Sometimes I have a lost weekend. Say I’ve had a particularly long and stressful planning committee arguing over and over again the case against HMOs, or maybe the caterers have provided the wrong kind of vol au vent at the Campaign against Poverty Buffet Lunch. You just have to get away for a bit and recharge your motors. Someone writes down a place and hands it to me in an envelope and I just go there. This week I went to Rye in Sussex. Rye is a charming little hilltop town overlooking Camber Sands, that popular film location where they not only filmed Dunkirk but also Carry on Follow That Camel. In Rye there’s no High street left, mainly cafes and antique shops blend in with the still preserved historical remains. But this adds to the charm. You should use your history. You too can be a tourist destination. All it takes is to convince people that you are one. I’m not at this stage advocating the rebuilding of Bridgwater Castle.

Nigel Farage has had a lost month. It culminated last Thursday in the totally unnecessary Clacton by election costing £250,000 to the taxpayers in the misguided hope that the voters of Clacton re-electing him against a dustbin would somehow mean he didn’t have to face an enquiry into his dodgy finances. It doesn’t. He still has to. Explain that £5m Nige. Go on.

I was in the Southeast so I couldn’t resist driving up to Clacton on election day to see for myself what it was all about.

In Clacton most banks are gone and empty shops are everywhere.  Like the other towns that voted in Reform MPs (Skegness, Great Yarmouth) there’s a very 1950’s feel with big amusement palaces of gold on sticky back plastic. These people don’t just live in the past they live with it. In the distance was the future. From the sweltering heat of the beach, through the burning limbs of the pier you could see the wind turbines on the horizon fighting back against climate change.

I headed for Clacton Town Hall. That’ll be where it’s all happening. Chief Executive of Tendring District Council, Ian Davidson, was on the door and made a beeline for me. He’d obviously recognized another civic leader of reputable status. “If you’re not voting can you please move away from the queue”.

Who are you calling a Lefty!?

I momentarily joined the Swedish TV reporter filming a stand-up row between a  haughty bespectacled Tory Boy with attitude  in a Reform rosette and a lady twice his age wearing a home made ‘Vote Binface’ badge. ‘Fascist!’ she called, ‘Lefty!’ he called back. ‘I’m a member of the Conservative Party!’ she replied.

The Chief Executive came over to see if I was alright. I was. I hadn’t yet talked to Reform Man. Davidson was the returning officer and would be on telly later reading out the list of 33 pointless joke names. And Count Binface. He knew Bridgwater. He knew Somerset. His county was about to go through Local Government Re-organization like ours. I asked him about civic pride. “Clacton doesn’t have a town council. But Harwich is part of Tendring District and they do. That’s where they brought in the Kinder Transports in World War two.” I don’t know if he knew Bridgwater’s Czech connection but the Kinder transport was the name given to the rescue of 1000’s of refugee children from Prague to save them from Fascism. Apt.

Where is anybody from…..?

Reform Boy tried to canvass my vote. “Where are you from?” “Leeds” I said (showing him the evidence on my passport). “That’ll go Reform soon” he said in that ‘tomorrow belongs to me’ kind of way. “I attended a conference there and we filled the place. Although they did try to make me stay in a Premier inn and I wasn’t having that!” Good for you mate, if they’re not good enough for asylum seekers you show some solidarity. “Who would you vote for if you could?”  There’s no Labour candidate, so it’d be Binface. He looked crestfallen as if his narrative no longer added up. “Well, anyway, HE won’t win. I’ve taken out a £50,000 bet on Nigel winning and I DON’T intend losing that!” I’ve never wished so much for someone to lose a bet.

He won his bet and like the 1000s of other Argentina coloured rosette wearers he partied the night away at nearby Farage Fest in a field next to the village of Weeley (which Binface had naturally declared would be HIS HQ).

Of course, Farage was re-elected. Against a dustbin. But there was a 27% swing to that dustbin. Now a ‘swing bin’.

This was a People v The Establishment election. The Establishment had won. The people still hadn’t realized