And now, rounding off this year’s silly season

Opinion

Away from the never-ending disasters of recent years, this summer saw the return of silly season for the British press, with some truly ludicrous stories that carry more than a hint of political malice.

This is a tale of six stories — three of them remarkably silly to round off the summer, balanced by three more serious issues.

In fact, three stories — two with more than a dash of political bias — are so silly that it’s almost back to the glory days of the official silly season, when nothing happened in August and newspapers were dependent on the appearance of the Loch Ness monster.

For years now, the silly season has been almost squeezed out of existence by an apparently never-ending stream of wars, disasters and pandemics.

But the tale of the politician in a red dress raving away in an Ibiza nightclub at 4am with actress Denise van Outen, and the media outrage it has generated, qualifies as a genuine, traditional silly season story.

Thanks to detailed reporting, we now know that Angela Rayner, deputy prime minister and housing secretary, was conducting a very serious meeting last Thursday afternoon in her London office with regulators and fire chiefs following a fire in a Dagenham tower block.

By 4am, the 44-year-old, already dubbed Angela Raver, was dancing away in Hï Ibiza, which claims to be the world’s number one nightclub. For those interested, the costs involved were detailed: tickets cost £84, drinks packages come in at £80, with bottles of water priced at an extortionate £11 each.

Full media treatment

What a scandal. A senior Labour politician who has presumably been rather busy all summer is having a long weekend and letting her hair down.

Of course, Rayner was transported to the higher reaches of political fame by the unrelenting attention of right-wing tabloids about whether she paid the right amount of capital gains on a second house. Now, she only has to dance in a red dress to get the full media treatment.

Unsurprisingly, the story was transported to a new level of silliness by Nadine Dorries.

In her Daily Mail column, the former culture secretary spluttered that Rayner’s behaviour “demeaned her office”. Politicians were entitled to a break like anyone else, Dorries suggested, and it would have been fine if she had gone to Cornwall or the Outer Hebrides.

Michael Gove raved the night away in a club in Aberdeen without apparently destroying his political reputation and, it was alleged, turned up to a vote in the Commons well-refreshed. And David Cameron and Boris Johnson have done very daft dancing in their time.

A very silly story with more than a trace of political malice.

An unsettling move

Next up to receive the silly season treatment with a similar political edge — this time against the prime minister — was the great scandal of the moving of the Margaret Thatcher portrait, commissioned by former premier Gordon Brown, from her old study in Downing Street.

Sir Keir Starmer, who has in the past expressed admiration for the way Lady Thatcher had pulled Britain out of its previous torpor, holds meetings in her old room and finds it “unsettling” to have her looking down at him.

A great diary story, but hardly worth the headline treatment it received.

Starmer was accused of removing the portrait, even though all he did was move it from one part of Downing Street to another.

Johnson whimsically suggested that the portrait was probably relieved it no longer had to share an office with him, before strangely accusing Starmer of being “the only prime minister to look at the world through sleaze-tainted spectacles”.

It is a bizarre claim — certainly from one of the few prime ministers to have been drummed out of office by his own colleagues.

Im-paw-tant story

By contrast, the third story is silly in a way that does not seek to traduce the characters of either the prime minister or his deputy.

The story of Larry the Downing Street mouser, who is getting on a bit and is about to be challenged by some Starmer-introduced felines, is a charming one.

Preparations are already under way, according to The Times, for the natural demise of Larry.

And now we know the Starmers have not just introduced JoJo, their rescue cat, but the children have also brought a Siberian kitten (as-yet-unnamed) into Number 10.

The pensioner vote

On a more serious note, the Starmer-attacking press is right to have a go at the Labour government for ending winter fuel allowances for all pensioners apart from the minority receiving pension credits.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has to raise money from somewhere, given the £22bn black hole, but the measure is too tightly drawn at a time of rising energy costs.

Indeed, 10m pensioners are affected and several million of those are not wealthy — and many just above the pension credit threshold could be in real need.

Even though the next election is nearly five years off, it is surely bad politics to piss off 10m pensioners. The prime minister should be persuaded to change his mind.

Elsewhere, there is also something odd about banning smoking outdoors. Indoors, such a ban is very necessary and has long been accepted because of the dangers of passive smoking.

While smokers should be encouraged to give up, the price in pub closures could be greater than any benefit to non-smokers.

The Brexit effect

Finally, there is a small but perfectly formed scandal involving Starmer where the press should not pull its punches.

Starmer has blocked the UK rejoining the Erasmus scheme, which would allow UK university students to study in the European Union — even though 75% of the population support it.

The biggest hole at the centre of the Labour government is not the missing £22bn but the missing £100bn a year in lost output, according to Bloomberg, that results from Brexit.

Now that silly season is officially over, it is time for the non-Brexit-supporting press to hold Starmer to account over his stubborn Brexit views.

As political expert Sir John Curtice argued recently, Starmer had nothing to fear from the “red wall” seats over Brexit and a pro-EU stance would have given Labour an even larger share of the vote at the general election.

It is the duty of the media to remind the prime minister that it is now the will of the majority of British people to rejoin the European Union and he should act on that reality.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — read his column here.