THAT’S all, folks! After half a lifetime as The Sun’s Political Editor and columnist, I’m hanging up my quill.
Well, not quite. I will pop up in the paper occasionally, hopefully to admit I was wrong about the perils of Starmer–geddon and a one-party socialist state.
No, I’m not leaving in a huff just because nobody heeded my warning last week about a new dark age.
I decided more than a year ago — before the Tories slit their own throats — that this would be my last General Election.
I am the same age as doddery American President Joe Biden. It’s time both of us left the building.
Election night turned out to be a depressing anti-climax, with Starmer’s loveless landslide delivered by barely 20 per cent of the adult population.
No wonder he’s planning to hand the decision next time to impressionable children.
As we doom-mongers predicted, he instantly axed the Rwanda resettlement plan just as the rest of Europe is trying to adopt it for themselves.
Sir Shifty is already sidling back into the EU we chose to leave by the biggest vote in British history — despite the evidence that we have benefited from Brexit.
Talks are planned with EU leaders within days about free movement — more immigration — and closer trade ties with our neighbours, some already going bust.
Meanwhile, up to one in three jailbirds look like being let loose from Britain’s overcrowded prisons.
All we need now is the promised emergency Budget which, strangely, has been postponed until October so the Office for Budget Responsibility quango can decide whether the country can afford it.
We can be absolutely sure Rachel Reeves, our first woman Chancellor, will mark her debut with a tax-hiking punishment beating to make everyone with hard-earned savings wince.
Within months, our devolved assemblies and city halls will grab their own tax-raising powers and squeeze every lemon until the pips squeak.
Green zealot Ed Miliband will be unstoppable as he throws up new windmills and pylons costing billions across our green and pleasant land — or what’s left after they start building on it.
Just imagine what London’s slippery mayor Sadiq Khan will do with this misplaced authority.
He has already betrayed owners of expensive electric cars by breaking his vow to withhold the congestion charge on their vehicles.
Starmer’s first words as PM were designed to calm the sceptics and promise duty and responsibility.
But how long will that last before he starts tampering with our centuries-old parliamentary system of democracy — the envy of the world?
The public sector, unelected quangos, the BBC, universities and charities are already stuffed to the gills with left- leaning top brass.
Now they will get more power — and even more of your hard-earned money.
They share the new Deputy PM Angela Rayner’s view that those who voted Conservative or Reform — that’s 40 per cent of us — are Tory “scum”.
And this is the considered opinion of the most powerful woman in the land, who alongside Keir Starmer, took the knee to the dodgy Black Lives Matter movement.
Under Angie’s guidance and encouragement, the Woke Brigade will step up their incessant search for unintended offence.
As for Foreign Secretary David Lammy, fasten your seatbelts for an exciting ride as this flailing blunderbuss steers the UK through treacherous international waters.
As I said at the start, I will be the first to cheer if, at the end of Labour’s first term, I am proved wrong.
It would be worth a round of applause if the economy really is growing fast enough to pay for all that spending and borrowing to make the railways and the NHS work properly.
It would be lovely to see bog-standard comprehensives take up the slack left by abandoned private schools.
We would welcome the return of millionaires who scrambled to leave Starmer-geddon before the election.
But don’t hold your breath.
If I sound like a sore loser, I’m not. My generation has had the best of it.
I just feel sorry for all the lovely Sun readers who have made my job such a pleasure.
As for the future, did I ever say I told you so?
WELL, it’s all over now.
I’ve handed in my office phone and laptop.
My Sun email address winds up on Friday.
But remember, I’ll be back.
Just when you least expect it.
You’ll be pleased to know my brilliant co-pilot Steve Bright will continue to adorn this page alongside whoever takes over as my successor.
