Don Adamson’s ruthless report on all things Brexit and politics continues:
This week’s homework
One – Discuss the following statement. Murdoch newspapers continued to publish extracts from the Hitler Diaries after the proof emerged that that diaries were forgeries. Murdoch explained: ‘We are in the entertainment business.’ Do you find the tripe that Murdoch lackeys publish to be entertaining? Would it endanger the planet if Murdoch lackeys printed entertaining material that is factually accurate?
Read Private Eyelines to up the ante on the Murdoch press
Two – Is there any truth in the rumour that Trump supporters refer to him as BD. This is an abbreviation for Big Dick. Why would that be an appropriate description for Trump?
Three – Discuss the following statement. Richy Scumbag has appointed David Cameron as Foreign Secretary. Tories have an eye watering majority in the House of Commons but need to look elsewhere for ability. Cam the Sham is a proven failure as a political leader. Can it be that Scumbag has appointed Cam the Sham as Foreign Secretary because the Tories are waking up to the reality that Brexit has failed while Keith Starmer continues to insist (despite all the evidence to the contrary) that Brexit can be made to work?
Read David Cameron
Four – Would it benefit Climate Change Deniers if they spent more time looking out of their own windows?
Five – TV journalism used to be Kate Adie (a Sunderland lass) reporting from dangerous places as she gave cool, calm and collected accounts of the mayhem that was breaking loose around her. TV journalism nowadays consists of some airhead in a tight skirt reading from a script that she barely understands. Why the change?
This week’s quotes
The government works on important policies like taking away the tents of the homeless and giving millions to fossil fuel giants
… cover up over a serial rapist Tory MP … failure allowed the unnamed MP to continue to offend … many other allegations … including that another MP possessed a laptop with indecent images of children … Thick Lizzie joking of her taxpayer funded security team … since leaving no 10 a year ago Thick Lizzie declared six trips worth £58,000, including a four nighter in Hawaii … After Lloyds was forced to seize Telegraph Media Group when a £1Bn loan went bad … bank is sceptical of Barclay family claims to be in a position to reacquire the titles…
Richy Scumbag’s gruesome interview with Elon Musk demeaned the office of PM
… toe curlingly gruesome … Scumbag squirming excitedly in his chair like a cross between Will from the Inbetweeners (‘Briefcase Wanker’) and the luckless executive Amazon sends on Newsnight to explain why its workplace conditions do not amount to modern serfdom … PM had no idea what he was talking about … politics … fast becoming a branch of showbiz … the spectacle is the ruling order’s non-stop discourse about itself, its never-ending monologue of self-praise … emotion trumps fact … performative charisma more valued than competence … no pendulum that is going to swing back to evidence-based technocracy and rationality … shrewd politicians should not have to surrender their dignity as Richy Scumbag did … decency does not need to be dull …
Deadly failings of a moral pygmy
… Johnson’s lack of focus and humanity cost lives during Covid … instead of facing charges he is raking in the cash … had the best, most expensive, education Britain could offer … Eton and Oxford … completely incapable of doing the job of PM … endlessly distracted and constantly changing his mind, unfit to lead … not really engaging with Covid at all … flailed, constantly changed his mind … nothing good comes of such inst ability at the top … results were catastrophic … companies have been convicted of corporate manslaughter due to gross negligence in events that killed just one person … no such investigation into corporate manslaughter here … Johnson’s advisers contemptuous of their boss … Johnson had no concern for the suffering he caused … simply ignored it … dithering uncaring blob at the heart of government, wobbling uselessly while thousands died … Johnson’s reasoning contained an error so fundamental that it should have been rectified with a two minute briefing …PM did not take the time to understand the devastating toll of the disease he was failing to contain .. an appalling failure on his part … ignorance within Downing St … an absence of humanity … jaw dropping callousness … pensioners make up core of Tory voters … no sense of gratitude to people who put him in No 10 … his word counts for very little … disgraced … lied relentlessly … a picture of extreme arrogance … disastrous mess … no pandemic plan … inevitable that Johnson would fail the challenges … few of that group accept culpability for installing as PM somebody so unfit for the job … everything seemed to be made up on the spot … gross unsuitability for role of PM … moral failure … if he was the operator of a business he would be facing time in gaol … his punishment is millions of pounds of speaking gigs, a book deal, a Daily Mail column and a TV show … British justice system is in crisis …
Mail has seen another huge fall in circulation
… I always thought Dacre would end his days an unhappy man. No Peerage, shunned by polite society. Labour likely to be office. Mail readership in freefall…
Empty Supermarket shelves
… leaving the EU has seriously stymied UK food importation and distribution centre… Brexit delays and red tape … it all worked perfectly before Brexit… government will not say the B-word when discussing it … weird supermarket culture in the UK … things will get worse … Brexit and the damage it does is increasingly hard-wired into the British economy …
Richy Scumbag
… avatar of the radical right … the truth is more disturbing than any cynical opportunism … damage the Tories have done to the UK .. unnecessary decline … international diminishment … Tories wrap themselves in the Union Jack while putting party before country … demise of good governance … sheer incompetence of Johnson …why anyone, even GB news, would pay to hear the thought of this inadequate is beyond me .. Businesses are paying millions for speeches by Johnson. What can they possibly learn that would aid their businesses…?
British Parliament is failing at its most basic job – scrutinising laws
… MPs are botching it … Brexit and Covid set precedents for legislating at speed and handing wide powers to ministers … habits ministers find as addictive as monarchs once did … Henry VIII clauses that allow ministers to alter primary legislation … consequential decisions get cursory scrutiny … carbon dioxide emissions … became law after only 90 minutes debate and without a vote … objectionable in principle … Legislature at risk of being ridden roughshod by ministers … bad in practice … drafting errors on the rise … impact assessments … cost and benefits … cosmetic or missing altogether … Johnson’s windfall tax on the oil and gas industry … had several big design flaws … Thick Lizzie’s law to cap energy prices … hasty and sloppy … malaise strengthens the case of constitutional reform …proportional representation would end one party dominance … an elected House of Lords would have a strong mandate to halt badly drafted bills … neither looks likely … amateurism goes too far … House of Lords membership … a bauble for party cronies … reflects a malaise in political couture … properly scrutiny legislation serves the country better than showy rushed law making …
Support Gina Miller’s True and Fair party
The quality of legislative scrutiny is in decline
… MPs spend increasingly little time on examination of proposed legislation … a swaggering executive treats scrutiny as an inconvenience … since 1997 only one in eight bills has undergone pre-legislative scrutiny … MPs regard scrutiny as drudgery … debate is partisan and cursory … weakening system of scrutiny has been hit by two bad shocks … Brexit … Covid 19 … Brexit referendumb introduced shrill and aggressive politics that treated parliamentary scrutiny not as a service but as a betrayal … eliminating the chance for meaningful scrutiny … government by diktat was leaching power away from Parliament … skeleton bills … provide few clues as to what will be essential … so skeletal we wonder if the bones were stolen away and buried somewhere … Statutory instruments get even less scrutiny than primary legislation … haste leads to less informed decisions … MPs pass legislation with no idea of costs or benefits … scrambled together at the last minute to justify a decision already taken …. errors are rising … when you do something because it is convenient that is the time to worry … Peers feel that they are doing the scrutiny that MPs are shirking … process has broken down … few Tories care how the rule of Parliament are being forgotten … should an election force them into opposition the costs of a weakened Parliament will be more obvious to them … when the rules are bent everybody loses…
Pip Pip Don Adamson Medway Delta Retired Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class