“I'm now operating as a freelancer in the wild west of local government”

We talk to Paul Francis, long-time journalist of Kent politics and newly minted freelancer

Paul Francis’ ‘Paul on Politics’ has been a significant part of Kent politics reporting this century. After a long and tenured career, he has now left the Kent Messenger and recently started his own Substack newsletter. We spoke to Paul about what led to that change, reporting on Margaret Thatcher in Finchley, and what he thinks will happen in Kent at the upcoming local elections.

Paul Francis

Why have you launched Paul On Politics on Substack?
Well, after several years working for the KM Group, I was ‘let go’ as you say, recently and felt that it was disappointing to have to give up a job I really liked. I wanted to keep my hand in really. I wasn't ready to sever the work link completely and felt I could still make some interesting contributions. I investigated the Substack option, which is also in its infancy in some ways and decided that was quite a good platform for me in this position as a freelance journalist.

Is there a paywall on your Substack, or is it all free to read?
I haven't reached those heady heights yet of paywalls. It's one step at a time for me at the moment, getting used to the way Substack operates. It's not as intuitive a platform as some others. I find it slightly complicated. The other thing is that as a freelancer now, I can pick and choose what I think are the interesting topics which don't sometimes get the oxygen of publicity that they ought to, and it's also offered me an opportunity to maybe do some reporting in a different style. I quite like parliamentary sketch writing and I'm going to try my hand at that. There'll have to be some kind of applause from the platform to find out whether anyone's enjoyed it or not.
A combination of factors have led me to where I am now. I'm still really at the early stages of working in a very different fashion to the way I used to when the news desks would be asking for you to trot out 500 words on this, that or the other. It's a different environment. This seems to be quite an interesting app and quite an interesting new platform. I've become a little less enthused by Twitter, or X as we should now call it, over the years. I know it's a cliche, but it's the keyboard warrior’s aspect of it, which I don't particularly like, and the kind of disinformation that is often found on there. Whether this new platform will work for me, I'm going to weigh that up, and we'll see how it goes. I'd certainly like to think there's an opening there which perhaps is not filled by other media.

You mentioned there about being able to write about things you wouldn't typically have done before. Can you give an example?
I've added something on the travel bus scheme that councillors routinely have to agree to an increase in the kids travel pass, and they all expressed dismay about the idea and then go and vote for it anyway. That's one thing I've looked at. I think the other thing is that there's more room for analysing data, I think, which is one thing which I felt I could have done perhaps better in the past. When the Freedom of Information Act came onto the statute books, it kind of converged with the new FOI legislation and the new rules on transparency. That's good in some ways and not in others because there's such an avalanche of data that pours down through your emails and on council agendas and other reports that it's quite difficult picking that stuff out, but again, I’ve perhaps got more time now to consider some those issues.

To clarify, when you say your time coming to an end at the Kent Messenger, that wasn't your choice?
It wasn't my ideal choice, but I was only presented with one choice. I’m not doing down the KM at all. I know the environment in which they're operating is tricky, but it was just a little bit disappointing. So yeah, for the record, I'm now operating as a freelancer in the wild west of local government. Where you target your enemies (laughs). I don't mean that. It's a way of continuing my involvement in covering politics, which I remain hugely interested and engaged by, notwithstanding the antics of some politicians.

Will you be covering the upcoming Kent local elections?
I hope to in some shape or form or fashion. In fact, the last time I covered it on the day was when Kent County Council, their results machinery collapsed. They had commissioned some company to do it all for them, and the company failed miserably in its attempts to provide a rolling results service. I think I was the only reporter at County Hall doing the general, “This is where we stand as things are,” et cetera. That was great for my Twitter followers but not altogether ideal.
I think it's going to be a very interesting election, just because of these new kids on the block or the old kids on the block in the form of Reform UK. Some people see a possible parallel with the incursion of UKIP back in 2013, when they actually came perilously close to winning a working majority or being in a position to form an administration. They didn't. They fell short by one, I think it was, but it was a very close call. I think some in that new incarnation of the Reform UK Party and others who don't support the mainstream party see an opportunity to make some kind of difference.

Do you think that the Conservatives will lose control?
I think there's a chance of that happening. I’m inclined to think that it's not quite as certain as some people would like to think that it is. There are around 80 councillors on the authority, and for a newish party to establish a foothold and become a presence is not going to happen overnight. The timing might not be good for Reform. They're beginning to have to address some of the issues and questions, not just around their programme of policies, etc. But in my view, not being able to define a mission statement which adequately captures all that they're about. With UKIP, it was a party which campaigned mainly on migration and asylum seekers and getting out of Europe. Once you get representation in parliament, you're operating in a different ballpark, and I think that's an issue for Reform. They have got policies, but it's across a very wide area and not terribly detailed in definitive proposals.

In the run-up to this election, we’ve had people going independent and we've had a councillor join Reform. We also had a councillor join the Heritage Party.
I saw that. I had never heard of the Heritage Party.
Are you aware of the councillor individually?
I've got no idea who the person is, I must say. It's interesting. Kent always gets a bit of attention because it's so large an authority, and this is why I retain an interest in politics. Some very big national issues are on Kent's doorstep or actually in Kent's house. Obviously, with the migration factor and Operation Stack, Brexit, very controversial. Kent's got a lot of issues that its politicians have got to get across and deal with.

With the election itself, for people who are used to the visual of the count occurring and being declared in a hall, with KCC, the counts occur at the borough level?
That's right, yeah. Each of the 12 district and boroughs in Kent, they will have separate individual counts for the elected councillors in their area. Canterbury will have five or six counts, Folkestone a similar number maybe. It will be the individual local district councils, in the form of the second-tier authorities, which actually do the count as it were, and then relay the results to County Hall, where there's a ‘Media Hub.’ You can't get anywhere without a hub these days.

As a reporter covering that at County Hall, are you alone in the room because all the councillors are in their individual districts?
Yeah, it's quite odd in some ways because, as you say, candidates usually pitch up at their own individual councils. County Hall won't have that many politicians there as the results come in, but they sometimes have activists to keep an eye on things. What tends to happen is when the count is finished, you will see councillors coming up to County Hall to celebrate or commiserate, as the case may be. Not everyone does that, of course. There was drama as I say, the year that UKIP almost grabbed control. As I said at the beginning, I'm not 100 % sure that they've got the wherewithal to make a significant mark on the results. I might well be proved wrong.

It is an interesting election in that regard. If the Conservatives don’t have the support to retain, and Reform can’t take control, who does that leave?
Well, it makes it very difficult to predict. The makeup of the county council is now very different to what it had been for decades rolling on a century in terms of the big parties. It's only been run by the opposition, LibDem and Labour parties in the mid-90s, if my memory serves me well. It's been under Conservative control for years. But slowly, the Green Party has made inroads into not just Kent County Council, but a lot of the other district and borough councils. All those little groupings together could add up to being the factor which tips it one way or the other. My guess is, or my best bet, would be for the Conservatives to retain control, but possibly without any kind of outright administration. It could be a bit like having a national government with the various parties deciding on whether to form a loose arrangement or a hard and fast administration.
I think the other thing that's quite interesting about the big timing is that Reform UK are quite new, and I think they're beginning to portray some of the symptoms of parties that have been around a much longer period of time. Nigel Farage has always said, ‘We're the people's party, we're not like the others, we do things differently.” Well, some people might look at what's been going on within the party and this row between Nigel Farage and another MP. They're showing some tensions, which won't necessarily cost them seats particularly but might curb the overall vote that they get. It's difficult once you're in parliament, and it's not that they shouldn't be in parliament. You operate in a different manner in some ways. They are, if you look at them on the benches at PMQ, it's a picture that tells you that they are part of the political establishment. Once you get a foothold in parliament and become an official party, it seems to trigger a different way of working.

How would you say political reporting has changed during your career?
Well, I guess the big change has been the emergence of social media and citizen reporting, which you guys are doing in a very good, positive way. I think that has added to the 24-hour news agenda that everyone seems to lock into. There's much more instantaneous reporting of news than there was when I started working in newspapers 30 years ago. You just didn't have the same amount of information coming in. And you didn't have the demands that journalists have now to get instant quotes, reaction stories and so forth.That is the hallmark of journalism in the new century. So that's been a big change. I think sometimes there's a case that social media gets in the way of more considered reporting post the event or the debate or whatever has triggered political interest. I'm not saying it happens all the time, of course, but we consume it, so they provide it. That has been, for me, one of the major changes, alongside reporters perhaps having to immerse themselves in other media. They won't just write something for their paper or online. They might do some audio clips, get some video and that kind of stuff. That has shifted the landscape in a significant way. It's interesting that the BBC, it's the morning coverage, what's top of the online platform is five or six videos before you get to the written story. I think that's just indicative of the way political reporting happens these days.

What advice would you have for a new news operation looking to start covering Kent County Council?
Oh god, I can't. I don't think I can answer that.
I think this doesn't apply to Kent County Council in itself. But they used to, if you were a news reporter and in the office, nthe ews editor would ask you, ‘Why are you in the office? Why aren't you out there getting stories?’ Today, that's turned on its head because you're not in the office. In some cases, they asked the same question: ‘Why are you in the office?’ Because the view traditionally was to get stories, you have to go out, make contacts, speak to people directly. I think those are all still pertinent things that have to be considered in the round. But it feels more these days that if reporters are not in the office, they're not necessarily working. I've been at the end of this myself. Of course it does get covered, but maybe in a different way.

What's the most shocking or surprising story you've covered in your time covering Kent?
I think the emergence of UKIP, when they launched their electoral offensive. The fact that a fringe party could come close to taking a Conservative stronghold, beating them or perhaps being in a position to form an administration. That sent a shockwave through the Conservative ranks because they'd previously been able to dismiss some of these smaller parties as one hit wonders. And here was a party headed by a very charismatic leader. A shockwave for the Conservatives, a shockwave for Labour. And the fact that it was Kent, with direct experience of these issues around migration and asylum seekers, and the boats coming over, although in 2013 there weren't so many migrant boats coming around. There was the whole issue of the costs to the authority. I would put that as one of the one of the more interesting events that I've covered in the county council.

Let's go back to the beginning. Where were you born?
Oh blimey, I was born in Birmingham, but I was brought up in Bristol.

What brought you to Kent?
It was a job, basically. I began my career working on local newspapers in North London. I don't know whether I'm pre-empting a question for you, but the paper I was working on covered Margaret Thatcher's constituency of Finchley. We, as the local paper, often got a beat on stuff from her or from the Prime Minister's office, about visits, talks on local issues, and stuff like that. It was a very interesting period.

Did you get to meet or interview Margaret Thatcher yourself?
I did on a couple of occasions. They tended to still want to keep her out of the direct lines in that fashion. We used to get access to things like Christmas fairs that she'd be attending. And the national press pack would be hovering outside. We, as the fortunate local media, were able to get a shadow visit in a way which the national media weren't and were left at the door. But yeah, my time at that particular newspaper group coincided with her demise, as it were. So we had a hugely interesting and significant story, in which local newspapers had something that we were fortunate in having ringside seat.

How would you describe her? What was she like at that local level?
She was adored by the constituency faithful. They were horrified when she got removed by her cabinet colleagues. I remember that Christmas fair, because I was a reporter on duty this weekend, where she was due to go to the Christmas fair of her local constituency association, and eat cake with the party faithful. And she still went to that event despite the fact that she was having to fend off the leadership challenge.

What jobs did your parents do growing up?
My dad was a civil servant. He was actually a customs officer, but not in Kent, in Harwich, and my mum was a special needs teacher. She spent a long career teaching children with particular problems.

Did you enjoy school?
I don't think about school very much. I went to Bristol Grammar School, and it was okay. It was a boy’s school, when there were many more boys’ and girls’ schools. I was fortunate because I was actually quite good at sports, and that brought me into an environment whereI could make friends easily. That maybe took some of the hardship of a fairly academic schooling.

Did you stay on for sixth form?
Yeah, I did my A-levels there. I did French, English and Latin. It tells you everything that the school was quite keen on Latin.

Where did you go for university?
Well, oddly enough, I went to a college called Nonington College, which you may know down in East Kent, in Canterbury, where I did a degree in the totally worthless subject of Human Movement Studies. Which is basically PE, but with an academic side to it. I think it was devised by the university authorities as an attempt to try and keep the college open, which it did. It had been a teacher training college where PE teachers went for a year and did their training courses. But because the government didn't want any more teachers at that time, it kind of pulled the rug from under its feet. It was affiliated to the University of Kent.

Having studied three languages at A level, you didn't study language at university?
I'm not sure I've got an answer to that. I think I chose to do it because of my enjoyment in sports and taking part in sports. It’s quite odd that my brother went to the same college, and my mother went to the same college as me. There's a family link in that regard. But yeah, not the most challenging or academically centred college. I think largely as a legacy of being a teacher training college, they had fantastic resources, an indoor swimming pool, running track, a tennis court. It was a bit like a country club. I think that's what made it so enjoyable.

How are your languages now? Are you still good with the Latin and French?
Yeah, like a lot of people. I go on holidays in France and resurrect rudimentary skills in French for two weeks and then come back and forget it all again. French isn't too bad. I've learned a bit of Italian on my own. But you know what it's like if don't use it. You lose the ability, but you can easily pick it up again.

What was your first full-time job?
Well, post-university, I went and did an MA at Leeds University in the same subject. Then I kind of knocked around on the dole for a little while and lived in London, not in any gainful employment. Then I managed to get a job on a government training scheme which was all about getting more people to take up sport and physical exercise and I did that for a couple of years before I decided I wanted to try my hand at journalism.

What made you come to that decision?
To be honest with you, I didn't know what I wanted to do, and it was a time when the economic environment wasn't too healthy. There was quite a lot of unemployment around. I'd always been good at writing at school and college. I started writing reviews of bands for a magazine in Bristol called ‘Venue,’ which is a bit like ‘Time Out’ magazine in London. I lived there for a while and wrote about music and bands and decided eventually that if I was going to pursue a career in journalism, I'd better get some relevant qualifications. I, like a lot of journalists, did my training with the NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists), and that was a year. I did a fast-track course in Portsmouth, which took you through the exams and all the stuff you do on the NCTJ. I did that. I took out a loan to fund my way through that. Then it was case of applying for jobs that came up and I was fortunate that I was taken on by this newspaper group in North London. It wasn't heavily resourced. As a fledgling reporter, you were thrown in at the deep end a lot of the time and got to cover big stories in a way which maybe I wouldn't have done in a bigger newspaper. I loved it straight away.

Why did you make the decision to come and do reporting in Kent?
Well, you could blame Mrs Thatcher for this, but she obviously triggered my interest in politics. Kent had a daily paper at that particular time called Kent Today and they wanted a political correspondent/editor. I applied and they made the mistake of appointing me.

What advice would you have for a young person thinking of becoming a politics reporter?
Cover politics till the lights go out. I think what you need in politics is good contacts, the ability to spot an angle on a story. Be resourceful in the way you work in terms of speaking to people. Sometimes journalists or would-be journalists lack confidence in speaking to people. I've never quite understood that because they’re the people you hold to account for decisions they've made. Be prepared to speak to people. Go to council meetings, recognise the importance of democracy in action and reporting on democracy in action too. The idea of sitting at a parish council planning meeting until 11 o'clock at night might not be the most alluring, attractive part of the job. It shows dedication, and if you can get stories out of a meeting that no one else has got, that adds to the grounding of a good career.

Have you ever been a member of a political party?
No, I've not actually, and I've never wanted to be a member of a political party, which I think is important in the role that I've had. That hasn't stopped me being accused of being a member of every single party under the sun, from people who read too much into stories. I've had people accuse me of being an undercover agent for one of the parties. I'm satisfied that I can say that I've been, fair and accurate.

Do you play any musical instruments?
No, I’m musically tone deaf, but I do like music. I'm working for a friend at a vinyl record shop near where I live. I used to do some DJing back in the day.

What do you do to unwind?
I fall asleep in front of the telly, waking up at four o'clock in the morning to find out what was making the headlines. I do a lot of cycling. In the summer I swim a lot in the sea.
Even now?
No, not now. I'm too much of a lightweight to swim in the sea now.
I meant with the condition of the water.
Yeah, interesting, fair point there. I swim at a place where Environment Agency checks have always found the water quality to be within acceptable limits. It's down near Camber Sands. It's interesting that's become a political issue. I remember when the groups like the Surfers Against Sewage, who were seen as a slightly wacky group, campaigning over what they saw as a genuine issue around water quality, but no one seemed to take them seriously. Then suddenly, the water companies have been asked awkward questions, and there's been more incidents which clearly relate to a lack of, or a failure of, their mission on behalf of water companies, which have a monopoly, don't they? They've got the gig, and that means less pressure on them, although that's obviously changed now. That is the kind of issue which has recently got some traction with local councils and local council elections. It's entered the parliamentary stream, if you like, as an issue.

Who is the most famous person you are one degree of separation from?
I'm trying to think who. It doesn't have to be in your family?
Well, if it's someone in your family that's famous, that's fine.
I haven't got anyone famous. I have to say probably Nigel Farage or one of his representatives because Kent is regarded by them as a fertile territory for them to make gains. If it wasn't him, one of his press guys would probably ring me up reasonably quickly.
I've interviewed most of the Prime Ministers in my time, and I think the one who wouldn't personally pick up the phone or answer a call but would probably arrange for a response would be Tony Blair. Labour also regarded Kent as an important electoral territory. I remember when I joined the KM, when John Major was having his leadership crisis in 1995, and Tony Blair and the Shadow Cabinet were much more accessible at that time in opposition. Of course, things change when they're in office. The PR stuff was very well-honed under Tony Blair, as you'd expect it to be. I remember that John Major survived in 1995, and then two years later, it was Blair. Covering the election night in 1997, I was working in the Medway office by Luton Arches along with one other guy. We had reporters at the count, but we were just not prepared for such a shockwave. Most people expected the Labour Party to form the government, but they didn't quite expect it to be such a landslide. We did put out a daily edition in the morning with the Kent results. Kent results saw about half of its Conservative MPs ousted. That was arguably one of the other interesting stories that I've covered in my time.

Who has been the best Prime Minister of your lifetime?
Depends on what you mean by best.
What do you mean by best?
Depending on how you define it, Tony Blair would probably be my pick as... I’m trying to avoid the word best because it implies that I'm supportive of it. I think obviously, the backlash over Iraq has tainted his time as Prime Minister, but he never wavered from his view on that. Had it not been for that, his reputation would probably be much higher. He was a consummate politician and had extremely good advisors around him. Acute political antennae. A bit like Bill Clinton, he could walk into a room and suddenly be everyone's friend within about 10 minutes. Blair had that attraction if you like. He managed to confect, which is an irony, an image as an ordinary bloke. He wants to be seen as an ordinary bloke because that would enhance his prospects. Although he was an ordinary bloke who went to a fee-paying public school, how ordinary that is is open to question. The Tories have had a miserable run of leaders. I viewed Cameron as a bit like Blair but not quite as good. But again, a very accessible guy when he was making visits to the county. I think if I was forced into choosing, it would probably be Blair.

Where do you like to go for dinner in Kent?
Fish and Chips at the Pilot in Dungeness.

What are your thoughts on local government devolution?
Well, what I can't quite understand from the government's perspective is why Kent was omitted from the priority programme when it had the support of a Labour-run authority in Medway and a Conservative county council. I think that's raised lots of questions which are currently not being well answered by the government. The government says it was concerned about the disparity in numbers in terms of the population of Medway and the population of Kent and felt that that disparity wouldn't necessarily work to Kent's favour but hasn't really produced any evidence to that end. That is going to be a fundamental issue for local governments in the next two, three years because, alongside devolution, there's the prospect of wide-ranging government reorganisation of 12 councils in Kent. That's going to leave a lot of blood on the carpet of various town halls. No doubt that there won't be any unanimity or consensus around favoured solutions. Someone's going to lose out.

What improvements have there been in Kent in your time here?
I was thinking about this before our talk. I was thinking if I get asked ‘What are the biggest things that have affected Kent in your time?’ For good, as it were, I don't think I'd be able to do it, be perfectly frank. Kent has got some fantastic opportunities but has also got some very difficult challenges. I think this is why the argument around devolution has taken on, although it's kind of meaningless to a lot of people who are more concerned about their pay packet and their job prospects. Kent is at the centre of some of these really challenging issues like traffic, roads… Where else in the country do you have to close a motorway because there's maybe some French striking?
I was watching an Alan Sugar interview last night on telly, and he said that Brexit had been a disaster and if there was one priority he would advocate for the economy, it was to get back into Europe. I'm not saying that I support or don't support that, but if you think about it, when Operation Stack is instigated, we all know the consequences, and it always leads to calls for more money to deal with it. It's symptomatic in some ways of Kent's challenges and difficulties. Would you be a holidaymaker who comes to Kent knowing that maybe you'll get stuck or whatever and not be able to travel to where you want to? Would you take up a job somewhere where you might have to drive a lot, and that poses difficulties for you, or could do. If you remember when Brexit was passed in a practical sense, there were massive queues at Dover, but it wasn't anything to do with Brexit, but to do with covid and Macron refusing to allow lorries through if they hadn't had a vaccination. I think Brexit has been a challenge. I don't think you could honestly say that Kent has improved massively as a result of Brexit. The jury's out on that one.

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Footnotes

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.