My Dad used to read Rupert to me after lunchtime. I used to climb up on his knee and he would openthe paper and read that day’s episode. I used to get Rupert Annuals every Christmas, until I got too old and then it was Mallory Towers.
I was always on the left of the Tories, but as that has disappeared from the party so have I.
I used to have a golliwog that I picked out of a lucky dip at a Christmas party and do you remember Little Black Sambo?
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OH had a poncho with golliwog badges (from Golden Shred) and still has them somewhere.
Happy days - may be worth a fortune someday!
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Rupert was the first thing I looked for after Father Christmas had visited. Not to get a Rupert Annual was a deeply shocking experience, I know! Some years the Elves didn’t make enough, it seems 
I was only partly consoled by Beano annual.
I do. I think all those characters were affectionately drawn, and Little Black Sambo no more diminishing than the rather simple-minded and accident-prone character with a huge bristly chin and an appetite for Cow Pie. What was his name? My mind is stuck on Buffalo Bill, but I don’t think that’s right.
Desperate Dan.
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You’re almost right… Desperate Dan 
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Little Black Sambo came out in 1899 though. Desperate Dan first appeared in 1937, very different times.
I liked the very unsuitable for children Barry McKenzie 
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Barry Mackenzie was grosser than gross, grossissimus. I miss him. What’s happened to him? The world is infinitely more decent and less coarse, lewd, gross and loathsome without him, more’s the pity.
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He’s on a bookshelf chez moi
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Hoping he is biding his time and will have the big guns ready when needed.
Is it possible that Labour will be the party of order and traditional values opposing the anarchic Tory revolutionaries?
Starmer is as ‘dull as ditchwater’ but a safe pair of hands to re-build voter trust in Labour, for now he can almost sit back and watch Johnson screw things up but in 3/4 years time he’ll have to come up with ideas to take the UK forward.
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…to challenge the world-beating got-Brexit-done record of of fifteen glorious, prosperous and (Über Alles) competent Tory rule, no doubt about it! 
Starmer has done quite well for the first 100 days.
But I think he does now have to move on from “not being Jeremy Corbyn” and “smashing Johnson at PMQ’s” and start to put together a plausible Labour position and plan.
I think he is playing the long game - and the next GE is still a long way off but I think Labour will lack plausibility in 2024 if they don’t start the groundwork now.
OTH Paul, people have very short memories and action now by KS may eventually be lost in the fog of time. Far better to let the Tories self implode and concentrate on the issues of the day leaving 2024 electioneering to the point at which it will be most effective perhaps?
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I agree but he is mostly defined by what he is not at present (i.e. not JC and not BJ) - I’d like to see a bit more of what he is.
Thing is Paul with the current CV crisis all Starmer can do is either support the government or say they should do ‘x,y or z’ and with the effects of Brexit not likely to be clear for another year he is effectively in limbo for some considerable time.
I hope that they are working on stuff behind the scenes - the implosion that Graham refers to might well cause another short parliamentary cycle - at which point they need to have some clear plans.
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“I think the public generally view Keir Starmer as somebody who’s a bit dull but very competent,” argues Pippa Crerar, political editor of the Daily Mirror.
Are we assuming that Boris will be the one that leads the party into the next election? Cummings might well decide that he has outlived his usefulness and fix it for someone else to take his place. Starmer needs to know his enemy before deciding on a strategy.
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