OPINION
Nigel Farage has found himself in the middle of a verbal sparring match this week (Image: Getty Images)
What happens to people who go into politics? Do their egos suddenly explode out of control? I ask while watching the self-destruction of Reform. It makes me wonder what rogue MP Rupert Lowe and former deputy party leader Ben Habib actually want. Both have come to verbal blows with Reform leader Nigel Farage in some of the nastiest in-fighting this side of the Tories.
And it was all going so well. Indeed, it still is. Polling last week, as my colleague Patrick O’Flynn revealed, showed levels of support for Reform holding steady in the mid-twenties percentage-wise. That puts the party level with Labour and ahead of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives. But that’s not the point, is it? The point is Reform offers a wake-up call to career politicians and bloated political parties who have got away for too long taking the p*** out of the electorate. Talking tough, doing nothing and toasting their incompetence together in the many bars of Westminster.
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For the first time in a long time, there was a sense of change. And, by God do we need it. So why are the likes of Lower and Habib risking the destruction of Reform for petty internal squabbling? Surely neither thinks anyone but Nigel Farage could be leader?
Richard Tice is impressive, as is Lowe himself, but they’re simply not Nigel.
Like the Donald Trump bandwagon in the US, he has the X-Factor to break through the crushing monotony of mainstream politics and do something better.
Surely Reform’s big-wigs can see that? If not, they need to find another party and fast. The electorate will not put up with squabbling for long. Too much is at stake.
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Remember Monday have been chosen to represent the UK at Eurovision (Image: PA)
The Eurovision Song Contest, surprise, surprise, is not one of my favourite events. In fact, I would’ve been happy campaigning to leave the EU dictatorship solely if it meant getting Britain out of it. Sadly, even after Brexit, we still appear to be stuck with it and, probably thanks to Brexit, finding ourselves even more punished and humiliated every year!
Anyway, Lady W told me this year’s entry – a cheery female country-pop trio called Remember Monday – would put a smile on my face. The group, who previously reached the quarter-finals of The Voice, will head to Switzerland in May to perform What The Hell Just Happened? Anyway, call me a grinch, but watching their video did the opposite. Lots of smiley faces as if everything was wonderful in the world.
I know pop music is an escape but…
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Yesterday Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced he was going to get rid of NHS England (Image: Donna Clifford/HullLive)
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You could've knocked me down with a feather last week. Watching ‘Two-Tier’ Keir Starmer abolishing super-quango NHS England, I thought I’d fallen into another dimension. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding.
Will those excess civil servants actually get their marching orders or simply be renamed and retasked somewhere else in the bureaucratic monolith that is Whitehall?
As someone who is – quite literally – being kept alive by the NHS, and whose life has been saved several times, not least over Christmas when I ended up in intensive care thanks to a particularly nasty bout of flu, I can tell you it’s not bureaucrats that keep things going, it’s the heroic staff on the ground floor. Doctors, nurses and other staff do their jobs as best they can in the face of some utterly mind-blowing and appalling bureaucracy.
I can’t believe this is a good news story coming out of Starmer‘s government, but if he’s finally listening, I can only applaud him.
Never thought you’d hear me say that did you?
So, yes, let’s get rid of NHS England and then start on all the unnecessary layers of management in hospitals themselves (HR, D&I and anything else woke, I’m looking at you!)
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Conscription is not something a man of my age and health concerns is likely to have to worry about. But to be honest, I don’t think the idea does our Armed Forces any favours, despite, obviously, an urgent need to increase their numbers. We want people to sign up for the military based on patriotism, a desire to better themselves and their country. Not be forced into it at, forgive the pun, gunpoint.
That said, I think there are plenty of 50-somethings out there who’d like to do more, so how about raising the age that people can join the reserve forces? That would start building a bigger pool of people who could fill gaps on the Home Front if the regular forces were called into action. A sort of modern Dad’s Army if you will.
Middle-aged men and women with families, homes and mortgages clearly have more to defend than some of the younger generation who, through no fault of their own, have been left adrift. (Some are snowflakes, don’t get me wrong!).
Why not tap into that pool of talent now, rather than when it’s too late?
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There is a drive to bring back full-nudity strip clubs in Soho which is causing an enormous amount of unrest. When I was a teenager, there were strip clubs on practically every corner. Now I’m not even sure if there are even one or two left in that part of once famous London – should that be notorious? – for them.
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Look, I’m not a total dinosaur but how much better regulated is a licensed club than the likes of Only Fans online that have, to my mind, allowed anyone with a web cam the ability to prostitute themselves in increasingly degrading ways?
We really have got our morals in a muddle.
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I have huge respect for BBC racing commentator John Hunt who has returned to the airwaves for the first time following the heinous murder of his wife Carol, 61, and two daughters Louise, 25, and Hannah, 28. I’m not going to refer to their evil killer by name – he’s now rightly behind bars for life, and good riddance to him.
Instead, I’d like to applaud Mr Hunt for attempting to move on with his life, along with his surviving daughter Amy, however painful that may be. Returning to the job he loves is a great first step and I hope he receives wonderful support from the public in return.
In court this week, the broadcaster read a statement saying he “was so proud of all my girls”. Well Sir I’m certain they would be immensely proud of you too.