From Newsgroup: alt.buddha.short.fat.guy

Regarding the possible candidates for the Labour leadership, IrCOve
travelled so far down the nihilistic road to nowhere that IrCOm afraid I
judge politicians these days mostly in terms of how much entertainment theyrCOre likely to provide rather than having one iota of belief theyrCOll make anything better.

WhorCOd be the most fun up against Kemi at PMQs? The obvious choice is
Angela Rayner, but I fear that after her recent shenanigans and shamefacedness, as Glorious Leader she might be regrettably inclined to
rein it in. Andy BurnhamrCOs got that more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger look
which may well indicate horrid notions about rCyhealingrCO our
multi-fractured body politic. Ed Miliband couldnrCOt bitch his way out of
a recyclable paper bag. So my moneyrCOs on Wes Streeting, who in the words
of Madeline Grant, rCygave Mrs Badenoch a hurt and sullen look rCo the sort one would imagine Joan Crawford shooting at an object on which she had
stubbed her toerCO when she had a poke at him the other day.

I have high hopes that under the right circumstances, Streeting might be
a Flouncer, given his old threat on Twitter to push rCynasty peoplerCO (actually, reasonable people like Jan Moir and Geert Wilders) under
trains. We havenrCOt had a decent Labour Flouncer in the House for ages.
For the Tories, Michael Heseltine is but a memory and at the moment Zia
Yusuf of Reform is doing Flounce duties for all. Flouncers add
immeasurably to the joy of political life, so IrCOm always inclined to
feel warmly towards them.

Or maybe herCOs a Bouncer rCo resilient and chirpy, and able to move from
one side of an argument to the other when he sees the error of his ways,
like a jaunty pinball pinging onwards and upwards. HerCOs a gay Christian, which indicates by its very nature rCo when you consider what scripture
says about a man rCylyingrCO with another male rCo an optimistic state of mind. He once mouthed the accepted inanities about trans but fell into disfavour last year with the monstrous regiment of fellows in frocks. Streeting met with and expressed sympathy for members of the Bayswater
Support Group, an organisation composed of parents with rCytransrCO children who believe that their offspring are being unduly influenced and harmed
by rCygender-affirmingrCO care.

Even better, in 2023 on Times Radio he apologised to the great Rosie
Duffield regarding her treatment by the Labour party after she
understandably complained of being shouted down and ostracised due to
her sensible views on biological sex versus self-ID. Again he received
an earful from the trans-lobby for doing so. Duffield told the Guardian: rCyThis topicrCa has proved more toxic than most and itrCOs good to have the allyship of a colleague I respect who clearly wants to engage, listen to
and understand LabourrCOs feminist members and groups who have previously
been ignored or no-platformed by the party.rCO

He said of his stand: rCyI was inundated with women in the Labour party, including parliamentary colleagues, who I do not consider to be
shrinking violets, who were basically saying: rCLIrCOm really glad you said this about having a better conversation, because I felt afraid about
voicing my concernsrCY. And I thought, if some of the strongest women I
know are feeling silenced, werCOve got a problem.rCO

This shouldnrCOt be remarkable rCo but yourCOll rustle through Hansard with all the instant gratification of Russell Brand looking for his favourite
bit in the Bible before you find Labour MPs coming out with such
paradoxically sensible and seditious statements.

Though some of my fellow populists see him as a captured and castrated creature, mouthing the weasel words of woke through a deceptively
common-sense working-class filter, I do think that in a milieu of
middle-class dullards itrCOs refreshing to have a genuine son of the soil (raised by a single mother in a council flat, first of the family into
further education) on the ballot whorCOs not necessarily going to live in
the leftrCOs pocket like Rayner.

He is the opposite of Stephen Kinnock and his ilk who have created the
sense that one might as well vote for the rich men of Reform as the nepo-babies of Labour. Labour MP family trees seem to consist of several generations of policy-wonks as far back as the eye can see. StreetingrCOs ancestry has both sides of the historic Cockney tradition:
ducking-and-diving and being poor-but-honest. His maternal grandfather
was a career criminal connected to the Krays, leading his maternal
grandmother to share a cell at HMS Holloway with Christine Keeler. His paternal grandfather served in the Royal Navy and became a civil
engineer. Streeting says of him, rCyHe was the grandad I was closest to rCo
a traditional working-class Tory.rCO ItrCOs an echo of the latter, perhaps, who we hear in StreetingrCOs down-to-earth statements such as that he
wants the NHS to stop rCybeing right on and doing daft things rCo
well-meaning things rCo in the name of diversity and inclusion.rCO

Though herCOs hardly toiled at the coalface of post-industrial Britain,
you couldnrCOt say herCOs had a soft life. Beaten up at school for being
camp, coming through cancer, he can, as the late Rachel Cooke wrote
while reviewing his memoir, rCypull off the very rare trick of being both
a little bit boring and unexpectedly fascinating.rCO

He has a self-mocking edge which is rare in modern politics: rCyI won a
book token in a school competition and bought a collection of speeches
by Tony Blair and read it on the coach to and from games. I mean, what
sort of kid reads Tony BlairrCOs speeches on the bus? I was asking for it really.rCO

His Mandelson links are bound to get dragged up again, of course, with
the former spin doctor hovering over political proceedings like an
albatross with an unusual interest in Farrow & Ball paint charts. But StreetingrCOs other issue is that people think of him as inexperienced rCo
and he looks it, what with that chubby little Mabel Lucie Attwell face.
He really did resemble an angry sixth-former, pulled up at the school
debating society by a proper politician, when Mrs Badenoch was mocking
him this week.

For voters still keen to get the grown-ups back in the room, this might
put them off. But I think thatrCOs a lost cause now anyway; the countryrCOs going to hell in a handcart, with so many cock-ups on the way that it sometimes feels that werCOre engaged in a giant game of Mouse Trap. No,
give me a likely lad of the people doing his damnedest to keep his cool
(but always on the brink of blowing up) rCo thatrCOs all I want from my political pin-ups.


Julie Burchill
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