Fixing Britain isn't a popularity contest, blasts CAROLE MALONE

The now infamous mini-budget has been a gift for Labour, not least because it happened two days before their annual conference and gave opportunist Lefties the chance to plug the narrative that the budget made the rich richer and the poor poorer and that the nasty "hard Right"Tories don't give a stuff about people on low incomes - just lining the pockets of the super-wealthy. Which is all tosh.

This budget will put billions back into the pockets of consumers and companies, many of which would have gone bust because they couldn't have paid their energy bills without government help.

The Tories had already helped the worst off with packages totalling £37billion. The budget is also taking 1 per cent off tax, cancelling NI and corporation tax rises and borrowing vast sums to help us all with soaring energy bills. Is that really the work of a hard-Right government that hates the poor? No, this is just the shameful narrative being peddled by the Left, forever pushing the lie that the Tories are still the "nasty party" that despises working people.

All that said, where have Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng been this week? Did they decide on a mini-break after their mini-budget?

While the pound tanked, while the markets were in meltdown, while we've been under attack from the (useless) IMF and Germany (bloody cheek as it's already in recession and rationing power) they hid. If you're going to introduce a bold, revolutionary budget you say will transform Britain into an economic powerhouse, you need to at least be around to tell us how. But instead of being vocal and visible - they hid and left the floor to gobby, self-interested Labour politicians and wannabe financial experts.

It was a massive own goal that resulted in polls giving Labour a 33-point lead. Obviously, it won't last - it's just a reaction to this week. But if this new government is going to work, it needs to communicate with the British people a damn sight more. And it needs to properly explain what's happening. Only when we understand can we get fully behind our new PM.

I believe Truss and Kwarteng are doing the right thing. This country needs shaking up if it's to prosper, and sticking to the failed policies of the past would have been the death of us. So, I hope she doesn't capitulate to the hyenas screaming for her blood. If so, no proper reform can ever happen.

Radical change is never easy. And it's never popular. We already have too many politicians who care more about popularity than the good of the country. Exactly what's happening to Truss now happened to Thatcher in 1981. All the so-called experts then told her she was nuts for producing a budget that slashed regulation and ended controls. And 364 economists wrote to her warning of catastrophe.

They were all wrong and, thanks to that budget, Britain became the most successful economy in the developed world. Truss and Kwarteng are focused on growing our stagnant, Covid-damaged economy, which is wrecked, in part, because the Government paid people to do nothing for two years.And, if we don't grow, we're done for.

But they need to keep us in the loop, and keep talking to us. And they need to spell out loud and clear to the naysayers exactly what would have happened to us if they'd sat back and done nothing...

Pity that when barristers were on strike we didn't steal a march and start moving illegal economic migrants out of the four-star hotels they're currently in here and onto a plane for Rwanda?

A great smile and a mean waltz

Natasha Kaplinsky is to become one of the country's top censors as the new President of the British Board of Film Classification.

And her qualifications for that rather weighty job are? Great smile, can dance a mean waltz, used to be on the telly? That's all I've got...

The murdering scum

Best news this week is that David Norris, 46, the murdering scum who killed Stephen Lawrence, could now be denied parole (he was eligible to apply in 2024) after he was caught sending selfies and videos boasting about his luxury lifestyle in HMP Dartmoor.

Even better news is that he allegedly stuck the phone "in an intimate place inside his body" to hide it when his cell was raided because phones are illegal in Dartmoor.

It was later discovered by a scanner. One can only hope that as well as being denied parole, he will also have suffered agonising, life-changing injuries as a result of sticking his iPhone up his jacksie.

Wokery at its worst

Three cheers for the Court of Appeal judges who threw out claims by BLM protesters that when they toppled Edward Colston's statue in Bristol in 2020 they were protected by Human Rights Laws that allow peaceful protest.

The judges disagreed and said this was "a violent act" which those laws don't cover. We can thank new Home Secretary Suella Braverman for referring this case to the Appeal Court so judges could clarify the law for future cases. But still Raj Chada, the lawyer who represented protesters, said: "In our view, the evidence at the trial was that the toppling of the statue was not done violently."

This is what we're dealing with: woke lawyers who argue that protesters who climb on to a statue that's stood for 127 years, daub it with paint, attach ropes to it and then rip it down and chuck it in Bristol Harbour haven't committed a violent act.

With respect - cobblers!

Posh doing her thing

After all the talk of a big family rift, Posh invited Brooklyn's new wife, Nicola Peltz, to her Paris Fashion show this week.

The pair haven't talked much since the wedding because of a row over Peltz's wedding dress which, in a magazine interview, she says Posh refused to make. And Becks has now blasted Brooklyn for taking his wife's side against his mum's.

So is this invitation Posh wanting to make peace with her daughter-in-law? Or is it her doing what she's very good at - no not making dresses, silly - but protecting Brand Beckham from bad publicity?

Mark Rowley

I'm loving the new Met Police Chief, Mark Rowley. For once we have a cop at the top who isn't prepared to sacrifice basic policing on the altar of wokery.

He's now said a police officer will attend every burglary and we're all hailing it as something incredible when it should be a given. It shows how much policing has lost its way.

In which reality does good old aspiration become a betrayal of your skin colour?

What the hell possessed Rupa Huq to make the clearly racist remark that Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was "superficially black".

Sister of former Blue Peter presenter Konnie, the MP made her vile comments at a Labour conference fringe event. She also said that, listening to Kwarteng on the radio, "you wouldn't know he was black".

So how should black men sound? Like rappers spewing out four-letter obscenities? Talk about stereotyping. She also seemed to have an issue with him having gone to Eton. Why? Does she think black people aren't entitled to be educated at elitist schools?

How did this woman ever get to be MP for Ealing Central and Acton, because she's got form for racist attacks? She's called Rishi Sunak "a little brown guy" and said the recent leadership race was "superficially" a "multi-culty" contest.

Huq sounds like she believes non-white people - especially Right-wing ones - who are aspirational and want to better themselves are traitors to their skin colour.

Surely MPs in her own party must have had some inkling of her racist attitudes? Or do some of them think just like her and so said nothing? And doesn't it make a joke of Labour's claims that the Tories are the "nasty party" when this kind of vile racism is still rife in its ranks?