SARAH VINE: The Tories are nonetheless the least dangerous choice
April 30, 2021 was, according to my trusty Google calendar, a Friday.
It was also the day Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner attended a work do with staff at the offices of Mary Foy, MP for the City of Durham, during a by-election campaign for the nearby Hartlepool seat.
At the time, lockdown restrictions were in place — indeed, a similar gathering helped to trigger the defenestration of Boris Johnson.
But Starmer, Rayner and Co were cleared of any wrongdoing by Durham constabulary ‘due to the application of an exception, namely reasonably necessary work’.
Why mention this now? Well, because Starmer maintains that if — when — he takes up residency at No 10 Downing Street, he will clock off at 6pm on Fridays to spend time with his family.
Keir Starmer has a beer in Labour offices during a by-election campaign for Hartlepool
His personal rule is to ‘not do a work-related thing’ after that cut-off, ‘pretty well come what may’.
Setting aside the question of whether this is remotely practical for a Prime Minister (it’s not), it is also manifestly untrue.
In fact, such was Starmer’s desire to attend a post-6pm ‘work-related thing’ back in 2021, he was even prepared to risk a fine for breaking Covid restrictions while doing so.
Workaholic networker when it suits him, dedicated family man when it doesn’t. That is Starmer’s talent as a politician — to pivot according to the prevailing wind and somehow get away with it.
He’s done the same thing this week with the whole ‘women with penises’ thing. After months — actually, no, years — of genuflecting to the rainbow brigade, he’s finally caved in and said that male-bodied trans women should not be able to access women-only spaces.
His team are clearly concerned that his position — which was, until recently, the precise opposite — could cost him votes, particularly with women. And so, as ever, he’s switched sides. I don’t say all this as a way of underlining Starmer’s inconsistency on these issues — his pusillanimity is well-documented.
What makes it worthy of comment is the fact that, despite his flip-flopping, most people on his side of the political spectrum — not to mention many drifting around the centre — will still vote for him. It’s not that they are unaware of his failings, they just choose not to notice them.
The opposite is true of Rishi Sunak. Here is a man who, apart from when it comes to his dubious dress sense, has shown remarkable consistency and perseverance in the face of unrelenting criticism.
And yet, come Friday, he’ll be in the bin for the simple reason that his party has been in power for 14 years, and people want a change.
It’s like buying a new sofa when there’s nothing actually wrong with the old one, or buying a new dress even though you have plenty in the wardrobe that fit just fine.
It’s about wanting something new and different, which is why people are prepared to overlook Starmer’s obvious failings — and also why politics is so cyclical.
Fast forward 14 years, and I can guarantee that if Labour is still in power, it’ll be facing exactly the same problem, albeit for different reasons.
The fault for this lies not so much with politicians themselves, but with the people who elect them, i.e. us, the voters.
I’ve always thought that in life you get the children and dogs you deserve; the same, I’m afraid, is true of politicians.
It is rare these days to find an MP with the courage of their own convictions, for the simple reason that such people don’t tend to be virtue-signalling crowd-pleasers.
Margaret Thatcher was probably the last true example. Although, again, in fairness to Sunak he has shown flashes of that spirit throughout this campaign.
But the sad truth is that’s not what people want. They don’t want to be challenged. They want to be appeased. That’s what Starmer does so brilliantly. Nigel Farage, too. Both in their own way tell voters what they want to hear — even though most of it is absolute tommyrot.
As for Ed Davey — well, he just does tricks for clicks. And people love it.
Truth is, we would far rather vote for the fantasy than the reality. In Starmer’s case, the idea that immigration can be kept under control without making any tough decisions, or that state schools can be improved by punishing private-school parents and pupils, or that state spending can be increased without ramping up taxation.
In Farage’s case, that we can just ship migrants back to France or cut NHS waiting lists to zero in two years.
Trust me, if any of these things could have been achieved in the real world, the Conservatives would have done them.
But politics, as Kemi Badenoch once said, is not about achieving the perfect solution, it’s about taking the least bad option and making it work.
There is no question in my mind that the Conservatives still represent precisely that: the least bad option in an increasingly dangerous and volatile political climate. Granted, it’s not exactly a thrilling notion. But it is at least an honest one.
Want to hear something even more terrifying than the prospect of a Starmer supermajority? Elon Musk wants Tesla’s Gen 2 Optimus to be ‘the first robot babysitter on the market’. What could possibly go wrong?
Is there no end to Jill Biden’s shameless self-promotion?
For personal reasons, I am generally against the whole ‘Lady Macbeth’ narrative when it comes to politicians’ wives.
But I must say that Jill Biden, aka Flotus, is severely testing my resolve.
Her husband Joe is seemingly suffering from some form of cognitive impairment — and yet she persists in pretending that nothing is wrong. Not only that, she’s embarked on a shameless campaign of self-promotion, appearing on the cover of American Vogue looking decidedly… well, presidential.
Careful, Dr Biden — hubris is a most unattractive trait.
A campaign designed to get more girls and women into sport has the female Team GB rugby team posing in what can only be described as the kind of smutty lingerie a man would buy for his mistress at Ann Summers.
It looks scratchy and uncomfortable and at least two sizes too small. Same old sexist rubbish.
Glasto eco horror
The Glastonbury clean-up operation reveals mountains of abandoned plastic, including tents and — the latest must-have accessory for the discerning reveller — blow-up mattresses. If only woke eco-warriors would put their recycling where their mouth is.
Desperately seeking some light relief from the election, I sat down to watch A Family Affair, some silly rom-com starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron (pictured right). The film was fine — but I could barely concentrate owing to the fact that Efron appears to have acquired an entirely different face. I texted a friend. ‘He’s gone the full Biden, hasn’t he?’ he replied. I couldn’t have put it better myself.
