Oh what a glorious day was Thursday the 1st of whatver, nineteen seventy… sorry!, twenty-twenty… 2 days ago. Possibly 2 nights ago, because that’s when it alllllllll happened.

Tottenham Hotspur, the greatest team the world has ever seen, according to the song, at least, went to Runcorn and won the bye-election for the Reform party of Faragers. They won 6-nil. By 6 votes, same difference.

The team they played were from an arctic Norwegian town called Bodo which has a population of 53,000 people. Most of them Norwegians. That’s 10,000 less than the capacity of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium of magic and wonder. But I don’t think they all came to the match.

Joey went. Even though he’s not old enough to vote. His first ‘evening match’. Allowed ONLY because it was a truly massive game. A European semi-final. And he had to be there. The fact that Spurs won is almost as unbelievable as it is amazing and fantastic. We beat the Norwegians 3-1. But now have to travel to the arctic circle to play the second leg on their plastic-grass pitch in a stadium which holds 8,200 people. The same number you get on a really busy bus in rush hour. Give or take.

Joey won’t be going to that one. No-one’s going to that one. You fly to Oslo then get a bus to somewhere unpronounceable, a train to somewhere with a weird name and finally travel for 17 hours on a husky sled across the frozen tundra. Joey would miss maths. And probably phonics as well if the huskies need to eat.

Reform won big too. Spurs won 3-1, they won 627- not many. And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing because the government are shit, and governments never do well in local elections even if they are good. The Tories are a spent force who failed to achieve the headline issues in their 14 years in charge. The Lib Dems don’t matter, nor do the Greens. And they don’t matter because they’re perceived as ‘soft’. In particular on immigration. Reform’s trump card. It’s always been seen as Farage’s issue. And rightly, he talks about it for the problem it is. And it resonates.

Therefore, ‘the nation’ (the 30% who got to vote for their local councils) voted based on immigration, for local councillors who have nothing to do with any relevant policies. No-one knows how Reform feel about the cost of rubbish collection, the epidemic of pot holes or the massive problem of social care. Local government issues. Instead they simply stated, loudly a very clearly, that they’re not happy with the country’s immigration policies.

There is no ‘second leg’ for local elections. But I’m voting for Spurs next Thursday at Bodo/Glimt. With Nigel Farage scoring a hat-trick.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx