identified in our canvass and ask them to consider a tactical vote for the Liberals.

This approach received two distinct reactions. Working class voters were generally happy to consider the idea, even if they had a Labour posters in their window.

Middle-class Labour voters, typically teachers, however, were often offended to be asked. You had to vote for what you believed, they told me, even if your candidate had no chance of winning.

It is this second group of voters, I suspect, that Jeremy Corbyn appeals to. Which means that he may well be surprisingly successful in maintaining his party's Southern outposts.

But it also means that he may struggle to resist the appeal of Ukip to working-class Labour voters.

Incidentally, the Labour candidate I was urging people not to support was Keith Vaz. I think I did the right thing.

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Hinstock warehouse collapse: Worker freed after more than nine hours under cheese and shelving

The Shropshire Star wins Headline of the Day.

You will be pleased to know that Tomasz Wiszniewski has only minor injuries.

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Visit the Hammond Arboretum, Market Harborough, on Sunday

Liberal Democrat councillor Barbara Johnson has tweeted the news that the Hammond Arboretum at the Robert Smyth Academy, Burnmill Road, Market Harborough, is open to the public on Sunday.

It will be open between 2 and 4.30pm - adults £4, children free.

The tree expert, Owen Johnson, has described the collection there as being of national importance.

I visited it and blogged about it back in 2009:

When I heard that the Hammond Arboretum was going to be open to the public last Sunday I was keen to visit it. Because the last time I went there I got sent to the deputy head.

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Alan Moore on conspiracies

A convincing blend of paranoia and common sense.

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Andrew Neil makes Grant Shapps squirm on Conservative election expenses

"You knew nothing about this?" asks @afneil about Tory election spending claims

"No" says @grantshapps #bbcdp https://t.co/1yXp8VOYkC

— DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) May 4, 2016

From today's Daily Politics.

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The Men from the Ministry, Jimmy Clitheroe and my sense of humour

These days I find something too premeditated about televsion comedy. The idea of sitting down to watch something for 30 minutes because it will be funny, feels odd. I much prefer wit in the pursuit of another goal.

But the comedies we watch when we were young don't just form our sense of humour: they form who we are.

As I have blogged:

When I was in the sixth form ... we conversed using lines from Fawlty Towers and Reginald Perrin in the way Victorian schoolboys are supposed to have swapped Latin tags.

Recently Radio Four Extra, my new favourite station, has stated repeating two comedies that take me back further than that.

When I was 11 my favourite radio comedy was The Men from the Ministry. I suppose its anti-Whitehall ethos has its roots in post-war resentment of socialism by the comfortably off - think of the fuss over the Tanganyika ground nut scheme - but it was immensely good natured.

The comedy was in the hands of pros like Derek Guyler and Richard Murdoch,* and it managed to be funny despite, even because of, its formulaic plot.

Their General Assistance Department would have two projects on the go, get them mixed up (perhaps sending the letter referring to one project to the other and vice versa) and there would be a news bulletin describing the resultant chaos.

They would fear the sack, but then discover that their boss was happy with it for some reason and live to cause chaos another week.

So ingrained is the show's comedy in my own sense of humour that I recently heard a joke that I stole for one of the first couple of Lord Bonkers' Diaries. (It is a sobering thought that those first diaries are nearer in time to my 11-year-old self than they are to me today.)

But I can go back further than that.

Radio Four Extra has started to repeat The Clitheroe Kid, which was my favourite radio comedy when I was 8.

You'll get a good idea of Jimmy Clitheroe's schtick if you watch the video above of him with George Formby. He was the ultimate precocious, cheeky schoolboy.

Except that Much Too Shy was made in 1942 and Jimmy Clitheroe was born in in 1921. Which means that he was already 20.

Because Jimmy Clitheroe - and that was his real name - suffered thyroid gland a birth and never grew after the age of 11, remaining 4ft 3in tall.

So by the time I fell in love with his show in 1968, he was 47. He still turned up for recordings in schoolboy cap and short trousers, but he had the face if a middle-aged man. That is why his television and film career had foundered by then.

Jimmy Clitheroe  died in 1973, at the age of 51, after taking an overdose on the day of his mother's funeral.

And you thought Jimmy Krankie was disturbing.

* Richard Murdoch married into the family of Market Harborough's doctor. When he had his appendix out in the cottage hospital here he was plagued by urchins demanding to see "Stinker". He entertained them by putting his bare feet up on the windowsill and wiggling his toes.

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Hedgehog Awareness Week 1-7 May 2016

This is Hedgehog Awareness Week. The British Hedgehog Preservation Society website explains:

Hedgehog Awareness Week is organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and takes place every year. It aims to highlight the problems hedgehogs face and how you can help them. 

This year efforts are focused on strimmers and cutting machines – every year we hear of many terrible injuries and deaths caused by garden machinery. BHPS is asking people to check areas carefully before using any machinery. They have produced a sticker to be placed onto machines and are asking councils and tool hire companies to get in touch and request the free stickers for their machines. 

As well as checking areas before cutting there are other things we can do to help too:

• Ensure there is hedgehog access in your garden – a 13cm x 13cm gap in boundary fences and walls.

• Move piles of rubbish to a new site before burning it.

• Ensure netting is kept at a safe height. 

• Check compost heaps before digging the fork in. 

• Stop or reduce the amount of pesticides and poisons used. 

• Cover drains or deep holes. 

• Ensure there is an easy route out of ponds and pools.

I was struck by the Society's address. Dhustone is a former quarrying hamlet on the top of Clee Hill that gives the feeling that it was once more extensive than it is today.

I wandered round it years ago and remember spotting an old shop that had obviously been the post office. (In those days there was a phone box in the alley that ran up the side of it, which helped the identification.)

With the help of Google Street View I can confirm that this shop is now Hedgehog House.

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Latest Michael Crick report on 2015 Conservative elections expenses

Note that the Conservative police and crime commissioner for Devon and Cornwall was the party's election agent in one of the seats now under scrutiny.

Which could prove embarrassing for all concerned if she wins on Thursday.

Note too her reluctance to answer questions on the matter.

You can find earlier Michael Crick reports on this blog.

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"Labour is standing up, not standing by"

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That's what Jeremy Corbyn told the Welsh Labour Conference in February.

And that phrase has since been adopted as the party's slogan for this week's local elections.

But is it any good as a slogan?

Standing up for your principles or your friends is admirable. So is standing up to bullies.

Just standing up, however, is a pretty neutral act. (And it can be irritating to stand up if everyone else was sitting down.)

And then there is standing by.

Standing by while others suffer is a bad thing, but for the most part standing by is something positive. It means you are ready for action or there if you are needed.

If disaster threatened, you would be relieved to hear that the emergency services of the Army were standing by. It is what you would expect them to do. And, in the mean time, you wouldn't care if they were standing up or sitting down.

So "Standing up, not standing by" doesn't really work.

I suspect at the back of it there is an attempt to match Tony Blair's "I will not pass by on the other side."

But that a richness and biblical echoes (it came, after all, from Blair's early Son of God period) that Corbyn's slogan lacks.

Back to the drawing board, Christopher Robin.

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Thomas Denny's stained glass windows for Richard III

After last night's events I had to go into Leicester today.

I cannot claim there were remarkable scenes, but the commemorative Leicester Mercury was selling out as fast as they could print it. This is the first time I have seen people queuing to buy a local paper.

So I went to the Cathedral to thank Richard III, the man behind it all. Since he was reinterred there, Leicester City have not stopped winning.

I found they were flying the club's flag. More than that, I found a former boss of mine from Golden Wonder in clerical garb. I was impressed that she recognised me from almost 30 years ago.

And I also found the wonderful new stained glass windows by Thomas Denny, which depict the life of Richard.

The Leicester Cathedral website will tell you all about them, but the illustrations in that PDF do not do justice to their wonderful, soft, crayon-like colours.

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