Keir Starmer’s a nice new leader but it’s the same nasty old Labour Party
YAY, he’s back! Magic Grandpa has made his return. You can probably hear the cheering from the rooftops.
Jeremy Corbyn has, bizarrely, been allowed back into the Labour Party.
The party he led to its most godawful defeat in 80 years.
And the fact he has been allowed back in tells you something about the present Labour Party.
Corbyn was kicked out by leader Keir Starmer. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission carried out an investigation into the party’s anti-Semitism and concluded that the party and its leadership — ie. Jezza — had been woeful in combating some members’ naked hatred of Jewish people.
Corbyn responded by saying the problem had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons”. So he was booted out.
Then, last week, he issued another statement. A “clarification”. Here’s what he said: “To be clear, concerns about anti-Semitism are neither ‘exaggerated’ nor ‘overstated’.”
Um, right. That’s the thing with Jezza. He may look like a kindly old dotard. But lying is second nature to him.
Just as it was when he pretended he didn’t know he was laying a wreath for Palestinian terrorists.
Or pretended he hadn’t actually looked properly at a viciously anti-Semitic mural he had previously praised.
That statement of his completely contradicts his earlier verdict on the EHRC report. As anybody with even a small sliver of grey matter could work out.
But the party’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee, still let him back in.
To his credit, Starmer has refused to allow Corbyn to be part of the Parliamentary Labour Party (for the time being). Starmer has done a good job in rooting out some of the more obvious Jew-hating far-Left nutters in Parliament.
RACISTS, PURE AND SIMPLE
He has made it clear he won’t tolerate even the slightest whiff of anti-Semitism, as he tries to rebuild those bridges with Britain’s Jewish community.
But he has a huge fight on his hands. The party is riven with anti-Semitism — especially among members of Momentum, on the far Left. They are obsessed with Israel. Some of them believe Jews control the media and are responsible for all manner of evil in the world.
These people are racists, pure and simple. They parrot the same sort of bile you used to hear from the Nazis. But there are an awful lot of them.
And this is Starmer’s problem. While he is trying to hold the Government to account over its lamentable handling of the pandemic, he has perhaps a majority of party activists against him.
And he has quite a bit of opposition within the parliamentary party, too.
People such as Diane Abbott, Rebecca Long-Bailey and even the party’s chairwoman, Angela Rayner. She’s the one who spat out the word “scum” in Parliament when a Conservative minister was speaking. Charming woman.
The rot runs deep in Labour and Starmer’s battle has only just begun.
There will be continued calls to readmit Magic Grandpa — and Starmer has to hold firm.
Because the good news for the present Labour leader is that the more he stamps down on the far Left, the more potential Labour voters will like him for it.
But Magic Grandpa has an awful lot of support on his side. The leader may have changed, but the party has not.
Jab not up to the job?
A CHAP speaking on Radio 4’s PM programme on Tuesday explained that he had caught Covid TWICE. Once in March, once again in September.
More and more people are coming forward with similar stories. This all suggests that antibodies don’t last terribly long.
Which, as I mentioned last week, could be bad news for the vaccine.
The Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said we must still observe social distancing even after the vaccine. In which case, why would people take a vaccine perhaps three times per year when it will make scarcely any difference to our daily lives?
Meanwhile, our kids still aren’t getting a decent education and are spending half their school days at home.
This is a madness. As more information builds up, we are beginning to realise that Covid was around long before we originally thought.
Excess deaths were put down as “flu” – basically what Covid is. And life went on as normal.
Cummings exit is Tory disaster
IN getting rid of adviser Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson has jettisoned one of the main reasons he won the last General Election.
Cummings was an architect of the Vote Leave campaign.
And he understood the aspirations of all those people who for the first time voted Tory, breaking Labour’s Red Wall.
Cummings is a northerner himself and not from a posh background.
It will be a disaster for the Conservatives if future policy is instead influenced by the new top team of public school-educated Londoners, Carrie Symonds and Allegra Stratton.
Meanwhile, Cummings should switch sides and join us in the Social Democrats.
Crown hits nail on head
HAVE you been enjoying The Crown?
Critics have lambasted the new series. They say it is grossly inaccurate and that a lot of the stuff in it simply never happened.
Hmm. Princess Diana is portrayed as a coquettish moron. Prince Charles as a stooped, perpetually whingeing, self-pitying, half-wit.
Princess Margaret as a doolally snob. The Queen herself as a tad humourless, but disciplined.
And Margaret Thatcher as a rather noble creature.
So, they’re getting the big picture right, then.
Who cares about the minor details?
Caterwauling Little Mix solo plans
JUST when you thought the news couldn’t get any bleaker, Little Mix have secret plans to go solo next year.
That means there will be at least FOUR times as much product from these caterwauling women.
Maybe five – I’ve forgotten how many of them there are in that manufactured group. I suppose it could be 30 by now.
Britain’s musicians have had a horrible time of it during lockdown, I know.
But this is taking revenge on the rest of us too far.
Butter nonsense
THE latest recipe from that pouting goddess of the kitchen, Nigella Lawson, is a must for every dinner party.
It’s called “Buttered Toast”.
Nigella shows you how to put a slice of bread in the toaster. Then later, when it’s done, but not burnt, she takes it out. She also shows you how to apply butter to the toast.
It’s best if you spread the butter across the slice, apparently. Rather than leaving it in a great big chunk in the middle. Next week Nigella shows you how to drink milk.
She prefers to pour it into a receptacle, such as a glass or mug. Rather than pouring it over your kitchen work surface then trying to lap it up like a cat.
Anyone reckon this celebrity chef stuff might have gone a bit too far?
Sort it out, Gareth
GARETH Southgate praised England’s performance in their defeat to Belgium.
I thought we were witless, slow, boring and predictable. Barely a shot on target.
It is far less the fault of the players than the fault of the system old horseface forces them to play under.
We have some of the best forwards in the world utterly starved of chances by a packed and grim midfield which spends every game passing the ball sideways.
Either sort it out, Gareth, and drop the caution – or maybe find another job?
Don't do it, Donald
DONALD Trump – still clinging on – has a plan to bomb Iran. A kind of last act before he’s evicted from the White House.
Listen, mate – don’t do it. Just get Melania to pack up her Christmas trees and get the hell out of the place.
There may well have been voter fraud, but that didn’t cost you the election.
Being crazier than a s**thouse rat (as the Americans say) was the reason for that.
Also, handling Covid even worse than Boris did.
With a decent leader, the Republicans would have won by a landslide.
Energy dilemma
IF the internal combustion engine had been invented last week, there is no way we would allow it. Noisy and polluting creatures, cars.
So I have no problem with Boris Johnson and co saying we’re going to get rid of them all by 2030.
We’ll all be buzzing around in electric cars, apparently.
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Fine. But electric cars will be less polluting ONLY if we find a cleaner way to generate electricity – and wind farms are not the answer.
Read More on The Sun
Last year there was talk of a big investment in nuclear power. But we haven’t heard much since.
Joined-up policy means we must build more reliable, safe and clean reactors to meet this new need.
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