Our own Tony Jay, on “30 Days of Shite”:
Long, long ago, before the Sun first rose to challenge the Moon and when the screens were small and square, in that mythical period known to historians as ‘The Early Nineties’, noted political commentator and semi-professional Monopoly piece Linda Perry emerged lean and raving from sixteen gruelling months of contemplative isolation at Jan-Michael Vincent’s Nevada sweat-lodge to pen a searing admonition of the outgoing Bush Administration’s many foreign policy scandals entitled “What’s Going On?”, an obvious call-back to (and some might even say, straight-out swipe from) the identically titled brickbat of vituperative lyricism released eleven years earlier by hirsute urban troubadour Marvin Gaye in which he drew attention to widespread opposition to the Vietnam War, glaring disparities in the lived experiences of White and Black Americans, and persistent questions surrounding the pedestrianisation of Ludlow town centre. To say that these are all well-known facts that barely require checking up on (so you can put that Google search down, chum) is almost beside the point, because these familiar cultural touchstones are so firmly welded into place by the metaphysical glue of ur-memory that they obscure a greater truth, in that Perry and Gaye were only the latest in a long line of alternative spokespersonages to take up this particular idiomatic interjection and wield it as a performative goad to the consciences of their listeners.
For example, relatively few people are aware that before Gaye ever darkened the doorway of a Motown recording studio there had been ‘Dixie’ Van Beddows’ 1955 Rockabilly Classic “What’s Buzzin, Cuzzin?” demanding free white T-Shirts and a sensible nuclear strategy from the Eisenhower Administration, 1932’s Jazz standard “Blow The News This Way” from Mack ‘Mack’ Mackie and the Sweet Trumpet Chorus, which lambasted everything from Herbert Hoover’s economic policies to the shortage of olives for martini cocktails, and perhaps the least well-remembered of them all, “Answer Me This You Fragrant Swiss Miss”, the 1908 Music Hall singalong popularised by Little Dicky Owenwilkie and the Pink Petunia Twins that channelled general unease over the Tunguska impact’s lingering climatological effects into political pressure on Leopold II to formally relinquish his personal control over the Congo.
Going back even further in time we hear echoes of Perry’s bellowed confusion in the late 18th century marching song “Ce Qui Se Passe? Mes Amies”, author unknown, that inspired both the violence of the French Revolution and Pope Pius VI’s threat to excommunicate any Vatican occupant found drawing willies on the noses of Michaelangelo’s cherubs. Gaye’s sexually charged plaintiveness resonates in kind with the bawdy Baroque call and response chant “How Flows My Tide? Ebb-water, Good Woman, No Coin For A Ride” from around 1658, which many experts on the period would argue precipitated Europe’s most virulent outbreak of herpes oyster and the fall of the Cromwellian Protectorate, and only the most philistine ear could fail to pick up on the thematic similarities evident between all of the aforementioned examples and both the early Tudor protest anthem for the harpsichord “Verily, Indulge Mine Curiosity Upon The Roots Of Thy Present Circumstance” and “Tristis Temporibus Gor Dei Populus”, the medieval Gregorian chant popularised by Saint Simbo the Limbless, the first (and last) Christian missionary to visit pagan Ikealund.
What has any of this to do with the latest black-comedy catastrogasm being inflicted upon poor old Perfidious Albion? Not a lot, and yet everything. Sort of. Mostly it’s just a delaying tactic to avoiding actually talking about the situation we’re in because, quite frankly, it’s as depressing a scene as can be imagined without sepia-tinged commentary from an over-ketamined Ken Burns, and nothing leads me to believe there’ll be any noticeable improvement in the status quo in the near to middle future. It turns out that the near total lockdown on ‘politics’ that took up the end of September was actually the high point of this Third Elizabethan Age, and it’s been all downhill slalom with hungry wolf outriders every day since.
I mean, come on. Truss was gifted the opportunity to follow Flobalob Johnson’s ghastly show onto the national stage, a warm-up act that might have started off with gushing reviews and a lot of buzz courtesy of his chums in the Press, but eventually wore out its welcome with the audience through a series of off-colour pratfalls and not entirely accidental wardrobe malfunctions, all of which concluded with a humiliating exeunt Hard Right pursued by bears. Any functioning politician with the common-sense of a damp roof-tile should have been able to slide into that gaping chasm of credibility and, merely by virtue of not being a petulant gasbag of selfish dishonesty, enjoy a honeymoon period where they literally couldn’t help but appear reassuringly solid and capable in comparison.
You see where I’m going with this?
In the person of Mary Elizabeth Truss, the writhing nest of ill-hatched wyrms and slimy parasitic ticks that comprise the Tory Party membership have managed to miss that mile-wide target by some kind of very large number of astronomical units (let’s call it the Musk Variable), saddling this country in the process with a Prime Minister of such intellectual vacuity that the combined weight of every single useful thought to have passed through her cranium over the last decade, if transmogrified item for item into lead pellets and stuffed into a sack woven from her most quick witted ripostes to policy questions, still wouldn’t be a burden sufficient to noticeably inconvenience a mildly arthritic ant.
It’s absolutely astounding to me how incredibly thoroughly the Tory Party has gone about October Surprising its own brand. They’ve been under new management for a grand total of 30 days so far, a good third of which were taken up by the ultra-slow-motion internment of Betty Windsor during which 24/7 coverage of our INTENSE AND SHARED NATIONAL GRIEF crowded out any talk of such mundanities as the lives and livelihoods of mere common-folk, and yet in that time they’ve managed to tank the pound on the currency markets, sabotage the mortgage market, trash the UK’s credit rating, compel the Bank of England to launch a £65 billion effort to rescue the pension market, align the UK with pro-Trumpian Christofascists over the location of Britain’s embassy in Israel, add about £100 billion to the national debt, promise lucrative tax cuts to the richest (partially) funded by brutal spending cuts targeting the poorest, refused to contemplate ‘hand-outs’ to help people deal with their energy bills, preferring to offer public money direct to the energy companies to guarantee their profits, threatened to break international law over trafficking asylum seekers to Rwanda, and a dozen or more other auto-mutilations I can’t even begin to stuff into this already swollen paragraph.
Twenty days. That’s all it took for them to make Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson look positively statesmanlike. Da Fuk?!?
And they did all of this, let’s not forget, just in time for Conference season. The one time of the year (other than any day that NuNew Labour’s authoritarians need a hand gaslighting the public vis-à-vis their ongoing Special Ideological Operation against British History’s Greatest Monster) that the national News Media are more or less compelled to give the Opposition some grudging coverage. Chancellor Kwarsi Kwarteng’s ‘emergency mini-budget’ of pseudo-erotic Randian fantasy triumphalism blew up in his vacantly grinning face just as NuNew Labour were stage-managing their mawkishly ‘patriotic’ celebration of everything Mittelenglisch and ringing the conference centre with bullet-headed securigoons tasked with keeping anyone on their ‘Too Lefty for the Daily Mail’ shitlist (i.e. the vast majority of the Party and 99.9% of Liverpool’s population) off the premises. Granted, Starmer’s brittle coalition of synthi-skinned careerists and lobbyists for Omnicorp have the combined political nous and reaction speed of Garth Knight’s Goliath sailing over the edge of a southern California cliff, but even they were able to cobble together a focus-group approved response that underlined the widening gulf between centre-right economic orthodoxy and whatever the hell it is Tory voters have unearthed from the Tomb of Kapitalizmahotep the Unchained.
Honest to Dark Brandon I don’t recall the Tories ever being quite this bad at the nuts and bolts of politics, and I’m old enough to remember the long, slow death of John Major’s sleaze-ridden post-Thatcher Government. In choosing Truss as their leader (against the wishes of a large majority of their MPs) the Tory membership have empowered the most extreme elements at the Rightward edge of their Coalition of C*#%s to take centre stage, with everything that implies for fangs out, hair on fire ideological policy making. Truss, Kwarteng, Raab, Braverman, etc, these nonentities are just finger-puppets for the Invisible Hand of those billionaire-funded ‘thinktanks’ (like the Taxpayers
AvoidanceAlliance and the Institute of EconomicChaosAffairs) who make 55 Tufton Street their home. This is their opportunity to turn the United Kingdom into a backroom slot-machine they can stuff pennies into for guaranteed multi-billion payouts, and quite frankly they couldn’t give two minuscule fucks about the state Britain is in once they’ve had their fun. The people behind the thinktanks will be richer for betting on the ups and downs of the UK’s collapse, and their placemen will be set fair for a lifetime of part-time executive directorships and overpaid speaking gigs at various international junkets for the temporarily useful, and if they leave the country a culture-war battlefield of cash-strapped regional militias when they take the last fuelled jet to Davos Island, well, it’s just shrugs and prayers, drone-stock, you clearly should have been less Woke and done more networking.Many Tory MPs seem to be in genuine shock at the speed of their Party’s collapse and the size of the Loyal Opposition’s 30-percentish lead in the polls, but they shouldn’t be. This isn’t down to anything the Stamerstans have done, this is entirely their own work. It’s what you get when you’re so cringingly obedient to your own propaganda wing that you allow the lunatics to take over the asylum and act like a bunch of blue-pilled businessmen let loose at a pooch-screwing festival who’ve been told not to come back to the hotel until every canine is a micrometre flat and their wee-willy-winkies have been worn down to glistening nubbins. It wouldn’t be quite so bad for them if this was happening after a sustained period of smooth-sailing Government that had solidified the bonds that unite Tories together (money, xenophobia, bodily fluids) and built up a bank of unearned credit with the electorate via the establishment News Media, then they’d be able to look the markets in the eye and say, hey, don’t panic, we’re just indulging in a little mid-term beak-wetting, there’ll be plenty of time to purge the national memory archives of this wobble and reboot as the Party of Fiscal Probity once Election season comes around again.
But it’s not, is it? They’ve made this lurch to the outer limits and beyond after twelve years of ruthless austerity (350,000 dead and counting) six years of Brexitcide (which is a Nirnaeth Arnoediad and counting), three years of Covid (200,000 +, but who’s counting) and eight months of Russia’s madly overcompensating Tsar Rumpelstiltsputin fucking with energy prices while his army dissolves on Ukrainian soil. These disasters have all combined with increasing levels of Tory incompetence to plunge the country into an economic and social maelstrom where you don’t need to have a university degree in Practical Moneybusiness (IANAGOPMU) to see that we’re all pretty much fucked and the Conservative and Unionist Party was in the driving seat for ALL of it. Yes, the BBC’s loyal choir of castrato commentators can – and will -prettify things up as much as possible (I’m talking about you Chris ‘worse that Kuenssberg’ Mason and your “This is a newly hatched Government barely out of the shell” bullshit) but the simple fact of the matter is that the Tory Civil-War is now out in the open and can’t easily be papered over with bland assurances that all this recent unpleasantness is just the result of global economic turmoil and that massive tax-cuts for the wealthy are, in fact, a proven part of any Growth Plan.
On one side of the yawning divide you’ve got Truss and Kwarteng and the rest of the Glibertarian, ERG, Kulturkampfing Far-Right brigade, and on another Sunak and Shapps and the Not-Quite-As-Far-Right wing who would rather boil the frog slowly and at least pretend to care about the financial security of millions of traditional Tory voters once every few years. Then there’s the faction that are still loyal to Flobalob’s brand of ‘all things to just enough voters’ grifting bullshit, who blame the Brextremists for not sticking with him, the Traditionalists for betraying him, and the naughty, naughty News Media for not protecting him. In between them all are scores of horrified Tory MPs who couldn’t find their own arses with a compass and a helper monkey but who can read a poll well enough to see that the collapse of huge Tory majorities in recent by-elections could easily happen to them. All the constituency boundary rejiggering and fucking around with the electoral commission they’ve been doing can only go so far towards entrenching Tory rule, and they won’t mean diddley-squat if the Average Joe and Joanne continue to have their noses rubbed in the reality of what continued Tory Government – especially this kind of unhinged Tory Government – means for their chances of being able to light their homes and feed their families over Christmas. And rub their noses in it is exactly what Truss & Co have been doing.
We’ve had Tory Party Chairman Jake ‘I’m just bluff, I am’ Berry telling people concerned about the spiralling cost of everything that “When their bills arrive, they can either cut their consumption or they can get a higher salary, higher wages, go out there and get that new job”, which is… nice of him.
Higher Education Minister Andrea Jenkyns (she of the middle-finger gesture directed at people booing Flobalob as he left Downing Street) claiming that she would ban Universities from offering degrees in entirely fictional ‘Harry Potter studies’ (that’s the class where the kids are allowed to self-identify as Mandrakes) and stop students from “being fed a diet of critical race theory, anti-British history and sociological Marxism”, the latter of which is apparently that old standby ‘Cultural Marxism’ with the Jew-Hate scrubbed off, courtesy of whichever Heritage Institute pamphlet she cribbed that load of verbal rat-bedding from.
Then there’s the ever reliable source of drawling class-war clickbait Jacob Rees-Mogg, Truss’
Emissary to The Endless Darkness Beyond Mortal KenBusiness Secretary who has been enjoying his latest opportunity to trigger outrage in the sane majority who don’t aspire to someday inherit one of the Nine Rings of Men from their Great-Uncle Dwimmerlaik Rees-Mogg by proclaiming both his eagerness to let frackers frack themselves silly in his spacious back garden (much to the displeasure of his NIMBY constituents) while rejecting the possibility of allowing local referendums on the issue (because of the displeasure of his NIMBY constituents) and dismissing all opposition to fracking in general as “hysteria” generated by groups “funded by Russia” (by which I assume he means the Tory Party itself, because many of its MPs are dead set against any fracking in their constituencies and it’s stuffed with more roubles than a babushka’s mattress) while simultaneously being outed as exploring ways to evade public scrutiny of the approval process for new fracking opportunities. Don’t ever change, Jacob. [he won’t – Ed]The new Home Secretary, lunatic barely-lawyer and serial liar Suella “I’m not brown, you’re brown” Braverman, was filmed ranting at the Tory Conference about how seeing asylum seekers forced onto planes and renditioned to Rwanda was her “dream” and “obsession”, for which clear evidence of mental illness and sociopathic tendencies she received a partial standing ovation. Partial, only because the other half of the audience had already spanked themselves into drooling lassitude at the very thought of shipping all the darkies back to Africa, even and especially the ones who thought to outwit the Bulldog British by coming here from Asia. Not so inscrutable now, eh, Johnny Foreigner? Harrumph.
And last, but also least, Truss herself, filling up much of her incredibly short maiden leader’s speech (they’re usually around an hour long, hers was just over half that length and included testimonial video from the team at Cyberdyne who constructed her from dough and old spoons) with sneers about people simply not being willing to understand that “with change comes disruption” and the creation of a new Enemies of the State list christened the “anti-growth coalition” which includes environmentalists, other political parties, militant Unions, anti-Brexit forces and some unnamed thinktanks, but not, as you might expect, Weight Watchers or the Pym Foundation. Missed opportunity there, Diz Liz.
It’s no great surprise that multiple Tory MPs have been running to friendly journalists to give (anonymous, natch) statements decrying the bonkers direction Truss & Co are dragging the Party and giving her until Christmas to pull her head out of her arse and become an entirely different and more capable person (uh huh, yeah) before the knives come out. Tory leaders are supposed to be immune from leadership challenges in the first year of their reign, but there’s rules and then there’s ‘rules’, in particular the Golden Rule (Do as thou wilt, but fucketh not up our electoral chances) and none of these rules were ever designed to deal with a leadership team so amateurish they’ve had to perform a series of U-turns on their very first policy priorities because they hadn’t even bothered to find out if their 71 seat majority in Parliament was united enough to get highly contentious legislation passed [it’s not – ED]. Cabinet ministers are already on record making statements in direct contradiction of what they know to be Government policy, which is supposed to be a sacking offense, but has now seemingly been downgraded to something Foreign Secretary James ‘nominative determinism lies a’mouldering in its grave’ Cleverly is dispatched to bullshit about on the morning News round because there’s simply no way of enforcing Cabinet discipline when the Tory Party is this fractured and self-destructive.
That’s not to say that the Tories are dead certs to lose the next General Election, far from it. Truss herself is absolutely, definitely, undeniably, a cast-iron certainty to get booted sooner rather than later, but that’s a different matter. She’s simply incapable of doing the job and lacks the ability to fake it. Every interview she does, even the soft-soap cuddle-ups with Tory loyalists like Kuenssberg and Robinson, quickly devolve into the robotic repetition of stock phrases delivered from behind a series of uncomfortable approximations of human facial expressions while her eyes remain as dead as a zombie rat’s. There’s an interview with a nameless Tory MP out there where he or she bemoans the fact that every single thing Truss says on any topic is always preceded by a static pause during which she retreats to her mind-palace (well, mind cottage, maybe) and goes over her list of “Things that sound like something a Tory Prime Minister might say” until she lands on the selection of mouth noises least appropriate to the question at hand. They could program an Alexa to do that, and it would probably come across on TV as warmer and far more on the ball policywise.
Who would replace her? God alone knows, or failing that you could ask His opposite number, who is probably considerably more in the loop regarding the average Tory’s innermost desires. Braverman obviously fancies her chances, hence the deep dive into Culture-War rhetoric and the manic grin she sports whenever she talks about hurting the people her lily-white audience don’t like, but she went out of the last leadership race in round two and would have to go toe-to-toe with Kemi ‘B-List Begbie’ Badenoch and Priti ‘Pure Venom’ Patel for the “Brown on Brown violence is the only thing that stirs my loins” vote, a fight I don’t see that chinless cheerleader coming out of in one piece. Michael Gove has returned from his summer of soul-searching on Mykonos to throw a little chaos into the mix by speaking for the average Tory MP in threatening to vote against her in Parliament, but it’s obvious that he’s only carrying water for some other Murdoch approved candidate, who may or may not be Rishi ‘D’ya like me now?’ Sunak. The other losers from the last leadership race are still there, ready to forgive and forget as long as their fellow MPs belatedly acknowledge their suitability for high-office, but given the hole Truss is driving the Party into, it’s possible a majority of them would rather wait until after the next Election to stake a claim to the smoking wreckage of the HMS Conservative Party.
Frankly, who cares. Whoever it is that leads the Tories into the next Election they don’t have a hope in hell of repeating Flobby’s 2019 victory margin, since most of his artificial advantages have already been squandered or simply slipped away with the passage of the years. The country is, basically, falling down around our ears, and there’s no unifying lizard-brain oriflamme like Brexit for the moronic minority to coalesce around, no simple three-word slogan like ‘Get Brexit Done’ to take the place of a policy manifesto, and while the News Media will certainly do their part to drag the Tories as close to the winning post as they possibly can, Starmer’s spineless kowtowing to the Right Wing Press and unwholesome embrace of Saint Anthony the Liar’s creed of ‘The Rich Know Best’ ensures that he and his handlers won’t face even a hundredth part of one percent of the concentrated barrage of lies and slander unleashed against his predecessor by the News Media and half of the Parliamentary Labour Party.
In fact, I’d hazard an almost-informed guess that the most prominent and successful axis of News Media attack on NuNew Labour won’t be from the Right at all, but will instead target the rift between its leadership’s aims and centre-left/minority voters. Once an Election is in the offing the BBC and the Press will suddenly wake up to the avalanche of documentary evidence sitting in their in-boxes proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the Labour Right are a bunch of racist, misogynistic, bullying shitbirds up to their fat necks in hock to very dodgy donors and desperate to avoid scrutiny of their alliance of convenience with the Tories that cost Labour in 2017 and 2019. Sure, that might be just the dating profile to appeal to the racist, misogynistic, bullying shitbirds (by which I mean people who devour Right Wing Media) they’ve been chasing after for the last two and a half years, but if the Tory Party continues collapsing in on itself at this rate it will be increasingly hard for NuNew Labour to play the Mandelsonian “Who else are you filthy trots going to vote for?” card at the ballot box. It would be blackly comical indeed if the ruthless Liebermanisation of the Labour Party pioneered by those Power (For Us) At All Costs ideologues surrounding Starmer combined with Tory self-implosion to cost the Party a majority because their backstabbing antics circa 2015 to Whatever Day It Is Today finally got the Breaking News coverage it deserves, and this drove millions of left-wing voters into the arms of the Greens, local ‘Real Labour’ alternatives and/or whatever the Enough is Enough movement morphs into.
But anyway, that’s a long way off. Tories don’t call Elections unless they think they can win them, and while they’re so far behind in the polls they’d be insane (the other kind of insane) to take that risk. I foresee a longish period of stalemated Government as Truss’ faction of hyper-ideologues ram face first into the cold, hard political fact that they don’t have the votes for their more extreme legislative priorities (ending child-labour laws, banning non-Government approved Unions, removing all taxation on corporations and the mega-rich, etc) and lack the institutional muscle to strong-arm truculent MPs without blowing the Party apart, but they will do a shit-ton of damage anyway by repealing as many of the regulations, labour-protections and human rights laws they can while cloaking it all under the worst kind of Culture-War division.
Eventually, the Tories will have to face a reckoning with their foreign-sponsored Far-Right or morph fully into a New British Union of Fascists, the only question is whether the country can survive long enough for them to collapse under the weight of their awfulness.
I haz me doots….
“What’s Going On?” indeed. Anyone got that sweat-lodge’s number?
Montanareddog
“It was a dark and stormy night”
mapaghimagsik
@Montanareddog: It was a stark and dormy night
Betty
A vivid and depressing picture of a once proud nation.
twbrandt (formerly tom)
Looks like my plan to bug out to Scotland if the midterms go south is on hold.
piratedan
makes you wonder that since Labor can’t stop stepping on their own Johnsons if the Lib Dems might actually make some advances by simply being sane and not a bunch of racist pricks…..
billcinsd
@piratedan: Truss used to be a Lib Dem
Ken
@billcinsd: Maybe she still is, and is the culmination of the Lib Dems’ clever plan to destroy the Conservative party.
piratedan
@billcinsd: understood, but obviously she’s embraced the essence of being a Tory since then…
cain
@Montanareddog:
A perfect time for a MAGA Moron to be out waving a Trump flag.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
The set up of the UK government seems to me, if I understand it even close to actuality, really does not seem to care if the population gets completely, totally, absolutely fucked in every way possible, as long as the PTB have TPTW which is not actually all that different from what our rethuglican party thinks they want. It’s what we used to have before we kicked their asses back over the Atlantic a tad over a couple hundred yrs ago. And as they can’t seem to figure out how to do that to other countries any longer they are doing it to the citizens of the UK. It seems to be part of the world wide billionaires club by laws – steal everything not tied down and a lot that is because having stole billions already they must be the chosen ones, able to leap tall bank accounts at will and avoid many taxes. That gold stuff is not only heavy it seems to poison most anyone who gets near too much of it. (Powers That Be have The Power They Want)
Geminid
Last I heard, the Tories don’t intend to call a general election until summer, 2024, and can wait until early in 2025 if they want to. Is there any way, Mister Jay, that they can turn this mess around by then?
And thank you for another darkly scintillating and informative Letter!
Steve in the ATL
Tried to read the post but my phone ran out of memory.
confidential to Tony Jay: zing!
cain
Watching the Tories dervish spin into a yellow colored waterspout drenching everyone with their malignancy is ultimately going to lead to a watery end. A submerged triumph of rotted eels.
Layer8Problem
To conclude with “Jerusalem” in full chorus, led by Dr. Bashir and Chief O’Brien. NO MONEY RETURN’D.
BC in Illinois
@twbrandt (formerly tom):
Don’t give up yet ! Check in first with the Scottish National Party and their plans for independence (http://www.yes.scot). The SNP isn’t perfect, apparently, but they seem to be a good example of what a liberal, pro-immigration, pro-social services party can be.
[What have the SNP ever done for us? (from a few years back)]
Montanareddog
@Geminid:
Sadly, the answer to that is, possibly. By defenestrating the Trussterfuck (and her coterie of blank-eyed psychopaths) and re-instating Johnson. He is still, inexplicably, popular.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Not a chance in hell. The general theme seems to be “It’s all fucked, loot what you can and meet back here in 2029 for another crack at it”
That’s not to say that Truss & Co are going to be in charge for long, because they’re not. The majority of MPs didn’t want her in the first place, they wanted Sunak, who while callow and lightweight, at least talked about economics like someone who could do calculations without taking his socks off (he’s got people for that).
While the membership might be as paste-lickingly bonkers as any MAGA improv troupe, they can only chose between the options the MPs give them, and it’s quite possible that the Brextremist/Glibertarian faction have pushed things so far beyond the line with Kwarteng’s suicidal Mini-budget and associated ‘reforms’ that the rest of the Tory Party might actually be forced to grow a spine and unite to face them down, just for self preservation.
Baud
@BC in Illinois:
If it’s not Scottish National Party, it’s crap!
MattF
Well. Those Brits, they do go on (and on) in an entertaining fashion. Here’s Charlie Stross (SFF novelist) who does a Somewhat Scottish version.
Montanareddog
@BC in Illinois:
I defer to no one in my loathing of nationalist politics, even a touchy-feely strain like that of the SNP.
And, with the way they have been treated for the last 40 years by Westminster governments (as have the Northern English, the Welsh and the Northern Irish), who could begrudge them their desire to run their own affairs totally (as opposed to the partially-devolved powers they have now).
But the Scots have been economically, culturally and politically entwined with the English for 300 years. I fear independence could be a greater disaster for the Scots than Brexit was for the British. I feel it will take a lot more unravelling than Brexit, anyway.
Geminid
@Montanareddog: Johnson sure got out when the getting was good, although it wasn’t his plan. Or was it?
Bill Arnold
So, anyone want to place a bet? Which will be the first (or last, if you prefer) nation to fall apart?
(1) The United Kingdom
(2) The Russian Federation
(3) The United States of America
Layer8Problem
Oooo, I wish you hadn’t mentioned that, now it’s in my head!!
Tony Jay
Which would be ‘funny’, in that Cameron de la Porc Amor only agree to have a Referendum on EU membership to finally silence the nutters on his own Party, and now six years later their unexpected victory (thanks, Rumpelstiltsputin!) has laid the groundwork for their self-destruction.
Granted, they’ve destroyed the country and every single institution within it in the process, but as long as the Tory Party benefits in the long run that’s all that counts.
And yes, I can definitely see Flobby coming back. Truss and Co are working so hard to make him look capable by comparison that I’m half convinced he’s controlling them all through esoteric mind-tricks.
MomSense
The only semi interesting thing about Truss is that her usual necklace may actually be a BDSM Day Collar. Somehow that seems very on brand for a Tory.
Steve in the ATL
@Tony Jay: if Russia were to collapse, how would that impact you guys? Are there enough Arab billionaires in London to offset the loss of Russian billionaires?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bill Arnold: It isn’t going to be the US.
sab
@Montanareddog: The Scots have been economically and culturally entwined with Europe for a lot longer than with England and the English just burned all those ties with Brexit, so leaving might not be that much worse.
Steve in the ATL
@MomSense: and Balloon Juice After Dark is off to an early start tonight!
Montanareddog
@Geminid: there’s definitely an après moi, le déluge feel to Johnson’s departure now.
Steve in the ATL
On a related note, are any other Jackals at French Meadow in St. Paul this evening?
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: The Islamic Republic of Iran could beat them all to the “finished” line. Now petroleum workers are on strike, and yesterday their leaders said they will give the regime three days to end its violent repression of protests. Strikes by oil industry unions in 1979 made a critical contribution to fall of the Shah.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree, but Russian propagandists disagree. :-)
Tony Jay
@Steve in the ATL:
In the short term, Londongrad would be Moscow-in-Exile for all those oligarchs who have already planned for extracting their billions should the RU go the way of the Warsaw Pact. They own a lot of it already, and I wouldn’t expect sanctions on them to last any longer than an ice-cube placed atop Dua Lipa’s ass should they ask permission to move the rest of their wealth into the UK.
In the long term, it would absolutely destroy us, but Tories would be concerned about that only in a purely theoretical sense.
MomSense
@Steve in the ATL:
It’s always after dark somewhere in the British Empire.
Jay
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/oct/11/british-businessman-charged-over-helping-russian-oligarch-evade-us-sanctions
Tony Jay
@MomSense:
Did you know Truss already cheated on her husband with fellow MP back in the 2000s? And there have been not entirely joking rumours that she looks at Kwasi Kwarteng with hungry eyes.
No? Funny that the UK News Media aren’t interested in talking about any of that. It’s almost like they’re adverse to treating Tories like they treat everyone else.
Ballon Juice After Dark will return after these messages from our sponsors.
“Have you ever been lonely and wished you were a cowboy…?”
piratedan
@Tony Jay: eagerly awaiting Guy Ritchie’s sequel to Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrel’s – political edition…….
Layer8Problem
@Montanareddog: I bet he has the concession locked up for t-shirts with him waving and saying “Miss me yet?” and expects to make a packet.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Astros just hit what the Brits would call a “Banger!”
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: All three will end in the same 60-minute interval.
Another Scott
@piratedan:
Reuters (from October 8):
The story doesn’t mention the LibDems, but they seem to be (at best) roughly as popular as the Tories. Which is kinda pathetic, as horrible as the Tories are…
Truss is way below even the Crazification Factor, and is making Starmer look very good (but he’s still underwater – for good reasons as Tony J lays out).
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Damn, that’s tough.
Tony Jay
@piratedan:
“Right, here’s the scene. London. Gangland. Desperate men. Except here’s the twist. They’re all MPs, they know they’re going to lose their seats, but they all know where their Russian donor keeps his stolen billions, and one of them has this mad idea…”
We could call it ‘The Eton Mob’.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Photo finish!
Montanareddog
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: for the Brits, a “banger” is:
What did the Astros do?
Fair Economist
I don’t think Truss is so much stupid as intensely focused on stealing Britain’s wealth for the extremely wealthy and fossil fuel companies. Her numerous attempts to drive up the cost of energy by restricting renewables gives it away.
raven
@Montanareddog: What the Braves didn’t.
MomSense
@Tony Jay:
Ha!
Now I’ve got both to he 80s dirty dancing classic Hungry Eyes and the ridiculous I want to be your cowboy and you can be my cowgirl songs stuck in my head – I think Truss should ride a mechanical bull in the run up to the election- whenever it may be. Hopefully it won’t interfere with the low key coronation/Master Archie’s birthday bash.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony Jay: Not Eton Mess? Could open with this on the soundtrack.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Montanareddog: They banged the hell outta the ball for a walk off home run.
Brits also call a strong, high velocity goal from distance a banger
Baud
@Montanareddog:
Scored three runs in the bottom of the 9th to win.
Steve in the ATL
@Tony Jay:
And this is why I, unlike John Cole, actually read the comments! Well played.
piratedan
@Tony Jay: Casting would be a treat!
“and the only thing tying the Lib Dems to any of these crimes, is locked in the boot of your car, which is parked illegally outside of the Guardian?”
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Montanareddog: Here’s some examples: Katie McCabe is the queen of banging (video)
Tony Jay
@Another Scott:
The hilarious thing is that the Starmerites seem to be convincing themselves that they have anything to do with the poll ratings.
They don’t. Under Sir Blair Fluffer they’ve adopted a position of saying nothing at all about anything much while purging the Party of, well, everyone who isn’t actually a pro-Starmer MP or a staffer of such.
The collapse in Tory support and the rise in NuNew Labour support in polls is entirely a product of the Tories going megashit inane and the official Oppostion being the official Opposition.
When your house is burning down and you’re asked “Who would you rather French kiss, the person burning your house down or the neighbour you can’t stand and who you’ve considered shooting?” 52% of people picking the non-arsonist isn’t actually that good.
Rusty
We lived outside of of London for four years in the 2000’s, our youngest was even born there. The politics felt maddening even then, but Brexit has broken the political establishment. The banks got to avoid the EU rules on tax evasion and money laundering, and left the country to rot with their Tory lackeys. It is all so sad.
Geminid
@Baud: I’m glad to hear that. I really like Houston’s manager, Dusty Baker. He deserves a World Series ring, and I hope he gets one
And Justin Verlander is kind of local. He went to high school near Richmond.
Tony Jay
@Fair Economist:
Yup. She’s doing what she’s paid to do.
And the UK News Media are paid not to mention it.
topclimber
@Tony Jay: Might this run afoul of the asset seizures that will insure Russia pays reparations to Ukraine?
The EU and the US are not going to rebuild Ukraine just on their own.
Anyway
@Baud:
Go Phils! That was a scary bottom of the 9th …
ETA: what genius scheduled a 1 pm playoff game on a weekday…
Tony Jay
@MomSense:
As long as I get a day off work.
Checks calendar.
It’s a Saturday? You bastards!
@Omnes Omnibus:
That is quite a bit better than my title. Okay. You can direct.
raven
@Anyway: Great catch saved ya’ll.
Baud
@Geminid:
Dusty is the only part of the Astros I’m rooting for.
Montanareddog
@topclimber:
It ought to. But, under Johnson, it was clear that the British government was paying lip-service to oligarch asset seizure. No reason to think that will change under Truss ( or any other Tory)
Another Scott
Oooh. This has an intriguing title.
GQ-Magazine.co.uk – Front row at the slow death of the Tory party (from yesterday):
(via jonrog1)
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Tony Jay: The thing is, economics isn’t that hard. Economics to protect the money class while keeping the working class in line – that’s the hard part.
Baud
@Martin:
Seems pretty easy to me.
Ken
Ealing Studios is still around, but sadly Alec Guinness and Stanley Holloway have both passed on.
raven
@Martin: Father Guido Sarducci said “Buy low, sell high”!
Tony Jay
@piratedan:
Played by George Clooney. Who spends the entire film locked in the boot of the car with a Guardian reporter (who innocently stumbled upon this part of the plot) played by Karen Gillan. He knows the plan and explains it Greek Chorus style to her (with a romantic subtext) while the actual heist goes on outside.
You know this would actually work. People would watch this. If Alan Rickman were alive he’d play the MP who’s so indebted through gambling he comes up with the heist idea.
Baud
@raven:
Just saw the replay. Very close.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Tony Jay: Clooney and Gillan? I’m there already!
Tony Jay
@Martin:
Oh, come on. They solved that problem long ago.
“Those people in the different coloured pants are stealing all of the wonderful stuff we are trying to give you! Attack those people! We will totally be along presently to help you with that. Oh, no, you let them get away. Let’s start again.”
I mean, it goes something like that.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@Baud:
Who knew Howard Hughes was still alive and a Yankee fan? (photo)
Odie Hugh Manatee
I think Liz sucked the life out of the Queen and now she’s sucking the life out of the UK.
topclimber
@Montanareddog: It might not be so great for the Tories (assuming they survive) try to swim against the EU/US tide.
As I recall, UK has been pretty good about sending arms to Ukraine, which they wouldn’t do if there wasn’t a constituency for it. Aid to Russian oligarchs, not so much. Lots of bribe money can make a difference,for sure, but I don’t think cozy treatment of ANY Russian assets is going to play out once this war ends.
UK could take the money for Ukrainian rebuilding out of its own budget, of course. That will play well, no doubt. No one will think, let’s get it from this new brand of fat cats who just showed up.
Tony Jay
The MPs are played by Jude Law, Olivia Colman, Stephen Graham and Hugh Laurie, with Rowan Atkinson as the Chief Whip on the take who gets blackmailed into covering for them when Andrew Scott’s MI5 officer starts sniffing around.
Yes, this is much more fun than contemplating the politics of the UK right now.
piratedan
@Tony Jay: I could see recurring roles for the likes of Jason Statham as a no-nonsense Cab driver who has a knack for always picking up these weirdos who feel compelled to not pay him and has Clooney and Gilliam locked in his boot.
Ricky Gervais as the press secretary who has to keep spinning as events spiral out of control
and you can just watch a plethora of old Brits tossed out there to run cameos from John Cleese to Tom Wilkinson and your choice of female leads as you see fit, as you wish. with everyone from Gillian Anderson to Felicity Jones popping up.
With the scenery chewing dialogue that Ritchie generates, it would be a real popcorn event.
Mike E
@Baud: Very caught! Go Fightin’s!
Geminid
@Baud: Dusty Baker told a reporter a funny story about the first time he faced Bob Gibson. Baker was having a really good rookie season with the Braves, but Hank Aaron took him aside before the game and cautioned him:
Baker remembered thinking, “Wow, what about my 22 game hitting streak?” It ended that night.
Tony Jay
@piratedan:
John Cleese has dug his own grave over the last few days (years) by filling GB News’ famous old man shouting at young people about ‘cancel culture’ slot, but given that he’d be a great MI6 Director who decides he has to protect the Russian oligarch’s money because that’s what’s funding his off-book black ops project to overthrow the government of the Azores.
”Why? I went to school with their President. He’s a total shit.”
AnthroBabe
I…I think I’m in love.
To be ROASTED at such a level with such wit is to die for.
Content: well, I will get to that later.
Let me bask in the swirling sarcasm!
Steve in the ATL
@Anyway:
Seriously. I was too busy crushing people’s hopes and dreams to catch an afternoon game. Not cool.
Steeplejack
@Anyway:
Well, when you’ve got to schedule four games in one day . . .
bbleh
… Jacob Rees-Mogg, Truss’
Emissary to The Endless Darkness Beyond Mortal KenBusiness Secretary who has been enjoying his latest opportunity to trigger outrage in the sane majority who don’t aspire to someday inherit one of the Nine Rings of Men from their Great-Uncle Dwimmerlaik Rees-Mogg …OMG I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard at anything in literally weeks. A thousand blessings upon your preferred herd animals.
zhena gogolia
@Tony Jay: needs a role for Alex Jennings
smedley the uncertain
Tl;Dr
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
That’s a good read.
Tony Jay
@smedley the uncertain:
Noted
YY_Sima Qian
@Tony Jay: Thank you for another entertaining opus! They can be meandering, but oh so satisfying to consume! :-P
YY_Sima Qian
@Bill Arnold: Russia & the UK are running neck in neck! For the US its slower motion. The 2022 mid-terms & 2024 elections will help determine the pace.
YY_Sima Qian
Reading US MSM coverage of the election of UK Conservatives’ leadership, an inordinate amount of attention was paid to which one is “better” for the great geopolitical competition w/ China. It was assessed that Truss is more likely to be in lock step w/ US policy, while Sunak is “weak” on this topic wanting to maintain trade/investment/finance relations, though Sunak certainly had to engage in red-baiting himself to deflect such criticism.
In case one needs another reminder of the corrosive effects of great power competition/Cold War 2.0 on liberal democracy.
cain
Feel for the Iranians – they have truly hit rock bottom. Can’t imagine with all the problems they got, they have to go around harass and jail young women and men. The Iranian govt looks like is finally getting the reckoning they truly deserve.
Now let’s hope we get one for the GOP who also deserve a reckoning and get kicked out of the politics. Maybe we can have some better political opponents inside these fuck heads.
El Muneco
@Bill Arnold: All are inevitable, it’s just a question of timeframe
Russia could happen as soon as 10 days.
UK could happen as soon as 10 months.
USA could happen as soon as 10 years.
El Muneco
@Baud: For those not scoring at home(*), there is a certain dramatic irony involved as the team the Astros are playing won the previous playoff round with two dramatic late comebacks. So it is only appropriate that the baseball Gods take away from them with the opposite hand.
(*) Baseball is an old sport in US terms, so are the jokes…
Regnad Kcin
@BC in Illinois: #nicola
Regnad Kcin
@Tony Jay: sounds like a cunning plan to me
Tehanu
Lovely rant, Tony! I laughed and laughed, except for the parts where I felt really bad for you specifically and the UK in general. Gosh, I wish I had a tenth of your mastery of invective!
StringOnAStick
Ah, Tony Jay, you leave me gasping for breath. Is British political invective an art taught at University or a talent you were born with? Love every syllable.
Bupalos
I have no idea how sentences can be so long and frantic and yet remain compelling and hilarious one after another. These pieces are always too long, too demanding, and too fucking good. Exeunt hard right pursued by bears. The tomb of kapitalzehotep. Too many to list. Your stuff is an absolute treat.
ronno2018
Wow, that is a stream of something!!! Regardless I appreciate the energy and emotion.
But really the UK is a minor power of old morons (UK YOUNG PEOPLE ARE AWESOME) that should rejoin the EU and welcome the hard working immigrants from Poland or wherever to grow their UK economy.
I love visiting London. Wow what an amazing city (ok add bike lanes like Paris).
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Tony Jay: I can see them completing the screwball comedy elements by deciding in a panic that they need to bring back May, but thanks to an amusing breakdown in communications, instead of Theresa, they hustle over to 10 Downing Street a shaggy-haired man in a striped jumper who takes one look at the briefing papers and says, “oh, cock”.
Tony Jay
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Love it. You speak to his people and I’ll arrange the financing with my man at GloriFi.
Paul in KY
@Fair Economist: She wants to do that and is extremely stupid.
Paul in KY
@Steve in the ATL: Have seen Dua Lipa twice and wish to see her again. That ice cube would not last long.
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: That was a great poll analogy, Tony.
Unkown known
@Another Scott: Starmer isn’t NEARLY as bad as Tony Jay makes out.
(imagine getting your updates on Biden or Hilary from a hard core Bernie Bro – the details are different, but the overall effect is the same).
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Thanks for the link, Scott. Jeezus, what a bunch of freaks!
Tony Jay
@Unkown known:
Whatever helps you sleep at night, chum.
I prefer my Party leaders not to be lying, authoritarian creeps with a Cabinet full of backstabbing saboteurs, but I guess different strokes for different folks, eh?
And for the record, you want to badmouth me, do it where I can verbally slap you around in public. This afterparty garbage is too Starmerite for my simple tastes.
Tony Jay
@Paul in KY:
GIF of two thumbs up salute.
Geminid
@Unkown known: My opinion of Starmer is probably closer to yours than to Mr. Jay’s. But I think the analogy to a Bernie Bro is not applicable in his case.