ABSOLUTELY no one seems capable of calling tonight’s US election results.
So while the polls are pretty much 50/50, and political commentators remain circumspect, there is one faction of society absolutely ADAMANT they can single-handedly swing the tightest US election in modern history: celebrities.
With weary inevitability, the great ’n’ good of Hollywood have swapped their high heels for the high road and the red carpets for the blue flags of Democracy, with a capital D.
Jennifer Lopez, then, appears to be under the distinct impression that her on-stage appearance next to Kamala Harris will see middle America veritably flocking to the polls to put an X by her name.
As if a woman who sang Jenny From The Block and Booty brings with it a political clout hitherto missing from Harris’s rigorous 100 day campaign.
The usual suspects — Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Oprah — have all backed Kamala.
George Clooney also put down his Nespresso pods long enough to give Kamala his nod. Back to the grind, quite literally, for him.
Others to publicly endorse the former Attorney General include Bruce Springsteen, Eminem, Usher, Stevie Wonder and Lizzo.
But the celebrity nails in the coffin for poor old Donald must be Bad Bunny and Brooklyn Beckham’s ex-girlfriend.
(Puerto Rican rapper Bunny declared his interest only after a Trump-supporting “comic” called his native country a “pile of garbage”, and Brooklyn’s actress ex Chloe Moretz posted her support for Kamala while also coming out as gay. Two birds one stone, eh?)
Because, obviously, Donald Trump is not cool.
But Kamala Harris, a woman perhaps light on policy but heavy on political correctness, is.
And you don’t have to have a high IQ — something Trump and the American Right are weirdly obsessed with — to know this.
In his corner, Trump has a more eclectic range of celebrity fans: Mel Gibson (a man latterly famed for his anti-Semitic rants), Hulk Hogan, Elon Musk and controversial reality host, Dr Phil.
These men could, in themselves, be enough to send decent Americans running to vote Harris.
A declaration for Trump from a female star would be career suicide.
This, after all, is a man who once claimed “celebrities” like him can do anything to a woman, including “grab her by the p**y”.
Donald, it’s fair to say, is not the kind of chap to wear the famous “This is what a feminist looks like” T-shirt.
But this patronising politics of celebrity endorsement is a double- edged sword.
Sure, Donald isn’t an especially kind man but by going against him, stars are playing into the Republican PR playbook — the notion that the Democrats are the party of the liberal, West Coast, socialist champagne elite.
That they don’t represent real people with real-world problems.
The likes of Taylor and Co can happily afford tax hikes — struggling working-class Americans cannot.
And that by relying on the likes of Beyonce at a recent rally in Texas for heady, glamorous headlines, Kamala and her team don’t have any real substance.
Perhaps if celebs stopped making it all about them, it’d be less grating.
Until then it’s enough, ALMOST, to make me want to see Big Orange Donald reign supreme.
Almost.
* Granted, the bar is set low against an overweight orange man rambling on about immigrants eating cats.
THE Conservative Party’s fightback starts here.
Kemi Badenoch’s appointment as leader will surely terrify her wobbling counterpart – a PM playing fast and loose with public trust.
She is a woman with indefatigable determination, energy and a willingness to effect change.
That she is yet another female leader, the Tories’ fourth, and a person of colour – their second consecutive – has barely been mentioned.
Which is real progress.
And something that must further infuriate Labour.
They, after all, are a party yet to appoint a female leader and one that struggles to even define a woman, let alone protect us in certain spaces.
Meanwhile, ol’ David Lammy must be chewing the skirting boards in frustration.
As one commentator wryly observed yesterday: “Plainly irked that he is not the first black Foreign Secretary, [he instead] boasts of being the first ‘black working-class man from Tottenham’ to hold the job.”
Kemi’s success must be a sucker punch.
LAST week The Sun’s design gurus ingeniously mocked up Rachel Reeves as a pumpkin to mark her Halloween Budget horror show.
But my thanks to reader Lloyd, who wrote in suggesting the Chancellor has a far better lookalike: Little Britain’s Camilla Fry. Brilliant.
UNTIL now, you may not have heard of him.
But Peanut the squirrel had over three million “likes” on TikTok and Instagram, and was a beautiful, fluffy-tailed beacon of joy in an increasingly depressing online world.
Peanut was a rescue squirrel, saved by his owner Mark Longo after his mother was run over in Manhattan.
Having been nurtured back to health then unsuccessfully returned to the wild, Mark cared for Peanut for seven years.
Peanut captured global hearts with his videos eating waffles, welcoming Mark home, doing tricks and demanding cuddles.
Not any more.
Because, following complaints from a few people for whom there is a special place in hell awaiting, Peanut has been euthanised by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
The organisation stated they’d learned the squirrel was “sharing a residence with humans, creating the potential for human exposure to rabies”.
To be clear, Peanut the squirrel lived on an upstate NY farm – one where rescue animals were saved and allowed to live out their remaining years roaming free, all in Peanut’s name.
Humans are the real animals.
NOW I don’t really believe in reincarnation. (And hopefully the Buddha isn’t a column devotee.)
But, unquestionably, had I previously enjoyed trips around the sun, then they’d have been circumnavigated while I was a crow.
Turns out, crows can hold grudges for up to 17 years.
AWWW, so Russell Brand is potentially facing criminal chargie-wargies.
The “comedian” – from personal experience, not a very nice man – tweeted cryptically about “forgiveness” just hours after it emerged detectives investigating historical sex offence allegations had passed a file of evidence to the CPS to consider bringing charges.
The Booky Wook author, who was last month flogging £280 “magical amulets” to ward off WiFi evils, vehemently denies any wrongdoing.
As one observer on X remarked: “I wonder if his special necklace will protect him” should he go to prison.
Let’s see.
FAIR play to Nigella Lawson.
This is a woman who has never, ever preached about what we shouldn’t be eating.
A woman who advocates roasting a hunk of ham in Coca-Cola (non-diet), tosses her penne in vodka and double-butters her toast.
And a woman who is now coining it in as the festive face of Greggs.
Nigella is being paid big bucks by the pastry firm because, unlike so many female stars, she looks like she might actually enjoy the odd sausage, cheese and bean melt (£2.40).
Sometimes it really does pay to live and let live.
NOT all superheroes wear capes.
An Iranian student has become an overnight icon of defiance and bravery after stripping to her underwear and parading around the campus of the country’s prestigious Islamic Azad University.
Described as a public protest against Iran’s archaic dress code, she was reportedly beaten up by authorities, arrested and put in a mental asylum.
In an age of faux feminism (lazy hashtags and airbrushed bikini pictures promoting body positivity with #BoPo) this is real feminism.
