Keep calm and enjoy festivities
IF SIR Keir Starmer’s surprise Labour reshuffle this week was to consolidate the power of the centrists at the top of the party, he needs to find a way to get rid of gobby redhead Angela Rayner.
She’s like some hackneyed Seventies stereotype of what a deputy Labour leader should be like – only with a filthier mouth.
She’s also consumed with such hatred for the Tories that it makes her ineffective as a politician. And she’s so far out of the loop that she chose to deliver her big speech about Tory corruption on the day the reshuffle was happening – suggesting she knew nothing about it. Serious Labour politicians like Yvette Cooper, Lisa Nandy and Wes Streeting have been rightly promoted.
But it’s clear Starmer hates Rayner, who is so closely associated with Corbyn and the hard Left that she’s toxic and one of the reasons Labour is currently unelectable.
She may be appointed by the party, but until he finds a way to get rid of dinosaurs like her, Labour’s going nowhere.
NOW THIS is a festive treat too far. Heinz has combined forces with the people who make Terry’s Chocolate Orange to produce Orange Mayo. So that’s mayo made with eggs, vinegar and mustard seeds, combined with Terry’s orange chocolate and a dose of orange oil.
Pass the sick bag...
THE ludicrously woke BBC has renamed Megxit as Sussexit because Prince Harry reckons the former is misogynistic. But then this is the bloke who thinks everyone in Britain – including his own family – are racists. So, who cares what he thinks? But the rest of us will continue to call Harry and Meghan’s departure from Britain Megxit for the simple reason that had he married any other woman but her – he’d still be here.
SO WHAT happened to “follow the science”? Because the science on Omicron seems to be that while it spreads quickly it’s no worse than flu. The World Health Organisation reported yesterday that globally ZERO deaths have been caused by the new mutation and in South Africa, not a single person so far has even been seriously ill with it. And this is in a country where just 24.4 per cent of the population is fully vaccinated, as opposed to the UK which is 89 per cent vaccinated.
But none of this has stopped the doom-mongers here going into full-blown Armageddon mode. “Christmas must be cancelled,” they scream. “Don’t go to work, don’t travel, cancel your parties! Scrap events where there’s more than four people.Wear masks, even in bed.”
I made that one up, but you get my drift.
And it’s Sage scientists who are to blame.They’ve shamefully been trying to bounce the Government into imposing more draconian restrictions over Omicron by leaking info to the BBC before it’s even been seen by ministers. How bloody dare they. Do they actually think they’re more powerful than the Government? God knows why, because every prediction they’ve ever made has been wrong. Yet every time a new variant emerges they rush to press the nuclear button.
These people are conveniently ignoring all the emerging evidence that says while Omicron is fast-spreading, its symptoms are mild.And there is zero evidence it renders vaccines ineffective. Quite the opposite, according to vaccine makers, who say they can tweak existing vaccines to deal with Omicron.
So why are Sage scientists refusing to follow the science? Why, without any evidence, have they decided this latest mutation is a reason to hurtle back into lockdown? They know better than the rest of us that viruses mutate all the time. They know that some come and then fizzle out, having had no major impact – the Beta and Gamma variants being perfect examples.They also know that Covid is here to stay, so do they want us in lockdown forever?
Boris really needs to put these Sage bods back in their boxes, not just because their predictions are usually spectacularly wrong but because they’re panicking and trying to take control of a situation they don’t yet understand.
And it’s not just Christmas they’re determined to wreck but our recovering economy as well. Thousands of Christmas bookings have now been cancelled thanks to their nonsense, which puts the hospitality industry back where it was six months ago.
Dr Angelique Coetzee, chair of South Africa’s Medical Association and a GP in the thick of it over there, says nothing in this new variant warrants Britain’s “extreme response” to it. Dr Coatzee says no one in South Africa has made a big deal out of it, yet here some uninformed scientists were shouting last week that Omicron was “horrific” and “the worst yet”.
So while it’s sensible to reimpose the current restrictions for a short period (and it has to be short), there must be no more until we see what this variant is doing.
The best thing all of us can do is to get vaccinated. Stop listening to the anti-vax loons and just look after yourself and your family. I’ve lost count of the stories from hospital staff about the dead and the dying – most of whom are unvaccinated – who hugely regret not getting jabbed.
Don’t be one of them! And don’t let the Sage panic merchants wreck your Christmas. Because after the last 18 months we all deserve triple helpings of good cheer.
NICOLA Sturgeon has
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asked Boris yet again for a poll on independence. And I’ll bet she’s praying he says NO. Because she knows full well an independent Scotland would have been utterly destroyed by this pandemic.
She also knows that – apart from the fact support for independence is plummeting – Scotland can’t survive without Westminster’s billions. It’s had £14.5billion in extra funding since the pandemic began, having stupidly just budgeted a piddling £225million from its own funds. The UK Government has also supported 900,000 Scottish jobs and given £3.4billion to small businesses.
Add to that the fact that Scotland’s health service and education systems are in a mess and its public spending deficit has doubled to £36.3billion, which is 22.4 per cent of its GDP (the equivalent deficit for UK was just 14.2 per cent), and there’s no way that Scotland can survive on its own.
But Sturgeon knows she has to go through the pretence of wanting independence otherwise the NATs would kick her out.
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BRITT EKLAND lost her rag when Freddie Flintoff likened the late Sir Roger Moore’s 007 character to “a creepy old bloke you’d warn your daughter about”. Britt, who starred with Rog in The Man With The Golden Gun, hit back: “Sir Roger Moore was the most respectful and kind actor ever. I suggest you turn your vile comments to your own profession, cricket. Racism.” She’s not wrong.