Partying with Piers and his peers

Plus: the death of cash, and a “once-in-a-500-year moment”

Photo by Jordan Mansfield/Comic Relief/Getty Images

As I paraded round parties to celebrate the New Year, I looked the part. Badly tied bowtie, stained shirt, bulging tweed waistcoat, faint scent of cigarillo – an editor-at-large, large as life, notebook to hand. “In groups of five or six/They spoke of Wegovy, and politics.” We seem still in a midwinter stasis – kicking heels, draining drinks, waiting for the Labour coup that never comes. And there’s too much of who, not yet enough of what.

If the party is really to oust Keir Starmer because of his epic unpopularity – even assuming he can be replaced with a more eloquent new leader – what happens to economic policy; to relations with Trump after the Venezuela strikes; to Britain and Europe? The winter break gave a clear signal that a battle over closer relations with the EU may dominate 2026 more than many of us realised. I can confirm this from many conversations. To save himself, Starmer will have to move further on the EU, while he binds himself to the soft left. And that will have huge consequences.

Ahead of the May elections, the poll-leading Reform and pro-European Lib Dems will lock horns, and together they will tilt the national conversation back to Europe – already aided by the Trump revival of the Monroe Doctrine. For Labour, not having a sharper-edged position will become impossible.

The geopolitical implications will spread right across politics. Relations with Big Tech; Britain as an investment magnet; defence against Russia; free speech and “woke”… Those Labour politicians who believe that by the end of this year they, not Starmer, could be in charge had better start shaping a philosophy that covers it all. For we are living through, as one senior military figure put it, “a once-in-a-500-year moment”.

Know your enemy

A good place to start is a new book coming out shortly from Liam Byrne, the Labour MP and former Treasury minister, from which the above quotation comes. Why Populists Are Winning: And How to Beat Them is by far the most consistent and cogent attempt by a Labour MP to understand their enemy and respond with brio. It’s going to be required reading for anyone aspiring to be part of the drama swirling around No 10.

Memory bank

Do you remember money? What happened to money? Over previous Christmases, the better off would have pockets stuffed with cash, which would float from them like a genial festive miasma towards delivery drivers, the homeless and random cherry-faced children. But material money is hard to come by. I didn’t carry cash during 2025. I only keep plastic cards for superstitious reasons; my phone does the rest. Many people who would once have enjoyed a small “bump” around this time of year are living through the cold days bumpless.

Meanwhile, visit cut-price clothing stores, artisan coffee bars and charity shops in inappropriately grand high-street premises. Children: we used to call these places “banks”. More than 6,000 branches have closed in the past decade, and over 500 in 2025 alone. Only their shells remain. It’s like the Anglo-Saxon poem about Roman Bath, in which the poet imagines the titans who built what are now mere ruins: “The city’s foundations have burst, the work of giants is rotting.”

All yesterday’s parties

For a hack or politician, the best Christmas party of the season is Piers Morgan’s. Grizzled veterans rub shoulders with glossy media show-ponies, and the gossip is outrageous. The nearest equivalent was David Frost’s parties, once satirised by Rory Bremner as “Archbishop Tutu, have you met President Pinochet yet?” affairs. I never witnessed that, but I did watch Billy Connolly genially buttonholing a surprised archbishop.

Wilf Frost, David’s son, now a Sky presenter, was at the Morgan party and told me that before his father’s summer gatherings, which involved no more than around 800 close friends, his mother would strike off 200 names. His father would put them back on, and an argument would ensue, before they both emerged grinning and triumphant in front of the cameras.

I first came across Piers when we were both editors of newspapers in Canary Wharf. He went on to surf the changes in the media landscape with extraordinary skill, but I remember him on one dark day quoting his mother to me: “Never forget that one minute, you’re cock of the walk – and the next, you’re a feather duster.” Sound advice, including for show-ponies, however glossy.

Teetotal to Tolstoy

Although I have given up the sauce, I’m still interested in booze and will one day gratefully return to its fragrant embrace. In this spirit, I pass on a lovely remark from Anna Karenina, my seasonal reading. With drunkards, says Tolstoy, “the first glass is a stake, the second a snake, and from the third on, it’s all little birdies”.

[Further reading: Maduro won’t satisfy Trump’s hungry ego]