Our beleaguered PM faces yet more humiliation next month after a song mocking him was nominated for a Brit Award.
Parody hit Freezing This Christmas by Sir Starmer And The Granny Harmers is on the best Pop Act shortlist.
The song, lampooning Labour’s decision to strip winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners – a move later reversed – made the long list after topping the singles downloads chart and breaking into the Top 40.
The lyrics read: ‘It’ll be freezing this Christmas, without fuel at home, it’ll be freezing this Christmas, while Keir Starmer is warm. It’ll be cold, so cold, without fuel at home, this Christmas.’
The nomination is likely to go down well with Starmer’s leadership challenger, Andy Burnham. The Greater Manchester mayor lobbied to bring music’s most glittering night to his city for the first time and is set to be a guest of honour at the event at the Co-Op Live arena.
Our beleaguered PM faces yet more humiliation next month after a song mocking him was nominated for a Brit Award
The lyrics read: ‘It’ll be freezing this Christmas, without fuel at home, it’ll be freezing this Christmas, while Keir Starmeris warm. It’ll be cold, so cold, without fuel at home, this Christmas’
There is even talk that Burnham may make an onstage appearance at the Brits, which are broadcast live on ITV.
It will pile more humiliation on the Prime Minister and would be a perfect launch pad for a Burnham leadership bid.
MPs return to Parliament today and one of the first debates is on reducing schools to a four-day week.
Proceedings will be got under way by the Labour MP for Lichfield, Dave Robertson. In his previous life he was an organiser for the NASUWT, a teachers’ union not known for its Protestant work ethic.
Beware bag lady Penny
What is the average number of items in a woman’s handbag?
The answer is 75, according to Dame Penny Mordaunt, the former Leader of the Commons, who famously held a ceremonial sword vertical for more than an hour at the King’s Coronation.
Mordaunt told the Difficult Women podcast that when she makes speeches she often asks a man in the audience to empty his pockets and then a woman to do the same with their handbag.
Little tumbles from the pocket but items from the handbag have included screwdrivers, a can of WD40, even a swimsuit. ‘The average number of items in a handbag is 75,’ declares Mordaunt. ‘I say to the chaps: “Why do you think they have all that stuff?” It is because they have the imagination to think what could go wrong.’
Those eggheads at the Financial Times swiftly deployed their foremost geopolitical experts after the US dramatically ousted the brutal Left-wing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. A headline stated: ‘Instant Insight: Maduro is gone but it’s not clear what comes next.’
Subscribers pay a fortune for such gems.
Lefties are now in a lather about events in Caracas, but interest in the South American country had slumped at Westminster: The all-party parliamentary group on Venezuela folded last year. ‘It shut because it didn’t offer any juicy free trips to sun-kissed beaches,’ says one Commons watcher. ‘Who wants to go on a fact-finding trip to a sanctioned country run by a tyrant who looks like Borat?’
Mansion without tax
The mansion tax for properties worth more than £2million will drop on doormats for the first time in April 2028.
But the architect of the policy, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, will be exempt (assuming she lasts that long) even though she divides her time between 11 Downing Street and Dorneywood, a 21-room mansion with eight bathrooms in 215 acres of land.
Cabinet Office minister Anna Turley said the new charge will be paid by ‘property owners not residents’. Lucky old Reeves.
