True & Fair is a minor party, passionate about local issues affecting our rural countryside communities. The countryside is the backbone of our economy and we recognise it has been left out in the cold after Brexit with no deal and no way forward, the True & Fair Party plans to change that.
You are invited to join our Parliamentary Candidate for East Wiltshire, Pete Force-Jones and True & Fair Party Leader, Gina Miller on Wednesday, the 30th of August, at 10 am where we will announce the beginning of our journey to improve the countryside, and get a better deal after years of inaction and being let down by the major parties.
This is your opportunity to let us know how we can best represent you and your businesses; we are here to listen. We will be announcing our countryside policy at the town hall event. Join the True and Fair party – we deserve better, not more of the same.
When
August 30, 2023 at 10:00 am – 12.00 noon
Where
Marlborough Town Hall The Court House 5 High Street Wiltshire, England SN8 1AA United Kingdom
Don Adamson writes from his hollow in Barnsley where he contemplates everything from the Disney Longstocking prison ship to Boris Johnson’s sacking from journalism and beyond.
This week’s homework:
One – Some people would say that Chris Mullins was an under rated minister. He felt strongly about efficiency and economy. He would never make a decision until he was satisfied that the proposal was a) effective and b) economical. His staff officers complained that he sometimes took this to the point of diminishing returns. Sooner or later you come to the point where the cheapest thing you can do is sign the cheque and get on with it. Are there any ministers in this government who can be criticised for being over economical and over efficient?
Two – Trump faces 91 indictments. a) Will he score a century? b) Trump calls this a Which Hunt. Is that because he does not know which indictment is which?
Three – I looked in at the Iceland supermarket to buy provisions. The young lady at the checkout said she like my Bulwarks to Brexit cap; for which I thanked her. With the benefit of hindsight perhaps I should have told her that the people in charge of Iceland used to be ardent supporters of Brexit. We hear less of that nowadays. Do I understand that even the people who own Iceland have noticed that Brexit has not turned out to be the earthly paradise we used to hear so much about? Have even the people who own Iceland noticed that Brexit is doing a FUBAR on the British economy?
This week’s quotes:
Rupert Murdoch
… used to grant more audiences to Richy Scumbag than even his arch toady Johnson … passion appears to have cooled…
JCB Chairman Lord Bamford
… said in 2016 that UK was the fifth biggest economy in the world … last year UK dropped to 6th largest … Bamford in no way apologetic for his position on Brexit but wails ‘Isn’t our country in a mess now?’
Immigration no immigration dream of Brexiters lies in tatters
… no public acceptance of this by the government … compared with what we had before Brexit the system is costly, time consuming, badly run, wrapped in miles of red tape and is nothing more than a huge anchor holding the economy back … Brexiters are in full retreat. While publicly lecturing business on the need to conjure up new British employees out of thin air … privately lowering the thresholds under which foreign workers can come to Britain … quite a turnaround … foreign workers can come to Britain at great expense and bother to themselves … makes sectors of the economy look aghast at the government making their lives more difficult … hospitality…. government has come up with what in Blackadder would be described as a ‘cunning plan’ … a pathetic ruse to claim that immigration is not happening when in reality it is … an arrogant, ignorant fantasy … desperation leads the government to propose ridiculous policies like these … Scumbag’s team is torn between populist rhetoric it spews out and reality .. a moribund economy where growth is non existent … a disaster happening before our eyes … latest ruses make it harder for universities to recruit foreign students, even though they are the only thing keeping the further education sector afloat … At least in Italy the far right has woken up to reality … in our surreal politics government promises cuts to immigration knowing full well that it is neither in the national interest or possible…
Number Crunching
7.47M is the number of people on National Health Service waiting lists (up since Richy Scumbag pledged to reduce them). – 8% proportion of NHS budget spent transferring patients to private care … £318M cost of housing 500 refugees in cramped Bibby Stockholm barge for a year … £15.25M Cost of sending 500 refugees on a Disney cruise for a year.
Live scenes from the Disney Longstocking.
Hack watch
Nick Timothy, Telegraph correspondent … Britain faces multiple, complex crises … everything seems frozen by uncertainty, ignorance and fear. The understanding is not there, the ideas are not there … The challenges we face are truly enormous, yet our politics has never seemed smaller … Capitalism as we know it has failed. Not even the Tories can defend it…
Michael Gove told last month’s conference of Local Government Associations
… financially struggling councils were a handful of cases, the exception … six councils have declared themselves bankrupt since 2020 … several others could join them … Kensington and Chelsea (Conservative) …deficit of £47M by 2027 … Kent County Council (Conservative) … faces a deficit of £86M this year … Hartlepool (Conservative since 2019) …even with a 5% increase in council tax deficits could increase to 8M … Warwickshire (Conservative) … worst cases scenario of £106M deficit by 2028 … Guildford (Lib Dem since May previously Conservative) … £300M debts …
Coutts furore with Nigel Garbage
Coutts indicated the decision was not about politics but corporate image… Mad Nad Dorries is taking a break from her little watched show on Talk TV … less than 3,000 views on YouTube … has not spoke in Commons for a year … her constituency want her to resign for her lack of work … most MPs don’t give a toss about the public …
Richy Scumbag’s stance continues to baffle EU officials, UK universities and research community … haggling over pennies … Brexit Britain procrastinates while other countries queue to join, New Zealand is latest non EU country to apply for associate membership … Scumbag is determined to de-Europeanise education and research … Scumbag is committed to government’s own half baked Pioneer scheme …
Immigration legal aid lawyers in South West England have zero capacity to take on asylum seekers housed on Bibby Stockholm
… makes a nonsense of Deputy PM’s claims that the barge will make processing easier … Dowden also complained he did not hear howls of outrage of use of floating accommodation in other countries … Silya Europa in Netherlands has been controversial for the last year…
Lobbying by MPs government promised reform
… not much has changed … income from outside jobs up to £4.75M from £4M … Tory MPs … make multiples of their salaries … standards committee concluded that placing limits on outside work was too difficult … plenty of room at the trough …
Britain should rejoin … without further delay … British sciences face major obstacles … British scientists are clamouring to get back into Horizon … Richy Scumbag sees three arguments against … none stand up to scrutiny … Tories trumpeting planned Britain only project Pioneer … cannot match … Horizon … hard-line Gammons argued Britain could keep benefits of membership … difficult to find a better example than Horizon … Researchers and universities say delay over Horizon has cost the country … If Scumbag is serious about supporting British science he should stop dithering and sign up without delay ..
Brexit has failed
… London Stock Exchange looks increasingly moribund … Brexit has not made it easier to manufacture in UK … exporting has become more complicated … Britain is a diminished actor in export markets … failed to bring in investment … shrank by nearly half in 2022 … Britain is going backwards … Britain’s finance sector battered by Tories … workers have fared no better … raw sewage pumped into English waterways … failing health service… Brexit is a catastrophe for the country which those who campaigned for it claimed to love … Nigel Garbage now barely mentions the B-word … Johnson’s weekly Daily Mail column is largely a B-word free zone … no wonder Mail executives are ever more loudly asking each other ‘whose f*****g idea was this?’ … meanwhile true believer Richy Scumbag quietly drops, yet again, plans for new checks on imports from EU of farm produce … Who would have thought it, apart from those people who warned it would happen? … If Brexit was going well we would never hear the end of it…
Brexit has failed. Click to read our article from 2021.
Eurosceptics are Ecosceptics
This time they will wreck the plant … When you have done all you can to wreck the nation what is next? Answer: wreck the planet … two projects are two sides of the same ugly coin … striking membership overlap between the European (not much) Research Group and the Net Zero scrutiny Group … Lord Frost, former chief Brexit negotiator, claimed, extraordinarily that ‘rising global temperatures are likely to be beneficial’ … both ideologies involve a shocking indifference to evidence and data … distaste for ‘experts’ … same paranoid suspicion of ‘global elites and conspiracies’ … Nigel Garbage is the key figure moving further and faster than most Tory MPs are prepared to go … all horribly familiar … classic disruptive playbook, first devised by the tobacco industry and now the basis of most populist politics … put the frighteners on Keith Starmer … you might think that Brexit did more than enough damage …
… his Daily Mail gig likely to be no exception … Rothermere, mindful that Keith Starmer has promised to end non dom tax status, is less concerned that the column is desperately boring as its ceaseless digs at Richy Scumbag…
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
By Don Adamson, Brexorcist, 1st class honours, reporting on the week that was from his grim Northern Powerhouse Brexit Bunker in Barnsley.
This week’s homework
One – Harold Wilson got into trouble when he awarded MBEs all round to the Beatles. At the time the Beatles were the most successful popular music band in the world and bringing in vast amounts of export earnings to this country. That was not the point. You cannot have a Labour PM awarding decorations to scruffy characters from the rough end of Liverpool. Johnson awarded controversial decorations (up to and including peerages) to some very nasty people who, by rights, ought to be in the Nonce wing of some very nasty prison. That is perfectly in order and the newspapers do not mind a bit. Why the different treatment?
I wish people would stop saying that Charlotte Owen's dad is Boris Johnson. He's given her a seat in the House of Lords for her long lifetime filled with tireless good deeds and political achievements, so please stop suggesting otherwise 👍 pic.twitter.com/QdDaVVmCgC
— 🇪🇺RichS🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 💙🏳️🌈 #FBPE (@_Rich_S) July 26, 2023
Uncanny.
Two – Discuss the following statement: Nigel Garbage (of all people) has stated that Brexit has failed. Express, Mail and Telegraph newspapers (notorious Brexit cheerleaders of the worst description) are saying (grudgingly) that Brexit has not turned out to be the earthly paradise they promised. Tories got us into this mess by making extravagant promises. Keith Starmer has promised to get us out of this mess by repeating the same extravagant and now discredited promises. Einstein defined insanity as repeating a mistake in the expectation of a different result. What would Einstein have said about Brexit?
Here's how the 'enormous harm' done to 'victim hater' Nigel Farage should be settled:
Ask @Nigel_Farage for a numerical estimate of the damage done to his visibility in the other side.
— Reboot Britain / Rage Against The Brexit Machine (@BrexitRage) August 1, 2023
Serial loser Farage.
Three – Discuss the following statement. We now know the truth behind scandal concerning Nigel Garbage and the NatWest Bank. Garbage stirred up trouble so that his nasty friends could speculate on shares in the NatWest Bank. There are two kinds of Gammon. On the one hand you have blithering idiots who are stupid enough to believe what they read in trashy newspapers. On the other hand you have some very clever and calculating people who get rich by dubious means. If they would put as much effort and ingenuity into doing something useful we would all benefit. Instead they got us into this Brexit mess.
Join the True and Fair Party for much better politics.
Four – Discuss the following statement. The Economist of 29 July has an interesting article about US universities and sometime controversial entry criteria for students. The article must be read carefully because it contains a lot of facts, figures and sometimes complex reasoning. The last two sentences summarise the situation – “These universities are channelling comparatively under qualified legacies, athletes and private school graduates into positions of unusual influence. A greater emphasis on academic merit would yield not only a fairer society but also a brighter elite.” Meanwhile in Britain we have brain-dead Cabinet Ministers who attended Oxbridge universities. They would be unemployable if they had attended less prestigious institutes of learning (if that is the right word).
Five – When the Tories were making extravagant promises about Brexit they had a lot to say about ‘Singapore on Thames.’ To anybody with more than three brain cells this was conclusive proof that Brexit was only ever for the benefit of tax dodgers and dubious financiers (and not many of either). Singapore used to have a commendable reputation for efficiency and clean government. Singapore is nowadays developing a reputation for mismanagement and corruption. Which ‘Singapore on Thames’ do the Tories have in mind for Booming Brexit Britain: a) the Singapore with a commendable reputation for efficiency and clean government or b) the Singapore that is groaning under the weight of incompetence and corruption?
Brexit was not for voters. It was for Jacob Rees-Mogg et al.
This week’s quotes:
Schools and education
Each chart looks the same … gradual improvement from the early 1990s until 2010. Then things become worse … rule that runs for everything from rough sleeping to real wages to hospital waiting lists … housing policy chaotic … From 2010 to 2016 Tories offered a small state country within the EU. After 2016 Tories offered a flabby big state vision outside the EU … political chaos … a bureaucratic mess … one in ten children attends a school that is falling down … Teachers did not sign up to be auxiliary social workers … often must be due to government failure … experienced teachers leave profession … for more than two years the government has failed to negotiate Britain’s re-entry to Horizon, a European research collaboration programme it left because of Brexit … many scientists say it is essential to Rejoin … my worry is we are going back to the 1990s where you got a system that was running into the sand …
Sunak ‘rip-off degree war’ deserves a diploma for missing the point … the whole higher education system is a mess …we are staring down the barrel of a mid century skills crisis … unless British universities produce tens of thousands of engineers the green transition is stuffed … unless universities produce tens of thousands more doctors and nurses the NHS workforce plan cannot be delivered … incentives for Britain’s most talented graduates seem misaligned … how much greater would our problems look if somebody actually calibrated them against the problems we face … tens of thousands of teachers leaving the profession exhausted … we need a more skilled and educated workforce … any politician who refuses to answer is in the business of fantasy economics …
Tory hate mob licking its lips as … Richy Scumbag’s reign falls apart
… the electorate in very large numbers has had enough of this government … the whiff of a dying administration … the only thing growing in the economy is the scale of the debt … a corrupt incompetent government deserves to be sacked but one presiding over a bombed-out economy will be … The Right of the Tory Party is preparing for that. Thick Lizzie … who has no sense of shame has gathered an unsavoury collection of free trade extremists and wealthy US climate change deniers to build on her policies that failed so spectacularly just months ago … Sue Ellen Braverman and Lee Anderson … gathering New Conservatives to espouse ideals that are to the right of the right … constituency organisers have welcomed former UKIP members and ushered out the moderates … the appalling misjudgement of Brexit. The problem for Starmer is that these problems would take years to settle even against the backdrop of a strong economy. The risk is that after one term of Labour the country feels no better off, and potentially worse, it will turn to the pedlars of false hopes and real hatred. That is the game plan of the New Conservatives….
Dominic Williams, chief revenue officer … was asked if he could see the irony of a news business that pushed Brexit so far being damaged by it … … insiders say Williams is the consummate office politician … would not have dreamed of speaking out unless he felt Rothermere had come round to that way of thinking … dismayed to see how much the company has suffered from Brexit… Daily Mail editor in Chief has not been seen in the office for a while … Brextremist Bible now seems willing to think the unthinkable: what will happen if Brexit fails? … Tories will be blamed if it flops…
The Brexit Bible. Click to read more.
James Cleverly, Foreign Secretary
is doing as much globetrotting as possible in the Tories remaining months in office … took 91 officials with him, set the taxpayer back £700,500 … unwilling to slum it on commercial flights … £178,761 for a 3 day visit to Washington … trip to Belfast cost £4,142 for an RAF aircraft …
Lib Dem omerta on Brexit
Our membership and polling were at their highest when we were most outspoken against Brexit….
Tory MP second jobs
average wage of £233 per hour … Nadine Dorries job at GB News … rumoured six figure salary … £20,500 advance for Johnson hagiography … nobody can remember when she last appeared in Parliament …
Neither of these MP’s have done anything at all since Johnson resigned over a year ago.
Chris Pincher and Nadine Dorries need to be kicked out of Parliamen, RT if you agree. pic.twitter.com/2M7S4wX9we
… Labour, with their child benefit caps and promise to continue with Tory tax and spending plans … show no sign of recognising … that Tory plans are not producing growth now and are not likely to produce growth in the future …
Dignified exit of the week
… ever expanding list of Tory MPs announcing they will not stand at the next election … Ben Wallace … may yet go down as the first instance of a ship running out of rats before it even starts to sink … Wallace denies rumours of affair with Thick Lizzie …. Wallace might be applying for appointment to a juicy quango under Starmer…
Liz Truss chased the economy and escaped with a lifetime salary.
Queues at Ports
… This is the curse of Brexit die hards: they cannot believe that EU does not realise that we are special … that the queues are caused by Brexit … what Brexiters voted for … checks that Faragists wanted to impose on visitors to Britain. Ironic that Faragists get annoyed when they are imposed on us … emergency planning for queues at Dover has now entered the English language … Operation Brock … miles of the M20 turned in a huge car park … Dover is also the port through which 35% of UK trade passes through … UK government allocated £45 from the levelling up fund to fix the problem … that could have been spent on actually helping rundown parts of the country … will be spent on the chaos Brexit is causing at Dover ….
Nigel is now at the confessional box stage of Brexit. Nothing left to offer anyone apart from boats, banks and stale beer.
Easter was a disaster … coaches turned around and abandoned foreign trips after 24 hours queuing … Eurotunnel Terminal was built on the assumption that UK would be in the EU … Last summer queues of 18 hours … Eurostar stations were build on the assumption that UK would be in EU … some Eurostar trains travel with empty seats that could have been sold … because company could not get passengers on board in time … Easyjet has cancelled hundreds of trips … travel sector is facing significant disruption … It might help if the government had spent the last seven years preparing for what the industry saw coming … Brexiters dismissed all the predictions of chaos as a Remoaner lie … government has built its strategy on the same crazy belief …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Brexorcist and Saboteur First Class
Theresa May knew it. Gina Miller knew it. Michel Barnier knew it. There never was such a thing as a soft Brexit. We are now inheriting the ‘benefits’ of a hard Brexit though Brexit’s delinquent and dysfunctional offspring … the cost of living crisis, a return to climate vandalism, the sale of the century (NHS), skill shortages, recession and depression, pay freezes, Brexit red tape, travel, residence and work restrictions, the fragmentation of Brexit Britain into 4 + nations, demonisation of ‘forins’ and a retreat on our science and technology base, to name but a few of the effects. And to quote The Carpenters, “We’ve only just begun”. Biz Catalyst 360 and UK in a Changing Europe (UKICE) offer glimpses of what’s to come in the socio-economic, political, legal, technological and environmental suicide formerly known as Brexit. Read on ….
Read our original article on this. Written in 2020 as a warning which was ignored by populist Remainers and the big beasts.
The illusion of a soft Brexit deal was akin to a stepping stone across a pond. Without the stepping stone of a soft Brexit, it is likely that we would have turned back from the cliff edge of a hard Brexit as the chasm was too dangerous. Theresa May knew this when she threatened the ERG with the choice of a hard Brexit or no Brexit at all. She did this several times during negotiations. May was thwarted by leading Remain voices such as Femi Oluwole who began to insist on the ‘safe Brexit’ which was not safe at all. The European Movement and Best for Britain joined in, pleading for the stepping stone. I understand the desire to manage expectations, but the time to drop the Remain project was 31st December 2020 and not 18 months later. It gave remainers the excuse they needed to give up. We know the rest.
I believe that May was playing a dangerous game with the ERG to break their grip on the Conservative party and Brexit. She may have succeeded if the Remoaners had not turned against her. I pleaded with people to support May but visceral love / hate binary responses took over. I warned that we would get Johnson if we ousted May. No one listened. We did. Quite a few blamed me for supporting Theresa May. Michel Barnier knew. Oh well.
Don Adamson writes his weekly roundup from the Bungled Brexit Bunker in Barnsley.
This week’s homework
One – The Whigs, later Liberals, were a major force in British politics from about 1690 to about 1920. Several factors brought about the decline of the Liberal Party. One was the rise of the Labour Party and extending the franchise to working people. Another was a major scandal about granting knighthoods and peerages to very dubious people, usually this was a financial arrangement. A third factor was financial misconduct by Cabinet Ministers; notably the Marconi shares scandal where Cabinet Ministers awarded lucrative government contracts to Marconi on the basis of Ministers having inside knowledge. Do you see a resemblance to recent events? Is it time for another radical change in British politics?
Two – In 2010 we got a hung parliament. Labour had been in office for a number of years. They were exhausted and accident prone. It is interesting that the Tories did not win outright but had to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. In 2015 the Tories won an election with a small majority. In 2017 we got another hung parliament in an election that Labour should have won outright. The Tories entered into a very dubious arrangement with Ulster Unionists. In 2019 the Tories won a huge majority in an election that Labour should have won. Last week there were three by-elections where Labour should have romped home. Labour got one seat, Lib Dems got another and the Tories got a tiny minority in what usually one of the safest Tory seats in the country. What is happening? Tories have proved themselves unfit to govern. Labour has been Absent Without Leave since 2010 and flatly refuses to return to work. How are we going to get out of this mess?
Three – Discuss the following statement – Keith Starmer talks about there being no case for Rejoin and that Britain’s best hope for the future is outside the EU (despite all the evidence to contrary). Starmer is, in fact preparing for Rejoin. It is all part of a cunning plan to deceive Gammons and Flagshaggers. We are in this mess because Tories told (and continue to tell) an infinity of shameless lies. What useful purpose will it serve for Labour leaders to repeat the same discredited Tory lies?
Four – Discuss the following statement – Rumours circulate to the effect that a person named in Johnson’s controversial honours and awards has only one qualification for a peerage: This person is Johnson’s illegitimate firstborn. The flaw in this argument is that Johnson cannot count up to one.
Five – Discuss the following statement: I spent many years being irritated by Irish, Scottish and Welsh Nationalists (alphabetical order) moaning about the English. Then Brexit came along and I began to understand what they were moaning about.
Six – Nigel Garbage claims to have been victimised by the NatWest Bank. Did this victimisation happen because (uniquely among Gammons and Flagshaggers) Nigel Garbage noticed that Brexit has failed?
… Richy Scumbag travels in private jets and helicopters … outdoing even Johnson … spent £100,000 on travel in April … taken £54,418 from private donors over two month period …
Environment
Keith Starmer told Times Radio “I hate tree huggers”…
Download our song written for COP26 on Bandcamp. Link on You Tube.
Rupert Murdoch’s summer party Starmer attended
… Whatever Starmer is thinking, his appearance at the party seemed as forlorn an exercise as his ‘We are not reversing Brexit’ article for the Daily Express … Brexiters say ‘You cannot trust him’ … Party leaders seem to believe in the power of the press … When Blair travelled to Australia at Murdoch’s behest the Sun was selling nearly 4M copies a day. The News International titles had a combined sale of 10M copies. Today many news organisations have stopped publishing audited figures … Press Gazette concluded that our national and daily papers now barely sell 6M between them … estimates the Sun sells about 770,000 against the Mail’s 780,000 … when Blair won his landslide the Times was selling about 800,000, is now about 216,000 ‘’’ the Telegraph has gone from just over 1M to 188,000 … Newspaper circulations have been in decline for a long time, but the rate of collapse is accelerating. In 2010 the Sun was selling 3M copies daily, the Mail 2M … Mail stuck with May to the end and was messianic in defence of Johnson … it hectored the Tories into electing Thick Lizzie and perpetuated the fantasy of her competence … It seems that no PM can take office without making early contact with Murdoch, Rothermere or the Telegraph … it is hard to escape the impression that the meetings are about taking orders: cut taxes, emasculate the BBC … nowadays people get their news elsewhere … notably social media … and publications that are increasingly seen as more reliable sources. Private Eye sales are growing fast as newspapers are sinking … sells around 250,000 a fortnight … more than Telegraph, Times, Express FT, i, or Guardian can manage on an average day … Eye breaks important stories and exposes corruption … Fleet Street is slow to follow up … Symbiotic relationship between the Tories and the right wing press will face biggest test in the coming year. Their futures depend on it. If they fail Tory Party could face oblivion, newspaper proprietors could lose billions … Starmer should not have attended Murdoch’s party …
Private Eyelines parodies the populist media. Click to read.
World renowned economist Adam Posen
… described Brexit as the only time a country declared a trade war on itself … it is getting worse … expanding it to an immigration war on itself … these mistakes are going to have longer lasting effects … Five Prime Ministers and five governments in seven years … That is Italy like territory, perhaps not quite Argentina (COMMENT: You might not think it now but pre 1920 Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world). … we have had volatile and irresponsible economic policies … excessive austerity … Brexit … productivity problem … undermined credibility … less faith in the government’s ability to deliver … costs of Brexit worse than the optimists predicted … made inflation worse … red tape …admin costs and supply chains … the UK has become a small economy and must start acting like one … UK is sailing in the wrong direction … NHS is crumbling … education and training are underfunded … it is getting worse … start talking about rejoining … that might seem like common sense but we live in a country where the government thinks such talk is treason … we need to Rejoin, and, most importantly to stop the government’s war on its own country … Britain’s stock market is drifting into irrelevance Bribing the Tories Mantrac selling industrial equipment to Russia long after the Ukraine invasion … Tories accepted £5M earlier this year from Mantrac’s owner, Egyptian Mohamed Mansour …
Tory lawmaker faces ejection from Parliament for groping strangers at a London club …Ex SPAD Daniel Korski … Tory Candidate for London Mayor … groping allegation by TV writer Daisy Goodwin…. she has been contacted by other women with ‘some interesting stories’ … Mayoral selectors suggest that anybody associated with this government would lose to Labour … 6 Weeks is the time it took BBC to respond to allegations of presenter paying teenager for explicit photos … 5 years is the time it took Tory party to respond to allegations of MP Chris Pincher making unwanted sexual advances … Russell Tillotson, former Tory councillor … was, on 29 June convicted of four sex offences .. 1984 – 2001 while a teacher at Tonbridge school… The lurid affair of Hew Edwards has raised more questions about the state of British journalism … the young person’s lawyers, published in the Sun, were nonsense and the police ruled out criminal charges…
Tabloids one month after launch of US websites for Mirror, Express, Irish Daily News … not going to plan … US audiences not flocking to the news brands … New York office engulfed in a sexism storm reminiscent of 1990s lad mags … absolute shit show … Express online .. Resulted in a potentially expensive shitshow…
Mutiny in Metroland
Conservatives despatched Tory MPs from Parliament … Tories’ old heartlands not yet lost but they are becoming contested battlegrounds … in 2021 a Lib Dem was elected MP for Chesham and Amersham … earlier this year Lib Dems took control of councils in commuter towns around London … current polling suggests they could surge from 14 Parliamentary seats to 40 or 50 … a majority in Metroland voted against Brexit, which left a widespread impression that banking and the professions were a low priority for the Tories … rage has subsided but has left dismay … Johnson and his cronies mocked …the drinking, bullying, and sleaze of his administration seemed divorced from modern corporate culture … sewage spills … Lib Dems have used them to signal that politics is now fetid … voters feel overlooked and taken for granted by governments … a sentiment normally associated with poorer constituencies … Richy Scumbag is struggling to reverse Tory fortunes … estrangement may be too far gone to prevent a Tory rout … the earth is shifting …
Don Adamson Pip Pip Medway Delta (Retired) Saboteur and Brexorcist First Class
Editor’s note : Somewhat spookily, Vera Lynn died on the day I released this song and I got hate mail from the Brexiteers as if I had caused her demise …. oh well ‘Alo Vera charts the story of the Brexiteer with Brexit Buyer’s remorse but who cannot tell his mates down the pub …
Don Adamson is a true patriot – not befuddled by British Brexit mythology.
In this reflective piece by our guest writer Paul Higgins, he asks what next for Brexit Britain.
Seven years after the referendum and three after the UK effectively left the European Union many things still puzzle political analysts. While outside the UK it is crystal clear that Brexit has been a disaster, many in the UK still think the opposite. Cognitive dissonance characterised the more extremists in both the brexiter and remainer sides, even though remainers were always more rational and fact driven and that may have been one of the reasons behind their defeat in 2016. In any case, it is astonishingly surprising that, 7 years after the referendum, the UK is still unable to hold a civilised debate over Brexit.
Brexit was a major disruption in British politics. A rational, calm and mature democracy like the UK suddenly fell into the arms of the extreme right nationalist populism and has not recovered yet. Proof of this is that the so-called Brexit heroes enjoy a high level of impunity when it comes to breaking the law, lying to Parliament or losing a bank account. In the eyes of their followers, it’s nothing but the lefty, woke, EU and civil service elites trying to punish them for Brexit. They won’t even argue whether they broke the law or lied, that doesn’t matter and they will ignore it, it’s the attack on Brexit itself that explains everything.
Brexit is the ultimate reason why they feel they are better than the French, the Germans, the Dutch or the Swedish and they are not going to let anyone or anything question that. Even if the economy and public services are crumbling, it is a price well worth paying because superior beings need to be sovereign which, in their view, means different and not mixed with other Europeans. It is true that the cost of living crisis is biting the support for Brexit though. Polls estimate that the proportion of Britons that would vote remain now is about 63% whilst 37% would still vote for Brexit. But it is astonishing that, given the state of the country, remainers do not double that 20-point lead. There are many factors explaining this, the main ones are:
Brexit is still too emotional and facts are denied or reinterpreted by each side to accommodate their respective narrative. The war in Ukraine, COVID or the weather in Spain affect only Brexit Britain; whenever the EU makes a concession and allows the UK to trade in more favourable terms than any other third country, it is because we are better and they need us more than we need them; if not then it is because they want to punish us for Brexit. Whether it is to hate us or to love us, we will always be special. What they can’t even consider is that the rest of the world doesn’t think that Britain is special.
The press is prolonging this situation not only because most tabloids have embraced the national-populism cause, but also because, when not, they tend to go not for the truth or the facts but for the middle point in any debate remotely related to Brexit, even if that means softening an outright lie with a half lie.
The two main political parties don’t want to touch Brexit even with a nine feet cane. The Tories have invested a huge amount of political capital in Brexit and they can’t just make a u-turn and say ”sorry, we got it wrong” and Labour thinks that they can take the remainer vote for granted and take the fight to the Brexiter red wall.
The sense of entitlement that led to the leave victory in 2016 has somehow spread and most parties think that they can renegotiate the most inconvenient aspects of the deal with the EU and the EU and 27 countries will just accept any changes the Brits would honour them with a proposal.
Brexit, like communism or any religion, is an ideal and as such it can’t be questioned. Editor’s note : That’s why we wrote the book of Brexorcism, to deal with quasi religious based beliefs about Brexit. Whatever happens it would be because Brexit has not been implemented pure enough, because we didn’t believe hard enough, because this was not the Brexit people voted for or because of the works of the devil and you can replace devil with the blob, the establishment, lefty lawyers, civil servants or the EU.
In any case, as long as this sorry state of affairs in the collective British psyche doesn’t change, it is very difficult to have a serious and responsible debate among ourselves and with Europe. A debate about what kind of relationship we want with Europe and, moreover, to convince our neighbours that any change in that relationship is going to last longer than the few years between two consecutive general elections.
Editor’s note: Please note objective five of our goals.
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