Way of theworld Michael Deacon
At first, some Conservatives may have taken offence when Angela Rayner called them “scum”. No doubt they were reassured, however, by her subsequent explanation. “Scum”, insisted Labour’s deputy leader on Sunday, wasn’t necessarily a term of abuse. In “northern, workingclass towns,” she said, “we even say it jovially to other people.”
Yes, that sounds perfectly plausible. I’m sure it happens all the time.
“Ay up Doris, you worthless piece of Tory scum.”
“Arright Ted, you hated oppressor of the proletariat. How’s your Tracey?”
“Still lower than vermin, the evil Thatcherite cow. How about your Stan?”
“Oh, you know. Still enriching himself off the backs of the poor and disenfranchised, the neoliberal warmongering Zionist parasite.”
At any rate, Ms Rayner’s outburst was hardly the most troubling news from Labour conference. There was far worse.
In an interview, Sir Keir Starmer pledged to tax private schools an extra £1.7 billion a year. Inevitably this would cause many of them to close.
In my view, such a policy would be disastrous. Not just for private schools – but for the Labour Party.
The reason is simple. Aside from the odd outlier like Ms Rayner, these days practically all socialists in this country are privately educated. So if Sir Keir puts private schools out of business, where is the next generation of Labour activists going to come from? English private schools have always been a vital breeding ground for the Left. These places pump out budding anti-capitalists by the truckload. You only need to look back at the last Labour leader and his team. Jeremy Corbyn, Seumas Milne, James Schneider, Andrew Murray, Jon Lansman… all privately educated. As was their idol, Tony Benn. Having only been state educated myself, I’m afraid I have no idea why it is that English private schools produce so many Marxists. Goodness knows what they’re teaching these impressionable children. Although presumably not history. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that almost any hardline Leftist you meet will turn out to have been sent by his or her parents to an expensive school. State schools, by contrast, barely seem to produce any lifelong Trotskyites, Stalinists or Hoxhaists at all.
Perhaps this explains why socialism has never taken hold in this country. Only seven per cent of the population is privately educated. You can’t possibly win a general election with a support base as small as that.
The lesson for Sir Keir is obvious. If he wants the Labour Party to have a future, he shouldn’t be raising taxes on private schools. He should be cutting them.
The number of migrants entering Britain by boat continues to rise. Twice as many have crossed the Channel so far this year as in the whole of last year. This is deeply worrying.
After all, these poor people have surely suffered enough already. We should be urging them to turn their boats around – for their own good.
Just think. They’ve travelled all this way in search of a better life. Yet, as they embark on the final leg of their journey, they seem entirely unaware that they’re about to become stranded on an island with no petrol, no lorry drivers, soaring gas bills, panic buying, empty shelves, runaway inflation and rocketing taxes.
Without delay, the Home Secretary should send out a fleet of Border Force patrol vessels, to order all migrants to abandon their voyage before it’s too late. “Attention, please! This is Her Majesty’s Government! Return to the French coast immediately! France’s shortages are significantly less acute!”
If our patrol vessels have run out of petrol, of course, I suppose we’ll just have to wait for each dinghy-load of migrants to come ashore – and then present them with a copy of the morning’s newspaper, so that at least they know what they’re letting themselves in for.
Then, while they’re busy reading, we can pinch their dinghies, jump aboard and escape.
According to the Guardian, many young social media influencers have decided they aren’t getting paid enough. As a result, they’re turning to collective organisation, in a bid to force big brands to give them more money for the selfies they take.
Personally, I would advise them to get tough. Remind these brands of the long, gruelling hours they’ve put in on the sunbed. The exhausting days on the beach. The hard yards they’ve put in by the pool.
If the brands won’t budge, they should threaten not to go on any more free luxury holidays until their demands are met.