Boris Johnson has gone to the Caribbean island paradise of Mustique for his Christmas holidays, Jeremy Corbyn has spent his time handing out presents to poor children and volunteering to work with homeless people. What does that tell you about these two politicians? Does it say that one is a filthy rich posh bloke who can afford to go wherever he wants and the other is a principled old chap who just wants to help others? Possibly. But to me it says much more.
Johnson (55) has gone to Mustique with his girlfriend Carrie Symonds (31) and on the face of it his choice would seem to most people better than pouring mugs of tea to homeless people. Given the choice, my initial thought might be to bugger off to Mustique. I like the warm weather more than I like the cold. No brainer. But then I think a bit more about it. Would my children be there, too? In Johnson’s case his children won’t be there and in any event he doesn’t seem to know how many he has. All that golden sand and azure sea and sky wouldn’t get near tearing me away from my children. Not remotely. But perhaps Johnson has a different relationship to his children that I do? If he has no relationship, it’s none of my business.
If Corbyn wants to spend time with homeless people, then good luck to him. Thanks to him, there are likely to be a great many more homeless people in our country now that he has gifted Boris Johnson five years in government to do what the hell he likes. If he really cares that much, he’ll be volunteering a whole lot more in 2020, hopefully as far from parliament as possible.
In the end, if Johnson and Corbyn prefer to spend Christmas away from their families, it’s up to them. Personally, I couldn’t think of anything worse than swanning off from my immediate family at Christmas just to loaf about on a beach when I could do it some other time of the year and if I wanted to help the homeless I could do that, instead of travelling the country making dreadful speeches to people who already agree with me and chant my name.
I think they’re both frauds. Give me my family every day of the week.
