Holy backbench! When it comes to alternative policy crusaders we've now got Chris & Claire .. (and Julie makes three!).

Casual readers of the F&LIOM X feed won't be that surprised to be reminded that since the budget we hold a fairly dim view of almost the entire current Tynwald backbench. As analogies go our backbench seems to consist primarily of a Sunday League style line up of failed footballers all pretending to be Premier League material but none of whom could clearly kick a ball into the back of the net past a goal keeper in a wheelchair from two feet away. As the Chief Minister has since acknowledged the 2024 Isle of Man budget was an embarrassing public relations failure that was both tone-deaf and highly unpopular. However in typical Isle of Man backbench fashion after 48 hours of hopeless and empty promises from the usual suspects about overthrowing the Chief Minister (as similar initiatives had recently succeeded in both Jersey and Guernsey) most of our highly paid backbench deliverers of nothing but highly disposable social media content seemed to work out that they would actually have to do something if a revolution was called for. So they all quickly and quietly retreated back into the world of local micro politics where removing the Bishops vote and promising free tampons for all (or at least for people who have periods) became once more the important issues of national significance. And let's not forget Gaza as many also speedily moved on to envisioning how they could end a war thousands of miles away when most have so far failed to deliver anything tangible for anyone who even lives on the same street as they do.

In amongst the usual pointless dirge of the main Tynwald social media mouthpieces of Callister, Glover and Moorhouse though there was some talk of an Alternative Policy Group being formed.

Here in the immediate aftermath of the budget Chris Thomas announced via Manx Radio that an Alternative Policy Group was to be established as a so-called rebel alliance which would work to refine the direction government should be going in. But despite what seemed to be a half sensible attempt to get an opposition party off the ground nothing further seems to have happened until this week when listeners to Phil Gawne's Manx Radio politics show were informed of a new alliance between three backbench MHKs - those being Chris Thomas, Claire Christian and Julie Edge.

So it seems that Chris is now back and he's also found Claire and Julie to embark on the alternative policy journey with him. But this time there are no expectations of a party with the trio underlining that they're not a political party but that each saw a need for backbench members to work together on an alternative policy direction. So this time perhaps this is less of a rebel alliance and more a rebel informal association or a rebel group of chums than it is any formal political alliance - but its still something much needed in Manx politics.

Whether they will be successful with this concept or not remains to be seen but its a pity that the Caped Crusaders of New Gotham couldn't bring at least another ten MHKs along on the journey with them. But with a war in Gaza still on, a scheming Bishop still defiantly sat in Tynwald, a local tampon crisis in full flow (no pun intended), and a minor regional swimming pool that needs a bit of doing up - we assume that many of the others are now so re immersed back in commissioner-level IOM micro politics, or far too busy virtue signalling, that they have simply forgotten that we are now at around one hundred million pounds spent on the new Liverpool terminal that might not be open for TT Week, that we have just put up taxes for some of the lowest paid workers in the Isle of Man, and that our government is haemorrhaging cash at a staggering rate in order to create some of the worst levels of service we have seen in a generation - and it still seems to be hellbent on throwing another 15,000 new residents funded by us at the problem in a failed attempt to bail them out of the mess they created.

So for those we'll end with the words of Noel Gallagher who drew inspiration from John & Yoko's sixties version of political virtue signalling by trying to attain world peace while publicly lounging around in a hotel bed at the Amsterdam Hilton:

So I’ll start a revolution from my bed

‘Cos you said the brains I had went to my head

And as brother Liam might additionally opine. You've either got it or you haven't. As you were!

Holy backbench! Caped Crusaders Chris Thomas and Claire Christian indulge in another alternative policy debate.