ANDREW PIERCE: Independents tackle jittery Keir over Gaza
With a 20-point lead within the polls, you would possibly suppose that Sir Keir Starmer is blissfully awaiting the General Election.
Quite the other. His occasion is frantically spending tens of hundreds of kilos polling Muslim communities after a hunch in assist over Starmer’s refusal to again a ceasefire in Gaza.
For good motive. Little observed final month was the announcement by Mohammed Akunjee, a Muslim lawyer, that he’ll stand as an unbiased candidate within the London Labour stronghold of Bethnal Green and Bow.
Akunjee, whose purchasers embody Shamima Begum, the Isis bride in Syria preventing to revive her British citizenship, says: ‘I will likely be going face to face with Labour.’ His election slogan? ‘Vote Akunjee. Don’t belief Labour.’ He’s preventing the Labour MP Rushanara Ali, who confronted livid crowds chanting ‘vote her out’ and ‘Labour Party, disgrace on you’ outdoors her constituency workplace in November after she refused to again a Gaza ceasefire vote in Parliament.
Labour chief Sir Keir Starmer (pictured) throughout a go to to St Fergus Gas Terminal
Protest outdoors the workplace of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party in Bethnal Green, London, in an space represented by Labour MP Rushanara Ali, in protest at Labours stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict
MP Rushanara Ali responds after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave an announcement to MPs within the House of Commons on the state of affairs on the Israel-Hamas battle
In 2022, the native Tower Hamlets council was captured by the Aspire occasion, whose 24 councillors are all Bangladeshi-heritage Muslims. The council chief, Lutfur Rahman, backs Akunjee.
A Muslim unbiased candidate can be standing in Ilford North, the place brazenly homosexual and fiercely bold Wes Streeting, the Shadow Health Secretary seen as future occasion chief, took down a 5,400 Tory majority in 2015.
Revolts are stirring in different seats the place there are a giant Muslim vote — with George Galloway standing for the Workers Party of Britain within the Rochdale by-election. Starmer is correct to be fearful.
Former Chancellor George Osborne found the laborious approach that French presidents could be very sensitive. ‘I used to be giving a speech and there was the lectern and just a little field for a shorter particular person to face on,’ he says. A number of days earlier, it had been reported that President Sarkozy, 5ft 6in in footwear, used the field for a peak enhance. Osborne remembers: ‘So I picked up the field and mentioned to the viewers in Britain: ‘I do not want this Sarkozy field.’ I obtained a message from the French Embassy saying I would not be welcome in Paris for at the very least 12 months.’
After the revelation that Rishi Sunak fasts each week for 36 hours from 5pm on Sunday to daybreak on Tuesday, one Tory MP was overheard saying: ‘Let’s hope Russia would not invade any extra nations on a Monday when the PM’s blood glucose ranges are low.’
Stop the plots, growls Ferrari
At the Tory parliamentary occasion dinner on the Londoner resort final week, Rishi Sunak appeared on stage to introduce a shock visitor: Nick Ferrari, the formidable LBC breakfast present presenter.
He delivered some house truths to the viewers, which included Tory MPs and the whole Cabinet. Ferrari advised them: ‘My listeners would let you know, this is not an episode of The Traitors. They predict you to do the job they pay you for — govern. You are struggling loss of life by 1,000 leaks.
‘Never thoughts Stop The Boats. Stop the scheming. Stop the WhatsApping, cease the plotting.’
Sound recommendation which Tory MPs will ignore at their peril.
After her bruising look on the Covid Inquiry final week, the previous Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has revealed her favorite non-fiction ebook. Written by the Austrian Stefan Zweig, it’s a sweeping historical past of Europe masking World War I and the rise of Hitler. It’s title? The World Of Yesterday — a becoming epitaph for her political profession.
Former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie wasn’t impressed by the disgraced ex-SNP chief’s blubbering whereas giving proof. ‘Suspect they were Jockodile tears.’
Is arch-Remainer Olly Robbins, as soon as the UK’s prime Brexit adviser beneath Theresa May, about to return to Whitehall? He’s being tipped for the submit of Cabinet Secretary in a Sir Keir Starmer Labour authorities. It would make Robbins, who’s now within the personal sector, probably the most highly effective civil servant within the land — and put him in a really perfect place to attempt to engineer nearer hyperlinks to his beloved EU.
