Finally, I have figured out why the UK is in such an absolute shambles – it’s being run by Benny Hill.
Instead of focusing on wee things like the pandemic, the cost of living crisis and the economic wrecking ball of Brexit, Boris Johnson has been trying to keek up the skirt of Angela Rayner, according to the Mail on Sunday.
It can’t be easy trying to work the levers of power when you realise the deputy leader of the Labour Party sitting opposite is a woman and has legs. How distracting must that be?
OK, let’s get back to reality. The misogynistic, class-based attack on Ms Rayner reportedly perpetrated by senior Tories through the medium of a national newspaper was simply horrific.
It was a steaming pile of ordure on so many levels, it was actually hard to comprehend how anyone could have put it into the universe.
First and foremost was the suggestion a senior and respected parliamentarian – the shadow chancellor, no less – was doing a Sharon Stone. We all know what that is shorthand for.
As much as I disagree with @AngelaRayner on almost every political issue I respect her as a parliamentarian and deplore the misogyny directed at her anonymously today.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) April 24, 2022
But, sitting right in behind there was the suggestion that Ms Rayner was resorting to these tactics because, as a working class, single mother with a mere comprehensive school education, she didn’t have the debating skills to take on an Oxford Union alumni.
Let that sink in. Take in the whole sense of entitlement, superiority and snide sneering at those who should know their place and kowtow to their betters – especially if they are mere women.
And there you have the Conservative establishment in all its glory.
Rayner’s background is a badge of honour
Sure, the PM and Tories of all shapes and sizes have condemned this utter slur. That it’s been done in cut-and-paste words clearly produced by a spin doctor at Conservative Central Command shows the gesture up as being shrill and hollow.
The offending piece gleefully listed off Ms Rayner’s background – “socialist grandmother who left school at 16 while pregnant and with no qualifications before becoming a care worker” – as if it were a litany of shame.
Let’s flip that around, shall we?
Here is a single mother from a working class background who, by dint of her own talent and determination, rose through a caring profession to be one of the foremost and skilled players in the corridors of power at Westminster. One, by the way, who frequently hands Boris Johnson his rear end on a plate in debates.
That’s a badge of honour and one that we should all recognise and applaud.
Rayner’s career is far more of an achievement than that of the Old Boys club currently running the UK
Ms Rayner should be held up as an inspiration – proof you can achieve your dreams and aspirations no matter where you start.
Her career is far more of an achievement than that of the Old Boys club currently running the UK. They arrive in power courtesy of a gravy train running directly from Eton to Number 10, without having to trouble with the real world the rest of us live in.
Still, this latest low point will hopefully quicken the pace of the mood music in Westminster. A fish rots from the head down, and that rot needs to stop.
Surely it can’t be long until Boris Johnson has plenty of free time to watch all the Benny Hill reruns he wants?
Scott Begbie is entertainment editor for The Press & Journal and Evening Express
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