Peter Hill

LEN McCLUSKEY, leader of Britain’s biggest trade union Unite, has given Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn 15 months to convince voters that the party can win power. And what if Brother Jezza doesn’t convince us? McCluskey must believe he has the power to choose a new leader. His union is Labour’s biggest financial backer and has nearly a million and a half members, all card-carrying party members presumably. So yes, Len probably does have the clout.

And there in a nutshell you have it: Labour is still in the pocket of the trade unions, still their servant and many Labour MPs are personally indebted to unions for support. They might profess independence but they aren’t going to bite the golden goose on the bum, are they?

Anyone who votes Labour is really voting for Len McCluskey and his cronies. And who are Len and Co voting for? Themselves. Every time. q THE Boat Race has been an institution since 1829 and apart from a few harmless sinkings not much has ever gone wrong. The Oxford and Cambridge boats are followed by a flotilla of organisers’ and spectator craft, among them elegant old slipper launches.

But this year these venerable “ladies” of the Thames will be banned by the Port of London Authority because, you guessed it, they don’t meet health and safety requirements. They have petrol engines and petrol is highly inflammable. The fact that they have been operating safely for around 100 years is of no account.

It would be sacrilege to convert the boats to diesel. In any case diesel is a nasty polluter. Must everything be sacrificed on the risk-averse PC altar? q THE Westminster killer is described as a lone wolf. But that is an insult to wolves – not popular but still noble wild animals. Adrian Elms, also known as Khalid Masood, was anything but noble. He wasn’t a Muslim or a genuine terrorist. I bet Islamic State had never heard of him until it claimed his atrocity as its own work.

Elms was a thug who had fantasised about killing people for years. Like so many admirers of extremism he was a failure in life, a misfit, not very bright, an inadequate. Unfortunately there’s no 100 per cent defence against random maniacs. That’s why we have to carry on living in hope. q I HAVEN’T handled the new £1 coin yet but it looks very like the old threepenny bit. Perhaps the designer had that in mind. It’s probably not worth much more than its humble predecessor and, the way things are going, rather less soon. q PG WODEHOUSE once said, “It has never been hard to tell the difference between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine,” and the meeting between Theresa May and Nicola Sturgeon is unlikely to have been a barrel of laughs.

The idea that offering Scotland’s First Minister a new raft of powers could help to save the Union has the stink of appeasement which as everyone knows never works. No amount of concessions will satisfy Madam Sturgeon, who is enjoying the ego trip of the century.

Rather than risk another Sturgeon tantrum Mrs May should maintain a lofty silence. She has far more important matters to deal with before again addressing an issue that has already been settled democratically and decisively. q DIPLOMATIC protests are flying over, of all things, the Eurovision Song Contest, which is to be held in the Ukrainian capital Kiev this year. Russia’s singer Yulia Samoylova, who is disabled, has been banned from entering the country, an act described as “outrageous and inhumane” by the Russian foreign ministry. It urges Western leaders to force Ukraine to review the decision.

I’m not keen on the word “force” or the idea that the silliest TV competition of all time might be the cause of World War Three. The organisers should think back to Ancient Greece when rival peoples put aside their weapons to participate in the Olympic Games.

Meanwhile poor Ms Samoylova is a helpless puppet on a string. q I HAVE occasionally noticed young people walking around with odd shoes but until now I hadn’t realised it was a current fashion. The odd-shoe wearers also have no socks even in winter – another fashion. Could this be the ultimate decadence that is heralding the end time for our way of life?

Or is it a sensible way to get the best out of all the old shoes littering the bottom of our wardrobes? I might try it and see if anyone notices. In our house I doubt if they’d clock it if I sat down to supper wearing a Madame Pompadour wig. q THE bank of mum and dad is now the only source of the deposit to buy a home of their own for many young couples because property is too expensive, especially in the South. It doesn’t help that property taxes in Britain are among the world’s highest, this under a Government whose core ideal is a nation of home owners. Used to be.

The Tories are morphing into the new Labour Party, filling a vacancy left by the successors of Blair. q I HATE home printers. If they’re not out of ink the wi-fi connection has broken or there’s a paper jam. But what irritates me most is when they print a single word on one sheet, some stupid heading or footer that you hadn’t noticed, wasting expensive paper. I’m sure they do it deliberately. They have the devil in them.