Unilever is no different to George Osborne, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and all the other embittered Remoaners who can’t get their heads around Brexit vote
WHAT’S the difference between food giant Unilever and Marmite? Some people actually like Marmite.
Unilever became the ugly face of multinational capitalism after hiking its prices on household favourites such as Marmite, PG Tips, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Persil — and then put all the blame on Brexit.
To its eternal credit, Tesco told Unilever to stick its overpriced yeast extract where nobody will ever spread it. And Unilever blinked, bottled it and backed down.
But Unilever can’t be let off so easily. The company had claimed that its ten per cent increase on national favourites including Pot Noodle, Flora and Comfort were all down to the falling value of the Pound — which would have sounded more plausible if the British-Dutch consumer giant had not been so desperate on the UK remaining in the European Union.
Unilever’s hiked prices felt as though they had less to do with the value of sterling and more to do with the taste of sour grapes.
And no amount of pious simpering about “our much-loved brands are once again fully available — thanks for the love” can hide this brutal truth. By attempting to hide prices, Unilever is no different to George Osborne, Nick Clegg, Ed Miliband and all the other embittered Remoaners who can’t get their heads around this fact — 17.4million of us voted to leave the EU.
And, as our Prime Minister has made clear, she intends to honour the biggest mandate in British history.
The Remoaners can whine, they can bleat and they can even try to put up the price of Marmite.
They can threaten us with doom, gloom and ten per cent on the cost of Pot Noodle.
It changes nothing. As Unilever discovered, if push comes to shove the British people can get by without their products, just as we have learned to struggle by without Osborne, Clegg or Miliband in our lives. By refusing to be extorted by Unilever, by getting the bullies to back down, Tesco stood up for the British consumer and our country.
Unilever, which made £2billion profit in the first half of this year — surely a healthy enough margin to absorb any fluctuations in the value of the Pound — badly misread the mood of this nation.
We are getting very sick of embittered Remoaners wagging their fingers in our faces.
We are sick of sore losers rejoicing in any scrap of bad news.
We are sick of Brexit deniers talking this country down. Remoaners — shut your mouth.
Who exactly did Unilever think it was dealing with here?
Our grandparents and parents fought tyrannies that threatened the freedom of the world.
This generation can sure as hell get by without their Pot Noodles.
– KIM KARDASHIAN is suing a gossip website for suggesting that she faked that Paris robbery.
In a photograph of Kim taken moments after the robbery, her distress certainly looks real enough to me.
But the most telling thing about the picture is that, even as the cops begin their investigation, Kim can’t let go of her smartphone.
Is she too thick to understand that it is her phone — and all the grotesquely boastful selfies she took with it — that got her into this mess in the first place?
BBC must quit bias on Brexit
THE BBC bent over backwards to be impartial during the referendum campaign. I took part in the Wembley Arena debate where the London audience was overwhelmingly and predictably in favour of Remain. To its eternal credit, the way the Beeb broadcast the event made it seem as though the audience was evenly split.
But the BBC’s impartiality has been left out for the bin men since June 23. Good Brexit news – old friends like Canada and Australia who are keen to strike trade deals – is downplayed. Bad news – even total fibs, like the £66billion annual price tag for Brexit based on discredited figures by George Osborne – is shouted from the roof of Broadcasting House. It stinks, Auntie.
The BBC is now as fanatically partisan about the horrors of Brexit as eye-swivelling Little Europeans like the Financial Times, The Guardian or George “The Redundancies Will Start Immediately” Osborne.
“Stand by for another tumble on the Pound following Theresa May’s remarks on the single market,” gloated Norman Smith, the BBC’s assistant political editor, on Twitter.
Smith was wrong – the Pound went up in value against the euro and the dollar.
Some 17.4million people voted to leave the European Union. How many of them work for the BBC? My guess would be – none.
And it shows in what is being called “a constant stream of negativity”.
This is nowhere near good enough. The BBC takes a £145.50-a-year licence fee from many of that 17.4million who voted to leave the EU.
It is time the BBC started showing that 17.4million some respect.
– HOW would Donald Trump know what locker room banter sounds like?
He looks as though he hasn’t been in a gym since The Glitter Band were having hit records.
Will Lily squeeze a big Afghan into her box room?
“I APOLOGISE on behalf of my country,” sobbed Lily Allen to a 13-year-old Afghan refugee – goodness, he’s big for his age! – before promising to open her £2million home in London’s Notting Hill to an unaccompanied refugee child.
Yes, and I remember when Yvette Cooper and Nicola Sturgeon made the same generous – and totally empty – promise.
Will Lily really squeeze a big Afghan into her box room?
Don’t hold your breath.
No good judging Len, Will
CRAIG Revel Horwood is cast as Strictly’s pantomime baddy but it is Len Goodman – irascible and thin-skinned behind that avuncular twinkle – who would scare me most if I were cocking up my American Smooth.
Len’s advice to Will Young – “Show up, keep up and SHUT UP!” – was by far the rudest thing I have ever heard a judge say on Strictly. But Will, who has quit the show, should have sucked it up.
It’s all right answering back to Simon Cowell, as Will famously did when he was a fresh-faced youngster starting out on his career.
But Len has devoted his entire life to dance. Winning trophies, teaching, judging – dance is what Len has done for a large chunk of his 72 years.
For a fading pop star to stand there and tell this old master that his little routine had “24 counts of eight in the dance” is like telling Mozart he is out of tune.
I feel for Will because Len can be a grumpy old man.
But he knows his stuff.
Will should have taken his lumps and stayed in the show. He would have learned something.
'Raving rent-a-mob rarely advances peace'
BORIS Johnson bizarrely calls for protests outside the Russian Embassy over the bombing in Syria.
Should a Foreign Secretary really be advising protestors what embassy they should be shouting outside? A raving rent-a-mob rarely advances the cause of peace.
Boris is turning into the Woody Allen of British politics.
I preferred his early work when he was funny.
Learn a lesson Labour
WHEN I was living almost next door to the Blair family in Islington, North London, my son was packed off to the local comprehensive, Islington Green, while Tony and Cherie shipped their sons all the way across town to the London Oratory, the most exclusive faith school in the land.
So it comes as no shock to hear that Baroness “Shameless” Chakrabarti chooses to send her own little darling to £18,000-a-year Dulwich College.
Labour politicians always passionately believe in comprehensive education.
But for your children. Never their own.
– SHADOW Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry – most famous for sneering at England’s flag – tables 170 questions that Theresa May “must answer” before she triggers our exit from the EU.
But Emily’s Labour Party is in terminal decline because it can’t answer just one question on a matter of concern to all Labour voters: What would a Labour government do about immigration?
And Emily never tells us because the answer is . . . bugger all, actually.
– WHEN the Queen is down to her last corgi, it feels like this dog-loving nation has reached a major landmark.
Two corgis, Holly and Willow, appeared with the Queen and Daniel Craig in that 2012 James Bond Olympics sketch. Now 13-year-old Holly has died and the Queen is left with just Willow, plus two dorgis – corgi-dachshund crosses – Vulcan and Candy.
But of course we associate the Queen with corgis. She has had more than 30 of them since 1945, owning as many as 13 at one time, but Willow will be the last because the Queen does not want any of her dogs to outlive her.
Rest in peace, Holly. Your owner is an example to dog lovers everywhere.
Spiteful pranksters
WHEN “killer clowns” are seen being chased by a man dressed as Batman, it feels like this ugly little craze may not even make it to Halloween.
No prank is ever done without an undercurrent of spite and the “killer clown” pranks are more spiteful than most.
One painted prankster in Kent jumped out at two men wielding a baseball bat – hilarious! – and was rewarded with a punch in the cake-hole.
Only a smack in the kisser? He’s lucky it wasn’t in Essex.