Serious man, decorated war hero Al Carns MC. The Labour newbie MP for Birmingham Selly Oak serving as veterans minister acknowledges lucky escapes in Afghanistan where comrades were maimed and killed. It’s one of the many reasons Colonel Carns doesn’t glorify conflict and impresses MPs across the party divide. It’s also why the straight shooter triggered alarm by informing a group working with veterans that one reason he cares so deeply about improving life for ex-military personnel is that there are going to be many more of them in future because, he predicted, Britain will be involved in another war within five years. “We gulped and thought, ‘Bloody hell,’” recounted my queasy snout. Who the war would be with wasn’t specified. In other news, Carns’s line manager Keir Starmer at the time of writing is seeking US permission to let Ukraine fire UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at military targets in Russia.
Globetrotting Keir “air miles” Starmer will have been out of the country for 26 days by the time he returns from the G20 in Rio. Many of the trips, including Nato, UN and Commonwealth summits, were inherited in the diary, but criticism about the PM being away too often isn’t unanimous. “Given Keir’s current unpopularity,” murmured a Labour mover and shaker, “all this travelling may not be a bad thing.” Out of sight didn’t keep him out of mind for landowners and farmers besieging SW1, mind.
Right-wing reactionary Laurence Fox should look away now. I hear Defence Committee chair Tan Dhesi, a Sikh, is close to securing a prominent site on the Mall in central London for a statue commemorating Sikhs who fought and died for Britain during the world wars. Fox ignorantly deploring the inclusion of a Sikh soldier in Sam Mendes’ film 1917 before beating a humiliating retreat under fire emphasised the education value of Dhesi’s monument. The head of the fringe party Reclaim is unlikely to be invited to the unveiling.
Stick-man Jacob Rees-Mogg comparing himself to heavyweight bruiser Tyson Fury to drum up interest in the Discovery+ channel’s Meet the Rees-Moggs fly-on-the-wall is generating much merriment. Fury starred in his own TV show, but a sniffy Tory suggested Mary Poppins was a better comparison, with his nanny Veronica Crook on parade. Defeated Moggy’s calculation is the series will help secure a fresh seat. Bedroom cameras were banned. Rivals it will not be.
Observers in Rio saw no bromance between Starmer and Xi Jinping, who shared a perfunctory handshake. This was not David Cameron taking China’s president for a pint of Greene King IPA in the Cotswolds. No 10 minds are turning to wooing Xi should he accept an invitation to visit Britain. A visit to Arsenal, anybody?
[See also: The world according to Trump]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 20 Nov 2024 issue of the New Statesman, Combat Zone