Falling Off A Cliff

Politics is not a particular interest of mine, but I can't help be morbidly fascinated by the current machinations within the Labour party. I confess to knowing only a little about Jeremy Corbyn, and much less about Owen Smith, his opponent in the Labour leadership race, but even a casual glance at the pronouncements of both men leads me to believe that Mr Corbyn has his feet a little more firmly on the ground than his opponent...although it's a close run thing.

Can Owen Smith really eradicate homelessness? No, really can he?

It isn't unusual for politicians to make bold promises when they are trying to get elected and it really is a shame that they are not taken to task more regularly and more robustly when, once in office, they fail to meet their pledges. For the record, I'm talking about all politicians, local and national, and of all political persuasions here - not just Labour ones. But it is rare that anyone, after an election, looks back and says to a Prime Minister, or council leader for that matter, and says, "Where's that income tax cut you promised?" or "What happened to the extra nurses/policemen/doctors/binmen/road sweepers you said you would recruit?" Thing is, we all know it's a game; all politicians make pledges that they soon come to realise they cannot afford - be it politically or financially - to implement. And Messrs Corbyn and Smith are no different.

Jeremy Corbyn's reserved seat failed to meet his expectations.

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to renationalise the railways if Labour come to power  - and by the by, despite Labour's stance on Europe, a full renationalisation would not be possible had the electorate voted to Remain in the EU rather than in favour of Brexit -and also to build a million new homes within five years of becoming Prime Minister. This scheme would apparently be funded by a new National Investment Bank, and it's all very laudable: I doubt anyone would dispute that house prices and rental costs are becoming increasingly beyond the reach of many young people. But given that the next General Election is not scheduled for four more years, then Mr Corbyn's scheme has a minimum of nine years before it can come to fruition, assuming he wins the next election - actually, assuming he is even leader of the party come the next election.

But anything Mr Corbyn can promise, Mr Smith can top, it seems. Pledging to build a million new homes is small beer to Mr Smith, as he has pledged to eradicate homelessness completely within five years, apparently by passing the buck on to local councils and putting the problem in their court, which would enable him to take the credit for any success and pass on the blame for the more likely failure. Mr Smith has also promised to scrap university tuition fees, build 50,000 homes a year solely for rent by the under-30's and guarantee a high-level apprenticeship to every 18-year-old who gets good enough exam grades. Precisely how much this would cost - and more importantly, how it would be funded - is anyone's guess, but given that one of Labour's traditional methods of funding such exercises is increasing taxes for higher earners, perhaps this will lead to more of the wealthy becoming tax exiles, like Sir Richard Branson, whom Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has suggested should be stripped of his knighthood. Mind you, that wasn't simply because of Sir Richard's tax exile status, but rather because, according to McDonnell, Branson was trying to 'undermine our democracy' after he, or rather Virgin Trains, had responded to Jeremy Corbyn's remarks about overcrowding on one of their services. Whether it was Corbyn or Branson who was right, I do not think that responding to an attack that one feels is unjustified - which is obviously how Virgin felt about the criticism they received from the Labour leader - is an attack on democracy. If refuting an assertion you believe to be incorrect undermines democracy then almost every MP is guilty of it every time they speak in the House, or anywhere else for that matter.

It's funny that Mr Corbyn's claims morphed so over a short period of time. First off, the train was packed, with no spare seats. Virgin refuted that, produced CCTV footage of Mr Corbyn walking past empty seats, to which the Labour leader responded that the seats were occupied by other passengers' bags, and later, that there were empty seats, but insufficient together for him and his wife to sit together. As my wife is wont to say, "When you're in a hole, stop digging."

Brendan O'Carroll looks as stunned as everyone else on hearing the news that his show is best sit-com of the 21st century.

While the news of what has now, inevitably, been dubbed Traingate amused me, there was another story that I saw at roughly the same time that I did not find funny at all, which is odd, since the news related to a television sit-com. And not just any old sit-com either, but the sit-com that 14,000 readers of the Radio Times have voted best sit-com of the 21st century so far. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you -and I can hardly bear to bring myself to do so - Mrs Brown's Boys. Now I will accept that what constitutes the best of anything that has to be judged as subjectively as a television comedy programme is predicated on the principle that anyone's opinion is as good as anyone else's, and the fact that Mrs Brown's Boys beat a whole host of programmes that I consider to have greater merit is neither here nor there. Just because a show is voted best comedy of the century doesn't actually make it the best, just the best in the opinion of enough people who could be bothered to vote. I wasn't among the voters, but had I been there were quite a few candidates that would have got my vote before I got to Brendan O'Carroll's creation.  In this poll, innovative, genuinely funny (well, I think they are innovative and genuinely funny) shows like W1A and Outnumbered trail in the wake of what appears to me to be a tired, old fashioned and unoriginal show.  Mind you there are a few  others in the top twenty (listed below), that most certainly would not have got my vote either, plus a few I've not even heard of.

"Ooh, you are awful!" Too flippin' right you are!

The result of the poll has certainly caused plenty of people - television critics and the general public (via social media) alike - to voice their opinions, and those opinions are, as one might expect, polarised. My view on it is coloured by the fact that Brendan O'Carroll plays the part of Mrs Brown; not that I have anything against Mr O'Carroll personally, it's just that I really cannot abide men playing women. It's probably a reaction to when I was a child and being subjected to programmes starring Danny La Rue, or Dick Emery or Stanley Baxter. Emery was OK when he stayed in menswear, but when he put on drag, I switched off -metaphorically, if not literally. And as for Baxter, well unfortunately I found him uniformly unfunny and as an impressionist, totally unconvincing - every impression looked the same, and every impression looked and sounded like Stanley Baxter to me.

"You don't have to fall off a cliff to know it hurts."

At this point I should point out that I have never watched a whole episode of Mrs Brown's Boys, just clips and trailers. These alone have been enough to put me off. On that basis there are probably those among you who would argue that I can't have a proper opinion if I've not seen a whole episode. To those who say that, I would refer you to a line from my comedy hero, Tony Hancock: "You don't have to fall off a cliff to know it hurts."