Way of the World Michael Deacon

Apparently we’re supposed to be surprised that viewers of GB News are planning to vote Labour. According to a new poll by JL Partners, Sir Keir Starmer’s party holds a commanding 11-point lead among people who watch the channel.

This is hardly a sign, however, that GB News viewers have suddenly become Left-wing. I doubt they’re inundating the broadcaster’s executives with demands for more favourable coverage of the small boats, fawning interviews with Greta Thunberg, and Nigel Farage to be replaced by Sadiq Khan.

In fact, I doubt any GB News viewers actually support Labour at all. It’s just that voting Labour represents the most effective way to take revenge on the Government. Because, right now, no one is more furious with the Conservatives than conservatives.

In 14 years in office, what, other than Brexit, have the Tories done to please their core support? Immigration has reached mind-boggling new heights. The tax burden is the biggest since the War. The BBC still has its licence fee. Cycling remains entirely legal.

For conservatives, therefore, voting Labour is a means to punish the party that was meant to represent them – and to force it to change.

Personally, though, I suspect there’s a second reason that many conservatives fancy a Labour government. Which is that, after all these years of seeing their own party be relentlessly ridiculed by smug Labour-supporting comedians, celebrities and social media personalities, there will be considerable pleasure in watching them discover that running the country isn’t quite as simple as they think.

On the Left, I predict, commentary on the Starmer government will pass through three stages.

1. YESSSSSSS !!!!! THE EVIL TORIES ARE FINALLY OUT !!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOW EVERYTHING IN THE COUNTRY IS GOING TO BE MAGICALLY BETTER BECAUSE IT’S LABOUR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Look, it’s not Keir’s fault. He’s having to deal with all the mess that the useless Tories left behind, and that was always going to take time. Nobody ever said that being in government was easy.

3. Stupid Starmer. I always said he was a Tory.

British people love going on holiday to the Canary Islands. Some of the locals, however, are so fed up with us swamping their land, they’ve started holding anti-tourist protests. Two weeks ago they went on hunger strike to oppose the construction of new hotels. And this week they sprayed a road with the message: “THE CANARIES HAVE A LIMIT.”

Unfortunately, they wrote it in Spanish. So, thanks to our famous aptitude for languages, British tourists won’t have a clue what it says.

The people of the Canaries, though, aren’t the only ones who are sick of foreign visitors. In order to reduce overcrowding, Venice has just started forcing tourists to pay an entry fee – or face a fine of up to €300 (£255).

And last year, Amsterdam announced a goal of cutting tourism by half.

Since these destinations are all so popular with the British, you might expect me to resent this disdain for our custom. Not at all. In fact, I think we should follow their lead. Nowadays, Britain itself attracts far too many tourists. And, for those of us who live, work and in particular commute here, they’re a nuisance. Mainly because they’re always getting in our way.

I’m not saying we should ban tourists, or charge them a prohibitive entry fee. All I’m saying is that, before they’re permitted to enter our country, they should be required to sit a special exam. And to pass it, they must demonstrate the following.

An ability to operate railway station turnstiles. An understanding that the left-hand side of an escalator is for walking, not chatting, placing luggage or staring dreamily into space. A readiness, when standing in a London Tube carriage, to remove their preposterously vast rucksacks from their backs, so that they don’t blindly whack them into fellow passengers every time they move. And, most crucial of all, a walking speed greater than one mile a fortnight.

Without tourists, London in particular would be a lot poorer.

But if it means being able to walk down the street without endlessly getting our ankles bashed by the wheeled suitcases of oblivious Belgians, I think a few per cent of GDP is a sacrifice worth making.

It seems to be a rule of modern business that, if you wish to attract new customers, the first thing you must do is to alienate your existing ones. I don’t know whether this is what the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is trying to do. But if it is,

I’d say it’s going the right way about it.

Reportedly the orchestra has opted to abandon “any perceived ‘rules’ of a traditional concert” – by, for example, encouraging audiences to “clap whenever they like”, and “take photos or short snippets of film” on their phones. This relaxing of standards will supposedly help classical music appeal to new “audiences and communities”.

If that’s the aim, they might as well go the whole hog, and let everyone behave as if it’s a rock concert. Get the conductor to stage-dive. Encourage the audience to fling plastic cups full of lager and similarly coloured fluids. And tell the musicians to imitate

The Who, by smashing up their instruments at the end.