EVEN if you are sick to the back teeth of the Tories and bored witless by Labour, here is one thing you can no longer honestly claim.
They are all the bloody same.
PAUnder Labour our trains will be even worse and cost you more[/caption]
AlamyLabour want to appease their fat-cat union paymasters who openly despise the train-reliant public[/caption]
Oh no they’re not!
This was the week we learned that, on all the major issues, Labour and the Conservatives are anything but both the bloody same.
Even as the odds of a Russian victory in Ukraine increase, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry was talking appeasement, acting like a Neville Chamberlain tribute band in a toe-curling interview on Radio 4.
In this increasingly dangerous world, Rishi Sunak has pledged to spend 2.5 per cent of our GDP on defence by 2030, a move that would restore our Armed Forces to something like their historic status.
But Thornberry — a woman best known for snickering at a St George’s flag when she was out on the campaign trail — was pathetically passive on Radio 4.
In a world where war-mongering tyrants are on the rise, floundering Thornberry could not even say if the UK should be on a war-footing. Thornberry promises a review.
That will have the Red Army trembling, Emily!
And on the eternal subject of illegal immigration, Labour and the Tories could not be further apart.
Keir Starmer openly, and consistently, promises to scrap all plans of deportations to Rwanda if Labour wins the General Election.
Personally, I am not a huge fan of the Rwanda ruse.
I have moral qualms about shipping illegal immigrants to central Africa because I just don’t think it’s what we do in this country.
And we know that the cost of Rwanda deportations will be outrageously prohibitive.
But perhaps I am wrong.
Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister claims the UK’s threat of deportation to Rwanda is already driving illegal immigration into Ireland.
In a week when a packed migrant boat left five dead bodies floating in the English Channel, Sunak is at least attempting to come up with an effective deterrent.
Labour’s empty soundbites about stopping the people traffickers mean nothing.
Both the British and the French are trying to do that already.
Then there are the railways.
Labour announced on Thursday that in power, they will renationalise the rail network and bring back British Rail.
Treated like cattle
It’s the age of the crap train!
Who are they going to get to do their TV commercials? Jimmy Savile?
Nobody doubts our trains are broken.
Calling our rail network a Third World service is an insult — to the Third World.
I recently spent ten hours on assorted filthy, decrepit chuf-chufs going to watch Brighton play Arsenal. Ten hours!
It would have been two if not for what was euphemistically called “multiple disruptions” — engineering works, industrial action and landslides.
What? No leaves on the line?
We were treated like cattle. But at least cattle get put out of their misery.
I had a lesson in how laughably unfit for purpose our trains have become.
But they will be worse if Labour reheats the old Jeremy Corbyn policy of renationalising our rotten rail network.
Because it would hand even more power to the strike-crazy rail unions.
Labour don’t want to make the trains run on time.
They want to appease their fat-cat union paymasters who openly despise the train-reliant public.
Our trains truly suck — but British Rail was the slow train to hell, the ultimate symbol of late-20th century national torpor.
Labour want even higher fares, even slower trains and stale cheese and tomato sandwiches all round.
I understand why so many of you may stay home at the General Election. But it would be a mistake.
Because we really don’t want Emily Thornberry guarding us while we sleep.
E.R. . . WHO IS THAT?
I CAN only see one thing wrong with the seven-foot statue of our late Queen Elizabeth II that has been unveiled in Oakham, Rutland.
It doesn’t look anything like her.
GettyA seven-foot statue of the late Queen has been unveiled in Oakham, Rutland[/caption]
The first permanent memorial to our longest-reigning and most beloved monarch is not a bad statue.
It is not like that ludicrous bust of Ronaldo, which always brings on a fit of the giggles.
It is simply a terrible likeness.
This bronze looks like some kind of Marvel superhero – Helen Mirren playing a rebooted Boudica.
The Queen had a unique brand of homely charisma that made you think of your mother, grandmother or great-grandmother.
She was the most famous woman in the world and yet it was not difficult to imagine her as a member of your own family.
That was the key to her incredible, understated power.
For all the pomp and circumstance, she seemed like one of us.
The Queen was isolated during the pandemic.
She wore a mask at her husband’s funeral.
When bombs fell during the Blitz, they fell on her home too.
The locals in Oakham raised £125,000 to have this statue made.
I suspect the Queen – that most modest and self-effacing of monarchs – would have preferred the money going to a dog rescue centre.
And don’t get me started on the bust of Captain Tom Moore that sits in the hallway of his old home.
It doesn’t make me think of our late NHS hero.
It looks more like someone rallying the Third Reich.
JUST SO SHABBY
NIAMKE Doffou worked for Sainsbury’s for two decades and was sacked for taking plastic bags without paying.
How disgusting to see Sainsbury’s treating such a loyal worker in such a petty, spiteful, shabby fashion.
Especially when shoplifting – and assaults on supermarket staff like Niamke – are at an all-time high.
FRANK FIELD, the veteran Labour politician who has died at the age of 81, was the greatest Prime Minister this country never had.
Field put his country before his career, his principles before his party and the dignity of the British working class above everything.
What we lack today are politicians with Frank Field’s vision, compassion and love for this country and its people.
Frank’s Birkenhead constituents kept him as their MP for 40 turbulent years.
How many MPs of today inspire that kind of love?
None!
LEIA’S BIKINI IS TOUR DE FORCE
LAST week a fake-fur bikini owned by Raquel Welch, inspired by her iconic role as a hot cavewoman in One Million Years BC, sold for £10,000 at auction.
Inevitably many film fans found their thoughts drifting to the only bikini in the movies that ever topped Raquel’s stone-age swimwear – the gold metallic number that Princess Leia wore as Jabba the Hutt’s slave girl in Return Of The Jedi.
AlamyPrincess Leia’s gold bikini is the most iconic in film history[/caption]
GettyThe bikini was worn by Carrie Fisher in Return Of The Jedi[/caption]
When told that Princess Leia’s skimpy kit was setting a bad example to growing Star Wars fans, actress Carrie Fisher hit back.
“Tell them a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit,” Carrie said.
“And then I killed him because I didn’t like it.”
So Princess Leia’s slave girl outfit is not just the greatest bikini in Hollywood history – it’s also a symbol of girl power.
I always wondered why I liked it so much.
EXPERTS are divided on how history will remember Humza Yousaf, the SNP leader currently facing a vote of no confidence.
Yousaf the useless?
Humza the brief?
The halfwit of Holyrood?
The SNP have stuffed greenish woke rubbish down the throats of the Scottish people for years and now it is all falling apart.
Great news for the UK.
And great news for Scotland too.
DENIM SUITS SYDNEY
THERE are many fashion no-nos.
Wearing socks with sandals.
InstagramSydney Sweeney of Euphoria and White Lotus was seen sporting double denim in Hawaii[/caption]
Tucking your T-shirt into your trousers. Wearing leggings as jeans. Crocs.
But perhaps the greatest fashion no-no of all is the staple of my Essex youth and young manhood – double denim.
Talk to the fashion police who know about these things, and they will tell you that dressing in double denim is as bad as wearing Crocs.
But what’s this I see?
Hollywood’s sweetheart Sydney Sweeney of Euphoria and White Lotus glory seen sporting double denim in Hawaii, as though it is still a Saturday night in 1975 in Basildon town centre.
And somehow Sydney just about gets away with it.
IDIOTS IN THE RANKS
SACKING Met police chief Mark Rowley would not fix our flailing police forces.
The policeman who told Gideon Falter that he was in danger of being arrested for being “openly Jewish” when he was standing near a pro-Palestinian rally was guilty of rank stupidity.
PASacking Met police chief Mark Rowley would not fix our flailing police forces[/caption]
Would that thoughtless cop accuse someone of being “openly Muslim” or “openly black”? Of course not.
But it is stupidity rather than pure evil.
Likewise the grotesquely insensitive Plod in Nottinghamshire who described the young students stabbed to death as “proper butchered” was not TRYING to give enormous offence.
He is simply a moron.
Even if you sack the chief of the Met, we will still be plagued by all these pea-brained policemen.