I’ve finally figured out why I find Wes Streeting so grating. It’s because he bigs up his working-class origins even as he shits all over working-class Britain. ‘I’m from Stepney’, he chirps, like a camp Dick van Dyke, before looking down his Cambridge-educated nose at his fellow oiks who voted for Brexit. He wears his humble roots like fancy dress to disguise his lofty indifference to the populist beliefs of those who don’t only come from working-class Britain but still live there. ‘I’m one of you’, he says, when every Brit with a brain knows he’s one of Them.
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Samizdata quote of the day – Good grief, he’s cluelessMay 16th, 2026 |
 14 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Good grief, he’s cluelessLeave a Reply |
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Yes, he’s probably one of them as well.
Brendan O’Neill manages to get weekly columns out of his one thought.
Hilarious! But I can recognize – just as I can recognize in some of my own writings – that O’Neill should learn to stay away from keyboards after a few drinks!
Still, fun.
More importantly – Mr Streeting does not believe that Income Tax should be reduced to match Capital Gains Tax rates – Mr Streeting believes that Capital Gains Tax should be increased to match the top rate of Income Tax, this would mean a Capital Gains Tax top rate of 45%.
This would utterly destroy what is left of the British economy.
Sadly all the alternatives to Sir Keir Starmer are to the left (yes the left) of him – they all believe in even more government spending, even more taxes and even more regulations – especially Mr “Andy” Burnham.
Another day, another Prolier Than Thou Brendan O’Neill Column.
“…… O’Neill should learn to stay away from keyboards after a few drinks!”
See also:
“Try typing with BOTH hands on the keyboard”.
bobby,
If we all stayed away from our keyboards after a couple then the World would be a duller place 😜
I think you know what I mean by a “couple”. Yesterday I watched the FA Cup Final (a couple, yes, literally) and then Eurofission (that’s a wine gig) and I’m feeling it.
Wes Streeting is indeed “One of Them”. Who “They” are is the question. He has always looked to me like something Mattel rejected as prototype Ken. I’d hate to see the movie about a Labour leadership “race” between him and Starmer. It would have to be called, “Dull and Duller”. He’s like a plastic person from a ’50s SF B-movie. I’m not even sure he is real. Doesn’t mean he isn’t evil. Look at those eyes! Dead eyes. He has a little lever on his neck and you can turn them.
As to the idea of him being “One of Them” in the British sit-com sense. He was, apparently, mentored by Mandelson…
We don’t need Farage. We need Van Helsing!
There are certain…”thems”, “those” or indeed “we”…that Wesley apparently feels he can be the voice of, or more likely hide behind.
As a member of one of at least one of said various “thems”, I’ll happily tell the little ghoulish shit to go play with the traffic.
NickM – yeah, feels like he has one of those Action Man tabs that you pull out, and then you let it go and he robotically says “We need a new, kinder, type of politics” or “The need for a different approach is clear as day”
lol true
neon,
I’m serisusly waiting for this… They talk a lot about things like “progress” and “change”. I want one to slip and say, “This country needs reform”. Just for the sheer giggles.
NickM: Oh, I know. I brew mead. ‘Nuff said!
Streeting is an idiot if he thinks that re-entry to the European Union is going to stem Labour’s decline. OK, it might mean he gets some Centrist Dad votes from the Lib Dems and maybe the softer, thicker end of the Tories, but it is going to be rejected by traditional Labour voters, for example. Also, a practical point: any country applying for EU membership will, so I understand it, have to join the euro and all that that implies.
It’s not going to happen.
Whether it is Mr Streeting or Mr Burnham – the “Social Justice” politics they represent (and which Sir Keir Starmer also represents) HARMS (not helps – harms) the very people they claim to care about.
More government spending and more government regulations make life worse (not better – worse) than would otherwise be the case.
It is true that modern technology and levels of capital investment have managed to sustain a state (in Britain and other nations) vastly bigger than it used to be – but life would be much better (for the very people these politicians claim to care about) if the state had not grown in its spending and its regulations – and even modern technology can not sustain for ever a state that is this big in its spending and regulations, bad times (very bad times) will come.
Meanwhile, some people have noticed a distinct resemblance between Streeting and Otto the inflatable autopilot from Airplane!
One would normally hesitate to say that a blow-up doll would make a better Prime Minister than the names that have so far been put forward, but…