THE British are a fairly easy-going bunch, by and large.
If someone upsets us, we’re more likely to mutter angrily under our breath than to take up arms and go into battle.
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But there are two groups of people who are guaranteed to incur our wrath if they dare to cross us: People who push into queues and hypocrites.
Now, I don’t know whether Sir Keir Starmer stands placidly in line at the Post Office or not, but I do know one thing for sure: He is an A-grade, world class, Olympian level hypocrite.
Thanks to revelations in the Commons register of MPs’ declarations of interests, we now know that our new PM has gone from Two-Tier Keir to Free Gear Keir.
Indeed, he is the King of the Freebies, enjoying FAR more gifts than any other MP — or, indeed, previous Labour leader.
Starmer the Freebie Farmer has declared a whopping £107,145 worth of gifts, benefits and hospitality since he became Labour leader in 2020. That’s more than THREE times what the average worker in Britain is paid in a whole YEAR!
The declarations include the £16,000 of free suits and glasses donated to him by multi-millionaire Labour peer Lord Waheed Alli, and £40,000 in tickets for football matches as well as Taylor Swift and Coldplay concert tickets with his wife Victoria. (No Oasis reunion tickets were on the list but that’s probably because even Lord Alli couldn’t afford THOSE prices on Ticketmaster.)
What’s wrong, you might ask, with the Labour leader enjoying a nice day out?
The trouble is, most of us have to pay for this stuff ourselves out of our own earnings, and most of us don’t earn anything close to the PM’s £167,000 salary.
Yet here is a man who has preached at the rest of us about how we ALL face tough times ahead, warning of a “painful” Budget next month, while he was busy accepting thousands of pounds of free suits and hospitality.
Mr Moral High Ground
Here is a man who justified taking the £200-300 annual winter fuel allowance off millions of pensioners living barely above the breadline, when he gets his millionaire pal to pay for his glasses.
Here is a man who blasted Boris Johnson for accepting freebies from Tory donors but who is happy to take £4,000 of Taylor Swift tickets for himself.
And here is a man who promised “change” yet here we are, only 11 weeks into a five-year term in office and this new Government already has a “last days of Rome” feel about it.
Good grief, it took Boris two whole years for things to get THIS bad! The trouble with Sir Keir is that he sold himself to the nation as Mr Moral High Ground, the man who follows the letter of the law.
It’s not just Starmer’s blatant hypocrisy that has appalled the nation, it’s the sheer tackiness of the whole affair too
Yet, as Director Of Public Prosecutions, he wasn’t allowed to accept ANY gifts under ANY circumstances.
That was when he was in charge of enforcing the law.
Now that he’s in charge of MAKING the law, why should the rules be different?
Did he not think to ask why someone would WANT to gift a future or current PM a new suit or a trip to the Arsenal?
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Didn’t they expect something in return or are they just kind, generous souls?
Foreign Secretary David Lammy made the laughable claim that the PM and his wife had to have donated clothes because there was no taxpayer funding for their clothing. No fund for their clothes? It’s called his sodding salary, mate!
It’s not just Starmer’s blatant hypocrisy that has appalled the nation, it’s the sheer tackiness of the whole affair too.
Lady Starmer — dubbed Queen Vic — was given £5,000 of designer frocks by Lord Alli. What self-respecting husband lets another man buy his wife’s clothes?
And then there’s the abject lack of good political judgement.
His hypocrisy will cost him dearly with voters
Did Starmer not think how these freebies from millionaires would look when millions are still struggling with the cost-of-living crisis?
Sir Keir Starmer’s flash suits and Arsenal tickets may have cost his bank account nothing, but his hypocrisy will cost him dearly with voters.
FEARS are mounting of a wider Middle East war after the audacious Israeli attacks on Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
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Booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in terrorists’ hands and pockets, killing 32 people and injuring thousands more.
Don’t worry, though, because war, terrorism and President Putin aren’t the biggest threats we face.
No, apparently the most fundamental threat is from . . . climate change.
So says Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who told us this week that tackling climate change will be “central” to everything his ministry does.
I certainly feel safer now I know his priorities.
After all, why worry about Islamist extremist bombs or Putin rolling his tanks into a Nato ally and young men and women being sent to war when we face the far greater horror of having slightly warmer summers.
Thank goodness we have David.
PLINTH’S TRANS ART A SLAP IN FACE
ARTY folk claim that if a piece of art provokes a strong response it MUST be good.
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In that case, the latest installation on the fourth plinth at Trafalgar Square must be bloody brilliant because my response has been one of incandescent fury.
It was supposed to be held open for a statue of Queen Elizabeth II, but has been home to temporary artworks for years.
The newest sculpture, called A Thousand Times In An Instant, is by Mexican artist Teresa Margolles and features plaster casts of the faces of 726 “trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming” people, many of them sex workers.
I have SO many questions.
First, aren’t there any BRITISH artists left any more? Second, why are the faces of Mexican trans sex workers on a plinth in one of our most important national squares?
And third, why do the great and good insist on ramming this woke nonsense down our throats at every opportunity?
Frankly, I’d rather look at an empty plinth.