Does anyone know what the Labour Party's policies are ahead of next week's elections for local councillors, mayors and police commissioners ?
I've certainly heard very little in the media about the subject, Labour's entire electioneering campaign seemingly being focused on trying to demonise Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Allegations of 'sleaze' abound, although whether there is any real truth or relevance in them is, to say the least, unclear.
Who paid for the redecoration of the Prime Minister's Downing Street flat ? In truth, does anyone care so long as whatever it cost did not come out of the public purse. Labour seems to have forgotten about the grotesque expenditure of Lord 'Derry' Irvine when his former pupil, Tony Blair, appointed him to the role of Lord Chancellor. Irvine splashed a reported £650,000 (more than 20 years ago and substantially more in today's terms), including around £60,000 on wallpaper alone, on redecorating his residence at Westminster, every penny being paid for out of public funds.
While England's Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, holds shares in a company which gained a contract from the Welsh government can this really be considered 'sleaze' ? In Liverpool, the Labour mayor and several of his cronies have been arrested on charges of corruption; Joe Anderson, the now former mayor, wants the city council to pay for his legal costs. Who is the real crook here - Tory Matt Hancock or Labour's Joe Anderson ?
When he was Prime Minister, Tony Blair clearly misled Parliament and the country with his 'dodgy dossier' and claims that Iraq had to be invaded due to its supposed stockpiles of "weapons of mass destruction". Again, Keir Starmer's Labour Party seems to have forgotten all about Blair's duplicity and. instead, trots out the egregious Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves and John Ashworth to voice their unsubstantiated and fanatical diatribes against Mr Johnson and others in the Cabinet. Interestingly, Starmer himself seems to stay fairly clear of the fray, except fro his appearances at Prime Minister's questions when, regardless of how clever he may be, he comes across as a grey man in a grey suit.
Have we all so quickly forgotten about Keith Vaz, rent boys and cocaine in 2017, or about Labour's Fiona Onasanya, imprisoned for perverting the course of justice in 2018 and then refusing to resign her parliamentary seat ? Further back there was "Jowellgate" a financial scandal that involved Tessa Jowell, her husband, David Mills and had links to the highly suspect Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi. There was also the little matter of Ron Davies, 'cottaging' on Clapham Common and a later resignation due to allegations of illicit sexual activity.
Of course, sleaze, corruption and downright 'naughtiness' have never been the property of just one party. In 2010, the Liberal Democrat David Laws was caught wrongly claiming expenses of £40,000 and in 2012, Chris Huhne and his wife were both sent to prison for perverting the course of justice over a speeding offence.
None of the above absolves current political figures from responsibility for their actions and there have been plenty of Conservatives who went every bit as wrong as their Labour and Liberal opponents, but Labour's current strategy appears to be to throw as much mud as possible in an effort to discredit a popular Prime Minister, rather than to put forward much in the way of alternative policies. Is this really what is needed ? Does the Labour Party have any actual policies ?
The people will make clear, on Thursday 6th May, what they think of Labour's approach as set against dramatic Conservative success in tackling the real issue of a viral epidemic.
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