Setting up a Carnival of Politics

Brian Jenner
The Daily Sceptic

On February 14th 2026, we’re hosting a Carnival of Alternative Politics in Bournemouth. For several years I’ve enjoyed going to London for the Battle of Ideas at Church House. I figured, the best way to pay homage to the achievement of its organisers was to extend ‘free speech’ into the provinces. I naïvely assumed that everyone would agree.

First you need a venue. I’d used Bournemouth University before, so I went back to it. There is a wonderful Executive Business Centre within walking distance of the station.

Staff were happy to quote me £900 for the lecture theatre and some breakout rooms. But when I mentioned “a political event”, there was an intake of breath: “We’ll have to have your speakers checked out by our resilience officer.”

The warmth drained from my feet.

I had previously viewed the Bournemouth Natural Science Society’s elegant lecture theatre.

Its staff said they would be happy to hire it out. I warned it was a commercial event so we were likely to invite some slightly edgy speakers.

They asked me for an example. I suggested Member of Parliament Rupert Lowe. They told me the members would not accept Rupert Lowe.

I went to another performance space at the other end of town. “Could we host a political discussion here?”

The administrator said his accountant had told him that, as a Community Interest Company, he was unable to host “political or religious events”. It was absolutely forbidden.

I pointed to a poster for a yoga event, “Isn’t that religious?” He said he was going to check with his accountant, because he’d thought exactly the same thing.

Then there was the eve of carnival party to organise. The council-funded co-working space has a large gallery. The administrator said, “Oh, no, we don’t have any heating, or toilets and we can’t open after 8pm. Why don’t you go to the food bank café?”

I headed across the road to the food bank café.

“I want to organise a pancake party,” I said cautiously.

“Who for?”

“There’s this event in London called the Battle of Ideas. Bournemouth is the place for party conferences and the mainstream parties aren’t actually covering all bases these days, so it would be a good idea to adapt and organise something to accommodate them.”

“Tell me more about the Battle of Ideas.”

“Well it’s a place where everyone can say what they like. It feels very liberating. Some of the speech is ugly, some of it is mad, but most of it is really insightful.”

“I don’t want any ugly speech in my café,” he said, and threw me out.

How fortunate that the foodbankers can be choosy about paying customers! Then I discovered the local Freemasons’ hall had some beautiful rooms and it could host. When the person handling the booking said, “You can pay in cash or bank transfer, whatever you want. And the bar will be open till midnight,” I realised I had come to the right place. Do masons have a sinister reputation, not because they’re secretive and elitist, but because they’re actually pragmatic and unprejudiced?

The next problem was speakers.

There was a gap in the market that inspired the launch of the Carnival of Alternative Politics. Literary festivals are not moving with the times. They’re still inviting the usual suspects: obsolete politicians, BBC has-beens, literary dinosaurs, pompous historians, boring scientists and worthy people from ethnic minorities whom nobody has ever heard of. They’re acting out their own version of the film Good Bye Lenin! Thankfully, Bournemouth has no liberal intelligentsia that needs to be shaken out of its complacency.

When you watch YouTube podcast channels, you notice there is a huge appetite for the discussion of political ideas. Could the podcasters be enticed out from behind their screens?

‘Alternative’ politics does not have to mean ‘far right’ or ‘far left’, it can mean new voices and old-school adversarial debate. Journalist Fraser Nelson pointed out last year that the Tory conference fringe was no longer a forum for considering fresh ideas and discovering new talent. It was a pretext to gouge lobbyists. I actually appeared on the fringe of the LibDem conference, but the whole thing was lifeless. Despite winning 72 seats the LibDems don’t seem to have any imaginative ideas to counter Reform or differentiate themselves from the Labour Party.

Can we fix that? I hope so.

The last problem is how to attract an audience.

Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart from The Rest is Politics did an event at the BIC in Bournemouth last November. There were over 1,000 people there all paying at least £40 for a seat.

The problem is, Rory and Alastair are actually anti-politics. They filter the difficult questions. If we can only get rid of the populist hucksters, they believe, the middle-classes can go back to their comfortable lives. The last thing The Rest is Politics crowd wants is ‘alternative politics’.

There is scope for innovation, like a speaking competition for A-level students, as we have planned for the carnival. They have to orate for three minutes on ‘The adult world I want to live in’. It will hopefully give the adults some ideas. We have local talent. The spirit of the carnival is to do things for ourselves. We can all feel the pent up political energy and frustration – the key is to find a way to tap into it creatively.

My fear is that the deep-tissue damage that was inflicted on our social lives during lockdowns is not healing. In fact there is evidence of gangrene setting in.

The Conservatives, who lost their seats in Bournemouth in the 2024 election, are not firing up. The congregation of my local church is dwindling. Town centre businesses keep folding. Clubs and discussion groups that used to be live continue to migrate online. New events are usually sponsored by the council and bring with them heavy ideological baggage.

With just over a month to go, I feel like film director Mike Leigh trying to justify his improvisational technique. There’s a basic idea, a few actors, a location and the outline of a script. That’s it.

The Carnival of Alternative Politics is about reconnecting with tradition and the religious calendar. Injecting the Dionysian into the Apollonine. I’m urging my neighbours to escape their Netflix caves. I’m telling London friends it’s going to be an excuse for a party, with politics as an add-on. Surely humour can smooth our hard-edged rivalries? Beer can be a panacea, too. A local arts’ student is going to make a giant puppet of the Lord of Misrule, Nigel Farage.

Some of the speakers confirmed so far:

Kevin Toolis. Kevin worked as a journalist in the House of Commons as a press gallery reporter and then reported on political conflicts and terrorism for publications including the New York Times, the Guardian and the Daily Mirror.
Lewis Baston. Lewis is an eminent psephologist and author. His most recent book is Borderlines, A History of Europe Told from the Edges. It is about the ghosts that linger over disputed European territories. Lewis was also the biographer of former Conservative Chancellor Reginald Maudling.
Alex Klaushofer. Alex is an author and journalist with a career in two halves, the first covering social affairs and public policy for the likes of the Guardian and the second chronicling the rise of Dystopian Britain for the Spectator and on Substack. She holds a PhD in philosophy which sowed the seeds for a lifelong interest in authoritarianism.
Guy Doza. Guy is a professional speechwriter, teacher and the author of two books, How to Apologise for Killing a Cat and The Language of Evil: How Dictators Manipulate the Masses. He will be giving a humorous talk on how dictators take and hold onto power.