Singer Joss Stone enraged viewers to ITV’s This Morning on Thursday with her comments about happiness. Speaking from her home in the Bahamas, the multimillionaire reckoned that being happy was “a choice”. She was promoting her podcast A Cuppa Happy, which features Derren Brown and Boy George.
Her timing could hardly be worse – half a million Brits on holiday in France have just found out they must pack up and return home immediately, if they don’t want to self-isolate for two weeks. A-level students were left in tears as 37 per cent of results were downgraded, denying may of them a place at university. New figures show that one in ten people are now using food banks. And the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has admitted we’ve entered the worst recession since 2009.
Being “happy”, according to Stone, is something you need to work at, and come up with “methods for getting it back ... if you’ve been unhappy for three days, you need to sort it out ... a run, laughing at yourself in the mirror”. I don’t imagine that laughing hysterically at a bit of glass will make the death of a loved one or the loss of a job much easier.
Stone seems woefully ignorant of the realities of life in modern Britain – the government has bungled testing and tracing, and is still trialling the latest app, which won’t be rolled out for months. Meanwhile, we have the worse excess death rates in Europe, no matter what method is used to compute the figures.
The same ineptitude has seen education minister Gavin Williamson live up to his Private Pike tag – he had weeks to prepare a strategy for this year’s A-level results, yet he waited until the last minute to announce a hastily invented appeal system which hadn’t actually been approved by the people who would have to enforce it.
Stone is a patronising fool as far as I’m concerned, telling ‘This Morning’ how wonderful it was that Boris Johnson was saving the arts
This week, our favourite politician, Sunak, adopted a sombre tone to explain the 20 per cent contraction in the UK economy (the worst of any major economy) and the mounting number of job losses – claiming we rely on services, hospitality and consumer spending. Although his Eat Out scheme is proving a success for some restaurants and cafes, it’s a drop in the ocean when you look at the state of manufacturing and industry overall. For example, car production is at its lowest level since 1954.
Stone seems well intentioned, but woefully lacking in empathy, for all her gushing Instagram feed and optimistic tweets. At 33, she’s managed to live a life many would envy. Friends with the royals, she attended the weddings of both William and Harry and is frequently pictured at charity events supporting causes near to Harry’s heart. Unfortunately, she has fallen victim to what I call “celebrity hypocrisy”, which occurs when someone extremely well-known and well-off makes a well-meaning statement in the guise of “advice” to the rest of us less fortunate beings.
Stone is a patronising fool as far as I’m concerned, telling This Morning how wonderful it was that Boris Johnson was saving the arts – unaware that government funding will not be available until October, by which time many theatres and venues will have gone bankrupt. According to Joss, “we’re so bloody lucky in the UK”.
To be fair, she has tried to see how other live – albeit from a concert stage. In 2019 she embarked on a world tour, and was deported from Iran because women are not allowed to perform there. She posted a selfie wearing a niqab from Saudi Arabia, gushing “Saudi Arabia how we love you so”, raving about all the talented women she had met, adding that “these women individually felt they were not oppressed, they were highly educated and free to choose how they lived their lives”.
On social media, opinion was divided – was Stone naive? One comment read “you wear it [the niqab] as a kind of fun … many women, like the women or Iran are fighting with the niqab law on a daily basis”. I think Stone means well, but might needs further enlightenment on what daily life is like for less fortunate women in the Middle East, where they face discrimination and oppressive laws.
If you live in a mansion, don’t tell the rest of us to save water and care about the planet’s diminishing resources – you’re part of the problem
Stone claims she is “working” in the Bahamas – writing new songs. How lucky she is. Her friends Harry and Meghan could also be accused of celebrity hypocrisy, with the news that they have finally bought a “starter” home, an £11m-plus mansion on the edge of Santa Barbara in northern California.
For a couple who claim to care so much about the environment, it’s a controversial choice. Their new home has 14 bathrooms – perhaps they will be installing devices to limit the amount of flushing in order to save the environment. And what about the 7.5 acres of gardens and the two extra acres nearby they’ve also purchased – will they be watered using water from the royal loos? Seriously…
All over northern California, rich people have erected luxury houses in what were desert areas, or secluded places with fragile environments, dream palaces with air conditioning, spas, endless bathing facilities and cooled wine cellars. I suppose the energy consumption is offset by cute meditation huts and expensive electric cars in the driveway.
If you live in a mansion, don’t tell the rest of us to save water and care about the planet’s diminishing resources – you’re part of the problem.
One wealthy person who is definitely not a celebrity hypocrite is Andrew Lloyd Webber. The composer says he will do anything to help theatres reopen and get actors and musician back to work. He thinks a vaccine is the only answer and this week volunteered to take part in the tests for the new vaccine being developed at Oxford.
Job losses in the industry have risen to 5,000, and although the government announced theatres can reopen from today, social distancing will make it hard for them to be profitable.
Lloyd Webber has been dubbed a “hero” by some on social media. At least he’s not a hypocrite.
It’s time to end the snobbishness about manual labour
Not all the recent news is grim – last week there were more jobs advertised than any time since lockdown began, according to the Recruitment and Employment Federation.
Although the Bank of England has predicted that unemployment could rise as high as 11 per cent later this year, some trades are in high demand. Gardening (up 24.8 per cent), debt collecting (up 20.9 per cent – not surprising, given the number of businesses folding) and construction trades (up 15.8 per cent) have all seen high increases in the number of vacancies on offer. The construction industry is busy again, and there’s plenty of work for painters and decorators (up 14.1 per cent).
As we’ve spent more time at home, gardeners (providing you can afford them) are being sought to do all the major jobs we no longer want to tackle.
A few years ago, two of my friends’ teenage sons (neither particularly academic) were wavering about trying to get into university. I encouraged them both to become apprentices – and am proud that one is a now a successful electrician and the other a plumber. I’d say to any teenager who wants to earn a good living and be their own boss, learn a trade.
The legacy of the Tony Blair years is that far too much emphasis is still placed on getting into university and not enough funding goes into apprenticeships and technical training. Time to end the snobbishness about manual work.
