Starmer has spotted Boris’s big weakness

Boris Johnson’s relaunch speech this week contained something for everyone: a clear-sighted policy on Ukraine, the bizarre idea that stoking up housing demand is the way to overcome a shortage of housing supply and a take on the economy that one might charitably describe as a Keynesian-Thatcherite synthesis.

But the most telling line came in a section about energy policy, when the Prime Minister claimed to be ‘building a new nuclear reactor every year rather than one every ten years’. Not to be planning to do so, but actually to be doing so right now, in real time as it were. In Johnson’s mind, the preliminary expression of an intention to do something complicated, time-consuming and difficult clearly means it is being done.

This would appear to explain an awful lot about his administration. For instance, when you want to stop civil servants working from home you just get Jacob Rees-Mogg to leave a note telling them to do so and this constitutes effective action. 

Or when you wish to deter Channel-hopping migrants, you get Priti Patel to make a speech saying they will be sent to Rwanda. 

Or when you want to demonstrate some action on ‘levelling-up’ you get Michael Gove to say the House of Lords might be transferred to the north of England. 

Or when you want to assuage the DUP, you say the Northern Ireland protocol is going to be changed or dumped. 

Or indeed when voters are getting prickly about the next wave of loopy diversity coordinator recruitment in the NHS, you get Sajid Javid to say he’s against it.

And then you can use the present tense to kid yourselves that effective action is being taken on all these things.

In the meantime, an increasingly weary Conservative electorate is noticing the growing chasm between intention and delivery. Home Office civil servants are aghast about the Rwanda policy, even before it has lead to the transfer of a single irregular migrant. The anti-Brexit House of Lords is gearing up to thwart whatever version of Northern Ireland protocol reform eventually gets unveiled in draft legislation next week. Civil servants are simply ignoring Rees-Mogg’s injunction to come back to Whitehall. Peers have loftily told Gove to mind his own business about where the Lords sits. And is there a person alive who has any faith that the creeping infestation of highly-paid ID politics types across the NHS – and, indeed, the rest of the public realm – will be brought to a halt by a lone harrumph from Javid?

Throw into the mix impending rail strikes and a feeble response to taming rampant inflation – despite sustaining the pretence that the Bank of England is seriously commanded to hold it to two per cent – and one is not a million miles away from the ‘imaginary divisions’ mindset which tends to afflict leaders with strong personalities when things cease going well.

The new backroom team in Downing Street is reported to believe that the key to political recovery for Johnson is for his administration to be seen to be doing at least one Conservative thing each week. This follows a year in which the PM appeared to have turned into a climate warrior, much to the disgust of the wider Tory tribe. 

Patel’s Rwanda plan was apparently singled out for early praise, having landed well with Conservative-leaning voters. Yet a demonstrable inability to deliver beneficial change – whether due to a lack of statecraft, insufficient concentration span or a deficit of sheer willpower – in the face of determined opposition from dug-in vested interests is just as corrosive for a government’s reputation as not even trying to do so.

Johnson has been compared to many supposedly right-wing historical figures by the more hysterical among his left-wing detractors, including Genghis Khan and Atilla the Hun. He has insisted that, in fact, he is more like a ‘Brexity Heseltine’.

One figure he should try at all costs to avoid being likened to is Edward Heath, a man who could hardly have been more different on the issue of European political integration. The trouble is that the Brexiteer and the arch-integrationist appear to be in grave danger of meeting around the back of the political bike sheds when it comes to the metric of effectiveness in office.

In early 1974, while plagued with an oil crisis, rising inflation and a wave of strikes, Heath called an election on the basis of ‘who governs Britain?’ only for the electorate to decide that if he needed to ask the question then clearly it couldn’t be him.

Plodding Labour leader Keir Starmer appears to be latching on to this as Johnson’s key weakness, going through a painful inventory of Tory under-achievement in PMQs this week. Johnson won himself some more time in this week’s confidence vote. But if he has not become far more adept at implementation by this time next year then he is going to get dumped. He will fully deserve such a fate.

The death of Russian diplomacy

‘It’s like being part of a cult,’ explains one student of Russia’s elite diplomatic academy. ‘They expect us to learn about diplomacy and the international order like nothing has changed, but everything has.’ Since it was founded by Joseph Stalin in 1944, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations has been a training ground for Russian ambassadors, Kremlin advisors and KGB spies. Now, though, discontent is stirring among the students.

In the weeks following the invasion of Ukraine, Russia passed a series of laws that made discrediting the armed forces an offence, punishable with fines and even jail time. While these future civil servants were always expected to ingest an official version of history and current affairs, the crackdown has made critical perspectives of government policy entirely unacceptable in the classroom.

‘They make it clear that nothing good will happen to you if you disagree,’ one young student warns. ‘We had a session where we discussed Ukraine and sanctions. My friend and I couldn’t say a word because everyone else was in favour of the war, talking about how to spoil western plans. They say we should stop supplying gas to Europe, then we’ll see how their opinion changes.’ She once dreamed of becoming an ambassador but has since decided to leave the country as soon as she graduates. ‘I can’t work for these crazy people’.

But many do naturally sympathise with their country’s position. Some even went so far as to buy ‘Z’ branded t-shirts and hats, wearing them around campus, to show their support for the invasion. ‘By virtue of my education it is clear to me what exactly Nato wants from Ukraine, and why our country could not allow such a turn of events,’ one student told me.

Few of Putin’s inner circle seem to have known he was planning an invasion until it was announced in late February. Foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and diplomatic spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, both regular speakers at MGIMO (as the university is more commonly known), had spent months insisting that no such action would be taken. Lavrov seemed genuinely frustrated during a meeting with his British counterpart, Liz Truss, in which she repeatedly warned against an assault. For many Russians, it was proof that the West was deaf to their country’s concerns about Nato expansion and intent on lecturing them regardless.

Now though, the establishment has been forced to catch up with reality, and Moscow’s top diplomat has been sent out to contort himself over conflict. ‘We have not invaded Ukraine,’ Lavrov claimed in March, weeks after the tanks had started rolling. Even if they don’t find that argument particularly convincing, current and aspiring officials either have to get behind it or risk severe consequences for speaking out.

So far, only one has. Boris Bondarev, an envoy with Russia’s mission to the UN in Geneva, made global headlines when he resigned in protest last month. ‘Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred,’ he wrote, arguing Lavrov himself has gone from respected elder statesman to conspiracy-loving crank virtually overnight.

Even those who want to stick with the foreign service are finding it more difficult. With dozens of envoys sent home in tit-for-tat expulsions from EU nations, slashing the number of available international postings, those who have been studying European languages for years are more likely to be writing reports in a back office in Moscow than enjoying a coveted role in Rome or Paris.

Likewise, there is seemingly little space for diplomacy in Russia’s current playbook. In Ukraine, as the fighting edges towards a grinding stalemate, the chances of a negotiated settlement look increasingly slim. What deal, Kyiv’s politicians ask, could ever be done with a country that can’t be trusted to honour its commitments?

Many of MGIMO’s lecturers are veterans of the Soviet diplomatic service, seemingly unconcerned about the prospect of the country once again being cut off from much of the world. For their students, though, a generation that grew up in a period of relative liberal openness, the change is less likely to be welcomed. Many are used to holidaying abroad and more western lifestyles. With Instagram banned, designer shops pulling out and restricted access to European visas, they face the consequences of Putin’s war far more than their teachers.

That generational divide has also caused some explosive disagreements. One class at the diplomatic academy apparently descended into furore after a faculty member referred to Ukrainians as ‘hohols’, a slur popularised since the start of the war. She is said to have denied it was racist when confronted by students, claiming her partner is of Ukrainian descent. The row, however, is a testament to the fact that even those planning careers at the heart of the Russian state aren’t entirely prepared to accept the full extent of its vitriol.

Outside of the country, observers have pinned their hopes on the next generation of Moscow’s leaders. However, as one disillusioned diplomatic trainee puts it: ‘Nobody expects our relationships with the West to get better in our lifetimes. If you want a job in foreign relations, you should probably start learning Chinese.’

Abolish the railways!

As the country is held hostage once again by the rail unions, it’s time for the nation to ask itself: does it need trains at all? The last time anyone dared ask this question was 60 years ago when Dr Richard Beeching boldly closed more than 2,000 stations and 5,000 miles of track. The time has come to finish the job and shut down the rest of Britain’s viciously expensive, underperforming and fundamentally inefficient rail network. The economic reasons for doing so are irrefutable, no matter how the railroad anoraks might sputter.

Originally private, then nationalised, then privatised again, then morphed into an odd hybrid in which tax subsidies are higher than ever, British railways are hideously expensive, uncomfortable and unreliable. On the continent, it’s little better.

Why does it cost more to take the train to the airport than to fly to Spain? And five times longer to get there on a train, than on a jet? Why is it cheaper to drive from London to Bristol than to take the train? Why are trains so often cancelled, late or stuck? Why do they insist on passengers travelling from where they are not, to where they don’t want to be?

The worship of trains has a sentimental side. The train has become part of our national mythology, like the BBC and NHS. I remember going to King’s Cross to visit my grandmother in Yorkshire, and a station shed stinking of sulphur, and porters, and a breakfast with thick rashers of bacon in a dining car with white tablecloths, as smuts of coal dashed against the window.

There’s a tradition in all parties to shove increasing quantities of cash into the infinite maw of the railways. Beeching today is reviled when he should be revered. The railways occupy Britain’s costliest and least effective transport corridors. They were mostly built in the 19th century and were a marvel of their time, a symbol and enabler of economic and social revolution. Today, these corridors are strikingly inefficient. They don’t lubricate mobility, they obstruct it. The railway network does not survive the most basic interrogation. 

The admired TGV in France born during the 1980s with the Paris-Lyon line has inspired many new lines including the insanely expensive HS2. In France, the real costs and benefits of these lines have never been published because they would show the high-speed trains manage to cover an unimpressive 4 per cent of passenger/kilometres travelled. SNCF is drowning in debt and regional train services are as bad or worse than they are in Britain.

The calculus for HS2 is equally brutal, as is its environmental footprint. The railways are not reliably moving us, but they are reliably fleecing us. Quieter, cheaper, driverless hence strike-immune, rubber-tired electric vehicles could move thousands more people at a lower cost from and to more destinations. If one of these vehicles were to break down, the entire network would not grind to a standstill behind it.

Merely using buses, a single reserved lane in the Hudson Tunnel delivers more workers into New York City each day than Waterloo Station into London. An aerial view of Waterloo, indeed the entire rail network, shows rail corridors that are basically empty as adjacent roads are saturated. Trains take a long time to speed up and slow down. If they’re not kept far apart they risk running into each other.

The technology is now available to repurpose the obsolete railways into a new transport system that’s fit for purpose and economically competitive. Artificial intelligence and driverless technology can be used to transfer rail corridors into corridors for autonomous electric vehicles. Tests of autonomous pods are underway in Dubai, Singapore and China. They’re to be used in Paris during the 2024 Olympics. The Japanese are experimenting in Tokyo. Here’s Britain’s chance to lead the world again, as we did with railways. So far, there’s little evidence of that. Investing billions in trains when their replacement is imminent is like investing in the horse-buggy industry as Henry Ford prepared to invent the automobile factory.

Perhaps there are arguments for saving a few train lines, where they are manifestly profitable or essential. Otherwise, the worship of the railways is like prayer to a dead religion. Train lines should be ripped up as quickly as possible.

BBC apologises for Antony Gormley Brexit blunder

It looked like another case of bad Brexit news: one of Britain’s most famous artists was giving up his passport as a result of Britain’s departure from the EU. That, at least, was how the BBC reported the story about the ‘Angel of the North’ artist Sir Antony Gormley. On BBC One’s main news bulletin over the Jubilee weekend, the BBC reported that:

‘Sir Anthony said he was giving up his British passport because of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union.’

But there was a problem: it wasn’t true. Gormley isn’t giving up his British nationality. And while, as a dual national, he is applying for a German passport, he is keeping hold of his British passport, despite the claims made by the BBC.

Now, the BBC has apologised for its mistake:

‘We reported that the acclaimed British sculptor Sir Antony Gormley is to become a German citizen. We said he was giving up his British passport because of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union and that he had described the move as embarrassing and had plans for new sculptures that would reflect his view. In fact Sir Antony Gormley is not giving up his British nationality and has asked us to make clear the circumstances behind his application for a German passport.’

Oh dear.

Ben & Jerry’s is wrong about Britain’s ‘racist’ Rwanda plan

Why is an ice cream brand lecturing Britain on the morality of its immigration policy? Ben and Jerry’s, otherwise known for flogging overpriced junk food, has weighed in on the government’s new policy of sending mostly single men dodging Britain’s border control to Rwanda. The plan is ‘cruel and morally bankrupt’, ‘racist and abhorrent’, according to the ice cream company, which says sending people ‘to a country they’ve never been to, and have no connection with’ could ‘put people’s lives at risk’.

Setting aside the source of these allegations, let’s evaluate these statements. Despite being depicted by some as a rainy hellhole, Britain remains an attractive country where a large segment of the world’s population desperately wants to live. It is so attractive that some people leaving Afghanistan will travel through Iran, Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, and France for a chance to climb into a small boat and make the dangerous journey across the Channel. Some 10,000 people have undertaken this journey in the first five months of this year.

Once they arrive in Britain, it can be difficult for the government to deport those who have no right to be here. Between the wide network of lawyers, and charities who foul up the system by exhausting every possible spurious grounds for appeal, and the hard-left activists who, when all else fails block planes and vans, deportations are at a record low even as the numbers arriving soar.

The core problem is that the various laws and conventions that govern the treatment of refugees were not designed for a world where travel is cheap and easy, where there are such big disparities in income between nations, and where the bar for seeking asylum lowers year by year. Outside of the West, there is a vast population which would desperately like to be inside, and in a large enough group there will be enough people with sufficient risk appetite to try it.

Even those in favour of relatively liberal immigration policies should oppose this state of affairs. High levels of irregular migration undermines support for legitimate and legal flows through the accurate impression that Britain can’t control its borders.

It is not ‘racist’ for the people who currently live in Britain – no matter their ethnicity – to demand a say over who their new countrymen are. A country is not a shopping mall interchangeable with one in any other city in the world. It has a distinct social and political character, one that inevitably changes with immigration at scale. Controlling this process means controlling the borders. Similarly, British taxpayers are already fiscally subsidising non-European migrants even when we demand they jump through the hoops set out by the Home Office and immigration regime. They have a vested interest in making sure the composition of migration works for them and not just for the new arrivals.

It’s not even necessarily the case that the plan works against the interest of migrants. Limiting the demand for their services reduces the ability of people smugglers to extort those who could already have settled in any number of safe countries. Far from putting ‘lives at risk’, preventing dangerous Channel crossings would keep them safe. 

And, of course, for Rwanda, the scheme is a win-win; Kigali, its capital, will reap the rich economic rewards of taking in the asylum seekers we are constantly told are ‘innovators, entrepreneurs, taxpayers’. And the British government will even pay them to do it. If you believe in these arguments, the programme must surely rank among the most generous development aid schemes ever devised.

But whatever else it is, it is clearly a massively controversial and highly political topic. Which makes it all the more startling that Ben and Jerry’s – which, again, exists to sell ice cream – has made strong views on British immigration policy a major part of its online presence. 

The tricky business of music biopics

Along with films about real life authors, poets, comedians and artists, biographies of musicians are notoriously difficult to translate successfully to the cinema screen. Why?

Writing and painting aren’t inherently cinematic; live music has more visual potential (hence the greater number of motion pictures). But the challenges of lip-synching and the existence in most cases of plenty of original concert footage raise the stakes for any actor prepared to take on such a role. There’s a real danger of performances falling into pastiche and mimicry.

Directors face an even greater predicament when music rights are refused, as was the case with the recent Stardust (2021) where actor/musician Johnny Flynn had to come up with songs in the style of David Bowie. A challenge for any actor, one which unfortunately laid heavy on Flynn’s narrow shoulders.

Likewise, Anthony Hopkins’s Surviving Picasso (1996) boasted none of Pablo’s paintings and the same year’s Basquiat also featured no actual (as opposed to ersatz) works by the artist.

When movies are given the official sanction of the subject (Rocketman) or surviving band members (Bohemian Rhapsody), the viewer can expect a certain amount of whitewashing. In Rhapsody’s case, by the bucketful.

In contrast, 2019’s Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt (Netflix) was approved by the band but went out of its way to catalogue their debaucheries.

Early reviews of Baz Luhrmann’s (Moulin Rouge) upcoming Elvis have been mostly positive, with critics tending to prefer Craig Butler’s depiction of The King’s return in his 68 Comeback Special to that of his earlier years. Tom Hanks, equipped with a prosthetic nose, fat suit and Dutch-inflected accent has come in for a fair amount of criticism for his take on Presley’s grifting manager ‘Colonel’ Tom Parker, which bears a certain physical resemblance to Orson Welles’ corpulent Police Captain Hank Quinlan in A Touch of Evil (1958).

Disney+’s Pistol about the Sex Pistols has received mixed reviews; famously John Lydon (née Rotten) went to court to prevent the use of Sex Pistol tunes in Danny Boyle’s adaptation of guitarist Steve Jones’ 2016 memoir Lonely Boy.

Fans of music biopics can also catch Wu-Tang: An American Saga, which, like Pistol, sits rather incongruously on Disney+.

Here are ten movies where you may (or may not) echo the newly resurgent Abba in saying ‘Thank You For The Music’.

Finding Graceland (1998)

Clearly drawing inspiration from Jonathan Demme’s Melvin & Howard (1980) – but with less effect, Finding Graceland sees an ageing bum claiming to be Elvis (Harvey Keitel) hitch a ride with young Byron Gruman (Jonathon Schaech) on a road trip to Memphis.

Keitel does surprisingly well when he eventually performs as ‘E’, belting out Suspicious Minds like a pro, but he was never going to win any lookalike competitions.

Is he really Elvis? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

Amadeus (1984)

Hugely enjoyable as Miloš Forman’s Academy Award-winning adaptation of Peter Shaffer’s 1979 stage play Amadeus is, the viewer should not mistake the movie for historical truth, although the story follows the basic outline of Mozart’s later life in Vienna.

For one thing, bad guy Salieri (F Murray Abraham) was far from a mediocrity, as a cursory listen to his 1775 Sinfonia in D Major “Il Giorno onomastico” will attest.

Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) such a vulgar brat? To an extent, but since his domineering father Leopold treated the child prodigy as something of a performing monkey, carting him round the royal courts of Europe, it’s probably not that surprising he would rebel when older.

The film is a near-perfect marriage of plot and Mozart’s music, flowing seamlessly throughout its 161-minute duration, which rarely drags.

2017’s mystery drama Interlude in Prague was companion piece of sorts, with a younger Wolfgang (Aneurin Barnard – Peaky Blinders) unwittingly involved in skulduggery in the titular city (where Amadeus was filmed).

If you enjoy motion pictures about classical composers, you may wish to delve into Ken Russell’s extensive but divisive oeuvre (Song of Summer, The Music Lovers, Lisztomania, Mahler etc) or try Richard Burton’s mammoth mini-series on the undeniably talented but remarkably unpleasant Wagner.

For a less exhausting experience check out Hugh Grant as Frédéric Chopin in Sondheim collaborator James Lapine’s Impromptu (1991).

Respect (2021) Amazon Prime, Rent/Buy

Despite a strong performance from American Idol star Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin and a bonza supporting cast (including Forest Whitaker, Mary J. Blige, Marlon Wayans, and Marc Maron), stage director Liesl Tommy’s biopic proved a dud at the box office.

The movie follows Franklin’s career, troubled personal life, and other struggles, culminating in her 1972 Amazing Grace live gospel album, itself the subject of a critically acclaimed concert film (2018).

Released in the same year as Respect, Cynthia Erivo starred as Franklin in the equally underwhelming National Geographic four-part series Genius: Aretha.

Miles Ahead (2015), Amazon Rent/Buy

Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) directed himself as Miles Davies in this quirky biopic which posits the idea of a 1970s in recovery/semi-addicted Davis teaming up with journalist Dave Braden (Ewan McGregor) to retrieve a stolen tape of his most recent work.

You may be old enough to recall that this was the same premise for Paul McCartney’s disastrous Give My Regards to Broad Street (1986).

But don’t worry, although no classic, Cheadle’s Miles Ahead is a much better picture.

The Doors (1991), Amazon Rent Only

Oliver Stone’s movie divided the surviving Doors, with keyboard player Ray Manzarek and drummer John Densmore against the movie and guitarist Robby Krieger marginally more positive, commenting in 1994: ‘Some of it was overblown, but a lot of the stuff was very well done, I thought.’

All three agreed that singer Jim Morrison wasn’t quite the drunken, offensive, and pretentious sociopath depicted in the picture, although they admitted he had his moments.

Krieger said: ‘(Morrison) was the clown that always blows it at the worst possible moment. He doesn’t mean to do it, that’s just the way he is, or was. It would’ve been a lot better if he didn’t have that part of him, but on the other hand, that was part of what drove him.’

On the plus side, the film looks great, and Val Kilmer is superb as Morrison aka The Lizard King aka Mr Mojo Risin’.

Sid & Nancy (1986) – full movie free to watch on YouTube, Amazon Rent/Buy

With Sid & Nancy and the following year’s Prick Up Your Ears, Gary Oldman provided two of the best performances of his acting career.

Although Sid’s life was seedy and his squalid death pathetic, Oldman and Cox have enough sense to leven the tragic tale of Vicious and fellow heroin addict Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb – Shameless USA) with humour.

Cox made some odd casting choices in Sid’s bandmates – in particular Scouser Andrew Schofield (GBH) as Johnny Rotten (as was) and the rotund Perry Benson (Benidorm) as bony drummer Paul Cook.

Predictably, Lydon didn’t care for the film. When asked if the movie got anything right, he replied ‘Maybe the name Sid.’

The Runaways (2010), Sundance Now, Amazon Rent/Buy

An early attempt by Kristen Stewart to break away from the abysmal Twilight franchise straitjacket, the actress plays Joan Jett (of ‘I Love Rock ‘N Roll’ fame) in her early days as a member of all-female rock band the Runaways.

Dakota Fanning plays bandmate Cherie Currie, with Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough as her identical twin Marie. Michael Shannon takes the role of unsavoury Svengali-figure Kim Fowley. The picture won favourable reviews but bombed at the box office.

Joan Jett was recently in the news when she pushed back at rocker Ted Nugent for his criticism of her inclusion in Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists (‘If Joan Jett is on the list of Top 100 Guitar players, then I’m Caitlyn Jenner’s boy toy,’ he said).

Jett took Nugent down with the response: ‘He has to be in that body, so that’s punishment enough. He plays tough guy, but this is the guy who sh*t his pants—literally—so he didn’t have to go in the Army.’ No love lost there then.

Nowhere Boy (2009) Freevee, FilmRise Amazon Rent/Buy

Sam Taylor-Wood’s directorial debut explores the teenage years of the young John Lennon, played by her now husband Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Kick-Ass).

And very good he is as well, making the chippy scouser likeable enough for the viewer to stick with the picture, which has a low-key charm.

Pistol’s Thomas Sangster is Paul McCartney in the film; which prompted his real-life counterpart to say: ‘You know what I’m slightly peeved about? My character, my actor, is shorter than John! And I don’t like that. I’m the same size as John, please. Put John in a trench or put me in platforms!’

Bird (1988), Amazon Rent/Buy

Clint Eastwood directed his lengthy labour of love biopic about jazz saxophonist Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker (Forest Whitaker) to critical praise but (unsurprisingly) poor box office returns. Whitaker’s breakthrough role saw him win the Best Actor award at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival and Eastwood take the Golden Globe for Best Director.

The embellished story of Bird’s near decapitation by cymbal became a recurring leitmotif in Whiplash (2014).

As you may well know, Clint Eastwood is a huge jazz buff and no mean pianist, composing the scores to films including his own Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby, Flags of Our Fathers, Changeling, Hereafter, J. Edgar, and the original piano sequences for In the Line of Fire.

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020), Netflix

Viola Davis (Fences) stars as the titular ‘Ma’ Rainey (born Gertrude Pridgett, 1886-1939), famed ‘Mother of the Blues’, and proto-lesbian feminist standard-bearer.

Adapted from August Wilson’s 1982 play (he also wrote Fences), the action takes place over a fraught evening’s recording session, where tensions simmer between the domineering Rainey and some of her all-male band, especially cocksure trumpeter Levee Green (the late Chadwick Boseman).

Ma Rainey was Boseman’s final film appearance; he also starred with Davis in Get on Up (2014), another music biopic, in which he played ‘Godfather of Soul’ James Brown.

The picture earned rave notices (97 per cent approval on Rotten Tomatoes), with Davis and Boseman singled out for praise, introducing Rainey’s music to a whole new generation of listeners.

And finally…for those who prefer movie biopics with a hefty dose of humour, the sequel to 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap has recently been announced, reuniting director Marti DeBergi (Rob Reiner) with David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest).

Fans of Tap classics Stonehenge, Sex Farm, Smell the Glove, Hell Hole, Christmas with the Devil, B*tch School, Big Bottom and Lick My Love Pump get ready for a rockin’ good time.

In 2024, that is, when the movie will be released.

What are the true ingredients of a Bakewell tart?

Northerners take their puddings seriously: Eccles cakes from Manchester, sticky toffee pudding from Cartmel, and Bakewell tart from Derbyshire. These hyper local puddings have been adopted by sweet tooths all over the country, but woe betide anyone who tries to mess with their traditions. In this, Bakewell tart provides its own challenges: the locals call it a pudding, and many will argue that it should have a puff pastry base rather than the shortcrust that it tends to have elsewhere, and even feature custard rather than frangipane. And we also have to contend with another variety – those made famous by Mr Kipling, which use a cherry jam, and decorate with a thick layer of fondant icing and a glace cherry.

Bakewell’s origin story contains the two most important aspects of any origin story: a kitchen accident, and an extremely spurious factual basis. The legend goes that in 1860, a waitress in one of the town’s pubs, The White Horse, failed to follow her mistress’s instructions and, rather than making a strawberry jam tart, ended up with what we now call a Bakewell pudding. But history begs to differ, with claims to the tart predating the poor waitress’s mishap by a couple of decades as far afield as Scotland and Boston, Massachusetts, not to mention the fact that the supposed proprietress of the White Horse never actually existed. The earliest recipes call for puff pastry and candied peel, neither of which now form a part of that which we happily call a Bakewell tart.

But no matter: the search for authenticity is usually a tricky and fruitless one. As enjoyable as a good origin story is, the true joy of a pudding is in the eating – and often in the ways the recipe has adapted and changed in the hands of those who made it across the years. In all but Bakewell itself, shortcrust has become the pastry of choice, and the candied fruit has peeled away. Here, I’ve courted popularity, and braved the wrath of Derbyshire, and gone for the most recognisable elements of the Bakewell: a decent layer of raspberry jam delivers just enough sharpness against the unapologetic sweetness of the frangipane, and the shortest of barely sweet pastry cases gives the pudding a necessary bite.

Bakewell tart

Makes: 1 9 inch tart (serves 8)

Takes: 30 minutes plus chilling

Bakes: 40 minutes

For the pastry

250g plain flour

125g unsalted butter

1 tablespoon caster sugar

1 teaspoon fine salt

125ml water

For the frangipane

100g unsalted butter, softened

100g light brown sugar

100g ground almonds

1 egg

1 teaspoon almond essence or 1 tablespoon amaretto

1 tablespoon self-raising flour

5 tablespoons seeded raspberry jam

2 tablespoons Flaked almonds

1. First make your pastry. Combine the butter, flour, salt and sugar in a food processor or between your fingertips until the mixture is like breadcrumbs. Beat in the water using a wooden spoon until the dough is smooth. Flatten into a disc and wrap in clingfilm, before refrigerating for 2 hours.
2. Roll the chilled pastry into a circle about half a centimetre thick, roll this up onto your rolling pin, and gently lay into a 9 inch tart tin. Chill for half an hour.
3. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Trim the overhang pastry, prick the base with a fork, line with baking paper and weigh the pastry down using rice or sugar or baking beans. Bake for 15 minutes, remove the pastry weights and baking paper, and bake for a final 5 minutes.
4. Reduce the oven to 180°C. For the frangipane, beat the butter and sugar together until fluffy and noticeably lighter in colour. Add the egg followed by the almonds, self-raising flour and almond essence or amaretto.
5. Spread the jam into the base of the tart and gently smooth across the pastry which will still be fragile as it is still warm. Spoon the frangipane onto the tart, level it, and return to the oven for 20 minutes. Carefully sprinkle the flaked almonds over the baked frangipane and bake for a final five minutes.

Tory bid to delete controversial schools law

There’s a row afoot in the House of Lords. That’s a bit of a dog-bites-man line these days, with government defeats in the Upper Chamber being so common that they’re totally unremarkable. But this latest spot of bother doesn’t come from Labour or the Lib Dems or even those difficult-to-read crossbenchers. No: the new rebels are a bunch of Tory ex-ministers who want to delete a large chunk of their party’s own bill.

The Schools Bill is currently in the Committee Stage – where peers go through line-by-line scrutiny of the legislation – in the Lords. At yesterday’s sitting, former Education Secretary Lord Baker announced that he and two other former education ministers, Lord Nash and Lord Agnew, want to delete the first 18 clauses of the 69-clause bill. They are angry that the bill will give huge new powers to the Education Secretary over academies.

Baker explained the reasons for gutting the legislation in this way: ‘We consider that this is a constitutional bill and an enormous grab for power by Whitehall. It is quite amazing. Some people in the Department for Education have wanted this for years but have now given in to their worst voices. We think that the powers that they have are totally unacceptable in dealing with the problems.’ He added that there had been no consultation on what was ‘an abomination’. ‘This is a serious bill, which gives Secretaries of State powers that they have never had, that I never had and that the present Secretary of State does not have, to intervene in running schools around the country. That is unacceptable and I am amazed that a Conservative government have done it.’

Nash, who was a schools minister responsible for academies and free schools for five years under David Cameron and then Theresa May, added his own complaint that the government had failed to explain why these new powers for the Education Secretary were actually necessary. ‘I believe that the DfE already has sufficient and substantial intervention powers and that these clauses are therefore unnecessary.’ Agnew was appointed as his successor, and told the Chamber that the bill ‘has landed like a lump of kryptonite among all of us who are trying to educate children in the system’.

At this stage, the trio are merely politely asking ministers to delete the first 18 clauses of the bill. But they are very clear that they will go further and press it to a vote if that doesn’t happen (which seems unlikely). Labour and Lib Dems have already indicated they will support that move (naturally), and so the government would have another defeat on its hands. This bill starts in the Lords and will then move to the Commons, where Boris Johnson cannot count on the support of his backbenchers at the moment. He will not want to lose more power as a result of a failed power grab.

How Russia’s press covered the death sentence of two British fighters

Two Brits and a Moroccan national captured while fighting for Ukraine have been sentenced to death by a court in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine. Accused of being ‘mercenaries’ committed to ‘carrying out acts of terrorism’ and ‘seizing power by force’, Aiden Aslin, Shaun Pinner and Brahim Saadoun have a month to appeal the sentence handed down by the Supreme Court of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR).

Widely considered a show trial by the West, the Russian media covered the fighters’ court case with earnest gravity. Now their sentence has been handed down, Russia’s coverage has only expanded, capitalising on the propaganda opportunities it has brought them.

In an ‘exclusive interview’ recorded at an unknown point before the conclusion of the trial, but published following the verdict, Aiden Aslin can be seen speaking to the Russian state broadcaster RT. In it, he speaks of feeling ‘abandoned’ by the British and Ukrainian government. Another segment of the interview, written up by the online pro-Putin newspaper Pravda.ru reports that he goes on to ‘reveal’ that the Ukrainian army is supposedly badly trained, unprofessional and full of alcoholics.

Interviews under duress are a tried and tested tactic in the Putin propaganda playbook – just in April, YouTube agreed to take down a previous interview of Aslin’s after claims that footage of him speaking in captivity broke the Geneva Convention. At the time of writing, RT’s most recent interview remains online.

On its website, the Kremlin-supporting broadsheet Izvestiya went a step further, posting a video of the three fighters in the direct aftermath of their sentence being read out. It shows them standing in a courtroom cage, looking gaunt and ashen-faced. Although only Saadoun speaks in the recording, the video demonstrates the degree to which the Russian media have turned the trial into a macabre spectacle. It’s inhumane and denies the captured fighters of any dignity or respect.

As part of justifying their support of the DNR court’s decision to issue the death penalty, many Russian outlets have taken it upon themselves to launch a smear campaign against the fighters.

According to the tabloid paper Komsomolskaya Pravda, neither the British nor Moroccan governments ‘care’ about the fate of their citizens. It quotes Denis Pushilin, head of the DNR, who said he has had no contact from either government looking to negotiate on the fighters’ behalf, going on to call their death sentences ‘fair’. This is despite consistent efforts by the British government to secure their release since their capture in April.

Another article, once again by RT, falsely claims that Pinner is ‘recognised as a terrorist and wanted’ in Britain for taking part in the wars in Iraq and Syria. A typical example of Russian disinformation in action, the article conveniently excludes the fact that Pinner used to serve in the British Armed forces.

Unfortunately, that the Russian media would treat the heart-wrenching fate of these men as a morbid propaganda circus is no surprise.

New Yorker claims ‘racism’ dominated jubilee

Just what is it with New Yorkers and London? Normally Steerpike’s ire for the Big Apple is reserved for the city’s ‘flagship’ newspaper, the New York Times, whose view of Merrie England post-Brexit resembles something of a North Korean-style dystopia, without the hope. But now another leading liberal outlet has done a disservice for ‘the city that never sleeps’ with its reporting of a landmark UK event.

Step forward the New Yorker magazine, which yesterday printed a bizarre take on the celebrations of the past week titled ‘Racism outshines Platinum Jubilee’. According to New Jersey ‘performer’ Nina Sharma, ‘racism brought some of its most iconic looks to the Platinum Jubilee, effectively stealing the show’ on the grounds that, er, Harry and Meghan were not invited onto the Buckingham Palace balcony on Thursday. Given that the pair chose to quit the Royal Family in 2020, such a move would hardly be a shock for anyone even vaguely familiar with palace protocol.

Sharma writes that ‘despite the palace’s best efforts to pretend that it wasn’t there, people couldn’t stop marvelling at Racism’s stunning choices over the course of the weekend, which gave us plenty of style to discuss.’ She claims that ‘Racism wore one designer exclusively: Erasure’ at the Trooping of the Colour, followed by Friday’s Thanksgiving service where it attended ‘with its partner, Colonialism.’ Her grounds for this stab at humour appear to be the alleged boos from the crowd outside St Paul’s which the Sussexes may or may not have received. This development was perhaps unsurprising given the pair’s near-constant criticisms these past two years of the family to which the Queen has spent her life in service.

The piece, which appears to be an attempt at jocular humour, falls somewhat short owing to its author’s painful attempts to demonstrate her right-on credentials. Sharma dubs the Windsor family the ‘House of Anxiety’ and claims that ‘Racism’s presence at the Jubilee gave us a pitch-perfect tutorial on the staying power of inequity.’ Mixing the shrill with the silly, the worthy with the witless, her piece ends on a note of rage, frothing that ‘all in all, Racism’s looks were utterly savage—almost as savage, bloody, and oppressive as British history itself.’ All this, of course, ignores the millions across Britain and overseas cheering the Queen on from around the world. She concludes by sneering:

After such a stunning turn at the Jubilee, we can’t wait to see where Racism will go next. And we won’t have to wait too long: it’s an election year in America, and we’re on the edge of our seats waiting to see if Racism will follow a hot summer with an October surprise.

Prostrating yourself before the shibboleths of progressivism, in service to two millionaires? How achingly daring and modern. Given their deferential forelock-tugging to the Sussexes, Steerpike just wonders whether Sharma and her editors might be more embarrassing than those militant monarchists which they seek to mock.

Let’s hope that the New Yorker’s coverage of its own city is better than its efforts elsewhere…

Seven times Boris promised low taxes

Boris Johnson’s speech in Blackpool today prompted much dry commentary from the assembled press pack. With its talk of low taxes and prudent government, it’s no surprise that many of the journalists were left asking ‘Who’s the new guy?’ and ‘If only he had been Prime Minister these past two years.’ Johnson talked a good game, as usual, telling his audience that:

The overall burden of taxation is now very high – and sooner or later, and I would much rather it was sooner than later, that burden must come down. The answer is economic growth. You can’t spend your way out of inflation, and you can’t tax your way into growth.

Sound stuff of course but we’ve been here before. As Steerpike’s friend Kate Andrews points out elsewhere on Coffee House: ‘After nearly three years in No. 10, every speech that promises a smaller state becomes harder to believe, as there has, so far, been very little attempt to deliver this.’ So, with Tory MPs now being given yet more talk of ‘tax cuts tomorrow’ Mr S thought he would give them a quick reminder of some past assurances of fiscal probity…

June 2019

During the Tory leadership contest, Boris Johnson set out his stall in the Daily Telegraph, writing that ‘we should be cutting corporation tax and other business taxes.’ Plans to cut corporation tax were abandoned in November that year when he told the CBI that a planned reduction in the rate from 19 per cent to 17 per cent had been abandoned, in order to allow a further £6 billion in public expenditure. Eighteen months later, Johnson’s government became the first in 47 years to actually increase corporation tax when Rishi Sunak announced in March 2021 that it would rise to 25 per cent by 2026.

December 2019

During the last general election, Johnson and his party’s candidates all stood on a manifesto promise to ‘not raise the rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT’ during the forthcoming parliament. They offered a ‘triple lock’ against such hikes, with Johnson himself pledging more money for public services ‘without raising our income tax, VAT or NI contributions, that’s our guarantee.’

The PM wrote on social media that ‘If you work hard to provide for your family and pay your taxes, you should be able to keep a bit more of what you earn. A Conservative government will keep your taxes low — not take more away.’ He also tweeted that he would ‘support our fantastic small and medium-sized businesses by lowering taxes.’

During the 2019 election the Tories also pledged to raise the higher rate threshold to £80,000 and take 3 million earners out of the higher rate tax band. Instead, the party has frozen the threshold in cash terms at just over £50,000 until 2025-26, meaning it will actually fall significantly in real terms. According to the Office of Budget Responsibility, the move has also created two million more higher rate taxpayers, a net gain of five million on his original pledge.

January 2020

The month after that election, then Chancellor Sajid Javid reiterated that there will be ‘no increases in the rates of income tax, VAT or national insurance in this Parliament’. Boris Johnson meanwhile told Mel Stride, the chairman of the Treasury select committee that: ‘We are going to meet all our manifesto commitments. Unless I specifically tell you otherwise, Mel, the manifesto you and I fought on is, it is an important point.’

November 2020

As the costs of the pandemic began to bite, Johnson was still insisting that the party would remain committed to low taxes. In November 2020, the Prime Minister’s official spokesperson said the party remained committed to its manifesto commitment on the tax triple lock. As late as May 2021 and in the run-up to the Budget, one of the Chancellor’s aides briefed the Financial Times that ‘to go back on the manifesto pledge would be a betrayal of trust — pandemic or no pandemic… it was a very significant pledge at the last election.’ Four months later, Sunak and Johnson agreed to hike National Insurance and break their manifesto promise.

October 2021

At the 2021 Conservative party conference Johnson repeatedly hinted at future tax cuts, despite his government’s multiple tax rises. Much like today’s speech, he told the Tory faithful that ‘Margaret Thatcher would not have ignored this meteorite that has just crashed through the public finances — she would have wagged her finger and said more borrowing now is just higher interest rates and even higher taxes later.’ He promised a ‘low tax economy’, bemoaned Labour for ‘decapitating the tall poppies and taxing the rich till the pips squeak.’ Johnson also claimed ‘we aren’t just going to siphon billions of new taxes into crucial services without improving performance’, something which, er, remains to be seen given the NHS’s ongoing problems.

November 2021

At a £1,500-a-head Conservative party fundraiser at the V&A for wealthy donors, Johnson told the assembled audience that ‘we will cut your taxes… soon,’ hours hours after Lord Frost backed Rishi Sunak’s pleas to slash the tax burden. Eight months on and the top rate of tax remains unchanged.

March 2022

Appearing at Prime Ministers’ Questions, Boris Johnson told MPs that he and Rishi Sunak are ‘tax-cutting Conservatives’. It came a week after the Chancellor’s mini-Budget which the OBR claimed would increase the overall tax burden to the highest since Clement Attlee’s post-war government in the 1940s. The Institute for Fiscal Studies meanwhile accused Sunak of being a ‘fiscal illusionist.’ It came two months after Michael Gove told the BBC ‘as we will in due course get that economic growth, we will also in due course cut taxes.’

How long until the next promise of ‘jam tomorrow’ then Boris?

Boris Johnson’s half-baked economic reset

As part of his revival (and survival) strategy, Boris Johnson is trying his hardest to convince the public and fellow MPs that he can get the cost of living crisis under control. But did today’s speech help him make that case?

His wide-ranging speech in Lancashire covered a vast array of economic, policy and trade topics, which he struggled to pull into a cohesive theme. ‘We do not grow many olives in the UK,’ he pointed out. ‘Why do we have tariffs on bananas?’ Both excellent points when it comes to liberalising trade, but not obviously at the top of people’s priority lists when it comes to tackling energy bills in the next few months.

If there was one point the PM wanted to make, it seemed to be that we can all be ‘confident that things will get better, that we will emerge from this a strong country with a healthy economy.’ But repeated pledges that ‘things will get better’ isn’t what inspires confidence for businesses or consumers; it’s concrete policy action that makes a difference. And this is precisely where Johnson’s government continues to fall short.

Johnson wanted to emphasise a commitment to economic growth, proclaiming ‘the answer to the current economic predicament is not more tax and more spending. The answer is economic growth’. Yet there were no serious supply-side reforms to go along with this vision. Take the housing announcements. Having abandoned planning reform over a by-election, Johnson has opted instead for gimmicks and government support schemes to help get people on the housing ladder. But with a dramatic under-supply of homes increasingly understood to be one of the biggest problems in the housing market, today’s extension of right-to-buy could actually make the housing crunch worse: similar to the help-to-buy scheme, it creates more demand in the housing market without increasing the number of homes, thereby upping housing prices for everyone apart from the protected minority that will benefit from the scheme. And as Ross Clark points out on Coffee House, this all assumes that mortgage lenders will go along with Johnson’s proposals, which include benefit payments as part of mortgage affordability checks. Without state-backing (read: taxpayer-backing) of these mortgages, it’s difficult to see, in practice, how many of these mortgages get approved.

The economic announcements the country really needs to hear are about how the government will reduce the tax burden, which the PM promised would happen, announcing his government would ‘start cutting taxes’ alongside welfare spending. But Johnson’s spending addiction is a key reason taxes have been going up in the first place, with the National Insurance levy to pay for his social care scheme serving a case in point. As Katy Balls revealed last night, Chancellor Rishi Sunak has no plans to rush tax cuts, telling the 1922 Committee that his goal remains to reduce the tax burden, but only when it’s fiscally prudent to do so. And as long as Johnson won’t budget on spending, the scope for tax cuts remains narrow, and will struggle to happen for some time to come.

Johnson speech was a passionate call for a low tax, conservative agenda. But we’ve been here before on many occasions, where the Prime Minister talks the right talk. After nearly three years in No. 10, every speech that promises a smaller state becomes harder to believe, as there has, so far, been very little attempt to deliver this.

As well, speeches like this without clear-cut announcements – that either offer cash support to deal with price hikes (as Sunak did in both February and May with multi-billion pound support packages) or tax cuts – risk causing more confusion than they inspire confidence, as it seems more like a government grasping for policy than crafting policy. Johnson promises more announcements are coming down the line. But if today’s updates reflect what we’ll be getting in the future, this attempted reset was really just rehash of half-baked ideas that do little to ambitiously tackle the serious problems faced by Britons.

Hunt hits the phones

What’s Jeremy Hunt up to after breaking cover as an agitator against Boris Johnson this week? Mostly phoning people, if his social media is anything to go by. Mr S has been amused to follow the trail of the former (and now wannabe) Conservative leadership contender as he posts endless Instagram photos of himself looking serious on the phone.

There’s a clear favourite pose that he likes to adopt:

Mr S also couldn’t help noticing that Hunt has a framed copy of The Spectator cover that never ran displayed on the bookcase behind him. The cover shows him triumphantly striding through the door of Number 10. Incidentally, a copy also hangs in the mens’ toilets at Old Queen Street, although one can be sure the MP has higher ambitions for himself this time around…

But sometimes he mixes it up:

And he’s able to make calls from a range of locations too:

It’s difficult being an MP on Instagram. Unless you’re prepared to go full Liz Truss, then you do end up posting a series of quite banal pictures. But at least we now know that when it comes to it, Hunt will be particularly good at picking up the phone to colleagues and running his (second) leadership campaign.

Why Jeremy Corbyn is being feted by the French left

Into the three-ring circus of the French legislative election campaign has stepped Jeremy Corbyn. The papi magique arrived on the Eurostar last weekend to campaign for candidates of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whose insurrectionary ultra-left campaign is threatening to deny the recently re-elected Emmanuel Macron a presidential majority in the parliament. First round voting is on Sunday. A runoff will be a week later.

Those tempted to overlook the continuing appeal of Mr Corbyn and dismiss him as a political has-been or even an unreconstructed Marxist clown, would perhaps have been startled to see him mobbed by adoring fans in Paris.

Corbyn was feted as a red prince from over the water. And of course he immediately provoked an anti-Semitism row in France. The denunciations of Corbyn’s problematic associations and statements soon flew in. Mélenchon’s candidates were attacked from left and right for having consorted with the problematic Mr Corbyn.

It’s peculiar that it took Jeremy Corbyn’s arrival on the French election scene to stir up allegations of anti-Semitism in France. Allegations of anti-Semitism are regularly levelled against Mélenchon himself and those close to him. These allegations are hotly disputed.

Corbyn, 73 and Mélenchon, 70, are semi-identical peas in a pod, baby boomers baptised in the new left politics of the 1960s, their political direction fixed for more than half a century.

Neither has a reputation as an agreeable companion. Both have short tempers. Corbyn is a slob, Mélenchon favours well-tailored Mao suits. Mélenchon is very sharp and cultivée, Corbyn an Arsenal fan, but they view the world through a similar Marxist prism and are firm allies.

Mélenchon in December 2019 said Corbyn was ‘no more anti-Semitic than I am’ — an ambiguous statement, at best. He went on to say that Corbyn had been ‘shot in the back’ by Blairite MPs, the chief rabbi of England and the Likud.

Both Corbyn and Mélenchon enjoy strong support amongst immigrants, the young, graduates, practicing Muslims and dogmatic leftist ideologues. If there’s a big difference between the two it’s that Mélenchon moment may be coming and Corbyn’s has pretty much gone. Humiliated by Boris, Jeremy is now reduced to the occasional cameo, showing up surrounded by Palestinian flags at the odd demo — or popping up randomly to lose some votes in Paris.

Mélenchon, however, might be on the verge of a gigantic political success. Defying all of us who had thought of him as kind of nuts, Mélenchon has seized control of France’s left, running an impressive campaign against re-elected president Emmanuel Macron.

Polls suggest Mélenchon could deprive Macron of a presidential majority and wreck his plans for a tame legislature allowing an all-powerful Elysée to do whatever it wants. His ‘Nupes’ (Nouvelle union populaire écologique et sociale) alliance comprises communists, ecologists and his own Insoumise movement.

Jeremy Corbyn will have done almost nothing to help. But his presence is at least entertaining, as Corbyn tries to reinvent himself as an icon of the international far left. It also perhaps reveals the passions that these aging leftists can still provoke.

Jeremy’s visit to Paris was revealed in a tweet: a photograph circulated of a scruffy Jeremy and numerous admirers flashing V for victory salutes. The author of said tweet was one Danielle Simonnet, the Mélenchonist candidate in the 17th constituency of Paris. Among many others in this picture is Danièle Obono, his candidate in the 15th. Ms Simonnet spoke of her emotion and pride to be in the presence of Corbyn and praised Ms Obono for having invited him, a ‘symbol of our common fight for social and ecological justice across borders.’ Both women are hard-core members of La France Insoumise.

Meanwhile, Macron seems to be running scared. His candidates are showing weakness against both Nupes and Marine Le Pen’s Rassamblement National. The latest poll of polls shows Macron’s candidates on 28 per cent in the first round with Mélenchon’s list just 0.5 per cent behind on 27.5 per cent. Le Pen is on 20 per cent, the centre-right Les Répubicains on 11 per cent and Eric Zemmour’s Reconquête on 5.5 per cent.

Macron’s failure to obtain a majority of 289 deputies of the 577 to be elected would be unprecedented in the Fifth Republic. Polls estimate that Ensemble (the presidential coalition of Macron’s LREM, and its centrist partners MoDem, Horizons and Agir) might win only 275 seats. Nupes could win between 160 and 200. Not enough to impose a cohabitation (coalition) government but enough to cause plenty of trouble for Macron for the five years to come. The Républicains look like a diminished force with a sharp decline to perhaps 40 seats while Le Pen’s candidates could finish with a similar number. There could also be a dozen dissident socialists who have refused to ally with Nupes.

Macron is rattled. He had hoped the legislative elections would be a rubber stamp on his own re-election. But his uninspiring new government headed by the technocrat Elisabeth Borne has not landed well. His desire not to humiliate Putin by humiliating Ukraine instead has hardly been the stuff of principle. The incident at the Stade de France when the best-behaved Liverpool fans in living memory were first pillaged by the locals, only then to be gassed by the police, has produced rare expressions of public sympathy for the English. The blatantly wrong account of this incident from the interior minister, who was supported by Macron, has provoked a surprising amount of coverage.

More than anything else, the soaring cost of living is unsettling the electorate. The French do not trust or like this president, not even many who voted for him.

What does Macron do next? Plan B seems to be some ill-defined ‘people’s assembly’ to advise the president on the future of France and Europe. Cynics (like me) suspect such a curious unelected body would be intended to delegitimise a hostile assembly and could be readily manipulated into endorsing the president’s projects. Or ignored if it doesn’t.

Jeremy, meanwhile, must be back in London by now — pondering what could have been.

Mark Harper hits out at Hunt

Boris Johnson’s recent woes have coincided with a renaissance for Jeremy Hunt, the man he pipped to the Tory leadership in 2019. The Surrey MP was quick to put in his letter of no confidence on Monday and has followed that up with a stinging rebuke today to Michael Gove over the Dunsfold drilling development. It follows a string of media appearances for Hunt to mark the release of his much-vaunted new book on how to fix the NHS.

Yet while the former Health Secretary now finds himself one of the favourites to succeed Boris Johnson, questions still remain about his role in the Covid crisis. Nadine Dorries has claimed that pandemic preparation during Hunt’s time in office was ‘found wanting and inadequate’; a charge that will no doubt be used against him repeatedly, should he make a leadership bid. There are also criticisms about Hunt’s enthusiasm for lockdowns, vaccine passports and mandatory jabs; few of which were shared by many backbench colleagues.

Hunt has (unsurprisingly) tried to distance himself from all this: appearing on GB News last month, he suggested that he never wanted any lockdowns at all. So it was with exquisite timing then that on Tuesday night Mr S encountered Mark Harper – lockdown-skeptic and head of the Covid Recovery Group of MPs – at the Adam Smith Institute in Westminster. Speaking about the opposition movement he has led these past two years, Harper remarked dryly to guests that:

‘It fell to Steve [Baker] and I and a relatively small group of colleagues at the beginning – which got to be a large group of colleagues at the end – and interestingly everyone agrees with us now but they didn’t at the time.’

Who on earth could he be referring to? Afterwards Steerpike caught up with Harper as he took questions from guests and asked if he found it ‘galling’ to see Hunt now positioning himself as a liberty-loving lockdown-skeptic. The former Chief Whip replied that:

I don’t find it galling because I’ve yet to find anyone who believes him. When he made that point about not having any lockdowns, the clip of him saying that, someone posted it in our Whatsapp group and there was general pictures of laughing emojis and people going ‘lol’ – no one finds it credible. Everyone knows he was in favour of tougher lockdowns, he voted for every restriction the government put in place. He was still in favour of mandatory vaccination of NHS personnel, even after the government had dropped it, and then he said he was in favour of mandatory vaccination against flu, although he never actually found time to do that of course when he was actually the Health Secretary for six years. And his book about the NHS – I may be slightly old fashioned – but it just seems to me that if you’ve been the Health Secretary for six years, which is the longest time anyone has been Health Secretary since the health service was invented, maybe you should have done some of those things when you were the Health Secretary?

Ouch. Looks like that’s one name ruled out of the ‘Hunt for leader’ camp then.

What Boris’s right-to-buy gets wrong

It isn’t hard to understand why the government should want to revive the spirit of Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy, which was credited for creating a whole new class of homeowners – and in the process Conservative voters. While the right to buy has never gone away – and survived the Blair and Brown years – it is a shadow of its former self. In 2020/21, 6,994 social homes were sold, compared with 167,123 in the peak year of the scheme, 1982/83. Last year’s figure was markedly lower even than the 17,756 homes sold in 2006/07 – the heyday of the Blair housing boom.

The Conservatives have already tried to revive the scheme once, under David Cameron, but ran up against serious obstacles. First and foremost, the scheme struggles now because house prices have increased so dramatically in real terms that there are few council and housing association tenants who can afford to buy their home – even with the generous discounts on offer. If you live in a council flat in central London it is likely to be worth in excess of £400,000. Even if you qualify for the maximum discount of 70 per cent or £116,200 – whichever is lower – you are still going to have to find, or borrow, nearly £300,000. Right to buy, at least in pricey areas such as London, has become the preserve of tenants who arguably shouldn’t be in social housing in the first place – high-earners who have stayed in tenancies they acquired when they were much poorer, or perhaps have inherited tenancies from their parents.

What does today’s announcement do to widen the right-to-buy? Very little, on the face of it. The most eye-catching announcement is that in future, council and housing association tenants might be able to count income from benefits when applying for a mortgage. That is one thing to say, but as the shadow housing secretary Lisa Nandy has pointed out this morning, that will count for nothing unless mortgage lenders are prepared to lend the money. And they are likely to be extremely reluctant to advance what will be regarded as sub-prime loans without the government underwriting at least a portion of the loan – as the Treasury did for Help-to-Buy loans. Will taxpayers really appreciate being forced to take on this risk? I doubt it. Especially aggrieved will be those who are a little too well-off to qualify for social housing – and therefore the right to buy – yet who nevertheless are too poor to afford to buy a home on the open market. That is a class which didn’t really exist in the 1980s, when house prices were much lower than they are now, but which always gets left out when the government attempts to revive the right to buy.

But they might end up being the lucky ones. Buying a council or housing association property right at the moment – especially an older one – could turn out to be a poisoned chalice thanks to the government’s net zero policy. Under current plans, homeowners could be forced to upgrade their homes to at least a ‘C’ rating on an Energy Performance Certificate and to replace their gas boiler with a heat pump. These two things together could easily cost in excess of £20,000 for a bog-standard three-bedroom home. Where are benefit-claimants-turned-homeowners supposed to find that kind of money? There are some grants on offer, but unless the government relaxes its green targets, many in the right-to-buy classes may end up wishing they had stayed as tenants.

How the Tories can salvage ‘Brand Boris’

Brand Boris is in trouble. It wasn’t long ago that Boris Johnson could do no wrong, having won his party a thumping majority at the last election. Even when some mishap played out in public – like being stranded on a zip wire or falling in a stream – the public still seemed to love this irrepressible japester. Now Brits are more likely to boo than cheer him. Despite winning a Tory vote of confidence this week, he looks like a bruised and battered boxer who’s just struggled to a narrow points victory. Is there any way for him to rebuild his brand?

The advertising industry has involved itself successfully in politics ever since Saatchi & Saatchi helped propel Margaret Thatcher into Downing Street. Years later, I was part of the team that did the same thing for Tony Blair. 

The strategy of getting Blair into No. 10 was a masterclass in cunning. With surprisingly few policies to talk about, we took the Tories’ most popular ideas, removed the blue packaging, carefully re-wrapped them in red and replace the ‘r’ in ‘Tory’ with an ‘n’. Boris won’t even have to do this. Recent events have forced the government to adopt policies more readily associated with Labour: taxing, spending and paying millions of voters 80 per cent of their salaries to stay at home. Given this astonishing largesse, Boris could legitimately ask why anyone would want to vote Labour.

With Blair’s campaign, however, came a powerful culture of groupthink, of always being resolutely ‘on message’. Oppressive as this was, Boris could do with a shadowy figure combining Machiavelli and Mandelson to enforce unity and snuff out the merest hint of dissent. Where’s Dominic Cummings when you need him?

So if Boris does survive as Tory leader and go head-to-head against Keir Starmer at the next election, what form should his campaign take? His best bet, like that bruised and battered boxer in his next bout, is to come out fighting.

Boris must continue to ridicule the opposition mercilessly. This worked like a charm for both Thatcher and Blair. His campaign needs to play on endless loop that now infamous clip of Keir Starmer struggling to explain what a ‘woman’ is. It must also focus on Nicola Sturgeon’s less-than-stellar economic record and the shamefully divisive nature of her more anti-English sentiments. The Tories should also put up some posters showing pictures of Sir Ed Davey and Caroline Lucas, then offer a cash prize to anyone who can identify them. It can then pose the deadly serious question: ‘Would you really want these people running the country?’

Alternatively, Boris could court the sympathy vote. Few prime ministers have had to deal with a pandemic and this one very nearly cost the poor man his life. Yet valiantly, he soldiered on. Britain’s Covid record compares quite well with those of other countries. It wasn’t the best but it certainly wasn’t the worst. Boris should continue to highlight the success of the vaccine rollout and the way he freed us from the devastation of lockdowns earlier and more sensibly than other leaders.

He could also go further afield and fly the flag: not the Union flag, but the Ukrainian one. The Tories should keep pointing to Boris’s bold and principled (I know, not a word you’d usually associate with him) response to the Russian invasion which less courageous leaders were then forced to follow. He should mention his enormous popularity in Kyiv and get Ukraine’s president Zelensky to provide the voiceover.

Boris could even try another tactic: casting himself as ‘Your Humble Public Servant’. A dedicated, flawed but human servant of the people who was pressurised into passing rules which he always felt were too stringent. He could appeal to the fact that all of us flouted Covid rules in some way, then finish with a Churchillian flourish: ‘If we refuse to forgive those who have done wrong, if we deny them the chance of redemption, what kind of society are we?’

Above all, he needs to keep it simple.‘Get Brexit done’ resonated with millions of voters in 2019 who were fed up with Brexit shenanigans and keen to move on.

This government have already been successful – perhaps too successful – with deploying simple messaging. ‘Stay Home. Save Lives’ terrified the populace into compliance. Could a similarly simple campaign terrify them out of voting for the opposition?

To stand any chance at all, Boris needs to take a take a lesson from the advertising industry: take an angle, like those above, that has even the tiniest grain of truth, then just simplify and exaggerate. Simplify and exaggerate, that’s all we do. And if there’s one politician who’s always shown a talent for simplifying and exaggerating, it’s Boris Johnson.

Airlines must accept the blame for the travel chaos

If you have a flight booked in the next few months, it’s time to worry. A new era of air travel has arrived, in which reliability has been replaced with roulette. Airlines take bookings for flights they know might not take off. If staff shortages mean the flight is cancelled, passengers aren’t told until the last minute and are often denied compensation. And good luck finding a more reliable carrier. EasyJet, Wizz Air, British Airways: they’re all at it. Heathrow airport says the disruption may last until the end of next year.

There is no doubt that lockdowns were crippling for the air industry. Even when foreign travel was permitted again, it was under intimidating regulations. So-called ‘ghost flights’ – whereby airlines flew empty planes to keep their landing rights – became routine. But airlines made the travel crisis worse by demanding furlough money even after the scheme ended and then laying off staff, gambling that a fire-and-rehire strategy would save money overall.

There has been a political tug of war between the airlines and the unions. Both sides blame the government – and Brexit. In a meeting with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, airline bosses demanded that immigration rules be relaxed for EU aviation workers. At one point, Michael O’Leary, the head of Ryanair, said the army should be sent in to fill job vacancies and get ‘rid of all these queues and flight delays almost in an instant’. Steve Heapy, the chief executive of Jet2, complained that ‘hundreds of thousands, if not millions’ of Europeans working in Britain have gone back home.

But is this really so? The numbers of workers from the EU did drop during the lockdowns but have since recovered. Almost one in five workers in the UK is an immigrant, an all-time high.

The point of Brexit was that tough, important jobs – such as baggage handling and border patrol – should pay a decent wage. This is a concept airlines and airports seem to be struggling with. At Stansted, an aviation services company is looking for ‘ramp and baggage’ agents for £10.84 an hour, not far above the £9.50 minimum wage. Jet2 is advertising for customer service staff at Bristol airport, offering just £22,000 a year for a job that doesn’t even come with guaranteed hours. Cabin crew start on as little as £15,000. If air stewards can earn more money working elsewhere, it’s little wonder that those who were laid off during the pandemic have chosen not to return to exhausting, low-paid jobs.

It was a mistake for airlines to sack so many people in the first place. Airlines were offered furlough, like all other employers in the country, but they wanted far wider and longer-lasting financial support. The government wouldn’t budge, asking why the average taxpayer – on a salary of £26,000 a year – should pay to subsidise an industry whose collective profits run into billions. Airlines were told they would be foolish to sack staff who might not come back.

But sack them they did. BA axed a quarter of its workforce; Virgin Atlantic, a third. Even now airlines have not acknowledged the disruption these decisions caused. In theory, airlines have an incentive to treat passengers well because they’re obliged to pay compensation. In practice, they try to wriggle out by misleading passengers about their eligibility for compensation with what seems to border on systematic deception.

One passenger to Portugal, who happens to be head of research at The Spectator, had his flight cancelled by BA. He was told that he was not entitled to a payout because he was offered an alternative flight the next day. He explained that this was quite untrue, quoting the relevant regulation (EC-261/2004) which mandates £220 payouts for short-haul flights that are cancelled at less than 14 days’ notice unless a replacement flight is quickly scheduled. Money must also be paid for substantially delayed flights. BA accepted his argument and he received his compensation. But how many passengers would have persisted?

More migration is unlikely to solve the problem, given that fire-and-rehire strategies have failed in Europe too. One day last month more than 1,000 passengers missed flights at Dublin airport due to staff shortages. Also last month, security queues at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport spilled out into the carpark. French unions warn of long summer delays because a fifth of airport staff have left their jobs.

It is hard for an industry to go into hibernation and emerge intact. Airlines and airports deserve sympathy, but only up to a point. Air travel thrived under deregulation. When the Thatcher government opened the internal aviation network to competition, the way was cleared for easyJet and Ryanair and other pioneers of the low-fare flight revolution. These airlines owe their success to free enterprise. They should not come running to the taxpayer when times are hard.

Airlines must employ more staff, reflect upon the wisdom of fire-and-rehire tactics, and refrain from demanding more immigrant labour while baggage handlers are still being offered £10 an hour. Ministers should demand airlines publish figures on how many are entitled to and getting the £220-a-head compensation that is supposed to deter airlines from cowboy behaviour. Higher salaries may mean higher ticket prices, but what’s the value of a low-fare airline if passengers need to book a second, backup flight to be sure of getting away? Ministers must stand firm – and airlines should plot their own way to recovery.

I suspect this was a rush job: Like Water for Chocolate reviewed

How much weight of plot can dance carry? Balanchine famously insisted that there are no mothers-in-law in ballet, and masters such as Fokine, Massine and Ashton largely confined the dimensions of their narratives to the back of a postage stamp. Yet in A Month in the Country Ashton also proved that ballet can communicate delicate nuances of psychology; MacMillan’s Mayerling has a complex historical-political setting that fascinates; and Matthew Bourne has devised a cartoon-ish mode of silent tale-telling that has proved very popular and effective.

Although one could multiply these examples, the fact remains that plot-driven ballet is a tricky business: stories develop more naturally through words than images and too often dance doesn’t provide enough compensation for their absence. Adapting a novel is probably going to lose more than it gains; and it is a bold man who thinks that he can improve on Shakespeare.

Christopher Wheeldon – a likeable, talented, productive choreographer and a fine craftsman of abstract scenarios – has had a stab at both these challenges, and I think he has failed. The Winter’s Tale was a crude reduction of that most delicately mysterious of plays, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland worked chiefly because a huge amount of dosh was flung at the fancy staging.

Now Wheeldon has plumped for Laura Esquivel’s bestseller Like Water for Chocolate in a co-production between the Royal Ballet and American Ballet Theater. I haven’t read the book but I gather it revolves round Tita, a Mexican girl with a culinary bent, whose love for Pedro is thwarted by her mother Mama Elena. Would that it were so simple! But here is a brief extract from the ballet’s four-page synopsis:

‘Tita’s physical desire for Pedro has manifested as an aphrodisiac in her cooking. Summoned by the aroma of rose petals, revolutionary soldier Juan Alejandrez appears and carries Gertrudis [Tita’s sister] away on horseback. Mama Elena is consumed with rage.’

Ghosts are involved, too, as well as dead babies, outbreaks of mass vomiting, revelations in a diary and a hoedown, spanning a 20-year period over a dozen subsidiary characters, three acts and 12 scenes. It is simply more than ballet can handle and Wheeldon is forced to chase the comings and goings in a breathless succession of mimed and danced episodes that contain nothing choreographically substantial or sustained until a bodice-ripping last pas de deux for the ultimately united Tita and Pedro that relies heavily on MacMillan for its inspiration.

Every emotion seems frenetically semaphored, the novel’s theme of food as a magical agent is never clarified and nothing develops for more than a minute. Joby Talbot’s Latinate score, bright, brassy and derivative, enthusiastically conducted by Alondra de la Parra, compounds (or perhaps drives) the restlessness; Bob Crowley’s designs use hot colours, back projections and lacy drapes resourcefully. One suspects that overall it’s been a rush job and that Wheeldon didn’t spend enough time thinking it through, slowing it down and weeding it out.

What a waste of some marvellous dancers. The Royal Ballet has been performing so well this season: morale is high under Kevin O’Hare’s upbeat management and the injury rate seems to have fallen. I haven’t much liked any of the premières (I’m in the minority who thought that Wayne McGregor’s The Dante Project missed its mark), but a series of first-class revivals has delighted capacity audiences at a difficult time.

Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé are among the company’s brightest younger stars, still with potential to shine even more brightly. Wheeldon has missed his chance to extend them. As Tita, Hayward sticks to her trademark modest Fonteyn-like charm and as Pedro, Sambé grins amiably and explodes in momentary flashes of virtuosity. But we never understand what passion compels them towards each other. Laura Morera is obliged to channel every Cruella de Vil cliché as the vicious and frustrated Mama Elena; Matthew Ball is quietly engaging as a sympathetic doctor fiddling with his spectacles; Anna Rose O’Sullivan and Cesar Corrales are given nothing to build on; poor Mayara Magri is lumbered with a fright of a wig.

The audience squealed and shrieked its approval at the curtain calls, but I suspect their enthusiasm will be short-lived and Like Water for Chocolate will soon melt away.

The danger and glory of the Isle of Man TT

It’s around 8.10 on a lovely warm summer’s evening on the Isle of Man and the sidecar practice session in the 2022 TT – Tourist Trophy – is about to begin. The announcer at the grandstand asks the sidecar riders to get ready to race in ten minutes. There is the sound of engines revving up, great excitement and then… nothing.

There has been an incident in the TT Supersport qualifying session at Ballagarey, it turns out, and other races are suspended.

It’s not until around 11 p.m. that we learn the terrible news. A 29-year-old Welshman called Mark Purslow has been killed following a crash on his 600 Yamaha. He had just recorded his fastest ever TT lap, reaching an average speed of 120.857mph, and the night before his last, fateful qualifying session he had tweeted: ‘Roll on tomorrow’s practice.’ On Monday he had posted: ‘Love this island.’ Earlier on Wednesday I had seen Mark go out on what was to be his final ride. Now he was gone. It seemed so unreal.

Mark had become the 152nd competitor to lose his life in the TT since the event’s inception in 1907, and the 252nd to perish on the Mountain Course, which is also used in the Manx Grand Prix in late summer.

No other sporting event has casualty figures anything like the TT. Nothing comes close. The Mountain Course, for instance, is known as the ‘38 miles of terror’ and it constitutes the ultimate test for bike and rider. If a goalkeeper makes a mistake in a football match, the worst that can happen is that the opposing side will score. If a motorcyclist gets it wrong on the TT circuit, they run a real risk of losing their life.

Just a day before Mark Purslow’s tragic end, another rider, Dave Moffitt, had to be airlifted to Aintree hospital, where he was said to be in a ‘serious but stable’ condition after a smash at Laurel Bank. On Friday, Mike Booth was hospitalised with leg injuries. On Saturday, a three-wheeling sidecar event had to be stopped, ‘red-flagged’ after just six minutes, when there was a horrific crash at Ago’s Leap. The accident claimed the life of the driver Cesar Chanel, and left the passenger, Olivier Lavorel, in a critical condition. On Monday, the veteran rider Davy Morgan was killed on his 80th TT start.

It’s worth pointing out that the organisers have done everything they possibly can to make it safer. For 2022 – the first TT for three years – they have reduced the number of starters for each 1,000cc race to 50 and introduced GPS tracking to aid accident response.

But the very nature of the event – riding motorbikes at incredibly high speeds along narrow winding roads lined with stone walls, trees, telegraph poles and houses – means that casualties, and deaths, are inevitable. And it’s inevitable also that this year, as in years past, there are now calls for the TT to be banned.

But, for all the tragedy, I believe that banning the world’s most dangerous speedfest would be wrong. Instead of proscribing the TT, we ought to be celebrating it for the gloriously retro standout that it is.

For a start the riders compete knowing the dangers full well. For them, the thrill they get from racing at speeds of up to 200mph in terrifying circumstances outweighs the risks – and it’s their risk to take. These unpretentious leather-clad heroes line up on the starting grid not because they have a death wish but because they understand that the closer we come to death, the greater our sense of being alive.

The film director Elia Kazan wisely said that you have to risk your life every six months to stay alive. The TT riders risk it every time they set out on the course.

Mark Purslow’s family issued a statement saying they were ‘beyond heartbroken’ after their loved one’s death. Back at my hotel, I was overcome with sadness that a young man’s life should have ended so abruptly in such a cruel fashion, but consoled by the fact that Mark was killed doing the thing he loved best. He died living his boyhood dream of being a TT racer. And as someone said after Mark’s death: ‘The brave do not live for ever, but the cautious do not live at all.’