Casual Cambridges Pose For Their 2020 Christmas Card

William and Kate were pictured posing on a bale of hay with their children in the photograph, which features on the festive card sent to friends, associates and their organisations and charities.

Prince George, aged seven, Princess Charlotte, aged five, and two-year-old Prince Louis can be seen smiling as they sat with their parents, who were also smiling.

The Cambridges and their children were all casually attired for their Christmas picture, taken at Anmer Hall, which has an extensive woodpile as its backdrop.

Photographer Matt Porteous has previously received other royal commissions from William and Kate, including capturing behind the scene moments from Louis’s christening.

The release of the photograph follows the rare public appearance of the Cambridges’ children who, with their parents, attended a London pantomime on Friday for key workers and their families.

The Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall have also published their Christmas card photo showing the couple seated in a garden at their home in Birkhall, Aberdeenshire.

Charles and Camilla relaxed on a bench in the historic property’s organic garden in the glowing autumn sunshine. The picture was taken by a member of their staff and shows the couple casually attired for the photograph.

William, Kate and their children are stunning and I’m sure William’s mother, Diana would have been proud, and this is a really good image for Britain, but some people don’t realise that the prospective king is Charles and he could reign like his mother till his nineties.

And perhaps when the Queen dies, the days of the Royal Family are numbered and it could be that this Tory Government stops funding this out of date institution, and the way Boris Johnson is going that might just be the case because he seems to want to be the president of England, and he seems to think that he’s very God-like.

Perhaps William and Kate are trying their best to look human, with their artificial smiles, and they have all the privileges of the underemployed super-rich whose income is guaranteed by the state.

They may be nice people with adorable children, but there’s a lot of families just like them who have proper jobs and lives, not this childish facade of royalty and exceptionalism.

Who cares about their Christmas card – it’s all about royal marketing, and there are more important things to deal with than thinking about the Cambridges and Windsors, and here’s something to smile about – while the rest of us struggle and don’t know if our jobs are safe or we could lose everything – chin-up every one, here’s a card to make it all alright.

Mum Of Eight On Benefits Defends Planning A Holiday To Spain

Marie Buchan defended her expedition because she needed a holiday after the stress of looking after her children at home during the coronavirus pandemic.

The 39-year-old, from Birmingham, plans to give her family the best Christmas that she can before rushing to Alicante.

The lockdown has impacted everyone, she said, and she continued that people are losing their jobs but that where they’ve been put on furlough the Government are paying 80 per cent of their wages.

She said that Government claimants like herself – a mum of eight, are overlooked, and she said that her children have been home for most of the year because the schools and colleges have had coronavirus outbreaks or have been closed.

She continued that they haven’t got a laptop at home to access classes online, and they can’t afford one without getting in debt because the assistance isn’t there, and she said that people have to provide for their children but they’ve had no increase whatsoever to help with food, travel and heating and that they’ve had nothing at all.

She said that people might say she’s a Government claimant sponging off the state but she wonders how much help those people have had. Did they take the 80 per cent through the furlough, or did they say no?

She said it’s been a tremendous struggle, and shops that have shut down have had help, but that they’ve had no help at all.

Marie claims benefits totalling about £500 each week, enabling her to run a household for her children aged between six and 16, and she previously said sexism has held her back from pursuing a career as a mechanic after attaining a Level 2 diploma in the trade.

The former lap dancer also told This Morning that life was better on benefits than working. She then came under fire for spending £2,500 on breast augmentation surgery at a private clinic in Turkey.

The Brummie said that the cost of food and bills was going up all the time, everything from food to electricity, and she said that she should be back in college but with the children at home because of COVID, she hasn’t been able to go back.

She also said that she wants to go back to work, but right now, where does she turn? But Marie said she will be taking the week-long holiday in the New Year, which she regards as a much-needed break.

Is it just me because I just don’t get why she thinks she’s entitled to more benefits because of the pandemic.

So many hardworking singles and couples have lost their jobs and they should be first in line for any benefits as they’ve contributed to the system, and doesn’t the father pay something towards his children’s needs – perhaps not!

She also decides that she’s entitled to a weeks holiday – I’m sure there are far more meritorious people like nurses and doctors. They and many other people are working their goolies off just to survive.

The welfare state is correct for those who fall on hard times and this story is precisely why people who struggle get irritated, to say the least, and sadly media focus is in people like herself so society believes that the majority of benefit claimants are like her, which isn’t the case.

This woman allegedly can afford plastic surgery but she can’t afford a laptop for her children, well doesn’t your heart bleed for her? She could have easily got a refurbished laptop cheap, but instead, her priorities are all wrong.

Was The EU Ever Going To Offer Britain A Good Deal?

The announcement that Brexit negotiations are set to continue will no doubt alarm Brexiteers who fear compromise.

In fairness to Brussels however, they set out their stall early on and stuck to the script.

The EU is unwilling, as they see it, to let Britain have its cake and eat it, by having large access to the EU’s market while not being a member or leaving the club and not paying a price.

This might explain what could otherwise be seen as an unduly recalcitrant attitude and it also demonstrates why any deal which the EU agrees to is likely to be on its terms.

If EU membership were as onerous as the Brexiteers suggest, the United Kingdom would have left decades ago. Instead, it stayed a member for almost 47 years, albeit in a comatose state for the last three.

In the decades before the 2016 referendum, fewer than 10 per cent of UK voters cited Europe as the most important issue.

Indeed, as late as December 2015, a mere one per cent did.

Only after the Leave vote did its salience spike, 47 per cent now name it the most important issue. In other words, contrary to David Cameron’s claims, it was the politicians who led the public rather than the public who led the politicians.

In a little-noticed piece, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s senior adviser and Vote Leave’s campaign director, argued last year that an EU referendum was a choice, not a necessity.

The belief that there was an irresistible force for a referendum was pushed by Nigel Farage’s and David Cameron’s supporters – Dominic Cummings wrote that they were both wrong.

The country supported one but without any passion outside the small fraction who had long been passionate about it. Most Tory MPs didn’t want it.

David Cameron wanted to be prime minister. After all, he believed he’d be good at it and he held a referendum because he thought he could win it and resolve the European question – he achieved the reverse.

From the moment the United Kingdom voted to leave, the status quo ceased to exist.

The spectre of the 2016 referendum will eternally haunt any decision to remain in the EU and there’s no easy way to leave and what some desire is a past that no longer exists.

Britain decides to leave and then wants a grandiose send-off. That’s a bit like filing for divorce and then expecting a floral bouquet.

Was the United Kingdom ever going to have reasonable expectations on what an acceptable deal might look like? Extremely unlikely. Our Government couldn’t negotiate their way out of a paper bag.

And the area with the smallest population, therefore the smallest market will always lose out but only Boris Johnson and co are complacent enough to believe they can reverse the laws of economics.

And the EU isn’t going to change the rules encircling 27 nations to accommodate one country that wants to exit, it’s as straightforward as that, forget all the touchy-feely folly.

The EU needs to appreciate it no longer makes the rules to cover the United Kingdom and at the moment they don’t and the United Kingdom is deluded if they believe this was going to be the easiest trade deal ever, or maybe they were deceived?

Although I must admit the EU made it obvious from the beginning they only wanted to punish us, yet we’ve frittered years in fruitless negotiations.

What was thought to be a good deal was never truly noted down anywhere and I can only assume that a good deal was one where the United Kingdom could gain the obligations of EU membership.

I guess the leverage for accomplishing this was the negative trade imbalance – the problem being that a negative balance is seldom a position of strength and we really do need them more than they need us, although clearly nobody is a winner.

Man Imprisoned For Jet Skiing From Scotland To The Isle Of Man

Dale McLaughlan, 28, had never driven a jet ski before he set off for the 25-mile trip from the Isle of Whithorn to Ramsey on Friday. The journey took him four and a half hours to finish, Douglas Courthouse heard.

He’d previously met his girlfriend while working on the island as a roofer for four weeks in September, but his ensuing applications to return had been rejected.

Prosecutors said he’d believed the trip by jet ski would take him about 40 minutes.

Once McLaughlan arrived, he trekked another 15 miles to his girlfriend’s home in Douglas and gave a police officer her address as his own the next day.

The court heard she believed he’d been on the island for several weeks, and the pair went to two nightspots together after his arrival.

Police arrested him on Sunday evening following identification checks.

The court heard he was suffering from depression and had been struggling without his partner.

McLaughlan, a father of two, admitted arriving on the island unlawfully, as he didn’t have clearance to enter the British Crown dependency under existing COVID laws. He was imprisoned for four weeks.

Deputy High Bailiff Christopher Arrowsmith told him he had made a calculated and deliberate attempt to circumnavigate constraints put in place to protect the island.

He also commented that the trip had put McLauglan at very real risk of harm, as he journeyed across the Irish Sea unprotected.

McLaughlan’s mother Allison said she didn’t know what her son had planned on doing until she saw his arrest in the news and she told a news outlet that she didn’t even know about the jet ski and that she just didn’t know why he did it, he could have killed himself and she added that he’ll be missing his children over Christmas.

But that’s dedication for you, he should have been given an accolade, yet he was imprisoned. He should have been given a pat on the back for the effort.

Four and a half hours on a jet ski, well she must be awesome in the sack, but there’s no way he travelled four and a half hours and then travelled 15 miles, he would have been knackered, oh and then went out clubbing it up.

Nobody is going to be of any use to their partner after four and a half hours on a jet ski – did he have a box of milk tray? And at least he would have been social distancing, there was no one near him but the sea.

And this is a prisonable offence? All because the Isle of Man has its regulations and entering without authorisation isn’t permitted because of its COVID restrictions and the island is closed to normal visitors – bit harsh don’t you think?

This was pure dedication, perhaps she should marry him and who said romance was dead, bless him.

This is a harsh punishment for quite a romantic story and it’s a shame he will be in jail over Christmas, although I’m sure his girlfriend was a wee bit complicit in this.

If only he’d gone to Durham Castle instead, Dominic Cummings got away with it, yet this poor man got put in jail. Hail Dominic Cummings and put him in prison as well then, because what’s good for one is good for another.

Perhaps we should call this guy Bond… James Bond.

And I’m not sure what law he broke? The Government said your allowed out for a stroll, it didn’t stipulate where.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan Urges Government To Reconsider Christmas COVID Rules

Sadiq Khan has called on the Government to rethink the Christmas rules as cases soar in London.

The Mayor of London suggested the Christmas rules could be relaxed in a way that was less unsafe than currently planned.

Sadiq Khan also told families to be careful around their elderly loved ones, adding that this virus doesn’t respect Christmas.

It comes after a Government minister told families to do the minimum over Christmas and warnings from scientists that relaxing restrictions would induce a spike.

The Mayor told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that they’d heard from Matt Hancock and it seemed the Government were looking at this again and that he would encourage them to do so if they are.

He said that his concern was that numerous people may have the virus, not realise it and then they could pass the virus onto an older relation.

He continued that we’re so near now to the end of this – the vaccine is being rolled out and families will kick themselves if they pass the virus on during Christmas.

The Mayor said he could comprehend why the Government allowed for respite over Christmas but added that he wasn’t sure whether five days worth of relaxation was the right way forward.

Pressed if he was saying the Government needed to reconsider those rules, he responded that he was worried about going from Tier 2 to Tier Zero to Tier 3 potentially to a national lockdown and the NHS being overwhelmed in January and lives being lost.

Pressed again, he added that he believed the Government should be looking at the rules again.

Sadiq Khan said the rules weren’t compulsory and that just because families are permitted to see other households, it didn’t mean they had to and he added that if you’re seeing an older relation, for understandable reasons, there’s no need for you to kiss, embrace or spend too much time hugging them.

Scientists have warned that the intended easing of constraints over the festive period will yield a spike in infections.

It comes as London and some surrounding regions are set to cruise into Tier 3 on Wednesday.

Downing Street has insisted there are no plans to change the Christmas bubble policy, which permits a maximum of three households to get together between December 23 and 27.

Businesses are being closed again to try to hinder the spread and schools were shut early in some locations as some kids were, according to GMB yesterday the most highly infected group.

And do people care what Sadiq Khan says? He was delinquent for the party and we frankly didn’t see him all through the first lockdown in March for three months the first time, and then he came out of hiding when the BLM demonstration occurred.

People should be permitted to make their own choice because no law has been passed saying it’s mandatory not to get together and adults should be allowed to evaluate the dangers and choose for themselves.

It’s Christmas time and that means families getting together, but that can be taken away without warning if the Government chooses to do so, but many elderly people spend Christmas isolated and alone.

It’s a roast dinner for God’s sake with a soggy mince pie and many playing happy families that barely bother the rest of the year. With increased debts, domestic violence and marital breakdowns and it’s an overrated hype that many buy into.

Let’s give a sweet sherry and COVID to granny, along with the family member who’s got the undiagnosed health condition, then there will be the guilt and an empty chair next Christmas.

Loving your family as many profess to may mean not seeing them but fools will do it anyhow regardless and then there will be more whimpering and groaning in the New Year.

Isolation or COVID tests before the day is the only safe choice, not winging it and hoping for the best!

PSYCHO KILLER

Marcin Zdun, 40, has been charged with the murder of Aneta Zdun, 40, and 18-year-old Nikoleta Zdun after he allegedly killed them both at their home.

The women were discovered seriously injured at their home in Salisbury, Wiltshire, on June 1 and were pronounced dead at the scene.

The Tesco employee told Winchester Crown Court he thought his care worker wife had been having an affair with a colleague of his.

He said he suspected this man because of the way he was looking at him, and that he had this piercing look and fury in his eyes, and he believed he’d put a bug on his phone with the help of a friend.

Zdun said he and his wife were sleeping in separate rooms because she didn’t want to have sex any more, and he said that he believed that perhaps she had someone on the side.

He added he thought his daughter was covering up for his wife, who would go out in the evenings without saying where she was going.

The court heard he complained that his wife and daughter were like best friends and he was envious of their relationship and felt they were forcing him out of the marriage.

Zdun also said that his wife was not helping to clean the house or make family dinners, despite only working three days a week.

He said he put videos of the untidiness on Facebook, as well of stale soup in the fridge, to show people who would not believe him, and he said he didn’t have the strength to do the housework himself because he worked night shifts.

The Tesco worker said that this led to quarrels between him and his wife, and he also argued with his daughter after she wanted to have facial piercings.

Speaking through an interpreter, the Polish national said that he wouldn’t let his daughter do many things and that he wouldn’t let her have a tattoo done or piercings, but that her mother would let her do everything anyhow, so she still had them done.

He said that his wife and daughter were just sticking together and that they would just laugh at him and they would do anything they wanted to, and that they didn’t do anything around the home and that they would just go out whenever they wanted and that he didn’t know where they were going.

He added that his wife and daughter were spending his hard-earned cash and they were just laughing in his face and that he felt ridiculed and abused in his own home, but Zdun was accused by the prosecution of having a controlling nature over his family.

Nicholas Haggan QC, prosecuting, told the jury that the defendant hadn’t denied killing his wife and daughter, but had no memory of the incident.

The court heard that when Zdun was arrested at the scene of the killings, police found a folding lock knife in his trouser pocket with bloodstains on the blade and handle.

Zdun denies two charges of murder and the trial continues.

Violence Breaks Out During Pro-Trump Demonstration

Violence broke out on the streets of Washington DC as thousands of Donald Trump supporters paraded on the capital to protest against the election of Joe Biden.

At least 11 people were apprehended during the pro-Trump demonstration with fistfights breaking out between members of the far-right groups, including the Proud Boys, and counter-protestors across the metropolis.

Thousands of Trump supporters assembled on Freedom Plaza and heard various speakers including pardoned National Security Adviser Michael Flynn spout mistruths about the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s presidential victory.

It came only a day after the Supreme Court repudiated Texas’ endeavour to overturn the election results in four key battleground states and secured Joe Biden’s win beyond dispute, confirming what local, state, and federal officials of both parties, including US attorney general William Barr, have said since November 3.

The clashes began before the demonstrations even started, as five were apprehended Friday night on charges including disorderly behaviour, instigating violence, and assault after an affray, but the violence didn’t prevent President Trump from supporting the rally.

‘Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington (D.C.) for Stop the Steal. Didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them! #MAGA’, he tweeted on Saturday morning.

Various groups took part in arranging Saturday’s rallies, including groups like Women for America First, the Million Maga March, which managed a similar event in Washington in November, and the Proud Boys.

Videos of altercations between groups of rival protestors were shared on social media with instances of people in pro-Trump clothing attacking spectators, and according to USA Today, one spectator was caught pulling a knife after clashing with Trump supporters.

At least six people were apprehended during the day, and as darkness fell over the capitol, Proud Boys and counter-protestors were in fistfights across downtown DC, which led to at least one ambulance being called.

Police attempted to intervene in different ways, including forming defence lines between Proud Boys and protestors and spraying chemical irritants, but small groups of protestors reportedly broke away and continued to brawl in the street.

Speakers at the demonstrations on Saturday ranged from fringe figures like Sebastian Gorka to Flynn and President Trump’s former national security adviser who was recently exonerated after fibbing to federal authorities about his contacts with Russian officials.

Videos of his presence at the march also went viral, though that was because his sister appeared to forget the vocals to ‘God Bless America’ as she descanted to the masses.

This is all extremely sad. Donald Trump was the leader who could not lead and his only concern was causing damage. He never cared about his whole nation, not once.

Donald Trump was the leader prompting supporters to overthrow due democratic process and it’s shocking and the man needs to be arrested when he leaves office and hopefully, when Donald Trump leaves office, the hogwash lies will stop.

But this is what you get when the leader of a nation facilitates the inbuilt brutality and hate gangs with no conscience or care for the damage and misery they cause, but eventually, they’ll wither away, along with Donald Trump. However, Donald Trump appears to want to be dictator for life!

And these Proud Boys, well, that’s what they call themselves – sounds like a collective coming out of the closet and it looks like fascism is on the rise – these are dangerous times.

I do abhor violence, but it seems that these days we’re so politically polarised and we, the people are a pawn in their game and don’t even realise it.

We’re all being played like a fiddle, but people just can’t see it and if everyone quit turning on each other for just one second and looked at what’s really going on and has been going on for decades, then we might just grasp what’s really going on, but people won’t do that because they’re caught up in the whole left/right – we’re right, their wrong mindset.

Meanwhile, America and the world are in big trouble and this is just the beginning and I hate to break it to you folks, but neither Joe Biden nor any other President will fix it.

Boris Johnson’s Drive To Cut Obesity Rates Generally Inefficient

According to new research calling for a far more wide-ranging response to the obesity problem, Boris Johnson’s plea to Britons to slim down in response to the pandemic hasn’t helped most people lose weight.

Warnings about the possible added risks COVID 19 poses to people with obesity are essentially futile, the study uncovered.

It said ministers put too much focus on individual willpower and not enough on the environmental and economic factors of obesity.

A Social Market Foundation (SMF) study said bigger barriers must be tackled, such as food deserts, and that areas of more than a million people where deprivation, poor transportation and a shortage of supermarkets restrict access to affordable fruits and vegetables.

A survey conducted for SMF discovered that only 28 per cent of people who describe themselves as living with obesity said they were taking measures to lose weight because of the pandemic.

The think tank found that while this was higher than the 20 per cent of the general population taking measures to lose weight, it still demonstrated that Government messages on overweight and COVID have done little to assist people with obesity manage their condition.

Meanwhile, 37 per cent of those living with obesity said they haven’t yet taken measures to lose weight, but are considering doing so.

Almost three in 10 (28 per cent) said the COVID situation would not lead them to lose weight.

There’s now a clear link between obesity and the risk of a severe response to COVID.

It raises the risk of dying from the infection by about 50 per cent and may make vaccines less effective, according to a study by the University of North Carolina, the Saudi Health Council and the World Bank.

Almost a third (27 per cent) of people with obesity surveyed in the SMF/Opinium poll, said their diet had declined in the pandemic, and 31 per cent said it had led them to do less exercise.

Boris Johnson, who established the anti-obesity strategy this summer, was said to have become inspirational about the matter after his harrowing episode of COVID.

The strategy includes advertisements across all media, and plans are being drawn up to prohibit online junk food ads, the most challenging digital marketing constraints in the world. Nevertheless, the National Audit Office has warned that the Government will not, as intended, halve childhood obesity in England by 2030.

Perhaps this is the best we can expect from Boris Johnson, although there have been some things that he’s been effective at, but none of them favourable or for the benefit of those who elected him.

Most of all, he’s embarrassed the entire country, fibbing, doing things in his own interest and brutalising politics, and Boris Johnson’s campaign to do something effective has become largely ineffective.

A black Ballerina Told To Whiten Her Skin To Blend In

A black ballet dancer has claimed an instructor told her to whiten her skin to fit in for performances.

Chloé Lopes Gomes was the first black dancer commissioned by the well-known German ballet company Staatsballet in 2018, but she told a news outlet she was the victim of discrimination almost straight away.

The 29-year-old claims her instructor requested that she use cosmetics to lighten her skin for Swan Lake and refused to give her a white veil along with everyone else because of the hue of her skin.

The French ballerina didn’t speak English or German when she first went to work in Berlin but was able to communicate with her mentor in Russian as she’d trained at Russia’s renowned Bolshoi Ballet.

She said this is why none of her classmates was able to hear the instructor’s comments.

The ballet mistress also evidently made her pose to recreate a picture of a black dancer surrounded by white dancers.

The dancer said she told the company’s co-artistic director at the time about her teacher’s actions, and he responded saying she should never be made to whiten her skin, but he also apparently said he couldn’t do anything about it because the instructor had a lifetime contract.

In October, the company told Ms Gomes her contract wouldn’t be renewed because they’d cut staff during the pandemic, but the ballerina has employed a lawyer to take the company on, it was reported.

Although ballerinas often whiten their skin for Swan Lake performances, Ms Gomes said this would be ineffective for her because her skin would never be the same hue as white people.

Staatsballet released a statement on Tuesday saying they were investigating archaic and discriminatory styles of performances.

The same statement addressed allegations that a separate staff member made weird noises in front of Asian dancers to imitate their language, and compared a Mexican ballerina to Pocahontas.

Interim artistic director Christine Theobald said that the racist and prejudiced behaviour that was brought to light in their company deeply moved them and that the necessary skills and tools to deal with matters of prejudice needed to be worked on thoroughly.

It’s incredible that the company have been so discriminatory because there are black swans as well, and they’re beautiful, but this is so unfair – what does it matter if you’re black or white, if she was good for the part when she had her audition, then the way she looked then, shouldn’t matter now.

She was employed due to her exceptional dancing capabilities and not her ethnicity or shade of skin, and she’s stunning the way that she is.

She was the victim of discrimination, yet she hung in there and done what she was told to do without quitting.

Discrimination has been rampant for an extremely long time and it will presumably carry on like this until the end of time, but people of ethnic minority and white people should all be regaled the same.

Many years ago we had an image of a rag doll on the side of the Robinson’s jam jars that were deemed racist. I loved them as a child and I didn’t see anything wrong in them, apart from their moniker, point being, just alter the name of them.

Then we had blackboards, now they’re whiteboards. Nothing immoral in a blackboard, it’s black and it’s a board.

What is wrong is when people seemingly make a point of identifying it with ethnic people, then it’s a problem.

I once had a doll that had two faces, one on either side of the doll, one side was ethnic and the other side was white. That doesn’t make me a racist – I’m the least racist person there is, and to me, that doll signified that I loved everybody equally. Do you see this as a problem, because I certainly don’t!

Boris Johnson’s Brexit Coiffure

There’s more to politics than flash outfits and slick hair cuts, but the Prime Minister’s wayward style doesn’t exactly scream, ‘I’ve got this’.
How do you prepare for crunch time Brexit discussions with the President of the European Commission, the outcome of which will irrevocably affect our country’s future?
For Boris Johnson, the solution was simple, by debuting a hairstyle so mind boggling bad that discussion of its abject awfulness managed to obscure the finer aspects of exactly what was agreed over that seafood dinner with Ursula von der Leyden – extremely shrewd.
2020 has been a bad hair year for the best of us, with prolonged shop closures prompting many to attempt at home cuts and ill-advised dye jobs, but Boris Johnson’s latest attempt to tackle his bleach blonde mane should provide a cautionary tale for the scissor happy among us.
We’re going to be sympathetic here and assume that this cut was a DIY job involving kitchen implements because surely no professional could have created such a thing in good faith, or was Carrie Symonds the offender, baby Wilfred, or even maybe Dilyn the dog?
The offending cut is so puzzling it virtually defies description.
The typical Johnsonian through a hedge backwards texture is present and correct, but it’s only when approached from the side that it becomes apparent just what horrors we’re dealing with.
The short, thick mono layer calls to mind a thatched roof, or Robin Hood’s sidekick Friar Tuck, both the best of British icons in their way, I guess.
Hairdresser Michael Van Clarke, founder of the eponymous Marylebone salon, rather charitably explains that the Prime Minister’s gone some way in having his hair cut shorter and a little neater on the nape.
However, his current style lacks the subtle layering around the ears, which is why it has a hard edge and is evocative of a short pudding basin effect of the 1970s.
We can only surmise that Boris Johnson had an image of Mackenzie Crook as The Office’s dwelling weirdo Gareth Keenan on his Pinterest mood board – Mackenzie Crook, appropriately, will represent flaxen haired scarecrow Worzel Gummidge, another possible reference point for the Prime Minister.
The difference between Boris Johnson and his well groomed, sharply decked European peers couldn’t be starker in a photo released as the last ditch debates kicked off in Brussels.
The Prime Minister could have utilized the press call as a bit of ad hoc promotion for the marvels of Savile Row tailoring. Instead, with his ill-fitting, comically proportioned suit, he seemed to have raided the wardrobe of cast-offs and an am dram production of Bugsy Malone.
There’s more to politics than flash outfits and fashionable hair cuts, but this eccentric look doesn’t exactly impregnate you with confidence, does it?
Van Clarke said that he doesn’t want to appear to make too much effort and the nonchalant, ruffled, unpredictable nature of the style may be sort of reverse power dressing – a wee bit like Dominic Cummings at No 10 in t shirts.
Perhaps worst of all, though, was the moment, caught for posterity on camera, when Boris Johnson took his hands from his pockets, where they’d previously been placed with all the statesmanlike ease of a naughty school boy braced for a telling off to deliberately add a little more finger in socket zhuzh to his already chaotic do.
It was a telling reminder that Boris Johnson’s image making strategy isn’t as chaotic as it might seem at first glance.
He loves to portray the joker in an attempt to persuade the electorate that he’s not like other politicians, he’s really an amusing japester.
In fact, turning up to historic negotiations with a historically crap hairdo might just be a back handed power tactic.
But his bedraggled appearance makes him look somewhat vulnerable and a bit of a posh fellow with a sense of humour, hence why he seems to appeal across the electorate, although his mane has worn a little thin now and in time not many people will think he’s a lovable clown, but more of an incompetent buffoon – even Jeremy Corbyn tidied himself up eventually and Boris Johnson should do the same.

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