The fun bit about hearing the Tories announce more bonanza giveaways is watching Sir Kier Starmer standing outside a big, grand, London building in that horrid blue suit explaining how he thought of it ages ago, and would have done it yesterday.
It's tough for Labour. They are the party of the handout. The all-giving, no-counting, manic giveyoumores. Now they can barely take a breath before they are criticising Boris and Co. for not giving quite soon enough. The motto for the next Labour Conference will surely be: 'Told You So', which will have a nice little sub-text 'We Thought Of That First'.
One thing Sir Kier cannot give, though, is the persona of a cool dude. That is the remit of the next James Bond who today (Tuesday 5 January) told us that businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors will receive up to £9,000 in one-off grants to help them through latest Coro... blah, blah, blah restrictions. He just cannot be stopped. And he looks so good when doing it all. All Labour can fight back with is Jonathan Ashworth and Rishi's opposite number, Annaliese Dodds (the latter looking more and more like a nursery school teacher with IBS).
Rishi told us today that business properties (in certain sectors) in the UK will receive £9,000 each. But whilst Annaliese emerged from the Ladies and started to say:
"What about other bu ..?"
Rishi snapped in with: "My package also includes a £594 million discretionary fund for other businesses that might be affected."
"I was going to say that," Sir Kier said.
"Sure," said Rishi, "but were you also about to say this? Throughout the pandemic we've taken swift action to protect lives and livelihoods and today we're announcing a further cash injection to support businesses and jobs until the spring."
"Damn. We will, Rishi, we will ..." Sir Kier blustered.
"Sorry, excuse me a moment ..." Annaliese cut in, disappearing down the Commons' stairs.
