You should worry about Vladimir Putin… not Margaret Thatcher’s portrait in No10, PM
IF Sir Keir Starmer finds a Downing Street portrait of Margaret Thatcher “unsettling” then I dread to think how the PM will feel if Vladimir Putin ever threatens us with nuclear weapons.
It was a Labour Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who commissioned the portrait of Thatcher, which Starmer has had shifted from the room where she worked during her three terms in office to a less prominent meeting room in No10.
Don’t you have bigger things to worry about, Prime Minister?
Moving Thatcher’s picture feels like gesture politics of the pettiest kind.
Starmer is not the leader of the Opposition any more.
It is time for Labour to stop obsessing about the wicked, wicked Tories and start running the country.
But this Labour Government increasingly looks out of its depth.
Starmer vowed to scrap the Tory plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda on day one of his new regime.
And so he did, despite the £700million the British taxpayer had already shelled out for the scheme.
But the small boats keep coming, the refugees keep dying — 12 this week, including ten women and girls.
And in a world where more people dream of living here than we can ever accommodate, in a Europe where anti-immigrant forces are on the rise, the Rwanda plan was an attempt to do something to act as a deterrent to those who will risk their life for a chance to live in our country.
Now Germany — you know, those progressive, enlightened, non-racist Europeans that Labour love — wants to steal our Rwanda plan.
And use the infrastructure in Rwanda paid for by the British taxpayer.
This is a major humiliation for our new Prime Minister. The Rwanda plan was not without its flaws — it was always going to be eye-wateringly expensive.
But as a deterrent to illegal migration, it will probably work a lot better than empty promises to “smash the people-smuggling gangs” — as if nobody ever thought of that before.
If you love this country, then you should wish Keir Starmer well.
But Labour are not making themselves easy to like.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves robs millions of pensioners of their winter fuel allowance to buy off Labour’s paymasters in the unions.
The Right Honourable Angela Rayner, Deputy Prime Minister, MP for Hypocrisy Central — who once sold her former council house for a £48,500 profit — wants to end the policy that allows council tenants to buy their own home. Do as I say, not as I do!
Energy Secretary Ed Miliband stuffs the pockets of foreign-owned wind farm giants with billions as he recklessly pursues an unfeasible energy policy that will ramp up your bills and turn off the lights.
Foreign Secretary and Celebrity Mastermind alumni David Lammy (“Who came after Henry VIII?” “Er, Henry VII?”) announces an arms embargo on Israel just as six hostages murdered by Hamas are being buried.
And Home Secretary Yvette Cooper frowns meaningfully, as if it will be enough to control our borders.
Labour increasingly looks like a one-term outfit.
I don’t see a Government that is aspirational, pro-business, pro-growth.
All I see is a divisive, spiteful Government desperately sucking up to their base, putting their party before our country.
If I was you, Keir, I would get my portrait up in No10, and pretty sharpish.
You will not be there for ever.
NICOLE SIZZLER CAN’T MATCH BLUE ROOM WITH A PHEW
NICOLE KIDMAN has been on multiple red carpets this week promoting her new Netflix drama The Perfect Family, which was released on Thursday, and Babygirl, her erotic thriller coming in January.
The Perfect Family looks pretty good – a glossy psychological drama in the vein of Kidman’s Big Little Lies. She does that stuff so well. Babygirl looks even better.
In an update of the Fatal Attraction love triangle, Kidman plays a high-powered CEO who puts her world at risk when she starts an affair with a much younger man.
Babygirl got a wildly mixed reaction at the Venice Film Festival – a standing ovation, catcalls and five-star reviews.
But I can’t believe the claims that Babygirl is the most erotic thing that Nicole Kidman has ever done.
Because I saw her on stage with Iain Glen in The Blue Room at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 1998, where she famously played multiple roles – The Girl, The Au Pair, The Married Woman, The Model and The Actress.
Even more famously, Nicole took all her clothes off in The Blue Room, inspiring one theatre critic to mop his fevered brow, wipe his steamed-up spectacles and declare the play was “theatrical Viagra”.
Funnily enough, I had dinner this week with an old friend who also saw Nicole Kidman in The Blue Room nearly 30 years ago.
And he remembers Nicole taking her clothes off more vividly than he remembers what he did last week.
I am willing to believe Babygirl is unmissable.
But I can’t believe it has anything matching the va-va-voom of The Blue Room.
TAYLOR GOSS IS DROSS
NOW that Queen Elizabeth II is gone, Taylor Swift is by some distance the most famous woman in the world.
Nobody else even comes close.
And yet rumours have got about that Taylor’s relationship with NFL footballer Travis Kelce is a “showmance” – a romance-free publicity stunt.
An admittedly convincing-looking document has been doing the rounds, allegedly from Full Scope, Travis’ PR team, scheming about what they will say when the happy couple break up on September 28.
And what baffles me is, how can people believe this crap?
It is true that Kelce’s publicist Jack Ketsoyan has spoken in the past about showmances.
And of course they happen.
But Taylor Swift is not some Love Island veteran hoping to get the call from Strictly, or Ant and Dec in the jungle.
Taylor is not some starlet from The Only Way Is Essex hoping to make the big career move to Dancing On Ice.
I can’t think of anyone less likely to want to raise her profile than Taylor Swift.
Apart from our late Queen.
ELITE fashion house Balenciaga is selling out of what it calls “women’s destroyed tights”, yours for just £1,150.
So, how much for a pair of Balenciaga tights that are not fashionably laddered?
A lot less.
AUDIENCES at the Venice Film Festival were stunned by how youthful Brad Pitt looks at 60.
And those pundits who speculate about cosmetic surgery are completely misunderstanding how Brad does it.
I can explain it in six words.
Weight off, hair on, body hard. Oh, and sensible shoes.
KEIR’S IN DOG HOUSE
WHEN Barack Obama was running for US President in 2008, he promised his two young daughters – Malia, then ten, and Sasha, seven – a dog if he got to the White House.
In the end he got them two dogs – Bo, a male Portuguese water dog, and Sunny, a female of the same breed.
When Sir Keir Starmer was running for Prime Minister, he also promised his teenage children a dog – a German shepherd – if he made it to 10 Downing Street.
Instead, he got them a kitten, who will join Larry, Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office, in No10.
But a cat is no substitute for a dog.
A dog thinks you are god. A cat knows you are staff.
VOLVO has quietly dropped its plans to sell only electric cars by 2030.
Demand for EVs had dropped across the planet, with concerns about cost, charging infrastructure and the very real possibility of running out of juice before you get to your destination.
The public are sick of having EVs rammed down their throat.
And the car industry is finally getting the message.
SPOOK ALIKES
THE ghoulish grin, the mess of smudged mascara and the barnet that looks like a bomb has hit it – one look at Michael Keaton’s Beetlejuice in Tim Burton’s reboot and I was immediately transported back to 1988 and one of my all-time cultural favourites.
For a moment, I thought that was Robert Smith of The Cure.