What a depressing start to the year. Economic gloom is worsening – largely thanks to Labour talking the country down, moaning about imaginary ‘fiscal black holes’ and that disastrous socialist budget.
And the mood isn’t much better among MPs. As Parliament re-opened yesterday, members from all parties, heads bent and faces glum, wheeled suitcases through Carriage Gates and across the cobbled yard of Westminster Palace for the first late-night votes of the session. How many of them had anything to be pleased about?
Labour is plummeting in the polls, with one in four voters who backed the party last July now regretting their decision, and Keir Starmer’s personal ratings down 34 per cent in just six months – the worst start for a new PM in more than 30 years.
Starmer is clearly on the back foot. His big new idea to make it easier to book consultations through the NHS app is unlikely to dent the backlog when the main users of the health service are the elderly – the least likely to use the app.
And refusing to launch a public inquiry into Asian grooming gangs is the wrong position morally as well as politically – and will continue to haunt him unless and until he U-turns.
Not so long ago, Reform seemed to have much of the political wind behind them, yet their five MPs are shell-shocked by the hand grenade Elon Musk lobbed at them on Sunday, when he declared that their leader Nigel Farage was ‘not up to the job’.
Farage has made a huge song and dance about his relationship with Musk and Donald Trump – posing for photographs with them, writing articles in their favour, zipping across the Atlantic to Mar-a-Lago – so he is limited in how he can respond.
If Musk fails to make a sizeable donation to Reform, as had been rumoured, the party is going to be a far weaker fighting force.
Someone as self-assured as Kemi should be wiping the floor with Starmer week after week, writes Nadine Dorries
Where does that leave Kemi Badenoch and the Tories? Well, things have not been going as well as they could be. I made no secret of the fact that I supported Robert Jenrick in the leadership contest, but I was willing to get behind Kemi for the sake of our party and the country.
Now I’m beginning to worry. Her performances at Prime Minister’s Questions have been lacking – all the more so given that her opponent is the man Boris Johnson referred to as a ‘pointless human bollard’. Someone as self-assured as Kemi should be wiping the floor with Starmer week after week.
I hope she’s done her homework for their first contest of 2025 tomorrow – yet her critics claim she takes too much time off work and isn’t sufficiently committed.
This portrait was not helped by reports over the weekend that she’s previously been quick to put in her headphones and play games on her phone to ‘decompress’ – when there’s still work to be done.
But my main concern is that Kemi seems to think she’s preparing to fight the next general election in 2029 – and therefore has all the time in the world.
She isn’t, and she doesn’t. The local council elections are just four months away. If the Conservatives – in opposition – lose seats, it could be curtains for her.
I want this once-great party to succeed. Given that, here is my advice for Kemi in 2025.
It’s time to be the grown-up in the room. Instead of making pointless remarks about sandwiches (‘not real food’), lunch (‘for wimps’), wondering aloud about a flat income tax rate (it will never happen) and getting drawn into a silly spat with Reform – on Boxing Day! – over who has more members, start talking about the issues that truly affect people’s lives.
Millions of Britons feel – and, indeed, are – worse off since Labour came to power. Keep driving this point home.
Immigration is important and you are right to discuss it. But it’s not the voters’ only concern. You can’t out-Farage Farage, so don’t try. And while we’re on that subject, think what you like about the Reform leader, but no one can deny how hard he works. You need to up your game, Kemi, and be visible every day on the airwaves and on social media.
Nail down – fast – some proper, well-thought-out policies that will resonate with voters. Local councillors need a serious platform on which to campaign in the spring. Your aim should be for Tory MPs to return to Westminster after the local elections with a smile on their faces.
It’s a tall order – and one that only you, as leader, are in a position to deliver. If you don’t, then your MPs will remain as gloomy as the rest of the country. And, as many a Conservative leader has found, gloomy backbenchers rarely spell good news.
Lily goes full Coleen Rooney
Lily Allen was left ‘in agony’ after discovering that her husband David Harbour had set up a secret profile on the celebrity dating app Raya and was suspected of cheating on her.
Kudos to Lily, who did her due diligence, rejoined the app where she’d first met David – then meticulously cross-referenced the women David was following on Instagram with those on the app. She went full Coleen Rooney – and I, for one, admire her for it.
Lily Allen was left ‘in agony’ after discovering that her husband David Harbour had set up a secret profile on the celebrity dating app Raya and was suspected of cheating on her
MPs will be feeling the freeze
All those who were justifiably angry with the MPs who voted to remove the winter fuel allowance from pensioners can take some cold comfort from the fact that the same MPs will now return to freezing Westminster offices.
By nature ‘nesh’ – as we who feel the cold like to say in the North-West – this was the week I dreaded most as an MP. The heating in Westminster is turned off for the Christmas break and appears only to be switched back on when Parliament re-opens. A vast stone building, it takes a good week to warm up.
Alastair Campbell’s skills as a spin doctor have been called upon to draft a press statement regarding his son’s failed football betting syndicate, as investors prepare to take files to the police.
His son Rory criticised investors for their ‘desperate briefing campaign in the Press’. It’s true: the apple never falls far from the tree.
A classic deterrent
When a resident of London’s affluent St John’s Wood complained to police about a local drug gang terrorising the neighbourhood, they advised him to play classical music as it deters crime.
I’d love to know what research went into this. Did criminals run from the scene screaming, with hands over their ears, or did they come over all civilised, apologise politely and leave the scene of the crime to book their tickets for Glyndebourne?
The Golden Globes was a great night for women of a certain age. Demi Moore, 62, won best performance by an actress for The Substance, and gave a brilliant speech describing how she had once been described as a ‘popcorn actress’.
She was joined on the red carpet by other nominees in the prime of their life, Fernanda Torres, 59, and Pamela Anderson, 57. Long may this trend last.
Demi Moore, 62, won best performance by an actress for The Substance at this year’s Golden Globes
