Keir Starmer put in another abysmal performance at PMQs this week. Like a sulky child throwing their toys out the pram, he floundered, he flustered and then got angry, his brick-shaped head turning red, his face looking like an angry shoebox.
How much longer can dear Keir carry on? His favourability ratings are through the floor while his constant policy U-turns are a national joke.
Such capriciousness is a clear sign of a government in chaos, and even his own backbenchers look increasingly uncomfortable at the shambles.
Yet for me, the nail in the coffin came with his despatch box ‘joke’ about Ikea.
Following Nadhim Zahawi’s defection to Reform, the Prime Minister suggested that the Shadow Cabinet had been made by Ikea, delivering a flat punchline: ‘Nobody wants to buy it, it’s mainly constructed of old, dead wood and every time you lose a nut it defects to Reform.’
What? And the remark was even more jarring because Starmer had visited an Ikea store in Croydon on Monday to boast about his Government’s new Employment Rights Act.
Standing among Blanda bowls and Ektorp sofas, he puffed on about changes including the introduction of day-one parental leave and more bereavement leave.
‘We have come to Ikea because good employers are already doing this,’ he said, greasily trying to give the impression that the Swedish company’s progressive work practices somehow had something to do with him.
Sir Keir Starmer visited an Ikea store in Croydon on Monday to boast about his Government’s new Employment Rights Act
Yet only two days later the old fraud was sticking Ikea’s own Vardagen knife in (£12, handle available in stainless steel or walnut) like a man possessed.
How insulting to the Ikea workers and management who had politely turned out to meet and greet him. How discourteous to the world’s largest furniture retailer – with global annual sales of around £38billion – to be trashed by a desperate leader trying to score a cheap political point. Now we can add bad manners to his list of crimes.
Starmer’s a complete idiot, of course. Does he just blindly read everything that is put in front of him? However, more importantly, the Ikea insult shows just how snobbish and out of touch he really is, not to mention being a solid oak Tarnestad knob (£5 for a pack of two).
He always tries to present himself as a veneer-free, plain-speaking man of the people, yet now sneers at this much loved, budget-friendly furniture store.
The truth about Starmer is that he lives in an Islington bubble with his glam wife swishing about in her Me+Em frocks, all the while being advised by his know-nothing Spads and dim speechwriters. Together, they form a clueless collective of ambitious nerds who have no connection to the electorate – or real life.
‘Nobody wants to buy it’? The truth is that a staggering 60 per cent of British people own something from Ikea. And why is that? Because it is affordable, well designed and – despite what the PM says – generally very good quality indeed.
Ikea sell around £2.3billion worth of goods every year in the UK, with the most popular lines here being storage and organisation items such as shoe racks, cupboards and shelving.
Yes, thanks to politicians like Keir Starmer the world is going to hell in a handcart (Ivar storage box on wheels, £35) but at least the Brits have their spices racked in alphabetical order and their slippers neatly stacked on Tjusig shelving (£29).
The truth about Starmer is that he lives in an Islington bubble with his glam wife swishing about in her Me+Em frocks, all the while being advised by his know-nothing Spads and dim speechwriters
He is wrong about Ikea being common or undesirable. The Prince and Princess of Wales furnished their children’s bedrooms at Kensington Palace with Ikea furniture, celebrity interior designer Nicky Haslam has used Ikea chests of drawers in some of the grandest homes and adores its sheepskin rugs, while Kelly Hoppen says the vintage chrome sling lounge chairs, first released in the 1970s, are covetable and timeless.
Personally, I love my Besta TV bench with drawers, a snip at £130 and a useful piece of furniture that has quietly and stylishly done its job for years. And my Vesken kitchen trolley, only seven inches wide, which slides usefully into a gap between cupboards and costs only £8 – what’s not to love? The bumper packs of tealights, the giant chopping boards, the iconic Billy bookcase.
It is all pretty great, although not everything is perfect, of course. Some of its sofas feel like you are sitting on a rocky ledge on an Upsala glacier.
Yet Ikea glories on and its bestsellers include the Poang armchair, the Pax wardrobes, and let’s not forget its beloved Swedish meatballs.
Keir Starmer certainly didn’t. He told the Ikea workers in Croydon that he particularly liked the vegetarian version, shamelessly slinging his common man gravy before he started slinging his insults.
Speaking of which, some of it didn’t even make sense. Surely the son of a toolmaker should know that all wood is dead once it has been cut down?
Anyway, no need to feel sorry for Ikea, a globally successful company famous for being kind to its employees and an ongoing legend in the ready-to-assemble world.
Still, it doesn’t deserve the sneers of a snooty Prime Minister who is totally screwing himself.
Roxana rocks it
Camila Morrone as sultry Roxana Bolanos in The Night Manager
Spoiler alert! I am properly furious with The One Show (BBC One).
On its Monday programme, it dropped a jumbo-sized spoiler about the new season of The Night Manager, specifically about an episode broadcast only the previous evening and which, like millions, I had yet to see.
In these days of catch-up services, surely that is far too soon to give away a major plotline? Guest and The Night Manager star Tom Hiddleston should have stopped them – his alter ego is meant to be a master in the art of international espionage, after all.
Meanwhile, it is spoiling nothing to say that the sultry Night Manager outfits worn by Roxana Bolanos (played by Camila Morrone) are a masterclass in chic tropical dressing.
My life is complete. The Duchess of Sussex has launched a bookmark! It’s made of leather.
It’s got her handwriting on it. And it only costs £13.40. You can buy it as part of her winter cosy set, alongside a jar of honey and some herbal tea. Such marketing insanity! What are we – hibernating bears with a thirst? The bookmark is bespoke, it is supple, it is made from sustainably sourced materials and has already sold out.
Meghan touts it as a ‘keepsake designed for those who linger, pause, and return’.
For what? More As Ever nonsense – with jam on it? No thanks.
‘Ordinary’ Tindalls are really raking it in
Zara and Mike Tindall are so canny, aren’t they? They are royal-but-not-royal, leaning into their Windsor connections while trying to pretend they’re just ever-so-ordinary Mr and Mrs Tindall.
He is a former England rugby international who has not worked (in any proper sense of the word) since his sporting career ended; she is famously Not Princess Zara, but she might as well be.
Zara and Mike Tindall on their lucrative Magic Millions tour in Australia
Along with their three young children, the Tindalls live on Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Park estate and revel in their reputation as the ‘most relatable royals’ – but is that entirely deserved?
The couple are on a Magic Millions tour in Australia, attending racing and turf club events which organisers floridly bill as ‘royal’ because Not Princess Zara takes part in the horse races.
‘How did you get on?’ a reporter asked her this week. ‘I got to the end before the boys, but it was a pretty slow race,’ she replied.
Isn’t she marvellous? So erudite. I’m presuming the Tindalls are paid handsomely to attend these events on the Gold Coast, but I could be wrong. Perhaps they are motivated to travel across the world by sheer equine love and altruism?
Over the years, the Tindalls have quietly built up a £30million fortune, boosted by deals with luxury brands such as Musto, Rolex and Land Rover (hers), along with Domino’s Pizza, Amazon Prime and Pureis CBD (his).
I doubt this would have happened if Not Princess Zara’s mother had not been Very Much Princess Anne, so please don’t try to tell me they are relatable.
If you think about it, they are about as likeable and down-to-earth as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
Many of us are rightly sick of lower-ranking royals presenting themselves as philanthropic power couples while benefiting from their lucrative family links and – coincidentally! – becoming hugely wealthy in the process.
Don’t insult our intelligence.
Paying for stupidity
Rectifying botched cosmetic surgery procedures undertaken abroad costs the NHS £20,000 per patient.
Come on. Should we really be paying for the stupidity of trout-pouters seeking beauty on the cheap?
Perhaps the Government should start a campaign to educate and deter these young women – and they usually are young women – from seeking low-cost alternatives to their beauty problems.
It is entirely their choice to have a butt lift or a boob job in a clinic above a kebab shop in a Turkish back street because it is half the price. But the NHS and the British taxpayer should no longer have to pick up the pieces (in more ways than one) when it, predictably, all goes wrong.
I’m really cross about hot cross buns
Hot cross buns available all year round, Easter eggs in shops by Christmas Eve, sightings of mince pies in September?
How depressing that the deferred pleasure of seasonal treats has been replaced by the instant gratification demanded by spoiled consumers.
One a penny, two a penny, hot cross ‘all-year-round’ buns
Growing secularisation also means that their original religious significance is fading fast or often lost. How many realise what that simple cross, made of a flour and water paste and piped on to each bun before baking, actually means? They probably think it is a kiss.
It is the same with rosé wine – once a lovely summer treat, now guzzled all year round. Ditto an Aperol Spritz.
Having patience, experiencing yearning, enjoying anticipation – these are all important aspects of the human condition. Are we losing them in an avalanche of consumer avarice?
