On Friday, I mentioned that I’d had to alter the Friday night mix because “…a couple of songs on there could at best be seen as my condoning some things which have happened in the UK this week, or at worst be misconstrued as me inciting and demanding more.” That’s ain’t me, babe.
And this is what I was referring to: the riots in, at the time of writing, Southport, Manchester, Aldershot, Hartlepool, Central London.
Now, I know this is a bit of a heavy subject to bring up on a Monday morning, when I’m supposed to be throwing light and messages of good hope and fortitude out to you all at the start of the week. But, bear with me, I just needed to give you some context for what is to come.
What prompted these riots? The awful murder of three girls, the stabbing of eight other children and two adults in Southport. Or, more specifically, the right-wing dog whistlers posting on social media that it was a Muslim illegal immigrant who had been caught and charged with the offences, and that direct action was required.
You know who they are without my naming them: the unemployable actor; the toad-faced tool who moans he’s skint; the out-and-out racist thug, to not-name just a few of them.
After the incident, they were all over social media, whipping up their tatooed minions: nobody British would have done this, it must have been an immigrant, probably an illegal one, definitely a Muslim, they said. And the police are refusing to confirm this because their afraid of the reaction will be. Why else would the police refuse to name them?
Because, they were 17, still a minor, so they have an obligation to protect their identity, that’s why.
However, on this occasion, seeing the online fury storm being whipped up, the police took the unusual step of releasing their name, and confirming they were born in Cardiff, and if they held any religious belief, it was Christian.
Cue all those grifters going online, retracting what they previously announced, making calls for peace and calm.
Oh, no, sorry, that’s not quite right.
What I meant to say was that they did completely the opposite. They either said nothing and left their original post up for testosterone-pumped retards to revisit, or doubled-down on their previous claims: the suspects parents were from Rwanda, so everything still stands. Release the dogs of hell!
(Funny isn’t it, how the same people who a few weeks ago were insisting that Rwanda was a perfectly safe place for us to deport people to, are the same people now saying it’s the sort of country which breeds murderers?)
And sure enough, up trotted the faithful, knuckles dragging on the floor, determined to have their say at a vigil for the victims, fully equipped with everthing one needs for empathetic engagement with a community trying to come to terms with the awful events that had happened: 24-sledge of Stella? Check. A couple of grammes of charlie? Check.
The grunts duly landed, started lobbing bricks and firebombs at a mosque, the police and some other obviously foreign instituons: a Citizen’s Advice Bureau, a property management company, a library (mind you, I’m not surprised they didn’t recognise one of those…). Yeh, that’ll show ’em.
Oh, and the looting? A perfectly legitimate by-product of the direct action, of course.
Did you ever wonder why you don’t see Fathers for Justice pulling stunts in Batman costumes any more? It’s because they’re doing shit like this, which goes a long way to explaining why they aren’t allowed to see their kids anymore.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that these organised riots have happened so soon after a change in leadership. This is a direct challenge to the newly-formed government, but, with a former Director of Publics Prosecutions at the helm, I have no doubt that a lot of those involved over the weekend will soon be having their collars felt, if they haven’t already. Lord knows, there’s enough footage knocking around for many of them to be identified.
As I said, sorry for starting the week with a post about such bleak times. But there’s a point to this: as many of you will know, I’m a big believer in finding the light amongst the dark.
So, to start off with, this frankly inspirational footage of a local bloke mucking in to help rebuild the wall around a mosque which was damaged by those rioting twats in Southport:
Spare a thought for Tony Hill who has been working at break neck speed in blazing hot sun to rebuild the Southport mosque wall before the far right can return. He said: “And if we have to build it again afterwards we will do just that.” pic.twitter.com/e0IplQreGQ
But that wonderful display of a community uniting is not the most best thing to have come out of the riots. Oh no.
It’s this, much shared on social media since it happened (I make no apologies if you’ve already seen this, it bears rewatching. I’m still laughing after approximately my 475th view). It’s beautifully, exquisitely timed:
If we could all just take a moment to appreciate the stunning cinematic beauty of this scene.
The bravado, the little shake of the hips, the half brick to the back of the head and, of course, the coup de grâce…..the agonizing strike to the knackers.
Think of this as a companion piece to last week’s Rant.
For this week, the ludicrous and illegal Rwanda project was resurrected by the ironically named James Cleverly, who proves beyond doubt that the term nominative determinism doesn’t apply here. A Home Secretary who not so long ago was writing things like this, about how proud he was to be the son of migrants into the UK:
…but in 2023 he’s trying to save a policy so ludicrous, even the Rwandan Government has queried it:
..still, have another £140 million, why don’t you?
Also: a policy that makes it nigh on impossible to relocate to the UK has been introduced. Thickly Cleverly’s policy proposes to increase the threshold for foreign workers from £18,000 to £38,000 per annum. Oh, and anyone already here who earns less than that will have their Visa extension application declined. The Conservatives: breaking up families since 2010. I look forward to having a chat with him on a train in the near future.
And then there’s the Covid enquiry, which this week saw Boris Johnson give his bumbling “evidence”, less all the WhatsApp messages which have *coughs* mysteriously disappeared and definitely can’t be recovered.
I got lucky: I didn’t lose anyone close to me due to Covid, but I know plenty of people who did. To watch this unfold, this ineptitude, ths utter incompetance, this wilfull deceipt from Johnson, Hancock et al, must be horrendous for those who did lose loved ones, old wounds reopened, havimg it confirmed that their deaths were possibly avoidable.
It’s been a while since I felt sufficiently outraged to write one of these, and I imagine you’re expecting this to be about the Covid enquiry, or Rishi Sunak’s spineless leadership, or how he’s managed to offend the entire Greek nation, the appearance of Farage on I’m a Celebrity… or the long-overdue demise of Suella Braverman.
But no. Whilst this could have been about any one of those, instead I’m going to tell you about something that happened to me this week.
On Thursday I travelled via train down to London and work. So far so mundane. On the way back, however, I found myself in an unrequested discussion with someone that I can only describe as a racist fuckwit that I did not initiate.
Now, given my previous Rants on these very pages, some of you may find this rather hard to believe but I don’t really enjoy arguing with people. My mother would doubtless disagree, as I was an argumentative little sod in my teenage years – think Harry Enfield’s Kevin (of Kevin and Perry fame) only less tolerant and you won’t be far wide of the mark.
But, other than locking horns with my parents, I’ve since been far more reticent about getting into an argument. So lacking in the courage of my own convictions was I that, when I was on the Student Union Executive at college, I became known as The Fencesitter. My response was that my position as Social Secretary was a non-political role, so I didn’t see why I had to have an opinion on everything. Besides, I could usually see opposing opinions from both sides; a typical Libran, if I believed in such mumbo-jumbo.
It’s the fear of being challenged, of getting my facts wrong and then found out, I think. On subjects where I’m confident, which aren’t opinion based, then I’m fine. At work, for example, where I know exactly what I’m doing and have the experience and information to back it up, then I’m fine. I was once engaged in a 40+ minute telephone discussion with a claimant, who simply wouldn’t accept the reasons that I’d declined his claim; at the end of it, several people came over to congratulate me for the way I handled myself throughout, not once raising my voice or losing my temper.
In an old job, I ended one call to a motor insurers, and my boss said: “Please don’t ever leave this job. I’d hate for it to be me you’re arguing with.” And in yet another job (I’ve been around a bit), I had adopted my customary position when dealing with an awkward customer on the phone – slumped back in my chair, feet on the desk (it was my signature move, a way of communicating to my colleagues that I had “a live one” on the phone) – and at the end of the call, the work experience lad came over to me and said “Cor! You’re brilliant at arguing mister!”. (He really did say Cor! by the way; I remember thinking at the time that I’d never actually heard anyone saying it in real life, only in comic books when I was a kid):
Oh, and in Carry On films, of course. And anything with Terry Scott in it. But never in real life.
But I digress. What I’m trying to say that it’s easy for me to construct a narrative here, to present my side of the argument, knowing that, generally, it’ll be read by people who broadly agree with me, and I won’t be challenged on what I’ve said.
Besides, long ago I learned a valuable lesson from my old pal Tony: you’ll never change an adversary’s mind by arguing with them, you’ll just make them more entrenched and determined that they’re in the right. A withering comment, however, can be far more fatal. Tony related a conervsation he’d been in where one of the other participants said something racist; rather than challenging them, Tony just said: “Well, I think that’s sad,” shook his head and moved away. Shortly afterwards, I was working in a restaurant, where we did not serve anything as exotic or tasty as Indian food, when one of the waitresses whispered to me “God, it stinks of curry in here” as an Asian family walked in. “Shhh!” I said. “It’s ok, they didn’t hear me,” she replied. “No, but I did,” I said. It may not have changed her view, but she sure as hell never repeated anything like that in my presence again.
Whenever I remember this, the words to Kristofferson’s To Beat the Devil swirl across my mind:
So, on Thursday evening – and before I go any further, lest any of the “This Didn’t Happen” brigade start parping up: every word you are about to read is true; I’m nowhere near talented enough to make any of this up – I was travelling back from London. Other than the joy all of us feel when we’ve finished work for the day, I’m not in the best of moods: I’ve endured standing in the cold waiting for my connecting train, delayed as usual, to arrive, and at work that day a colleague had told me that I reminded them of someone, but that they couldn’t put their finger on who it was. Until they suddenly managed to put their finger well and truly and annoyingly right on it:
Yeh, thanks, mate.
I board the train and manage to bagsy a seat, one of those foursomes, where two seats face the two opposite. The other three seats are occupied. Ordinarily I avoid these for two reasons: you’re constantly battling your fellow travellers for leg-room, and also it increases the chances of you sitting in the vicinity of someone you’d rather not be sharing air with.
As the train ventures on its journey, stopping at such places steeped in prestige as Biggleswade and St Neots…
“…Taplow…Winnersh…”
…inevitably empting as it goes, until I am sitting in the four-seater all alone. In the four-seater to my right is a bloke having an animated conversation with someone on his phone, about what I don’t know, as I have my ear-buds in. I click the volume on the iTunes app on my phone a couple of notches higher to drown him out completely, stretch out and wait.
The train approaches the penultimate station and passengers rise from their seats and head towards the doors, some having walked several carriage-lengths to be nearer the door they think will be closest to the station exit. It’s then that I clock him for the first time; he’s quite young, mid-20s to early 30s I’d say, white caucasian; whilst I notice him, he doesn’t really stand out from the rest, and I assume he is going to be alighting at the next stop.
The train stops, passengers disembark, the doors close and we start moving again. And he’s still there, standing in the aisle, now seemingly trying to decide whether to sit with shouty-on-the-phone man, or listening-to-music-quietly me. He plumps for my four-seater and sits diagonally across from me.
Literally seconds had passed before I was suddenly aware of him trying to attract my attention. I removed one ear-bud and looked at him quizzically.
“Excuse me, does this train go to Peterborough?” he asked.
I nodded, and pointed at the digitalised sign scrolling above his head. “It literally doesn’t go anywhere else,” I said. “Next stop. Last stop.” Knowing that he had got on to the train at least one station before the last, I briefly wonder why he has waited this long to check he was on the right train, and why he has been unable to either read the display or hear the pre-recorded “This train is for Peterborough” announcements, but I replace my ear-bud, the internationally recognised sign which means “Now leave me alone.”
But he didn’t. A few seconds pass, and this time he is trying to attract my attention by clicking his fingers at me. I sigh and remove one ear-bud again, annoyed because he was interrupting a rare moment of brilliance by Sting:
“I live there, but I’m not from there, although I did grow up not far away. I moved back to the area a couple of years ago after thirty or so years living away.” I’m resigned to having to talk to him now, and plump for courtesy as the best way to get through this, although a part of me is terrified that he’s either going to ask me if I have somewhere he can stay, or worse, to recommend good night-spots in the city.
“I’m from Crowland”, he told me, “do you know it?”
I do. “The scene of my greatest moment ever”, I tell him, thinking that this isn’t so bad, he’s not that weird really. He looks at me quizzically. “I used to play football when I was younger, before I discovered booze and fags and girls”, but he cuts me short before I can tell him of my greatest moment ever, scoring two goals (admittedly, at U-15 level) against Crowland, the first where I nutmegged the thuggish and intimidating central defender before slotting the ball past the ‘keeper, after which the defender hissed “Do that again and I’ll fucking kill you!” in my ear. So a few minutes, I nonchalantly did it again, same result, and he didn’t kill me, or come even close to doing so. I don’t know, whatever happened to keeping your word, eh?
“Do you find there are less indigenous people in Peterbrough since you returned?” he interrupted my re-telling of the finest solo goal since Ricky Villa in the 1981 FA Cup final.
“Well, there’s only one person that I knew back then who still lives here,” I reply, thinking how he had used the word indigenous in rather a strange way.
“I bet you think that’s really quite sad, don’t you?” he ventured.
“Not really,” I replied. “People move. Some come back again. I have. My friend did. There’s probably more people living locally that I know if I could be bothered to look and particularly wanted to see them again.” He’s nodding and smiling at me sympathetically. I later realise that he wants me to think that he ‘gets’ me, that he understands.
“Can I ask you what you think about all these immigrants flooding into the country to take advantage of our benefit system?”
And it’s only then that the penny dropped and I realise I’ve been played. His enquiry about the train’s destination is merely an ice-breaker, the subsequent questions designed to see if and how I would react. He’s not just some lonely traveller looking for a bit of human interaction, he’s wanting to foist his frankly vile opinions on me. My courtesy has undone me, for he now has me engaged.
“Actually,” he says before I can answer, “let me tell you what I think and then you can tell me whether or not you agree with me.”
Your use of the word “flooding” and mention of our social benefits system being taken advantage of have already given me a pretty good idea what you think, I thought. But I kept my mouth shut. Keep your powder dry, old chap, you’re going to need it, I told myself, gritting my teeth.
“I don’t think it’s right that all of these immigrants, those non-indigenous people, can come to this country just to get put up in a hotel at our expense and sponge off the state,” he continued.
“They’re all doing that, are they?” I counter.
“Yes. Most of them.”
“I think you’re in very dangerous territory when you start attributing the same characteristics to a huge amount of people. Some may be doing that, I’d say the vast majority aren’t.”
“Don’t get me wrong, the ones trying to escape war-torn areas, fair enough, they’ve got something to escape from. But the ones that aren’t just want to take advantage of our generosity.”
“You’ve clearly never had to live on benefits if you think it’s generous,” I countered.
“You don’t get put up in a hotel if you’re on benefits.”
“Rather they live on the street, would you? But not in tents, of course. Anyway, those deserving of social housing where there is none available are often placed in paid accommodation. Local councils are doing it all the time.” You’ll have noticed I’m warming to the challenge by now.
“Then why do they come here? Travelling all that way, when they could stop in any of the countries they pass through?” He pauses, before adding: “I’m thinking about Albanians here.”
“What have you got against Albanians?” I ask.
“Nothing, nothing…but Austria, Italy, Spain, they could stop in any one of them, so why come here if not to take advantage of us?” he persisted. “France!” he adds triumphantly, like he has just wielded the best card at Top Trumps. “If it was me,” he adds, “I’d stop at the first place I could that was safe. Wouldn’t you? I mean, why not stop at France?”
“Oh, I agree with that to some extent. They have nice cheese and wine in France. But then, to off-set that, it is notoriously full of French people…so y’know,,,swings and roundabouts…” I offer, before remembering I will not defeat my foe with the use of humour.
“But seriously,” I continue, “They could stop in other countries, but they’re not obliged to, are they? I think there are a lot of answers to your “Why come here?” question. How about because the notion, however misguided it might be, that historically the UK, in spite of its “No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs” signage, has been seen as a welcoming destination? We even invited migrants over in the Windrush scheme, not that that ultimately panned out particularly well for anyone. How about they just want to make a better life for them and their families, get a job, pay their taxes, contribute to society, and they think the place they’d most like to do that is here? Although,” I add, realising he has no idea where Albania is, “if they’ve taken the route from Albania you’ve mentioned then any job that involved map-reading is out of the question.”
“But we’re paying for non-indigenous people to stay in 5 star hotels when they get here…”
“Are we though?” I say in my best ‘U OK hun?’ voice. “Economically, since it’s councils placing them there, a lot of which are on the verge of bankruptcy thanks to Goverment cuts to their funding it’s more likely to be B&B’s, Travelodges and Premier Inns than 5 star hotels. And either way they’d mostly be empty at this time of year anyway, so they’re already contributing to the local economy, right? And perhaps if we weren’t so slow at processing their immigration applications, then they wouldn’t be such a burden on the state whilst they go through the process.” I’m quite good at this, I find myself thinking. “And unless I’m mistaken, I think current statistics show that immigration is higher than it’s been for quite some time and the backlog to process them is almost as big.”
“Well, that’s all Labour’s fault,” he offers.
“Labour haven’t been in power for the last thirteen years, how do you figure it’s their fault?”
“Corbyn,” he says, brandishing what he believes to be another winning hand, “he was on the left, wasn’t he?”
“I think history will agree that Corbyn was on the left,” I agree. “But he was also a left-winger with zero power. So, again: how exactly are Labour to blame for the current migration crisis, as opposed to, say the Conservatives – who are on the right by the way – who have been in power for much of the recent period.”
“Tony Blair,” he said, sitting back into his chair and crossing his arms. “Tony Blair was recent.”
“Blair resigned in 2007. That’s hardly recent.”
“But Labour were in power until 2010. That is recent.”
“Well,” I sigh, “that very much depends on what your definition of recent is. Is it more recent than Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak? No. Is it more recent than, Ted Heath, Thatcher, Pitt the Younger…?”
“I’ve not heard of him…” he interrupted, like to mention someone he wasn’t familiar with was against the rules, and it was then that I knew this was not a man who was used to someone actually arguing with him. Most, I think, would either try to ignore him, or jusy agree with everything he said for a quiet life.
“Really? UK history not your thing, eh? Son of Pitt the Elder? First prime minister of the UK? No…?”
“No….I’ve heard of Margaret Thatcher though/”
“You do surprise me….”
” A fine leader.”
“I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree there.”
“You’re on the left too, aren’t you?”
“I’m certainly to the left of you,” I confirm. “I’ve never voted Conservative and I can’t imagine that I ever will.”
“I wouldn’t vote Conservative at the moment either.”
“Not right-wing enough for you?” I’m definitely feeling emboldened now.
“Socialists are on the left. Hitler was a socialist.”
“Hitler was not a socialist,” I counter with what I had thought to be the least controversial thing I’d said if not ever, then definitely all day.
“Yes he was. He was in the National Socialist Party!”
“Just because they called themselves the National Socialist Party doesn’t mean they were socialists. I could insist I’m…I don’t know…a donkey, but that wouldn’t make me a donkey. It’d make me someone insisting I’m a donkey.” [Why have I said donkey? I must stop saying I’m a donkey.] “I don’t think any socialists would include the systematic extermination of those holding a particular religious belief as an integral part of their political view,” I added, hoping he didn’t realise that we were potentially right back in Corbyn territory again.
“Let me ask you this,” he said, like he was changing subject, “this morning I caught the bus from Crowland to Peterborough. The bus was packed. And then this frail indigenous lady got on the bus…”
Here he goes with his use of ‘indigenous’ again. I wonder if he knows what the word means, or if he’s just heard someone use it before and is copying them, or, more likely if he has word-of-the-day toilet paper.
“How do you know she was indigenous? Was it because she was white…?”
“From her voice, the way she spoke. And the bus was full of non-indigenous people and not one of them got up to let her sit down. Don’t you think that’s terrible, that none of them subscribed to our views of what is right and gave up their seat to let a little old lady sit down?”
Non-indigenous people probably know not to start a conversation of any kind, let alone a political one, with a stranger on a train, I thought, but decided against vocalising it. And anyway, how did he know that they were all non-indigenous?
“I let her sit down. I stood, gave up my seat, and let her sit down,” he proudly crowed.
“Congratulations. I look forward to reading your name in the New Year’s Honours list.”
“I see you have a walking stick. Do you find people give up their seat for you?”
“They do, and I’m always very grateful and find my belief in human nature surprisingly restored.”
“And were they indigenous or non-indigenous people who offered their seat?”
“See, I never realised it was a competition, so I’ve not really been keeping score.” I stop short of saying “I don’t see colour….”.
At which point, the train pulled up at platform 5 of Peterborough station, and, instead of being relieved, I was suddenly more concerned about how I was going to shake this bloke off. Fortuitously, fate was on my side, not that I believe in that mumbo jumbo either: I stood on my own shoelace and I had to put a stop to my escape plans whilst I re-tied it. He was on his way out, unable to fight back against the tide of passengers getting off the train, and by the time I straightened up again, lace tied, he had disappeared. I waited a few more minutes, making sure he had definitely gone, until the train guard came on the tannoy to announce that any passengers left on the train had better get off sharpish, or they’d be locked on board, at which point I alighted, made my way to the exit and jumped into a taxi waiting at the rank.
The driver made an effort to engage me in small talk of a “it’s turned cold, hasn’t it?” nature. Noticing he was of Asian heritage, I mentioned the conversation I’d just escaped from, thinking my position would earn some credit of the non-financial type with him. However, I had forgotten the default political position of taxi drivers: “Oh yes, in Peterborough there are loads of them, but it’s not like in Birmingham where there are no-go areas for white people.” Here we go again, I thought.
“Do you mean indigenous people…?” I said.
“What was that mate?” came the reply, the driver looking at me in the mirror.
“Nothing, nothing,” I replied, sank back into my chair and didn’t utter another word until we turned into the road where I live.
It’s been a while since I wrote one of these. That’s not through choice, it’s just that the news moves so bloody fast that by the time I’ve alighted on something I fancy writing about, things have moved on so far as to make anything I may want to write utterly obsolete.
Before I go any further, I should warn any of you with a nervous disposition or a delicate bowel, this post contains a lot of unsavoury ne’er-do-wells who, for want of a better phrase, really boil my piss.
OK. If you’re still reading, your reaction is all on you.
So, I figured I’d start with something personal to me.
Although common sense prevents me from stating exactly which one, I work for one of the London Borough councils. Long term readers may recall that I lived in the Borough that I worked for, until, a year and a half ago, when the owner of the flat I rented decided to sell up, the new owner decided they didn’t want me in there anymore, evicted me and, unable to afford rent on my own in London and unwilling to go back to flatsharing (I’m in my 50s, I’m too old and set in my ways to go back to sharing, and I’m not sure anyone would particularly want to share with me), I ended up moving back to Peterborough, the town closest to where I grew up.
This all happened towards the end of lockdown, when we’d been working from home for almost 12 months with no demonstrable effect on our efficiency. (Actually, that’s not 100% true: it was pointed out to me mid-way through lockdown that my productivity had dropped off a bit; we considered what was different and alighted on the fact that I had the radio on at home, which I didn’t have in the office. I duly stopped tuning in to Pop Master (sorry Ken!) every day, and bingo! Productivity back up to normal again.) Anyway, before I moved, I sought permission from my managers, and it was agreed that as long as I came back into the office for monthly team meetings, and for any other meetings I needed to attend in my normal course of work, there would be no issue with me mostly working from home. Fair enough. Most accommodating, I thought. I agreed, of course.
And so it proceeded for a goodly while. Until recently, and I should stress this was not the idea of the managers who consented to me moving away, but very senior management, at the behest of the (Tory) councillors, told us that we have to go into the office twice a week.
It costs me a little over £50 a time for me to travel into work, which means it’ll cost me at least £400 a month to fulfil this obligation. So much for saving money by moving out of London.
And of course, my health has deteriorated since I moved, my mobility is restricted, which makes the long slog on the train into London especially arduous.
This whole “you cannot work from home anymore” ethic has, of course been started by Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who a while ago went around leaving passive aggressive notes (presumably word-checked by Nanny, since there’s no Latin in it) like this:
(I’m sure Pete Wylie would really appreciate being associated with the Moggster…)
Many of you will doubtless recall how Rees-Mogg himself acts when he is “in the office”, his place of work being, of course, the Houses of Parliament. In case you don’t, here he is, treating the Parliament with all the respect he feels is due:
I’d like to think I’m better than just slinging unsavoury swear words at those who govern, but for him I’ll make an exception: the man’s a fucking twat. And a hypocritical twat, at that.
Rees-Mogg has a show on GB News. You’ll have heard of GB News, even if you’ve never had the misfortune to actually see it. It’s the channel which models itself on Fox News. It was too right-wing even for Andrew Neil to stomach. It’s basically The Sun “news” paper with moving pictures.
The haunted pencil isn’t the only Conservative MP to have their own show on GB News. There’s also Nadine Dorries.
You remember Nadine, right? Took a load of time off from her parliamentary duties to go into the jungle on I’m A Celebrity…, the urge to chomp on kangaroo cock too much to resist. At least Matt Hancock had the decency to wait until he had been fired before he went in (and that’s the nicest thing I’ll ever say about him. Hilariously, he has just lost an action against The Sunday Mirror who described him as “corrupt” and “…“a failed health secretary and cheating husband who broke the lockdown rules he wrote.”).
Back to Nadine though. Steadfast supporter of Boris for *coughs* whatever reason, and promised a peerage in his resignation list, she was bumped from the list, seemingly to avoid a by-election when she was moved to the House of Lords. Her reaction was furious, announcing that she would be stepping down as an MP “with immediate effect.”
Thing is, that was back in June, and guess what? She hasn’t quit yet.
Here’s a letter sent to her this week from Flitwick Town Council; Flitwick Town is in Mid-Bedfordshire, and Dorries is their MP. They’re not especially pleased with her:
We’re still paying her wages. To do, so her own constituents feel, fuck all.
GB News was a prime mover in the race to identify and bring down Huw Edwards, for no other reason than because he works for the BBC. And possibly because he’s Welsh. Neither of which are crimes, as far as I know. Speaking of crimes, it seems the police aren’t interested in Edwards as, however unsavoury you might consider his actions to have been, he hadn’t actually broken the law.
GB News is co-owned by Sir Paul Marshall. Remember that name, it’ll be cropping up again soon.
Strangely, they’ve been less vociferous in their howls of outrage at the allegations against one of their own employees, Dan Wooton, who just so happens to be an ex-employee of The Sun, the paper which originally ran the story on Edwards despite, it seems, having evidence from the allegedly-expoited male that nothing untoward or coerced had happened.
Once the unwarranted furore about Edwards had abated, a new outrage needed to be manufactured. Preferably one that our friends in power could monetarise, now all the PPE VIP fast lane revenue avenues have been exhausted.
Step forward everyone’s least favourite nicotine stained tree frog, Nigel Farage.
You know what has happened by now, and are probably sick of hearing about it, but here’s a summary: Farage banked with Coutts, who are owned by NatWest. Coutts decided they didn’t want Farage as a customer anymore, so wrote and told him that, now his mortgage was repaid, they would not be keeping him on their books. They offered him an account with NatWest. Nigel didn’t think he should be grubbing about with the plebs who have accounts with a high street bank; he wanted to bank with the high status bank (Coutts). Farage went on the media offensive. Coutts stated that Farage didn’t meet the criteria for their clients (i.e. he didn’t have enough money), but also, after Farage submitted a Subject Access Report (SAR) it transpired that they also didn’t much fancy his politics, his shady links, or where his money was coming from, so decided to close his account.
The situation was made worse when NatWest CEO Dame Allison Rose sat next to BBC Business Editor Simon Jack at a function, where she accidentally let slip some details of Farage’s “relationship with the bank.” Jack duly broadcast it, albeit without naming Rose as his source, thereby providing Farage with more ammunition. Rose ‘fessed up to being the source of the leak, and, despite receiving the backing of the NatWest board, she resigned, closely folowed by the CEO of Coutts, Peter Flavell.
All of this precipitated by some comments by our Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who clearly decided he needs to keep Farage, and by extension his employers GB News, on side. It’s funny though, don’t you think, that Sunak came out in support of Farage, but has been remarkably quiet on, for example, the matter of Dame Michelle Mone, and the £29m that she and her children received, originating from the profits of a PPE business that was awarded large government contracts (via the VIP lanes) after she recommended it to ministers.
Now. It takes a lot for me to side with a bank, any bank, particularly NatWest. But when you have to pick a team – them or Farage – it leads to a lot of soul searching. Like in the run up to the Brexit vote, when you had to choose between David Cameron on one side and Boris Johnson (and Farage) on the other. Rarely has the phrase “between a rock and a hard place” been more apt.
Sure, Rose probably had to go for her indiscreet chatter. We get SARs all the time at work, and it’s drummed into us that you cannot put your personal thoughts or feelings on the file, even less discuss them with jouranlists, because that is something likely to get you in a lot of bother.
And I see now that, once again, Farage is being championed as a man of the people, for ensuring banks cannot decide who they have as clients based on the banks personal opinion of them.
Which is odd, because that postion is the polar opposite of a previously expressed Farage view.
You’ll remember this, I think: back in 2015, a Christian cake making company got into bother when they refused to provide a cake featuring Sesame Street‘s Bert & Ernie to a gay couple. Here’s one of the headlines printed in The Telegraph which details Farage’s position, when he was leader of the UKIP Party, on companies being allowed to choose who they have as customers:
Many venues have the word ROAR on their promotional material. It stands for: Right of Access Reserved.
I may have missed it, but I haven’t noticed a full-throttled campaign by Farage to allow clubbers in to their local Electric Avenue wearing trainers and something other than a tidy pair of slacks.
Hmmm. This springs to mind:
So whilst all this has been going on, NatWest’s shares have plummeted. Bad news all round, you’d think, especially as the UK taxpayer is the majority share-holder in the bank.
But fear not: someone is pleased to hear this news. Remember Sir Paul Marshall? Co-owner of GB News, on which Farage has a TV show (along with Nadine and Jacob)? Well, and you’ll never going to believe this: it turns out that he also leads a hedge fund which has made millions from shorting NatWest stock as the bank’s shares fell in the wake of the controversy over Farage’s bank account.
I know! Who’d have thunk it?
This goes some way to explaining why Sunak decided to wade in: this is the Tories, knowing they’re going to be kicked out at the next General Election (although Labour seem to be doing their best to make that less likely, but we’ll save that rant for another time), greedily stuffing theirs and their mates pockets with as much cash as they can before their time runs out.
There’s a very good reason why one of these hasn’t surfaced since I returned: I’m an avid watcher of Have I Got News For You and listener of Radio 4’s The News Quiz. Both, whilst recorded on a Thursday, are broadcast on a Friday, which gives them a headstart on anything I might be thinking about writing about for a Saturday morning post.
See, the last accusation I want to have levied at me is one of plagiarism; I’ve lost count of the amount of times over the past few weeks I’ve intended to post something here, then watched/listened to those shows, and deleted my post as there were a few too many similarities gag-wise.
But when a big news story breaks on a Friday…well, the tables are turned.
So no prizes for guessing who today’s post is all about…
The problem is, I don’t have much to say that I haven’t said already, so this won’t be much of a rant, more a celebration. Not of the man, but of the fact that he’s gone. For now.
And it is extraordinarily good news, and it must be, because I’m not even going to spend much time gloating about Nadine Dorries, not someone greatly troubled by either facts or brain-cells, quitting as an MP because PM Rishi Sunak actually had the balls to block her peerage, a peerage which you’ll recall Johnson had nominated her for in his jump before he was pushed resignation honours list as a thank you for her unwavering support through all the…jeez, where do I start…I dunno…through everything. No matter what he did wrong, there was loyal Nadine, slurring her defence of the walking marshmallow in an ill-fitting suit.
This proved to merely be the amuse-bouche for the day of strops and sulks that would come later…
…dammit. Bends. With a B. There’s no escaping him.)
Anyway, where was I? As yes: it was a day of toys being thrown out of prams, of allegations of a conspiracy against Johnson by the MP-led Privileges Committee who were looking into whether or not he misled Parliament over lockdown rule breaking parties at Downing Street. We all know they happened, at a time when mixing with those outside of your bubble was prohibited, but did he lie to the House about them?
Shortly after being advised of the contents of the report the Committee had prepared, Johnson realeased a resignation statement, where he said: “I am not alone in thinking that there is a witch hunt under way, to take revenge for Brexit and ultimately to reverse the 2016 referendum result.” Looking at the state the country’s in now, I bloody hope there is.
He still doesn’t get it, does he? He still thinks he can’t have done anything wrong, because he is Boris and he can do whatever he likes. I’m reminded of this extract from a letter written to his father back in 1982:
Lest we forget, whilst the Privileges Committee was considering whether he lied to Parliament about Partygate, it has always been Johnson’s position that no rules were broken, but if they were, it was unintentional, and any statement he made to Parliament which may also have been incorrect was inadvertent. He told the Committee that social distancing had not been “perfect” at gatherings in Downing Street during Covid lockdowns but insisted the guidelines (as he understood them) were followed at all times.
“As he understood them.” Like he had nothing to do with creating the guidelines. Like he didn’t stand behind that expensive lectern and tell the nation precisely what the guidelines were. Perhaps if they’d been written in faux-Latin he might have remembered them better.
And then, a couple of weeks ago, his sister accidentally let slip that it wasn’t just at Downing Street that the lock-down rules had not been followed:
Let’s take a closer look at his resignation speech.
“I am now being forced out of Parliament by a tiny handful of people, with no evidence to back up their assertions, and without the approval even of Conservative party members, let alone the wider electorate.” You’re not being forced out, you bumbling comb-less oaf, you resigned (for the second time, I might remind you. No, wait – third if we count that time you quit as Foreign Secretary. But it’s interesting to note you struggle with the difference between resigning and fired. Between renuntiateet accentus, if it helps. You’re welcome). You could have stayed on and seen how the vote in the House of Commons as to whether the findings of the Committee should be accepted or not went, but you have chosen not to, because you know that vote would not go in your favour. And that’s with the massive majority that your party currently holds. Forgotten how many MPs rebelled against you to bring your time as PM to a close have you? 52. In one day. And that’s before we consider the 148 who voted against you in the confidence vote in June 2022 (although there was doubtless an overlap between the two, a bulging middle section of the Venn duagram, if you will).
“When I left office last year [you mean resigned, Boris], the government was only a handful of points behind in the polls. That gap has now massively widened. Just a few years after winning the biggest majority in almost half a century, that majority is now clearly at risk.” The old selective memory is really kicking in here. Let’s not forget that during your tenure as PM, Chris Pincher, a senior member of your government – appointed by you – was forced to resign after allegations he had groped two men on a drunken night at a private members’ club. His resignation prompted multiple reports of other past sexual harassment allegations against him. Your spokesperson initially said you had not been aware of any allegations made about Pincher when you appointed him to government. You backtracked after it emerged you’d been briefed about a specific allegation ahead of that appointment. Not forgetting that it was reported you had quipped “Pincher by name, pincher by nature.”
I mean, that kind of leadership can’t have helped the support getting decimated, now can it?
And then there was Neil Parish MP, who was forced to resign after admitting watching “tractor porn” in Parliament? (What even is tractor porn? I have visions of a Page 3 photo of a tractor, and a caption reading “Massey Ferguson just loves getting dirty out in the countryside…”). Another (whose name escapes me, and I am not going to Google it to find out) was found guilty of sexually abusing a teenage boy. In local elections held to replace the pair of them, opposition candidates won by large majorities. So yeh, everything was just hunky dory when you quit as PM.
…following his most recent resignation, the usual candidates lined up to pay tribute to him. Winner of Most Reasonable Employer of the Year award 2022 (current holder one Mr D Raaaaaaaaab) Priti Patel described Johnson as “a political titan” (two letters too many at the end there, Priti), whilst Richard Mills, Johnson’s local Conservative association chairman, said he had “delivered on his promises to local residents” (and if he hasn’t then he now has plenty of time on his hands to pop round and sire another couple of kids he’ll deny all knowledge of later).
Oh. Before I go, there’s just one more thing…
…those glad to see the back of him were much easier to get quotes from. Liberal Democrats, deputy leader Daisy Cooper simply said: “Good riddance.” And that’s where I’ll leave it.
One of the things that I’ve been most surprised about during my enforced hiatus is the number of people who got in touch not just to wish me well (thank you!), but to tell me that they missed my occasional rants on here.
I was surprised not because I expected that the Friday Night Music Club would be the most missed series I write here (heaven forbid), but more because I figured my rants were largely preaching to the converted, telling you nothing you didn’t already know.
I checked back to see when I last wrote one: July 16th 2022. This was post-Boris, but in the middle of the jousting to become his successor, which means I didn’t have chance to write a single thing about Liz Truss and her remarkably succesful and long-lived occupancy of No.10 (sense the tone).
This disappointed me, because here was some rich comic/ranty pickings and I bloody missed it.
But fear not because – what’s that coming over the hill? Why, it’s Liz Truss on the comeback trail. Hoorah! Welcome back Liz!
A close ally (of hers, not mine), who, suprisingly, chose to remain anonymous, said: “Liz has taken a few months to gather her thoughts [That’s thoughts. Not thought. Thoughts. Plural!] and is now ready to speak about her time in office and the current state of play.”
Which she did: apparently, she was never given a “realistic chance” to implement her tax-cutting agenda, and was brought down by the combination of a “powerful economic establishment” and a lack of support from within the Conservative party.
A reminder: her radical tax-cutting budget riled financial markets, sank the pound, took British pension plans to the brink of collapse and led to a revolt within her own Conservative Party.
No: this was nothing to do with her economy-crashing ideas which, as they spectacularly unravelled in record time, led to her to throw Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng under the nearest bus in a desperate attempt to save her own skin:
Actually, that comparison is a little unfair; Scooby and Co only ever looked to blame those interfering kids, not the (notoriously!) left-wing economic establishment, who barely got a mention.
Truss is right of course: hop on rush-hour public transport in London on a week day morning, and after all the red braces and filofax brigade have alighted, all that’s left is not used/read/soiled copies of the Metro, as you would expect, but instead train and bus cabs are literally littered with discarded copies of Das Kapital, pertinent paragraphs furiously circled in biro or highlighted with marker pen.
In an unintended display of just how poor her maths skills are, Truss said: “I have lost track of how many people have written to me or approached me since leaving Downing Street to say that they believe my diagnosis of the problems causing our country’s economic lethargy was correct and that they shared my enthusiasm for the solutions I was proposing.”
Er…how many fingers do you have on each hand, Liz? Now take away four. You have lost track no longer. You’re welcome.
This probably, inadvertently, explains her economic policy, because if she can’t measure that on the fingers on one hand, then her plans for the country’s economy was not exactly in safe hands. David “Safe Hands” Seaman would have been a better bet, and he was last seen advertising “…affordable, high quality, energy efficient and secure windows and doors.” And he’s cut his shit ponytail off in an attempt to gain some authenticity and gravitas.
Which, inevitably, leads me to this:
Safe and reliable, right? Just as nobody wanted to shake hands with Seaman that night, you need to face it Liz: nobody wants to associate with you. You are, to quote Britney:
The prospect of Liz Truss making any kind of succesful comeback would be laughable, were it not for another former PM trying to do exactly the same thing. You know the chap: serial liar, shit hair cut, can’t keep his old chap zipped in. Sound familiar?
See, because there has been that Truss buffer, between his inept Premiership and now, the danger is that many will forget what a self-serving, lying, law-breaking stain on our democracy Boris Johnson was, and will fall for his frankly unfathomable charms once again.
Before we go any further, a quick reminder that Todger Johnson is currently contesting the Partygate allegations against him, and, assuming that you’re a fine and upstanding UK tax-paying member of society like me, that challenge is being funded by you and I:
At the same time, it was recently reported that Johnson was understood to have agreed to buy a £4m nine-bedroom, Grade II-listed home in Oxfordshire. With a moat, presumably to keep the oiks out.
Now, for the likes of you and I to get legal aid – that is, help with paying the legal costs in whatever legal dispute we may be involved in – we would have to show that (and this, from the government’s own website): a) the problem is serious (which sounds disconcertingly vague), and b) you cannot afford to pay for legal costs.
Call me old fashioned or out of touch, but someone who can afford to buy a £4m property does not sound to me like someone who cannot also afford to cover their own legal costs (although we can’t rule out a generous benefactor helping him out. Maybe someone with aspirations to be…oh, I don’t know…the chairman of the BBC).
But no: apparently, on top of all the extra shit we’re having to pay for right now – which cannot be contested, challenged or legislated against, for fear of upsetting the non-Russian contributors to the Tory pot – we also have to chip in for Johnson and his legal defence. Seems fair, right?
Anyway, I digress. Much as I loathe him (too), current PM (at the time of writing) Rishi Sunak, with his Windsor Agreement, seems to have sorted out the mess that is the Withdrawal Agreement which Johnson signed off on, which, from the sudden escalation in violence in Northern Ireland, is perhaps not quite the “oven-ready deal” that was pitched to us in the last election. Johnson lied to us, who’d have thunk it?
We already knew this, of course, for when he was still in power, Johnson performed one of the least convincing volte-faces in the history of, well, everything when, having promised that there wouldn’t be an Irish backstop (effectively an insurance policy in UK-EU Brexit negotiations, meant to make sure that the Irish border remained open, whatever the outcome of the UK and the EU’s negotiations about their future relationship after Brexit) or any checks at or near the border in Northern Ireland, or in the Irish Sea between the UK mainland and Ireland, when the latter inevtiably happened following agreement by Johnson, in contravention of the Good Friday Agreement, he claimed that the Withdrawal Agreement (which, just to emphasise, he signed off – “oven ready” and all that), was useless and needed to be renegotiated.
To summarise that: he knew what he agreed was rubbish, and now, having achieved what he wanted (election, big majority, power, etc.), he thought he could just change the deal. You know, like you can with deals you’ve already agreed.
And now he’s stood on the sidelines – just as he was when Theresa May was trying to negotiate the terms of Brexit – lobbing hand grenades and claiming they’re getting it all wrong. He’s like Alan Partridge telling the Bond-fest contributers that they were “…getting Bond wrong…”, that he could do so much better (clip posted before, always worth a watch, and the comparison stands). I can’t resist (Part 1):
…and then how Johnson views himself (I can’t resist (Part 2):
Don’t fall for it twice folks: he’s not interested in what’s best for the people of the UK, or Northern Ireland (part of the UK, I know, I’m making a point): all he is interested in is himself, what power and influence he can attain, and where his next extra-marital fuck can come from (I bet he’s gutted that both Sturgeon and Merkel are off the menu, he must have tried at least once each).
But credit where credit’s due: Sunak has struck a deal with the EU which gives Northern Ireland access to both the EU and the UK markets, without the need for any of this trifling border talk. And here he is bigging it up:
Hoorah for Rishi! He’s got Northern Ireland access to both the EU and the UK markets and this is the best thing…ever!
Oh hang on. Isn’t that what we had in the UK before Brexit?
Yup. Pretty sure we did.
But apparently the comparison between what has been agreed in this wonderful deal for Northern Ireland – which is clearly THE! BEST! THING! EVER! – and what us in the rest of the UK is lumbered with cannot be made.
Which leads me here: the apparent absence of fresh vegetables – specifically tomatoes – in our supermarkets.
Me? I just want to buy some tomatoes.
Remainers say that it’s because of Brexit, the breakdown in food supply chains, additional paperwork, etc.
Brexit supporters, on the other hand, pull their heads out of the sand long enough to point to adverse weather conditions in the countries growing the crops as being the reason for the failure (I cannot, in all conscience, continue to call supporters of Brexit ‘Brexiteers’, since it imbues them with some sort of glamour, glory or flair, a natural talent which, as far as I can see, they do not deserve. Despite what they say, they’re not fighting for the good of us all, they’re either a) protecting they’re off-shore investments and the non-tax-paying arrangements they have in place, b) are not yet ready to accept the over-whelming evidence that Brexit was a shit idea, or c) are just fucking idiots).
That said, they’re right. Up to a point. The weather is a factor in the supply chain problems.
Let’s take tomatoes as a case in point, since it is the lack of availability of our not-vegetable friends (it’s a fruit! Deal with it!) which is causing the most outrage.
See, during winter-times (i.e. now), we mostly import our tomatoes from Morocco.
But Morocco also has a trade agreement with the EU.
They cannot supply to both. So, faced with the choice of pissing off one of their biggest and most lucrative customers (the EU), or one of their smallest and least profitable, (the UK) they have taken the entirety sensible business step of keeping their biggest, most powerful contact as well stocked as can be managed, and pushed us, lowly little non-EU UK, to our rightful place in the queue.
So yes, the shortage may be down to adverse weather conditions, but supply to the UK is not.
But fear not! Environment Secretary Therese Coffey had ridden over the hill on her silver steed and proclaimed that people complaining about the tomato shortage should consider eating turnips instead. “[It’s] important we cherish the specialisms we have in this country,” she said. “A lot of people would be eating turnips right now.”
Don’t you just love the whole “coping with the economic crisis” advice we keep getting from the goverment, which saves them from actually doing something about it?
There’s a government funded advert on TV at the moment which helpfully suggests that we can save energy by turning down the radiators in rooms we don’t use. Who’s heating empty rooms?? Only idiots who need this kind of advice, that’s who.
The specialisms Coffey refers to seems to include having fucking idiots in charge.
Anyway, apparently, turnips are the same as tomatoes. I mean, who doesn’t love a delicious cheese and turnip sandwich? Or a salad, beautifully embellished by a juicy turnip? Or perhaps a splurge of turnip ketchup with our Friday night chips?
Ah, those sunlit Brexit uplands we were promised are now reduced to “let them eat turnips.”
The French revolted for less – but they’re in the EU, so best pretend they don’t exist, whilst we argue about where they can fish.
It seems Therese Coffey is the latest incarnation of Baldrick, where the answer to every problem is: a turnip.
*****
Elsewhere in the (as I write this) current cabinet is Suella Braverman. A little background history: Braverman was appointed Home Secretary when Truss became Prime Minister. She then resigned as Home Secretary after she breached the Ministerial Code by sending sensitive information using her personal email address. Despite this. she was then reinstated as Home Secretary six days later by Rishi Sunak.
A big part of her job is dealing with immigration, and she has gone on record as saying: “I would love to have a front page of The Telegraph [where else?] with a plane taking off to Rwanda, that’s my dream, it’s my obsession.”
Anyway, I mention her now because of a song which her name reminds me of, but unfortunately you have to suspend disbelief for a moment for it to work. See, before I had heard it, when i had only seen her name written down, I had assumed it was pronounced Bray-ver-man as opposed to the correct enunciation of Brah-ver-man. But in that short window of mispronunciation, this tune lodged in my brain whenever I saw or read anything about her, the title of the song being replaced by her name; a tune which, given her love of immigrants (her own family excluded), I’m sure she’d appreciate:
A reminder: whilst Braverman was born in Harrow and raised in Wembley, her parents were immigrants, arriving from in Britain Indian in the 1960s from Mauritius and Kenya. Hmmm. Without immigration, Braverman wouldn’t be here, and I literally would not be writing this, so in some respects I do sort of see her point.
That’s all I have to say, and I wish I could put it more eloquently than this: don’t believe a word the Tories say, they’re all self-serving duplicitous twats.
And I haven’t even started on the leaking of Matt Hancock’s Whats App messages (is it leaking if you’ve voluntarily handed all of the ‘leaked’ info over to a journalist?) or the demonising of Sue Gray from the right because her report doesn’t say what they wanted it to?
If you’re the sort of person – and I know I am – who enjoys watching leading figures from a much-despised political party batter each other, like competitors in a real-life version of Tekken, then it’s been a pretty good week.
First, popular rhyming slang Jeremy Hunt and subject of an HMRC investigation Nadhim Zahawi were eliminated from the chase to be the new PM, swiftly followed by current Attorney General Suella Braverman, who seems to have no understanding of what the term ‘legal precedence’ means.
And then there were five: Kemi Badenoch (former Northern Ireland minister who once had to ask if she needed a passport to go to Belfast), Penny Mordaunt (former TV belly-flop expert), Rishi Sunak (less said the better), Liz Truss (Thatcher cosplayer) and Tom Tugendhat (ex-forces, but rarely mentions it), all of whom appeared on a Leadership Debate on Channel 4 last night.
I couldn’t help but wonder if, given that the Conservatives seem hell-bent on selling the broadcasting channel off, this was some kind of trap, but the event seemed to pass relatively uneventfully.
By which I mean: each candidate said almost exactly what you expected them to say.
Resigned to the fact that I’ll hate whoever wins, I have moved to a position where I can just enjoy the spectacle of MPs rounding on each other.
For example: former Brexit minister Lord David Frost (not that one) said Ms Mordaunt was not up to the job when she was his deputy in the EU talks. He told TalkTV (so we’re told, no one can corroborate) that he had ‘grave reservations’ about whether the international trade minister is fit to be Prime Minister, that he was ‘surprised’ by her success in the contest so far and that she ‘did not master the detail that was necessary’ in negotiations with Brussels.
You know, like he did.
The remarks were seized on by the Truss campaign, with Treasury Chief Secretary Simon Clarke saying: ‘Lord Frost’s warning is a really serious one. Conservatives – and far more importantly our country – need a leader who is tested and ready.’ We’ll come back to this later.
But I come here not to defend or champion any one of them.
The telling point in the candidate’s debate was when they were asked a simple question: do you think that Boris Johnson is an honest person? All dodged the question, with the exception of Tugendhat, who, in a move previously unrecognised by MPs, actually answered the question.
“No,” he said.
In other, unrelated news, the other candidates all enjoyed promotions under Johnson’s leadership, and many of them say that they wish to carry on (or should that be Carrie on) the *ahem* good work he did.
This is my big beef with them, that they keep churning out the lie that Johnson “got all the big decisions right”. Did he? Are they talking about a different Johnson in a parallel universe that I’m unaware of? Because from where I’m sitting I can’t see a single thing that he did get right.
Brexit: not done, not “oven ready”, so poorly negotiated that even he admitted the Withdrawal Agreement needed to be renegotiated.
Covid vaccination roll-out: claimed as a Brexit victory, it had nothing to do with Brexit whatsoever; the UK medicines regulator confirmed that we approved the vaccine under EU rules
Err, that’s about it as far as “big decisions” go, I think.
And then you look at the candidates. Take Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer throughout Johnson’s tenure. He’s now trying to pitch himself as something new and different to what has gone before. He has a plan, apparently, to get us out of the economic hole we find ourselves in, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was his economic policies in his previous role which got us here in the first place.
Yes, Rishi, you did resign, but only in a desperate attempt to distance yourself from the Boris stink. Up until then you supported and emboldened him. Heck, you even took a fine for attending the same lock-down party as him. Different? Not so much.
Think about all the issues that this country currently faces, and then consider that future power lies in the hands of one of these five candidates, all claiming they have the solution whilst all the time avoiding the real question: who has been in Government for the past 12 years?
It’s like they think we’ve all forgotten how they supported and empowered Johnson…
Apparently, chief forgetfulhead Liz “Pork Markets” Truss seems to be the bookies favourite. But bear in mind the Tory faithful – who actually get to decide who our next PM will be, not you or I – will want someone “tested and ready” at the controls to steer us unwaveringly through the final stages of Brexit…
Oh. Ooops.
No matter who wins, Jarvis is still right (effing and jeffing warning):
Unusual of me, I know, to place one tune right at the start of a post, let alone three, but the topic this morning requires a little decorum, and perhaps a guided hint as to what is to come.
Those of you on social media – especially Twitter – will probably know what I’m alluding to, for it’s been all over it for the past week or so, with matters becoming grubbier over the past couple of days.
Let’s say that today’s post is brought to you by the letters: B, J and
In fact, I don’t need to write anything more, I’ll let satirical magazine Private Eye take up the story, but be warned: do not read on if you are of a nervous disposition, or if you have recently eaten, for the mental image you will have by the end of this is likely to make you revisit your last meal.
Perhaps one more song to settle your stomachs (and drop another clue) before we dive in:
At the time of writing, I’ve seen unconfirmed rumours that the MP referred to in the article was none other that Chris Grayling, who you will recall in 2018 managed to award a £13.8m contract to provide additional cross-channel freight capacity in case of a “no-deal” Brexit to a firm with no ferries. If his association with this sordid story is correct, then it just proves the man is so useless he couldn’t even walk into a room without mucking it up.
In entirely unrelated news, the day after this story broke (and by “broke”, I mean “ignored by every single news publication or media outlet except Private Eye and James O’Brien on LBC”), Tory Deputy Chief Whip Chris Pinches, quit his government job by way of a letter on Thursday, saying he had “drunk far too much” and “embarrassed myself and other people”.
It transpires that he had groped two men in a private members’ club. (See, there’s really no need for me to think up any jokes today.)
His timing was impeccable, though, distracting from our…er…proud and glorious leader’s in-office shenanigans in true “dead-cat” style.
One can’t help but wonder if he was the second person instructed to fall on a sword that we learned about this week – his: metaphorical, the other: pork.
To the sofa surfer (i.e. me), Glastonbury seemed to be a year when surprise guests were the order of the weekend.
Generally, these were young, current artists calling on more established ones, to give their message that pan-generational impact.
(Obviously, I’m not talking about Paul ‘Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft’ McCartney flying Dave Grohl and Bruce Springsteen in for his amazing set.)
This saves me having to write a Rant post about the US decision to overturn Roe vs Wade this week, which Olivia Rodrigo covered in her introduction to this:
To bring you up to speed, the US Supreme Court voted to strike down the nationwide legal right to abortion on Friday, paving the way for individual states to heavily restrict or even ban the procedure – in fact, it has led to the immediate recriminalisation of abortion in nearly half of the US states.
Women who decide to have an abortion have just made the hardest decision they will ever make. They are not all women who have had unprotected one night stands which they regret.
And even if they were, so what? It’s still their body, the decision about what happens next should still be theirs.
But now, in the US it’s a case of: no matter what the circumstance of your pregnancy, if you live in the wring state, you cannot have an abortion.
Been raped? Sorry, you’ve got to carry that unwanted load through for nine months.
From a strictly medical point of view, the treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, a septic uterus, or a miscarriage that your body won’t release is: an abortion.
What happens if you can’t have those abortions under those circumstances? You die, that’s what.
Actually, THIS saves me having to write a Rant post about the US decision to overturn Roe vs Wade: once the whooping dies down, the late, great George Carlin (RIP) explains it better in this most definitely NSFW clip:
Firstly, my apologies that there was no New Mood on Monday post this morning.
There were two reasons for this:
Firstly, on returning from a long weekend visiting my parents, where at least one of the weekend’s posts got written, I couldn’t find the cable which linked to my external hard drive (where all my tunes live), but which has since been located, to my immense relief.
Secondly, as a comment on the booing that our #CrimeMinister received from the blue rinse brigade on arriving at St Paul’s Cathedral to attend the service to mark Queen Lizzy’s 70 years, I had intended to post this:
Now, here’s some footage of him arriving (and it should be noted, this footage is from The Telegraph’s website):
Ordinarily, one would expect, at the very least, a cheery wave to the crowd, but no – he heard the boos and wanted to seek sanctuary inside as quickly as possible, practically dragging the current Mrs Johnson up the steps.
Inside, it would seem the reality sunk in: a crowd of royal revellers, who one would expect to be supportive of the Government and all it stands for, had made it clear what they thought of him.
Here’s a pictorial summary of the contrast: first, a picture of a happy bunny:
And now one of an unhappy one, who is either reflecting on the boos, or perhaps wondering why his current wife is wearing a hat which prevents her from accidentally seeing him:
Thing is, he was booed again as he left the service:
And that was from The Daily Mail – like The Telegraph, not renowned for their critical stance on the Conservative governmnt.
Now, had the stars not been aligned then that would have been the end of my post this morning. But things move on at a pace, and it turns out that sufficient numbers of Conservative MPs, having stuck their fingers in the air and finally seen which way the wind is blowing, have submitted enough letters to the 1922 Committee as to force a vote of Confidence in our #CrimeMinister, which will be taking place around about now.
The result, in terms of who voted for and against, will not be revealed to us plebs, which gives all Conservative MPs a blank canvas: they can tell their constituents that they submitted a letter, then vote in support of our philandering PM, and nobody will be any the wiser.
If he were to lose the vote, I doubt he will go anyway.
But if he did, then that would spark a Tory leadership battle, and whoever replaces him would doubtless want to scrub the floors clean and get rid of all those who have profited from his tenure. And for sure, all the ones that you’ve heard of – Patel, Dorries, Sunak, Truss, Raaaaaaaab – have all come out in support for him, because they all know that the moment Johnson falls, so do they.
Or rather, as I would describe it: they’re more concerned with what is best for them, than what is best for the country.
People are – finally – seeing him for what he is: a habitual liar (fired from two of his previous jobs for lying).
I can’t post this enough (it’s particularly revealing around the 08:30 mark, in case you cant be arsed to watch the whole thing):
So: lies. This is a leader who signed us up to an “oven-ready” Brexit withdrawal agreement which is damaging to our economy and to the Good Friday Agreement, just so that he could announce he had “got Brexit done” and storm to the majority he holds in Parliament currently. A withdrawal agreement he now wants to back out of because he didn’t expect the EU to implement what was agreed. A withdrawal agreement that he either read and didn’t understand, or just simply didn’t read: it fulfilled a purpose – to get him to be the Prime Minister.
And that’s before I’ve even touched upon the porkies he’s told about Partygate.
This is the problem with voting in those with a sense of entitlement just because of who they are and where they were schooled. If his tenure as London Mayor wasn’t enough of a warning sign (clue: having endured him as Mayor for two terms, the Conservative party did not win many London seats in the last general election), then surely a letter from Eton College to his parents from 1982 should have been enough:
For the record, I expect him to survive the vote, but even if he does, then his position is going to be severely weakened.
Hoorah! It’s not here yet, but the end is in sight:
A History of Dubious Taste