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Latest Ukip leadership candidate can't help shooting from the hip Latest Ukip leadership candidate can't help shooting from the hip
(about 4 hours later)
MondayMonday
A Ukip leadership election always generates its fair share of eccentric candidates, and this month’s crop – the last leader lasted only a few weeks – is no exception. Take the leather-jacketed Jonathan Rees-Evans who strolls around like a Channel 5 news presenter on fast-forward in his YouTube campaign video. “Hey look at me, I just talked to a Muslim woman for a couple of seconds, so I must be OK.” Rees-Evans has an interesting past. When he was standing for the seat of Cardiff South and Penarth, he told protesters outside his office he had a horse which a donkey had tried to rape. Rees-Evans also has a home in rural Bulgaria which has been described as a fortified compound with a shooting range where the former soldier takes pot shots at paper portraits of terrorists. The last time he went to Ikea, Rees-Evans persuaded the sales assistant it would be safer to let him carry his handgun, in case terrorists laid siege to the building. A Ukip leadership election always generates its fair share of eccentric candidates, and this month’s crop – the last leader lasted only a few weeks – is no exception. Take the leather-jacketed John Rees-Evans who strolls around like a Channel 5 news presenter on fast-forward in his YouTube campaign video. “Hey look at me, I just talked to a Muslim woman for a couple of seconds, so I must be OK.” Rees-Evans has an interesting past. When he was standing for the seat of Cardiff South and Penarth, he told protesters outside his office he had a horse which a donkey had tried to rape. Rees-Evans also has a home in rural Bulgaria which has been described as a fortified compound with a shooting range where the former soldier takes pot shots at paper portraits of terrorists. The last time he went to Ikea, Rees-Evans persuaded the sales assistant it would be safer to let him carry his handgun, in case terrorists laid siege to the building.
TuesdayTuesday
One of the features of the Commons debate that followed the government’s decision to build a third runway at Heathrow was just how poor many MPs’ geography is. To listen to most of them speak, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Gatwick was a world war two aerodrome with a grass runway that was stranded miles out in the sticks with no transport links to anywhere. The most bizarre intervention came from Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP for Reigate, who said: “As everyone who uses the Brighton main line will know, the Gatwick proposition, frankly, was not practical. Local authorities would have had to have found housing for the workforce to support the Gatwick option.” For the record, Gatwick is situated near Crawley, about 20 miles south of London and there would have been no need to create a favela for those building a new runway.One of the features of the Commons debate that followed the government’s decision to build a third runway at Heathrow was just how poor many MPs’ geography is. To listen to most of them speak, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Gatwick was a world war two aerodrome with a grass runway that was stranded miles out in the sticks with no transport links to anywhere. The most bizarre intervention came from Crispin Blunt, the Conservative MP for Reigate, who said: “As everyone who uses the Brighton main line will know, the Gatwick proposition, frankly, was not practical. Local authorities would have had to have found housing for the workforce to support the Gatwick option.” For the record, Gatwick is situated near Crawley, about 20 miles south of London and there would have been no need to create a favela for those building a new runway.
WednesdayWednesday
Literary critics have often tended to turn their noses up at humorous fiction; when a review describes a book as “a comic masterpiece”, it generally means that one or two readers may – if they’re lucky and in a good mood – smile once or twice while they’re reading it. So the choice of the Man Booker judges to award the prize to Paul Beatty’s The Sellout was both welcome and overdue. But the organisers’ decision, taken in 2014 to see off the perceived threat of the Folio prize, to widen the eligibility to any book written in the English language has backfired badly. Not so long ago, the announcement of the longlist, shortlist and winner provoked – if not a national debate – at least widespread interest, with authors that many readers recognised and enjoyed well represented. The 2015 shortlist featured John Banville, Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith, Ali Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro and Sebastian Barry. Now it feels as if the Man Booker operates increasingly in a vacuum for the benefit of its own literary in-crowd. Literary critics have often tended to turn their noses up at humorous fiction; when a review describes a book as “a comic masterpiece”, it generally means that one or two readers may – if they’re lucky and in a good mood – smile once or twice while they’re reading it. So the choice of the Man Booker judges to award the prize to Paul Beatty’s The Sellout was both welcome and overdue. But the organisers’ decision, taken in 2014 to see off the perceived threat of the Folio prize, to widen the eligibility to any book written in the English language has backfired badly. Not so long ago, the announcement of the longlist, shortlist and winner provoked – if not a national debate – at least widespread interest, with authors that many readers recognised and enjoyed well represented. The 2005 shortlist featured John Banville, Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith, Ali Smith, Kazuo Ishiguro and Sebastian Barry. Now it feels as if the Man Booker operates increasingly in a vacuum for the benefit of its own literary in-crowd.
ThursdayThursday
Brexit means Brexit. Or so we’ve heard the prime minister say often enough over the past couple of months. There have been the occasional variations of soft Brexit, hard Brexit, bankers’ Brexit and people’s Brexit, but the message has been essentially the same that Brexit means Brexit. Until just recently. Now it turns out that Brexit means Breakfast. The first person to say so was Andrew Davies, the Welsh Tory leader, at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham earlier this month. Now the Labour shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, is at it. During the course of a rather dull and vague speech about the impact of Brexit on the economy to a surprisingly full house at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, McDonnell three times declared the country was “heading towards a chaotic breakfast”. If only we were. It’s beginning to feel rather more like a dog’s dinner.Brexit means Brexit. Or so we’ve heard the prime minister say often enough over the past couple of months. There have been the occasional variations of soft Brexit, hard Brexit, bankers’ Brexit and people’s Brexit, but the message has been essentially the same that Brexit means Brexit. Until just recently. Now it turns out that Brexit means Breakfast. The first person to say so was Andrew Davies, the Welsh Tory leader, at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham earlier this month. Now the Labour shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, is at it. During the course of a rather dull and vague speech about the impact of Brexit on the economy to a surprisingly full house at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, McDonnell three times declared the country was “heading towards a chaotic breakfast”. If only we were. It’s beginning to feel rather more like a dog’s dinner.
FridayFriday
As someone who is no stranger to depressive episodes, I have come to dread the weekend when the clocks go back. The prospect of the evenings drawing in at 4.30 in the afternoon is so miserable. And unnecessary. We’re told that the reason the clocks need to go back is to accommodate a few farmers in Scotland who wouldn’t otherwise be able to keep track of their sheep and that the price of a few extra children being killed on the roads on their way back home is one well worth paying. But what was devolution for if not to allow Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales the freedom to choose their own timezones? Let them set the clocks to whatever time they feel like. It’s hardly a major inconvenience for the rest of us to adjust our watches when we travel across the borders. The Americans and the Australians manage different time zones with no trouble; so what makes Britain too feeble-minded to do the same?As someone who is no stranger to depressive episodes, I have come to dread the weekend when the clocks go back. The prospect of the evenings drawing in at 4.30 in the afternoon is so miserable. And unnecessary. We’re told that the reason the clocks need to go back is to accommodate a few farmers in Scotland who wouldn’t otherwise be able to keep track of their sheep and that the price of a few extra children being killed on the roads on their way back home is one well worth paying. But what was devolution for if not to allow Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales the freedom to choose their own timezones? Let them set the clocks to whatever time they feel like. It’s hardly a major inconvenience for the rest of us to adjust our watches when we travel across the borders. The Americans and the Australians manage different time zones with no trouble; so what makes Britain too feeble-minded to do the same?
Digested week digested: “British Airways regrets to announce that Flight BA1964 to New York will be delayed until 2030 at the very earliest”Digested week digested: “British Airways regrets to announce that Flight BA1964 to New York will be delayed until 2030 at the very earliest”