The big story from the by-elections this am is a Lib Dem landslide in Somerset and Frome with a 29% swing. Labour also put in a record performance in Selby with the biggest swing recorded for decades. However, the Conservatives surprised everyone by crawling across the finishing line with 495 votes in Uxbridge. Labour say that they achieved this by opposing the extension of the ULEZ scheme, a policy that Boris Johnson originated. However, the Labour candidate in Uxbridge opposed the extension of ULEZ to keep in lockstep with Tory policy on the matter, opposing Sadiq Khan and the entire environmental movement.
Tories voted to kill kids
Someone said that Labour could have won if the Greens had loaned their 700 or so votes in Uxbridge. I think it highly unlikely that Green party members would have loaned their votes given Labour’s capitulation to the Tories on ULEZ, a core issue for Green party voters. This was a victory for people who don’t mind killing children. Given that many young people don’t vote Tory, I can almost imagine the text on Johnson’s WhatsApp messages on his phone “Let the bodies pile high”. Just remember it was Grant Shapps who ordered Sadiq Khan to extend ULEZ.
Vote Tory to kill your kids would have been a more honest electoral slogan.
Ming vase broken
A lack of opposition (Keir Starmer’s so-called Ming vase / ice rink strategy) may not have helped Labour in Uxbridge. Worse still, Labour are asking Sadiq Khan to roll back his ULEZ initiative which affects one in 10 cars in London. Climate denial is not the answer and capitulating to swivel headed loons worse. Sure more help needs to be given to affected people to do the right thing, but this is Tory policy rather than Sadiq Khan’s decision.
I was ambivalent about Labour, as I am a realist but their recent position on climate change has turned me from ambivalence to opposition. Not content with running my kids socio economic futures with brexit, they are now chasing the far right climate denial bus ….
Brexit’s Breaking Britain
Brexit remained the elephant in the room at the by elections. No one discussed it, yet it is at the root of most of our lived experiences in Britain as depicted by the iceberg below. By extension, a lack of opposition on Brexit and the products of Brexit (cost of living, NHS crisis and so on) may well come to bite Labour on their collective bottoms. It’s entirely feasible that a lack of opposition on child benefit by Labour may also have played into the overall result in Uxbridge.
The Brexit Iceberg connects front of mind issues with their underlying roots.
Approximately 2500 votes when to other parties such as Lawrence Fox, other far right parties and some anti-ULEZ parties. I don’t buy the argument that these far right votes would have gone to Labour if these parties had not split the vote. The lesson for Labour here is clear:
Oppose
Oppose
Oppose
Tell the truth
I have just listened to Daisy Cooper refusing to answer a simple question on Brexit on BBC Radio 4. In conversation with senior figures such as Sal Briton and Irina von Weise, we agreed that the Lib Dems need a clear USP on Brexit rather than a mealy mouthed apology (we’ll join when the time is right, yada, yada). Nick Robinson just savaged Cooper live on this point who replied with a word salad of internationalism, environmentalism etc. This is why I’m backing Gina Miller and The True and Fair Party.
To those that tell me that the electorate are stupid and we can’t talk to them about uncomfortable truths such as Brexit, climate disaster, asylum seekers and so on I say horsehit. But we must hold these difficult conversations in a skillful way. Quite why I wrote a book on the gentle art of Brexorcism based on therapeutic interventions supported by psychology and anthropology. A Brexorcism takes skill, patience and time but I have 1000’s of hours experience in changing minds on Brexit. The approach applies just as much to other difficult issues. Labour and Lib Dems ought to be in the business of confronting racists, climate deniers and so on rather than chasing their votes.
Nonetheless, however many Tories attempt to spin the election results, it is a crushing defeat for Rishi Sunakered. We have not yet seen the outfall of this shocking result. No doubt Nadine Dorries, Liz Truss, Kemi Bad Enoch Powell and Penny Morduant will be sharpening their claws. John West sums up the outcome:
Congratulations to the gerrymandering division of the Tory party,
Who ensured that turning away people without ID before the polling booths kept Uxbridge.
And the Electoral Commission for NOT requiring those numbers be recorded.
Don Adamson writes from his Barnsley Brexit Bunker.
This week’s homework:
One – Compare the two words Media and Mediocrity. Is there a similarity of meaning? Do the words come from the same root?
Two – Discuss the following statement: ‘I just cannot bring myself to say anything nice about my father. He brought nothing but anguish to our lives.’ That is what producer Charles Finch said about his father; the actor Peter Finch. What would you expect Boris Johnson’s sons and daughters to say about their father?
Three – ‘An over-fat flatulent windbag, a master of inconsequence now masquerading as a guru, passing off his vast limitations as pious virtues’ That is what Richard Harris said about Michael Caine. Do you think that Harris let Caine off lightly?
Four – Discuss the following statement. Wallace is reputedly one of the more competent Cabinet Ministers in this government. He was even considered for the job of NATO Secretary General. Last week he made a gratuitously offensive remark about valiant Ukrainians heroically resisting the Russian military monster: ‘We are not part of Amazon.’ As a consequence Wallace has asked to be moved out of the defence job in the next Cabinet Reshuffle. Tories know a lot less about history in general and WW2 in particular. FD Roosevelt blenched when he saw the list of military equipment that Churchill demanded of the USA. These Tories imagine themselves to be bargain basement Churchills. Did they ever imagine themselves as bargain basement FD Roosevelts? If Wallace is one of the more competent Tory ministers what does this say about the dimwits in the Cabinet?
Five – Johnson refuses to hand over his mobile phone to the authorities investigating his misconduct as PM. We are given to understand that the mobile contains evidence of Tory incompetence and corruption. There is already an abundance of open source material to prove that and it seems unlikely that there might be any more hidden evidence on that subject. Rumours are circulating that the mobile has evidence that we know about but may not be able to prove; for instance: a) that the whole point of Brexit is to wreck the NHS and sell it cheap to asset strippers or b) that the whole point of Brexit is to decriminalise sex offences (especially child molesting). What other explanations might there be?
Six – Johnson is living rent free in a house provided by the Bamford Group (robber baron capitalists of the worst description and unrepentant Gammons). Johnson likes to be photographed by Murdoch and Rothermere lackeys when he goes jogging in the vicinity of the house. People in the neighbourhood show their displeasure by flying the Euro Flag. Why do these flags never find their way into trashy Murdoch and Rothermere tabloids?
Children are shrinking poorest fifth of households now need to spend half their disposable income to eat healthy diets
… years of poor diet lead to obesity and affect children’s heights … British 5 year olds among the shortest in Europe … average height started falling in 2014 … deprivation clearly goes hand in hand with stunting … average boy in the most deprived area of Britain is now 1.3cm shorter than in the least deprived area…
Bregret : Rising disillusion with Brexit
… polls find that sizeable majorities of Brits now regret the decision to leave the EU … margin as wide as 60-40 … steady shift … demography … older people mostly backed leave while younger folk preferred Remain … passage of time tilts against Brexit … Those who did not vote in 2016 now break strongly against leaving the EU … 20% of those who backed Leave in 2016 now say they would support Remain instead … Why? … disappointment with the outcome … high cost of living … falling real wages, struggling public services … high immigration … leaving the EU has clearly made problems worse … Britain was one of the last G7 countries to recover to pre pandemic levels of output … inflation and interest rates are higher than in most European countries; net migration is running at highest level ever … promises made by Vote Leave have proved illusory … broadest promise that there would be no downside to Brexit but only upside looks empty … Nigel Garbage admits that Brexit has failed … Jacob Grease Bogg, Tory Brexiter, is laughed at for citing benefits of Brexit … rising disillusion … Johnson’s notably thin Trade and Cooperating Agreement …. Delusion is believing something despite evidence to the contrary … Brexiters adhere to their beliefs despite compelling evidence that their predictions about Brexit were wrong…
Discrediting the falsehoods of Brexit and Rejoining the EU are the way forward
… numerous motivations for Brexit, some were, at best, incoherent and at worst outright lies … only a third of those eligible voted for Brexit … Few people would disagree with the statement that the country is in a mess … David Davis accused of abusing parliamentary privilege and being ‘a political has been who botched Brexit … ‘
Johnson destroyed almost all he touched
… promises of a better tomorrow based on Brexit has left everybody who voted for it with less not more … Johnson is now universally viewed as a liar makes Brexit’s failure more palatable to Brexiters. It was his fault, Nigel Garbage’s fault, Grease Bogg’s fault, and the media’s fault, not theirs… Johnson’s Daily Mail column is not only ruinously expensive but increasingly embarrassing … Rothermere, Mail owner, is not happy … paying over £1M for the appallingly bad column .. Provided a more than adequate supply of clownish incompetence…. 4thMail column took aim at the ‘odious, transparently wrong and unnecessary Ultra Low Emission Zone’ imposed on London by, er, Mayor Boris Johnson … what do readers make of ‘erudite’ jottings … Masil has taken the unusual step of moderating online comments, a step usually reserved for contentious or legally risky pieces … one positive post was published immediately … swiftly down voted by readers … 10 worst rated comments praised Johnson’s column … previously loyal Mail readers told Mail they had decided to stop buying while Johnson was on the payroll …
National Rejoin March 23 September looks to be the mother of all marches
… 20 times more popular than last year … coaches booked from around the country … Peter Corr, founder, says ‘almost all coming will be coming as Brexit has hit them the hardest … UK inflation caused by Brexit … can only be fixed by Rejoin … everything bad happening in the country is made worse by Brexit’ … clear warning to Keith Starmer…
Lie of the Week Nigel Garbage
… ‘establishment is trying force me out of the country by closing my bank accounts’ … Coutts exclusive bank used by the Royal Family … Garbage admits he does not meet the financial threshold for a Coutts account (£3M in savings or £1M in investments) … Garbage is being very, very dishonest …
Torygraph speculation about the value of Torygraph titles has fluctuated wildly since the titles were seized by Lloyd’s Bank after a £1B loan to the owners turned bad
… initial estimates of between £400M and £600M for the titles may be absurdly optimistic given the extent to which the Barclay family have appeared to leverage up the business … I have hear the jaw droppingly low figure of £68M mentioned …Lloyds taking control of the company was extreme and unprecedented and shows they have no confidence in the Barclays … Barclays massively overpaid when they acquired the titles of £665M in 2004 … motives of the Eurosceptic twins had been … ideological … Lloyds Bank face a new headache … Fraser Nelson Spectator editor, threatens to quit and take his core team to set up a rival right wing weekly … Murdoch … interested in Spectator if decoupled from Torygraph titles … Rothermere only interested in Torygraph’s paying subscribers as his own operation has been struggling for some time to get a figure anywhere near that … Rothermere rumoured to shutting down Mail on Sunday … profitable and once respected newspaper … mired in family scandal and extremism … Torygraph has been snatched from the Barclay family by Lloyds Bank … Torygraph played a part in diminishing the public’s respect for politicians … reputation tarnished by extremist output … despite all the evidence to the contrary Torygraph refuses to admit that Brexit has failed … outlandish views … Ofcom just ensure that whoever buys the paper also meets the definition of ‘fit and proper’ that is required of media owners (COMMENT: Yeah, Right) Tory billionaire keen to enhance their influence over the government might not clear that hurdle …
Immigration
Braverman’s Rwanda plan is on hold but the cruel and crazy stance remains … cost of sending each migrant to Rwanda … £169,000 … £63,000 more than keeping them in the UK … Government is so committed to the scheme that it is not open to rational argument … polls show that immigration is nowhere near the obsession with voters than it is with the Tories … questionable on many grounds … inhumane … government struggling to justify an untenable argument… government policy has a lot of holes … Rwanda government said it would only take 2000 asylum seekers initially. Last year 46,000 people crossed the channel in small boats … Illegal Migration Bill has so many defects it seems largely unworkable … most likely outcome is a perma-backlog of undecided asylum claims … government must hope that tough talk will go down well with voters … by the time the election comes and policy has still not worked it will have upset all voters…
University Admissions practices
A vast hereditary mediocracy…
National Health Service
Only the rich paying more taxes can save the NHS … NHS is in crisis …7.4 million people waiting for treatment up from 7.2 million a month ago, with more than 371,000 people waiting more than a year for routine treatment … short of 154,000 doctors, nurses, midwives and technical staff … that number will more than double in a decade … only the USA among developed countries has a higher rate of avoidable deaths than ours … all universal healthcare systems are feeling the pinch but the NHS more than most … 18th out of 19 countries for MRI and CT scanners per million of population … second worst for avoidable deaths … puts politicians in charge who know nothing about healthcare and dislike funding it … most chronic diseases have mushroomed, from diabetes to depression to dementia … chewed up money the NHS does not have … crumbling estate and 150,000 vacancies … 25th in the league table for doctors per 1,000 population and 18th for nurses … Staff are expensive but so is waste … GPs and hospital doctors taking early retirement has risen by 9.3% year on year since 2008 … three years after the start of Covid the department has spent £14.9B overpaying and over ordering PPE, medicines and vaccines … excessive profits on PPE so vast it is not hard to see how £14.9B made opportunistic scamsters very rich indeed … The only good Tory is a suppository …
Nadine Dorries infrequent visitor to Commons but draws her salary
… topped up by her undeclared income from GB News … more than a month since she announced resignation as MP…
The recent announcements from Boris Johnson’s Government indicate that Dominic Cummings‘ “Shock and Awe” campaign is in full swing to subjugate us into accepting Brexit under the safe umbrella of COVID crisis for a 2021 “Britastrophe“. Here’s what “The Sun” has to say about shock and awe:
In cased you doubt some of these satirical headlines, here are the links to the base stories behind the Government’s cynical shock and awe campaign to bludgeon us into accepting any kind of Brexit deal.
It is well-known in personal situations, that people who are confused or frightened tend to accept any kind of advice that is given to them. This is why counsellors do not offer advice. The campaign by the Government is designed to gaslight us into a state of terror, where we will accept almost anything they choose to do. There is no way back from such policies and Dominic Cummings’ guidance comes directly from the tactics of Nazi Germany. I predict that Britain will be in a state of war with itself by mid winter 2021 under the combined effects of Corona + Brexit. We cannot rid ourselves of Corona, especially since Government actions are specifically designed to cause more deaths than necessary. However, we can rid ourselves of Brexit, to properly focus on the disease. Take action today using the actions below.
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I had a curious encounter with Kevin Gray on Linkedin the other day. Kevin is CEO of Bath Building Society and, as such, I expected a degree of skill not available to the average soul. Kevin was responding to a post about Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership skills and the SNP in general. It transpired that Kevin does not like the SNP, Nicola Sturgeon or Scottish Independence although he is a Scot in England. Not unsurprisingly, Kevin also likes Brexit. But quite surprisingly, given his position as CEO, he had swallowed some of Boris Johnson’s lies. The transcript of the dialogue that follows illustrates just how pervasive the Dunning-Kruger effect is and especially so when one tries to change someone’s mind using online media. This BBC post was the initial trigger for Kevin’s outburst at Nicola. She rightly pointed out that Boris Johnson’s preoccupations with getting Brexit done, childbirth, ovens, fridges etc. had made a considerable impact on Britain’s ability to focus on the pandemic. I have left Kevin’s remarks unchecked in purple. My replies are in red. The entire conversation is exactly as it emerged on Linkedin. No editing etc. Simply reportage.
Kevin’s initial reaction was : “Hhhmmmm. Not so sure about that. If there was one example of where Brexit did actually help anyone it was in allowing the uk goverment to move quickly with the vaccine taskforce and deliver mass vacination ahead of EU states. I suspect Devolution did not help however. Having x4 parliaments/assemblies to deal with in the UK must surely have slowed up the response? Much as Nicola was a great politician, I would personally not give too much air time to any nationalist whose aim is only to deliver further and much more serious division in the UK.”
Given Kevin’s senior position, I felt no need to hold back and I replied thus:
“I’m afraid this is incorrect Kevin. We could always have done this as an EU member. The truth will come out in the COVID inquiry. Do remember that the vaccine was developed by foreign scientists. In desperation, Johnson used buying power to snaffle up the supplies. Speaking as a scientist, I must remind you of the short-sightedness of stockpiling medicines in a GLOBAL pandemic. This strategy sprang from Johnson’s desire to mask Brexit carnage with the COVID cover up. The result was a “Britastrophe”. Please check with scientific facts if you don’t believe me.”
To cheer him up and keep it a bit lighter I sent him a copy of the song I wrote in 2020 to epitomise the word Britastrophe:
Kevin was undeterred :
“Don’t get me wrong… we were ill prepared for the pandemic and the preps and early actions were inadequate. I’m pretty sure the enquiry will recognise that. Nevertheless, I’m pretty happy that early political action to stockpile and make early orders might have protected my friends, family, neighbours and their relations and friends in the UK. When it comes to avoiding death of my loved ones…I’m happy to jump the waiting list. We steal nurses from the third world ‘day in day out’ for the NHS so no new low standard applied there. I can’t see how being in the EU would have made a positive difference to the outcome for the UK quite frankly. I also think that SNP will find any cause to justify further separation, angst and years of pain in these islands that will be far worse than any political split from the EU. Some of us are Scots with families divided by politics on this matter. The SNP have hardly covered themselves in glory with their running of the NHS in Scotland for oh so many years after all. Now… an EU wide future plan including with the UK involved would make a lot of sense.”
I decided to challenge the basis of his competence. I am quite sure that Kevin is a competent CEO of a building society, but not so sure about this matter of science :
“Kevin, I imagine that you are NOT a biologist, epidemiologist or similar. As I said, your first statement was demonstrably wrong and the stockpiling of medicines is not a victimless crime. I’m quite disappointed that a CEO can have so little systemic thinking.”
Kevin defended himself again : “We sadly live in an imperfect world where states do not have equal resources or peoples have access to the same levels of health care. I agree that stockpiling vaccine was not victimless but the NHS holds drug stockpiles as part of their business as usual. British citizens benefit from the NHS hiring foreign health workers, often at the expense of others’ health care. It’s not right… but the primary duty of the UK government is to protect UK citizens. Same elsewhere. The UK government was following the preps for the wrong pandemic and clearly failed to implement lockdown as quickly as it should have. They failed to see what had worked in Asia to control SARS. That undoubtedly cost lives. I still cannot see what difference being in the EU would have made though. Happy to be put right on that point. The seeds of our slow initial response were sown decades ago. The next pandemic could be far worse so let’s hope the learning is swift.”
I decided at this point to put some external expert support from a Government source and offered him a way out of his fake news and an opportunity to ‘kiss and make up’ online :
“Kevin. Please read full fact : COVID and Brexit. Now you may correct the record on here. People believe fake news so please add a fact check to your original post.
‘Wrong pandemic’ – coughs … 🙂 I won’t embarrass you further on here but you are welcome to an online leaders’ debate.
Re your point ‘Some of us are Scots with families divided by politics on this matter.’ I can help you with the family healing issue. Read my book on Rebooting Britain.
You made two further points : ‘They failed to see what had worked in Asia to control SARS. That undoubtedly cost lives.’
This was not so much a failure, which implies accidental ignorance. This was wilful ignorance. Johnson and Hancock deliberately put infected patients into care homes due to the false narrative of herd immunity and a non-existent protective ring. This cost 40 000 unnecessary deaths. As regards Johnson’s level of attention and focus on the problem, this image sums up his leadership skills in this area :
Johnson’s dithering cost lives.
You also said ‘When it comes to avoiding death of my loved ones…I’m happy to jump the waiting list. We steal nurses from the third world ‘day in day out’ for the NHS so no new low standard applied there.’
This too is a false equivalence. I won’t bore you with the details but it is one of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s skills. To learn more read the book. Both situations are deplorable (poaching foreign nationals and stockpiling drugs in a pandemic), but they are NOT equivalent.”
By this time I thought Kevin was probably looking for an equitable way out of the matter, having perhaps wished he had never begun this encounter. He used the well-worn Brexiter phrase in an attempt to find something we could agree about:
Kevin : “Well everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I hope we can agree on that. The truth will out in the end and I’m sure that we may all be enlightened. I’m pretty sure that we can also agree that it won’t be 100 years before the next pandemic.”
I’m afraid I could not let this false equivalence pass for peace either :
“Kevin. Facts trump opinions I’m afraid. When they are put in the scales of truth, facts outweigh opinions.
But you are most welcome to join me on a leader’s debate on ZOOM at your convenience with an invited audience on “Brexit Futures”.
Human intervention has probably guaranteed that it will not be 100 years until another health crisis, possibly fungal and far more problematic, but nonetheless, Brexit will have a deeper impact on lives and livelihoods in the long term than COVID has, save for those killed by Johnson’s careless care home strategy, for which there is no way back for them.
At this point, Kevin ran away as they often do. I would draw some lessons out from this dialogue ….
Lessons learned
Brexiteers can come from anywhere. Even CEOs and intellectually bright are susceptible to illusions about Brexit. This merely confirms that Brexit is a religion / ideology and we must use strategies that address beliefs and identity change rather than the usual toolkit.
The lies put forward by Brexiteers have been installed like permafrost on some people’s minds. I very much doubt that Kevin is stupid. I imagine he can count money, but maybe not microbes or viruses.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is powerful when a figure of authority is challenged online where position power counts for nothing. I gave Kevin several levels of expertise to help him revise his view that Brexit had helped the COVID vaccine delivery programme but he stuck to his previously held beliefs.
Online Brexorcisms are always problematic. See the reasons why in this extract from Reboot Britain below.
That said, other people watch these online interactions and stay silent. They are sometimes more important than the other person in the conversation. Kevin made himself and his company look pretty daft in this interaction.
I doubt I will be getting a Christmas card from The Bath Building Society …oddly enough Bath voted to Remain. I wonder if some of the good people of Bath are reviewing their local building societies …
Don Adamson writes from the Barnsley Brexit Bunker.
This week’s homework:
Discuss the following statement. Since 2013 the Tories have ‘outsourced’ army recruitment to Crapita; which is a hopelessly incompetent ‘private enterprise company’ that gets obscenely rich on government contracts by overcharging and underperforming; except in those cases where they overcharge and do not perform at all. Crapita has missed Army recruitment targets every year. We all bad years but ten bad years in a row indicates the kind of corruption and incompetence that Gammons and Flagshaggers wanted when they voted for Brexit. The Tories are so delighted with this sheer, crass, unpardonable uselessness that they have begun to put Crapita in charge of Naval and Air Force recruiting. This is music to the ears of the morons who, after everything that has happened, still think Brexit is a brilliant idea.
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Meanwhile there is a worse example of sheer, crass, unpardonable stupidity in military matters. Wagner Group is a company of mercenaries that recruits by emptying the Russian prisons of brutish thugs of the worst description. Wagner has cut a swath across Africa; looting, raping and killing gratuitously everywhere they go, usually against unarmed villagers. Wagner Group did not do so well against outnumbered but armed Ukrainians. Wagner Group attempted a coup d’état to oust Putain but made a complete fiasco of it. This is exactly the kind of idea that 21st century Tories love: evil, violent thugs who loot and rape but are so incompetent that they cannot even mount a coup d’état against a regime as inept as Putain’s. How long will it take the Tories to abolish the British armed forces and replace it emptying the prisons of evil thugs and rapists? In this way they will have defence services that cannot even mount a coup d’état to oust a hopelessly incompetent political regime.
This week’s quotes:
Britain’s inflation and finance
… 8.7% in May … price of housing in Britain is soaring … only in Britain is inflation worryingly entrenched … Britain’s problem most acute … mortgage rates are surging … excruciating situation… grim … among G7 countries none has higher inflation than Britain … miserable … what has gone so wrong? … EU workers are missing … labour supply is down by 3% … inflation is unusually persistent… £1Trn government debt when Osborne became Chancellor … £1.5Ttn debt when Osborne left office in 2016 … £1.7Trn debt when going into the pandemic thanks to Osborne’s ‘repair’ of the economy … Britain signed a memorandum of understanding with EU on financial services …. Does not restore Britain’s access to the EU … mortgage rates have surged… Jeremy *unt has told banks to pass on higher interest to customers… Since the end of WW1 … Britain was economically crippled … Britain has been in a long and steady decline … endless cycle of boom and bust … promises of a better tomorrow … Brexit put the tin hat on it …
Ukraine accession to the EU is so important. It creates an incentive for reform and application of law… Do not be so sure our place is lost; some do want us back … a Eurocrat friend said ‘You forget we want you back … Leavers were fond of referring to … an army of bureaucrats but forget that in that army the British were the Brigade of Guards . Many who work for the EU miss the rigour, clarity and discipline that British Eurocrats brought to the party … politician may want to make a British return look difficult. Many of Europe’s staffers would give us our old concessions back in the blink of an eye if it brought British Eurocrats back to Brussels … I find it hard to imagine that the EU would insist on the most stringent conditions before letting Britain Rejoin. They too have been damaged by Brexit (though nowhere near as badly was us) … Question Beaucaire, France, renamed a road that leaves Rue Robert Schuman (EEC founder) and rejoins it 60m later. What is it now called? Answer: Rue de Brexit … Brexit is a disaster that just keeps on disastering … Clacton Coastal Academy … all but two children said they would vote to Rejoin … the norm in schools is zero … something strange about a political class where the government keeps telling us that Brexit is going well and an opposition that that insists they will make Brexit work when the next generation knows it is not going well and cannot be made to work.. Something has got to give… Rejoin March 23 September is causing consternation on the Labour front bench … Keith Starmer is trying to out-Brexit Richy Scumbag … Starmer wrote pro Brexit piece for the Daily Express … who have not got around to paying Starmer for it …
Gutter Express
still unrelentingly positive about booming Brexit Britain … even last week Grease Bogg promised cheaper food thanks to Brexit. He is unlikely to venture into Aldi to check the prices … biggest house price rise in 14 years … Oh Dear…
Daily Excess. Click to read the gutterpress pages.
Pandemic
any hope politicians would put learning lessons ahead of protecting their own repudiations ended when Osborne appeared before the inquiry…. ‘the numbers you refer to are from 2015 to 2020 … I left office in 2015 ’ expect months of high level arse covering … Longest most detailed most expensive enquiry in UK history … why did UK government believe itself to be well prepared when in fact it was woefully unprepared and vulnerable … politicians did not want to commit the money … even though it was number one on the risk register … DHSC knew that the risks were huge … economic outlook was dire … it was more than likely that a moderate pandemic would overrun the system … Jeremy *unt did not attend board meetings … ministers were concerned about *unt’s lack of engagement … no deal Brexit took the focus away from pandemic planning … same lame defence of austerity … we decided to sleepwalk into a £400B disaster … *unt knew the worst case scenario … UK entered the pandemic with its public services depleted, health improvements stalled, health inequalities increased… we did not have resilience in the health service … we were at the bottom of the table in doctors, number of nurses, ITUs, respirators, ventilators … if the next pandemic does not take down the NHS diabetes will … we did not give sufficient thought to a pandemic or any other pathogen …. It is hard to imagine we would do any better in the next pandemic … government has disinvested in infection monitoring services, dismantled key infrastructure … wound down our capacity for drug and vaccine development…. levels of public anger remain high … repeated reminders … Westminster, under the leadership of Johnson, flouted rules … even stupid enough to record photographic and video evidence of gratuitous flouting … Johnson repeated lied… shows how badly things have deteriorated inside the Tory Party …
A stitch up in time saves nine.
Fraud
system for victims to report crimes ‘outsourced’ to the usual suspects … Crapita was hit with a cyber attack … exposed thousands of savers in pension schemes … less than impressive data hygiene … Colchester Council ‘extremely disappointed’ … unsecured Amazon data bucket controlled by Crapita … Crapita is no stranger to financial rip offs … when it comes to general incompetence Crapita is no more reassuring … most notorious is military recruitment … Crapita has missed Army’s annual targets for recruiting new soldiers and officers every year since 2013 … Crapita assisted by PwC … PwC faced a string of large fines for poor auditing … focus of criticism … real problem is not reporting it but the near absence of policing it … less than 1% of reports lead to prosecutions … it will take more than another Crapita deal to address that …
GB News
GB New boss Angelos Frangopoulos is desperately attempting to reposition his channel away from being a home for right wing cranks and conspiracists …. ‘this is not just Channel Nigel Garbage … glad to be shot of Canadian wacko Mark Steyn … found guilty of breaching Ofcom rules when he approvingly interviewed weirdo writer Naomi Wolf on her view that Covid 19 vaccination is ‘mass murder’ …
Lockdown
staff at Mail on Sunday had a leaving party for departing member of staff. Video shows at least 30 people … no social distancing…
Read Private Eyelines on Amazon
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
I like Angela Rayner. As some who started life in a council house, who pulled myself up by my bootstraps, with a wife from Manchester, I identify with Angela’s straight talk on many things. I was therefore even more dismayed to hear her spinning myths and lies on LBC this week about Brexit. Angela came up with many of the Brexiteer arguments in this interview. Here are some of her ‘whoppers’.
The will of the people must be respected
Horseshit. We are fast approaching the point where 70% of people in Britain believe that Brexit has failed. Angela does not understand that democracy is NOT a project. It is a process. She would not even be an MP if democracy were a project as women would not have a vote or be able to participate in society. We would be more like Saudi Arabia under Angela’s view of democracy.
We can’t just rejoin
Bollocks. Whilst it’s true that all takes time, the only thing preventing us from starting the process is a backbone in politics. Read our article on the matter at Byline Times.
I met with four Labour Councillors campaigning in my area on Sunday. All said they fundamentally disagreed with the exec. Are they prepared to do anything about it? Of course not. We need ‘different’ and not more of the same. In contrast, Gina Miller leads the only party in Britain who unequivocally favour rejoining the EU. It is possible and need take no longer than 3 years.
This was perhaps Angela’s cleverest deception. By not being specific, she allowed people to fill in the dots by themselves … for example “oh we’ll lose the pound, Shengen, pints”, and many other myths put forward by the Brexiteers. These feed the Labour project fear narrative and Angela should really know better.
It is true that Old Albion will need to learn some appropriate humility as part of the joining process, instead of the English exceptionalism which characterised the Brexit vote. However, it is unwise to place more constraints in the way of success than is necessary before negotiations begin. When I reflect on the conversation I observed with Barnier, I know that rejoining is possible. Yes, it will be difficult and everything will be on the table. If Britain decided that it must keep the pound for example, I’m sure it would be considered. Since all is a trade, the EU may come with some other things we may have to move on to keep the pound, perhaps in the finance domain. For example, we have just seen concessions on Northern Ireland traded with changes to the Erasmus scheme. Nonetheless, what we must do is establish the principle of rejoining and political will to do so. Once that is secured, we must then leave the negotiators to do the work, as we did in the Brexit negotiations.
I am attending the policy launch of the True and Fair Party on Monday. Gina Miller stands head and shoulders above the vast majority of Westminster politicians and deserves your support.
Truth, trust and equity in politics are precious assets. A lack of these things is the reason most often given by people who are disenfranchised with politics, politicians and the media in my local area. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that you could trust the people making decisions about your children’s lives and livelihoods? I’d vote for that.
The question of truth and trust will become magnified in the AI world. We habitually place trust in authority figures, for example Martin Lewis in terms of money. But the world of deep fakes has the potential to undermine that trust. This calls on policy makers to up our game in terms of making good laws to protect vulnerable people from exploitation.
I’m sure some of you will not know who Gina Miller is. She gained a reputation for upholding truth when she took our Government to court to demonstrate that Britain had always had sovereignty as a member of the EU. Of course, the Government ignored the ruling. You may more likely know her from the tabloid newspapers who vilified her for doing this. The result of this was various vile threats of beheading and gang rape. All for upholding truth and the rule of law.
The binary prisoner’s dilemma of the Conservatives and Labour delivered Brexit. The Tories are finished. If Labour are so far ahead as they claim, it is time to introduce some diversity into the mix. Please support The True and Fair party for a better Britain in a better Europe for a better World. Gina is not a threat to the Labour party as some Labour zealots claim. She is standing a handful of candidates. However if she wins, she is a threat to the cosy binary status quo. That’s healthy and refreshing. In the same way that Caroline Lucas has leveraged change from a single seat, the True and Fair party stand as a disruptor to sleaze, corruption, cronyism and hateful practices in politics. Never forget that Nigel Farage tricked people will feeble minds to vote for Brexit without ever having been elected as an MP.
Gina’s position on Brexit is unequivocally clear, compelling and concise:
Please support the True and Fair Party. Click the banner above.
My small part in the story was in getting Gina some support from Richard Branson to launch her earlier initiative Campaign 2018.
The hallmark of a just society is in how we treat vulnerable people. Click to join Gina.
Well worth 10 minutes of your time.
A Prince and a Queen.
True and Fair – it’s time for different rather than more of the same.
Don Adamson hunkers down in his bunker in Barnsley for another edition of his insanely great ravings with the incisive edge of a bic razor blade.
This week’s homework
One: In the sunlit uplands of Brexit Tory MPs tell lies shamelessly and routinely. A Tory MP who speaks the truth is not only rare but the object of contempt and ridicule by his mates. Harold Macmillan was, reputedly, physically ill when he learned that John Profumo had lied to Parliament. Does this mean that there was a better class of Tory in the 1960s?
Two: Are Johnson and Grease Bogg the best that Oxford University can do? If so what light does this shed on Bertie Wooster’s assertion that he was one of the finest minds of his generation?
Suffer little children.
Three: Discuss the following statement – Nigel Garbage has claimed that there is a lefty woke plot to prevent him from having an account with Barclay’s Bank. As a consequence Garbage may see fit to leave the country. We do not know the actual facts but we do know that anything Nigel Garbage says is suspect. Do we want Nigel Garbage to leave now that he is actually getting real about the failure of Brexit? Personally I would prefer it if the idiots who have not noticed the failure of Brexit left before Garbage.
Four: Cecil Rhodes was part of the process whereby the British government could distance itself from nasty goings on in Africa. Rhodes worked for a private company and was not a British government official. (Yeah Right). Rhodes was part of the process that led to the outbreak of the Second Boer War. It was during that war that the British developed the concentration camp: an invention that caught on in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Some 20,000 Afrikaner women, children and old men died the concentration camps in South, Africa.
None of this excuses Apartheid but it may explain why Afrikaners bear grudges against the British. Cur Jacob Grease Bogg, recently nominated for a knighthood by Johnson for telling shameless lies to the late Queen, said that the concentration camps were a jolly good idea. The Afrikaners were sent there for their own protection. How many Afrikaner civilians might have been killed in that war if they had not been sent to concentration camps ‘for their own safety’? Does the idea of a government sending a private company to perform dirty deeds in Africa remind you of Putain’s government sending the Wagner Group to Africa to kill, rape and plunder?
Footnote: The concentration camps in South Africa were under the control of the British Army. There was one camp where conditions more closely resembled decent humanitarian standards. The officer in charge was a Royal Marine. Turn blue Pongoes.
Five: Discuss the following statement: The Ring of Five Cambridge Spies betrayed Britain for a Soviet Union that had some tattered shred of ideology. Oxford Brexiters have betrayed Britain for the Russian Mafia who are criminals of the worst description. Have the Oxford Brexiters done a FUBAR on Britain beyond the wildest dreams of Stalin; or, for that matter, the wildest dreams of Hitler, Kaiser Bill, Bonaparte and Philip II of Spain?
This week’s quotes:
Prince Andrew
Spitting Image show opened on the West End .. Has reached the ‘no reputation to defend stage’ in which he has been joined by Johnson…
Britain is now an anti Brexit country
… polls confirm this … in the past seven years more than four million people have died … mostly older voters who backed Brexit by 2 to 1 … almost 5 million have reached voting age and overwhelmingly want Britain in the EU … YouGov polls … for the first year polls were close to the referendumb result …. after that ‘Buyer’s Remorse’ set in … steadily more people say we were wrong to leave … moiré Leave voters give Brexit the thumbs up than the thumbs down … proportion of Leave voters who say Brexit has been a success is just one in five. The number who says they have benefitted from Brexit is even lower…. big public appetite for Britain returning to EU.
Johnson’s poisonous legacy will continue to cost us
… for decades … he may be gone but the ruin he has caused will continue … Johnson’s statements churn the stomach … pathetic posturing … bloviating blowhard … Brexit is costing us 5% of GCP every year … almost certainly an understatement … equally useless David Frost negotiated a terrible deal … gave Australia and NA everything they wanted without even bothering to read his brief … added farming to the long list of sectors betrayed by Brexit … these include fishing, manufacturing, food production, financial services education … not a single sector has been helped … built on lies that hurt real people … National Health Service is collapsing, defence cuts on the way, economy is anaemic … shameless charlatan … growth is pathetic, productivity terrible, living standards collapsing …
Johnson asks why have we abandoned the free trade deal with the USA? … USA has no interest in a trade deal with Britain … Johnson could not even get his best mate Trump to bother with one … US business confidence in UK has fallen for third consecutive year …. Brexit cited as the main reason for collapse … Johnson shredded his own reputation as well as that of the country … Johnson’s economically illiterate diatribes…. Department for Brexit opportunities failed to find any … this lying clown beggars belief … his poisonous legacy will continue … MPs voted to censure Johsnon … Most Tory MPs failed to appear … only 7 Tories voted against the report … a crushingly low level of support for Johnson … at the end of Johnson’s career we get the true measure of the man … self obsessed, economical with the truth (to put it mildly) and a coward … his name will not appear on the ballot paper in the by election. He has chosen instead to sulk off into a well paid sunset …
7 years of hurt
Britain has changed for the worse but not forever … a better country can emerge … 7 years on the full ghastly impact of Brexit becomes clearer by the day … an elite project branded as a great day for the popular will … it was a stupid idea devised by clever people …, campaigned for and wrote into law a disastrous future for the nation ,,, Vanity, a lust for power … chose to conspire for in such a predictably terrible course of action … systematically reduce this country … not since Soviet communism lured middle class hearts and minds in the 1930s has such a delusion gripped a sizable clique within the nation’s elite … only with the rise of Nigel Garbage, whose malevolent contribution was to switch from abstract polemic … did it become fully apparent how potent the toxic was becoming … Cameron’s gamble went hideously wrong … more striking is the readiness of its earliest champions to admit that the great project has not worked …
From Don’s bunker to Nigel’s
Nigel Garbage himself has conceded failure … for him the fiasco is the consequence of betrayal not the intrinsic idiocy of the idea … a fiasco it most certainly is … £100B less GDP every year …. Red tape has more than tripled…. Business investment now 31% below pre referendumb trend … manufacturing sector contracted for 10th consecutive month … Larry Summers, US Treasury Secretary, says Brexit was ‘historic economic error … economic consequences of Brexit only one aspect of the damage … UK needs a muscular trade deal with the US and that is not even on the agenda … Gammons can bang on all they like about British exceptionalism … we are smaller, less influential, easier to ignore …. Britain’s representatives are no longer seen as serious people … poisonous culture of resentment, post truth that Gammons turbocharged in 2016 has not gone away … a malignancy that is still metastasising …
Tories blame not only the failure of Brexit but everything else on imagined conspiracies of ‘liberal elitists’, judges Whitehall officials. BBC, anti growth coalition … shrill betrayal narratives are the refuge of the political scoundrel … profoundly dangerous … ‘stab in the back’ legend essential to the growth of virulent Nazism in 1930s Germany … matter for serious concern … growing contempt of Tories for core institutions, due process, rule of law … Johnson lied to the Queen … Supreme Court ruled Johnson’s request unlawful … has any modern government been more scornful of the rule of law? … Brexit culture profoundly hierarchical, some Gammons more equal than others … Richy Scumbag focussed on the despicable and futile ‘small boats strategy …
Suella Braverman, Priti Patel and the ‘others’.
Braverman’s strategy is a direct descendant of Garbage’s ‘Breaking Point strategy … denounced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the United Nations Refugees Agency … yet such criticism emboldens her to press ahead … believe they are speaking on behalf of the masses … the oldest delusion of the autocrat … Brexit was absolutely the wrong answer … Cumming’s pledge on the side of a bus £350M per week for the NHS was a lie … brutal irony of Brexit … raised expectations of dramatic improvements … in practice debased and diminished the ruling class … British soul has taken a beating … public services are on their knees … polls show two thirds of Brits believe Brexit is a failure … and more importantly open to another vote … Brexit vacuous slogans rather than meaningful government principles … any new government will have to work day and night to restore trust that Johnson trashed … long delayed overhaul of the second chamber and honours system and stricter rules on MPs second jobs and political lobbying ….Brexit experience has been a grim object lesson … loss on a global scale … wake up, get busy, it is later than you think, 7 years of this nonsense is long enough. It is time to win again…
Brexit Migration Algorithm – sorted … except Richy Scumbag does not want to sort it out.
Labour and Brexit
Keith Starmer will be challenged to rule out any attempt to rejoin … people around Starmer know that a closer relationship with the EU would be hugely beneficial … joining the euro (an idea that is as economically sensible as it is politically unpalatable) … 20% hit on imports and exports since Brexit … approximately £100B shorn from output …Starmer would have to change the way Britain conducts business … Since May’s tenure UK has tried to pretend that the EU does not exist … ministers refused to listen … arrogant and ignorant … failed spectacularly … they have had enough of humouring the Brits. There will be goodwill but Starmer will be made to work very hard… Labour has jettisoned the baggage of the Corbyn era … it is not just Johnson that helps Labour … Britain is suffering from economic pain that particularly hurts mortgage holders … Scottish National Party support has collapsed … thanks to PC McPlod and erratic book keeping by the SNP … too much luck can be a bad thing … Cameron gambled heavily and came across as one of the worst Prime Ministers on record … Labour comes across as a party that that expects to lose rather than one thinking on how best to lose … good luck may bring Labour to power but will not help them govern … growth prospects are lacking, public services are failing … it will be a horrible time to run the country …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
We are touring Britain to spread the word that Brexit has failed and that Rejoining the EU is not only desirable but possible. Many people believe that Brexit is done and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s what psychologists call ‘learned helplessness’. It’s not correct. Read our latest article at Scottish Bylines on Strategies to join the EU anew.
Since writing the article, even more mayhem broke our, with the advent of the New Conservatives, a far right fascist breakaway group, exclusively white. Their main gambit is twofold: to ‘out-Farage’ Tice and to demonise ‘brown Prime Minister Sunak’ to win their seats in the red wall. They just can’t help themselves can they?
Not the Nat-C Party – another fascist faction. Click to support EU Flag Mafia.
The leave trolls are out again, spreading myths on strategies to join the EU anew. I gave a mini talk at Greenwich on tour with the Mini recently, with three simple points about Brexit and rejoining the EU:
Some 63% of people believe that Brexit has failed. We must move the dial to 70% by early 2024. An active campaign of Brexorcisms on the population is needed to accelerate the movement now gathering momentum. Read our book Reboot Britain on Amazon to find out how we do that. A Brexorcism requires skill, patience and time. The book covers all three aspects of what is needed to have these difficult conversations anew.
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