Do you want to save the ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ Mini Cooper from the scrap yard? We need funds to take ‘Johnson’ the mini on the road around UK and Europe to remind people that Brexit has failed. The car has generated significant mainstream media publicity for the Rejoin / anti-Brexit cause. Accordingly, now that less than 1/5th of British people think that Brexit was worth it, we plan to take the car on tour to local groups for the purpose of mass Brexorcisms. Our visits can be accompanied by a musical protest and motivational speeches.
3 Dec 2019 – London, UK – Minis in Essex Street, London in a stunt organised and crowdfunded by anti-brexit campaigning group EU Flag Mafia.Arrested by Essex Police.3 Dec 2019 – London, UK – Outside Tate Britain, a stunt organised and crowdfunded by anti-brexit campaigning group EU Flag Mafia.The Stop Brexit Job organised by EU Flag Mafia.
This story went across all mainstream media in UK, Ireland and Europe. It went as far as the New York Times and Australia !! It’s a superior return on your investment.
We have taken the car from Dominic Cummings house to Barnard Castle to check our eyesight. Also to Brussels, and all round Britain. The car, codenamed ‘Johnson’ was stopped by Essex Traffic Policeman PC Smith, in a rage on the M25 motorway. Smith asked us to remove the signage on the car on the hard shoulder of the M25, putting the police officer and the passengers at risk of death. Subsequently, Smith has not been located by Essex Police some three years after we provided his full details to the force … All that is needed is political will to change the ongoing ‘Britastrophe‘.
In this edition of the Daily Maul we look at how the populist media keep us focused on dead cats rather than the things that affect our futures … To read more of these please check out Private Eyelines. The book makes an excellent gift for Brexiteers in regret. Private Eyelines provides a sense of uplift for people who are sick to death of fascist Nat-C Brexit Britain. Here’s some hard facts and fiction busters to help you navigate today’s papers.
Cash ‘n’ Carrie
FACT : Carrie Johnson is NOT delivering the 3rd Johnson baby on Thursday at 4pm as far as we know. However, a public inquiry about Johnson’s conduct is in progress. Baroness Hallett has called for Johnson’s WhatsApp messages to help with that inquiry. It therefore seems terribly convenient that Carrie is up the duff. Swivel headed Tory loon Andrea Jenkyns said that we must leave Johnson alone, as Carrie is having a baby. Johnson literally did leave Carrie alone, by jetting off to the US to earn millions on the conference circuit, instead of spending time in his Uxbridge constituency and supporting his wife.
By giving Johnson more time to produce the evidence, it gives Johnson more time to delete messages that would incriminate him. In case you think that this witch hunt is bad form, never forget that Johnson’s decisions caused 30 000 unnecessary deaths. These were political CHOICES and not necessities. Ethics matter if you are leading the country through a pandemic. People misunderstand the difference between leadership and comedy.
FICTION : As far as we know Johnson has NOT shagged Andrea Jenkyns. His diary is full. Doubtless Nadine will be trying to access Johnson’s binbag.
To distract us, this is what the papers actually say today. Who gives a flying fuck what Holly Willoughby is doing?
You are being taken for fools.
Whats Appened?
FACT : Rishi Sunak has said that he does not think it would be helpful for the COVID inquiry to see his WhatsApp messages, claiming that they would be irrelevant. In the words of the Police “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear sir”. What might Rishi be wishing to hide? FICTION : as far as we know, Rishi Sunak has not ordered more shredders for The Cabinet Office. It already has plenty from the Johnson era.
Cats Against Brexit Mayhem
FICTION : Larry the cat has NOT been arrested, nor beaten up by the Met Police. FACT : We don’t know if Matt Hancock has deleted WhatsApp. We do know that he gave out COVID PPE contracts to people with no experience of making medical devices. He also gave special access to Tory donors, irrespective of whether they were experienced PPE manufacturers. We know that much of the PPE did not work. We know that this cost the earth when a more responsible approach was needed in a crisis. We also know that reputable manufacturers were ignored in favour of pub landlords and personal friends. Michelle Mone and Dido Harding are still at large.
The real Daily Mail today – Leading through FURY, shock horror and plain lies.
The Daily Mail, Express, Sun et al systematically delete and downgrade inconvenient truths whilst distracting us with trivia and hyperbolic headlines. Many people almost literally eat their lies for breakfast. It works because many people would either prefer oblivion or entertainment to the awful truths about Brexit, the cost of living, global collaboration, wars and so on. Despite what many would say, these big issues DO affect our daily lives. One of the things the populist media wish to distract us from today is the simply appalling CPTPP trade deal that we did not vote for. Nor does it make up for the losses from Brexit in any way shape or form. The CPTPP deal will only contribute 1/50th of that needed just to stand still after Brexit. And that only after 10+ years. CPTPP contribution to GDP is + 0.08% over 10 years. Brexit losses worth MINUS 4% GDP. Do the math. Simply stated:
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 31, 2023
Cold Chain Shane misrepresenting CPTPP on BBC Radio 4.
This film we made about Boris Johnson’s burned Brexit deal way back is now coming home to roost. All the Brexit carnage was baked in by Johnson and now we are in ‘Brexit fire sale mode’, willing to make deals at ANY cost.
Reject the lies. Reject the Maul, Excess, Son, Telegravda. Reject Brexit
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?) …
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
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 …”
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
I’ve briefly restarted our parody newspaper format. In these editions of the Daily Excess and the Daily Maul (Maul credit Aidan Grooville), we cover what the papers say … and what they do not …. To read more of these please check out Private Eyelines. The book makes an excellent gift for Brexiteers in regret and provides a sense of uplift for people who are sick to death of fascist Nat-C Brexit Britain. These days I have to include a fact and fiction decoder as few can tell the difference between fantasy and real life.
Click the dead cat to read Private Eyelines.
Click the Cruella children’s doll to read Private Eyelines.
FACT and FICTION analysis
FACT : Nigel Farage has declared that Brexit has failed. Yes, Brexit has failed !!! However, of course, it’s not his fault. Evidently, it’s never Nigel’s fault !!
Brexit has failed. Own it Nigel.
FICTION : Liz Truss has not declared war on the Japanese with cheese or in real life.
FACT : However, three years after the Brexit deal, the fiendishly clever Japanese are still copying Cornish Pasties and other British Brexit favourites as this report shows. Liz pretended that Welsh lamb, Whitstable oysters, Thurrock gammon etc. could now be protected names after Brexit, but it turns out she was wrong (again). Also, Liz managed to waste £70 billion on her ‘Brexonomics’ experiment on the nation with her boyfriend Kwasi Kwarteng. Kwasi refuses to apologise for ruining young people’s lives as this interview on Channel 4 News shows.
Not sorry, not sorry
FACT : Boris Johnson has sired another child. The news coincides with the verdict on Johnson’s conduct in office from the select committee this week. Seems convenient. Accordingly, this follows a long list of lies from the Johnson stable. Perhaps you remember when Johnson went into hospital with COVID on Good Friday. Subsequently he was deemed as being at serious risk and needing a ventilator. However, on the third day, he rose, just like Jesus and was deemed to be as fit as a butcher’s dog. Strange. Even stranger, the nurses who cared for him disappeared without trace!
FICTION : Bojo is not making 10 000 doses of his sperm available for a EUgenics experiment on the mass production of Johnson’s. Nadine Dorries is not acting as an incubator for the Johnson seed.
— David Lawton #FBPE #FBPA #RejoinEU 🇪🇺 🌵 (@Scrabble817) May 22, 2023
Thanks to David Lawton
Dancing on thin ice
FICTION : The BBC are not changing the formula for Dancing on Ice to include a sewage dance floor as a contribution to environmental stewardship. Nor is the programme to be renamed Dancing on Shite.
FACT : Therese Coffey has claimed that there is less sewage in our rivers although this is clearly untrue. Moreover, Coffey also dodged questions about Suella Braverman’s interference regarding her convictions including having no knowledge of her phone number. Significantly, Rishi Sunackered seemed unable to make any meaningful comment about Suella Braverman when pressed on the matter in Japan.
— kerry ✊💙💙 (backing Nurses) (@hewitson10) May 21, 2023
Sheer lies.
FACT : Suella Braverman and Priti Patel are fighting like cats in a sack over the prize on who is the best fascist after her denouncement of Braverman at the Alt Right Conservative Party Conference last week. This follows our recent revelation that Conservative MP Rehman Chishti also criticised Braveman in order to prop up the Pakistani vote in the local elections. Accordingly, Suella wins our award for fascist of the year, along with Jacob Rees-Mogg:
One of my colleagues challenged me by showing me an answer she got from Chat GPT when she asked the question: How will populism implode? It occurred to me that the answers given adequately described the algorithm of this website and our collected activities at Reboot Britain.
We are the robots.
Taking these in turn: Click on the text to follow the links
To make all this work even better we need you to join us !! Click to subscribe.
How will populism implode? Find the ultimate book on imploding populism here – sample the book on Amazon. Populism will eat itself !!
Private Eyelines : Click image to read more,
Private Eyelines : Click image to read more.
Glen Robinson articulates some points to help us build a movement to get Brexit undone. He too asked Chat GPT the question, getting a slightly different response:
Building and growing a transformational political movement or party requires a strategic approach and a focus on key elements such as vision, organisation, communication, and grassroots mobilisation. While the specific tactics may vary depending on the context and goals of the movement, here are some general steps to consider:
1. Clarify your vision and values: Clearly define the vision and values that underpin your movement or party. Articulate a compelling and inspiring narrative that resonates with people and offers a distinct alternative to the status quo.
2. Establish a strong organisation: Build a well-structured and efficient organisation to support your movement’s activities. Develop a clear leadership structure, delegate responsibilities, and establish decision-making processes. Ensure that your organisation has the capacity to handle the logistical, legal, and financial aspects of running a political movement.
3. Mobilise grassroots support: Reach out to communities, individuals, and organisations that align with your vision and values. Engage in grassroots organising efforts to build a broad and diverse base of support. Conduct outreach campaigns, host events, and leverage digital platforms to connect with potential supporters and involve them in your movement.
4. Develop strategic alliances: Seek partnerships and collaborations with like-minded individuals, organisations, and existing political entities. Building coalitions and alliances can amplify your impact, broaden your reach, and help create a united front for your transformational goals.
5. Craft a compelling policy platform: Develop a well-researched and comprehensive policy platform that addresses the key issues and challenges you seek to tackle. Ensure that your policies are grounded in evidence, practicality, and the values of your movement. Clearly communicate how your policies will lead to positive change and benefit society as a whole.
6. Engage in effective communication: Develop a strong and consistent messaging strategy to effectively communicate your vision, values, and policies to the public. Utilise various communication channels such as social media, traditional media, public speeches, and community events. Craft messages that resonate with your target audience and emphasise the urgency and relevance of your movement’s objectives.
7. Empower and educate supporters: Provide resources, training, and opportunities for your supporters to actively engage in the political process. Empower them to become advocates, volunteers, and potential candidates. Educate them about the issues, your movement’s policies, and effective strategies for creating change.
8. Mobilise for action: Organise peaceful demonstrations, rallies, and campaigns to draw attention to your cause and increase public awareness. Utilise technology and social media platforms to facilitate coordination, engage supporters, and encourage collective action. Mobilise your base to participate in elections, support sympathetic candidates, or even field your own candidates when appropriate.
9. Adapt and evolve: Remain flexible and responsive to changing circumstances and feedback. Regularly evaluate your strategies and tactics to determine what is working and what needs adjustment. Be open to learning from both successes and failures, and adapt your approach accordingly.
10. Sustain momentum and long-term engagement: Building a transformational political movement is a long-term endeavour. Focus on sustaining momentum and maintaining engagement beyond initial successes. Nurture relationships with supporters, continue organising activities, and foster an inclusive and participatory culture within your movement.
Remember, building a political movement takes time, dedication, and perseverance. It requires consistent effort, effective organisation, and a clear articulation of your vision and values.
The enigma known as Glen Robinson. Click image to find him on Twitter.
By Don Adamson, Brexocist in Chief from Barnsley. This week’s homework in Brexitania aka Broken Brexit Britain: Discuss the following statement: The strongest possible argument against abolishing the monarchy and replacing it with a Presidency is that we have politicians who would dismiss King Charles III and appoint somebody like Johnson as President.
Trumptown to Truss
This week’s quotes: “Trump had little interest and no gift in foreign policy … his lavish state visit produced nothing …. If that is the kind of friends the right wingers want they are simply not serious people … They do not exchange Mickey Mouse currencies … I was given a smile of incredulity when I tried to offload my last £50 note … It is hard to remember but once there were decent Tories able to negotiate significant agreements properly … a succession of increasingly wealthy PMs, with arrogant privately educated ethic that they are better than the rest of us … in truth they don’t have a fig of understanding … Sajid Javid seems compelled to demonstrate that all political careers end in failure … a disgusting exercise in naked populism … Current behaviour of Suella Cowardlywoman, James Stupidly and Richy Scumbag needs to be called out … knee jerk response to entirely foreseeable problems that were bound to arise with their beloved bloody Brexit … Political chaos of recent years … Brexit … Johnson … Thick Lizzie … the question of competence … Momentum, a far left campaign group, would be better named Inertia …
I have had more than enough … of Liz Truss and Richy Scumbag
State of Britain
The British state is simply ineffective … Britain’s sluggish economy is undermining the welfare state … economic growth is the foundation stone for everything … a decade of political turmoil … is a disaster … British tax burden is due to hit a post war high of 37.7% of GCP … Brexit means there are fewer institutional constraints on distortionary state aid … Britain will struggle to compete with USA to attract investment … Britain has neither the industrial base nor the ability to offer larger subsidies … Tory Cabinet Ministers write honeyed histories of the past … such books tell you little about the best and much about the Tories …
CBI – Complete Brexit Idiots
Confederation of British Industry … conduct that fell short of that expected … reported allegations by more than a dozen women of sexual misconduct and misuse of drugs. This included a rape … failed to filter out the toxic people … Israel’s per person GDP is higher than Britain’s … Dominic Raas displayed unreasonable and persistently aggressive conduct … intimidating and insulting … made physically threatening gestures … number and consistency of complaints about Raas … evidence that something was genuinely wrong … the complainants acted in good faith … cutting people off in meetings would have mattered less if was not the sort of person to describe work as ‘utterly useless and woeful’ … it is hard to overlook another problem – his effectiveness as a manager. If enough people think you are a bad boss then you are a bad boss. If employees avoid you the pool of talent available to you shrinks … Raas’s approach … ‘absolutist’ … that sounds like lawyerspeak for ‘complete nightmare’… Humpty Dumpty replied … when I use a word it means what I choose it mean …
Bravo President Boris
Braverman describes sending refugees to Rwanda as ‘compassionate’ … claimed to ‘refute’ the idea that her plans were not humane … (I think she means ‘repudiate’) … can you make words mean so many different things? … punishes people who have fled war, hunger and fear … how is that ‘compassionate’ …we are truly in an Alice through the looking glass world … there is little attempt to disguise the cosy relationship between Infosys and Downing St … Infosys regards the UK as a wholly owned subsidiary… bagged a seat on the UK Trade Minister’s Technology and Telecoms Trade advisory Group … Richy Scumbag’s wife will bag nearly £6.7M from her shares in the family firm … Last March a High Court Judge found that Tory MP Andrew Bridgen had ‘lied’, ‘given dishonest answers,’ ‘evasive and argumentative’ … Polls always show that the public wants governments to keep their hands off the BBC … Chairmanship of Ofcom needs to be taken out of the PM’s hands … after Johnson’s risible attempts to appoint Paul Dacre … If you want a Republican UK are you ready for Boris Johnson … over the next ten years the politics of post Brexit Britain will grow increasingly volatile … trust in democracy and the rule of law will plummet to nanoscopic levels … do not much fancy measures that inconvenience Westminster or dislodge snouts from troughs … the political class grows weary of the King’s passion for action on climate change … his concern for the welfare of refugees … … his pesky insistence that a generation of youngsters is denied opportunity … step forward Boris Johnson … for the truly deranged there is always the option of President Johnson …
Fox on the run
Look at the mess Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News has made of its legal case, costing them almost a billion dollars … Sharp’s piece to the camera announcing his resignation as BBC chairman had the feel and authenticity of a North Korean News Bulletin … how ludicrous that he was even there in the first place … other players in this tawdry drama … Johnson, Richy Scumbag … will be hoping the resignation will be the end of the matter. If there is any decent journalism in this country they will be wrong …
Supermarket sweep
As food shopping gets more expensive across Europe, new checks will makes things even worse here … Food inflation in Brexitania is running at 19.1% a year, highest in 45 years … Britain has Europe’s worst inflation rate … Brexit has added to the burden … Brexit has another gift for the hard pressed and desperate because Brexit is not finished … government has stopped checking quality and safety of food that enters UK … delayed these tests four times … expect massive hikes in food prices … the checks will have to be introduced some time … UK is playing Russian roulette … repeat of the horse meat scandal, another foot & mouth outbreak increasingly likely … farming industry is terrified … food safety and standards under threat … UK is go to destination for every dodgy dealer trying to offload rotten meat, infected eggs, counterfeit cheese, adulterated olive oil and stinking fish … astounding that the government is taking such an unacceptable approach to critical checks … industry is at a huge disadvantage … undercut by rivals who sail through the border … reeks of desperation … the whole food sector is threatened … new rules will add billions to food imports … serious shortages will start very quickly if the system collapses … somebody is going to have to pay for this mess and it will be you every time to you go to the shops …
Click image to Flush Brexit.
Not the Nine O’ Clock News
*ucker Carlson, Andrew Bridgen, GB News … populists have lost their grip … GB News has five Tory MPs presenting its shows but is burning £30M a year in cash … racking up complaints … Talk TV … similar outgoings that have yet to be met by ratings … … for Fox News the problems are still bigger … Carlson peddled conspiracy theories … pulling in around 3 million viewers … his replacement got 1.3 million … Infowars was for viewers who thought Fox too fair and balanced … emerged unscathed till the courts caught up Jones … ordered to pay £1.2B to Sandy Hook families … politicisation of BBC has resulted in a series of sandals … attacks on the Civil Service back lashed onto Cabinet Ministers … Brexit boosterism has left the DUP blocking the government’s efforts to bring normality to Northern Ireland … Every victory in culture wars seems to be a defeat … Influence of Brexit on behaviour of Dominic Raas … has not been examined enough … Civil Servants unable to carry out his orders because of the difficulties of implementing Brexit … We always knew that leaving the EU would suck the machinery of government into the mire … no tangible benefits … undermining the government’s ability to govern …
Hard Labour
Labour’s refusal to mention the failures of Brexit …. missing one open goal after another … looks increasingly pig headed as a clear and growing majority recognise Brexit was a mistake … it is extremely offensive but so is everything about Boris … I wonder if the people of Kent who voted for Brexit would have done so if this absurd anomaly had been written on a bus … Two Parliamentary reports highlight the scale of fraud in the UK and the lack of effort to stop it … £2.2B lost from the Covid business grant … just £10M recovered … £4.5B loss from fraud and error in the furlough and self employed Covid support schemes … fraud accounts for 41% of all crime …. costs individuals £4.7B a year at an average of £1,290 per crime … less than 1% leads to prosecutions … fraud policing is next to non existent …
Don Adamson – former coastguard, Brexorcist First Class.
Sudan Sunackered
British inaction on evacuating Brits from Sudan is a ‘shitshow’ … Brexitania’s flagship Freeport Tees Valley … industrial scale corruption … NHS have seen their pay fall since 2010 … 18,000 UK trained doctors currently practice overseas, one in seven of the total trained and a 50% increase since 2008 … more than half ‘unwilling’ to return’ … more than 6 million patients on waiting lists … shortfall in England of 1.932 midwives and 496 consultant obstetricians … we need five times as many obstetricians to have a safe maternity service … collapse of safety culture … if UK had the same mortality rates as Sweden nearly 1,000 more babies would live every year … massive midwife shortfall has persisted for well over a decade … we spend £3B a year on maternity services and £8.25B on negligence claims arising from them … one GP for 2,286 patients as opposed to 1,800 ten years ago … tried to subcontract to the private sector but this did not work either …
Woke up Britain
Prof Goodwin’s book ‘Values, voice and virtue; the new British politics.’ … A new elite has taken over Britain … a disaster … woke ideology … graduates are brimming with dangerous, liberal ideals … for a Professor at the University of Kent this is a pretty odd argument…. an unfortunately plausible argument for this sour, paranoid book could be that Professor Goodwin’s grievance stems not from the ‘elite’ but from snotty nosed students who answer him back in seminars and take the Mick out of his crusty political views… Around the world budgets are in a mess … governments are stuck in a fiscal fantasyland … the picture is forbidding …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
In the wake of the first Labour local council victory in Medway since 1998, I draw some post-election consequences for the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP, Labour and Conservatives. Undoubtedly, this was a disaster for the Tories and Brexit in terms of what was predicted. The Tories lost 1061 local council seats. The question is, is this enough to get the Tories done and Brexit undone?
My part in the Tories’ decline
At a personal level, I was delighted to play my part in the Tories’ decline in Medway, through long term campaigning, mass Brexorcisms in pubs, cafes, supermarkets, bus stops etc., and doorstepping in Tory voting areas over the last few weeks. My family loaned 8 votes from my family to Labour last week and some to the Lib Dems and Greens. However, we shall not repeat this performance in a General Election, unless Labour turn on Brexit and Europe. I have put their Councillors on notice to this effect.
My Tory MP Rehman Chishti became so desperate about the decline in his party’s fortunes that he decided to attack Suella Braverman about her recent demonisation of Pakistani Muslims in The Observer. This is significant, in so far as Mr Chishti has an impeccable record in voting with the prevailing cabinet. His unbridled attacks appear to have sprung from sheer desperation and a desire to pick up the Pakistani vote in my area rather than any serious conviction that Braverman is an evil spirit who was herself an immigrant. He failed. Given that the Tories have a stronghold in my area, I plan to stand an independent candidate in Gillingham and Rainham and need your help to do this NOW. Please click on the link below and back us.
Perhaps the story less covered in the mainstream media is that of the Lib Dems renaissance in last week’s elections. The Conservatives losses were fairly evenly distributed between Labour and the Lib Dems, with the Greens taking a very good proportion of votes as well. If this were to continue, the Lib Dems could find themselves as Kingmakers in a General Election along with the SNP. The Tories and Labour like the binary system which both believe they profit from. But we could find ourselves in a rainbow coalition in 2024. A lot can happen between now and then. Coalitions mean that politicians have to do things they really don’t like doing : listening to opposing views ; coming up with better decisions ; occasional compromises and so on. It’s all good with me. The people may just be the net winners in such a system … ?
The big winners here were the Lib Dems and Greens, with the losers being the far right (Tories) and the far right parties.
Green revolt
The Green party cleaned up, gaining a very respectable 241 seats in England and taking control of one Council in Brexity Mid Suffolk completely. Increasing awareness of sewage, climate catastrophe and possibly a protest vote against the far right parties aka Tories and UKIP may all have contributed to this. Let’s hope this continues into a General Election. Check our film out, based on our music composition ‘How do we want to be remembered‘.
Climate Crisis is the number one issue facing our planet.
How do we want to be remembered?
Rishi Sunakered
Sunak is under pressure from the ERG to go further right with his policies. As a holding statement on The BBC on Friday, Sunakered simply repeated his five priorities. He claims that people who cannot afford to eat were more interested in stopping the boats. Even James O’Brien is not sure what Sunak means by lurching to the far right. O’Brien frivolously suggested on LBC that it might involve bringing back the birch. I’d add bear bating, the rack and the drowning of witches, to take us back fully to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s 18th Century Brexit idyll.
An 18th Century Tory Synthpop Trance Floor dance groove we composed.
I called James to discuss Sunak’s options. Paradoxically, I suggested that Sunak would be better advised to move towards the centre ground of politics to pull the Swordaunt from the stone. James and I riffed away to my catchphrase ‘Sunackered’, which I coined in the summer of 2022. James said that Sunackered (or Sunakered) is worthy of a Daily Mail headline ‘if some guy wasn’t going to wear his mum’s hat and sit on a chair on Saturday’. Listen into to our riotous dialogue at LBC James O’Brien. #Sunackered is trending on Twitter as I write this.
I coined the phrase at the end of Summer 2022. Sunakered is free to use by the populist press. Please download the album to support our continuing work to banish Brexit bullshit.
Early indications suggest that Rishi Sunakered listened to my advice on LBC. Yesterday, Kemi Bad Enoch Powell announced that the Government has rowed back on its promise to have a bonfire of EU laws, 98% of which British politicians helped to make! Unusually, Jacob Rees-Mogg has called Sunak out as a traitor. Bad Enoch was sanctioned by TWFKASLH (The worm formerly known as Sir Lyndsay Hoyle) yesterday. Hoyle is a man who has allowed all sorts of bad behaviour to pass in the House of Commons but decided that enough was enough with the Nigerian Brexit fraudster. Mogg never calls the Government out. He even backs rapists. His outburst on the bonfire of EU law is clearly a smokescreen to get more than 20 Tory signatures on a letter to shaft Rich Tea Sunakered. I confidently predict that the approx 600 laws to be incinerated will be the ones with no large scale impact or connectivity to the main body of EU law. In other words, it will look as if we have taken back control of our laws, but, in reality, nothing will have changed, unless you indulge in some arcane Brexity manufacturing processes. For example, making car engines from English oak, impact-destructing cricket bats or pepper grinders without holes. Otto English sums up one of the many contradictions:
Still at least we've found a Brexit benefit this afternoon. The option to keep more arsenic in baby formula. What a win. pic.twitter.com/C8a9dmgXh6
And, once again, the ERG are fighting like cats in a sack. Andrew Bridgen has split the fascist parties by joining Lozza Fox’s Reshame party instead of Ricardo Tice’s Rebjorn Again party. It’s all good. Rishi is doing exactly what I predicted in order to save the Tory party from Brexit oblivion. Next he will steal Keir Starmer’s clothes, see Hard Labour. Perhaps Rishi is not Sunakered after all?
Sunackered or Sunakered – The theme tune – we were the first to convert the catchphrase into an EDM dance groove in 2022!!
Go now
In his weakened state, Sunak now needs some scapegoats. Given that the Select Committee has not yet reported on Boris Johnson’s multiple illegal, immoral and indecent behaviours, a convenient distraction would be for this committee to make a strong verdict against Johnson soon, such as full suspension from parliament. Accordingly, this would allow Sunak to blame the current malaise in the Conservative party on Johnson and Truss’ catastrophic mishandling of the country. It would also allow him to exorcise Johnson’s ghost without having to do anything himself. This is the way that Sunak likes to handle his HR decisions, through outsourcing to other agencies.
If Johnson is suspended for more than 10 days, The Rejoin Party have a plan to issue a recall petition to remove him from office and break the spaffer’s spell for good. Please join them in readiness.
VoterSuppression
The other big news about the election was voter id and voter suppression. For more on this read our full article on the subject. Early indications suggest that this will have disadvantaged specific demographic areas, such as ethnic minorities, the disabled and young people. The Government now runs the Electoral Commission and they decided not to record any data from polling stations. Correspondingly, it is quite likely that there is serious under-reporting on the extent of voter suppression in these elections. Edwin Hayward reports on over 70 case studies of voter suppression. They are almost certainly the very small tip of a very large electoral fraud iceberg.
These elections have demonstrated that the voter id system is totally unfit for purpose. I made my own small protest to the Electoral Commission. Above all else, please make your voice heard. Add your name to the call for action at electoral reform.
— Reboot Britain – Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) May 4, 2023
Say no to voter suppression
The Scottish position
Although the local elections are a hammer blow for the Tories, they are not catastrophic. Labour needed to reach the magic number of 40% vote share in these elections to win a General Election outright. They won approximately 35%. This explains why Labour want to take 30 seats in Scotland. I predict an informal coalition of aggression between Labour and Conservative to viciously attack the SNP on any agenda and exploit the change of leadership. Admittedly, the SNP’s transition could have been smoother. However, I believe we will see some very bad behaviour from both Labour and Conservatives in the coming weeks and months. They must be dealt with accordingly.
That said, the SNP’s problems are temporary. The essence of SNP support and the values underpinning them will be largely unchanged by a few sensational tabloid headlines in the longer term. For comparison, I note that Boris Johnson’s many breaches of the law did not attract police tents in his garden and officers in fancy dress Hazmat suits. Added to this, Brexit delivers a daily stream of bad news, both in the short, medium and long term. Robert Peston reported that 86% of young people wish to rejoin the EU. In consequence, Starmer’s position on Brexit is ultimately untenable. I reported on Labour’s position on Brexit in the previous article “Hard Labour“. If Labour’s results are not good enough to win a General Election outright, a hung parliament still seems a likely outcome of the current optimism about the local elections.
Yesterday, I walked out of Medway Police station as an innocent man. But there was no jailbreak or incarceration in “Kentonville Prison”. I merely handed myself into the Police to assist them with their investigations. This followed a complaint in The Daily Express from someone in Yorkshire about the re-branding of Kent from The Garden of England to The Toilet of England.
The Kent Toilet of England story was reported the world over, from The Guardian, The New European, Evening Standard, FT to Scotland, Ireland, Wales and as far as The New York Times and in Abu Dhabi. Reports said that the police were investigating. It turned out that the Police press officer had made the story up as an “official response”.
Jailbreak. Turns out that Natalie lied.
I had a cordial conversation with the officer in charge at Medway Police station and then left without the need for waterboarding, electric shock treatment or a cake with a nail file inside.
One man from Yorkshire commented: “The petulant, infantile antics of swivel-eyed Remainers never ceases to amaze.”
ITV News picked up on the story behind the jailbreak headline, as did Kent Live. The Kent Toilet of England exercise was organised to highlight the combined impact of COVID crisis + Brexit disaster = A Britastrophe. In the event the ITV news interview was truncated down to the parochial issue of the lorry parks and Brexit readiness in Kent.
Here below are the original interview questions and our full answers. There have been recent instructions for local authorities to say nothing bad about Brexit, so the Councillor’s hands were tied. Careful analysis of his statement does reveal that the Councillor more or less told viewers to stockpile food and fuel as he cast doubt on whether supplies would get through. I guess that ITV want to only spread good news in the season of goodwill, but I had hoped for better from them. It seems that everyone is scared of this Government, but why?
Shock horror – a suit !!
Q1 Kent County Council say that everything will be fine after Brexit. What do you say?
A This is disingenuous at best and a downright lie at worst. I understand that people want to feel optimistic at this time of COVID crisis and Christmas. However, in my long experience, optimists are usually people who have not had enough experience. The French prefer experience over fantasies. They showed that a 70 second transit time produces a 5 mile queue. This has been confirmed by the Government’s own reports on the matter. I myself have spoken with Kent Councillors, who confirm that once contagion takes place with cars, we are likely to see gridlock in towns and village, as members of the public attempt to use rat runs etc. It has recently been reported that Government plan to use the military to fly COVID vaccines into Britain – obviously the roads are OK then?
Q2 You organised a stunt to change the signage at the Kent border to say Kent, Toilet of England. What was behind that?
A We did it to highlight three main points:
Brexit can be stopped or suspended. Although legally we have left the EU, stopping or suspending Brexit is merely a matter of political will.
Nobody voted for the toxic combination of Corona crisis plus Brexit disaster, which I call a “Britastrophe”. We must Re-Boot Britain and that’s why we feel the need to re-start the conversation with all the people who voted in the referendum.
We have interviewed former MEPs across the political spectrum. They confirm that no deal is more or less the same as a Brexit deal. Theresa May was right when she said “NO deal is better than a bad deal”. She might have added that NO Brexit is better than a Britastrophe.
A man from Yorkshire complained about the signage in the Daily Express – that’s hardly “Fury” 🙂
Q3 What should Kent County Council do now?
A They must ask Boris Johnson to suspend or stop Brexit in the wake of Corona. Border delays are the tip of a much bigger iceberg socially, economically and politically. The GDP shock to our country will be between 5-10 times larger than the 2008 crash. People have no idea just how bad this will be. We have to endure Corona as a natural phenomenon. We don’t have to endure Brexit on top of Corona. Tonight we’re gonna have a Jailbreak …
Please take action by writing to MPs and EU leaders. Ask for Brexit to be stopped or suspended for two years minimum.
Here is the “I am Spartacus” video we made with the help of people across the globe who admitted to the sticker crime. I am hoping all of them manage to make a jailbreak …
Many years ago, the Conservative grandee Lord Hailsham observed that, constitutionally, Britain is an “elective dictatorship”. Boris Johnson’s regime is demonstrating the truth of his warning, particularly when power falls into the wrong hands. Dominic Cummings, until recently Johnson’s over-powerful senior adviser and the driving force behind his policies, was autocratic by nature. Cummings treated MPs, including Johnson’s Brexiteer supporters, with contempt. During his period in power, he created a centralised and unaccountable power base at the heart of Government with key functions such as appointments, vetting and control of data in his own hands. Parliament was increasingly sidelined. The hallmark of the regime became the advancement, employment and enrichment of persons noted only for their loyalty to himself and the Brexit cause, with no consideration given to their merit, experience, suitability or capability to carry out their duties. A stench of corruption and cronyism began to emanate from No 10.
Conservatives have a long track record in crime.
Johnson’s regime is also unconservative. Conservatives instinctively want to conserve, as the name implies, but his is an administration of destroyers. Cummings was never a member of the Conservative party and his appointees in No 10 reject traditional Tory respect for continuity and compromise, in favour of creative destruction. Their current targets are the BBC, the impartial civil service, and the judiciary. Our planning system and, indeed, our whole structure of local government are due to follow. Under Cummings, the Conservative tradition of managerial capability and economic credibility has been discarded, as demonstrated, inter alia, by the extraordinary failure to report and then trace the contacts of almost 16,000 COVID-19 cases, a major blunder to which the Government reacted with barely a shrug. Cummings’ departure opens the door to a new start where realism replaces dogma, honesty and transparency replaces lies, corruption and cronyism, and where respect for our institutions and constitutional conventions and, in particular, the rule of law is restored.
What must be done?
Radical U-turns by the Conservative party are required to expunge Cummings’ legacy. The largest and most immediate is the withdrawal of the Internal Market Bill and, in particular, the removal of the clauses which break international law and curtail Parliament’s powers.
There should be no further talk of lowering our food and environmental standards at the behest of the United States, nor of downgrading worker protection.
The Culture Secretary’s plan to abolish the BBC and replace it with American-style radio and TV must be shelved.
Hancock’s questionable appointment of an old university girlfriend to a post in his department should be this administration’s last vestige of cronyism.
The Cabinet Office’s involvement in hospital and medical procurement should be terminated and all further government contracts undergo transparent and competitive tendering processes as the law requires.
There should be a general review of appointments made under the Cummings regime in No 10 and the public service, with a view to removing those who are patently unsuitable or incompetent. The Prime Minister would do well to carry out the same exercise amongst his second and third-rate ministers once Brexit is over and blind obedience to that objective can cease to be the sole qualification for advancement.
This should be accompanied by an end to lying and xenophobic propaganda, if Conservatives still wish to regain any trace of being a one-nation party.
Only if a programme of this nature is followed can we hope to regain a Government worthy of respect, both at home and abroad. Its present state was well summed up in the words of a Tory former cabinet minister: “ This is a bad English nationalist government with no idea of where it’s going.” Unless Johnson shows himself capable of changing this judgement in the near future, it is in the interests of his party as well as of his country that he be replaced as soon as possible.
The writer resigned from the Conservative party in protest against its SE branch’s policy to force Remain members to vote for extreme Brexiteers in the choice of candidates for the 2014 European elections.
