April 30, 2021 was, in accordance with my trusty Google calendar, a Friday.
It was additionally the day Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner attended a piece do with employees on the workplaces of Mary Foy, MP for the Metropolis of Durham, throughout a by-election marketing campaign for the close by Hartlepool seat.
On the time, lockdown restrictions have been in place — certainly, an identical gathering helped to set off the defenestration of Boris Johnson.
However Starmer, Rayner and Co have been cleared of any wrongdoing by Durham constabulary ‘because of the software of an exception, specifically moderately crucial work’.
Why point out this now? Nicely, as a result of Starmer maintains that if — when — he takes up residency at No 10 Downing Avenue, he’ll clock off at 6pm on Fridays to spend time along with his household.
Keir Starmer has a beer in Labour workplaces throughout a by-election marketing campaign for Hartlepool
His private rule is to ‘not do a work-related factor’ after that cut-off, ‘fairly nicely come what could’.
Setting apart the query of whether or not that is remotely sensible for a Prime Minister (it isn’t), additionally it is manifestly unfaithful.
Actually, such was Starmer’s want to attend a post-6pm ‘work-related factor’ again in 2021, he was even ready to threat a nice for breaking Covid restrictions whereas doing so.
Workaholic networker when it fits him, devoted household man when it does not. That’s Starmer’s expertise as a politician — to pivot in accordance with the prevailing wind and someway get away with it.
He is finished the identical factor this week with the entire ‘ladies with penises’ factor. After months — truly, no, years — of genuflecting to the rainbow brigade, he is lastly caved in and mentioned that male-bodied trans ladies shouldn’t be capable of entry women-only areas.
His staff are clearly involved that his place — which was, till just lately, the exact reverse — might price him votes, significantly with ladies. And so, as ever, he is switched sides. I do not say all this as a means of underlining Starmer’s inconsistency on these points — his pusillanimity is well-documented.
Starmer tells voters what they wish to hear — however most of it’s tommyrot
What makes it worthy of remark is the truth that, regardless of his flip-flopping, most individuals on his facet of the political spectrum — to not point out many drifting across the centre — will nonetheless vote for him. It isn’t that they’re unaware of his failings, they simply select to not discover them.
The other is true of Rishi Sunak. Here’s a man who, aside from with regards to his doubtful gown sense, has proven outstanding consistency and perseverance within the face of unrelenting criticism.
And but, come Friday, he’ll be within the bin for the easy motive that his occasion has been in energy for 14 years, and folks need a change.
It is like shopping for a brand new couch when there’s nothing truly mistaken with the outdated one, or shopping for a brand new gown although you could have loads within the wardrobe that match simply nice.
It is about wanting one thing new and completely different, which is why individuals are ready to miss Starmer’s apparent failings — and likewise why politics is so cyclical.
Quick ahead 14 years, and I can assure that if Labour continues to be in energy, it will be going through precisely the identical downside, albeit for various causes.
The fault for this lies not a lot with politicians themselves, however with the individuals who elect them, i.e. us, the voters.
I’ve at all times thought that in life you get the kids and canines you deserve; the identical, I am afraid, is true of politicians.
It’s uncommon nowadays to search out an MP with the braveness of their very own convictions, for the easy motive that such folks do not are typically virtue-signalling crowd-pleasers.
Margaret Thatcher was most likely the final true instance. Though, once more, in equity to Sunak he has proven flashes of that spirit all through this marketing campaign.
However the unhappy fact is that is not what folks need. They do not wish to be challenged. They wish to be appeased. That is what Starmer does so brilliantly. Nigel Farage, too. Each in their very own means inform voters what they wish to hear — although most of it’s absolute tommyrot.
As for Ed Davey — nicely, he simply does methods for clicks. And other people adore it.
Fact is, we might far relatively vote for the fantasy than the fact. In Starmer’s case, the concept immigration might be saved below management with out making any robust selections, or that state faculties might be improved by punishing private-school mother and father and pupils, or that state spending might be elevated with out ramping up taxation.
In Farage’s case, that we are able to simply ship migrants again to France or minimize NHS ready lists to zero in two years.
Belief me, if any of these items might have been achieved in the true world, the Conservatives would have finished them.
However politics, as Kemi Badenoch as soon as mentioned, shouldn’t be about reaching the proper resolution, it is about taking the least dangerous choice and making it work.
There isn’t any query in my thoughts that the Conservatives nonetheless symbolize exactly that: the least dangerous choice in an more and more harmful and unstable political local weather. Granted, it isn’t precisely an exciting notion. However it’s at the least an trustworthy one.
Need to hear one thing much more terrifying than the prospect of a Starmer supermajority? Elon Musk desires Tesla’s Gen 2 Optimus to be ‘the primary robotic babysitter available on the market’. What might presumably go mistaken?
Is there no finish to Jill Biden’s shameless self-promotion?
For private causes, I’m usually in opposition to the entire ‘Woman Macbeth’ narrative with regards to politicians’ wives.
However I have to say that Jill Biden, aka Flotus, is severely testing my resolve.
Her husband Joe is seemingly affected by some type of cognitive impairment — and but she persists in pretending that nothing is mistaken. Not solely that, she’s launched into a shameless marketing campaign of self-promotion, showing on the quilt of American Vogue wanting decidedly… nicely, presidential.
Cautious, Dr Biden — hubris is a most unattractive trait.
A marketing campaign designed to get extra women and girls into sport has the feminine Crew GB rugby staff posing in what can solely be described because the type of smutty lingerie a person would purchase for his mistress at Ann Summers.
It seems scratchy and uncomfortable and at the least two sizes too small. Usual sexist garbage.
Glasto eco horror
The Glastonbury clean-up operation reveals mountains of deserted plastic, together with tents and — the most recent must-have accent for the discerning reveller — blow-up mattresses. If solely woke eco-warriors would put their recycling the place their mouth is.
Desperately searching for some gentle reduction from the election, I sat down to look at A Household Affair, some foolish rom-com starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron (pictured proper). The movie was nice — however I might barely focus owing to the truth that Efron seems to have acquired a wholly completely different face. I texted a pal. ‘He is gone the total Biden, hasn’t he?’ he replied. I could not have put it higher myself.
