UNTIL this week, the general consensus was that the British public are bone tired of the Tories but decidedly lukewarm about Labour.
That line now looks hopelessly complacent after Thursday’s by-elections saw two Tory safe seats spectacularly defect to Labour.
ReutersThe losses at Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire have proven there are no more Tory safe seats[/caption]
© 2023 Bloomberg Finance LPLabour now have the momentum[/caption]
Tory safe seats?
The lesson of the Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire by-elections is that there are no more Tory safe seats.
Yes, both Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire had, er, colourful Conservative Members of Parliament.
Tamworth was represented by disgraced Chris Pincher who finally quit after losing his appeal against an eight-week suspension over groping allegations following a wild night at the Carlton Club when he admitted he “drank far too much”.
Mid Bedfordshire was the constituency of Nadine Dorries who announced her intention to step down as MP but then hung around for months, earning her the nickname of “Dosser Dorries”.
“I’d love to say she’s tarnished her reputation but, let’s be honest, her reputation is eating a kangaroo’s anus,” sighed one constituent in reference to the MP’s turn on ITV’s I’m A Celebrity.
Both Pincher and Dorries were Boris loyalists.
Pincher’s groping exploits helped to leave a whiff of sleazy eau-de-Bojo around Sunak’s Government.
Dorries has said far nastier things about our boyish Prime Minister than anyone in Labour has ever managed.
After the exploits of Pincher and Dorries, the Tories were due a punishment beating in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.
That’s what they got.
But Labour have the momentum with them now.
And with the SNP collapsing in Scotland, Starmer’s path to power is looking clear.
Meaningless waffle
Doubts remain.
Not least about the Labour leader.
“I’ve always voted Tory but it needs a change,” one local told my colleague Oliver Harvey before the Tamworth vote.
“Let’s give Labour a chance — but there’s something about Keir Starmer I don’t like.”
Starmer has undoubtedly done a good job at removing the stench of extremism around Labour.
Sir Keir is clever enough to throw the hard left in his party a juicy bone from time to time — vowing to make private schools pay VAT, promising to crack down on non-dom tax exiles, swearing to build new towns that will solve our housing crisis.
None of these ideas will work.
Increasing the fees on private schools will simply drive thousands of kids into state schools and make private schools the province of the super-rich.
Hounding non-dom tax exiles will just make them move somewhere else.
And all of Starmer’s waffle about new houses is totally meaningless because he lacks the courage to say that an obvious reason for a shortage of housing is — immigration.
Rishi Sunak is young, smart, brave and energetic but undoubtedly carries on his slim shoulders the legacy of the four — count ’em — woefully mediocre Tory Prime Ministers who came before him.
And people vote for HOPE.
Hope is what gets us to the polling booth — the thought that our lives and the lives of those we love will get better.
Can Sunak provide this country with some vision of hope?
That is the only thing that can save his Government at the General Election.
Right now Keir Starmer isn’t just measuring the curtains for 10 Downing Street — he’s already in there scraping off Bojo and Carrie’s gold £840-a-roll Lulu Lytle wallpaper.
So come on, Rishi — give us all a reason to vote Tory!
Biden blunder
PRESIDENT Joe Biden is praised for his trip to Israel, backing the Israelis while urging them to not be consumed by the self-defeating rage we felt after the mass murder of 9/11.
But Biden crassly referred to Hamas as “the other team”.
It’s not a basketball game, Mr President.
Caine a true great
IF I was you, I would skip the new Martin Scorsese/Leonardo DiCaprio film Killers Of The Flower Moon (running time – an excruciating 3 hours and 26 minutes) and instead go to see the latest Michael Caine movie, The Great Escaper (running time – a breezy 96 minutes).
We think of Caine as one of the icons of the Swinging Sixties – driving a red, white or blue mini in The Italian Job, chasing dolly birds in Alfie.
PAMichael Caine will be remembered as a movie legend once he retires[/caption]
But as a World War Two veteran in The Great Escaper, we remember he comes from an older, tougher heritage.
Caine, now 90, is some ten years older than The Beatles and the Stones, who were the first generation of young Brits who did not have to do National Service.
But Michael served – from 1952 to 1954, in the Royal Fusiliers infantry regiment.
Still a teenager, Caine was a veteran of the Korean war.
On his first night on the front line, he experienced a suicide attack by Chinese troops.
Coming from the last generation who experienced combat has given his acting a far greater depth than all those thespians who never heard a shot fired in anger.
Unlike most actors, Caine has seen life in all its terror and fragility.
Michael truly is a golden thread that links us all to those lost parents, grandparents and great grandparents who built this country.
My favourite Michael Caine role is when he played a self-destructive romantic in Woody Allen’s Hannah And Her Sisters.
That won Caine the first of his two Oscars.
If there is any justice in the world, his moving performance in The Great Escaper will win him his third Academy Award.
He says he is retiring now and perhaps it is true. I do hope not.
Because The Great Escaper is a reminder that Michael Caine is our greatest actor.
Oas-ish
LIAM Gallagher – great front man.
Definitely Maybe – great album, perhaps the greatest debut album ever by a British band.
GettyLiam Gallagher has announced he is doing a tour where he will perform the debut Oasis LP in its entirety[/caption]
And now Liam has announced he is doing a tour where he will perform the debut Oasis LP in its entirety.
So why is that not such great news?
Because the show will not feature Noel Gallagher – who wrote most of Oasis’ songs, and all of their hits.
Noel was the heartbeat of Oasis.
Liam touring Definitely Maybe is rather like Ringo Starr reforming The Beatles.
Then neglecting to include Paul McCartney.
Debicki’s stellar show as Diana
AS Princess Diana in her final days, Elizabeth Debicki is astonishing in the next series of The Crown.
In that smile, the tilt of her chin, and that gaze, Debicki captures Diana in all her complexity – her warmth, her humour and the shyness of youth that never totally slipped away.
PAElizabeth Debicki is astonishing in the next series of The Crown[/caption]
Debicki’s stellar turn really does make the rest of The Crown cast look like supporting actors.
The series, though never less than totally compelling, struggled to capture our late Queen.
Imelda Staunton and Olivia Colman were always a touch too cold to be completely convincing.
Claire Foy, as the young Elizabeth II, came closest to regal credibility.
The actors who have played Charles have been even less believable.
Josh O’Connor, as the younger Charles, was a bat-eared Twit of the Year.
And when I saw Dominic West as the middle-aged Prince Charles, I thought – er, give us a clue.
West is just too much the beefy leading man to play the cerebral Prince.
Dominic looks as though he should be mucking out the stables at Balmoral.
But as Diana, Elizabeth Debicki is nothing less than uncanny.
Zero is too costly
THE National Infrastructure Commission has released a study that concludes that to reach net zero by 2050, this country – responsible for just one per cent of global emissions! – will have to spend an extra £1 trillion on new infrastructure over the next 27 years.
When will our masters find the courage to speak the undeniable truth about net zero?
We can’t afford it.
Beeb looks ‘biased’
“THE murder of babies where they sleep is not the act of a ‘freedom fighter’,” says Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.
Of course not – it is the act of terrorists.
GettyBBC’s John Simpson defended the corporations reluctance to call Hamas terrorists by saying: ‘calling someone a terrorist means you’re taking sides’[/caption]
And yet the BBC has tied itself in knots explaining why it refuses to call Hamas “terrorists”.
The BBC calls the rapists, murderers and butchers of Hamas “militants” – which makes them sound like striking railway workers.
The BBC’s John Simpson, that big lump of self-regarding pomposity, has been wheeled out to justify the use of “militants” for jihadists who burned families alive.
Simpson waffled, “calling someone a terrorist means you’re taking sides.”
And yet when an Islamist fanatic killed two Swedish football fans in Brussels, the BBC immediately ran a headline calling it a “terror attack”.
The headline was quickly changed.
Perhaps the BBC realised that the killer in Brussels was not a terrorist after all.
He was only a militant!
But by failing to call Hamas terrorists, it doesn’t mean the BBC are staying scrupulously neutral.
It feels like they are taking sides.
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