469. Brexit Britain is bleeding and this government does not care.

Scotland’s SNP is searching for a new leader. Nicola Sturgeon – who in this mess of politics deserves praise for her stoicism - has often been cast as ‘just like the rest’. The press have contorted themselves to draw false equivalence between her and some of the most disastrous leaders the UK has ever seen. I’ve written on this subject before and won’t repeat all but a good example was when then PM Johnson was partying while people died and much was made of Nicola Sturgeon standing up in a public place when had sheen been seated she would have been within covid rules. So a distance (and she is a physically diminutive figure) of a couple of feet. Meanwhile considerable numbers of the Conservative administration seem to have strayed from the law, from decency from morality and from humanity a very long way over a great period of time.

But then corrosive false equivalence in our media is something I’ve also banged on about on this blog. Sturgeon stepped down with dignity. The Conservative conveyor belt of disastrous leaders grinds on.

If proof were needed – and it isn’t – that Johnson is Britain’s down market dull Trump then his unerring instinct for wrecking and wrecking and wrecking would be that evidence.

I’ve nothing but contempt for bronze medallist PM Sunak and his weak as water nonentityness (!) however – in case we forget – there is the country to consider while the years long infighting of our atrocious Tory leaders continues unabated – through disaster, crisis and increasing economic woes.

The machinations of this Tory government become more like interactions of delinquent brats in a playground where the bullies rule because the teachers are AWOL and the little kids are divided, distracted, distraught and too desperate to think straight.

The latest nonsense is Johnson’s intervention associated to the Northern Ireland Protocol. It doesn’t really matter if we understand the intricacies of NIP because I bet my last penny that he doesn’t understand the detail either. Boris de-Brexit Johnson doesn’t care and he has no more interest in the protocol than he had in the detail of Brexit. The lies on the side of the red bus were about disruption and promoting himself – so was the nonsense about an ‘oven ready Brexit deal’ and so is this.

To say that Johnson has form when it comes to creating chaos, deceiving and overweening self-interest is to say fish swim, a bird flies and this big fat wrecking ball lies.

And somehow – somehow – we all – the whole country – all of the UK - those in England and Wales who voted for his Brexit mess and those in Scotland and Ireland who did not, are being dragged behind the monstrous circus of creeps, cretins, corrupt cronies that complete the current crass clowns in the UK Conservative government.

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Do check out my books and maybe particularly this children's funny poetry book for Easter Fun Poems for Children

468. The UK and US showed us that extreme right wing administrations WRECK. Israel completes the picture…

 Even barely contained within the crumbling edifice of 'democracy' the right-wing masquerading as legitimate governments wreak a kind of havoc that is barely comprehensible.

While there was much relief in the West that the Democrats prevailed and there was no second Trump term, only the most naïve believe Biden won as opposed to Trump losing. And following the Jan 6th insurrection that followed, it became clear that Trump not only nearly destroyed the US he has had a long-term destructive influence on the party that enabled him.

Here in the UK it seems only inertia is holding Britain together as 13 years of Tory government has lurched further and further to the right to where now barely a day goes by without scandal and self-harm distracting from real government.  

Our bronze medallist PM, the 3^rd unelected in the space of a calendar year, is gagged and bound by the need to pander to the right wing lunatics - once referred to as "swivel eyed loons" by the weakling David Cameron. Now they hold the reigns of conservatism in the UK. Sunak just appointed the vile thug Lee Anderson as deputy chairman.  Anderson’s opening gambit was a call to bring back hanging for which Sunak lamely rebuked him. Meanwhile we live in a country in both economic and social peril and full denial about the catastrophic effects of the xenophobic wet dream that is Brexit.

And now, if proof were needed of the destructive force of extreme right-wing politics in the 21st century with its aggressive greed, hatred of ‘other’ and narcissistic lack of self-awareness, we have Israel.

Netanyahu sold his soul to the far right wing in a desperate attempt to maintain power and avoid legal peril. He and they are now operating beyond any bounds of real democracy and decency openly planning to politicise the judiciary – the last bastion of any civilised administration. Despite 6 weeks of protest there is no let up.

Yes, we’ve seen in the UK and the US the extreme right destroy themselves and we can only pray that the right in Israel similarly implode but my God – the damage they do to decency and democracy and ordinary folk in the process…

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because its relevant - an old doodle - 

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467. A guy with a leaky bucket of water is more likely to extinguish a raging fire than the one with the empty petrol can and the burning torch… Whatever the latter says.

The UK government has reached the point of nuclear delusion and confusion.

Nowhere was this clearer than on the weekend loony tunes where the boot-lickers are sent out to test the media and public response to the latest ego trip.

The lunchtime news on the BBC featured idiot on legs John Redwood ( it was radio so I cannot vouch for the presenter having kept a straight face) explaining that the problem of last October's fiscal horror show was not that Liz Truss singlehandedly tanked the economy, the issue is that we need to be – and I quote “more cheerful”.

In the pattern of Trump and Johnson – Lizz Truss hovers above reality buoyed by the the hot air of her own self-importance, mad delusions, vanity and deeply needy stupidity.

A modest estimate for the utterly failed Conservative and shortest serving PM is that in the few weeks she held that post (and remember there was a  hold on her implementation of her master plan because of the death of the queen)  it was widely reported by RF economists among others that her irresponsible budget (for which she sacked her chancellor) cost the UK economy a massive £30bn - The Guardian 

Following the kinds of figures wasted by the Johnson administration via erstwhile reality TV star and vomit inducing philanderer Matt Hancock – dealing out useless contracts to mates during what was for the rest of us a national covid crisis – the sum of £30bn may seem minor. However, while the country is embroiled in conflict and strikes with everyone from nurses to teachers and train drivers desperately trying to make some match between their over-stretched wages and the tanking economy – these figures matter - at least in the real world.

According to her weekend article in the Boris-de-Brexit Johnson ever supporting paper – The Telegraph – it was poor Lizzie who was badly done to. She wasn’t given a chance. Frankly if she could do that much damage in a month and a half – what might she have achieved in terms of paving the way to Armageddon if she’d been allowed to run til Christmas? 

But shame and failure and the suffering of others are as nought in the 21^st century Tory party. You can be a tax dodger (Zahawi) and get appointed to cabinet – you can be a bully and remain in cabinet (Patel and Raab) you can party while your voters die (Johnson and Sunak) you can dish out gongs to those who help slide money your way (Johnson) etc etc etc and still think you are entitled to the prestige and remuneration of high public office

In their idea of ‘balance’ the media – and especially the BBC will usually throw in a rhetorical question about Labour’s fitness for office after reading out the latest Conservative catastrophes and its lousy useless corrupt, uncaring and criminally negligent administration. The questions form along the wobbly lines of ‘what would Labour do’? ‘would Kier Starmer be better’ and so on and so on.

For someone who will – again – vote for Scottish Independence so therefore has no skin in the game – I have to say that this question is like asking if a guy with two buckets of water will stand a better chance of extinguishing the inferno than the guy standing there with the empty petrol can and the burning torch…

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And because it seems very relevant right now here is an old post that seems more relevant than ever - British boarding schools breed posh sociopaths 

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466. Boris-de-Brexit Johnson wiped his arse on Britain – it’s time to clean up.

After Johnson’s claim that Putin threatened him with a nuke, it struck me that when historians look at ‘eras’ Johnson’s oven-ready Brexit deal might just be one of those markers they take note of as pre and then post- shit Britain.

The thing is, in ordinary circumstances everyone would be condemning Putin. However, the unspoken issue here – as no one really comments out loud – is that no one believes Boris Johnson. Johnson sneered at military advisers who warned him about Putin’s invasion but now attempts to perfume himself in the Ukrainian invasion whenever his credibility stinks. And that is most of the time.

That is not to say that the Tories weren’t already making a good fist of wrecking Britain prior to 2016. But far from the glorious independence we were promised IMMEDIATELY after the June 2016 referendum, we had instead immediate economic wobbles and the start of the exodus of workers and businesses and talent – those who could see the immediate/medium and long-term future of catastrophe for a Britain that had gone doolally and responded yet again to the xenophobe’s dog whistle.

But then we ushered in a new horror. The man who had been such a farce as London Mayor (remember water cannon and the garden bridge anyone?);  such a disaster as Foreign Secretary (remember Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe) was handed the UK premiership. Boris huge-lie-on-the-side-of-a-bus Johnson quickly consolidated his lead-by-not-giving-a-shit style by illegally proroguing parliament. Then with all the flourish of the con man he is he signed the December 2019  Brexit deal that everyone has been trying to fix or deny since – the infamous oven-ready Brexit deal.

Then we were hit by covid where the same human blob of need and carelessness and craven venality and uncontrolled appetite and childish dishonesty and devastating negligence failed to attend COBRA meetings because he was trying to disentangle himself from his second wife because the daughter-age gf was pregnant. Britain suffered untold unnecessary deaths while pals of the Tory party profiteered under the ministerial madness of Matt Hancock – latterly a reality TV star.

Johnson truly stamped his style on Britain. Evidence of corruption, scandal, financial irregularity plus more gongs for the grovelers and plum positions for those helping him financially were dished out. Sexual abuse by MPs seems to have become almost a requirement of the job.

We’ve just finally seen the back of Nadhim Zahawi for dishonesty and tax irregularities but the cabinet still boasts Suella Braverman – previously sacked for ministerial impropriety and since having boasted about cruelty to migrants. Dominic Raab deputy PM has been accused of bullying by so many members of staff his inquiry has just had to be extended. But then Priti Patel was found guilty of bullying under Johnson and kept on anyway – presumably on the grounds that if Johnson started getting rid of folk who were unsuitable to govern – where would he be?

Today it has been announced by the IMF that the UK is more fiscally fucked than any comparable country. The question ‘WHY’ is asked and the answer hangs in the air like a corpse’s stench. The clear unequivocal answer is Brexit. Brexit was Boris Johnson wiping his flabby Etonian arse on Britain.

Fixing Britain means cleaning out the Tories and re-joining the EU.

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PLUS

Its another BANDCAMP Friday on February 3rd where artists get a wee bit more of the money paid for our art so do check out my audio environmental poetry epic here Casey & the Surfmen or read it for yourself  here My BOOKS or on godreads

465. The effluence of affluence in Britain.

UK Con-servatives have polluted Britain with plutocracy; the Tory legacy will be the effluence of affluence.

We have bidding wars instead of government in the latest mad ‘levelling up’ nonsense. As many have said before me – a sort of Hunger Games for struggling infrastructure.

Richard Sharp – head of the BBC was, it turns out, not just a previous Tory donor and crony of both Sunak and Johnson, he was also a money loan enabler for his old pal Boris de-Brexit Johnson immediately prior to his appointment.

Meanwhile Nadhim Zahawi – Tory party Chair (ex-chancellor and man who had to return tax monies he’d used to heat his private stables) has had chit-chats with HMRC about his not very transparent tax omissions. But he’s paid a fine now so nothing to see here! But the question is – do we want this kind of ‘mistake’ from the man who was at the time running the nation’s fiscal infrastructure.

James Cleverly (sec of state for foreign affairs) drew the short straw at the weekend and was wheeled out to defend Nadhim Zahawi. It was a full on shit show with not-so-Cleverly excusing NZ because he was a successful businessman who fled Iraq with his family as a child. Cleverly is currently part of a government that literally dreams of cruel treatments for desperate migrants  fleeing dangerous  regimes who maybe also wish one day to be British Chancellor to which one can only say - pick a lane...

Another defender of Zahawi was deputy PM Dominic Raab currently under multiple investigations for bullying. He’s the man who makes Patel look like Mother Theresa – the man who was too busy when Home Secretary – to get off his arse on holiday as the horrors of the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan unfolded.

But – back to bidding for crumbs from the millionaires’ many tables.

Last week Michael Gove – political rubber man – denied and defended the appearance that wealthier southern areas are getting more of the ridiculously named ‘levelling up’ fund than more deprived areas. When Sunak was losing his Tory leadership bid to terrible Truss (woops – there goes £50billion) he was caught out at a Tory pep talk in Tunbridge boasting that he’d take monies from deprived urban areas to hand to wealthier ones. At the same time he and Gove and previously Truss and Johnson continue to talk out of their arses about levelling-up. Levelling Up is phrase that has embedded itself into the political consciousness if not the political understanding like a tick.

Local government is no longer really that. Since Thatcher it’s just a series of decisions about services that were ‘put out to tender’ usually to be done cheaper and inadequately. Who gets the contract is the game they now play. More rich pickings for corruption and cronyism.

Also in this list of governments no longer governing would be the setting up of ‘independent bodies’. Sounds great doesn’t it. Ditto enquiries.

Very often these cabals-of-pals are used to deflect. In the case of the ubiquitous inquiry – they’re used to kick the can down the road when hopefully the public will have forgotten or at least be less angry about the government failure/disaster  like – the Iraq war inquiry or the current – still ongoing - Grenfell tower or the reports on the Windrush scandal. Of course sometimes there are multiple inquiries/reports as into racism and they are ignored only to be followed by another report/inquiry the next time one is needed as a distraction from actually doing anything.

I’ll stop here because you really get the point.

The thing is Britain is not governed any more. We beg for services – get some if we’re lucky and if we’re not lucky enough to live in a wealthy Tory borough – tough. Politicians don’t make decisions they pass things off to convenient bodies and bide their time until they can leave politics and cash-in on their status and contacts.

But we are paying politicians more than ever while they twist and turn to avoid the rules that are supposed to supress their side earnings where they are at the beck and call of lobbyists and vested interests.

After 13 years of Con-servative governments, the one thing it seems we cannot expect from our government is government…

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464. ‘When it comes to the subject of Harry’ (a la - Calamity Jane)

When it comes to the subject of Harry

A pub ‘stallion’ who went off to marry

A girl with brown skin

Now he cannot win

And it’s Harry they’re planning to bury

 

He’s a spare just an extra just other

But much the more interesting brother

He rejected The Firm

Then made them all squirm

But I bet it would tickle his mother

 

Then we all heard about the royal todger

T'were used the horse lady to rodger

Far too much detail

From this royal male

But you’re payin he’s sayin so sod yer

 

And while Harry says like it or shove it

Kate and Wills pretend they are above it

While side-briefing the press

And channelling old Bess

It’s comeuppance in buckets, I love it

 

Charlie wants his big bling coronation

Qatar money and plebs' adulation

I wonder if ‘one’

Knows the monarchy’s done

Yield your loot to a tired struggling nation

Yield your loot to a tired struggling naaaaaatiooooon…

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463. Top 20 unlikely news stories in 2023!

1.     Telegraph readers admit Brexit is a catastrophe and they were conned for the sake of xenophobia.

2.     Woman (possibly me…) walks more than 20 yards from home without stepping in dog shit.

3.     Daily Mail readers have an epiphany and see that Jeremy Clarkson is a talentless, entitled, misogynistic, desperate twat.

4.     Royal family apologise for slavery, return stolen land, property, jewels and other swag and donate properties for homeless folk to live in.

5.     Suella Braverman stops drooling over intentional cruelty to vulnerable migrants.

6.     The West astonishingly and en masse, cares more about species extinction, the climate crisis and deadly pollution than reality TV programmes (see last post).

7.     Found - an intelligent, good looking white supremacist.

8.     Monarchy is abolished. The silly, expensive, pathetic dressing-up-box pantomime coronation is swapped for an equality street party.

9.     Child of celebrity doesn’t become a model.

10.                        Elon Musk, Trump, Matt Hancock, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, +++ are put on The Naked Emperors’ rocket to Mars.

11.                        Voters finally understand that its wealthy tax avoiders who need to be chased by HMRC not the disabled and struggling families.

12.                        Cigarettes are banned and tobacco companies pay reparations to all cancer victims – tobacco land grows food.

13.                        D list celebrity woman you forgot about, frantic for attention - wears clothes.

14.                        Morons stop buying large dangerous dogs and other morons stop cutting down urban trees and hedges. They also stop paving or decking or fake-grassing over their gardens.

15.                        Nepotism becomes deeply infra dig. Talented folk get a chance and the country improves in all ways.

16.                        Black lives really matter.

17.                        Water company bosses of privatised English water companies are forced to drink the turd water they pumped into British waterways.

18.                        ‘Commentators’ stop talking infinite shite about stuff they know nothing about in order to draw attention to themselves – UK public critical faculties improve.

19.                        British public suddenly remember the Tories have been in power for 13 years not just since Sunak became the bronze medallist PM.

20.                        Brexit turns out to have been like Bobby’s dream in Dallas. UK jingoists and xenophobes aren’t really THAT stupid or self-destructive. It was all just a nightmare.

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