Forget Neighbours..

..what everybody really needs is good Labour

GOODBYE to Neighbours then. I’ve lost touch with it in the last few decades, although I believe Dr Kennedy was still in it last time I looked and maybe even Toadfish was knocking about.

Hard to tell when it really peaked. Maybe when Helen Daniels died, or when Des and Daphne got together, or that one where Sky Mangel got bitten by a redback. (A few episodes later Sky’s mum Kerry was killed in a duck hunting accident.)

Whatever. Sad to see it go, but we should mark its passing in the proper fashion – maybe we can use a picture of Kimberley Davies or something.

But soap fans need not worry. Ramsay Street’s 37 years of drama is nothing compared to the soap opera going on in Downing Street.

Scalp

Monday night’s confidence vote was probably the height of the action lately. A chance to test the Tory Party’s faith in their leader as dramatic as when Lou Carpenter’s pub burned down (I’ll stop with Erinsborough stuff now.)

Again, Mr Starmer has some difficulties. There are low-level internal spats about how Labour should be behaving at the moment.

One school of thought is that Mr Johnson is mortally wounded and it would be a great scalp to take.

But there’s another, softer view. One staffer told me: “You don’t want to look like you’re punching someone who’s already beaten. That’s not what you do in a fight.”

I thought that’s exactly what you did in a fight but maybe I’m wrong. There’s another view that Johnson is so synonymous with the corruption and excess of the current lot that if you got rid him you would detoxify the brand in one fell swoop.

So maybe you keep him there. On balance, I think it’s always nice to drive out a Prime Minister.

Always a win.

It would be good to see Labour a bit more proactive. It is worrying some people that they are beginning to style themselves as what the Tories are not, rather than what they are themselves.

Another thing is that when Labour do emerge, they’re tying themselves in knots.

The rail strikes will be a real test. I guess the natural inclination of a lot of the party is to back the workers.

But by playing to the centre, that infinite number of upset commuters, they are trying to walk a very narrow tightrope in the middle.

Thing is, you know what happens to people in the middle of the road, as the saying goes. You can’t please everyone, like when Paul Robinson refurbished Lassiter’s. (Apols. Last one, I swear.)

That’s why many people are beginyet ning to think it’s time for Labour to be a bit bolder, not just with the rail strikes.

If they don’t want to go for Mr Johnson, then that’s fine, but let’s see what the party is really about.

It’s a point in the life of the Labour Party that people would put aside internal grudges if it meant winning an election.

Time to listen to each other, bury the hatchet and have a think about what comes next.

With a little understanding, like the song says, you can find the perfect blend.