People saying the celebrity California wildfire victims don’t matter are talking nonsense

AS I gaze in slack-jawed horror at the unbelievable devastation caused by the fires in Los Angeles, one question keeps popping into my head: Those gigantic wedding-cake houses all the celebs lived in – what were they made of, exactly?

One minute, they were huge, sprawling “mansions” and then, in the blink of an eye, they were dust.

Actor James Woods won’t need a bulldozer to clear up what remains of his gaffe. Just a vacuum cleaner.

I’m not making light of this truly apocalyptic event.

I know there are social media socialists saying, “They’re rich so it doesn’t matter” But that’s nonsense.

It doesn’t matter how much money you have, it always hurts to lose your photograph albums and your pets and your lifetime collection of fridge magnets.

My heart, and I really mean this, goes out to everyone affected.

Of course, there will now be an inquiry to determine why the fires became so huge — but I’m not sure such a thing is necessary.

Because if you live in a part of the world where rainfall is low, the winds can be strong and the temperature is high, you don’t need an inquiry to tell you that you shouldn’t really live in a house made from balsa wood and papier mâché.

Because if you do, it’s not a home, it’s kindling.

One of the reasons where there are no ancient records in Scandinavia is that they were all stored in churches.

And in the olden days, those churches were made from wood. As London was, mostly, in 1665.

Someone, then, needs to get out to California and introduce them to something called the “breeze block”.

And then someone else needs to explain to the peace-and-love state officials that rampant environmentalism doesn’t help either.

Five years ago, huge chunks of Australia burned, and everyone said it was because of global warming.

The indigenous Aboriginal population, however, argued that it had always been pretty warm in that neck of the woods.

Which is why they used to clear away fallen branches and twigs and create fire breaks.

It was the same story in Zimbabwe.

When the land was farmed by people who knew what they were doing, fires were usually small affairs that burned out when they reached a man-made barrier.

Now, those people are gone and the fires just roam around like hot orange clouds.

Nature take its course

In California, they are obsessed with letting nature take its course and not interfering. And look what’s happened.

They’re also obsessed, over there, with showing off.

Which is why all those houses were so vast, and often made from the wood they have in abundance.

And on this front, I have a plan, too.

When they are rebuilt, might I suggest they spend their money not on enormity, but on expensive building materials that don’t catch fire quite so easily.

Your house will be smaller and less impressive, but at least it will survive the next fire that comes along.

Keir’s not wicked, just clown in the dumps

ELON MUSK has described Sir Starmer as “evil”.

Well, I’m sorry, but he’s wrong.

Two Tier Kier is not evil. He’s just daft.

Rach is gloom n’ bust

THE ten-year gilt yield is now at 4.8 per cent.

I have absolutely no idea what a gilt yield is, of course, but apparently 4.8 per cent is bad.

Similarly, we were told this week that funds invested in UK stocks have just had their worst year on record, that job vacancies have fallen to their lowest level in five years and that food prices are set to rise by 4.2 per cent in the latter half of this year.

I was never very good at maths, and got a ‘U’ in my economics A-level, so I don’t understand any of this.

But it sounds gloomy, and makes me feel a bit sorry for the increasingly tired-looking Rachel From Accounts.

Ever since she was an angry teenager, Ms Reeves has wanted Britain to become a high-taxation, state-run socialist paradise.

Then one day, after leaving her junior job at a bank, she became Chancellor of the Exchequer which meant she had the power to make her dream come true.

And now, just a few months later, she is realising that socialism doesn’t work.

If you tax business, business just goes elsewhere.

So now she must face up to the fact that her whole life so far has been a complete waste of time.

No wonder she looks so worn out and sad.

Nip, nip hooray

LIKE Slade, I’ve seen the yellow lights go down the Mississippi, I’ve seen the bridges of the world and they’re for real.

I’ve travelled a lot over the years and have encountered some spectacular views.

Northern Iraq at sunset stands out.

So does the Atacama Desert in Chile, as well as the mountains of New Mexico, the tea plantations of Uganda, the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe and the hills of central Corsica.

But when I pulled back the curtains, at home, yesterday morning and was greeted with the sun peeping over the eastern horizon and bathing the ice-white frozen landscape in a misty orange glow, I have to say that you cannot beat a cold winter’s morning in the English countryside.

Isle fix boats fiasco

I HEAR that one of the men involved in the grooming gangs has renounced his Pakistani citizenship which means he is legally “stateless”. So he can’t be deported.

This is always the problem. When a boat-load of young men arrives on the beaches of Kent, most people think they should be sent back.

But where to?

Rwanda was suggested but that was always a daft plan.

Because they’d simply make their way back to Calais and two weeks later they’d be in Dover again with a new name, and a claim that they’ve become transsexual.

Every political party says they have a plan to deal with this problem but if they want to stay on the right side of international law, I can’t see any of them working.

So here we are. We can’t turn these people away and we can’t keep them.

Or can we? The extremely remote South Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha is technically British.

So let’s welcome these guys into our country, and give them a nice house there.

I’M with Labour. I do not believe we need a public inquiry into the grooming gangs.

Public inquiries are just rooms full of people who deploy mock incredulity in the hope they’ll end up on the Six O’Clock News.

And we simply don’t need a dusty old baroness to tell us what the problem is, because we already know.

A young girl goes to the police and explains she’s been raped by a gang of Pakistani man.

And then the constable tells her she’ll feel better if she goes home and has a cup of tea.

Because he knows that if he reports the crime to his superiors, he will be accused of racism and get cancelled.

That’s what has to be addressed.

We need to remove the shackles of political correctness from the police.

We need to explain that it’s not racist to investigate a rapist.

Do that, and we’re halfway there.