‘Laugh and the world laughs with you – weep, and you stand alone.” An easy enough maxim to follow in normal life, but much harder to adhere to when you’re in politics.
For with so much death and destruction around us, it behoves our statesmen to be grave, sober-suited and devoid of levity. At least, that’s what they believe to be the case.
If so, then Labour Party leader Ed Milliband has been fighting an uphill battle of late, as a series of unfortunate photo opps and satirical barbs have undermined his attempt to appear like a statesman-in-waiting. Indeed, of late he’s been likened not so much to Winston Churchill so much as Mr Bean.
The Milliband family are no strangers to mischief making by a scurrilous media. Ed’s elder brother, David, once himself a government minister, had his own reputation fatally compromised some years back after being captured on camera holding a banana up in an idiotic pose. He at least was able to weather the cascade of ridicule; but his younger brother is finding life rather more vexatious.
First came the incident with the sandwich. While attempting to press his everyman credentials at a photo opportunity in a cafe, poor Mr Milliband was captured by press photographers with his jaws clenched tight round a breakfast bap; grease trickling down between his fingers, lips stretched wide like an alligator trying to devour a wildebeest sideways – and just to add insult to injury, he was blinking just as the shutter snapped, thus lending the whole grotesque image the appearance of someone who was barely conscious.
The incident perhaps showed up Mr Milliband’s inexperience: for if there’s one thing any seasoned politician will studiously avoid at all costs, it’s either having to don ludicrous headgear, or eat with their hands. His rival, prime minister David Cameron, learnt that lesson long ago, and nowadays confines his pubic appearances to standing in hard hats on building sites pointing at things or nodding gravely at hi-tech factory production lines.
But worse was to follow. Last week Mr Milliband found his admittedly bulbous features being compared with a famous fictional creation hugely popular here in the UK. Wallace and Gromit are a much-loved pair of animated heroes, one of which – Wallace – possesses a face apparently moulded out of Plasticine and with a perpetually hapless grin etched across his features. It didn’t take long for images of Wallace and Ed to appear side by side, whereupon even his most dedicated supporters were forced to concede that there was indeed a likeness.
All good fun of course – but such incidents as these contrive to portray the Labour leader as a bit of a fool. And while it’s easy to overestimate the deleterious effects of satire, recent political history is littered with the corpses of politicians whose careers were fatally injured by both the pen and the camera.
Many years ago David Steel, the then-leader of the Liberal Party, found his reputation severely dented after a satirical TV puppet series portrayed him as a miniature munchkin. While prime minister John Major was never able to shake off his image of a grey and colourless apparatchik after cartoonist Steve Bell depicted him as an ashen grey nonentity who wore his underpants over his trousers.
Yet to Mr Milliband’s immense credit, he has taken this recent lampooning on the chin and in doing so quite possibly turned it to his advantage. During what observers later agreed was a bold but risky public speech in central London, Mr Milliband admitted that he was not from “central casting” and that he’d never win a photo-opportunity competition with the chisel-jawed Mr Cameron. But, he argued, politics was in danger of becoming little more than a photo-op culture, a game of showbiz played by C-list celebrities, that demeans the political debate.
“Our biggest obstacle,” he concluded, “is not the Conservatives, but cynicism.”
Both his speech and his readiness to send himself up must have struck a chord, for the applause at the end was enthusiastic and heartfelt. Mr. Milliband may not win any beauty pageants, but he’s learning fast that humour and self-deprecation are two qualities the British public reveres more than any other. And who knows? It may still be he who has the last laugh come the next general election.
Michael Simkins is an actor and writer based in London
On Twitter: @michael_simkins
The Limehouse Golem
Director: Juan Carlos Medina
Cast: Olivia Cooke, Bill Nighy, Douglas Booth
Three stars
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
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The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Mina Cup winners
Under 12 – Minerva Academy
Under 14 – Unam Pumas
Under 16 – Fursan Hispania
Under 18 – Madenat
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Barcelona v Liverpool, Wednesday, 11pm (UAE).
Second leg
Liverpool v Barcelona, Tuesday, May 7, 11pm
Games on BeIN Sports
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Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
Company Profile
Company name: Yeepeey
Started: Soft launch in November, 2020
Founders: Sagar Chandiramani, Jatin Sharma and Monish Chandiramani
Based: Dubai
Industry: E-grocery
Initial investment: $150,000
Future plan: Raise $1.5m and enter Saudi Arabia next year
Game Changer
Director: Shankar
Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
MATCH INFO
Newcastle United 3
Gayle (23'), Perez (59', 63')
Chelsea 0
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Navdeep Suri, India's Ambassador to the UAE
There has been a longstanding need from the Indian community to have a religious premises where they can practise their beliefs. Currently there is a very, very small temple in Bur Dubai and the community has outgrown this. So this will be a major temple and open to all denominations and a place should reflect India’s diversity.
It fits so well into the UAE’s own commitment to tolerance and pluralism and coming in the year of tolerance gives it that extra dimension.
What we will see on April 20 is the foundation ceremony and we expect a pretty broad cross section of the Indian community to be present, both from the UAE and abroad. The Hindu group that is building the temple will have their holiest leader attending – and we expect very senior representation from the leadership of the UAE.
When the designs were taken to the leadership, there were two clear options. There was a New Jersey model with a rectangular structure with the temple recessed inside so it was not too visible from the outside and another was the Neasden temple in London with the spires in its classical shape. And they said: look we said we wanted a temple so it should look like a temple. So this should be a classical style temple in all its glory.
It is beautifully located - 30 minutes outside of Abu Dhabi and barely 45 minutes to Dubai so it serves the needs of both communities.
This is going to be the big temple where I expect people to come from across the country at major festivals and occasions.
It is hugely important – it will take a couple of years to complete given the scale. It is going to be remarkable and will contribute something not just to the landscape in terms of visual architecture but also to the ethos. Here will be a real representation of UAE’s pluralism.
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Crazy Rich Asians
Director: Jon M Chu
Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeon, Gemma Chan
Four stars
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
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The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
