THIS is the season for childish games, so let’s play one. What do you think our Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, got for Christmas?
Yes, I hear you. “A personality”. I can see him unwrapping it in front of the organic, vegan tree. “Well, it’s very nice, thank you — but what do I do with it?”
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Or maybe some hypersonic electric gizmo which, when you press a button, fires a laser inside David Lammy’s head and stops him coming out with something fabulously idiotic.
Some Mr Men soaps and a pair of socks with the words, “I’m taking tough decisions” stitched into the heel? A jar of rhubarb chutney laced with strychnine from Magic Grandpa?
Well, we can laugh for a bit. But we’re all guilty for voting him in.
Me more than most, given that I thought that although he was boring and managerial, that might be just what we want right now.
READ MORE FROM ROD LIDDLE
And so I wrote, in these pages, maybe we should, y’know, give him a chance . . .
Wrong! It doesn’t necessarily follow that because someone is boring and managerial, they are going to be competent.
They could be boring, managerial and f***ing useless, couldn’t they? And sadly, that is what I fear we have got.
This has been easily the worst first six months of any government, perhaps ever — certainly within my living memory.
And I remember Ted Heath!
Having told us all that Labour’s primary objective was to grow the economy, he has managed, somehow, to send it into a tailspin.
It was pootling along perfectly happily in an upwards direction until Sir Keir and his ghastly chancellor came along.
Up goes National Insurance — down goes the economy.
We will be lucky to avoid a recession. And all this means that interest rates remain highish and inflation has started to rise again.
Meaning that people will be feeling substantially worse off than they were on July 4 this year, when so many of us thought, “Could Labour really be any worse?”.
Oh yes. Yes, they could indeed.
Meantime, more and more economic migrants are crossing the Channel.
Because, just as we suspected, Starmer didn’t have a clue how to deal with that particular problem.
It was all just hot air.
So the number of people coming into the country stays at totally unsustainable levels.
And Angela Rayner is determined to pave over every last inch of countryside to build homes for them.
We are living on borrowed money and borrowed time.
Rod Liddle
Denying local people the right to object to completely inappropriate building.
Where money has been spent, it’s been on Labour’s client groups.
Starmer has bunged massive pay rises to the doctors and the train drivers. And yet there are still threats that they might go on strike.
We’re now in a position where more than half the population receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes.
I don’t need to tell you what that means for the long-term future of the country.
We are living on borrowed money and borrowed time.
With a public sector which is overpaid and under-productive.
And the awful thing is, we have to wait another four and a half years to get rid of them.
So it’s a big Christmas SORRY from me, decked out in tinsel with jumping reindeer, for ever suggesting that Labour might have been a good idea.
It’s taught me a lesson or two.
Lockdown’s back on the agenda
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OH no! Lockdown is back on the agenda.
Apparently, the UK has been hit by a “flunami” this Christmas.
That’s journo speak for quite a large number of flu cases. And now heath experts say we should bring back lockdown or social distancing. Really?
Because it was so successful last time? Because it wrecked the economy, ruined children’s education and convinced millions of us we never need to work again?
And saved no more lives than had we not been locked down at all?
Get a grip! There are always lots of flu cases in winter.
Mandy role is pants
I AM well aware of Peter Mandelson’s admirable characteristics, given that I’ve interviewed him many times.
That’s including the occasion on which – half way through the discussion – he removed his trousers.
I thought that was kinda weird.
But as ambassador to the US? I mean, Trump-Mandelson? Is that really a match made in heaven?
And isn’t it the case that every time Peter has been elevated to high office, something grim has befallen him within a few months?
Usually something involving money. Y’know, I’m just not sure that this arrangement will work.
It’s a dog’s life at Xmas
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GOT to tell you, I do miss the Christmases of my childhood. The traditions and everything.
On Boxing Day, my mum would sit at the kitchen table with a ledger and write down every gift we had received from friends and rellies. And estimate the cost.
Then she would compare that to how much WE had spent on THEM.
And write it all down, doing the maths. “A pair of socks from C&A??? When we got her a Filofax? That cow’s getting nothing next year.” And so on, all the way through that long list. I liked that.
Recent years have been different.
What happens now is all presents are for the dog. We started wrapping presents up for Jessie ten years ago.
It was fun watching her tear them open. And finding some doggy treats.
But then she started getting really arsey. And when any present was being unwrapped by someone else, she’d growl and bark. So now we let her tear open all the presents.
To stop the fuss.
And it’s a problem if the present is a delicate silk blouse, say. Or worse still, something edible.
In that case, the present is just gone. Swallowed by a deranged Labrador.
Also, our children are in their twenties. But they still get a stocking. When the f*** does that business stop?
Still, we had a good time and everyone was happy, until Gavin & Stacey came on. Then we went out. Hope you all had a lovely day.
Shy UK polls apart
OPINION polls keep getting things badly wrong. They fail to take account of “shy Tories” or, in the US, “shy Trumpers”.
The only accurate poll in the US presidential election was one which did not ask people which way THEY voted.
Instead, it asked how the respondents thought their skank of a neighbour voted. It came out bang on. Maybe we should try it here.
“Well . . . he’s in his sixties with an XX Bully called Oswald, tattoos, no teeth and a mobility scooter.
“He was caught trying to set fire to what he thought was a hostel for refugees but was in fact the Belgian Embassy. So, probably not Green, then . . . ”
