Who’s running the country while Boris is MIA? Not Rishi or Liz… it’s Martin Lewis
ONE day we’ll look back fondly on the heatwave summer of 2022.
When, fuelled by nothing but vitamin D, Mr Whippy and petrol fumes (not, obviously, the £400-a-gallon petrol itself), our great nation went slowly mad.
When, for the first time in 300 years of British democracy, we were ruled not by one Prime Minister but the bloke from Lorraine, a chippy, bald trade unionist and the CEO of E.on (and a few of his fat-cat mates).
And when, on the cusp of a once-in-a-lifetime cost of living crisis and dystopian fighting on the streets, we feverishly debated whether women have penises and if Shakespeare should come with a trigger warning.
Just when we needed them most, our elected officials have been MIA.
As a result it’s been left to Martin Lewis, Mick Lynch and energy company execs to rule the roost.
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As I type, demob-happy Boris Johnson — a bloke booted out by his own party at the start of the heatwave — is probably polishing off a nice prawn saganaki during his second holiday in three weeks.
Pictured ambling around a local Greek supermarket — wine in the trolley, natch (you can take the boy out of Partygate . . . ) — he is fresh from some forest bathing at a Slovenian wellness retreat.
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are far too busy battling it out, Hunger Games stylee, to think about running the country in the interim.
The leader of the Opposition has also been busy of late. Busy lathering up his Factor 30.
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Having finally put down the rosé, and returning from hols in Majorca, yesterday he detailed Labour’s plans to freeze the energy cap at its current level of £1,971.
The plan to, er, keep things exactly as they are (groundbreaking!) has taken him six weeks to conjure.
A chimpanzee could have knocked out something more revolutionary.
So as the Westminster bubble continues to be wilfully ignorant of the impending financial ruin people and small businesses face, ol’ Mick and Martin have taken the reins.
One wrecking the country, one trying, desperately, to rebuild it.
As the rail baron promises more train misery on Thursday and Saturday, he will make it almost impossible for minimum-wage workers, those who must commute, to make a day’s profit.
Shamelessly piling more misery on to the most miserable.
Mick and his cronies are dictating how and when we work.
The power he effectively wields is terrifying and wholly autocratic — little wonder he’s a Putin apologist.
Last week, when Boris deigned to nip back to the day job, he, Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng met with execs from power-generation companies, including E.On, RWE and Drax, to “do more to help the people who need it most”.
At the time of writing, precisely nothing has been done and no plans have been made. So that went well.
In these days of chaos and doom, the only voice of reason has been the bloke off of morning telly.
A multi, multi-millionaire himself, Lewis is nonetheless utterly passionate about helping people save money.
Unlike our MPs, the Money Saving Expert founder — the patron saint of personal finance — has been working from his holiday.
Taking time out from the (strategically sourced, free) deckchair, he’s been addressing the nation, warning of a “national crisis on the scale of the pandemic”.
He has 1.6million followers on Twitter; 400,000 more than Starmer.
Single-handedly he’s providing more of an opposition than the Opposition, and more direction than the Conservatives.
Our (actual) leaders need to get back to work. Before it’s too late.
Don’t mind the gap between Michelle & Mike
FORMER EastEnders actress Michelle Collins has married her partner of ten years, a good-looking chap called Mike Davidson.
People are all afroth at the couple’s 22-year age gap. She’s 60, he a whipper-snapper of 38.
Every single report referred to Mike as a “toy boy”, and cited their generational differences. It’s 2022. Michelle looks incredible and she is clearly as fit as a butcher’s dog.
Were their ages reversed, would Mike be labelled a sugar daddy? No.
In an increasingly woke society, one which promotes body positivity (fatness), and gender inclusion (anything goes), it seems the last taboo is an attractive older woman dating a younger man.
We need to catch up.
FIELDS APART
TWO-THIRDS of Countryside Alliance members want to scrap the BBC licence fee.
Rural audiences have slammed the Beeb’s coverage of shows like Countryfile, Springwatch and even The Archers.
Tim Bonner, from the Alliance, says: “Rural programming should not only take into account what urban viewers may find of interest, it needs to showcase the value of important rural activities like farming, shooting, hunting and angling.”
Ah, a casual spot of red grouse hunting of a Sunday night – just what we’ve all been missing.
Beeb' bored games
WITH much fanfare, the BBC’s eagerly anticipated new Sunday- night drama, Marriage, got under way over the weekend.
Featuring the super-talented Nicola Walker and hunky, if you like that sort of thing, Sean Bean, it’s about a very normal, middle-aged married couple.
Forget your Architectural Digest kitchen island, bifold doors or Petrus ’95-stacked wine cellar.
This couple drive an eight-year-old Ford Focus, holiday on the Costa del Sol, fight about putting the bins out and eat Tesco ready-meals.
Largely it’s had five-star reviews across the board. (Although kudos to The Independent, which described it as a “non-drama that’ll bore you to tears”.)
If I want to be confronted with groundhog day reality, I’ll go watch my parents bicker over The Chase, or sit in as my best friend does bath time with the kids.
No. I want escapism in my telly, please. Bring back Le Creuset.
NAKED LUNCH
THE Capital’s first “sex-themed” restaurant, Naked Soho, has just popped up. So to speak.
THE Capital’s first “sex-themed” restaurant, Naked Soho, has just popped up. So to speak.
Dishes include penis-shaped profiteroles and, mildly inexplicably, the carbonara comes alongside a china dildo. Again, so to speak.
A sign on the back of the wall reads “Naked Sexy Restaurant” which doesn’t so much scream “yes, yes, yes!”, more Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat.
In the words of the great Kazakhstani: “My name Borat, I like you, I like sex, it’s nice.”
Angry Tom in a spin
OLYMPIAN Tom Daley has faced some slack for saying he feels “sick to be British” because of the raging homophobia in some Commonwealth countries.
The debate is a highly nuanced one, and whether or not young Tom, a man almost as handy with a pair of knitting needles as he is a diving board, is fully qualified to comment remains to be seen.
Professor Emeritus Robert Tombs, of Cambridge University, probably sums it up best.
He explains: “Tom is not a historian, and there is no more reason for him to grasp the complexities of post-colonial legal history than for me to perform a reverse three-and-a-half-somersault-tuck off a ten-metre springboard.”
Quite.
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MAN City have come under fire for banning fans from bringing sunscreen to the ground on Saturday.
A skin cancer charity slammed the security measure as irresponsible.
Probably now is not the time to mention that, for £29, Amazon sells a fake 10oz suncream bottle – one for smuggling in booze.
One of my best pals swears by hers.
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I’ve lost count of the times she’s to be found, pitch or gig-side, causally swigging from her Ambre Solaire.
Which beats an £8 pint.