Welcome back, dear readers, to the sawdust soaked splendour of Clowning Street, where the lights are always flickering, the music never quite starts on time, and the ringmaster insists everything is going brilliantly while the tent collapses behind him.
It is a brand new year, the bunting is fresh, the calendar is clean, and yet Labour remains gloriously committed to tradition. Within days of January beginning, Two Tier Keir and his travelling circus have already managed to somersault headfirst into scandal, contradiction and farce. Staying true to form, they are making complete fools of themselves before most people have finished the last of the festive leftovers.
The opening act this week is the Chagos spectacle, now upgraded from diplomatic embarrassment to full blown freak show. Starmer’s claim that the Office for Budget Responsibility had been consulted on the cost of handing away British territory has been laid bare as fantasy. The OBR says it was never consulted at all. This is not a minor accounting error, it is the ringmaster waving an empty hat and insisting it is full of rabbits. While ministers perform verbal contortions to explain away the lie, new documents suggest Beijing is already tracking the future of Chagos. The audience watches in disbelief as Britain’s strategic interests are juggled like flaming torches, one slip away from catastrophe.
Next into the ring comes Labour’s ongoing obsession with gaslighting the public. Instead of tackling genuine online abuse, ministers have decided their real enemy is the platform formerly known as Twitter. While serious harm festers elsewhere, Labour focuses on silencing critics, lecturing users and pretending censorship is safety. It is a classic sideshow trick, distract the crowd with noise and smoke while the real problem slips out the back of the tent.
The constitutional clowning continues with Starmer’s quiet plot to hand powers back to the European Union without a vote in Parliament. This is not cooperation, it is executive sleight of hand. As if that were not enough, Labour’s plan to scrap jury trials has triggered a rebellion so fierce that a Labour MP is now threatening a by election just to stop it. The contortionists are exhausted, twisting themselves into ever tighter shapes to justify sidelining due process in the rush to force through the Chagos bill. Justice is no longer blind, it is being hustled offstage by men in red noses.
Then there is the growing fury over Labour’s plans to delay local elections in areas where voters are deserting them. When the crowd starts booing, the circus response is not to improve the act but to dim the lights and lock the exits. Democracy, it seems, is optional when the polling looks awkward.
On the domestic front, the balloon animals are popping everywhere. Labour’s VAT raid on private schools has already forced 105 closures, leaving 25,000 children displaced and families scrambling. In hospitality, it is last orders all round. Reeves has blocked tax relief for pubs, TGI Fridays teeters towards administration, and the sector is being crushed under the weight of Labour’s indifference. The ringmaster talks about fairness while the tents of small business are folded up one by one.
Energy policy provides another masterclass in absurdity. Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm, a favourite of Ed Milliband, wasted three quarters of its power last year, while Labour’s latest budget confirms a vast increase in shadow debt that will lock in sky high energy prices for decades. This is not green progress, it is an expensive magic trick where the money disappears and never comes back.
And hovering over it all is the sense of a government that simply does not care to explain itself. Press scrutiny is brushed aside, process is rushed, and critics are dismissed as troublemakers. The freak show grows louder, the acts more reckless, and the audience ever more uneasy.
So here we are, Week 80, a new year begun exactly as the last one ended. Lies exposed, powers grabbed, businesses squeezed, elections postponed, and Britain’s interests treated as props in a badly rehearsed routine. The circus marches on, insisting this is competence, insisting this is progress, insisting you clap.
But the applause is nowhere to be found. The laughter has turned hollow. And under the Big Top of Blunders, the truth is becoming impossible to ignore. This is not entertainment. It is a government making a spectacle of itself, and dragging the country along for the ride.
READ ALL ABOUT IT: Links to this week’s top Labour circus acts below:
