Labour luminary Harold Wilson once reputedly observed that ‘a week is a long time in politics’. That being the case, Sir TwoTier Stasi must reckon that a year is a bloody eternity.
Cast your minds back twelve months, fellow cunters; what wasn’t Labour going to do? It was going to revive the economy and bring growth and prosperity. It was going to sort out the chaos in the NHS. It was going to solve the festering sore that is the migration problem; it was going to ‘smash. the. gangs.’. And so on. Perhaps somewhat forgotten now is Labour’s manifesto pledge on the issue of sleaze. Ol’ TwoTier was going to pull on his big boy pants, and address issues of malfeasance by focussing on accountability and by adherance to ethical standards in public life. Apparently. So how’s that all been working out then? Let’s have a little look.
Well, Sir Stasi hadn’t had the the key to No 10 for five minutes before ‘Freebiegate’ burst upon him, and he was ducking and diving about the receipt of tens of thousands of freebies ranging from clothes and specs for him and his missus to football and concert tickets. Regardless of whether or not there was any actual wrong-doing involved, the optics were awful at the time that Labour was taking the axe to the winter fuel allowance.
Then began a steady dribble of, shall we be kind, and say ‘misfortunes’. Louise Haigh resigned after some murky dealings involving a mobile phone of all things, and a possible breaching of the ministerial code. ‘Anti-corruption’ Minister Tulip Siddiq quit over claims that she had family ties to the former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, under investigation for, er, ‘corruption’. Andrew Gwynne was sacked as Health Minister for sending messages in which he hoped that a pensioner who had the audacity to disagree with him would die. Then there’s MP Mike Amesbury, who was convicted for assaulting a constituent, and send down for ten weeks (later suspended). Not to mention Rushanara Ali, Homeless Minister who had to resign after evicting tenants from her London property on the pretence that she was selling, only to re-let it shortly after at a much higher rent.
And coming up to date, there was the spectacular fall from grace of Our Ange, forced to quit the front bench after admitting to underpaying stamp duty on her flat in Hove, after years of banging on about the need for absolute probity in government, and acting as Labour’s rabid attack dog against opponents.
And then came the breaking of… the Peter ‘Lord Scandalson’ Mandelson shocker. Mandelson, of course, is, as I write, our ambassador to the US, but how long he can survive is open to debate as seedy revelations about the extent of his relationship with convicted p@edo and (possible) suicide Jeffrey Epstein break over his head, and Sir FreeGear’s judgment is again called into question. Initially he’s backed him, which is usually the kiss of death in these matters. Odds are though, he’ll have to sack him, unless he resigns first;
Anybody with a brain bigger than an atom knew that a Labour government would be a clusterfuck of incompetence and that the wheels would come off big time, but I don’t think we could have guessed just how much of a part such shady, sordid antics would play in their rapid fall from grace. ‘The grown-ups are in charge’ they said. That’ll be right, you dodgy bunch of wankers.
You almost have to feel a pang of sympathy for the hapless Starmer, as his much-vaunted ‘Phase Two’ vanishes beneath the waves like the Titantic. Almost, but not quite. Who’s to say what further ‘indiscretions’ might have been revealed by the time that this nom gets posted (if it gets posted)? He must wish that the waves would swallow him up too, a wish no doubt heartily shared by many millions the length and breadth of this sceptic isle.
Financial Times.
Nominated by Ron Knee.
