Weddings bring out the best and the worst in us all. The royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton later this month will no doubt bring some people out in hives, while others will string up the bunting and rejoice.
Will there be many celebrating the union of Zara Phillips and her rugby lunkhead hub-to-be Mike Tindall later this year? Maybe not so much.
The nuptials of Ed Miliband and his long-term partner, Justine Thornton? Now you’re talking.
Modest couple: Labour leader Ed Miliband and his long-term partner Justine Thornton say they are not up for a biggie wedding
Ed’s getting married in the morning, ding dong the muffled bells aren’t going to chime.
For Ed and Justine are to marry in Nottingham in May, in what they joyously describe again and again as ‘a low-key ceremony’. No biggie. Let’s not make a fuss. They don’t even want to talk about it very much.
Ah, what is that I smell on the spring air? The unmistakeable aroma of reluctance and cold sausage rolls.
After two children and six years with Justine, Miliband claims that his sudden rush to matrimony is not politically motivated.
Hard to believe, whatever side of the political divide you might be on. Not just because it makes a mockery of his hitherto dearly held belief that marriage is absurd. Not to mention his scoffing at this and other bourgeois conventions.
Come on, Ed. Surely even someone as righteously PC as you must see that convention wins out here. Of course it does.
How could a leader of any political party in this country carry on with such a casual, ramshackle domestic arrangement and still command authority and respect?
For a start, it is much more student-like than statesmanlike. It suggests a person who is transitory and flighty, afraid of commitment — character traits that do not bed down well in the cement of politics.
I’m talking about not being married, not having his name on the birth certificate of his first child, not getting it together on the home front. It all points to a general sense of disorder.
It suggests a home where Ed never finds the time to put up those bookshelves or stick on a dark wash, or remember to pay the milkman. And if he can’t run his household, how can he run the Shadow Cabinet, not to mention the country?
And in his eagerness to make it clear it was not party pressure that finally made him pop the question, Ed is making his wedding sound like a cross between a commercial transaction and a wake, something glum to shoehorn in between the royal wedding and Obama’s visit.
No shotgun wedding: 'Ed is making his wedding sound like a cross between a commercial transaction and a wake'
This is no shotgun wedding. It is a prod-in-the-back-with-a-long-stick wedding. And increasingly, he comes across as an adenoidal Eeyore in a lose-lose situation.
Well hang on a second, as Ed himself would say. Hang on a minute. Just give me one second. Just let me say this.
‘For me,’ he said on the Today programme yesterday: ‘It is a way of expressing my love and commitment to Justine.’
Well, it is a mighty strange point in the arc of their relationship to suddenly feel the need to express that love.
And, of course, Ed was embarrassingly quick to point out that different people make different choices — that his getting married is not a disparaging comment on those who do not.
Look. You either believe in marriage or you don’t. What is so objectionable about the Miliband nuptials is that it is all so . . . lame. So excruciatingly politically correct and lacking in any real passion or excitement.
Getting married and finally being able to call the mother of your two children your wife should be a lovely and wonderful event. Ed makes it sound like another box being ticked on his flat-footed routemarch to power.
And no best man, what tosh. With the pathetic excuse that he didn’t want to ‘stick to all the conventions’, Ed has airbrushed his big brother David out of the ceremony. Or is it the other way round?
This fractured family dynamic, crippled by fraternal political ambition, continues to fascinate.
And what about Justine? Presumably, she was happy with the status quo. Now she is being dragged down the aisle by her long-term partner, presumably to make him look like more of a vote-catcher. If he had never been made leader of the Labour Party, the wedding would probably never take place.
Well. I do wonder how that makes her feel? Whatever Ed tries to dress this up as, it is a marriage of political expedience and convenience. Even though it might not be very convenient for Justine.
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Selfishness of the rioters
Following the UK Uncut riots last week, police intelligence suggests that the same mobs that rampaged through London are now planning to target the royal wedding.
Of course they are. Anything for a rumble! It’s a day out, innit? And it certainly beats washing the car, or, in the case of some posh ringleaders, fishing for salmon on Mummy and Daddy’s estate.
Judging by the scenes of mayhem, some would have use believe we are living in a new age of rage. But perhaps the truth is that there is an underlying malignancy on the streets of our cities, formed by a hard crust of protesters who just want to make trouble.
They will protest about anything. If it wasn’t tax cuts it would be animal liberation, or any one of a host of other ‘causes’.
These bouts of manufactured mass indignation are becoming tedious. To crack open a policeman’s skull with a plank of wood, to smash up the Ritz with rocks?
What cause does that help? None, except their own selfish needs. Violent protest only benefits the perpetrators. Which makes them all hypocrites, not heroes.
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Face of a mob that thinks only of itself
Grim scenes at Swindon Magistrates’ Court this week when murder suspect Chris Halliwell appeared in the dock during a preliminary hearing.
Both inside and outside the court, a baying mob of tattooed louts and fishwives monstered the accused, screaming threats of violent retribution and worse.
‘You’ll die horribly,’ they shouted, hammering on the side of the police van as onlookers applauded. ‘Sick, sick, sick,’ they chanted, to the backdrop of more applause.
Mob protest: Waiting for Christopher Halliwell arrive at Swindon Magistrates court
Of course, mobbing on the courthouse steps is nothing new. In fact, there is something rather medieval about it.
But feelings are running high in Swindon, where Halliwell has been charged with the murder of 22-year-old Sian O’Callaghan, a pretty and popular local girl.
It is desperately sad, of course — but nothing excuses the ugliness of these scenes, nor the behaviour of the people who took part in them. For the mob who took it upon themselves to get justice for Sian do her no favours. Nor do they comfort the dead girl’s grieving family, trapped in the rawness of their sudden and violent bereavement.
So why do it? Perhaps it stems from the same impulse that once propelled vigilantes seeking to vent their fury against paedophiles to attack the home of a paediatrician in Wales — someone who, if you knew how to spell correctly, was actually involved in child protection, not in child abuse.
The same impulse that motivates those prisoners who assault other inmates whose crimes they deem worse than their own.
For all these angry, vengeful people, society presents few opportunities to look down on others, to feel superior and better about themselves. So when that opportunity arises, they make the most of it. Look at the mob, sprinting down a Swindon street to howl their rage at Chris Halliwell. Among their number are tattooed brutes, galloping molls and even someone who styles himself as ‘the hardest man in Swindon’.
Whatever is at the root of their behaviour, you can see that it is not about the alleged murderer, or the murder victim and her family. Instead, it is all about them — a way of acting out their own social problems. The mob delude themselves, if no one else, that they are solely concerned with justice being done.
The courts will dispense justice — and these people should allow them to do so. This is about their own insecurities, their own sense of disenfranchisement and displacement.
This is about bundling up all those feelings of alienation and projecting them onto some handy hate figure. Let’s not kid ourselves it is about anything else. Ever.
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Victoria Beckham is upset. Believing that she would never have a daughter, she christened the family pets with her favourite girl names. Say woof to Coco the bulldog and Twiggy the terrier.
What to do, now that Posh is expecting a baby girl in the summer? Rover and Fido certainly seem inappropriate for a baby. One bookie has Luna at 2/1 and Angel at 6/1. Both hideous. My tips? Tiffani, Cappuccino or Benditlike.
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Why I still get a thrill out of Hill
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Hillary Clinton has gone through many image changes throughout her political career. First, there was the original Hillary Rodham — a geek in milk bottle spectacles and thick corduroy skirts.
Later, she was the ultimate power consort in Donna Karan suits and helmet hair. When she ran for the leadership, there was a startling period of pastels and soft waves that never quite convinced.
Now, at 63, Hillary is in her element. In London this week for the conference on Libya, she exuded authority — and looked better than she has ever done.
Power suits her. In fact, she is doing such a great job as Secretary of State, that there are moments — particularly when Obama flip-flops — when I wish stolid, steadfast Hillary was in charge.
And I am not alone. A new Gallup poll in America shows Clinton’s popularity eclipsing President Obama’s by a substantial margin. Shame, then, that Clinton recently announced that at the end of her term as U.S. Secretary of State, she will not seek any further public office.
Love her or loathe her, Hillary has had a remarkable career and is now a woman in her prime. It would be a shame to see her go.
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You can’t say that some people don’t take their health warnings seriously. In Stockport, fish and chip shops, takeaways and restaurants have been encouraged by the local council to hide the salt shakers until they’re asked for. That’s telling them!
Doesn’t this suggest, rather ludicrously, that it’s OK to scoff triple burgers with chips and deep-fried chow mein eight days a week — so long as you don’t dust them with the demon salt?
Elsewhere, there is more worry that consumers are being fooled by the labels on some food items. A plastic squeezy bottle of something called Guacamole Topping was found to contain only 3pc of rehydrated avocado. Shriek! Next they’ll be telling us there’s no salad in Salad Cream.
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Hair to the throne
Sarah Ferguson: Hair down on the big day
Kate Middleton’s wedding hair. Should it be up or down? Please.
This is a serious subject for any royal bride to consider.
Particularly one whose swinging, glossy chocolate locks are her one and only trademark.
Protocol suggests that Kate should turn up with her hair in some sort of formal updo — yet if she does, how will we ever recognise her?
I fear the occasion merits a chignon, at the very least.
The only royal bride I can recall who married with her long hair down was Fergie.
Uh oh. Bad karma. Plug in the Carmens, Kate. It’s not too late to backcomb like crazy.
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