‘Boris Johnson’s “sorry” was a part of the drained previous traces we have heard many occasions’

As we enter the season of countless BBC comedy repeats, let’s hear it for Boris Johnson.

Or Del Bo Fawlty as he ought to now be identified for the hours of mirth his dodginess supplied at this week’s Covid inquiry by means of drained previous traces we’d heard many occasions earlier than.

We realized that whereas 1000’s of Britons had been dying from Covid the place that would have prevented lots of these fatalities, 10 Downing Street, resembled a mash-up of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em and Men Behaving Badly.

He sat before the TV cameras saying “I promise to tell the truth,” with a Lee Mack poker expression, causing Victor Meldrew’s “I don’t believe it,” to echo by means of the heads of everybody watching.

His Ken Dodd hair had been given an additional ruffling to persuade us that, as he spluttered 19 occasions “I don’t remember” and did not account for the lack of 5,000 WhatsApp messages, it was all the way down to him being a befuddled Private Godfrey determine.

His apology, about as honest as a Stanley Norman Fletcher alibi to Mr Mackay, led to bereaved family members standing up with indicators that learn: “The dead can’t hear your apologies.”

If they may, they certainly would have laughed. If not at Del Bo’s lies then the counsel to the inquiry reminding him that his chief adviser had referred to as his operation “criminally incompetent” one Cabinet secretary labelled it “brutal and useless” and one other declared he’d “never seen a bunch of people less equipped to run a country.”

What, you’re not laughing? Fair sufficient. That’s what occurs with these BBC repeats. You step by step realise the joke is on you, the licence-payer. As it’s with this Covid Inquiry the place Johnson has spent months with taxpayer-funded attorneys perfecting the artwork of stonewalling, whereas the bereaved are denied the justice that they ache for.

Ironically, on the day Johnson sneaked into the London inquiry at daybreak to evade family members of the Covid deceased, in Liverpool family members of the 97 killed at Hillsborough gathered in a room to look at, through video hyperlink from Westminster, the newest instalment of a near-35 yr previous Establishment cover-up.

As with the Covid bereaved they got effusive apologies by Tory politicians, delivered with all of the sincerity of a hangman’s handshake, however little else.

It took me again to the various courts and parliamentary rooms the place, for greater than half of my life, alongside Hillsborough households I’ve heard comparable meaningless apologies from politicians and law enforcement officials, adopted by the customary “sadly, we can’t do any more for you.”

It occurred once more this week. All they had been asking for, backed up by a government-initiated report, was that legal guidelines are put in place to make sure any repetition of the lies from public servants that adopted Hillsborough would end in prison fees, and that victims may have parity of funding.

But after kicking the report down the highway for six years the Tories determined they may not oblige. Giving a inexperienced gentle to future cover-ups.

There will probably be different disasters or well being crises exacerbated by state incompetence or indifference, and no-one in authority will probably be held criminally accountable as a result of the regulation on this nation isn’t designed to work for the individuals.

What we noticed this week was truly extra a Bond film than a sitcom. Called Lie and Let Die.

And there however for the grace of destiny go you.

I used to be Fonda that tape

Jane Fonda has delivered unhealthy information to males of a sure age by saying “if I were to take a lover, he’d have to be 20, because I don’t like old skin.” Come on Jane. Sure, us older guys could have turkey necks, rooster anuses the place our elbows was and armadillo-shell ballsacks. But why would a girl your age wish to take for her lover a manchild who thinks Hanoi Jane is an Asian fusion restaurant, Barbarella is an Inter Milan striker and your Workout VHS tape is one thing used to wrap presents for his or her mum. Instead of realising, as each male residing with a girl within the Nineteen Eighties did, that the VHS exercise video was your best reward to mankind. The one true looking inheritor to the lingerie part of our mum’s catalogue.

EasyJet’s Santa concepts will not fly

EasyJet is putting in particular publish packing containers at airports throughout the UK for its Letters to Lapland service, promising to ship all youngsters’ written requests to Santa. A phrase of warning although younger ‘uns. There’s a great likelihood your letter will stay stranded within the UK as a result of the spelling of the title on it didn’t match the precise spelling of Santa Claus, and if it makes the flight will probably be dumped at an airport 30 miles exterior Lapland.

U-turns and spin will flip us all off

Keir Starmer is now doing u-turns on u-turns.

The man who, in October, derided Margaret Thatcher’s monetary Big Bang as a result of it concentrated “wealth and opportunity in the hands of the few” saluted her final weekend for creating “meaningful change.”

On Monday he rowed-back, saying all he’d meant was that she was “the sort of leader who had a mission and plan.”

You gained’t be stunned to study Starmer’s first quote was given to Labour convention, the second to a right-wing newspaper and the third when the likes of the Mirror rounded on him for praising Thatcher.

This two-faced gallery-playing should cease if he has severe ambitions of successful the following election. It is opportunism at its most cynical which fails to transform the sceptics and turns loyalists towards him.

The one factor Starmer ought to take from the Lady he so admires, is that she was not for turning.

Currently he’s doing extra turns than a one-armed man on the dodgems.

No silent nights

How ironic that schoolkids will quickly be singing “Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie” when in actuality, Bethlehem, the Palestinian city within the Occupied West Bank, is way from nonetheless.

With greater than 250 Palestinians killed within the West Bank for the reason that Israel-Hamas struggle started, no-one there’s anticipating a silent night time any time quickly. And with a million youngsters residing destitute in Gaza, with nowhere to go, what an indictment that’s on all of us who by means of our stillness, ignore it.

The week’s 5 large questions:

1. Gary Barlow’s rosé on sale at a discount basement worth in Home Bargains. Did everybody view its style, the best way Gary as soon as considered his earnings, as a bit too taxing on the palate?
2. Why do individuals proceed to get labored up about Harry and Meghan when they’re about as related as Edward and Mrs Simpson?
3. Gen Z time period rizz, shorthand for charisma, named Oxford Word of the Year. Why have they missed the phrase affecting each era in 2023 – skint?
4. The Premier League hailing the sale of a report 267 dwell video games for £6.7 billion to TV. Will in addition they be hailing a report shafting of away followers compelled to journey to video games at much more inconceivable occasions?
5. Anyone else hear the federal government say we have to refill on candles, batteries and torches in case of energy cuts and assume “that’s the family’s Christmas presents sorted?”