I enjoy Sara Cox’s evening drivetime show. I sometimes wish I didn’t, but when you’re doing yet another 4-hour slog up the M1/M6 in evening rush hour traffic it’s perfect company.
And Zoe Ball can be OK in the mornings, although I’ll often tune into something with a bit less chatter unless I’m feeling particularly enthusiastic. Other than those two shows, R2 doesn’t really do it for me. And yes, Jeremy Vine is utterly off-putting.
We’ve seen this happen before, and it always ends in failure. A small number of Labour Party members leave the party in disgust, an even fewer number are angry enough and motivated enough to form a new party. It either fizzles out due to burnout, or gets invaded by Trots and destroyed from the inside.
The one example I can think of that’s survived for many years is Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, formed in very similar circumstances to now: a decaying, corrupt, widely-hated Tory government almost certain to lose the next election but the leader of the Labour Party (i.e. Blair) was in no way left wing or promising any socialist policies.
The SLP was set up in 1996 and is still going. After nearly 30 years, how much electoral success has it had? How many people other than ultra-committed political obsessives (such as us!) even know of its existence?
And now, my mind being what it is, I’ve immediately started wondering if Doctor Legg ever got a glimpse of Ethel’s little willy.