Clueless Labour's class war against Farage won't stop him… Reform voters care about policies not what school he went to

The Sun

31-05-2025

MEMO to the Labour Party – if you are ever going to stop ­rampant Reform UK, you will definitely not do it with laughably outdated class warfare.
Labour chairman Ellie Reeves dismisses Nigel Farage as 'a privately educated stockbroker and career politician'.
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But with her ham-fisted sneer, Ms Reeves draws unwelcome attention to her own privileged existence.
Ellie is an Oxford-educated barrister, the sister of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the wife of Labour peer Lord Cryer, which makes her Baroness Cryer, and the daughter-in-law of two, er, career ­politicians.
More privilege than you can shake a silver spoon at!
Hardly a child of the proletariat, are you, Baroness Cryer? Are you still keeping coal in the bathtub? How are your racing pigeons? See you down the Rat And Trumpet for a game of arrows? Gawd blimey, what a load of nonsense!
What a shedload of inverted snobbery.
I was educated by the state because there was never another option for the child of a greengrocer and a dinner lady.
I do not see my state education as a badge of honour.
Who cares if Farage's folks sent him to a private school?
The parents of Clement Attlee and Tony Blair also sent their sons to private schools.
And Attlee and Blair were both consequential Labour Prime Ministers, arguably the only two this country ever elected.
Labour's Baroness Cryer, I respectfully suggest, knows bugger all about the working class of this country.
Back in the day, the working class were exhilarated to vote in their millions for Labour's Blair and, more recently, the Conservative Boris Johnson (Eton and Oxford).
Sure, you can have your doubts about Reform, and how they are going to pay for some of their big promises. Increasing benefits while slashing taxes — can it really work?
And Nigel has to explain how Brexit will work in a world where America is an unreliable ally.
But where Farage went to school, or earned a crust before politics, should never come into it.
Unthinkable even a few months ago, there is now a path opening up that could whisk Nigel Farage all the way to 10 Downing Street, a path that has been built by disillusion with the first Labour Government since May 2010, and the increasing irrelevance of the Tories, who had 14 years to get it right.
Keir Starmer's big state-of-the-nation speech on Thursday, his shirt sleeves neatly rolled up, was astonishing. No mention of Kemi!
Starmer treated Nigel Farage (and the Reform MPs who could share a minicab) as the effective leader of His Majesty's Opposition, Starmer's true rival for power at the next General Election.
Keir ­predictably rolled out the fact that his father toiled in a factory.
No mention of his knighthood or lucrative career as a human rights lawyer.
But Starmer got this right — the UK can't afford another Liz Truss.
As the reality dawns that Farage could actually form the next government, he will come under increased scrutiny.
Reform's policies
The nation must know the bill for Reform's policies.
But what Labour will not get away with is painting ­Farage as an unelectable toff.
Because the man has the soul of the British working class on speed dial.
For example, most ordinary Brits care about climate change.
But I reckon that most of them love Farage's promise — in a country responsible for just one per cent of global ­emissions — to ditch the self-harming insanity of Net Zero.
Unfortunately for Sir Keir, Baroness Cryer and all the silver-spoon socialists like them, working people are not snobs.
The working class believes, as Ian Brown of the Stone Roses had it, that it's not where you're from that matters — it's where you're at.
TOP marks to Tory Robert Jenrick for bravely confronting ticket cheats on London's lawless underground network.
Now that's what I call a Justice spokesman.
Sabrina knows Name Of The Game
AT first, reports that Sabrina Carpenter is in the running to appear in Mamma Mia! 3 seemed a little unlikely.
The Espresso singer was born in 1999, a full 25 years after Abba appeared on the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, singing an impossibly catchy song in adorably Swedish accents.
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Then you learn that Sabrina has named her cats . . . Benny and Bjorn.
Back in the Seventies, music snobs like me turned our noses up at Abba, while secretly humming S.O.S and Mamma Mia behind closed doors.
But everybody is an Abba fan now.
Sabrina's hamsters are probably called Agnetha and Anni-Frid.
HARRY TRIPS AGAIN
PRINCE HARRY made a surprise 6,400-mile round trip from his home in Montecito, California, to Shanghai, China, to give a speech on – you have to be kidding me – environmentally friendly travel.
Flying across the planet to pontificate about saving the planet?
The hypocrisy is off the scale.
Harry's means of transport from Los Angeles to Shanghai remain unknown.
But assuming that the Duke of Sussex did not travel to China in a hand-carved wooden boat, The Times reported that a first class return flight from LA to Shanghai produces more than 6,311kg of greenhouse emissions, while emissions in a private jet could be anywhere from ten to 100 times higher, depending on the aircraft.
Which means that Air Miles Harry has a carbon footprint that is much larger than his brain.
HIS MAJ TRUMPS DONALD
BACK off, Tango chops!
King Charles III did not directly criticise the American president when he – the King of Canada! – opened the Canadian Parliament.
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No need.
Just by being in the Canadian Parliament, and with his gentle, moving 'speech from the throne' in English and French, Charles obliterated Trump's casually graceless threats about making Canada the 51st state of the US.
As if nothing had changed, the POTUS was still ranting on social media about how Canada would save itself $61billion if they 'become our cherished 51st state'.
'They are considering the offer!' Trump posted.
Er, no they are not, Mr President. The Orange oaf's obsession with the deal is derailing his presidency.
Because Donald Trump struggles to understand that some things in this world are just not for sale.
DOGS OUT TO HELP
DON'T bring your work problems home.
It will upset your dog.
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A team of psychologists at Virginia's Radford University report that dogs showed clear signs of stress when their owners complained about problems at work.
'Dogs are highly sensitive animals who can 'catch' the emotions and feelings of humans,' says the results, published in the journal Scientific Reports.
'They experience increases in stress when their owner does.'
I would go further.
Dogs are so completely attuned to human emotions that they know how you feel, even if they are not your dog.
Our dog Stan died exactly a year ago.
And every day since, one or two dogs I have never met before catch my eye and veer towards me, raising their faces as if to say: 'May I be of any assistance?'
The study in the journal says that a dog's advanced sense of smell means they can sniff out a rise in cortisol – a hormone released when humans are experiencing profound emotions.
At first, I thought it was my imagination.
But after a year, I know it is real – dogs understand that I am in mourning for my own dog.
And what incredible creatures dogs are – they just want to help.
SHOVE YOUR EXCUSE
WHEN Brigitte Macron shoved her husband Emmanuel in his brioche-hole, the pint-sized president of France recovered well.
Taken aback by Brigitte's firm push in the face, Macron realised the entire world was watching.
And smiled and waved.
It was only when Macron later insisted that he and his wife were 'simply joking' that he began to look ridiculous.
Brigitte shoved Macron where his croissant doesn't shine.
Why try to spin it any other way?