April Review: Starmer’s Barred, No. 10’s Comms Reversal and Brian Rose Drinks His Urine

By April, eyes were turning to the upcoming London mayoral election. With so many candidates in the running, and so many ridiculous stories surfacing, it was sometimes difficult to keep up with all the coverage. One minute, Laurence Fox was parading around on his battle bus promising to “free London“, the next a 23-year-old YouTuber promising to ban VAR from the Premier League was polling neck-and-neck with the Green Party. The crowning moment of the campaign, however, came when Guido dug out footage of candidate Brian Rose drinking his own urine – twice.

Away from the mayoral circus, thirsty punters were finally treated to proper pints as hospitality venues reopened for outdoor service. Not all customers received a welcome return to the boozer, though. Sir Keir found himself on the receiving end of a furious tirade from a pub landlord in Bath, who gave the Labour leader an earful over his support of the government’s lockdown policies and mask mandates. On the same day, Boris forgot the name of the Mayor of the West of England. Small mercies for Starmer…

Guido also joined in the media scrum surrounding Matt Hancock sleaze allegations – who presumably thought that’d be a low point of his year – by revealing he’d taken shares in his sister’s firm that’d won NHS contracts. Talking of fools, on the first of the month Guido tried his hand at writing a morning political email…

April also saw the death of the Duke of Edinburgh at the age of 99. As if on cue, several left-wingers managed to blunder over the sensitive moment, with Jeremy Corbyn and Nia Griffith both having to delete ill-timed tweets after the Palace’s announcement. Claudia Webbe, on the other hand, stood firmly behind her claim that the government should use the Prince’s death to “invest in young people, reopen youth provisions and youth centres everywhere”.

On 17th April, Jack Doyle was confirmed to succeed James Slack as Downing Street’s Director of Communications. Soon after, Allegra Stratton’s planned Number 10 press briefings – scheduled to be held in the swanky new £2.6 million briefing room – were scrapped. Thankfully Stratton would still go on to make news from the room…

Honourable mentions:

• BBC Apologises for Failing to Declare “Syrian Refugee” Was Actually Labour Party Activist
• Sturgeon Flounders When Asked to Explain Economic Benefits of Independence
• Theresa May Pockets £160,370 from JP Morgan, Hancock Has Shares in NHS Contractor

* This article was originally published by Guido Fawkes

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