WHEN talking about the Downing Street cheese and wine “gathering” this week, Sir Keir Starmer reminded everyone that Her Majesty the Queen observed Covid distancing when she sat alone at the funeral of the man she’d been married to for 73 years.
I’ve never said this of Lego Head before but it was a good point, well made.
Mrs Queen understands that, when you are in charge, you have to be willing to lead by example and make sacrifices.
Which means not playing hide the sausage at a Yuletide office party when you’ve told everyone else to stay at home and watch Joe Wicks.
We all know Boris Johnson is disorganised. His socks sometimes don’t match and it’s possible his new baby came out sideways.
And all that’s fine, providing he’s surrounded by people who are not disorganised.
But it’s beginning to look like Downing Street is even more chaotic than an Alec Baldwin film set.
I mean, staffers are now talking about having an inquiry to find out if a party happened and if they were at it.
Really? I’ve been to some pretty big parties in my time but not once have I ever had to get a judge to decide if I’d been there.
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And while I’m at it, I know exactly who paid for the wallpaper in my new house.
But the wallpaper in No10? Nope. They all seem to have collective amnesia about who paid for that.
It’s all a long way from Lord Carrington and Geoffrey Howe, and it worries me that we will have to rely on these people if Russia invades Ukraine next month.
Or if China starts dropping bombs on Taiwan.
I appreciate that it’s annoying to be squeaky clean.
Over the years, I could have had any number of free cars, but I’ve always paid in full, not even taking a four per cent discount that is available to everyone else.
That hurt when I began on Top Gear, because for the first few years I was only on £180 a week.
But I stuck to the principles because it’s the right thing to do.
And this is what the Downing Street creche needs to get into its head. The difference between right and wrong.
It’s OK, in the real world, to drive at 75mph on the motorway and have risky sex and put the wrong things in the recycling bin.
But in politics you have to know that while you can’t say “whiter than white” any more, you must at least know what it means. And that you can do 69. But only if it’s with your partner.
This afternoon I am booked into my Oxfordshire health centre for a booster jab.
But I want to go to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea play Leeds.
If I was in No10, I’d cancel the jab and go to the game. But I’m not. So I won’t.
Motor has no a-Peel
THE Peel P50 is the smallest car ever made.
It’s just 4ft 5in long, has one seat, one door and no reverse gear. Instead, it has a handle on the back which allows you to lift it up and point it in the right direction.
Sophisticated it is not. And yet a man called Alex Orchin arrived in Land’s End this week, having made the 874-mile journey from John O’ Groats in a P50.
And because it had a top speed of just 23mph, it took him THREE WEEKS.
It’s not the time, though, that causes me to rock back on my heels. It’s the discomfort he will have endured.
I drove a P50 once, for about a mile in London, and what I can remember most of all was the noise.
The engine is inside the car with you and after about 15 seconds your ears start to bleed. How Alex put up with that for 21 days, I have no idea.
Then there’s the terror. On every bend it feels like it will fall over and there’s a sense that, in any collision, you will die. Even if you’ve only hit a falling leaf. Or a rain drop.
Still, Alex raised more than £10,000 for Children In Need, which is great.
And presumably for his next charitable endeavour he will do something calmer and less frightening. Like being eaten by a crocodile.
A Vlad call by Joe
IN a two-hour Zoom call, Joe Biden warned Vladimir Putin that there would be severe consequences if Russia does what everyone is expecting and invades Ukraine.
Can you imagine how that went? Putin – an ex-KGB chief, which means he will at some point have used his thumbs to push a man’s eyes into his head – being lectured by a man who can’t even walk up a flight of stairs without falling over.
Apparently, it took old Joe quite some time to realise he hadn’t turned his microphone on.
I bet Putin is shaking with fear after that.
Take a snub to the pub
EVEN before my colleague Rod Liddle started a perfectly sensible speech to students at Durham University, many walked out.
Others allowed him to get to the part where he started talking about tolerance – and then they walked out too.
Most of the rest let him get to the end – and then sat on their hands.
The problem is easily solved, though, because students aren’t interested in things that are perfectly sensible.
So the next time he’s asked, Rod should simply tell the audience that they’re all absolutely right about absolutely everything.
And then spend his fee on a nice slap-up lunch at a nearby pub.
Ash to ashes
YOU probably feel if you buy a tree from your local garden centre and plant it carefully in just the right spot that you’re doing your bit for the environment.
But the chances are you’re doing the exact opposite.
Many saplings are imported and come with diseases against which our native trees have no defence.
A new pathogen that attacks larch is causing havoc in the Lake District.
And it’s said that, within ten years, 95 per cent of our ash trees will be dead. Most of the elms have already gone.
If we don’t stop importing trees, it won’t be very long before the UK looks like the middle of the Sahara Desert.
F1's finale
TOMORROW, after one of the most exciting Formula One seasons ever is over, either Lewis Hamilton or Max Verstappen will be crowned World Champion.
Both are brilliant drivers and I want to wish them both the best of luck.
But I hope the luck Max has is a little bit better than the luck Lewis has.
Cannot see yacht the problem is
A WEALTHY Australian woman has complained to officials in Brisbane that there’s nowhere to park her superyacht and, as a result, she has to sleep on it at sea, which is quite uncomfortable sometimes.
I don’t know about you, but I’m struggling to conjure up much sympathy here.
It’d be like Peter Crouch complaining that sometimes, due to well-paid work commitments, he has to spend the odd night without Abbey Clancy in his bed.
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