Andy Richardson: 'Sometimes karma is the best'
There must be times when the rank and file wonder why they opted for a job as an office worker, labourer or white-collar professional.
When they gaze at the Government and see such venture capitalists as Kate Bingham, for instance, who is married to a Tory minister and has no experience in healthcare but has been made head of Boris Johnson’s vaccines taskforce.
Her hubbie, Jesse Norman, went to Eton at the same time as Boris and is a Conservative minister while her father was Lord Chief Justice. She’s run up a £670,000 PR bill with each consultant on the equivalent of more than the Prime Minister’s salary as they duplicate the work of others.
Still, we can look to our friends in America for entertainment as Donald insists on recounting the votes. Great, we can smile contentedly as Orange Man loses twice. His planned press conference at the Philadelphia Four Seasons was cancelled when organised realised they’d booked Four Seasons Total Landscaping, rather than a hotel. Rake News, you might think. So Donald did what Donald does; as Rome burned, he played golf.
His attitude to golf tells us all we need to know about his character. Donald claims to have won 18 clubhouse championships, which would make him the golfing equivalent of Lewis Hamilton. A fact-check found 16 claims were false and the other two were unsubstantiated. I know, Donald, lying, if only we’d known. All political careers end in failure.
Still, at least Trump has captured the zeitgeist, enjoying the full-on 2020 experience. He’s had Covid, lost his job and will be evicted. His friend, Nigel Farage Garage, is $10,000 out of pocket after betting on him to win. Sometimes karma is the best.
The demise of Trump leaves BoJo as the world’s best narcissistic leader. And as he sees the world reject the sort of populism that led to four turbulent and dysfunctional years in the White House, BoJo has instigated Project Nice, pouring £396 million into a kids’ food package led by Marcus Rashford. It makes a change from the money being funnelled to venture capitalists.
The King of the U-Turn might have it slightly more awkward with Biden. On Friday, he joked that Biden was ‘one of the few world leaders I haven’t insulted’. A Democratic source responded: ‘If you think Joe hates you, you should hear Kamala.’ Isolated by our two most important friends and allies, Europe and the USA. That’s nice.
