Them and us fishes, photo Suzanne Beishon

Them and us fishes, photo Suzanne Beishon   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Toy story

Royal sprog Princess Charlotte has received a golden rattle for her first birthday. Rubies, diamonds and sapphires pick out a Union Jack on the 18-karat, £30,000 white gold ‘toy’.

It’s a gift from a firm in the United States. The Socialist seems to recall that nation fighting a revolutionary war to be rid of the establishment Charlotte involuntarily represents.

But these days, the monarchy is a tool of the same establishment interests which control the US: capitalism. Small wonder that super-rich Chinese ‘Communist’ dictator Xi Jinping also paid tribute – in his case, with silk figurines.

Even by the government’s own massaged statistics, 2.3 million UK children were living in relative poverty last June. In the same month, anti-monarchy group Republic estimated that royalty costs the taxpayer £334 million a year.

That’s enough for £145 of birthday and Christmas presents for every child in the UK in poverty. Of course, food bank-reliant parents will likely want to feed them first.

Khan you believe it?

A disused garage in west London has sold for £466,000.

That’s £182,000 more than the average UK house price. The Hammersmith home-to-be even brought in £58,000 more than the London average.

Perhaps the capital’s new Labour mayor will take effective action to end our spiralling housing crisis? If form’s anything to go by, the answer can only be no.

Sadiq Khan, the staunchly anti-Corbyn Blairite former minister, took almost £30,000 in donations from two parasite landlords.

£10,000 came from a Mancunian firm which magistrates fined £14,000 for breaching tenant safety rules. And £19,900 came from a south London developer which campaigns against landlord licensing.

Khan’s promise to “name and shame” some ‘rogue’ landlords is all very well. But we need rent control and council homes. £29,900 says Khan disagrees.