I have recently come across the postings of two Southend politicians from opposing camps – David Burton-Sampson, Labour MP for Southend West and Leigh, who is also my MP, and Cllr Tony Cox, Reform UK, who is the Mayor of Southend for 2026/27 and leader of the Reform group in Southend.

David Burton-Sampson wrote a letter to Nigel Farage as leader of Reform UK, and to Tony Cox locally. In it he refers to the behaviour of certain Reform members as exposed in the recent ITV documentary, and he suggests a number of things Reform ought to be doing to prevent a recurrence.

I looked at the documentary myself, though not in its entirety, and I was similarly disgusted by what was shown. In that sense, Mr Burton-Sampson made some valid points.

My only concern is that the documentary and to an extent the letter, read as a hit piece. It focused entirely on the bad apples. In my experience, many Reform people I have met – and those who came from UKIP and later the Brexit Party – have been honourable people with a love for country and concerns over where it is heading that the other parties are unwilling or unable to address, who I have a lot of respect for. It is regrettable that none of the positives were not mentioned. There are always bad examples in every organisation.

As for the two men themselves: I have had dealings with both and found them to be pleasant, approachable and decent.

Mr Burton-Sampson has gone about supporting the local community and encouraging them in their endeavours, particularly, from my perspective, in the realm of homelessness. In fact, he was doing the very thing the MP he replaced, Sir David Amess, who was murdered five years ago, did. While at opposite ends of the political spectrum, they were both promoting our city and its needs, and both are to be applauded. I also noted recently that Mr Burton-Sampson made very generous comments about his predecessor.

Cllr Cox was leader of the Conservative group in Southend before joining Reform. I found him to be intelligent, capable and honourable in his dealings. I should note his new role however. As Mayor, the role is ceremonial and is expected to be apolitical. The main job inside the council is to chair meetings of the Full Council, and outside to be the figurehead for the whole city. A letter that is politically charged about grooming gang inquiries, Reform’s vetting, and Labour’s record sits awkwardly with that mayoral role, even though he remains Reform group leader. It would have been easier to make those arguments as group leader alone.

In criticising their letters, which is what I am about to do, I do so whilst respecting both people, but feeling both letters are what I would call typical politician letters seeking to score points, rather than dealing with the real issues that ought to be dealt with.

Politically, I am neutral. I neither support Labour nor Reform.

I used to support Labour, going back to when I was a child living on a council estate where the families living on it were mainly working class. I saw Labour then as champions of the underdog.

Over the years I have had many qualms about supporting Labour, and with the current regime, now led by Andy Burnham having recently replaced Keir Starmer, I have gone from being a wannabe Labour supporter to a canna-be Labour supporter.

As for Reform, I see them as addressing, or more relevantly, more likely to address, many of the issues that concern me, a lot more robustly than Labour have most recently demonstrated, such as an escalation in undesired immigration and the threat of an unholy Islamic Marxist alliance. A good recent example that shows Reform in a good light was when the church of my Street Preacher friend, Pastor Stephen Clayden, whose church is in Nigel Farage’s constituency, Clacton, was told by Colchester Council to put a curb on their open-air preaching activities but they were backed by Mr Farage when it came to challenging this decision – something I see as unlikely to happen under Labour, where two-tier justice and the punishing of free speech have significantly increased in recent years. Yet, as I see it, Reform don’t go far enough.

Moreover, the way the Reform leadership have pushed people like Rupert Lowe and Tommy Robinson under a bus in order to gain brownie points with disaffected people from other parties who might join them, the way they haven’t gone far enough on the rape gang scandal, or calling out the unaccountable globalists who actually now run the country and has been a disturbing feature of national life in recent years, or not calling out what I see as the bad side of Covid – the Covid scamdemic – makes me very suspicious of them.

If an election were called today, I wouldn’t vote for either party on party lines. I might, however, vote for the candidate who I think will do the most good, which is how I normally vote.

I think that it was important to lay my colours to the mast before I critique the two letters.

When I look at the letter that Mr Burton-Sampson wrote and the points he made, or the questions he asked of Reform about how they appoint candidates and ensure appropriate standards, the points seem to be reasonable and I wouldn’t deny any of them.

However, while he was pointing at the defects in the Reform party which were indeed exposed by the documentary, he did nothing talking about the wrongs within his own party.

In the social media discussion that took place following the posting of the letter, there was mention of, I believe, four ex-Labour lady councillors who withdrew from the party over allegations of misogyny and inappropriate behaviour.

I haven’t been able to fully ascertain all the rights and wrongs that led to this withdrawal, as I need to hear both sides of the story in order to come to a fully rounded view. But I know some of those ladies and have a great deal of respect for them.

It has also been alleged in that discussion that they approached Mr Burton-Sampson and were dismissed by him. If that is the case, that is a matter of concern. I have not been able to verify it, and Mr Burton-Sampson has not commented publicly on it that I have seen.

This whole misogyny business is important. Cllr Cox does not go into detail about the four ladies, but he does draw attention in his reply to the way certain lady Labour members were treated and stating that this was a matter of concern. He also went on about other unsavoury shenanigans initiated from the Labour side. If you are going tip for tat, as both letters do, that is a valid point to make.

I also find the way Mr Burton-Sampson ended his letter about public expectations of their MP or their locally elected representatives is something I couldn’t disagree with. But given how bad the Labour party is on many things that I have written about in my blogs and will write about again, and when I see him stand up from time to time saying what a jolly good job Labour are doing for the country, I just wonder what planet he is living on. The standards I expect from my elected representatives by serving the people are not being met and he should be looking to attend to the plank in Labour’s eye before the mote in Reform’s before casting aspersions.

As for Cllr Cox’s reply, one telling paragraph was those concerning those in elected office who do things that come under suspicion and likely no amount of vetting and or background checks would prevent this. He mentioned the neighbouring Labour MP in Southend East and Rochford, Bayo Alaba, who had the whip removed after being under investigation over unpaid bounce-back loans, and former local Labour Councillor Gabriel Leroy who had to resign from the council and is currently awaiting sentencing for vote rigging.

He has a point that no vetting system is perfect. But his reply otherwise grudgingly recognises that the points made in the documentary have some validity, then says little more than they do their due diligence and checks locally. It does very little to allay legitimate qualms about the infiltration of these bad apples within the Reform party. I think he should have spent more time addressing that concern rather than, like politicians typically do, putting the attack on the other side.

I also feel he has rather put a gloss on the rape gang scandal – e.g. the main perpetrators of these awful crimes were Pakistani Muslim men. The reality was it was Rupert Lowe doing the digging deep and not the Reform party who tried to fully expose the whole thing.

In the end, both letters left me disappointed. Both men, in my reckoning, mean well and are capable. But both letters are what I would call typical politician letters, more interested in scoring points off each other than in dealing with the real issues – standards in public life, how parties vet candidates, how women who raise concerns about misogyny are treated and dealing with the issues that matter. Southend deserves better than point-scoring. It deserves elected representatives who will look at their own parties as hard as they look at the other side, and who will listen to those they were elected to serve, not just their own or their party’s agenda, especially as now as the country is led down a disastrous path.