IN order to come across as “real”, today’s politicians have to convince us that they know what it’s like to be poor.
That’s why we have Kemi Badenoch from the Tories telling us that she used to work in a McDonald’s and Sir Starmer, from the Labourites, droning on endlessly about how his dad was a tool maker (he sure was).
Dan Charity – Commissioned by the SunAngela Rayner, who’s constantly at pains to point out that at 16 she was a single mum in a council flat, pictured in an inflatable canoe, with tattoo and vape[/caption]
AFPLabour’s Sir Keir Starmer endlessly goes on about how his dad was a tool maker (he sure was)[/caption]
Then there’s the undisputed queen of all this guff, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who’s constantly at pains to point out that at 16 she was a single mum in a council flat.
To reinforce this view, we saw pictures of her last week in an inflatable canoe, with tattoo and vape.
And were we impressed?
Well, I wasn’t.
Because the fact is that you don’t need to have first-hand experience of something to know what it’s like.
I’ve never been to the South Pole, for instance, but know it’s bloody cold.
A fly, meanwhile, knows what it’s like to eat cow dung.
But that doesn’t mean I should put one in charge of my farm.
That’s why I gave the job to Charlie Ireland who spent many years studying the land and how to get the best out of it. A bright man. An educated man.
I feel the same way about the country.
That’s why I don’t want it to be led by someone without a clue about how the real world and business works.
What we need is leaders with some personal experience of running a company.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a cornershop or even a paper round. Just something that tells us they have a basic understanding of the concept that you earn a certain amount of money, and then that’s how much you can spend.
The problem is that none of the Labour front bench has ever started or run a business and, as a result, none of them understand it.
PAKemi Badenoch from the Tories tells us that she used to work in a McDonald’s[/caption]
They genuinely think that they can spend whatever they like on whatever hare-brained scheme they’ve come up with that week and that we will be happy to pay for it, because we know their dad was a tool maker.
This means we can relate to them. But I don’t want to relate to the Prime Minister.
He or she shouldn’t be like you or me. They should be a bit weird. A bit of a swot.
The greatest Prime Minister in my lifetime was Margaret Thatcher and no one related to her.
GettyThe greatest Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher and no one related to her[/caption]
DON’T BE NUMPTY AT PUMP
GettyGen Z people are frightened of petrol pumps, but not because of the cost of filling up[/caption]
WE know already that young Gen Z people tend to weep uncontrollably whenever they encounter someone with a different opinion or, worse, a person who suggests they should get a job.
They are frightened of everything.
Now comes news that what they’re frightened of, most of all, is petrol pumps.
But it’s not the cost of filling up that gives them palpitations.
It’s everything else.
Six in ten of those who’ve bothered to pass a driving test say they are nervous about parking close to the pump, and about what sort of fuel their car needs and even how the nozzle works.
Apparently, they don’t like to make a mistake in case people are watching.
It’s why two-thirds of people aged between 18 and 28 admit that they can’t parallel park, and have to get friends or family to do it for them.
One day, these people will be running the country.
Scary? Yeah, but not as scary as the shower that’s doing it now.
GOLLY NOSH
Louis Wood – Commissioned by The SunThe German government is about to spend 90million euros on lentils and tinned ravioli so that the German people won’t starve in the event of a crisis[/caption]
THE German government is about to spend 90million euros on lentils and tinned ravioli which will be stored with nearly a million tonnes of grain so that the German people won’t starve in the event of a crisis.
Apparently, most European governments do this.
But not Starmer. He prefers to spend the money he hasn’t got on cycle lanes.
DOG’S DESPAIR
I’M spending most of my time, at the moment, in one of the barns on the farm playing with a litter of 11 completely adorable fox red labrador puppies.
Sweet, eh?
Well, yes, but there have been problems.
It’s such a large litter, the mother quickly got mastitis, which meant she had to go on antibiotics, which meant she could no longer do any breastfeeding – is that the right word?
And to stop the puppies trying to get on a teat, we had to move her out of their pen.
This has sent her into such a spiral of despair that all she does all day is stare at the floor – or wander round the garden digging up every single one of the plants we have.
FANCY A CRAFTY FLAG?
I FEEL a bit sorry for the blue-haired, angry people who like to spend their days gluing themselves to things and pushing statues into rivers.
It used to be so simple, back in the days when they only had nuclear weapons to worry about, because they could all go to the same place and chain themselves to the same railings and chant the same songs.
But then along came climate change, which meant they had to put down their “No nukes!” banners and start running round demanding that the world just stop oil.
Which they did, until someone mentioned slavery.
And then Russia invaded Ukraine, which meant they all had to start wearing Zelensky T-shirts.
And then JK Rowling made anti-trans noises, so they had to forget about all those dead Ukrainians, and climate change, and nukes, to focus on pronouns instead.
And then along came Palestine . . .
Even Greta Thunberg was distracted by this, deciding Gaza was more important than global warming.
Well, this week, while driving through a Cotswold village, I spotted a solution for these endlessly angry people.
Hanging from someone’s house was a flag that included the colours of Ukraine, Palestine and Gay Pride.
Brilliant. A one-stop shop. A flag that says: “I’m cross about everything.”
Jeremy Corbyn should be paying attention.
He doesn’t have a name for his exciting new political party but now, with this, at least he has a flag behind which all his lunatic supporters can unite.
STOP FARTING AROUND WITH MY RECORDS
PAGuinness Book of Records now has a fastest pram record[/caption]
PATo mark its 70th anniversary, it also has a record for the biggest hotdog[/caption]
And it even has a fart noise record
I USED to love the Guinness Book of Records when I was a boy because it was filled with interesting stuff like the tallest mountain, fastest jet and biggest shark.
But then it became stupid and allowed itself to be filled with records for stuff like who’d eaten the most baked beans with a cocktail stick.
Now it’s set to get even stupider because, to mark its 70th anniversary, it’s announced that 70 new records are up for grabs. And one of them, to give you a flavour, is for the largest number of whoopee cushions sat on in a minute.
I’ve got a cold at the moment and am thinking of calling them up and announcing it’s the worst cold in the history of humankind.
The way things are going, they’d probably agree and give me a certificate.
Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
