SHOULD politicians ever try to be cool? Our political leaders certainly seem to think so.
Andy Burnham is all about the cool, Northern vibes.
Andy Burnham has a dedicated teenage TikTok fandom that helped propel him to No10 Credit: AFP
Britain’s public don’t care what’s on the PM’s Spotify jogging playlist Credit: Getty
He has a dedicated teenage TikTok fandom that helped propel him to No10 by splicing together video footage of the new PM set to bubblegum pop songs.
He danced on stage to New Order’s True Faith when he was crowned Labour leader.
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Burnham even took the odd day off politics to DJ at clubs in Manchester’s trendy Northern Quarter (although this was when he was Greater Manchester Mayor — not PM).
Britain’s new Prime Minister is — we are told — “lit, rizz, dank”.
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And he is not the only politician on a mission to show he is cool.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski is more likely to be seen on stage at a rave than being interviewed on the Six O’Clock News.
Even Reform’s Nigel Farage is all about the TikTok likes, with 1.5million followers on the platform.
Increasingly, it feels like politics is just a vibe — and we are being asked to drink the Kool-Aid.
On the one hand, there is nothing particularly new about politicians trying to be a bit hip.
Remember Tony Blair having Noel Gallagher and a bunch of artists round for beers at No10 as he rode the Cool Britannia wave? Or Gordon Brown saying he liked the Arctic Monkeys?
But then that proves my point — there is a fine line between cool and cringe.
As one veteran Labour MP said to me the other day, “The thing is — us politicians just aren’t cool.”
Zack Polanski is more likely to be seen on stage at a rave than being interviewed on the Six O’Clock News Credit: Getty
Nigel Farage is all about the TikTok likes, with 1.5million followers Credit: Alamy
And there’s the rub.
Our political class are, by definition, the men and women in grey suits.
The public wants to see them hard at work fixing the NHS and stopping the small boats — not spinning discs on a stage in Ibiza.
Maybe some of our politicians used to be cool, way back when at university, when they had long, floppy hair, were in a band and wrote tortured poetry for their girlfriends.
But those are faded memories.
Once they cut off their locks, put on an M&S suit and took their first political internship they stopped being cool.
Instead, they stepped into a world of opening school fetes, judging the biggest marrow competition and shoving leaflets in people’s letterboxes.
It is important and often unglamorous work. But it is not cool.
Burnham became a parliamentary researcher for Labour MP Tessa Jowell when he was 24.
His life may have been a hedonistic whirlwind before — I really don’t know. But from that day on he joined the grind of politics.
Don’t get me wrong, politicians can and should be relatable. Even charismatic, if they can manage it.
They need to pass the “would I want to go for a pint with them?” test.
Farage and Burnham do. Turns out Keir Starmer didn’t — and that’s why he isn’t Prime Minister any more.
As countless Labour MPs tell me, Burnham just has better vibes.
But a word of warning to the new PM — cool vibes don’t last.
The British public want politicians who can run the economy, improve the NHS, and stop the small boats crisis.
They don’t really care what is on your Spotify jogging playlist or what your favourite IPA is.
And they don’t want to see you dancing in a club when the economy is in the doldrums and taxes are sky high.
Every time the Green Party throws a rave, it makes itself a little less electable and a little bit more fringe.
So, yes Andy, flutter those dark eyelashes at the TikTok camera as you pull a pint and tuck in to some scampi fries down the pub.
Incidentally, I love scampi fries and am always up for a TikTok collab.
But don’t chase the cool too hard. Listen to New Order at home and fix the boats crisis in public.
Then the voters will really rate you.
GREEN ZOE’S SHAMEFUL ‘ERROR’
Zoe Garbett, Mayor of Hackney in East London Credit: Getty
A GREEN Party mayor wants to end her council’s link to Israel – on the third anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks.
Zoe Garbett, Mayor of Hackney in East London, has written to the city of Haifa in Israel saying she wants to end the twinning relationship and demanding a response by October 7.
This sounds like a sick joke. Unfortunately, it isn’t. October 7, 2023, was the date Hamas launched its bloody attacks on Israel.
Nearly 1,200 people were murdered, while thousands more were injured or kidnapped and held hostage.
It was the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
Let that sink in.
Imagine choosing that date?
Garbett has apologised, describing it as an “oversight”, but surely no one is thick enough to pick it by mistake?
Regardless, what an insult to a country whose people were slaughtered by a Jew-hating terror group.
It is shameful.
FOR 70 years the Lovell Telescope has stood proudly in Cheshire – mapping galaxies far away and protecting us from the Soviets during the Cold War.
But now it is under threat and could close because of funding cuts.
The Lovell Telescope has stood proudly in Cheshire for 70 years Credit: Getty
Scientists are up in arms at the news, saying it damages the UK’s global reputation for research.
UK Research and Innovation has cut annual funding to Jodrell Bank, which houses the telescope, inset, by £2.8million, and now it is in a race against time to find the money to plug the shortfall.
Britain is a giant of science. We are the country of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking. We must not risk losing this reputation. The bureaucrats need to rethink the cuts.
BRITAIN is burning. Europe has been ablaze with wildfires for weeks, and now one has broken out in Suffolk.
The UK’s climate is changing. We are getting hotter and wetter, so why are we not building more reservoirs? Britain has not built a reservoir since 1992. That is nearly 35 years ago.
Firefighters work to extinguish a wildfire in Suffolk Credit: Reuters
Our politicians are only too happy to set pie-in-the-sky Net Zero goals and spend billions buying solar panels from China.
But they can’t get their act together to build a single reservoir, which could be used to store water and put out a wildfire.
It is a dereliction of duty that shames every one of our political class. So, enough hot air about Net Zero.
Get on and do the day job – build the infrastructure we need.
