Tag Archives: Selby

Diary Blog, 27 September 2026

Afternoon music

On the blog 3 years ago

On the blog 2 years ago

On the blog 1 year ago

Latest Bealtaine Cottage vlog

The “traveller” disease

https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/26581543.two-donkeys-drugs-counterfeit-cash-seized-selby-area

“Two donkeys, Class A drugs and counterfeit cash have been seized as part of a major police operation in North Yorkshire.

Police carried out an animal welfare warrant alongside the RSPCA, North Yorkshire Council and Trading Standards, where two donkeys were seized over concerns about unnecessary suffering.

The donkeys were found among other animals, and the site was also issued a number of animal welfare notices.

North Yorkshire Police said: “Officers and partners also identified suspected illegal puppy breeding, which is now subject to further investigation and enforcement activity.”

In Selby, officers executed a drugs warrant where a quantity of Class A drugs and counterfeit cash were found.

One person was arrested as part of this investigation, police confirmed.

Meanwhile, officers working with the DVSA filed 14 Traffic Offence Reports in Escrick – one of which involved a vehicle being seized for being driven with no tax and another seized for no insurance.”

[York Press]

The words “traveller”, or “Irish tinker” are nowhere to be seen in that news report. Self-censorship.

The huge nuisance of the so-called “travellers” has to be addressed as a matter of urgency once Britain has a real government, one that cares about the British people, the environment, animals, and birds.

One —yes, admittedly, very unpleasant— day, and the whole problem would be solved forever.

Tweets seen

Well, that probably means that Switzerland will join much of the rest of mainland Europe in being devastated, somewhere not far down the line.

https://tass.com/world/2193617

Russia now has about 2 years in which to conquer and hold (at least) the whole of Eastern Ukraine. Attrition alone cannot do it in the time available.

Images not clear enough to make a definite judgment.

The bigger issue, of course, is whether the UK should be hosting or facilitating American air operations at all. I say not.

The “Socialist Worker” mob, the ever-present and inevitable “Socialist Worker” mob. I can recall them (at least, their nominal forbears in political stupidity) as long ago as 1975, when I was 18. I am now 70.

Complete idiots. The political equivalent of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Noisy irrelevances.

I believe that the Socialist Worker Party was started and led at first by a Jew called Ygael Gluckstein, who used the Anglicized nom de guerre “Tony Cliff”. According to Wikipedia, it now has a notional membership of 6,000, of which the core membership is about 2,000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_(UK). I believe that the membership was at one time (1970s) rather higher in number.

The “SWP”, as mentioned, has been a fringe or crank party for about 76 years, under a few names (as “SWP” since 1977). You would think that, after 76 years, its adherents would by now understand that they are going nowhere. I suppose that, as implied, the members are not the most intelligent or mentally balanced in the political realm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_(UK)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Workers_Party_(UK)

I see now from Wikipedia that Gluckstein/”Cliff” went up the chimney in 2000, and that others are now in charge of the splintered SWP.

The most recent “leader” of the SWP seems to have been “Comrade Delta”, aka one Martin Smith, who however was removed after he allegedly committed rape and sexual assault against members. The other “leader” noted by Wikipedia is one Alex Callinicos, of partly (Southern African) Greek origin, and who is now 76: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Callinicos. Surprisingly, Callinicos is descended from (is the grandson of) the famous Lord Acton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton,_1st_Baron_Acton.

In the manner of, as already noted, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Salvation Army bands at Christmas-time, the SWP’s presence (being noisy and objectionable) at by-elections seems to be unavoidable.

Incidentally, but interestingly, the Callinicos person is related, via his grandfather Lord Acton, to the Austro-German (though also part-Jew) nationalist Count Arco auf Valley [1897-1945] who assassinated the Jew Kurt Eisner, the revolutionary socialist who became President of the short-lived People’s State of Bavaria (November 1918-February 1919).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Graf_von_Arco_auf_Valley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Eisner.

Looking at a longer version of that clip, it seemed to me that the political cretins of the SWP today are in every respect indistinguishable from those of several decades ago. They look the same, have the same or virtually the same placards, shout out the same tired “antifascist”/”antiracist” slogans. Nothing has changed…except the whole world and society around them. They should be in a museum (perhaps with the advances in robotics and AI, they eventually will be).

More tweets seen

Ha ha! Deport Tugendhat to his beloved Israel. He has relatives there…

More seriously, the “Conservative” Party must be getting really desperate now. Latest poll had them on 17%, and personally I should not be surprised if they get only 15%, maybe even as low as 10%, should the next general election only be held in 2028 or 2029.

Much more difficult in a relatively small and crowded country such as Britain. Still, on the right road, I think. I have blogged a bit about “prepping” in the British/European context (as distinct from North America, Australasia etc). Use the search box on the blog.

Starmer-stein’s mandate, as Prime Minister, was very doubtful: in 2024, in rough terms, out of every 20 eligible voters, 8 did not actually vote, 4 voted Labour, 3 voted Con, 2 voted Reform, 2 voted LibDem, and 1 voted Green. Labour was voted for by 4 out of 20 eligible voters (4 out of 12 actually-voting voters).

Burnham has merely inherited Starmer-stein’s purple (via the equivalent of a palace revoilution) and, naturally (in political reality, if not in strict British Constitutional terms), has far less of a mandate than Starmer-stein. He has no programme beyond that of trying to please as many likely or potential voters as possible. He is totally out of his depth in every way.

Salutary tale

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16154307/Swedish-Piddington-BANNED-migrants-13-years-1988-Sjobo-shocked-Europe-controversial-referendum-Nearly-40-years-later-wish-ban-voted-never-lifted.html

“It is a familiar political story in a place that became infamous almost 40 years ago, when many of its residents voted to reject the arrival of refugees, in a referendum that sent shockwaves across Sweden and Europe.

In 1987, Sweden adopted a new strategy to distribute refugees more evenly across the country, and asked Sjobo, then a town of around 15,400, to take in around 15 people.

‘Anyone can understand that the next generation of Swedes will no longer be blonde and blue-eyed,’ Sven-Olle Olsson, a municipal councillor who was vehemently opposed, said at the time. He organised a referendum on the issue.

The ‘No’ side won the referendum with almost 68 per cent of votes, triggering a political storm in the country.

There are parallels to be drawn from the case in the recent ‘independence’ referendum held in the British village of Piddington in a symbolic protest against plans to accommodate 1,250 asylum seekers in a nearby military site.

Things have changed ‘enormously’ in Sjobo since 1988, according to Ms Ramel, now a municipal councillor herself who is trying to change Sjobo’s image.

She said the municipality now fulfils its requirements by welcoming new arrivals, even taking in more than some other towns in the region.

The anti-migration Sweden Democrats emerged from the election as Sweden’s third-largest party, after winning 62 seats in the 349-member parliament. 

The party won 43 per cent of votes in Sjobo in the 2022 general election, still enjoying strong support in the southern town known for its contentious September 1988 referendum.

That support remained strong in this month’s election, with the Sweden Democrats taking more than a third of the vote in several of Sjobo’s polling districts.

The party won 38.8 per cent in Sjobo Linne, 33.8 per cent in Sjobo Emanuel and 36.1 per cent in Sjobo Farsinga in the parliamentary election.

‘In the end, Sjobo residents were right, if you want to put it that way,’ 89-year-old Bengt Lundgren, who voted for the Sweden Democrats in the recent election, said with a broad grin.

Sweden struggles to integrate its immigrants.

Around 20 per cent of its population is born abroad, according to 2025 data from Statistics Sweden.

The Oxfordshire village of Piddington held its own unofficial referendum over migration on September 16. 

Some 285 of the 312 residents who voted backed a symbolic declaration of independence from Britain, in protest at plans to house 1,200 asylum seekers at a former military base nearby.

The vote had no legal force, but campaigners hope the gesture will send a message to Westminster over the proposed asylum accommodation at the former Ministry of Defence site at Bicester.“

As far as I am concerned, if the Swedes become no longer really Swedish at all, there is no reason for that country to exist. Same goes, mutatis mutandis, for this country. See also:

We know what will have to be done in our country if we are to survive as a people, but we are not “allowed” to express it, let alone do it.

Talking point— free speech

https://www.prosperity.com/media-publications/reversing-britains-free-speech-recession

Worthwhile proposals.

See also: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/276bdafc2bc75a7a

Late tweets

As previously blogged, in purely careerist terms, Shabana Mahmood has “played a blinder”: a Pakistani woman whose only legal work background was a 1-year Bar pupillage, followed by a year or two as a “gopher” in a provincial firm of solicitors, gets into the old MP racket and is made “Lord Chancellor” and then Home Secretary! You couldn’t make it up! Now she invites thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, from some of the most backward parts of the world, arguably, to come and live as total parasites off the backs of the British people.

Britain, better said many of the British, seem to have a death wish. Would I be made a Cabinet minister, or even an MP, in Pakistan? I think not (yes, I know that the Mahmood woman was born in Birmingham. Do you really think that makes any significant difference?).

Completely wrong, and politically explosive. The Triple Lock is not “unaffordable“. Stop throwing billions away on “Ukraine” (Zelensky’s dictatorship), on the housing, feeding, and otherwise funding of the now millions of black/brown migrant-invaders; the same goes for other huge wastes of money (Britain just gave £650M to Angola, a country completely unconnected to Britain or its history, so that the corrupt and totally useless Angolans can improve their airport. That is only one of hundreds of examples).

I declare an interest. I myself do benefit, marginally, from the Triple Lock. My State Pension (only about half of the full rate, by reason mainly of my time overseas) does increase by a slightly larger amount by reason of the Triple Lock. We are talking about a few pounds, if that, per week…

Any political party, whatever the reason or excuse, binning the Triple Lock can consider itself binned forever by any voters aged, say, 55+ (pensioners and those who hurtle towards State Pension age).

The idea of a State social care service that works is a good one, albeit one that has been obvious, and the service obviously needed, for many years. It has to be paid for, and there have to be enough employees to operate it. So how will it be paid for, and from where will come the huge number of employees needed?

A corrupt, shambolic, thug-regime.

If the City of London falls away, the UK economy, as it now is, will nosedive.

I do not like to advise young people, say 18-30, to abandon this country, but I should certainly say (as have Nick Griffin and others) that they should at least leave London and the other larger conurbations (which are in any case becoming —or have already become— non-white). I can understand why so many are seeking other locations in the world, especially in the Anglosphere, for medium to long-term residence.

[“Russian missiles and drone aircraft are doubling the cost of the war for Europe.

THE RUSSIAN MILITARY IS INCREASINGLY EFFECTIVELY DESTROYING THE UKRAINIAN ECONOMY AND THE TAX BASE OF THE KYIV REGIME.

We are now truly at a turning point, where the policy of each player is being determined. Continued support for Ukraine will lead to the collapse of the traditional political system in Europe.

Russia should continue to destroy the tax base of the Ukrainian economy, thereby increasing the cost of the war for Europe, so that Europeans can consider whether they can afford to find an additional 30-40 billion at a time when opposition is growing in EU countries.

There is no guaranteed funding for Kyiv for the next year. If it becomes clear that Ukraine cannot last even a year, the question will be raised in the EU: why did we need all of this?“]

Britain could have cost-price oil and gas.

Leave NATO, close down U.S. bases (under RAF or other flag), and stop giving arms, ammunition, money, and other help to the corrupt Kiev regime. In return, cheap gas, cheap oil, and a guaranteed huge market in Russia for British goods and services.

[“Russia has reactivated the “Dead Hand” retaliatory nuclear strike system, according to The Sunday Times.
The publication reports that the secret underground complex, “Facility 1335,” linked to the Soviet “Perimeter” system, has been expanded in the Ural Mountains and is now fully operational again.
Its purpose is to ensure the transmission of retaliatory orders, even after a massive attack on Russia.
“]

Late thoughts

“Wars and rumours of wars“, to quote Revelation. There is certainly a good deal of chatter around. More seriously, i.e. in terms of actual events, the dial is being turned up in various ways: the situation in both the Persian/Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea; the intensification in and around Ukraine/Russia; the North Polar region (noting the new U.S. bases about to be constructed in Greenland); the uncertainty around the AI technology and the robotics technology (both in itself and around its possible economic and social effects); the continuing mass migration invasion of Europe; the increasing political instability in Europe.

When, rather than if.

Late music

Diary Blog, 21 July 2023, including some analysis of yesterday’s by-elections: Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Selby and Ainsty, Somerton and Frome

Morning music

{Palace of Westminster, with Portcullis House to the right]

Battles past

The three by-elections of 20 July 2023

Uxbridge and South Ruislip

The result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uxbridge_and_South_Ruislip_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s.

As I predicted on the blog a couple of days ago, this was a “battle of the apathies”. Complete “Conservative” omnishambles meets Labour mediocrity (both on the national and constituency levels).

The successful Conservative candidate drew a veil over both the non-performance of the Rishi Sunak government and the egregiously poor behaviour (and capabilities) of ex-MP “Boris” Johnson; the candidate just kept hitting at the ridiculous Sadiq Khan ULEZ scheme [“Ultra Low Emission Zone”], and saying very little else about anything.

In a sense that concentration on ULEZ shows how meaningless the supposed “democracy” of the UK now is. The ULEZ idea and policy was first mooted by none other than “Boris”-idiot and the Conservative Party in London. Quite apart from that, the new Con Party MP, one Steve Tuckwell [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Tuckwell] will be able to exercise precisely zero influence over the ULEZ scheme and Sadiq Khan.

The Labour Party candidate, Danny Beales, was arguably not a good candidate in the particular constituency, an outer London suburb. Gay, a former councillor in inner-city Camden, and a graduate of the London School of Economics.

That said, the result was close— 495 votes decided it. Both the LibDem voters (526, fifth place), and/or the Green Party voters (893, third place), had they voted tactically, could have prevented the narrow Con Party victory. Neither Greens nor LibDems had a chance of winning, and both lost their deposits, along with the other 13 candidates, all of whom could be described as either “minor” or “joke” candidates.

The actor Laurence Fox, for Reclaim, did well, in a minor way, to come fourth, not far behind the Green. Still, this was really between Con Party (13,965 votes, 45.2%) and Labour (13,470, 43.6%). The other 15 parties and independents only scored 11.2% between them.

It does puzzle me why LibDem voters in particular did not all vote tactically. Some did, plainly, looking at previous election results where the LibDem vote was higher by far (peaking at 20% in 2010, though only 6.3% in 2019), but not enough.

Why did 526 LibDems bother to trot down to vote, knowing that their candidate had no chance? Even if they hated both Con and Lab, and so were unwilling to vote for either, why bother to vote? As someone said of golf, “a good walk spoiled“.

So a Conservative Party win, though scarcely a ringing endorsement.

Turnout was about 2/3 of that in 2019, and indeed the previous elections. I am assuming from that that many former Conservative voters, in what was since creation in 2010 a fairly safe Conservative seat (a new seat on these boundaries), just threw up their hands in disgust at both main System parties, could find no other home for their votes, and so “voted with their feet”— abstained.

Selby and Ainsty

The result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selby_and_Ainsty_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s.

The successful Labour candidate is 25, once again (like the Labour candidate at Uxbridge) gay (seems that it is almost compulsory now in the Labour Party), and has only worked for 18 months since leaving university. Interestingly, those 18 months were spent working at the Confederation of British Industry, a more usual place in which to find young Conservatives, surely?

Also, he spent some months in 2019 and 2020 working with Wes Streeting, the “centrist” (Labour Friends of Israel) MP. So it seems that Keir Mather will fit easily into the Keir Starmer Labour Party. Not much else is yet known about him: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keir_Mather.

Why did Mather win what had previously been regarded as a safe Conservative seat? As at Uxbridge, the implication is surely obvious: former Conservative voters were appalled at both major System parties, and so preferred to stay home rather than vote Labour (or elsewhere).

Mather scored 46% of the overall vote, as against 34.3% scored by his Con Party opponent.

Since the creation of the seat in 2010, the Conservative Party had won easily all elections, scoring between 49.4% (2010) and 60.3% (2019). Labour, however, had scored only around 25% of the vote, except in 2017, under Corbyn, when the Labour Party candidate managed over 34%.

The key here, as with Uxbridge, lies in the turnout. The by-election turnout was only 44.8%, whereas in 2019 it was 71.7% (and in previous elections, not dissimilar).

The implication, again, as at Uxbridge, is that former Conservative Party voters, in a formerly safe Conservative area, simply decided not to vote.

There was obviously a degree of tactical voting at Selby; the LibDem vote went down from 8.6% to 3.3%; without tactical voting, the result would have been much closer but not, in my view, different.

Incidentally, the LibDems only managed sixth place, no doubt because many otherwise LibDems voted Labour. The third place went to the Greens, whose candidate was the only one of the minor candidates to save his deposit (5.1%).

I was interested to see that a “Yorkshire Party” candidate, one Mike Jordan, who failed to fill in his nomination papers properly and so was a blank space (not even “Independent”) on the ballot paper, yet managed to score 4.2%. Not bad in the circumstances, and maybe a sign that localism, or at least regionalism, may be resurgent as central government falters and fails.

The Selby contest had other things in common with that at Uxbridge— contempt for the former MP (at Selby, he had stepped down apparently in order to damage Sunak and his party, and after having been passed over for a peerage); the fact that both seats were 2010 creations on their present boundaries; and of course the fact that the public are both despairing and angry at the overall non-performance by Sunak and his Cabinet. Mass immigration, migration invasion, cost of living increases, inflation, crime, NHS defaults etc.

The result was that Labour won at Selby, and very nearly won at Uxbridge, only by default. There is no enthusiasm at all for the Labour Party and its non-policies (basically the same as the Conservative Party policies), but equally there is no enthusiasm (and no respect) for Sunak and his Cabinet of (mainly) non-Brits (Indians, a black or half-caste or two, the odd Jew). These were by-elections. The ruling party is inevitably on the back foot.

Starmer’s strategy seems to be not to rock the boat now that Labour is ahead in the opinion polls. It is hard for Sunak and Con Party to score a hit on Labour’s battleship simply because Labour policy now so closely mirrors that of the Con Party. Almost indistinguishable. If the Conservative Party attacks Labour policy, it is to a large extent criticizing its own policy. In a sense, brilliant… but also dispiriting and pointless.

Somerton and Frome

The result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerton_and_Frome_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s.

The LibDem candidate, Sarah Dyke [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Dyke] won easily, as predicted. I blogged briefly about her a couple of days ago. Her vote-share of 56.4%, as against the Conservative candidate’s 26.2%, mirrors in reverse almost exactly the result at the 2019 General Election.

Third place went to the Greens, with a fairly sizeable vote (10.2%). Reform UK beat Labour and three minor candidates for fourth place, but still lost the deposit, with 3.4%.

In a mostly affluent and bucolic area of this sort, Labour has little chance, and its vote has dropped below 5% in the past, though it scored 17.2% in 2017 (under Corbyn) and 12.9% in 2019. It is clear that, realising that Labour had no chance, former Labour voters voted tactically at the by-election, and that Labour’s 2.6% vote reflected that.

Turnout was, as at the other by-elections yesterday, pathetic— 44.23%. That compares to 75.6% in 2019, and turnouts in previous election which only once dropped below 70%, and which once exceeded 82%.

The LibDems held Somerton and Frome until 2015, so were always going to have a chance in the seat, once the “Con Coalition” of 2010-2015 faded from immediate memory, though the damage from that was still evident in 2019, at which election the LibDems scored only 26.2% (exactly the same as the Conservative Party vote at yesterday’s by-election).

The conclusion is pretty clear: the Conservative voters of 2019 either stayed home yesterday, or switched to the LibDems, Former Labour voters switched to LibDem to hit out at the Sunak misgovernment.

As at the other two by-elections, the contempt many apparently felt for the ex-MP, Warburton, was certainly another important factor, though perhaps not the most important.

Overall conclusion as to the main System parties in the light of the by-elections

The LibDems only have a chance to gain seats in rural/affluent parts of southern or south-western England. I do not see them recovering in any big way elsewhere.

The Conservative Party government is toast, surely. It will have to fall back on its hard core, mostly fairly comfortably-off homeowners aged 70+.

Electoral Calculus is currently predicting only 100 Con seats at the expected 2024 General Election: see https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html.

475 seats for Labour. That is “elected dictatorship”.

I just tried the “user-defined poll” at Electoral Calculus. My guesses resulted in only 61 seats for the Conservative Party.

What about Labour? Well, I detect no real enthusiasm for Labour, which means that there is every chance that the new MP for Selby may only be an MP for about a year, and will then have to find a less well-paid and less interesting (?) job.

More seriously, the only way that Indian money-juggler Rishi Sunak could claw back some electoral support would be to STOP the boats, CUT BACK the main (i.e. “legal”) mass immigration, DEPORT hundreds of thousands, RENATIONALIZE water, rail and possibly the energy utilities, and start to really bat for Britain.

Those 2019 Conservative Party voters might return to the Con fold, but only if they see some action; words are played-out.

Still, none of the three by-election seats are natural Labour territory.

Pretty hard, though, for an Indian whose Cabinet is mainly non-white, or Jewish, and who worked for the predatory Goldman Sachs bankers (and so is a globalist “libertarian” by instinct).

It seems to me a 50-50 chance that the Conservative Party MPs will ditch Sunak before the next general election, but if they do, who on Earth can they try to present to the public as a credible leader?

As for attacking Starmer, the only things that might work would be to use American-style personal attacks, and to focus on his complete mendacity, his broken promises, on his “taking the knee” to the “Black Lives Matter” thugs, and his being completely in the pocket of the Jew-Zionist/Israel lobby (the only thing is— so are the “Conservatives”…).

Conclusion, then— Labour will probably win in 2024 by default, but if some real movement on the above-designated issues were to happen, it might be a different story…

Tweets seen

Biden: “What was that slogan? Bread, land, and peace? No, my fellow-Americans, it was ice-cream and war!“…

At least the sparrows will be eating.

There are really only two realistic possibilities: either she is Johnson’s secret daughter (one of them) or she was being screwed by him. It now turns out that she was only a kind of temp anyway, covering the job usually done by a recent mother. Maternity cover.

Britain is so screwed, it is hard to believe.

As for “Baroness” Chapman, she was an MP for 9 years (2010-2019), and then (having been voted out as MP) was elevated to the Lords on Starmer’s nomination, having previously done sweet FA by way of work in her life except a short time as the constituency manager for ghastly careerist MP Alan Milburn. So she can shut up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Chapman.

She is the mother of children, and that (and presumably being a “home-maker”) is a very honourable estate, but it is not the “real life experience” of work in the outer world, as per that clip.

As for Johnny Mercer MP, I have found him a big disappointment as MP, but I think that he can claim a great deal more “life experience” than “Baroness” Chapman, let alone that epicene little creature who is now the MP for Selby and Ainsty.

Many people on Twitter are incredibly ignorant and at the same time very dogmatic. I just saw a tweet saying that the Selby creature is “2-3 years older than Margaret Roberts [i.e. Margaret Thatcher] when she became an MP...”.

In fact, wrong, and on two counts. First, Margaret Roberts was born in 1925, and became an MP in 1959, shortly before her 34th birthday. She had married in 1951, so fought her first successful first election as Margaret Thatcher and not Margaret Roberts as claimed.

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher.

Well, there it is. Effete, epicene little “Labour MP” is going to support Starmer, Rachel Reeves etc in continuing the policy (policies?) laid down by the Con Coalition of David Cameron-Levita, Theresa May, “Boris”-idiot, Liz Truss, and now the Indian money-juggler, Sunak.

Anyone who thinks that Starmer-Labour will be in any way an improvement on the “Conservative” omnishambles of a Government is sadly mistaken; in fact, deluded.

Actually, listening to Keir Mather there, I think that “Lord Charles” would have sounded more credible.

[Lord Charles, with Ray Alan]

To be honest, my first thought on seeing and hearing Keir Mather is that he seemed to be in need of a good kick.