The best political gossip from the past week (Image: Red Lion)
Keir’s jet excuse crashes and burns
When the Express revealed that Sir Keir Starmer had taken a private jet from Wales to Scotland to announce his big green eco project GB Energy, Labour was at pains to claim this wasn’t hypocritical.
Its excuse largely rested on the reassurance that “all our flights are carbon offset”, a claim reiterated by Sir Keir when asked about the luxury travel arrangements in Glasgow.
Unfortunately, this excuse doesn’t pass muster with one very important Labour donor – former Just Stop Oil backer Dale Vince.
Mr Vince, who has given Sir Keir’s party £1.5million since 2014, condemned polluting companies that explain away their activities with the “carbon offsetting” get-out in his podcast last year.
Mr Vince fumed: “Don’t worry, we’re going to pollute the s*** out of the planet. We’ve planted some acorns, so everything’s cool.”
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Labour eco donor Dale Vince has slammed ‘carbon offsetting’ in the past (Image: Getty)
“They say, don’t worry, we’ll plant the trees. They count the emissions reduction of those trees, the carbon absorption of those trees on day one. But they don’t accrue.
“They don’t start really delivering for 20 years and they haven’t really peaked until let’s say 50 years later. And so it’s just like a live now, pay later kind of scheme.
“That’s just like saying, can you give me £3million and I’ll pay you back in 107 years because that’s when I should have the money.
“They’re pushing the responsibility into the next generation, aren’t they? That’s kind of what you’re saying. They’re saying, well, don’t worry, we’ve got a great scheme, we’ll carry on doing what we’re doing.”
Sir Arbuthnot wonders what Mr Vince made of Sir Keir’s jetsetting…
Keir Starmer was forced to fess up to his private jet travel on Friday (Image: Getty)
Candidates swap colours
Voters at this election could be excused for being confused about what party they’re actually voting for.
This week, Tory candidate Robert Largan was ridiculed for pretending to stand for Labour, with adverts promoting “Labour for Largan”.
The advert is now being reviewed by his local police force amid allegations it could constitute election fraud.
On the other side of the equation, Labour’s candidate for Ossett and Denby Dale was slammed by Corbynites this week after a deleted 2020 tweet from her emerged in which she said she was “loving Rishi!” .
Asked by a councillor whether she thought he’d make a future prime minister, Jade Botterill replied: “Absolutely! He’s already making Boris look tired!”
One for the local Tory leaflets…
One Labour candidate previously heaped praise on Rishi Sunak (Image: Twitter/X)
Candidate confusion continues
Talking of candidate confusion, it’s not just voters getting muddled up.
This week, Sutton Lib Dems claimed its candidate is the “clear challenger to the Conservatives”.
“Finishing just 629 votes behind in 2019 and winning a council by-election in the St Helier West ward earlier this month.”
This claim came as a particular shock to Catherine Gray, the Conservative councillor who actually won said by-election by a whopping six votes.
She pointed out: “Sorry to break it to you, Sutton Lib Dems, but I won the St Helier West by-election, and I am definitely not a Liberal Democrat.”
Still, the claim is only slightly less misleading than most of the Lib Dems’ bar charts…
Tories’ begging is panned by members
This week the Tories unveiled their first attack poster of the election campaign, featuring a piggy bank with the caption: “If you think Labour will win, start saving…”
After publication, Tory members received an email from Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) asking them to forget about saving, instead asking them to put their hands in their pockets and donate up to £100 to the party’s election efforts.
Screenshots soon started doing the rounds, with one disgruntled activist pointing out: “This is not the best way to ask for donations!”
