‘Losing its mind’: UK goes wild over Holly Valance
The former Neighbours star has become an unlikely outspoken figure for the populist right wing of Britain and she shows no signs of stopping.
OPINION
Holly Candy – formerly Holly Valance – becoming an unlikely cheerleader for Britain’s populist right wing was not on my 2024 bingo card.
The former Neighbours actress had a short-lived pop career with hits including Kiss Kiss. Listen to her political rants on Britain and Australia, and it seems to be more of a case of Miss Miss.
Not just because of their content – but also because of who she is. Or more precisely, who she isn’t.
She’s a pop and cultural has-been, but one who is fast becoming the semi-reluctant poster child of the right. “I’m just a regular mum who’s been asked some questions,” she contested last week.
Yet, Britain’s losing its mind over her.
“Holly Valance has become a mouthpiece for Britain’s populist right. But what triggered this shift from soap star to outspoken conservative figure?” The Evening Standard asked last week.
The Big Issue devoted an entire think piece to her quote: “Everyone starts as a leftie and then wakes up …[to] realise what crap ideas they all are. And then you go to the right.”
It cited statistics proving Candy wrong, because fewer Millennials are ageing into conservatism.
British right wing political commentator Lee Harris said he “thinks she’s great” because of the things she likes: Brexit; Nigel Farage; ‘straight shooters who don’t talk crap,’ and what she hates: wokeness; climate alarmism; net-zero.
Candy didn’t exactly court this herself. It was more a case of her being courted by Britain’s increasingly desperate populist right wing.
It started last month when she was “dragged along” by Tory donor husband, Nick Candy, to the Popular Conservatism conference, launched by Liz Truss, Britain’s shortest ever serving Prime Minister, who Candy described as “actually really, really interesting”.
(It is interesting for all the wrong reasons to watch the delusional ramblings of a woman whose premiership was outlasted by a lettuce, who still, audaciously, thinks she was blameless in crashing Britain’s economy in record time.)
At the conference, Holly Candy was nabbed by British right-wing TV show GB News. “Jacob for PM!” she said of MP Jacob Rees Mogg. This is the same Rees Mogg whose claims about his beloved Brexit have been called out because it has caused prices to soar, families to struggle and the country to decay.
But his brand of conservatism advocates tax breaks for the rich. Of course Candy is starry-eyed over him. Her husband is a billionaire.
That brief interview was followed up with the political editor of GB News, Christopher Hope, curiously choosing her to interview as the launch episode for his new political podcast this week.
The wide-ranging interview included her belief that “sexuality and children don’t belong in the same sentence” about students being taught anti-homophobic bullying programs in Australia. This is the same Holly Candy whose pop career used her sexuality to market herself in a way that no doubt appealed to children (and gay men!) who watched Neighbours and bought pop.
But she has no truck with those kind of men. “A lot of my best friends are male and I don’t think they need to put on a dress these days to be interesting,” she says.
But as someone whose definition of “really interesting” is a Liz Truss delusional lecture, I’ll stick to drag queens and lettuces, thanks.
She bemoans how ‘wokeism’ has gone too far in Australia, citing the speeding tickets. She sticks up for her chum Boris Johnson – whose third wedding she attended – for “having a drink in your home which is also your office … any other country would say, piss off.”
This is a euphemistic distortion of the partygate scandal which saw the Prime Minister laugh about throwing the “most socially undistanced party in the UK right now” as UK citizens obediently stayed home; some dying alone.
Australia wouldn’t let Candy back in when she refused to get the Covid jab, even missing her sister’s own wedding to make the point.
She’ll vote for UK anti-immigration party Reform, despite the fact she herself is an immigrant. But she’s a different type of non-working immigrant. She’s white!
Candy denies the climate crisis is a crisis, calls renewables a “waste of time” and Greta Thunberg a “demonic little gremlin high priestess” responsible for causing other kids anxiety and depression.
“Park Lane is a disaster,” she says of the second most expensive street on the Monopoly board, where she lives. “There’s one lane for cars, one for buses and one for cyclists, which you’ll see maybe two every 10 minutes.”
She screws her face up on the word ‘cyclists’ as if these aren’t the very people decongesting roads of traffic jams (and anyone who has seen London’s cycle superhighways will tell you, you see two cyclists every ten seconds).
She bemoans the “demonisation” of the Tate brothers for “telling guys to get up, go to the gym … look after your lady – it’s a traditional kind of thing.” And there I was thinking they were demonised for being charged with human trafficking and rape kind of thing.
And while Candy didn’t court this round of political madness, she admits of an hour spent with Trump that he was “gentlemanly and warm.” When asked about his demeaning attitude towards women, Candy screws her face up as if bicycles had been mentioned again. “Harden up,” she scoffs of such women. I wonder if Trump grabbed her “by the pussy without even asking,” as he has bragged to do, whether she’d feel the same.
The British right are glamorising the opinions of a woman who long hasn’t lived in the real world. She’s married to a billionaire in a country run by a billionaire; she romanticises his multi-millionaire mates who want tax breaks for the ultra rich. What I see in my home country is people who cycle because they can no longer afford to run cars, because Brexit has made the place unaffordable.
More Coverage
The famed British class system now runs parallel to a new non-meritocracy where sycophancy to celebrity sees them courted for views on issues upon which they’re out of touch from the everyday struggling family.
That the British right, way behind in the polls to Labour, is promoting the views of a climate denialist former popstar and billionaire’s wife, shows it’s bankrupt of role models, cheerleaders – and ideas.
Gary Nunn is an author and journalist. Visit his free Substack here.
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