I’ve briefly restarted our parody newspaper format. In these editions of the Daily Excess and the Daily Maul (Maul credit Aidan Grooville), we cover what the papers say … and what they do not …. To read more of these please check out Private Eyelines. The book makes an excellent gift for Brexiteers in regret and provides a sense of uplift for people who are sick to death of fascist Nat-C Brexit Britain. These days I have to include a fact and fiction decoder as few can tell the difference between fantasy and real life.
Click the dead cat to read Private Eyelines.
Click the Cruella children’s doll to read Private Eyelines.
FACT and FICTION analysis
FACT : Nigel Farage has declared that Brexit has failed. Yes, Brexit has failed !!! However, of course, it’s not his fault. Evidently, it’s never Nigel’s fault !!
Brexit has failed. Own it Nigel.
FICTION : Liz Truss has not declared war on the Japanese with cheese or in real life.
FACT : However, three years after the Brexit deal, the fiendishly clever Japanese are still copying Cornish Pasties and other British Brexit favourites as this report shows. Liz pretended that Welsh lamb, Whitstable oysters, Thurrock gammon etc. could now be protected names after Brexit, but it turns out she was wrong (again). Also, Liz managed to waste £70 billion on her ‘Brexonomics’ experiment on the nation with her boyfriend Kwasi Kwarteng. Kwasi refuses to apologise for ruining young people’s lives as this interview on Channel 4 News shows.
Not sorry, not sorry
FACT : Boris Johnson has sired another child. The news coincides with the verdict on Johnson’s conduct in office from the select committee this week. Seems convenient. Accordingly, this follows a long list of lies from the Johnson stable. Perhaps you remember when Johnson went into hospital with COVID on Good Friday. Subsequently he was deemed as being at serious risk and needing a ventilator. However, on the third day, he rose, just like Jesus and was deemed to be as fit as a butcher’s dog. Strange. Even stranger, the nurses who cared for him disappeared without trace!
FICTION : Bojo is not making 10 000 doses of his sperm available for a EUgenics experiment on the mass production of Johnson’s. Nadine Dorries is not acting as an incubator for the Johnson seed.
— David Lawton #FBPE #FBPA #RejoinEU 🇪🇺 🌵 (@Scrabble817) May 22, 2023
Thanks to David Lawton
Dancing on thin ice
FICTION : The BBC are not changing the formula for Dancing on Ice to include a sewage dance floor as a contribution to environmental stewardship. Nor is the programme to be renamed Dancing on Shite.
FACT : Therese Coffey has claimed that there is less sewage in our rivers although this is clearly untrue. Moreover, Coffey also dodged questions about Suella Braverman’s interference regarding her convictions including having no knowledge of her phone number. Significantly, Rishi Sunackered seemed unable to make any meaningful comment about Suella Braverman when pressed on the matter in Japan.
— kerry ✊💙💙 (backing Nurses) (@hewitson10) May 21, 2023
Sheer lies.
FACT : Suella Braverman and Priti Patel are fighting like cats in a sack over the prize on who is the best fascist after her denouncement of Braverman at the Alt Right Conservative Party Conference last week. This follows our recent revelation that Conservative MP Rehman Chishti also criticised Braveman in order to prop up the Pakistani vote in the local elections. Accordingly, Suella wins our award for fascist of the year, along with Jacob Rees-Mogg:
Watch our latest film on Brexit impacts in terms of science, technological and environmental damage to Britain. The film took days to make and it’s well worth 12 minutes of your time on a lazy Sunday instead of shouting at Laura Kuenssberg on the telly box. Brexit is far from done, as Johnson, Sunak, Truss and Starmer would have you believe, with 63% of people now believing that it was a mistake and 86% of young people wishing to rejoin the EU. There was a deliberate intent to ensure that we had a ‘boiled frog’ Brexit. This was so that people would not notice our slow motion sleepwalk into Brexit oblivion. Our frog is probably only at 50 degrees Celsius as there’s plenty more Brexit carnage to come. People on both sides of the Brexit chasm tell me there’s nothing we can do about it. They are wrong.
Our film covers the 4th industrial age and Brexit, science, farming and Brexit. Also environmental standards and the bonfire of EU laws made by British politicians and how Brexit impacts climate disaster in the short, medium and long term. And much more. Check it out.
Boris Johnson promised that the Brexit ‘sunlit uplands’ would make Britain a country where innovation, competition and growth would all thrive thanks to reduced red tape and costs. These have not materialised. All the indicators suggest that this will be the case going forward.
In the 4th industrial age, we need to support STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in order to innovate, reach sustainability goals and profit from the age of AI responsibly. All the indicators suggest that instead of this, we will plunder science and technology as Brexit cash cows, until we drive innovation out of Britain’s DNA.
Financial support for science looks set to dwindle in the post-Brexit world. Since science is a team sport, we can expect our reputation to decline in the coming decades.
All of this impacts climate change. We entered the EU as the sick man of Europe and we are leaving as the dirty man of Europe. All so that a few politicians can pray at the altar of the false God of Brexit.
By Don Adamson, Brexocist in Chief from Barnsley. This week’s homework in Brexitania aka Broken Brexit Britain: Discuss the following statement: The strongest possible argument against abolishing the monarchy and replacing it with a Presidency is that we have politicians who would dismiss King Charles III and appoint somebody like Johnson as President.
Trumptown to Truss
This week’s quotes: “Trump had little interest and no gift in foreign policy … his lavish state visit produced nothing …. If that is the kind of friends the right wingers want they are simply not serious people … They do not exchange Mickey Mouse currencies … I was given a smile of incredulity when I tried to offload my last £50 note … It is hard to remember but once there were decent Tories able to negotiate significant agreements properly … a succession of increasingly wealthy PMs, with arrogant privately educated ethic that they are better than the rest of us … in truth they don’t have a fig of understanding … Sajid Javid seems compelled to demonstrate that all political careers end in failure … a disgusting exercise in naked populism … Current behaviour of Suella Cowardlywoman, James Stupidly and Richy Scumbag needs to be called out … knee jerk response to entirely foreseeable problems that were bound to arise with their beloved bloody Brexit … Political chaos of recent years … Brexit … Johnson … Thick Lizzie … the question of competence … Momentum, a far left campaign group, would be better named Inertia …
I have had more than enough … of Liz Truss and Richy Scumbag
State of Britain
The British state is simply ineffective … Britain’s sluggish economy is undermining the welfare state … economic growth is the foundation stone for everything … a decade of political turmoil … is a disaster … British tax burden is due to hit a post war high of 37.7% of GCP … Brexit means there are fewer institutional constraints on distortionary state aid … Britain will struggle to compete with USA to attract investment … Britain has neither the industrial base nor the ability to offer larger subsidies … Tory Cabinet Ministers write honeyed histories of the past … such books tell you little about the best and much about the Tories …
CBI – Complete Brexit Idiots
Confederation of British Industry … conduct that fell short of that expected … reported allegations by more than a dozen women of sexual misconduct and misuse of drugs. This included a rape … failed to filter out the toxic people … Israel’s per person GDP is higher than Britain’s … Dominic Raas displayed unreasonable and persistently aggressive conduct … intimidating and insulting … made physically threatening gestures … number and consistency of complaints about Raas … evidence that something was genuinely wrong … the complainants acted in good faith … cutting people off in meetings would have mattered less if was not the sort of person to describe work as ‘utterly useless and woeful’ … it is hard to overlook another problem – his effectiveness as a manager. If enough people think you are a bad boss then you are a bad boss. If employees avoid you the pool of talent available to you shrinks … Raas’s approach … ‘absolutist’ … that sounds like lawyerspeak for ‘complete nightmare’… Humpty Dumpty replied … when I use a word it means what I choose it mean …
Bravo President Boris
Braverman describes sending refugees to Rwanda as ‘compassionate’ … claimed to ‘refute’ the idea that her plans were not humane … (I think she means ‘repudiate’) … can you make words mean so many different things? … punishes people who have fled war, hunger and fear … how is that ‘compassionate’ …we are truly in an Alice through the looking glass world … there is little attempt to disguise the cosy relationship between Infosys and Downing St … Infosys regards the UK as a wholly owned subsidiary… bagged a seat on the UK Trade Minister’s Technology and Telecoms Trade advisory Group … Richy Scumbag’s wife will bag nearly £6.7M from her shares in the family firm … Last March a High Court Judge found that Tory MP Andrew Bridgen had ‘lied’, ‘given dishonest answers,’ ‘evasive and argumentative’ … Polls always show that the public wants governments to keep their hands off the BBC … Chairmanship of Ofcom needs to be taken out of the PM’s hands … after Johnson’s risible attempts to appoint Paul Dacre … If you want a Republican UK are you ready for Boris Johnson … over the next ten years the politics of post Brexit Britain will grow increasingly volatile … trust in democracy and the rule of law will plummet to nanoscopic levels … do not much fancy measures that inconvenience Westminster or dislodge snouts from troughs … the political class grows weary of the King’s passion for action on climate change … his concern for the welfare of refugees … … his pesky insistence that a generation of youngsters is denied opportunity … step forward Boris Johnson … for the truly deranged there is always the option of President Johnson …
Fox on the run
Look at the mess Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News has made of its legal case, costing them almost a billion dollars … Sharp’s piece to the camera announcing his resignation as BBC chairman had the feel and authenticity of a North Korean News Bulletin … how ludicrous that he was even there in the first place … other players in this tawdry drama … Johnson, Richy Scumbag … will be hoping the resignation will be the end of the matter. If there is any decent journalism in this country they will be wrong …
Supermarket sweep
As food shopping gets more expensive across Europe, new checks will makes things even worse here … Food inflation in Brexitania is running at 19.1% a year, highest in 45 years … Britain has Europe’s worst inflation rate … Brexit has added to the burden … Brexit has another gift for the hard pressed and desperate because Brexit is not finished … government has stopped checking quality and safety of food that enters UK … delayed these tests four times … expect massive hikes in food prices … the checks will have to be introduced some time … UK is playing Russian roulette … repeat of the horse meat scandal, another foot & mouth outbreak increasingly likely … farming industry is terrified … food safety and standards under threat … UK is go to destination for every dodgy dealer trying to offload rotten meat, infected eggs, counterfeit cheese, adulterated olive oil and stinking fish … astounding that the government is taking such an unacceptable approach to critical checks … industry is at a huge disadvantage … undercut by rivals who sail through the border … reeks of desperation … the whole food sector is threatened … new rules will add billions to food imports … serious shortages will start very quickly if the system collapses … somebody is going to have to pay for this mess and it will be you every time to you go to the shops …
Click image to Flush Brexit.
Not the Nine O’ Clock News
*ucker Carlson, Andrew Bridgen, GB News … populists have lost their grip … GB News has five Tory MPs presenting its shows but is burning £30M a year in cash … racking up complaints … Talk TV … similar outgoings that have yet to be met by ratings … … for Fox News the problems are still bigger … Carlson peddled conspiracy theories … pulling in around 3 million viewers … his replacement got 1.3 million … Infowars was for viewers who thought Fox too fair and balanced … emerged unscathed till the courts caught up Jones … ordered to pay £1.2B to Sandy Hook families … politicisation of BBC has resulted in a series of sandals … attacks on the Civil Service back lashed onto Cabinet Ministers … Brexit boosterism has left the DUP blocking the government’s efforts to bring normality to Northern Ireland … Every victory in culture wars seems to be a defeat … Influence of Brexit on behaviour of Dominic Raas … has not been examined enough … Civil Servants unable to carry out his orders because of the difficulties of implementing Brexit … We always knew that leaving the EU would suck the machinery of government into the mire … no tangible benefits … undermining the government’s ability to govern …
Hard Labour
Labour’s refusal to mention the failures of Brexit …. missing one open goal after another … looks increasingly pig headed as a clear and growing majority recognise Brexit was a mistake … it is extremely offensive but so is everything about Boris … I wonder if the people of Kent who voted for Brexit would have done so if this absurd anomaly had been written on a bus … Two Parliamentary reports highlight the scale of fraud in the UK and the lack of effort to stop it … £2.2B lost from the Covid business grant … just £10M recovered … £4.5B loss from fraud and error in the furlough and self employed Covid support schemes … fraud accounts for 41% of all crime …. costs individuals £4.7B a year at an average of £1,290 per crime … less than 1% leads to prosecutions … fraud policing is next to non existent …
Don Adamson – former coastguard, Brexorcist First Class.
Sudan Sunackered
British inaction on evacuating Brits from Sudan is a ‘shitshow’ … Brexitania’s flagship Freeport Tees Valley … industrial scale corruption … NHS have seen their pay fall since 2010 … 18,000 UK trained doctors currently practice overseas, one in seven of the total trained and a 50% increase since 2008 … more than half ‘unwilling’ to return’ … more than 6 million patients on waiting lists … shortfall in England of 1.932 midwives and 496 consultant obstetricians … we need five times as many obstetricians to have a safe maternity service … collapse of safety culture … if UK had the same mortality rates as Sweden nearly 1,000 more babies would live every year … massive midwife shortfall has persisted for well over a decade … we spend £3B a year on maternity services and £8.25B on negligence claims arising from them … one GP for 2,286 patients as opposed to 1,800 ten years ago … tried to subcontract to the private sector but this did not work either …
Woke up Britain
Prof Goodwin’s book ‘Values, voice and virtue; the new British politics.’ … A new elite has taken over Britain … a disaster … woke ideology … graduates are brimming with dangerous, liberal ideals … for a Professor at the University of Kent this is a pretty odd argument…. an unfortunately plausible argument for this sour, paranoid book could be that Professor Goodwin’s grievance stems not from the ‘elite’ but from snotty nosed students who answer him back in seminars and take the Mick out of his crusty political views… Around the world budgets are in a mess … governments are stuck in a fiscal fantasyland … the picture is forbidding …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
In the wake of the first Labour local council victory in Medway since 1998, I draw some post-election consequences for the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Labour and Conservatives. Undoubtedly, this was a disaster for the Tories and Brexit in terms of what was predicted. The Tories lost 1061 local council seats. The question is, is this enough to get the Tories done and Brexit undone?
My part in the Tories’ decline
At a personal level, I was delighted to play my part in the Tories’ decline in Medway, through long term campaigning, mass Brexorcisms in pubs, cafes, supermarkets, bus stops etc., and doorstepping in Tory voting areas over the last few weeks. My family loaned 8 votes from my family to Labour last week and some to the Lib Dems and Greens. However, we shall not repeat this performance in a General Election, unless Labour turn on Brexit and Europe. I have put their Councillors on notice to this effect.
My Tory MP Rehman Chishti became so desperate about the decline in his party’s fortunes that he decided to attack Suella Braverman about her recent demonisation of Pakistani Muslims in The Observer. This is significant, in so far as Mr Chishti has an impeccable record in voting with the prevailing cabinet. His unbridled attacks appear to have sprung from sheer desperation and a desire to pick up the Pakistani vote in my area rather than any serious conviction that Braverman is an evil spirit who was herself an immigrant. He failed. Given that the Tories have a stronghold in my area, I plan to stand an independent candidate in Gillingham and Rainham and need your help to do this NOW. Please click on the link below and back us.
Perhaps the story less covered in the mainstream media is that of the Lib Dems renaissance in last week’s elections. The Conservatives losses were fairly evenly distributed between Labour and the Lib Dems, with the Greens taking a very good proportion of votes as well. If this were to continue, the Lib Dems could find themselves as Kingmakers in a General Election along with the SNP. The Tories and Labour like the binary system which both believe they profit from. But we could find ourselves in a rainbow coalition in 2024. A lot can happen between now and then. Coalitions mean that politicians have to do things they really don’t like doing : listening to opposing views ; coming up with better decisions ; occasional compromises and so on. It’s all good with me. The people may just be the net winners in such a system … ?
The big winners here were the Lib Dems and Greens, with the losers being the far right (Tories) and the far right parties.
Green revolt
The Green party cleaned up, gaining a very respectable 241 seats in England and taking control of one Council in Brexity Mid Suffolk completely. Increasing awareness of sewage, climate catastrophe and possibly a protest vote against the far right parties aka Tories and UKIP may all have contributed to this. Let’s hope this continues into a General Election. Check our film out, based on our music composition ‘How do we want to be remembered‘.
Climate Crisis is the number one issue facing our planet.
How do we want to be remembered?
Rishi Sunakered
Sunak is under pressure from the ERG to go further right with his policies. As a holding statement on The BBC on Friday, Sunakered simply repeated his five priorities. He claims that people who cannot afford to eat were more interested in stopping the boats. Even James O’Brien is not sure what Sunak means by lurching to the far right. O’Brien frivolously suggested on LBC that it might involve bringing back the birch. I’d add bear bating, the rack and the drowning of witches, to take us back fully to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s 18th Century Brexit idyll.
An 18th Century Tory Synthpop Trance Floor dance groove we composed.
I called James to discuss Sunak’s options. Paradoxically, I suggested that Sunak would be better advised to move towards the centre ground of politics to pull the Swordaunt from the stone. James and I riffed away to my catchphrase ‘Sunackered’, which I coined in the summer of 2022. James said that Sunackered (or Sunakered) is worthy of a Daily Mail headline ‘if some guy wasn’t going to wear his mum’s hat and sit on a chair on Saturday’. Listen into to our riotous dialogue at LBC James O’Brien. #Sunackered is trending on Twitter as I write this.
I coined the phrase at the end of Summer 2022. Sunakered is free to use by the populist press. Please download the album to support our continuing work to banish Brexit bullshit.
Early indications suggest that Rishi Sunakered listened to my advice on LBC. Yesterday, Kemi Bad Enoch Powell announced that the Government has rowed back on its promise to have a bonfire of EU laws, 98% of which British politicians helped to make! Unusually, Jacob Rees-Mogg has called Sunak out as a traitor. Bad Enoch was sanctioned by TWFKASLH (The worm formerly known as Sir Lyndsay Hoyle) yesterday. Hoyle is a man who has allowed all sorts of bad behaviour to pass in the House of Commons but decided that enough was enough with the Nigerian Brexit fraudster. Mogg never calls the Government out. He even backs rapists. His outburst on the bonfire of EU law is clearly a smokescreen to get more than 20 Tory signatures on a letter to shaft Rich Tea Sunakered. I confidently predict that the approx 600 laws to be incinerated will be the ones with no large scale impact or connectivity to the main body of EU law. In other words, it will look as if we have taken back control of our laws, but, in reality, nothing will have changed, unless you indulge in some arcane Brexity manufacturing processes. For example, making car engines from English oak, impact-destructing cricket bats or pepper grinders without holes. Otto English sums up one of the many contradictions:
Still at least we've found a Brexit benefit this afternoon. The option to keep more arsenic in baby formula. What a win. pic.twitter.com/C8a9dmgXh6
And, once again, the ERG are fighting like cats in a sack. Andrew Bridgen has split the fascist parties by joining Lozza Fox’s Reshame party instead of Ricardo Tice’s Rebjorn Again party. It’s all good. Rishi is doing exactly what I predicted in order to save the Tory party from Brexit oblivion. Next he will steal Keir Starmer’s clothes, see Hard Labour. Perhaps Rishi is not Sunakered after all?
Sunackered or Sunakered – The theme tune – we were the first to convert the catchphrase into an EDM dance groove in 2022!!
Go now
In his weakened state, Sunak now needs some scapegoats. Given that the Select Committee has not yet reported on Boris Johnson’s multiple illegal, immoral and indecent behaviours, a convenient distraction would be for this committee to make a strong verdict against Johnson soon, such as full suspension from parliament. Accordingly, this would allow Sunak to blame the current malaise in the Conservative party on Johnson and Truss’ catastrophic mishandling of the country. It would also allow him to exorcise Johnson’s ghost without having to do anything himself. This is the way that Sunak likes to handle his HR decisions, through outsourcing to other agencies.
If Johnson is suspended for more than 10 days, The Rejoin Party have a plan to issue a recall petition to remove him from office and break the spaffer’s spell for good. Please join them in readiness.
VoterSuppression
The other big news about the election was voter id and voter suppression. For more on this read our full article on the subject. Early indications suggest that this will have disadvantaged specific demographic areas, such as ethnic minorities, the disabled and young people. The Government now runs the Electoral Commission and they decided not to record any data from polling stations. Correspondingly, it is quite likely that there is serious under-reporting on the extent of voter suppression in these elections. Edwin Hayward reports on over 70 case studies of voter suppression. They are almost certainly the very small tip of a very large electoral fraud iceberg.
These elections have demonstrated that the voter id system is totally unfit for purpose. I made my own small protest to the Electoral Commission. Above all else, please make your voice heard. Add your name to the call for action at electoral reform.
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 4, 2023
Say no to voter suppression
The Scottish position
Although the local elections are a hammer blow for the Tories, they are not catastrophic. Labour needed to reach the magic number of 40% vote share in these elections to win a General Election outright. They won approximately 35%. This explains why Labour want to take 30 seats in Scotland. I predict an informal coalition of aggression between Labour and Conservative to viciously attack the SNP on any agenda and exploit the change of leadership. Admittedly, the SNP’s transition could have been smoother. However, I believe we will see some very bad behaviour from both Labour and Conservatives in the coming weeks and months. They must be dealt with accordingly.
That said, the SNP’s problems are temporary. The essence of SNP support and the values underpinning them will be largely unchanged by a few sensational tabloid headlines in the longer term. For comparison, I note that Boris Johnson’s many breaches of the law did not attract police tents in his garden and officers in fancy dress Hazmat suits. Added to this, Brexit delivers a daily stream of bad news, both in the short, medium and long term. Robert Peston reported that 86% of young people wish to rejoin the EU. In consequence, Starmer’s position on Brexit is ultimately untenable. I reported on Labour’s position on Brexit in the previous article “Hard Labour“. If Labour’s results are not good enough to win a General Election outright, a hung parliament still seems a likely outcome of the current optimism about the local elections.
I recently published an article on Labour’s position (or lack of it) on Brexit. You can find the article at Bylines Scotland. It provoked an angry visceral reaction from Labour ideologues on social media. Louis told me the article was incorrect and badly written. When I asked him to point out the inaccuracies and poor writing, he couldn’t. Eventually he told me that we must all keep quiet about Brexit, deliver a crushing defeat to the Tories in the local elections and then Rishi Sunak would call a General Election. I asked him to explain his logic. He refused and drifted off into the notion that the UK will be ended if a General Election does not happen in 2023.
I share your pain, but I have to disagree with most you write. A few things you seem to overlook: Starmer is NOT pro-EU anymore, nor pro-SM/CU. He is pro-FPTP/anti-PR —->anti-democratic. If GE is not happening this year, UK will be history. And so will be Starmer and his party.
Sadly Louis refused to justify his appraisal of the article. And he claims to be a scientist.
Louis’ logic from the exchange can be summarised here:
The Tories suffer a crushing defeat on May 4th.
Sunak must then call a General Election.
He does this so that he can suffer another …. crushing defeat.
Can anyone help me figure out how this works? Call me cynical, but politicians do not call elections that they intend to lose. I agree it’s not impossible but it would require significant public and political pressure. With the nurses having caved in on a pay deal yesterday, I sense that the Tories are now over the hump of public unrest, due to the passivity of the British people. We’ll have to see …
Another chap called John simply called me a silly infant. I asked him to justify his statement. He could not. I don’t mind being called an idiot, but I do mind it when the people doing it cannot justify their insults. Several people have apologised privately on behalf of John, telling me that (a) he’s a bit old (so am I) (b) he’s a bit nutty (do I have to put up with that?) and (c) he is horrible to lots of people so that’s OK (does that make it right?). Here are some of John’s tweets:
Grow up you silly infant.
— @johnandi#FBPE#GTTO#LetsTryUBI#FollowBackFriday (@johnandi) May 1, 2023
No explanation, no apology – the same behaviours as used by Brexiteers
Brexit is done. It can't now be undone. Tory Brexit bastards did that, not Starmer. What part of that don't you understand ?
— @johnandi#FBPE#GTTO#LetsTryUBI#FollowBackFriday (@johnandi) May 2, 2023
A clear demonstration of learned helplessness
I was also schooled online by Supertanskiii that ‘now is not the time to mention Brexit’. I beg to differ Tan. Airbrushing the word Brexit out of the lexicon is a one way journey, sponsored by the Tories and Labour alike. Brexit is the single most important socio-economic, political, legal and environmental disaster of our age. Denial is not a river in Egypt.
You really think now is the time to focus on this when we have an election to win?
Supertanskiii is a potent online campaigner, but I fear she is emotionally addicted to Labour
John’s views are symptomatic of what is called in the trade ‘learned helplessness’. Remainers lost two elections and a referendum through setting low expectations, accepting rules on democracy which Brexiteers ignored them, believing that we don’t deserve any better and so on. This extract from the book Reboot Britain summarises the ‘condition’:
Learned Helplessness – Click the graphic to read more
So, it seems that we are back into the binary political trap that delivered Brexit. Tony Blair was right when he said that the Labour party often suffers from the triumph of ideology over pragmatism, a disease which caused the Tory party to cannabalise itself with Brexit. Have a look at the Scottish Bylines article and let me know what is inaccurate or stupid about it in the comments or via Twitter. To my Labour chums, I repeat my usual challenging unemotional questions:
What are the differences between a red or blue Brexit? No one will explain them and I have asked many times.
There is a clear business case to support the argument that Brexit has failed. Why won’t Keir Starmer move to this position?
Why will the right-wing media eat Starmer for breakfast if he states that Brexit isn’t working? Read the point on sunk costs in the article to understand this point better.
What makes people believe that Labour will reform the FPTP electoral system in a binary prisoner’s dilemma, all the while they believe that it benefits them? By the way, all the research evidence from UKICE points to the fact that Labour would benefit from electoral reform, in terms of votes, seats and number of terms in power.
If 70% of Labour members wanted to Remain, why are they so docile? What does this say about Labour’s approach to democracy?
Why do people believe that Keir Starmer will rejoin the Customs Union and Single Market when he has flatly refused to do so on many occasion? Surely this makes him a liar? The right wing media will certainly be all over this if he were to gain power.
Hard Labour – Click to read the article. Image by P Paton
To understand the various options for joining anew, please see London 4 Europe’s article on this.
Join us at our next Reboot Britain meeting on Wed May 10th May at 8 pm via Zoom. Find the link at Reboot Britain.
Many years ago, the Conservative grandee Lord Hailsham observed that, constitutionally, Britain is an “elective dictatorship”. Boris Johnson’s regime is demonstrating the truth of his warning, particularly when power falls into the wrong hands. Dominic Cummings, until recently Johnson’s over-powerful senior adviser and the driving force behind his policies, was autocratic by nature. Cummings treated MPs, including Johnson’s Brexiteer supporters, with contempt. During his period in power, he created a centralised and unaccountable power base at the heart of Government with key functions such as appointments, vetting and control of data in his own hands. Parliament was increasingly sidelined. The hallmark of the regime became the advancement, employment and enrichment of persons noted only for their loyalty to himself and the Brexit cause, with no consideration given to their merit, experience, suitability or capability to carry out their duties. A stench of corruption and cronyism began to emanate from No 10.
Conservatives have a long track record in crime.
Johnson’s regime is also unconservative. Conservatives instinctively want to conserve, as the name implies, but his is an administration of destroyers. Cummings was never a member of the Conservative party and his appointees in No 10 reject traditional Tory respect for continuity and compromise, in favour of creative destruction. Their current targets are the BBC, the impartial civil service, and the judiciary. Our planning system and, indeed, our whole structure of local government are due to follow. Under Cummings, the Conservative tradition of managerial capability and economic credibility has been discarded, as demonstrated, inter alia, by the extraordinary failure to report and then trace the contacts of almost 16,000 COVID-19 cases, a major blunder to which the Government reacted with barely a shrug. Cummings’ departure opens the door to a new start where realism replaces dogma, honesty and transparency replaces lies, corruption and cronyism, and where respect for our institutions and constitutional conventions and, in particular, the rule of law is restored.
What must be done?
Radical U-turns by the Conservative party are required to expunge Cummings’ legacy. The largest and most immediate is the withdrawal of the Internal Market Bill and, in particular, the removal of the clauses which break international law and curtail Parliament’s powers.
There should be no further talk of lowering our food and environmental standards at the behest of the United States, nor of downgrading worker protection.
The Culture Secretary’s plan to abolish the BBC and replace it with American-style radio and TV must be shelved.
Hancock’s questionable appointment of an old university girlfriend to a post in his department should be this administration’s last vestige of cronyism.
The Cabinet Office’s involvement in hospital and medical procurement should be terminated and all further government contracts undergo transparent and competitive tendering processes as the law requires.
There should be a general review of appointments made under the Cummings regime in No 10 and the public service, with a view to removing those who are patently unsuitable or incompetent. The Prime Minister would do well to carry out the same exercise amongst his second and third-rate ministers once Brexit is over and blind obedience to that objective can cease to be the sole qualification for advancement.
This should be accompanied by an end to lying and xenophobic propaganda, if Conservatives still wish to regain any trace of being a one-nation party.
Only if a programme of this nature is followed can we hope to regain a Government worthy of respect, both at home and abroad. Its present state was well summed up in the words of a Tory former cabinet minister: “ This is a bad English nationalist government with no idea of where it’s going.” Unless Johnson shows himself capable of changing this judgement in the near future, it is in the interests of his party as well as of his country that he be replaced as soon as possible.
The writer resigned from the Conservative party in protest against its SE branch’s policy to force Remain members to vote for extreme Brexiteers in the choice of candidates for the 2014 European elections.
It seems that we have reached the stage of the Brexit Wars. We knew it would come. This is the first time that a country has declared war on itself and Britain leads the world in this area. Here is our latest Daily Maul page on Brexit Wars, with a fact and fiction checker below, just in case you cannot tell the difference.
Click image to read our Brexit satire book on Amazon.
In case of doubt …
FICTION : Cod have not learned to speak, although they speak more sense than Boris Johnson when he says that The Royal Navy is to be converted to the Royal Fish Fingering Fleet in readiness for the Brexit Wars. I prepared a new advert for The Royal Navy to help them recruit First Fish Officers.
FACT : Boris Johnson and David Frost did look like a sack of potatoes when they attended the dinner with Ursula Von der Leyen and Michel Barnier, who looked stylish. Even cats were dismayed at the contrast.
The slobs formerly known as Frost and Johnson out vogued by some cats and some dignified leaders.
FACT : The Brexit Microwave deal has not been delivered. This was an election promise. For an explantion of how we got here in five minutes see “Brexit in five minutes”:
Talking Heads – Steve Peer interviews Peter Cook.
FICTION : Priti Patel is NOT re-enacting the Irish Potato Famine in practice. However, she is in principle by threatening trade wars.
FACT : Kent County Council is not ready for Brexit. Kent is set to become the Toilet of England. See our appearance on “Have I Got News For You”:
Watch Have I Got News For EU.
FACT : Matt Hancock stood alone in cabinet, asking for the COVID vaccine to be prioritised. Perhaps we should thank him for standing up to idiots and Dominic Cummings. We are not sure he actually cried as it seemed to be interspersed with laughter. The search for onions continues.
Tears of a clown.
FACT : No deal Brexit and a Brexit deal are virtually indistinguishable from a practical viewpoint. Brexit can be stopped or suspended if political will changes. See our interviews with MEPs.
Mark François lives ! And it’s Christmas ! Praise the lord. I had been worried about Mark’s wellbeing ever since he disappeared at the beginning of August. I had feared that he might have been kidnapped by angry Remainers in his constituency of Rayleigh, or, worse still, had been arrested for a minor offence such as shoplifting. Mark stood down from his post as the leader of the ERG and disappeared from public life. This is unusual for a soldier. Mark is partly responsible for the decision to patrol the English channel with gunboats to protect English Cod and I think that should be applauded.
The Codfather. Mark Francois.
In other news, the Police have dropped their investigation into the Tory rapist. Mark had been widely thought to be under suspicion for this, but the evidential threshold for prosecution was not met.
The law is the law and I’m pleased to welcome Mark back to public life. Mark François lives to fight another day. If you feel like me, that we should mark this development, I’ve created a unique Christmas gift that you can send to Mark via e-mail mark.francois.mp@parliament.uk It’s a remake of the Plastique Bertrand classique “Ca Plane Pour Moi” as “Francois Pour Moi“.
GIFT the song to Mark François with a personal message. The song is FREE. Find the gifting option at Bandcamp.
If you like Francois Pour Moi, please buy “The Brexit Party Album” for friends and enemies across the world – it’s the party album to end all tomorrow’s Brexit parties. All proceeds go towards anti-Brexit activism and to help sustain our musical activities.
As Christmas comes, it is traditional to think of others rather than Looking after No 1. Selfishness or Looking after No 1 gave us Brexit. So, it warms my heart to discover that Dominic Cummings has taken a £45 000 pay rise. I imagine that this is a bonus for Dom’s “leadership” in breaking lockdown rules, by driving 500 miles to take an eyesight test. This, while Boris Johnson asks public sector workers to take a pay freeze. Yes, Dom deserves is £45 000 and the nurses, doctors, carers, council workers et al deserve nothing at all. Looking after No 1 really works.
Our remake of Durham Town. Poignant.
It’s even more gratifying to learn that Jacob Rees-Mogg, Minister for the 18th Century, has condemned UNICEF’s attempt look after others, after they tried to help the world’s most vulnerable children. I understand that Mr Mogg intends to start workhouses for these children rather than rely on handouts from damned charities.
Jacob Rees-Mogg says UNICEF should be “ashamed of itself” for providing food for some hungry British children
As the COVID R rate for Britain rises to 1.1-1.2, it is heartwarming to learn that the virus does not visit Private schools. Eton College is closed but state schools remain open. I confidently predict that we are headed for another national lockdown to mask problems from “Getting Brexit Done”. Johnson may lack competence in many things but he is brilliant at Looking after No 1. Locking us down after Christmas and using the law to enforce the measures will ensure that people are unable or unwilling to protest or riot against Brexit.
Already, we have 20 mile queues in Kent on the roads. We are also told that the lorry parks promised by Kent County Council will not be ready for months, due to “unplanned rain”.
Trucks queue down the M20 for mile upon mile at the entrance of the Eurotunnel in Folkestone, as companies rush to stockpile as the deadline for a Brexit trade deal looms.
Have I Got News For You features “Operation Pisspot”.
Devaluation of the truth
We have also been let inside the not so secret recipes of the Conservative Party recently. Wellingborough Conservative Party advise that sometimes it’s better to lie quickly rather than tell the truth slowly. Does that accord with you to get on in life as part of Looking after No 1?
Is self interest our default position?
Can we not do better than this?
"If you make enough dubious claims fast enough, you can get away with it"
Keir Starmer quotes from the Wellingborough Tories newsletter which tells wannabe politicians how to get ahead and asks if the PM was the inspiration or author. #pmqspic.twitter.com/PqPLQidBDx
Keir Starmer appears to be following the lead of The Midwife of Brexit aka Jeremy Corbyn, by appearing to back a deal. There is no good Brexit deal and the will of the people has changed dramatically. At what point will he and Labour oppose the greatest disaster to face our children? When it’s too late?
Some other bugger’s fault
Looking after No 1 demands that everything is always someone else’s fault. As expected, Johnson continues to blame the European Union for Brexit. I mean, it’s obvious:
The Conservatives set the Brexit vote up to heal a problem of cohesion within their own party.
The plan failed. Brexit has consumed three Prime Ministers so far.
The concept of No Deal was invented a year after the vote was taken. It was never mentioned at the time of the referendum.
Various aspects of Brexit have been deemed illegal. These are clearly the fault of judges, doomsayers and snowflakes
All of the above is clearly the fault of The European Union and not the Conservative Party and those who were taken in my the lies. How could anyone think it was Britain that voted for Brexit?
The Blame Game.
Brexit Means Brexit (still)
Everywhere I work, people are puzzled about why we are still pursuing this and I did this explainer video for our American friends the other week:
Season’s Brexit Greetings.
Enjoy spending your sovereignty this Christmas.
Infect a friend.
Looking after No 1 seems to be in vogue at this time. I am sure that karma will eventually kick in on this shower of liars, bullies and cheats. Britain was better than this … remember Live Aid?
Will the British people do the usual thing? To walk on by and ignore our sleepwalk into fascism? To moan about what happened AFTER it happened?
We can do better than this
Come out of the darkness
Into the light
Our requiem for Brexit. Please download the songs on Bandcamp.
Just a day after Johnson appeared to have made a “Canada style” deal, it turns out that all is not well and the industrial scale lies and gaslighting has started again. Our deal is really a Canada MINUS MINUS Brexit. Here we report the news via the medium of populist press parodies. Today it’s the Daily Maul and The Sun. Including a fact and fiction checker. As always it’s action that counts. Please follow the links at the bottom.
It’s always Fury in the Maul. Check our work in this area by clicking the image.
FACT AND FICTION CHECKER
TRUE : Boris Johnson has thrown students under one of his buses by cancelling the Erasmus scheme. In one of his empty flourishes he says he plans to replace it with our own scheme which he has rather oddly titled The Turing System. FALSE : It does not require students to undergo castration like Turing had to, leading to his suicide.
TRUE : Britain “leads” all of Europe in terms of COVID deaths. We are once again back up at peak deaths per day as we experienced in March 2020. This is because Johnson has prioritised the economy above health throughout this crisis, acting too little and too late and using the science when it was expedient to do so and then ignoring it to silence opposition. As a result, Britain lurches from lockdown to lockdown. The result will be a prolonged crisis rather than a rise to zero. Schemes such as eat out to help out and the use of exceptions mean that everyone loses as the pandemic flatlines at 400 – 700 deaths per day.
FALSE : Police did not threaten to taser lorry drivers to prevent them urinating. However, they used tactics reserved for totalitarian states in their attempts to control people who, through no fault of their own, were trapped at Manston airport and remain so.
TRUE : Plans exist to evacuate the Queen in case of civil unrest over Brexit. This unrest can only come from those who apparently have “won” Brexit, since remainers are largely unable to contemplate acts of civil unrest. beyond eating cucumber sandwiches and sitting down on the grass opposite parliament.
TRUE : These charts are an accurate appraisal of the Canada MINUS MINUS Brexit deal, as compared with our existing arrangements with the EU. It tells a very sorry story. To read the full text of the trade deal go to Brexit Trade Deal.
Rough Trade.
Brexit Fury in “The Sun”. Read Private Eyelines by clicking on the image.
FACT AND FICTION CHECKER
TRUE : Jacob Rees-Mogg did in fact blame UNICEF for feeding children at Christmas. This is beyond shame. FALSE : As far as we know, Mogg has not opened a workhouse in Chew Magna, But one never knows.
Jacob Rees-Mogg says UNICEF should be “ashamed of itself” for providing food for some hungry British children
FALSE : Although “John” has not taken over as home secretary , this regular attendee at 10 Downing St is an advocate of hanging. TRUE : He often turns up drunk at 10:00 o’clock in the morning to sing songs such as Bye Bye EU. In fact this is his only song .
TRUE : Oi band the K**TS managed to get to #5 in the Official Charts this week with their song Boris Johnson is a F*****G C**T. Speaking as a musician, I cannot say this song is particularly well written, but clearly the sentiment has captured the mood of the nation. Ursula Von de Leyen is in fact a gynaecologist, but did not utter the words about Johnson, apart from expressing some hand relief in her dignified speech on Thursday afternoon.
"Thank you for putting up with our adapted child Johnson for all these years. Please show us no mercy when he breaks the deal. We still love EU"
— Peter Cook – Leadership for a Better World (@academyofrock) December 24, 2020
True leadership.
TRUE : The French provided relief to stranded lorry drivers with 10,000 COVID tests. The Germans airlifted supplies in, whilst Sikhs from Gravesend cooked thousands of curries for lorry drivers stuck in Kent through no fault of their own. In contrast, Kent County Council managed to provide a snack bar, whilst Kent Police locked the drivers in at Manston airport and wielded tasers in order to frighten them. Kent County Council’s CEO also was complicit in lying about the numbers of lorry drivers stranded in the County, suggesting that it was in the hundreds rather than thousands.
TRUE : Boris Johnson attempted to cover up the fact that he has given a lot of ground to the EU by refusing to publish the details of the deal. He is calling it a Canada style deal, when in fact it is what I’m calling Canada MINUS MINUS Brexit. Meanwhile today Michael Gove is involved in gaslighting us to talk about a “special relationship” with Europe, in order to stop scrutiny on the deal. Keir Starmer is still undecided as to whether to oppose, abstain or support a Brexit deal. Although it’s a difficult choice, an abstention would be the minimum best course of action given that Boris Johnson will blame Labour if they back the deal. Where are your six tests Keir? And your backbone? John Redwood wishes to write a spoiler clause into the EU trade agreement, saying that we can cancel the agreement at any time without consequence.
This piece of excellent analysis by James Chespy who has read the entire EU Trade Agreement on Boxing Day – a Herculian effort:
The purpose of a Free Trade deal is to remove barriers to trading across frontiers. Having read this EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement I can say with some degree of certainty that this is not a free trade deal it is not even a Canada Style deal which the Prime Minister articulates. The deal is a regressive agreement because imposes barriers to Trading across frontiers. It imposes extra bureaucracy for businesses to adhere to. That means extra costs of doing business and that will mean lost jobs and reduced profits.
When companies are having their profit margins hit by the extra bureaucracy they will take the view that it will be far easier to conduct their business from within the EU than from within the UK.Whilst its welcome that there are no tariffs on exported or imported goods the extra cost imposed on businesses by the extra bureaucracy will make the fact that there are no tariffs rather meaningless.
Continue to operate divide and rule tactics in the Tory party in whatever way you can. Use their own tactics on them and better their strategies rather than copy them.
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