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Category: Keir Starmer

Brexit bunker

Brexit breakdown

Updated on date by author

Don Adamson reports the news that the papers refuse to print. Don writes from his Brexit bunker in Barnsley.

When a child is born

This week’s homework: Discuss the following statements:

1. Johnson fanzine has announced that Princess Nut Nuts is expecting again. This is (says the Daily Mail) Johnson’s 8th child. There are probably more that we do not know of. Johnson objects to contraception for ecological reasons. He is against single use plastic. Gammons and flagshaggers will tell you that genetics count for more than experience or learning. That being Johnson and his ilk should be forcibly vasectomised.

2. Johnson is the diarrhoea that keeps on giving.

3. Discuss the following statement: ‘Gentlemen in England now abed will hold their manhood cheap and think themselves accursed they were not here.’ Shakespeare reckoned without Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes who brag about their superlative gallantry in wars that ended before they were born. Did Shakespeare get it wrong or is it more a case of Johnson, Nigel Garbage and other Brexit war heroes may be a lot of things but they are not gentlemen? 

Coincidence or cock up?

Have Patience

This week’s quotes: “Lady Patience Wheatcroft is not in favour with the Tories after shifting from the Tory benches to the cross benches and, while once reliably Conservative, has made her opposition to Brexit clear … after voting for Brexit Bournemouth is in deep remorse, with the Lib Dems establishing themselves as the dominant force on  the local council … Dorset Chamber of Commerce complained that Brexit was having ‘serious detrimental impact on exports’… not delivering the positives that were promised … Scotland may yet prove a steep uphill climb for Labour while it continues to be pro Brexit … don’t write off the SNP … Labour’s position on the EU and the Lib Dem’s ambivalence … will be an open door for The SNP at the next election … ‘Voter ID’ did not help the Tories … next they will stipulate that the only valid proof of ID will be a Tory Party membership card … inaugural conference of the Conservative Democratic organisation, convened by those Tories horrified by the sudden leftward lurch into outright Communism that the party has taken under Richy Scumbag (stop laughing) … Jacob Grease Bogg … perhaps still stung by the fact that during his tenure as Secretary of State for Brexit Opportunities he never found any …. started plucking Brexit benefits from his limited imagination … spectacular Bulwarks even by Grease Bogg standards …

Have Patience.

Anger is an energy

Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is incensed … If Lindsay Hoyle is angry with Tories then they really are running out of friends … Johnson leans on rich friends for freebies … on 25 separate occasions since August he has passed through Heathrow airports palatial Windsor Suite. At £1,800 a pop the suite is part of Heathrow’s VIP experience. He has received almost £50,000 in lounge hospitality alone …£250,000: Johnson’s legal fees funded by the taxpayer…. £2.5M advance Johnson received from speaking agency in January … 

Surrey Heath council covers Gove’s constituency was won by the Lib Dems … Reigate and Banstead is now the only council in Surrey where Tories have a majority . Right across the stockbroker belt Tory ministers and ex ministers saw control of councils go to the Lib Dems’… another example of this government’s neglect and mismanagement…

Abandon ship

NHS is now so overloaded that delays and human errors are inevitable and increasing … subject to aggressive litigation … as if doctors needed another reason to abandon the NHS …  a recent survey by the Medical Protection society of doctors who had been reported to the GMC in the past five years … nearly a third had experienced suicidal thoughts … NHS has always been reliant on overseas trained doctors, even more so now that many UK trained doctors are leaving …

GMC has adopted 23 recommendations to stamp out bias against ethnic minority doctors. A greater problem is that GMC expects impossibly high standards of performance in a crumbling health service with more complaining patients … workload is higher than the service can competently manage … Regime’s ineptitude. Hobbled by Cronyism and graft … economy is creating fewer opportunities … less direct foreign investment …  danger of accelerating, perhaps violent, decline …

Nowhere man

We have no clue what Starmer really believes in … will not tell us what our post Brexit relationship with EU should be … Britain’s Public Order Act goes too far … UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said it imposed ‘serious and undue restriction’ … fears of erosion of civil liberties in Britain … Further indication of Home Office authoritarian tendencies …. a law does not need to put people in prison to do damage … further eroding trust in the police following a series of dreadful scandals at the Met … badly written law … hard to justify a move to Britain … Britain’s car industry is another pressure point ….

Under pressure

Steelmaking is also under strain …  too many unanswered questions … Brexit upheavals add to uncertainty. …  Over 2M British homes suffer from disrepair that pose a risk to public health … costs to NHS estimated at £290M a year …Tories and Britain would like to forget about Thick Lizzie … on tour … to chide the enemies of freedom and stand up to China … given her record it is surprising people listen to her … calls for an ‘economic NATO to stand up to China … (COMMENT: There is one: the EU) … Thick Lizzie may be the least successful PM in British history … emblematic of deeper problems in government … complains about having no control (COMMENT: Surely that is the whole point of Brexit?) … 

Private Eyelines
Extract from Private Eyelines – click to view.

Migration observatory

Braverman complains about 1M immigrants to UK this year without mentioning that she is responsible …  Thick Lizzie is a problem for the Tories not because she is the exception but because she is the rule … her ideas live on … Johnson intervenes only if he thinks it will enhance his slim chances of a return to power … loony economic policies … Fox News fired *ucker Carlson … viewership fell from 3M during his final week to 1.5 the following week … biggest beneficiary has been Newsmax, even further right than Fox … viewership rose from 150,000 to nearly 500,000 ..

Praise the Lords

Loss of Carlson’s divisive populism has led 1.15M people to abandon conservative cable news in prime time…  Performance in the House of Lords by Lord Johnson of Lainston … caused despair even on Tory benches … decline in car manufacturing is an especially depressing example of Brexit affecting industry … Johnson saw it as an opportunity to take puerile swipes at the EU … disturbing comments by Cur James Dyson (COMMENT: notorious Brexiter) that the government was not on the side of industry …

Lord Fox (Lib Dems) said industry was at a watershed … car manufacturers would simply go to France or Germany … one Tory peer said waves of political appointees have made Tory benches a laughing stock … worst fears for the Lords realised … gift for the abolitionists ….

Gammon corner

All Perspectives is still pumping money into GB News despite £33M losses … takes funds injected by investors to  £120M … Who can explain what Labour’s economic policy is? … numbers raising their hands to answer alarmingly low … at Derby …’Is Brexit going well or badly? Result Well 0% Badly 100% … Same in Edinburgh and Glasgow … populists love to inflame their fellow believers with slogans, myths for a past that never was … recent National Conservative conference  highlighted the threat of the far right … most mainstream Tories wisely stayed away.

Why Michael Gove chose to appear is baffling (COMMENT: Not baffling to me – Gove is a Murdoch lackey of the worst description) … strange and unsettling London conference … home to an evangelical Christian church … Johnson was hardly more popular than Scumbag…. inward looking, illiberal, censorious conservatism … nostalgia for a rose tinted past … fuelled by anger, pessimism, paranoia and disdain for any who disagree …  portray opponents as sinister and evil. Object furiously when the same accusations are levelled at them … demonisation of anybody to the left of them; which is probably 95% of the British population….

Nat-C Party

NATcees assertion of moral superiority … no acknowledgement that they have won four successive elections and might themselves be responsible for the dire state of the nation … Braverman distanced herself from an immigration which she has been in charge of for 7 months … Johnson was the embodiment of selfish reckless individualism that they now decry … Rees Mogg did admit that requiring ID cards to votes was a failed attempt at gerrymandering … hailed Brexit … none thought fit to mention the calamitous consequences of Brexit … has actually boosted immigration …

Braverman castigated the ‘prognosticators of doom’ who said Brexit would be a catastrophe … Tory Party beginning to fragment into warring factions as it faces an electoral drubbing … an ugly search for scapegoats … sensible Conservatives stayed away … 

Don Adamson Pip Pip             Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class    

Read more : Brexit under the microscope 

From the vault : Five years of Brexit

Posted in Borders, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Europe, Farage, Immigration, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Keir Starmer, Labour, Liz Truss, NHS, Politics, Rejoin EU, Sunak | Tagged , , , | Leave a reply
Downing Street

Car crash special

Updated on date by author

Don Adamson reports on the Tory car crash special : the news that Rupert Murdoch dares not publish. It is indeed strange that a car trundles into a gate at 2 mph, causing no damage to the car or the gate and, all of a sudden, Rishi Sunak has to be evacuated. One is left wondering if this is a stunt dreamt up in Tufton Street to garner sympathy for Sunakered? Or, to insist on greater police powers to arrest children riding Playmobil cars in Britain, on suspicion of crimes against the state?

Talking cock

This week’s quotes: “Nigel Garbage sees himself as cock of the walk at Gammonite Balderdash News … sense of resentment that GB News does not remunerate him more handsomely … little or no logic on how people are paid … sniping about pay and grievances … Garbage paid £480 536 … Last year Labour raised £300,000 more from donors than Tories … Johnson’s earnings (sic) down from £766,000 to £216,000 from speeches in London, Pennsylvania and Lagos … not persuaded Johnson to give up the free accommodation that JCB heir, Lord Bamford, provides … not all joy in Johnson land. …

Wipeout

Tory wipe out in local elections … eccentric fan club Conservative Democratic Organisation champion his return to office …. Johnson fanzine Mail On Sunday decided to focus on Prince Harry bashing … support for Brexit drastically falling … 63% want UK to Rejoin … I cannot see the Tories coming back from this one … no disguising catastrophic results … a range of exhausted volcanoes … seven years of Brexit have been an unqualified disaster … terrible reckoning lies ahead of the Tories … the party is over. Brexit has reduced Tories to a populist campaigning movement … crude culture wars … nativist vilification…. Tories have to answer to the questions … nothing of substance to say … The sun is finally setting on a political empire born 44 years ago (Thatcherism) …

Starmer or Stammer?

It is high time the 21st century began in earnest . Is Starmer’s Labour Party up for the challenge? … Might the Mail and other right wing propaganda rags have been part of the reason for the Tories dire performance in recent elections … the difference between their version of politics and what is actually happening is now so vast it just makes people angrier … Tory tone deaf response to shellacking underlines how out of touch they are … ‘if they focussed less on stopping boatloads of refugees and more on stopping our teeth from falling out we might not be so desperate to kick out the Tories’ … I doubt Richy Scumbag will see that … What can Labour promise? … It is easier to be principled and uncompromising when you do not collide with reality … Any idiot can promise the world. There is nothing impressive about extravagant promises that can never become real … very few voters think the country is on the right track and even fewer want an opposition party to deliver more of the same only more competently …

Nuts

I thought Brexit was, frankly, nuts, … the private equity sector think that Cruella de Ville is some kind of woke do-gooder ,,, financier Guy Hands has emerged as an intriguing and informed critic of the whole Brexit mess …a Brexit that was designed to tear up the accepted order, risk the country’s future and benefit the ultra rich … libertarian right wing – callous and uncaring assumed they would always survive decided to press ahead, setting their own needs ahead of the country … people dismissed Thick Lizzie as being incredibly stupid, whereas what she was saying was that the only way Brexit would work was basically to tear up the rule book … within a few weeks it was clear that could not happen and the country would go bankrupt … she was ideologically correct … that was the only way Brexit could work … ironic that Tory ministers try to blame the Civil Service or Remainers for the failure of Brexit … will not take responsibility for the fact that what they tried to do was delusional … the reality is that Brexit could never have worked … we have the worst of both worlds … the issue is how much damage will have been done to Europe as a whole … while it is bad for the UK it is bad for Europe as a whole …”

Car Crash
It is indeed strange that a car trundles into a gate at 2 mph, causing no damage to the car or the gate and, all of a sudden, Rishi Sunak has to be evacuated. One is left wondering if this is a stunt dreamt up in Tufton Street to garner sympathy for Sunakered? Or, to insist on greater police powers to arrest children riding Playmobil cars in Britain, on suspicion of crimes against the state? And what was Ann Widdecombe doing in the boot?

Winners and Losers

(COMMENT: I said this all along).  “The only people really benefitting are the Chinese … the damage from Brexit continues … we are losing our advantage. UK is being torn apart … death by a thousand cuts … They think the French are going to love us because we divorced them … UK is in decline … Britain has become rather nasty. Whether it is sending people to Rwanda or attacking people who disagree with the government…. we need politicians who admit they got it wrong … It is a mess … asking for such politicians nowadays is asking for pigs to fly … steady creep of Tory attacks on our freedom  … Britain feels less like a third country and more like a third world country …Brexit has done good job of making EU countries glad they are in it – they look at us and shudder … If voter ID cannot stop the anti Tory vote we should raise the voting age to 70 … we should add ‘expectation management’ to the ever growing list of things the Tories cannot do …  

Who are EU?

“World Health Organisation declared Covid 19 is no longer a ‘public health emergency … 7M deaths have been reported … WHO thinks the true toll is 20M …Fox Corporation swung to a quarterly loss because of costs associated with $787.5M settlement in a defamation case …Britain plays catch up in a global scramble for essential commodities …lacks the heft of USA, China or EU … it is a big hole to dig out of … Ramsgate Harbour once held a big fishing fleet … only sign of life is four cutters of the Border Force … in 2015 UKIP took control of Ramsgate council, first and last it would run…. shambolic … the issue of Brexit has faded … lives are dominated by the cost of living and the health service … UKIP lost all its councillors … the towns where the Brexit revolution started are showing signs it may be at an end … Mid Suffolk district council… first to be controlled by the Green Party …  decades of cuts to the British Army have called into question its ability in a conflict … at its smallest since the Napoleonic era …

From Russia with hate

Putain’s generals are useless, Putain himself is a ‘a complete asshole’ and the war is going to be lost … Russia’s willingness to go on fighting is approaching tipping point … what can break that arrogance, along with the propensity to rape, torture, murder and mutilate that Russian troops have become infamous for? … what, if anything might persuade Sue Ellen Braverman that her rhetoric and strategy might have gone too far … morally unacceptable … denounced by the UN Refugees Association, Council of Europe, UNICEF and former PM Theresa May … Braverman has been referred to the Bar Standards Board for breaching its code of conduct … what we in the trade call ‘ a lie’ … the majority of child exploitation groups are made up of white men under the age of 30 .., downright sinister shift in her rhetoric … even on its own terms the government is failing …

Bankrolled by Putin … now totally discredited … Nigel Farage

Truth bombs

Starmer promised that his government would be transformative … a good start would be to present himself as a leader with courage to speak the truth … rank hypocrisy … encouraging signs that this wave of popular illiberalism encouraged by irresponsible politicians is receding … Lincoln, Churchill and Kennedy demonstrated that nations can be inspired by confrontation with reality …. Richy Scumbag has worked out that an economy battered by Brexit cannot take much more of financial, legal, commercial and environmental chaos … Brexit being both symptom and cause of our decline … running the new line ‘if only we did Brexit the way we want it everything would be tickety boo … some of the many things about Brexit that were damaging the country … Brextremists never accepted responsibility for Brexit’s failure, and none of them ever had a credible plan …

Brexit Broadcasting Corporation

BBC has for years provided platforms to the Brexiters and they are never properly challenged nor scrutinised …  the right seem to defend their anti-woke diatribes as being rooted in free speech … in practice try to shut down any criticism of the populist, polarising, post truth approach … Brexit morass into which we are sinking more each day … more bad news about the impact of Brexit … “ Everything in the country seems broken … disappearing Tory voters and disaffected Brexiters … classic Tory tactic … arriving at fantasy uncosted figures … there is a real black hole … created by 13 years of bad government, austerity, slow productivity growth, and the disaster of Brexit … failing state with weak defence and a deteriorating health service … Brexit is costing the government some £40B to £50B per year in tax revenue …

Sharp cuts

RAF does not have enough pilots, the navy does not have enough ships and shrunken army cannot put an armoured division in the field … a host of other areas where massive cuts have sneaked through and the consequences are being felt … the police and the courts are groaning. The civil service’s ability to deal with crises has been affected by cuts … the atavistic Thatcherite belief that you can provide a good NHS, strong defence and everything else people and business need while keeping taxes low has been exposed as a lie … Brexit costing £100B a year in lost output … the chatter among the media classes is who will replace Sharp?  …

Pip Pip            Don Adamson Medway Delta (Retired)           Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class 

Coffey anyone?
Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Culture, Democracy, Economics, Elections, Europe, Farage, Immigration, Keir Starmer, Labour, Liz Truss, Politics, Racism, Russia, Sunak, Ukraine | Tagged , , , , | 1 Reply
Sunakered

Brexit Chaos

Updated on date by author

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.

Get the Tories out in 2024

Lib Dem renaissance

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.

Sunakered
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:

Arse Nicked by Brexit

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.

Voter Suppression

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.

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.

Read our page on Scotland

Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britain, Britastrophe, Democracy, Economics, Elections, Environment, Europe, Immigration, Keir Starmer, Labour, Northern Ireland, Politics, Rejoin EU, Sunak | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Replies
Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness

Updated on date by author

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.

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:

No explanation, no apology – the same behaviours as used by Brexiteers

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.

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
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
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.

Posted in Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexorcism, Britastrophe, Elections, Keir Starmer, Labour, Leadership, Rejoin EU | Leave a reply
Brexit BS

This week’s quotes

Updated on date by author

From Don Adamson, Brexorcist in Chief.

Tory Brexit Scum

This week’s quotes: “open goals that Labour are constantly missing … we have had uncaring people in high office before … rarely have they been as uncaring and incompetent as Priti Patel and Sue Ellen Braverman …disaster of Brexit … fake balance has corrupted TV in recent decade … Brexiters and Tory Party … to blame for everything … what does Labour think it is playing at? … Jeremy *unt knows that doctor’s pay has fallen relative to inflation since the Tories came into power … we are losing British trained doctors … go abroad where the pay and conditions are better … raw sewage pumped into English rivers on average 825 times a day … 

Frack off …

What the papers say

Lawyers for the Daily Mail successfully argued in the High Court that that the names of Daily Mail journalists accused of crimes should remain secret … Graham Johnson confessed to fabricating stories for the Murdoch press …  Gavin Burrows has provided contradictory witness statements to both sides in the Mail litigation … prompted chair of the UK statistics authority to write to the Tory Party to say their infographic was misleading … former Energy Minister Chris Skidmore MP … has been receiving salary of £80,000 a year as an adviser to a company … setting up a business.. Former education minister Gavin Williamson … will be paid £50,000 a year for seven hours work a month … News UK, the company that launched Talk TV lost owner Rupert Murdoch £4M in last financial year … even more than £31M lost by rival GB News… 

Cost of living

Britain’s annual rate of inflation is 10% … still stubbornly high and twice that of US … populist economic model is bust … extraordinary … nightmare … reckless economic model … government has treated business with contempt … only bad options left … surging costs have kept the annual inflation rate in double figures … Britain’s post pandemic inflation rate … stubbornly higher than many of its peers … Tories will be remembered as the party who made most people poorer over 14 years and screwed up public services … there are more credible ways to count inflation … NHS is a stressful and poorly paid place … struggles to retain staff … junior doctors choose to work overseas … junior doctors left the profession a huge cost to the taxpayers for training them … something has gone badly wrong … real pay has fallen to around 14% below levels in 2010 …

The NHS

150,000 vacancies in vital jobs across the NHS … method is not working … Australia, New Zealand and Canada are only too happy to employ doctors we have paid £250,000 to 5000,000 to train … overseas recruitment is drying up because word is out NHS conditions are awful … excess deaths and waiting lists already high … UK has fewer doctors per head of population than most comparable countries and worse public health … worst public health crisis in a century … profiteering pack … profits of £78.4 M on income of £468M … extreme profits made by suppliers of PPE and testing kit … multi billion pound extent to which taxpayers were overpaying …

Brexit NHS Farage
We’re still waiting for the £350 million EVERY week Johnson

Brexit superpowers failing

We have no chance of being the new Silicon Valley and the Tories know it … all such promises will remain hollow … Tory politicians are anti Woke, despise the left wing ‘blob’ of human rights lawyers and civil servants … they want to represent the ‘somewheres’ and not the rootless cosmopolitan ‘anywheres’ … the ‘anywheres’ can take a hint … they will go anywhere to avoid the hate speech the Tories are spouting … what are the chances of UK emulating California … Zero … UK is lagging because we de-industrialised under Thatcher … our education system produces too few teenagers with maths and science skills … EU has agreed to pour in €6.2B of subsidies into semiconductor design … our young innovators are barred …

London is an attractive place for high flyers … in banking … Australia has become a Mecca for UK qualified doctors and nurses … Brexit has seriously damaged Britain’s ability to be part of the tech innovations story …  youngsters have to believe that this is a country with a future, not just a past … Richy Scumbag has always been reluctant to talk about Infosys, the Indian IT giant founded by his father in law … government’s own database has shown the company has been involved in £172 M worth of public sector contracts … Scumbag’s wife holds 38.9M shares worth around £89M in Infosys … dividends £12M a year … not liable for UK tax …

Raab C Brexit

Dominic Raas … massively unpopular … more than half his constituents do not want him or his ideology… graceless remorseless death of a desperate man … Raas wrote the least contrite resignation letter of the modern era … Raas told the BBC that civil servants were out to sabotage Brexit, parole reform and overhaul of human rights laws … Tory Peer Lord Marland said exit of Raas … a conspiracy by the civil service … if anything the opposite is true … Raas did not recognise wise counsel when offered it … Johnson claimed ‘the civil service wants to destroy me’ … remorseless attacks on Civil Servants … is deeply corrosive to good government … populist politics … premise that there are simple solutions to complex problems … when the absurdity of this becomes clear the next step is the attribution of blame: the vilification of people supposedly obstruct the popular will … Judges are enemies of the people …

Parliament is unlawfully prorogued … civil servants are plotting against popular ministers … The civil service deserves a gold plated ‘thank you’ for keeping the country running while the Tories have been preoccupied with a seven year long nervous collapse over Brexit, the economy and tribal identify … Raas was one of the worst Foreign Secretaries of modern times (a disaster during the retreat from Kabul) … Underlying this is the weakness of Richy Scumbag … looked desperately for a loophole that would allow him to keep Raas … Scumbag clings to Sue Ellen Braverman ,,, she is a human shield between him and the far right … Scumbag presides over a hung Parliament of factions … just waiting to see how bad the damage is in local government elections … Tory edifice continues to crumble and the country suffers accordingly … Raas … pathetic conspiracy theories are just another manifestation of this protracted decline … a reminder that desperate people really will say anything …

Murdoch

I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the bible and burst into flames … an alternative facts’ media empire … did concede that Fox News promoted 2020 election falsehoods … Murdoch has got away with it … what is $787.5M  when you have another $20B  to spare … Fox News broadcast of lies … the settlement is tax deductible … Murdoch thought ‘the election is a hoax’ thing ‘really crazy’ … Fox fact checkers considered the promotion of election deniers as ‘dangerous’ and ‘mind blowing nuts’ … hoodwinked outright fools … *ucker Carlson was the fountainhead…stoking ‘white hatred’ … maintaining a toxic workplace … Johnson and Thick Lizzie ludicrously turned up for the dinner at Hillsborough Castle … even he must have felt the coldness of the cold shoulders turning as they saw him loom … qualities of bad leaders ‘bitterness, jealousy and paranoia … the damage Brexit has done to the Good Friday Agreement … change of government in London cannot come a day too soon …

Little Brexit Britain

Britain has been diminished by Brexit …People in France remain baffled why a once powerful partner in the European project has been stricken low by an act of elective impoverishment … Claims that Rejoiners are lying about the true cost of leaving the EU are more absurd than ever … Lord Adonis said in 2016 that the vote caused a nervous breakdown in Whitehall … it is a jump to suggest that this proves the existence of a dastardly plot …. Remainer propagandists like nothing better than to use ‘official figures’ to suggest things are not working …

In Tombsland if figures do not show that Brexit is a triumph they must be the work of a dark conspiracy that supposedly pro Brexit ministers have been deplorably slow to disavow ‘misleading’ statistics … attacks on what he calls ‘dodgy figures’ … make no sense at all … The UK would see income losses of about £57B annually … in fact we are losing £40B annually so the cost of leaving is four to five times higher than the cost of membership and that is only if you count the cost of leaving the single market; just one small part of the EU … Swathes of the UK political and columnist class have lost their sanity over the visit by Biden to UK and Ireland … UK’s strange neediness towards America … “

Brexit cannibalism
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