A Very Wooden Cabinet 

Things are getting so bad in the UK under the Starmer Labour government, that it almost (almost) makes you hanker after the bumbling incompetence which characterised the end of days of the Sunak ‘Conservative’ government. It was hard to believe that things were going to get any worse, but they did, and all the signs are that they are going to get a great deal worse still, especially after Rachel Thieving Reeves announces how she is going to get her grubby, greedy little socialist paws on even more of our hard-earned income.

I don’t know what made me do it, but I did. I Googled ‘the cabinet’ and was taken to a page on the Labour Party website which displays the members of Keir Starmer’s Cabinet in all its gory (not a spelling error). Dear me, what a bunch.

At least most of them can manage a forced smile, or grimace, except the Glorious Leader himself. Starmer looks as if he has just had a positive PSA test and has been told he is about to have a digital rectal examination. In fact, he looks like someone might have been carrying one out at the time the photograph was taken. “Just relax, Mr Starmer”. Through gritted teeth, “I’m trying!”

Next to him in line are three women none of whom any sensible person would sit next to on a bus. First in line after the PM is Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. The current occupant of the position once occupied by John Prescott does her best to emulate her predecessor for verbal eloquence, politeness and intellect. We have yet to see her right hook, but I am sure she could lay out an egg thrower with aplomb, just like ‘Two Jabs’ himself. Given the popularity of the Starmer government, she may not have long to wait before the eggs start flying.

Moving along we reach the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, whose smile suggests she can hardly wait until the government coffers are stuffed with our money. Clearly the anticipation of inflicting widespread misery on the British public fills her with joy or, perhaps, she has a postorgasmic glow induced by having already robbed old age pensioners of their winter fuel allowance. Anyway, she looks pretty happy with herself. It’s hard to describe the expression on Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s face. Smug, self-satisfied, but definitely not postorgasmic.

And that is just the first row, next comes net zero brains Ed Miliband doing his best Wallace and Gromit expression. We shouldn’t criticise people on the basis of their appearance but, really, it is hard not to with old Ed. He looks like he is undergoing gender reassignment; the only problem is, it’s hard to tell in which direction.

In the same row as Ed is David Lammy, a man rarely out of the news for his sheer stupidity. Lest anyone doubted his intellectual capacity he proved that he was thicker than a pot of clotted cream by going on the BBC quiz programme ‘Mastermind’ (I know, the irony!), where he failed miserably to answer a stream of general knowledge questions correctly. The pièce de résistance was his response that Marie Antoinette was the French woman who discovered radium. Every schoolboy knows it was Marie Curie.

A quick scroll revealed some other horrors such as Louise Haigh, Secretary of State for Transport who is red in tooth and hair. A search on Google Images shows that her hair is variably several shades of red and, on at least one occasion, lurid pink.  It has also been blonde, but at the moment it is scarlet. No difficulty picking her out in a lineup, which is probably the point.

Scrolling further down into the undergrowth of largely unknowns you encounter the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, whose idea of justice seems to be releasing lots of genuine criminals out on to our streets to make room for those who have committed ‘hate crimes’, by using hurty words on Twitter or Facebook. I don’t know about Ms Mahmood, but I think most people would rather encounter an angry keyboard warrior than a violent criminal down a dark alley.

Way down at the bottom is Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who thinks that having men belt ten bells out of women in a boxing ring or scoop up all the medals in swimming, running or cycling is acceptable. Presumably Ms Nandy does not take part in competitive sports so she would have no idea what any of that meant to sportswomen.

Also near the bottom is Hilary Benn who, unknown to me, has been appointed Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. I am prompted to ask what on earth he has done wrong to merit the punishment posting from which few rise to higher office.

That was about all I could stand of the Cabinet, and it surely can’t be long before either the woodworm or the rot sets in?

Roger Watson is a retired academic, editor and writer. He is a columnist with Unity News Network and writes regularly for a range of conservative journals including The Salisbury Review and The European Conservative. He has travelled and worked extensively in the Far East and the Middle East. He lives in Kingston upon Hull, UK.

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