Will Smith's graceful, heartfelt apology to his own bruised knuckles

I’M sorry. You deserved better than the contusions and swelling I inflicted upon you. You did not deserve that inflammation. I did not want to be that man.

Violence in all its forms, whether a righteous blow delivered by a proud black man in defence of his wife or the explosive takedowns of Miami drug cartels in the Bad Boys franchise, is poisonous and destructive.

And my behaviour towards you, my knuckles who have been with me all these years since playing B-ball in Philly, was unacceptable and inexcusable. These are million-dollar knuckles, y’all, and I treated them like cheap trash.

I reacted emotionally. When I walked onto that stage I was thinking of my poor crippled wife. I let pride take over when I should have looked at my precious, precious hands.

So I would like to publicly apologise to you, my eight A-list knuckles. I was out of line, I was wrong and it was you who suffered minor blunt force trauma, trauma no $45,000 hand massage can take away.

I am embarrassed that my behaviour has stained what has otherwise been a gorgeous journey to your finest hour, gripped around that Academy Award, when we could have whupped Chris Rock upside the head with the Oscar at an afterparty. That would have been classy.

I am a work in progress. And the promise I make to my knuckles, the real victim in this, is that when I next take down a fool before a worldwide audience I will use a blunt instrument.

Perhaps my Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Which I deserve for Big Willie Style alone.

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'Actually we dumped the working classes not the other way round' says Labour

THE Labour Party has denied claims by the working classes that they have quit Labour out of disillusionment, saying it was Labour who split with them first.

Rachel Reeves’ refusal to back public workers during a strike, Labour’s paltry wage increase for nurses, and the trade union UNISON’s withdrawal of funding have led some to mistakenly believe it was the workers who ended it with Labour.

Labour spokeswoman Donna Sheridan said: “They can make out it was them that split up from us to try and feel in control or whatever, but it was us that sent them the text saying it was over.

“The truth is, we wanted to leave the working classes a long time ago. I mean, who calls themselves ‘working class’ these days?’ Where are your aspirations? Your enterprise? Your personal hygiene?

“Basically you’re saying ‘We wear cloth caps and we smell’. The leadership always dresses smartly and isn’t afraid to make new friends like big corporate donors and the Queen. When we’re out together you plebs are an embarrassment to us.

“There’s no point in dwelling on the good times, like when we set up the welfare state. We’ve met some really nice Tory voters, and I may as well tell you now, we’re moving in together.”

Left-wing voter Wayne Hayes said: “I should have realised something was wrong when Starmer started getting into patriotic war stuff and NATO. With hindsight he was just dolling himself up for his new squeeze, Brexiters.”

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