Wise-up Sir Keir Starmer, nobody wants you to be Tony Blair II
I SEE that Sir Keir Starmer wants to “renegotiate” Britain’s Brexit deal. The Labour leader thinks we’re not getting the best out of it.
He may be right about that. But there is only one person in the country I would trust less to “renegotiate” Brexit than staunch EU fan Sir Keir — and that’s Tony Blair.
Oddly enough, it looks like they are one and the same person.
Because while Starmer is popping up all over the place, such as in Paris meeting the French president Emmanuel Macron — it’s Blair who is pulling all the strings.
Blair is playing the part of Rod Hull. Poor old Keir is his gormless Emu.
It was Blair who fixed it for Starmer to go to the big French bash. He reportedly had a quiet word with the oily Macron — and sorted!
But he’s also beginning to direct policy.
Blair always wanted greater integration with the EU, while we were still a part of that bureaucratic nightmare.
It was only the principled opposition of Gordon Brown that stopped him.
And now, like a wraith from the crypt, he is back. Jangling his chains and ensuring that today’s Labour Party is basically Old New Labour.
Most read in The Sun
Should we be worried about this? Wasn’t Blair a much-loved Prime Minister who led Labour to a stonking majority over the Tories? And won the next two elections as well?
Ghastly henchman
Yes, absolutely. He can be very persuasive.
And while his New Labour did one or two good things, they were responsible for the two gravest mistakes any government has made since the Second World War.
The first was the illegal invasion of Iraq. Blair and his ghastly henchman Alastair Campbell twisted the evidence both in Parliament and to the public in order to justify a disastrous war.
A campaign which led to a civil war there lasting more than a decade, with such a terrible, terrible loss of life.
Then there was his catastrophic decision to relax our immigration laws and let in, consequently, millions of people. A problem which is still with us today and will be with us for the foreseeable future.
Some 600,000 arrived last year, for example.
Since being rightly hounded from office, Blair has been cosying up to some of the nastiest dictators in the ’stans and coining it in.
He was also, briefly, a stunningly useless Middle East peace envoy.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Sir Keir Starmer has done a pretty good job rescuing the Labour Party from the extremism of Jeremy Corbyn. He gives the impression he’s sensible and will take no notice of the lefty infants who make up a rather large proportion of his party.
He’s even beginning to understand what is meant by the term “woman”!
But Blairism is no better than Corbynism.
As one old mate from the party put it: “They’re two cheeks of the same liberal ar*e.”
Indeed. Sir Keir needs to understand that nobody in the country wants a return of Blair — apart from maybe Blair. And Cherie.
Nor do they want a Prime Minister who, in a desperate bid to win an election, turns to a man who won three — and left us with a double catastrophe, at home and abroad.
Be your own man, Keir. Tell Blair to hop it.
IF you think things are bad in England, just take a peek north of the border. The NHS up there is in utter disarray, even worse than ours.
And the number of deaths from dementia is soaring. The ruling party is mired in claims of corruption, with its former leader still expected to face charges.
A tram network in the capital was hopelessly mismanaged and left taxpayers with £800million of debt. Scotland has become the perfect example of what happens when you hand the reins of power to the woke Left.
Best wishes to Red Ken, newts headliner
IT’S sad to hear that Ken Livingstone is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Known for his love of newts, he was never my favourite politician, sure.
But he was a genuinely big figure, towering over left-wing politics for the best part of three decades.
How many politicians today can you say are major figures who changed the way we live our lives?
I suppose the last one was Nigel Farage – and he was really an outsider.
Somehow politics is failing to attract the sort of talent we saw just a few decades ago.
Anyway, best wishes to Red Ken.
From ad to worse
I JUST thought I’d share with you, for a moment, the television adverts that are really getting on my t*ts right now.
First there’s that Ant and Dec thing for Santander. Partly because I can’t stand Ant and Dec.
And second because I haven’t a clue what the Geordie munchkins are meant to be telling us. Not to bank with Santander?
Then there’s that stupid Johnny Depp ad where he thinks he’s a cool guitar player.
It’s for some sort of overpriced scent. “Smell like a coked-up has-been for eighty quid.”
Oh, and all the betting or lottery ads showing delighted people pocketing thousands.
But don’t show some poor sap trading in his grandmother at the pawn shop ’cos he just bet five grand on Millwall to beat Leeds.
‘Bet responsibly’ indeed.
Brand: He's no joke
GOOD journalism from the Sunday Times and TV’s Dispatches regarding the alleged antics of that gibbering halfwit Russell Brand.
What gets me, though, is the immediate taking of sides.
If you are a fan of Brand, you buy into his insane conspiracy theories and can’t believe he’s guilty of a thing.
If you don’t like Brand, you reckon he’s bang to rights.
Me? I can’t stand the gurning knob.
But I’d like to see a bit more evidence before he’s cancelled from existence, as is happening at the moment.
Incidentally, regarding Brand, here’s a very tough question for you.
Can you recall anything funny that Brand has ever said about anything?
Go on, have a think.
With pretty much all comedians, even Joe Lycett, you can probably remember one line they’ve said that made you smile for a moment.
Russell Brand? Not a thing.
It's net gonna work
SO, the Government is relaxing its very stringent policies on net zero.
This will mean pushing back the ban on the sale of new petrol-driven cars to past 2030.
And relaxing the ban on new gas boilers, due to be phased out by 2025.
I’m glad they’ve done this because because the net zero policy is fatally flawed. You can’t force people to scrap their petrol cars when both the tech and infrastructure isn’t really there to support electric vehicles.
The same goes for gas boilers. Heat pumps are still in their infancy.
They are wildly expensive and totally unsuitable for many homes in the country.
The problem is that Boris Johnson made his commitments to net zero knowing full well he wouldn’t be around to see them through.
He was grandstanding to win votes from the green lobby. Our move to net zero should take place in tandem with the technology, not ahead of it.
AN Australian called Higor Fiuza is in trouble.
Higor’s a surfer, like almost all Australians.
And when he surfs he takes his pet, Shiva, with him. Shiva is a python. The authorities say that making a python surf is cruel. But how do they know?
Did they ask it? Maybe the snake wishes it was David Hasselhoff.
And the python, being a python, would have made its feelings very clear to Mr Fiuza if it hated it that much.
We can't fox hunt
ONCE again, all the “experts” got it totally wrong.
The Bank of England and Office for National Statistics underestimated the fall in inflation.
It’s now down to 6.7 per cent, so it would seem that whatever that smug monkey Jeremy Hunt is doing at the Treasury is working.
Read More on The US Sun
Food prices are still too high, mind – and of course they are still rising.
But keep at it, Hunt.