Richard Littlejohn on the big stories of the last few days: the EU referendum (of course); black soldiers getting frostbite; novels and TV shows getting PC makeovers; Walker's liquorice toffee; and Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Richard III.
Why I'd rather live under Labour than stay in the EU with a pro-Brussels Tory puppet in Number 10, by RICHARD LITTLEJOHN
By Richard Littlejohn for the Daily Mail
19 April 2016
Daily Mail
Try to imagine you’re a lifelong Labour voter. Then ask yourself what’s more important: getting rid of the Tories or staying in the EU?
My guess is that most would rather leave the EU if the result meant ejecting a Conservative government and putting a Labour Prime Minister in Downing Street.
It is patently obvious that the majority of people who voted Tory at the last General Election are firmly in the Leave camp. So are the four million who voted for Ukip, many of them former Labour supporters.
The Remain campaign can only win the referendum if millions of natural Labour folk vote for the official Government line. Were they all to back Leave, David Cameron would be toast
The Remain campaign can only win the referendum if millions of natural Labour folk vote for the official Government line. Were they all to back Leave, David Cameron would be toast.
The Prime Minister couldn’t survive a rejection by the electorate. He’d be gone the following day and his party would slide into immediate civil war, which would almost inevitably cost it the next General Election, whoever took over.
It would be the end of George Osborne, too, since he has emerged as the most deranged pro-European, prepared to peddle increasingly ridiculous spine-chilling, scorched-earth, scare stories designed to frighten a sceptical electorate into voting Remain.
With Call Me Dave and Boy George dead in the gutter, I doubt even Boris Johnson could put Humpty together again in time for 2020.
By then, nobody knows who will be leading the Labour Party. They might just stumble across someone sufficiently presentable to persuade Middle Britain that the country would be safe in their hands. After all, Tony Blair won three successive elections
Voting to quit the EU wouldn’t be that much of a leap of faith for the Left. Most of them already believe Europe is a capitalist conspiracy, run by central bankers.
The unions only support the EU because they think Brussels delivers the kind of social and workplace legislation they could never squeeze out of a Tory government in Westminster.
Surely, though, with Labour in charge and a divided, warring Conservative opposition, they’d be back in the driving seat and could pass all kinds of laws favourable to their own interests.
And with Britain once again an independent sovereign nation, they wouldn’t have to fear their radical socialist programme falling foul of bureaucrats in Brussels or the European courts.
Apart from a handful of euro-fanatics, I don’t detect any great enthusiasm in Labour’s ranks for the EU project. Even Jeremy Corbyn’s dismal speech in favour of staying in made a better case for leaving. His heart really isn’t in it.
OK, so there will be a few careerists on the Labour benches who fancy a feather-bedded future riding the EU gravy train, like Mandelson and Kinnochio. But that would be a mere consolation prize compared to ministerial office in a majority Labour government, with real power to change the political landscape of Britain.
Cameron has always known the vote in June could turn out to be as much a referendum on him as on our continued membership of the European Union. Mid-term unpopularity could easily translate into crushing defeat and early defenestration.
That’s why the scare stories are becoming ever more lurid. The Prime Minister has carelessly insulted the intelligence of loyal party members and lost the trust of millions of people who put him back into office last summer.
We keep being told it would be a calamity if we left the EU and our departure would cause the collapse of the EU and plunge not just Britain but the entire world economy into meltdown. The International Monetary Fund weighed in recently with its own apocalyptic scenario.
But what no one has explained satisfactorily is this: if Brexit would be such a disaster all round, why did our so-called ‘partners’ refuse to grant us any serious concessions which might have made the prospect of remaining a little more palatable?
Instead, they are trying to bully us to stay in the fold, with Cameron’s full collusion. Beneath the blood-curdling rhetoric, the relentlessly depressing, defeatist message from ministers appears to be that they are too weak and useless to negotiate a better deal and incapable of running this country without the EU to hold their little hands.
So they will hardly be in a position to complain if voters take them at their word and decide to kick them out and replace them with other candidates who are capable of leading an independent nation.
While the country may not exactly be gagging for a Corbyn government, why should Labour voters help prop up a Tory Prime Minister simply for the sake of staying in the EU?
While the country may not exactly be gagging for a Corbyn government, why should Labour voters help prop up a Tory Prime Minister simply for the sake of staying in the EU?
Even many of those campaigning to Remain appear to be unconvinced by the top-down bureaucracy and interference in domestic affairs. Privately, some of the most prominent pro-EU politicians will admit that Cameron’s pathetic ‘deal’ isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
From all this, a few readers may have concluded that I’m eager to see a Labour government elected. Nothing could be further from the truth.
My position hasn’t changed one iota since the day before the last General Election when I wrote that I would rather trust Jimmy Savile to babysit than let Labour run the economy.
But this referendum is much bigger than party politics. And, frankly, I would prefer to live in an independent Britain under a democratically elected Labour government than stay part of a sclerotic superstate with a pro-EU Tory puppet in No 10.
If a vote to Leave does result in a Labour government coming to power, at least we will be able to throw them out at the following election.
But if Cameron succeeds in scaring us into staying, we will never again be masters of our own destiny and will continue to have our laws, trade deals and immigration rules dictated by unelected, unaccountable foreign apparatchiks and anti-democratic judges whom we are powerless to remove.
That’s why I hope and pray, for all our sakes, the Labour voters of Britain will do the right thing on June 23:
Vote Leave.
Today’s edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes courtesy of the Ministry of Defence, which is being sued by a black former soldier who suffered frostbite while on a training exercise in Canada.
Abdoulie Bojang, who was originally from The Gambia but now lives in Warwickshire, wants £200,000 compensation.
He claims the Army ‘failed to take into account his ethnicity’ when he was posted to the Rockies. His solicitors said: ‘Service personnel of African and Afro-Caribbean descent, including those of mixed race, are particularly vulnerable in low temperatures.’
If the Army had given that as an excuse for not sending black soldiers into battle in freezing weather, it would have been accused of racism.
Today’s edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes courtesy of the Ministry of Defence, which is being sued by a black former soldier who suffered frostbite while on a training exercise in Canada
And rightly so. Everyone is vulnerable to arctic conditions if they don’t have the right kit, regardless of their skin colour.
You might equally argue that white soldiers posted to the desert or the tropics are unsuited to fighting in hot weather.
Can we now expect lawsuits from men and women who served in the Gulf or fought in Burma during World War II?
The Bojang case is just the tip of the iceberg, if you’ll pardon the obvious pun.
Solicitors say at least 450 Commonwealth soldiers have suffered frostbite in the past decade and could be entitled to substantial damages.
Still, it’s given me an idea for a new sitcom: It Ain’t Half Cold, Mum!
Fine set of tootsies, lovely boy. Snap ’em off, snap ’em off.
WHAT NEXT? TWELVE ANGRY WOMEN?
Jeffrey Archer’s 1984 novel First Among Equals is getting a makeover to take account of modern diversity sensibilities.
The book is being turned into a TV series and the main characters, originally four men, are being changed to include a woman and a member of the ethnic minorities.
Nothing wrong with that. Even though it’s fiction, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t more accurately reflect the population as a whole.
Every TV show these days seems to be an exercise in box-ticking. No new drama is complete without the mandatory gay married couple.
I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that Enid Blyton’s Famous Five now consists of a Muslim, a lesbian, a single-parent, an Afghan asylum-seeker and a Jamaican homosexual in a wheelchair.
It was reported recently that Thomas The Tank Engine has also been updated, with the trains all now representing a different ethnic identity.
No word, though, on whether the Fat Controller has been slimmed down so as not to offend people with ‘weight issues’.
And I’m especially looking forward to the next episode, starring Thomasina The Transgendered Tank Engine.
A kindly reader has sent me a slab of Walker’s delicious liquorice toffee, complete with toffee hammer. Unfortunately, there was no card attached, so I don’t know who to thank. Or where to send my dentist’s bill.
WHY I'D RATHER LIVE UNDER LABOUR THAN STAY IN THE EU
Benedict Cumberbatch has been criticised by historians for his ‘inaccurate’ portrayal of Richard III in a new BBC film, The Hollow Crown.
The Richard III Society (apparently, there is one) says the film traduces the king’s reputation, painting him as deformed, scheming and violent.
They insist Richard was not a hunchback or cruel, as Shakespeare depicted him, and want Cumberbatch to put the record straight.
The producers have also been upbraided for unnecessarily sexing-up the play.
I don’t want to add to their woes, but I also heard a rumour coming out of Port Talbot that Cumberbatch’s suit of armour was made from cheap, imported Chinese steel.
Benedict Cumberbatch has been criticised by historians for his ‘inaccurate’ portrayal of Richard III in a new BBC film, The Hollow Crown
Why I'd rather live under Labour than stay in the EU with a pro-Brussels Tory puppet in Number 10, by RICHARD LITTLEJOHN
By Richard Littlejohn for the Daily Mail
19 April 2016
Daily Mail
Try to imagine you’re a lifelong Labour voter. Then ask yourself what’s more important: getting rid of the Tories or staying in the EU?
My guess is that most would rather leave the EU if the result meant ejecting a Conservative government and putting a Labour Prime Minister in Downing Street.
It is patently obvious that the majority of people who voted Tory at the last General Election are firmly in the Leave camp. So are the four million who voted for Ukip, many of them former Labour supporters.
The Remain campaign can only win the referendum if millions of natural Labour folk vote for the official Government line. Were they all to back Leave, David Cameron would be toast
The Remain campaign can only win the referendum if millions of natural Labour folk vote for the official Government line. Were they all to back Leave, David Cameron would be toast.
The Prime Minister couldn’t survive a rejection by the electorate. He’d be gone the following day and his party would slide into immediate civil war, which would almost inevitably cost it the next General Election, whoever took over.
It would be the end of George Osborne, too, since he has emerged as the most deranged pro-European, prepared to peddle increasingly ridiculous spine-chilling, scorched-earth, scare stories designed to frighten a sceptical electorate into voting Remain.
With Call Me Dave and Boy George dead in the gutter, I doubt even Boris Johnson could put Humpty together again in time for 2020.
By then, nobody knows who will be leading the Labour Party. They might just stumble across someone sufficiently presentable to persuade Middle Britain that the country would be safe in their hands. After all, Tony Blair won three successive elections
Voting to quit the EU wouldn’t be that much of a leap of faith for the Left. Most of them already believe Europe is a capitalist conspiracy, run by central bankers.
The unions only support the EU because they think Brussels delivers the kind of social and workplace legislation they could never squeeze out of a Tory government in Westminster.
Surely, though, with Labour in charge and a divided, warring Conservative opposition, they’d be back in the driving seat and could pass all kinds of laws favourable to their own interests.
And with Britain once again an independent sovereign nation, they wouldn’t have to fear their radical socialist programme falling foul of bureaucrats in Brussels or the European courts.
Apart from a handful of euro-fanatics, I don’t detect any great enthusiasm in Labour’s ranks for the EU project. Even Jeremy Corbyn’s dismal speech in favour of staying in made a better case for leaving. His heart really isn’t in it.
OK, so there will be a few careerists on the Labour benches who fancy a feather-bedded future riding the EU gravy train, like Mandelson and Kinnochio. But that would be a mere consolation prize compared to ministerial office in a majority Labour government, with real power to change the political landscape of Britain.
Cameron has always known the vote in June could turn out to be as much a referendum on him as on our continued membership of the European Union. Mid-term unpopularity could easily translate into crushing defeat and early defenestration.
That’s why the scare stories are becoming ever more lurid. The Prime Minister has carelessly insulted the intelligence of loyal party members and lost the trust of millions of people who put him back into office last summer.
We keep being told it would be a calamity if we left the EU and our departure would cause the collapse of the EU and plunge not just Britain but the entire world economy into meltdown. The International Monetary Fund weighed in recently with its own apocalyptic scenario.
But what no one has explained satisfactorily is this: if Brexit would be such a disaster all round, why did our so-called ‘partners’ refuse to grant us any serious concessions which might have made the prospect of remaining a little more palatable?
Instead, they are trying to bully us to stay in the fold, with Cameron’s full collusion. Beneath the blood-curdling rhetoric, the relentlessly depressing, defeatist message from ministers appears to be that they are too weak and useless to negotiate a better deal and incapable of running this country without the EU to hold their little hands.
So they will hardly be in a position to complain if voters take them at their word and decide to kick them out and replace them with other candidates who are capable of leading an independent nation.
While the country may not exactly be gagging for a Corbyn government, why should Labour voters help prop up a Tory Prime Minister simply for the sake of staying in the EU?
While the country may not exactly be gagging for a Corbyn government, why should Labour voters help prop up a Tory Prime Minister simply for the sake of staying in the EU?
Even many of those campaigning to Remain appear to be unconvinced by the top-down bureaucracy and interference in domestic affairs. Privately, some of the most prominent pro-EU politicians will admit that Cameron’s pathetic ‘deal’ isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.
From all this, a few readers may have concluded that I’m eager to see a Labour government elected. Nothing could be further from the truth.
My position hasn’t changed one iota since the day before the last General Election when I wrote that I would rather trust Jimmy Savile to babysit than let Labour run the economy.
But this referendum is much bigger than party politics. And, frankly, I would prefer to live in an independent Britain under a democratically elected Labour government than stay part of a sclerotic superstate with a pro-EU Tory puppet in No 10.
If a vote to Leave does result in a Labour government coming to power, at least we will be able to throw them out at the following election.
But if Cameron succeeds in scaring us into staying, we will never again be masters of our own destiny and will continue to have our laws, trade deals and immigration rules dictated by unelected, unaccountable foreign apparatchiks and anti-democratic judges whom we are powerless to remove.
That’s why I hope and pray, for all our sakes, the Labour voters of Britain will do the right thing on June 23:
Vote Leave.
Today’s edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes courtesy of the Ministry of Defence, which is being sued by a black former soldier who suffered frostbite while on a training exercise in Canada.
Abdoulie Bojang, who was originally from The Gambia but now lives in Warwickshire, wants £200,000 compensation.
He claims the Army ‘failed to take into account his ethnicity’ when he was posted to the Rockies. His solicitors said: ‘Service personnel of African and Afro-Caribbean descent, including those of mixed race, are particularly vulnerable in low temperatures.’
If the Army had given that as an excuse for not sending black soldiers into battle in freezing weather, it would have been accused of racism.
Today’s edition of You Couldn’t Make It Up comes courtesy of the Ministry of Defence, which is being sued by a black former soldier who suffered frostbite while on a training exercise in Canada
And rightly so. Everyone is vulnerable to arctic conditions if they don’t have the right kit, regardless of their skin colour.
You might equally argue that white soldiers posted to the desert or the tropics are unsuited to fighting in hot weather.
Can we now expect lawsuits from men and women who served in the Gulf or fought in Burma during World War II?
The Bojang case is just the tip of the iceberg, if you’ll pardon the obvious pun.
Solicitors say at least 450 Commonwealth soldiers have suffered frostbite in the past decade and could be entitled to substantial damages.
Still, it’s given me an idea for a new sitcom: It Ain’t Half Cold, Mum!
Fine set of tootsies, lovely boy. Snap ’em off, snap ’em off.
WHAT NEXT? TWELVE ANGRY WOMEN?
Jeffrey Archer’s 1984 novel First Among Equals is getting a makeover to take account of modern diversity sensibilities.
The book is being turned into a TV series and the main characters, originally four men, are being changed to include a woman and a member of the ethnic minorities.
Nothing wrong with that. Even though it’s fiction, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t more accurately reflect the population as a whole.
Every TV show these days seems to be an exercise in box-ticking. No new drama is complete without the mandatory gay married couple.
I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that Enid Blyton’s Famous Five now consists of a Muslim, a lesbian, a single-parent, an Afghan asylum-seeker and a Jamaican homosexual in a wheelchair.
It was reported recently that Thomas The Tank Engine has also been updated, with the trains all now representing a different ethnic identity.
No word, though, on whether the Fat Controller has been slimmed down so as not to offend people with ‘weight issues’.
And I’m especially looking forward to the next episode, starring Thomasina The Transgendered Tank Engine.
A kindly reader has sent me a slab of Walker’s delicious liquorice toffee, complete with toffee hammer. Unfortunately, there was no card attached, so I don’t know who to thank. Or where to send my dentist’s bill.
WHY I'D RATHER LIVE UNDER LABOUR THAN STAY IN THE EU
Benedict Cumberbatch has been criticised by historians for his ‘inaccurate’ portrayal of Richard III in a new BBC film, The Hollow Crown.
The Richard III Society (apparently, there is one) says the film traduces the king’s reputation, painting him as deformed, scheming and violent.
They insist Richard was not a hunchback or cruel, as Shakespeare depicted him, and want Cumberbatch to put the record straight.
The producers have also been upbraided for unnecessarily sexing-up the play.
I don’t want to add to their woes, but I also heard a rumour coming out of Port Talbot that Cumberbatch’s suit of armour was made from cheap, imported Chinese steel.
Benedict Cumberbatch has been criticised by historians for his ‘inaccurate’ portrayal of Richard III in a new BBC film, The Hollow Crown
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