Kier Starmer is paying back 6 grand of his donation money, the cash which bought him Taylor Swift tickets, Arsenal hospitality suites and his wife’s stylist. The rest of the money, for his clothes and glasses, he’s keeping. Possibly because it failed to make him look any better. Possibly not. He just felt he needed ‘to draw a line’, because that’s what tossers do. You don’t catch me drawing lines because I blur them all. And in fact the money Kier took was legal, normal and above board. But with the perfect timing of getting a last minute deal on a Titanic ticket, he chose to take 16 grand in personal payments whilst depriving impoverished pensioners like me of 250 quid towards their winter heating bills. It was just a hypocritically suicidal thing to do. So he did it.

Meanwhile, in Opposition-land, they’re battling to be the next leader. Rishi-nouveau. And there’s four left in the running, which next week will be whittled down to the final two. And then it’s down to the grass-routers, the Tory membership, to make the final decision. Because they did such a great job last time of choosing Liz Truss, crashing the economy, dropping the value of the £££, making Britain an economic Pariah state and a laughing stock on the world stage.

But this time is different. Then they were choosing a Prime Minister, now it’s just the Leader of the Opposition.

My own personal favourite is James Cleverly. Because he has a wonderfully easy charm which, should he ever become PM, would be a massive advantage. Remember when PMs had charm? And he is experienced and very bright. As is Tom Tugendhat, the minister for funny names and an ex-soldier. And we all love an ex-soldier. Robert Jenrick is pretty popular too. Outspoken, but principled and decent. Plus he’s married to an Israeli so will probably be ‘on board’ with the right team. And then there’s Kemi.
Possibly the brightest of the lot. Certainly the most outspoken of the lot. Very right wing, which will please those Farage-a-phobes, who think he’s going to steal Tory votes, and speaks a very hard and populist line about immigration and virtually everything else. You wouldn’t want to meet Kemi in a dark alley at night, nor in a ballot box. But she’s the ‘marmite’ candidate who is either loved or hated. And, of course, being black should mean nothing, but as the voting heartland Tories had issues voting for Rishi, who was a bit brown, so may have other thoughts of a not quite so ‘inclusive’ nature.

Everything to play for.

Happy New Year/ Shona tova

A xxxx