The Week In Tory Archive (Russ Jones)

This is my archiving of the Twitter Hashtag #theweekintory tweet threads created by @RussInCheshire.

I don’t claim credit for any of this… I’m just saving it in a more convenient format that I can look back on and sob.

I’ve not edited the text, so any spelling, grammar and number errors come from the originals. I have removed any animated gifs though, as I fucking hate them.

For each thread, I’ll link back to the tweet that started it, so you can follow it that way, if you can be arsed. Obviously I can’t which is why this page exists…

    Bonus DVD Extra meterial!

The Week in Tory – Posted 17.05.2020

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1 Accidentally made it illegal to drive to Wales

2 Made it easier to see other people’s parents than your own

3 Issued new advice that was officially ignored by Scotland, Wales, NI, and the councils of Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle.

4 Admitted there WOULD be a border down the Irish Sea, after a year claiming there wouldn’t

5 Said its ok for a child-minder to come into contact with your kids, as long as you “open a window”

6 Published advice that you can car-share, as long as the driver “doesn’t look left”

7 Announced £2bn investment, so we could use public transport again

8 Told us it’s our “civic duty” to avoid using public transport

9 Announced the PM would make a speech on Sunday, cos it had to be implemented Monday

10 Then, when challenged, said they meant Wednesday

11 Then said we must go to work

12 Then said we must not travel to work

13 Then said it was all explained in the published guidelines

14 Then had it pointed out to them in parliament that they hadn’t published guidelines

15 Blamed the public for not understanding the new rules

16 Then went on TV to explain the rules, got them wrong, and had to be corrected by Piers Morgan

17 Then went to parliament to explain the rules, STILL got them wrong, and had to be corrected by the opposition

18 Said we should wear facemasks

19 Then said we shouldn’t wear facemasks

20 Then said – again – we should wear facemasks

21 Clapped for NHS workers

22 Then introduced a 55% increase in the fee foreign staff pay to work for the NHS

23 Announced quarantine for new arrivals, a mere 73 days after being officially advised to quarantine new arrivals

24 Announced they had “only just started” recruiting people to do track and trace, a mere 110 days after being officially advised to urgently do track and trace

25 Issued a plan to open schools, which teachers said was unsafe

26 Then said doctors were brave, but teachers weren’t

27 Then had to watch as doctors said the teachers were right, and it wasn’t safe to open schools

28 Then announced tests for kids but not for teachers

29 Then had to have it explained on live TV that infected teachers can still infect kids

30 Scored 0% in a French poll of which govt was doing best for its people

31 Dropped 45 net approval points in UK opinion polling

And there are still 24 hours of this week to go

… back to the top

The Week in Tory (Cummings special) – Posted 27.05.2020

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. Dominic Cummings, one of the few men to have ever been found in contempt of Parliament, moved onto contempt for everything

2. When the story broke, and he was accused of doing things that look bad, he said he didn’t care how things looked

3. Then ministers said press outrage meant nothing, only the opinion of the people mattered

4. Then polls showed 52% of people wanted Cummings to resign

5. So Cummings decided to show the public some respect, by turning up 30 minutes late to make his explanation

6. He began by saying he wasn’t speaking for the govt, which must be why he was in the Rose Garden of 10 Downing Street

7. Then the self-styled “enemy of the Islington media elite” said his wife, who works in the media, had been ill in their house in Islington

8. But she was only a bit ill, so he popped home, got himself nice and infected, then went back to Downing Street for meetings with lots of vitally important people in the middle of a national crisis

9. But then he got ill too, so then it was suddenly important

10. Sadly he couldn’t get childcare in London, even though 3 immediate relatives live within 3 miles of his London home

11. So because he was carrying a virus that can cross a 2 metre distance and kill, he immediately locked himself in a car with his wife and child for 5 hours

12. He then drove 264 miles without stopping in a Land Rover that gets maybe 25 MPG

13. Then the scourge of the metropolitan elites made himself extra-relatable by describing his family’s sprawling country estate, multiple houses and idyllic woodlands

14. He explained that he’d warned about a coronavirus years ago in his blog

15. Then it was revealed he actually secretly amended old blogs after he’d returned from Durham

16. And anyway, if he’d warned years ago, why was he so massively unprepared and slow to react?

17. Then he said he was too ill to move for a week

18. But in the middle of that week, presumably with “wonky eyes”, he drove his child to hospital

19. Then he said that to test his “wonky eyes” he put his wife and child in a car and drove 30 miles on public roads

20. Then it was revealed his wife drives, so there was no reason for the “eye test”, cos she could have driven them back to London

21. Then it was revealed the “eye test” trip to a local tourist spot took place on his wife’s birthday

22. Then cameras filmed as he threw a cup onto the table, smirked and left

23. And then it emerged his wife had written an article during the time in Dunham, describing their experience of being in lockdown in London, which you’d definitely do if you weren’t hiding anything

24. A govt scientific advisor said “more people will die” as a result of what Cummings had done.

25. Boris Johnson said he “wouldn’t mark Cummings ” down for what he’d done.

26. The Attorney General said it was ok to break the law if you were acting on instinct

27. The Health Minister said it was OK to endanger public health if you meant well

28. Johnson said Cummings’ “story rings true” because his own eyesight was fine before coronavirus, but now he needs glasses

29. But in an interview with The Telegraph 5 years ago, Johnson said he needed glasses cos he was “blind as a bat”

30. Michael Gove went on TV and said it was “wise” to drive 30 miles on public roads with your family in the car to test your eyesight

31. The DVLA tweeted that you should never, ever do this

32. Then ministers started claiming Cummings had to go to Durham because he feared crowds attacking his home. The streets were empty because we were observing the lockdown.

33. And then a minister finally resigned

34. Steve Baker, Richard Littlejohn, Isabel Oakeshott, Tim Montgomerie, Jan Moir, Ian Dale, Julia Hartley Brewer, 30 Tory MPs, half a dozen bishops and the actual Daily Mail said Cummings should go

35. The govt suggested we can ignore them, because they’re all left-wingers

38. And if the guidelines were so clear, why were people being stopped and fined for driving to find childcare in the first place?

39. Then a new poll found people who wanted Cummings sacked had risen from 52% to 57%

40. Cummings is considered the smartest man in the govt

41. And in the middle of all this, in case we take our eye off it: we reached 60,000 deaths. One of the highest per capita death rates worldwide.

42. We still face Brexit under this lot.

43. It’s 4 years until an election

44. And it’s still only Wednesday

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 06.06.2020

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. The govt reduced the UK-wide coronavirus alert level on the advice of the “Joint Biosecurity Centre”

2. Matt Hancock revealed the “Joint Biosecurity Centre” doesn’t exist yet

3. Boris Johnson said he was “very proud” of the UK’s response

4. After previously telling us facemasks were essential, then not essential, then essential, then not essential, then essential, then not essential (6 U-turn) the govt said facemasks were, actually, essential

5. But not until 15th June. 2 weeks more of them being not-essential

6. And then NHS leaders revealed they hadn’t been consulted on any of this

7. The govt announced dentists were returning to work the following day

8. And then dentists said they also hadn’t been consulted about this, or even warned it was happening

9. The govt announced it was relaxing the lockdown nationally, because it said the R level (infectivity rate) had fallen as low as 0.7

10. Within 2 days the R level had risen back above 1 in much of Northern England, but the govt has not reintroduced local lockdowns

11. The gov justified relaxing the lockdown because we would have a “world-beating Test and Trace” in place by 1st June

12. And then the next day, the head of the Test and Trace programme revealed it would not be operational until Sept

13. The following day it was revealed an “urgent Test and Trace programme” was recommended by experts in February, but not acted upon until May

14. Boris Johnson announced he is personally taking charge of the coronavirus response, a mere 138 days since the first UK case

15. The head of Outbreak Modelling at Imperial College said he was shocked that Covid-19 was still “spilling out of hospitals and care homes”

16. It was revealed advice was given to the govt on 24 Feb that there should be “no discharges to care or residential homes”

17. The Italian Health Minister has reported that Boris Johnson had told him UK govt policy was Herd Immunity

18. The govt and Boris Johnson continue to deny the policy has every been Herd Immunity, even though Boris Johnson went on TV and advocated it

20. The most comprehensive World Health Organisation study to date found the risk of Covid infection doubles if the 2-metre rule is reduced

21. Then Boris Johnson went on TV to say he wants to reduce the 2-metre distancing rule as soon as possible

22. Matt Hancock tweeted that he was proud we reached a 200,000 test capacity

23. The next day he said he was proud of a lower 171,000 tests

24. If you get a nasal, throat and antibody test, that counts as 3 tests, even if it’s 1 person

25. So 171,000 tests = 57000 people

26. At that rate it will take 1,175 days to test the whole UK. That’s 3 years and 3 months.

27. And almost 75,000 tests had to be redone because of problems in UK labs

28. Boris Johnson repeated he was “very proud” of the UK government’s response

29. The govt said it would not open playgrounds, because children from different families meet there

30. The govt said it would reopen schools where – yes – children from different families meet

31. 44% of England’s schools did not trust the govt advice enough to re-open

31. The govt announced people could now meet in socially distanced groups in gardens, but under no circumstances could anybody enter the houses of friends and family

32. The govt said homeless people should “move in with friends and family”

33. Parliament stopped digital voting, leading to a 1.3 km long queue of MPs, right down the road and into a local park, waiting 90 minutes to do one vote.

34. MP’s often vote 8 times per day. Under the new system, this means they will do nothing at all except stand in queues.

35. No provisions had been made for extra security, or to protect those vulnerable to Covid-19.

36. Within 24 hours a cabinet minister was ill and needed to be tested. He said he tested negative.

37. It was later reported around 1/3 of tests produce false-negative results.

38. Only 12% of Britons say Parliament needs to physical voting, and there have been absolutely zero instances of voting irregularities under the digital

39. The House Of Lords continues to vote using the digital system

40. The Minister for Mental Health objected to Pier Morgan’s criticisms, and tweeted “could you please avoid wherever possible calling people ‘completely mad’”

41. And then it was revealed some time earlier, she had called people on Twitter “window-lickers”

42. A Tory MP breached guidelines by going to a barbeque during the lockdown, attended by the deputy chairman of Spectator, the Brexit Party chairman, and journalist Isabel Oakeshott.

43. All three of these defended Dominic Cummings, who is, incidentally, still not sacked

44. The govt criticised Chinese food standards and lack of transparency, which it said first caused, and then exacerbated coronavirus

45. And then the govt voted to lower UK food standards, and refused to publish a report on excess coronavirus deaths

46. In Jan the Environment Secretary said “we will not be importing chlorinated chicken, we will not be importing hormone-treated beef” as part of any future trade deal

47. The govt said it would import chlorinated chicken and hormone-treated beef as part of a US trade deal

48. In a single day the UK had 359 Covid-19 deaths, which was 45 more than the other 27 EU countries *combined*.

49. Boris Johnson, joint-leader of the Brexit campaign, announced he would start a “charm offensive” to get EU workers to return to the UK

50. Sir Paul Nurse, former President of the Royal Society, described talking to ministers about coronavirus as “like talking to a blancmange”

51. Boris Johnson said for a 4th time he was “very proud” of the UK govt’s response

52. We still have 24 hours of the week to go

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 09.06.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I’m having a few days off, so here’s an early #TheWeekInTory

Don’t worry. They’ve been busy.

1. The govt said “we will work around the clock to ensure nobody goes hungry as a result of this crisis”

2. Four days later the govt ended free meals for the poorest 1.3m children

3. The govt ruled that teachers must wear face-masks on public transport whilst travelling to school “for safety reasons”

4. The govt then ruled that teachers must NOT wear face-masks in schools

5. Matt Hancock said he was “100% guided by the science”

6. A leading govt scientist said the failure to enter lockdown sooner “has cost a lot of lives”

7. Matt Hancock said that bit of science was wrong

8. The govt said nurses had received a “significant pay rise” in response to Covid-19

9. Nurses have not been awarded a pay rise since 2018

10. The govt said “a protective ring had been thrown around care homes”

11. The head of Outbreak Modelling at Imperial College said Covid-19 is still “spilling out of hospitals and into care homes”

12. The govt said “we have now managed successfully to offer tests to every care home”

13. National Care Forum found 13% of care homes had not been tested, and 43% had tests which were void due to testing infrastructure problems

14. Boris Johnson said the lockdown would “remain until the R rate falls below 0.7”

15. The govt announced “R rate is below 1 in each region of the country”

16. In some UK regions, the R rate was recorded as 0.98

17. Serco was granted the contract to do contact-tracing, despite having been recently fined £1m for multiple failures on a previous govt contract

18. The Health Minister responsible for the contract is a former Serco lobbyist

19. Boris Johnson said “decisions will be taken with the maximum possible transparency”

20. The detailed reasons for Serco’s fine have not been revealed, despite a 6-month freedom of information battle

21. The govt said the testing and contact-tracing system would be “world beating” and ready on1 June

22. It wasn’t, and won’t be ready until Sept

23. The former govt chief scientific advisor said it’s “not fit for purpose” and would miss 80% of contacts with the virus

24. Boris Johnson acknowledged the “incontrovertible, undeniable feeling of injustice” behind #BlackLivesMatters

25. Boris Johnson has previously (sub-thread):

a. Referred to Commonwealth citizens as “picaninnies”

b. Described black people as having “watermelon smiles”

c. Called the people of Papua New Guinea “cannibals”

d. Suggested reinstating the British Empire in former colonies

e. Said “Islamophobia seems a natural reaction”

f. Stated that the UK must accept “Islam is the problem”

g. Referred to Muslim women as looking like “bank robbers” and “letter-boxes”

h. Recited a racist poem in Buddhist temple, and had to be stopped by the British Ambassador

i. Called Africa a “blot” and said “the problem is that we are not in charge any more”

Back to the main thread…

26. Boris Johnson said racism in the UK “cannot be ignored”

27. Two years after the Windrush scandal was revealed, only 60 of the 1,275 victims have yet received compensation

28. Boris Johnson said “I will not support or indulge those who break the law”

29. Dominic Cummings is still in his job. So is Housing Minister Robert Jenrick, who unlawfully approved a £40m property development for a Tory donor.

30. The Attorney General tweeted Cummings breaking the lockdown was not be a crime because he acted on “instinct”

31. The Home Secretary said she “understood the instincts” of #BlackLivesMatter protesters, but they had to face justice

32. The govt said destruction of a slave-trader’s statue by #BlackLivesMatter was “vandalism and completely unacceptable”

33. When Boris Johnson joined the Bullingdon club “the whole culture was to exert vandalism – they had to have their room smashed to pieces”

34. The govt (which promised an “oven-ready” deal on Brexit) said the deal had stalled

35. The govt (which said there were no down-sides to Brexit) agreed with the IMF that No Deal would mean a permanent 5% cut to GDP

36. The CBI said Covid19 left companies with “almost zero” resilience to No Deal

37. It is reported Boris Johnson shouted “Christ!” when told No Deal, on top of Covid, would lead to 3.5 million job losses

39. The govt refused to extend the transition period to avoid No Deal

39. In January, Boris Johnson agreed a Brexit Withdrawal Agreement and called it a “fantastic achievement”

40. Boris Johnson now says the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement he agreed is “defective” and wants to change it

41. Britons receiving German citizenship rose 2,300% last year

42. Boris Johnson said “I want to share all our working, our thinking, my thinking, with you, the British people.”

43. The govt is now facing a legal challenge from doctors and other health workers, because it refuses to order and inquiry into PPE shortages

44. And we still haven’t seen the report into Russian interference with the Brexit campaign

45. Boris Johnson said he is taking “direct control” of the handling of coronavirus (it is not clear who has been in control for the previous 132 days of the outbreak)

46. It was reported Boris Johnson takes naps for as much as 3 hours per working day

47. The UK govt now has the joint-lowest approval rating worldwide for how they have managed coronavirus

48. The govt said in March that a coronavirus death toll of 20,000 would be a “good result”

49. The ONS said excess deaths from coronavirus reached have now officially reached 64,000

50. Boris Johnson’s personal approval ratings have fallen 40% in 40 days

51. Boris Johnson said he was “very proud” of the govt response

52. It’s still only Tuesday

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 17.06.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

An early #TheWeekInTory (Sun to Tues), but things are moving crazy fast

1. Last week the govt said “we will work around the clock to ensure nobody goes hungry as a result of this crisis”

2. Then 4 days later the govt ended free meals for the poorest 1.3m children

3. So Marcus Rashford called for meal vouchers for hungry children during school holidays

4. But Boris Johnson’s spokesman said “the MP understands the issues” and refused to change the policy

5. So Rashford continue to campaign for meals to be provided

6. But Boris Johnson refused to do this as it would cost £115m to feed all those children

7. EasyJet got £600m in April

8. And the govt is spending £900,000 painting the PM’s plane with what cabinet sources called “an Austin Powers-style union jack”

9. Meanwhile, the Housing Minister admitted he knew he was breaking the law when he saved a billionaire Tory donor dodge £50m tax, – half the cost of feeding 1.3m children

10. And then Boris Johnson then said he hadn’t even heard about Rashford’s campaign, and did a u-turn

11. But then a Downing St spokesman said Boris Johnson HAD heard about Marcus Rashford’s campaign

12. And then Boris Johnson said he had DEFINITELY heard about the campaign all along, but didn’t offer any excuse why he still thought it was OK to let kids go hungry

13. In March, student nurses nearing the end of training were asked to forego exams and volunteer to fight Covid19 on the front line

14. This week their contracts were dropped, so from July they have no work, no pay and no qualification

15. And their July wage won’t be paid

16. Last week Boris Johnson said that after and 64,000 excess deaths, he would take “direct control” of Covid19

17. He immediately missed his own deadline for a review of the 2 metre distancing rule, and it was revealed he hasn’t attended a Cobra meeting for over a month

18. In one of last week’s best U-turns, Boris Johnson said immigrant NHS workers wouldn’t need to pay a $400 surcharge to use the NHS

19. This week a study found 95.4% of immigrant NHS workers are still paying the surcharge

20. Horse-racing became the first major sport to return

21. Matt Hancock is MP for Newmarket, and received tens of thousands of pounds of donations from racehorse owners, trainers, and Jockey Club bigwigs

22. The Jockey Club board includes Dido Harding and Rose Paterson

23. Rose Paterson is the wife of Tory MP Owen Paterson. The Jockey Club’s biggest event, the Grand National is sponsored by Randox Health, to which Owen is an advisor. Randox was granted a £133m contract for testing kits without other companies being given the chance to bid

24. And Dido Harding was put in charge of the Covid-19 track and trace app, which most developers (and I am one) reckon could be done in 3 weeks, and has now taken 5 months. Its development cost is the highest worldwide, and described by scientists as “not fit for purpose”

25. Meanwhile campaigners are seeking a judicial review into why a pest control company with no experience of producing PPE and assets of just £19k was granted a £108 million PPE contract. It doesn’t appear, at first glance, that Chris Grayling was involved.

26. Bob Stewart MP, a leading Brexiter, asked in Parliament for his “French Speaking dogs” (!) to continue to have freedom of movement after Brexit, something humans don’t get

27. Michael Gove said he would aim to ensure dogs keep freedom of movement – but replied in French

28. The EU launched a website to help travellers see coronavirus status, so we can travel safely and open up tourism

29. The UK declined to contribute data to the website

30. In the UK, 94% of tourism staff are not currently working, and tourism earnings are down 98%

31. As other nations relax their lockdown, Britons are forbidden from entering multiple European countries due to our high infection rates

32. After 3 weeks without a single Covid19 case, New Zealand reported 2 infections – travellers from the UK, obviously

33. It was revealed Matt Hancock failed for 11 months to respond to a report calling for an immediate injection of cash for social care, highlighting the risks of infections in care homes months before Covid19

34. At least 12,500 people have died of infection in care homes

35. Two of the govt’s most powerful civil servants have said there were no economic preparations for a possible global pandemic in the years leading up to the coronavirus outbreak, despite a 2016 simulation that prompted demands for a plan.

36. On Sunday Matt Hancock said there were “only” 36 recorded deaths, proving we are “winning”

37. Next day there were 233 recorded deaths. Matt has not commented on the winningness of this

38. The UK has 0.9% of global population, and 10% of the confirmed cases of Covid19

39. The govt said local councils would be responsible for “local lockdowns”

40. And then local councils had to explain to the govt that councils have no legal powers for local lockdowns, and even if they had, 26% has been cut from their budgets since 2010

41. Sadiq Khan asked for emergency funding to fill a £493m hole in his budget

42. Ministers anonymously accused him of “typical Labour mismanagement”

43. A group of Tory councils said they are about to go bankrupt

44. Ministers anonymously didn’t say a thing about that

45. An IMF report found a No Deal Brexit is now “a highly likely outcome” and that it will reduce UK GDP by 5% permanently

46. So Boris Johnson made a video celebrating Brexit as an opportunity to sell Penguin Biscuits to Australia. So we can all relax.

47. In response to the urgency and importance of #BlackLivesMatter, the govt immediately pledged to never, ever remove the statue of Churchill that nobody had suggested removing

48. And then, after a few days, Boris Johnson promised a new commission on race equality

49. There are currently over 600 recommendations from previous commissions on race equality between 2010 and 2020, which the govt hasn’t implemented and has no published plans to implement

50. Then the govt appointed Munira Mirza to head the commission. She has previously called anti-racism a “neuroses”, written that “institutional racism is a myth”, “the UK has no problem with racism”, and that race equality “fosters victimhood”.

51. And then the former Tory party chair said the new commission was “designed be a whitewash”, and warned it would “find the answer they want to hear – there is no such thing as racism”

52. It’s Tuesday. Not even late Tuesday.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 22.06.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Part 2 of #TheWeekInTory (Wed to Sun)

1. The actual Paymaster General suggested we spend the International Aid budget on a new yacht for the Queen

2. And the actual Foreign Secretary said “taking the knee” was an act of subjugation, and was taken from Game Of Thrones

3. And then actual Health Minister was filmed breaking social distancing rules in Parliament

4. And then the actual Care Minister said student nurses didn’t need financial aid as they volunteered to fight Covid 19 as they “are not deemed to be providing a service”

5. And then the actual Culture Secretary said theatres could reopen if we had musicals in which nobody was allowed to sing

6. Sub-thread of quotes from anonymous Tory MPs and Ministers this week:

a. “If we were in normal times you would be hearing talk by now about removing the prime minister. It is that bad”

b. “Boris may have to go”

c. “It’s all gone for a ball of chalk”

d. Gavin Williamson deserves to be sacked and the No 10 operation is “totally dysfunctional”

e. “There’s a feeling the basic level of competence isn’t there in No 10”

f. “Cummings is the only thing they’ve actually dug in over. Everyone and everything else is expendable”

g. “Boris and Cummings are great at campaigning but rubbish at governing”

h. “[Boris] is not a politician, he’s a brand, and one day he’ll just walk. He’ll just get up one morning and take the brand somewhere else”

i. “Public will conclude [will] that we are a useless shower of incompetents who were asleep at the wheel”

j. The cabinet are “nodding dogs”

k. “No one seriously thinks that this cabinet is the first 11”

l. Boris Johnson’s absence due to illness made “To be honest, not much [difference]”

And now onto App news…

7. In March the WHO recommended all countries launch a Track and Trace app

8. Apple and Google developed one and made it freely available to any country. Dozens of countries use it without any issues

9. But the UK decided to build its own “world beating system”

10. Apple and Google said the UK’s approach was impossible

11. 300 app and technology experts condemned the UK plans

12. But the govt ignored that, put the wife of a Tory MP in charge and gave her £11m, almost 3x the average budget for any Track and Trace app worldwide

13. The UK app planned to collect your data, which could be sold to any private business for 20 years

14. The govt promised the App by mid-April

15. Then the govt promised it by Jun 1

16. Then the govt promised it by Sept

17. Then the govt promised it “for the winter”

18. Then it was revealed the govt had asked Apple for access to their proprietary code, to which Apple said no, because the app breached international privacy laws

19. Then the WHO said lock-down measures should not be relaxed until Track and Trace were in place

20. But the UK govt replied that manual track and trace would work fine

21. And then it was revealed the UK’s manual track and trace service missed between 30% and 80% of contacts

22. After a trial of the App, a report showed it worked just 4% of the time on Apple devices and missed 25% of connections on Android

23. And then, finally, the govt announced it was abandoning its “world beating system”

24. Matt Hancock said he had long been aware of “technical blocks” in the UK app

25. Then Matt Hancock said we had long been working on both Apps, but didn’t explain why we only tested the one he “knew wouldn’t work” on the Isle of White

26. Matt Hancock said he would now create a “hybrid system”, and had spoken to Apple about it

27. Apple and Google said nobody had spoken to them, and it was still impossible

28. It was reported the UK app developers had tried to block rival apps, and called them “the enemy”

29. It was reported the scripts given to manual contract tracers didn’t even match the app

30. MIT Technology Review described the UK’s contact tracing and app development as a “fiasco” and “a masterclass in mismanagement”

32. The Welsh govt released a report saying systemic racism is amongst the reasons BAME people have a higher Covid death-toll

33. The UK govt continues to refuse to release its own report, or implement more than 600 recommendations from previous reports into systemic racism

34. It was reported the govt strategy on BlackLivesMatter is to “declare a war on ‘woke’”

35. It was reported Boris Johnson wanted Chris Grayling on the Intelligence Committee. I’ve checked. There’s only one Chris Grayling, so they must mean him.

36. MPs condemned an “utterly reprehensible” delay in releasing the Russia Electoral Interference Report

37. Dominic Raab said he hadn’t read it, but he knew it exonerated the govt

38. Nobody had formally accused the govt of anything that needed exoneration

39. A report showed 26,000 patients were released from hospital into care homes without testing, leading to at least 16,000 deaths from Covid19

40. The govt defended this by saying it “wasn’t illegal” to negligently spread a pandemic in care homes

41. WHO reported a record 24-hour increase in Covid19 cases

42. German reported the R-level increased from 1 to 1.8

43. The largest ever study found cutting social distancing 1m doubled the rate of infection

44. The UK continues to press for relaxation of social distancing

45. After one of last week’s best u-turns, free school meal vouchers are to be distributed for poor children

46. But they can’t be spent at Aldi, Lidl or Co-Op, the 3 cheapest supermarkets, so they don’t offer good benefits to poorer families

47. In May 2019 the UK declared a “Climate Emergency” and said we must reduce travel and trade closer to home

48. In June 2020 the UK announced it would stop negotiating deals with the country next-door, and trade with Australia and New Zealand instead

49. So Boris Johnson announced a great new trade deal with New Zealand

50. Immediately afterwards the govt issued a statement saying it will have “close to zero” benefit to the UK

51. Michael Gove said border controls Boris Johnson agreed “should not be implemented”

52. It was reported Boris Johnson signed the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement without having read it, or understanding what it meant

53. Boris Johnson said Brexit discussions would go “to the wire” of the December deadline

54. The next day Boris Johnson said there was “No sense” dragging trade talks on beyond the summer

55. Boris Johnson claimed in Parliament that child poverty had fallen and “400,000 fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010”

56. In fact there are at least 800,000 more families in poverty, a rise of 38%

57. Boris Johnson’s car was in an actual car-crash in Downing Street. Metaphor.

58. And that’s edited highlights. I genuinely had to remove half a dozen things cos I reached the thread limit.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 26.06.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. Let’s start with the milder corruption: it was revealed Matt Hancock tried to block 400 homes and a primary school near Newmarket racecourse, after receiving at least £65,000 in donations from horseracing bigwigs who opposed the scheme

2. And then Robert Jenrick, the Housing Minister, overruled his dept and planning officers to rush through planning permission that saved Richard Desmond a £45m fee. Desmond is a billionaire pornographer, former-Express owner, and (subsequent to this) a Tory donor
Russ

3. The Tory Manifesto says: “we will offer more homes to local families, enabling councils to use developers’ contributions via the planning process”

4. The lost £45m was the “developers’ contribution”. One of Britain’s most deprived areas lost it. A billionaire kept it.

5. And then, I’m sure coincidentally, Desmond donated £12,000 to the Tory Party the next week. A bargain – only 0.02% of the £45m he saved

6. So this week Jenrick denied he had done anything wrong

7. Unfortunately, he had already admitted his actions were “unlawful” on 29 May

8. And then the business minister said voters could “raise their concerns at Tory fundraisers”

9. So now have to donate to the Tory Party before we can complain about the Tory Party doing illegal things for their donors

10. In Coronavirus news: Boris Johnson announced more relaxations of the lockdown, saying he would “trust the British public to use their common sense”

11. 48 hours later a major incident was declared on the South Coast, as 500,000 people common-sensibly crowded the beaches

12. Boris Johnson said he “would not hesitate” to bring back lockdown if the rules on social distancing weren’t observed

13. 48 hours later, he hasn’t brought back lockdown

14. Then the govt announced councils would have the “power and resources” to enforce local lockdowns

15. But council leaders wrote to the govt to explain that they don’t actually have the legal powers to do this

16. And then 8 out of 10 councils in England have declared they are at risk of bankruptcy, having absorbed cuts of between 26% and 50%

17. Health leaders, including the presidents of Royal Colleges of Physicians, Nurses, GPs and Surgeons wrote to the govt asking for an urgent review of preparations for a second wave

18. The govt declined to do a review

19. And then the WHO warned of global shortage of oxygen and breathing equipment

20. So naturally, the govt opened pubs and cinemas

21. Then, after a month of not telling us the daily test numbers, the govt went a step further and cancelled the daily briefings altogether

22. UK Statistics Authority issued a 2nd official warning about the “trustworthiness” of the govt’s figures

23. Association of Medical Research said 74% of clinical trials had been put on hold in 2020 due to cuts

24. So we spent £900k painting a flag on Boris Johnson’s plane

25. And then it was revealed the govt spent £12m on the “world beating” contact app that didn’t work

26. If you paid the average £50,000 programmer salary, £12m buys 320 programmers

27. The German app code is open-source, and the free repository for it lists 34 programmers

28. The UK has repeatedly declined to use the free German App

29. Boris Johnson claimed in Parliament that “no country in the world has a working contact tracing app”

30. There are working contact tracing apps in: Angola, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh…

… Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Czech Rep, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Latvia, Malaysia, Morocco, N Macedonia, Netherlands, Norway, NZ, Poland …

… Qatar, Russia, S Africa, S Korea, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Switzerland and Vietnam. That’s 42 countries.

31. The gov declined to publish its report on food and medicine shortage risks from no-deal Brexit, which surely bodes well.

32. Boris Johnson said Brexit must be delivered, as we have a “democratic duty” to listen to the people

33. A report this week found 9m voters – most thought likely to oppose the Conservatives – will vanish from the electoral roll when new Westminster seats are drawn up

34. When the govt (breaking pre-election promises) merged the Dept for International Development into Foreign Office 2 weeks ago, they said there would be no cuts to overseas aid

35. This week the Treasury asked govt depts to find “a minimum of 30%” cuts, including overseas aid

36. The govt continued to decry the removal of statues connected with slavery, as this might “diminish public knowledge of British history”

37. Govt cuts led to the closure of 773 public libraries, and I suspect many of them contained books about British History

38. The Minister for Arts said the govt was “committed to supporting the Arts Sector in through crisis”

39. Emergency funding for the arts (converted into £)

– France £6.3bn

– Germany £900m

– Canada £295m

– Italy £221m

– NZ £90

– Spain £68m

– Ireland £18m

– UK £0

40. In 2019 the govt committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2050

41. A year on a report found at the current rate, the govt would hit its target by the year 3650, which is 1500 years from now, a mere 1470 years too late

42. This week it reached 38°C in the Arctic

43. The govt said it would “fairly and courageously to maintain law and order” in the light of the #BlackLivesMatter
movement

44. And then the govt announced it wants to abolish trial by jury in order to address a 41,000-case backlog caused by its own cuts

45. It’s Friday. Not even very late Friday. There are 2 more days of this week to go.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 30.06.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

This episode of #TheWeekInTory is just stuff since Friday

1. Ineptitude alert: due to Brexit the UK is leaving the EU’s Galileo satellite scheme, which is vital for satnav

2. Independent experts said developing our own satellite system would cost around £4bn

3. So instead, the govt announced £500m investment to make existing satellites to do the job

4. But they are too close to earth to be used for GPS positioning, so cannot work

5. A space policy expert said “The fundamental starting point is, we’ve bought the wrong satellites”

6. Democracy news: it was reported “PM wants Brexiteer to head Civil Service”

7. But the Code of Conduct says Civil Servants “must not act in a way that is determined by party political considerations”

8. Then Michael Gove gave a major speech about the need to decentralise govt

9. And the next day the Cabinet Secretary was sacked, so that Dominic Cummings could centralise more power

10. A replacement – David Frost, a Brexiteer – was appointed, and will now be Cabinet Secretary, National Security Advisor and simultaneously lead Brexit negotiations

11. The former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell said “I’m worried about the appointment” as it was “made without any due process”, and Frost “doesn’t have much background in security”. He said “it shows an erosion of civil service impartiality”

12. Public safety news: 3 years from Grenfell, the National Audit Office found only 14% of dangerous buildings have had their cladding removed

13. The UN warned the UK may breach international law over its failure to remove combustible cladding from high-rise buildings

14. Days after corruption allegations against Robert Jenrick & Matt Hancock, it was revealed developers backed by Johnson as London Mayor donated almost £1m to the Tory Party

15. If you take away some of the letters and add different ones, “donation” is an anagram of “bribe”

16. And now, onto Covid. On 1 June the govt said “we will work around the clock to ensure that nobody goes hungry as a result of this crisis [Covid19]”

17. This week govt data revealed 7.7m adults missed meals, and 3.7 used food banks during the crisis

18. Senior police officers warned govt that lifting the lockdown was “total madness”

19. The next day the govt lifted the lockdown

20. The day after that, a major incident was declared as 500,000 people crowded beaches, and illegal street parties broke out across the country

21. Priti Patel said “I want to make sure our police are absolutely resourced”

22. Since 2010, Tories have cut 21,000 police officers, 23,000 police support workers, and shut 600 police stations

23. Trading Standards, which investigates fraud, also had 70% of its budget cut

24. The Home Secretary said the public “shouldn’t take liberties” with the rules and “the full weight of govt powers” could be called upon to ensure guidelines are followed

25. I’ve looked into this, and Dominic Cummings is still in his job. So, remarkably, is Robert Jenrick

26. Matt Hancock said “a protective ring had been thrown around care homes” by the govt

27. A report this week showed the risk of Covid-related deaths in UK’s care homes is 13-times higher than in German care homes

28. The govt told parliament there are sufficient supplies of PPE

29. The next day govt confirmed that the phrase “200 pieces of PPE equipment” refers to 100 pairs of gloves

30. UK Statistics Authority issued a 2nd official rebuke about the trustworthiness of govt data

31. To address the financial crisis caused by Coronavirus, the PM pledged a £1bn school building programme over 10 years

32. This is 1/7th of the cuts to school budgets since 2010

33. The Blair govt increased school budgets by £12bn in 3 years, which is 40x as much per year

34. A SAGE scientific report said fully reopening schools without substantial improvements in the performance of the test-and-trace system could risk a new surge in cases of Covid-19

35. So the govt announced it would fine parents who didn’t send their children to school

36. Boris Johnson compared himself to Roosevelt and promised a £5bn “New Deal” to boost the economy, and said “this is what the times demand”

37. Roosevelt’s New Deal expenditure was up to 40% of US GDP at the time

38. Johnson’s £5bn is slightly less: about 0.2% of UK GDP

39. PM promised £100m for 29 road projects – around £350k per road

40. The Manchester Airport bypass alone cost £280m

41. And then it was revealed Johnson’s “New Deal” is not new at all, it just brings forward money already promised in previous budgets. So… Old Deal.

42. The govt refused to rule out tax rises to pay for the coming crash

43. Then Boris Johnson explicitly ruled out tax rises for the rich, saying we should “clap for bankers who make the NHS possible”

44. So if the rich aren’t being taxed, that means… oh, it’s you and me again

45. On 24 June, Jeremy Hunt wrote an article in the Telegraph urging the govt to do mass testing of NHS and Care staff to prevent a second wave

46. On 24 June (the same day) Jeremy Hunt (the same Jeremy Hunt) voted in parliament against mass testing of NHS and Care staff

47. The WHO said “a second wave of Covid 19 is a highly likely outcome” and advised all nations to begin preparations for one

48. The govt declined to do a review into preparations for a second wave, even when one was recommended by the Royal Societies of Surgeons, Nurses & GPs

49. BMA reports 1 doctor in 7 is planning to quit after the current crisis subsides

50. Over 22,000 EU-national staff already quit the NHS after the Brexit vote

51. Tories cut £1bn from NHS training budget from 2018 to 2023, so there aren’t enough trainees to replace them

52. And, to end on a cheery note, researchers in China discovered a new type of swine flu capable of triggering a pandemic.

53. So far, there’s no confirmation that Chris Grayling is involved in Chinese pig-farming

54. This is just 4 days. My previous #TheWeekInTory was worse

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 09.07.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. Boris Johnson nominated Chris Grayling to chair the Intelligence Committee

2. Yes. Chris Grayling.

3. Matt Hancock said “I’m really pleased that the Domestic Abuse Bill has been passed” 12 hours after he voted against it, so maybe it’s catching

4. A Sage official govt scientific report said test and trace must be improved before schools were re-opened

5. The following day the Education Minister said he would fine parents who didn’t send kids to schools. Test and Trace is still not working.

6. In March, Govt advice said we must “urgently discharge all hospital in-patients who are medically fit to leave”, including elderly patients returning to care homes

7. As a result, 25,000 patients were discharged into care homes without a coronavirus test

8. Which is why, as of June 20, there were 19,394 deaths in care homes

9. Deaths in UK care homes are 13x higher than those in German care homes

10. So – quelle surprise – this week Boris Johnson blamed those deaths on care home workers. Charmer, isn’t he?

11. Boris Johnson attempted to explain this by saying nobody knew about asymptomatic infections

12. But on 11th March (before govt advice about discharging to care homes) Matt Hancock said scientific evidence showed the amount of asymptomatic infection was “very significant”

13. So they knew. And they did it anyway.

14. And now they’ve moved onto pubs

15. Senior police officers warned govt lifting the lockdown was “total madness”

16. The chairman of the Police Federation said “it is crystal clear that drunk people won’t socially distance”

17. The Texas Medical Assoc published a table of the 47 riskiest activities – the most high-risk was “going to a bar”

18. So the govt tweeted “Grab a drink and raise a glass, the pubs are opening” on the day figures showed we had the 3rd highest confirmed death-toll in the world

19. Boris Johnson said “Anyone who flouts Covid rules isn’t just putting us all at risk, but letting down the rest of us”

20. And then Boris Johnson’s father broke the rules to go to his villa in Greece

21. And I’m sure I don’t need to mention Dominic Cummings

22. But it’s OK, Mark Francois mentioned Dominic Cummings for you, warning a giggling General that “Cummings is going to come down and sort you out”

23. That’s the Dominic Cummings who is an unelected bureaucrat, and and ran a Brexit campaign against unelected bureaucrats

24. Brexit also promised an end to red tape, and Boris Johnson insisted “emphatically” that border checks in the Irish Sea would not happen

25. So imagine my surprise when, this week, the details of the additional red tape and Irish Sea border checks were revealed

26. The International Trade Secretary said the plans “risk smuggling, damage to the UK’s international reputation and legal challenge from the WTO”

27. And then she said we aren’t ready for Brexit

28. So the govt let the deadline for extending Brexit slip past. Oh good.

29. Boris Johnson denied No Deal, but said we would have an “Australian-style” deal

30. The EU coughed and said “We do not have a deal with Australia”

31. ONS figures showed No Deal will cut UK economy by 9.3%

32. That’s on top of the predicted 14% slump caused by Covid 19

33. To save money the govt announced it would stop free parking for NHS staff, which annoyed NHS staff and saved almost nothing

34. Hours later the govt unannounced that particular idea, and denied it had ever said it. Reassuringly competent, isn’t it?

35. More competence: the govt announced a new policy of sanctions against regimes engaged in Human Rights violations

36. Literally the following day, the govt announced it would resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite acknowledging Saudi war crimes in the Yemen

37. But at least they’re on the ball about PPE we need to, yknow, stay alive

38. Except the govt is facing a string of legal challenges about why it awarded multimillion-pound PPE contracts to, let’s say, strange choices, which I list below:

39. A £108m contract awarded to a sweet wholesaler with no experience of PPE and total assets of £18000 (about the price of a mid-range Kia Stonic)

40. An £18m contract for PPE awarded to an employment agency with total assets of £332. Not a typo. A company worth £332 got £18m

41. A £24m contract for PPE awarded (and paid upfront!) to a pest-control company with no experience of PPE

42. A £250m contract to a “a London-based family office” involved in “offshore property” and “currency trading”, and which shares an advisor with Tory Minister Liz Truss

43. And in every case: no bidding process

44. And finally, having come into office promising 50,000 new nurses, this week it was revealed nursing recruitment is down 5%. There are already more than 40,000 UK vacancies for nurses, and WHO is warning Covid has “only just started”

45. Don’t be too downhearted. It’s only Thursday. They could turn it all around in the next 24 hours. You wait and see, it’ll be amazing.

Use #TheWeekInTory to find previous reassuring installments

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 15.07.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. The govt relaxed the rules on eating in restaurants, as long as the restaurants followed the guidelines

2. To promote this, the Chancellor posed for a photo-op serving customers in Wagamama, whilst breaking the guidelines

3. Having told us, since 3 Feb, that masks were: useful, not useful, recommended, not recommended, essential for health workers, not essential for teachers, useful in “small spaces” but not on buses, and then on buses but not in shops, the govt had its most spasmodic week to date

4. (Coincidentally, it was revealed the govt awarded, without tender, a £3m “coronavirus communications operation” contract to 2 right-wing campaigners, which seems quite a lot for the, ahem, operation described above)

5. This week the gov said masks worked in SE Asia because there is a “culture of wearing them”, but “we in Britain don’t need to wear them”

6. A virus is an inert, non-living, sub-microscopic entity, so it’s a stretch to expect it to adhere to our cultural norms

7. Michael Gove said masks wouldn’t be mandatory in shops, and Britain could rely on “common sense” and “basic good manners”

8. The next day Michael Gove was photographed displaying “common sense” and “basic good manners” by not wearing a mask in 2 separate shops

9. Inevitably, Boris Johnson said masks would be mandatory in shops, a mere 163 days since his govt was first recommended to make them mandatory in shops

10. But they weren’t mandatory for 12 more days

11. 77 people died yesterday. At that rate, another 12 days is 924 deaths

12. And Matt Hancock ruled out masks in offices, which are some of the the enclosed spaces we’ve needed to wear masks in since 11 May

13. The govt promised local Covid tests would be completed with 24hrs by 1st of July

14. A report found just 5% were completed within 24hrs

15. And then the PM dodged a question on whether he’d even read last week’s report on preparations needed for a second wave of coronavirus that could kill 120,000 people.

16. But he gained a nice tan over the weekend, so he’s clearly focussing on the important stuff

17. And the Health Minister, also on his A-game, didn’t know about the 2017 report on our poor pandemic preparedness (spoiler!) til he saw it the Guardian in May 2020

18. Meanwhile the UK opted out of the €2bn programme to have advanced purchase of a vaccine, cos it’s European

19. Which brings us to Brexit, and the govt bought a huge plot in Ashford, Kent, to act as a customs clearance centre

20. This customs clearance centre is to handle all the friction caused by the “frictionless trade” Boris Johnson could “absolutely assure you of” in 2016

21. David Davis, who negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement and then voted for the WA was surprised at the contents of the WA and wants it renegotiated

22. Not to be confused with Dominic Raab, his successor in the role, who actually resigned in protest at his own actions

30. This entirely avoidable £15bn cost was announced in the same week a report showed the number of British children admitted to hospital with malnutrition doubled in the last 6 months. So it’s possible we could spend that £15bn a bit better

31. The govt stopped describing No Deal Brexit as “No Deal Brexit”, and rebranded it “leaving on Australian terms”

32. Ireland, which is still in the EU and still broadly sane, reminded the UK that the EU doesn’t actually have a deal with Australia, so… yeah.

33. And the OBR said the cost of No Deal would be 9% of GDP. Permanently.

34. Liz Truss said it was OK, we could sell lamb to New Zealand

35. The Farmer’s Union said NZ lamb is half the price of UK lamb, so NZ wouldn’t buy it, and 95% of UK sheep farms would fail

36. Other fun food news: with No Deal, beef will cost 48% more, cheddar 57% more, oranges 12% more, and rice 16% more

37. So the gov handed out £10 vouchers to get people to eat in restaurants (at the same time as ending the free school meals programme for 1.6 million children

38. Restaurants warned their prices would rise 30% under No Deal, so spend those vouchers quick, folks. Ideally on a starving child.

39. And then the Govt spent a further £93m to tell you to prepare for a Brexit they assured us would be cost-free and painless

40. More from the party of fiscal responsibility: the cost of rolling out Universal Credit rose another £1.4bn

41. And the IFS said the much-vaunted jobs retention scheme was “badly timed and poorly targeted”, with most of the £9.4bn being spent on jobs that are already safe

42. But some money is going where it was wanted: without being put out to contract, a £840,000 contract to 2 friends of Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings

43. And £25m for “biological and chemical protection garments” to a company with no employees, no assets, and no turnover

44. But it’s fine, cos there probably won’t be any care workers to protect, since Priti Patel excluded them from her new immigration system

45. She also blamed the Covid outbreak in Leicester on “cultural sensitivities” preventing local govt from checking min wage enforcement

46. Min wage enforcement is the job of central govt, which you’d hope somebody in govt would know

47. But she also didn’t know the correct assessment for people entering the country with Covid19, which you’d think was kinda her thing, after a 10 years of obsession with borders

48. Mind you: details can be tricky. The PM told Parliament our Test and Trace programme is “as good as or better than” any other system in the world

49. 2 hours later, Downing Street had to admit what we all know: it really isn’t. Not even close.

50. But finally, some good news: Chris Grayling officially failed his intelligence test. Always leave them laughing Chris, but most of all: always leave.

51. It’s only Wednesday. How much more #TheWeekInTory is ahead of us?

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 21.07.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory is a misnomer: this just covers the last 5 days

1. Matt Hancock told Parliament lockdown started on 16th March, the day SAGE told them to, so all those unnecessary deaths didn’t happen

2. But lockdown started on 24th March, and all those unnecessary deaths did

3. The govt announced a “New Deal” for infrastructure, with £600bn of new money

4. Turns out, only 0.8% of that is new money

5. The £34bn “new money” for the NHS was actually announced in 2018

6. The govt then announced £3bn of additional funding for a possible second wave

7. That’s less than half the £8bn NHS England said it needed just to stand still, which hasn’t happened

8. Matt Hancock said wearing a mask is mandatory

9. Downing St said wearing a mask ISN’T mandatory

10. So Gavin Williamson cleared it all up by saying they’re both right ????

11. England’s Chief Nurse confirmed she was dropped from briefings cos she refused to back Dominic Cummings

12. A poll found public trust in UK gov ability to manage the pandemic is lowest worldwide, and I nearly fainted

13. The govt cut the budget to end FGM by 84%

14. A Tory MP texted his intern to ask for “no strings” fun “pweeease”.

15. She replied that she was having a “bad mental health day”

16. He said maybe if she thought of “fun times” with him, she’d feel better. Nice.

17. Brexit: and now we’re back in control, it was confirmed the govt cancelled the Huawei 5G project because Donald Trump told them to

18. The Institute for Govt found 61% of businesses have made no preparations at all and that “Britain is fatally ill-prepared” for Brexit

19. The business secretary said “Seamless trade is vital for our economy, boosting business, supporting jobs, and ensuring consumers get the best deal”

20. He was talking about England and Scotland. He still thinks abandoning seamless trade with the EU is a great idea

21. The govt used its majority to vote against protecting the NHS from being sold

22. The govt used its majority to vote against protection of agriculture and food standards

23. The govt used its majority to vote against parliament having oversight of any trade deals

24. And now corruption news, and we’ll start small: Robert Jenrick, who you might remember from previous episodes, was in charge of £25m regeneration scheme

25. 60 of the 61 constituencies helped were Tory seats with small majorities, or Tory targets at the general election

26. Only 2 towns had Tory majorities over 10,000. One was Jenrick’s own seat

27. It was reported the Irish tracing app cost £773,000 and works

28. The contract for managing our “world beating” app was given to the wife of a Tory MP, cost £13m in 4 months, it didn’t work

29. Even if you paid £50,000 to each programmer for 4 months work, £13m buys 260 programmers

30. The successful app used by Germany – which is open source – lists 17 programmers

31. Did we hire 260 programmers? If so, why? If not, where is the rest of the money?

32. Also, the govt admitted its “world beating app” broke the law

33. A leaked govt report found our “world beating” trace system is failing

34. Serco traced 59,000 contacts in 6 weeks, which is less than 1 contact per tracer per fortnight. They got £10bn for that

35. But the govt claimed it was a success because it managed to find an outbreak in its own call centre

36. Russia report news: The govt attempted to suborn parliament by fixing the appointment of Chris Grayling to chair the Intelligence Sub-Committee (ISC)

37. It failed, so suspended the MP who did get the job

38. The ISC said the reasons given by the govt for delaying the report were “simply not true”

39. As the ISC released the report, the govt announced a pay rise for 900,000 workers. Were you distracted? Me neither

40. The report confirmed Russian interference in the Scottish Independence referendum

41. The report “reveals that no one in government knew if Russia interfered in or sought to influence the [Brexit] referendum, because they did not want to know”

42. The ISC demanded an inquiry into Russian interference in Brexit

43. The govt immediately said no

44. I’m sure this is a coincidence, but this week it was reported the largest political donor in British history is a Russian Socialite who has paid £1.7m to the Tory party

45. She paid £160,000 for game of tennis with Boris Johnson

46. She paid £30,000 for dinner with Gavin Williamson. I know, it’s baffling

47. The company she runs has assets of £23,000 and liabilities of £8.4m, so it’s a mystery where all that donated money is coming from.

48. And finally: it was reported that the UK doesn’t even have enough palettes to transport goods after we leave the EU, cos we’ve been relying on theirs until now, and have neither the wood nor the treatment facilities required to build enough of our own.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 29.07.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. The govt launched a “Fix your bike” voucher website

2. It broke in less than an hour

3. The govt said we should all lose weight

4. The govt is still issuing vouchers to help us buy burgers

5. It was revealed the govt spent £400m buying a bankrupt satellite company, OneWeb, to replace the Euro GPS system we lose due to Brexit

6. Months before, a study by MIT found that OneWeb’s tech is 6x less efficient than the EU solution: the worst of the technologies studied

7. In June the govt merged the Dept for International Development into the Foreign Office, and said the move “guaranteed there would be no cuts in International Aid”

8. This week the gov cut International Aid by £2.9bn

9. And the govt quietly granted permission for your health records to be given to Palantir, a controversial data-mining company said to have worked with Cambridge Analytica on Brexit

10. It did both these things the day parliament broke up, so there couldn’t be any questions

11. But in answer to questions about the Russia Report, the gov’s suggested solution is to (I’m not making this up) to ask Russia to tell us who their spies are

12. Ex-Russian intelligence staff say 85% of their work is not spying, but “political funding and misinformation”

13. Which brings us to: Funding and Misinformation news

14. Since 2012, the Tory party has had almost £3m in donations from members of Putin’s cabinets

15. 14 current govt ministers have received donations from individuals or companies connected to the Russian leadership

16. Priti Patel said the Russia Report could be ignored because it was now 9 months old and “out of date”

17. The govt delayed the release of the report for 9 months, and the reasons given were described as “simply not true” (aka “misinformation”) by the Intelligence Committee

18. Now Covid news, and Matt Hancock boasted he had met the targets on his “Six tests” on Covid 19

19. Full Fact found 4 of the 6 targets were missed, one target couldn’t be met because it had never been defined, and 1 “relied on a definition [that] does not reflect practice”

20. The cross-party Media & Culture Committee found that the gov’s support for arts was “vague and slow-coming” and “jeopardised UK culture”

21. The cross-party Public Accounts Committee found there was an “astonishing failure to plan for the economic impact” of Covid 19

22. It also said the policy of discharging patients into care homes was a “reckless and appalling policy error”

23. It called the govt “slow, inconsistent [and] negligent”

24. The chair of the Committee said “A competent government does not run a country on the hoof”

25. More on-the-hoof news: the gov quarantined tourists returning from Spain because Spain was a danger

26. The day before, Spain had 2 Covid deaths. Britain had 114

27. The transport secretary was on holiday in Spain, so was effectively trapped by his own dept’s decision

28. Which brings us to Brexit, and a report from London School of Economics showed a WTO Brexit will permanently shrink 16 out of the UK’s 24 industry sectors by up to 15% each. Permanently.

29. A Tory MP tweeted “(thumbs up emoji) WTO here we come!”

30. Another pro-Brexit Tory MP with a grasp of what’s to come tweeted “my strong advice is: take the opportunity to live abroad”

31. Dominic Cummings tweeted that leaving the EU “could be an error”

32. And now PPE contracts, so prepare to begin eternal screaming:

33. £252m to Ayanda Capital, registered in Mauritius for tax purposes. PPE not delivered

34. £186m to Uniserve. PPE not delivered

35. £116m to P14 Medical Supplies, with assets of just £145. PPE not delivered

36. £108m to PestFix, with just 16 employees. PPE not delivered

37. £107m to Clandeboye Agencies, a sweet wholesaler. Yes, a sweet wholesaler. PPE not delivered.

38. £40m to Medicine Box Ltd, with assets of just £6000. PPE not delivered.

39. £48m to Initia Ventures Ltd, which registered itself as “dormant” in March. PPE not delivered.

40. £28m to Monarch Acoustics, which makes shop furniture. PPE not delivered

41. £25m to Luxe Lifestyle, which has no employees, no assets, and no turnover. PPE not delivered

42. £18m to Aventis Solutions, which has total assets of £332. Not a typo, £332. PPE not delivered

43. £10m to Medco Solutions, incorporated just 3 days after lockdown, with share capital of (not a typo) £2. PPE not delivered

44. In all, approx £1bn to inexplicable suppliers for PPE that hasn’t been delivered

45. The gov still polls well for economic competence. Go figure

46. Meanwhile a Nuffield Health study found after 10 years of “chronic underinvestment”, UK is at the bottom of the league table for health resources; and diagnostics and surgery by the NHS will take 4 years to return to pre-Covid levels. But £1bn for non-existent PPE

47. The gov’s “world beating” test-and-trace programme was described as “scandalous” by the British Medical Journal, and found to miss its 80% target in every Covid hotspot announced this week

48. And finally, Boris Johnson refused a public enquiry into gov handling of Covid 19

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 05.08.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory is a monster today because they’ve been, well, even busier than usual, the scamps

1. The dictionary definition of Honour is, “the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right”. Keep that in mind as we tackle the Honours system

2. Boris Johnson gave lifetime appointments to his own brother, and to the editor of the Telegraph, the newspaper which provided Johnson with his most obsequious coverage

3. Theresa May’s husband was knighted for “political service”, although an ITV investigation found “a brief stint as chairman of Wimbledon Conservative Assoc was as close as he got to politics”. But he was named in the Panama Papers, which is credentials enough for this govt

4. But more political than Ian Botham, an anti-immigration cricketer who bafflingly lives in Spain, and now has the power to affect our laws

5. And Claire Fox, who backed IRA bombings, never apologised, is now able to influence terrorism laws for the rest of her life

6. Also, arise Lord Alexander Lebedev, son of a KGB spy, and the man who threw an “anything goes party” for Boris Johnson which Tory cabinet ministers said made Johnson “a security threat” and “open to Kompromat” (Google that word)

7. Half the new Lords are leading campaigners for Brexit, and as such are viscerally opposed to unelected power and sprawling bureaucracy. They join 808 unelected members of parliament. There are only 650 elected ones

8. And in an already spiffing week for democracy, the govt set up a council to investigate ways to prevent courts from ruling ANY govt action is unlawful, even if it is literally unlawful

9. And now stats news, and the Office for Statistics Regulation said the PM repeatedly used poverty stats “selectively, inaccurately and, ultimately, misleadingly”

10. Then the ONS revealed the UK had the worse excess death rate in Europe

11. So Johnson hailed Britain’s “massive success” on Covid19, and I wondered how things could get worse…

12. Hello, Iain Duncan Smith! Two weeks after the cost of IDS’s Universal Credit rose by a £1.4bn, the Lords found it was “not fit for purpose” and needed £8bn more

13. The cross-bench Lords committee found Universal Credit “has led to an unprecedented number of people relying on food banks”

14. Dominic Raab saw this as an opportunity, and posed, smiling, at a food bank that specifically illustrated massive government failure

15. In Oct 2019 IDS voted to accelerate the passage of the Withdrawal Agreement, specifically so it wouldn’t have to face parliamentary scrutiny

16. In Mar 2020 IDS voted for the Withdrawal Agreement. Wait for it…

17. This week IDS apparently got around to reading the WA, saw it would cost £160bn, and demanded it be renegotiated.

18. He said the details were “buried away, unnoticed by some”, which is kinda why we needed time to scrutinise it, but Iain will be Iain

19. Iain being Iain has cost the country £170 billion this week alone, in return for a future that is demonstrably worse

20. Small change, but it was also revealed it will cost £1bn to replicate the chemical industry safety regime that we got for free from the EU

21. Oh, and £170,000 loan to a “sex party company”, which honestly, barely raises an eyebrow compared to the rest

22. And now Covid, and a study found Dominic Cummings’ Durham adventure “was a key factor in the breakdown of a sense of national unity” that cost lives

23. A cross-party group of MPs said the failure to close airports in March was “inexplicable” and “a serious mistake” that led to thousands of deaths, and ever-so-slightly worryingly, they could not identify anybody in govt who was making decisions

24. The govt’s top coronavirus expert, who attempted to persuade the govt to lock down, revealed he has never met Boris Johnson, our PM, who said he was “taking personal responsibility” for lockdown and Covid policy

25. Dido Harding, head of the Covid App, said “I absolutely don’t accept that this is failure, it’s the opposite”. It cost £13m, which is £12.3m more than the functioning Irish app. And then it was abandoned because it didn’t work

26. She also leads Test + Trace. A report found contact tracers “making only a handful of calls every month and occupy their time with barbecues and quizzes”

27. Test +Trace contacted only 50% those at risk, so local councils set their own up in 2 weeks. They’re tracing 98%

28. The govt announced a lockdown for Britain’s 2nd largest city-region not via a PM announcement, but via a tweet at 10pm, 2 hours before it began

29. Directors of public health were not informed before the lockdown, and no procedures were in place for implementing it

30. A SAGE subcommittee said there was “a high risk of widespread urban disorder” requiring military intervention, and a decision to reopen pubs would “complicate these problems and introduce entirely new ones”

31. The govt opened pubs

32. The govt said extremely vulnerable people should stop shielding

33. The govt said shielding was essential to stop the spread of Covid

34. The govt said people should return to work in offices

35. The govt said people should increase their isolation

36. The govt said it would isolate over-50s

37. The govt said it would not isolate over-50s

38. The govt said you can’t meet other families in your home

39. The govt said you can meet other families in pubs

40. The govt said pubs might have to close so we can open schools

41. The govt said pubs would be spared Covid-19 restrictions

42. The govt said it would be “as good as over by Christmas”

43. The govt said we should “not delude ourselves this will go aware in a few months”

44. The govt said it was abandoning its pledge to conduct regular testing in care homes

45. The govt said it wasn’t abandoning its pledge to conduct regular testing in care home and oh god, kill me

46. The PR firm responsible for creating a false Labour manifesto website and a renaming the Tory twitter page “factcheckUK” then tweeting falsehoods was granted a £3m Covid-19 communications contract. There was no tender process

47. A report found only 45% of adults have even a “broad understanding” of the lockdown rules, which is hardly surprising when the PR firm’s major experience is false news

48. Only 26% of emergency funds for small charities had been allocated, and even less actually paid

49. After introducing quarantines on returning tourists, Dominic Raab said “you cannot be penalised in this country lawfully for following the rules”

50. It was later admitted that employers can penalise employees who quarantine, but the govt hadn’t known this. The actual govt

51. It was revealed UK negotiators “only engaged with Brexit issues [the single most important political business since WW2] in the last 2 weeks”

52. The PM’s father said Johnson was “living in cloud cuckoo land” about getting a free trade deal without meeting EU standards

53. The OECD showed the number of UK citizens emigrating to the EU has risen 30% since the Brexit vote

54. The report concluded “These increases in numbers are of a magnitude that you would only expect when a country is hit by a major economic or political crisis”

55. Polling shows a drop in Tory support by expats, and pinpointed “the implications of a hard Brexit” as the primary reason

56. Random Tory MP news: a Tory MP said the “vast majority” of people breaching lockdown rules were from minority, and specifically Muslim, backgrounds

57. But a study found 80% of infections in locked-down areas were in the white British community and said this should be “a warning to the complacent white middle class”

58. In 2019 the govt promised a “transparent and independent appointment strategy” for top Whitehall jobs. This year, 44% of those appointed to top Whitehall jobs are close personal friends of Michael Gove, which might just be one of those absolutely incredible coincidence things

59. More Gove: the NI politician John Hume died, and Gove praised his “integrity and wisdom” in helping to create the Good Friday Agreement

60. Gove wrote a 58-page pamphlet opposing the Good Friday Agreement and said those involved in the GFA were akin to “appeasing the Nazis”

61. A Tory MP was arrested for alleged rape, and not only did the party not suspend him, it was revealed the chief whip and Jacob Rees-Mogg both knew about it for at least a month and did nothing

62. The effortlessly brilliant Liam Fox appears to be a major cause of Russian hacking of British politics, after it was found he was highly likely to have used unsecured personal email for classified govt business, and got 451 pages of it nicked

63. Jeremy Hunt, who is worth £14m, and once explained bogus expenses claims by saying he forgot about 7 houses he owned (and which of can honestly say we haven’t forgotten about 7 houses we own) boasted of using £50 of taxpayer’s money to buy fish and chips

64. The govt announced it would employ an official PM’s spokesperson at a cost of £100,000, even though Whitehall rules about civil servants explicitly forbid it, and the rules explicitly say the PM must answer questions personally

65. Boris Johnson said of Black Lives Matter, “I hear you, and I understand”

66. And then this week the govt refused to even begin a review into possibly introducing more black, Asian, and ethnic minority history in schools

67. It’s Wednesday. Two more days to go, and then we begin another #TheWeekInTory for me to catalogue, assuming I don’t shove my head through a bacon-slicing machine first

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 13.08.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. The govt said they had to “balance the nation’s health with our economy”, and in that respect, they have succeeded: both are evenly balanced as the worst in the G7

2. So Boris Johnson went on holiday. See if you even notice.

3. Britain’s death toll, pretty much the worst per-capita in the developed world, rose again to the levels it was 2 months ago

4. Fortunately, the govt solved those deaths by the simple expedient of publishing the figures on a different website and not telling anybody

5. A mere 6 months into the Covid-19 crisis, the govt advertised for a “Head of Pandemic Preparedness” with a salary of – honest to god – less than mine. And I do colouring-in for a living.

6. In Feb the govt said “nobody will go hungry as a result of Covid-19”

7. The FSA said 7.8 million Britons had skipped meals or eaten unsafe food as a result of skyrocketing “food insecurity” since the outbreak

8. So the govt is planning to stop the furlough scheme to force us to go back to jobs that don’t exist

9. Britain’s GDP fell 21%, more than twice as much as Germany or the USA, and even more than Spain, which we keep telling ourselves is doing terribly, whilst avoiding mirrors

10. And an IFS study showed UK can expect to be permanently 9% poorer if we have no Brexit deal by Nov

11. So naturally, Liz Truss paused a £14bn trade deal with Japan over concerns for the fate of Stilton, which is 0.007% of the deal. But she’d made a big deal over Brexit saving Britain’s vast and vitally important Stilton industry, and everything else comes second

12. Liz Truss suggested increasing the speed limit to 80mph could be the solution to all our economic woes

13. And then The Express – yes, them – suddenly discovered the USA favour a deal with the EU over a deal with the UK because, and this will shock you, the EU is much bigger

14. Boris Johnson insisted the central Test and Trace system was “still world-beating” after it traced only 56% of cases

15. Local councils set up their own tracing in Lancashire, Liverpool and W Yorkshire and traced 98%. “World-beating” isn’t even beating Blackburn council

16. NHS Providers said Test and Trace is “not fit for purpose, let alone world class”

17. A month after knighting Sir Tom for raising £32m, the govt gave 10x as much to company valued at £100, and with no expertise in producing PPE, for 50m masks we can’t use

18. By one of those massively rare coincidences that happen 9 times out of 10, the owner is a close friend Liz Truss

19. And then it was revealed the govt didn’t just sign one inexplicable contract with a useless and inexperienced supplier: they had at least 20 contracts

20. One of the contracts is for £108m, paid to a pest control company with assets of just £18,000. The company is now using money from that contract to threaten legal action against a lawyer who asked what it is doing with the money. I kid you not.

21. Education news, and in the beginning, the govt opposed adjusting A-level grades

22. Then top fireplace salesman and irony no-fly-zone Gavin Williamson said “The danger is that pupils will be over-promoted into jobs that are beyond their competence”

23. And then the govt introduced a “moderating” algorithm to adjust grades

24. Then the Tories told the Scottish govt to abandon its own adjusted grades

25. And when the Scottish govt did Tories had asked, the Tories said it was a disgrace and they should resign

26. Then multiple Tories called for Gavin Williamson to do exactly the same thing

27. The Assoc of Headteachers said the govt’s handling of this is “a rolling disaster”

28. Things are moving fast. But not as fast as the contents Gavin Williamson’s small intestine

29. The govt’s algorithm awarded twice as many grade increases to pupils from private schools as it did to state schools.

30. And an Education Policy Institute report found wealthy pupils get 1/3 more funds from the “levelling up” budget as poor pupils get

31. Scrupulous honesty news: property developers gave the Tories £11m in the last year, and then, miraculously, the Tories relaxed rules on planning permission

32. Amongst the regulations they tried to scrap was the one requiring dwellings to have at least 1 window

33. Robert Jenrick said “you can trust me on housing”, 3 weeks after he admitted wrongdoing in helping a Tory donor avoid £45m tax

34. To be fair, he then denied admitting wrongdoing, even though he had admitted it on camera, and that’s always the mark of a man you can trust

35. The Royal Institute of British Architects said the reforms were “shameful” and would “lead to a generation of slum housing”

36. Housing charity Shelter said the reforms “will mean the end of affordable housing” and force more than 1m people onto housing waiting lists

37. But Priti Patel said Syrian refugees were the real cause of our national housing crisis

38. She asserted that people claiming asylum in the UK was illegal, which it absolutely is not, under any circumstances, ever

39. Then she appointed an excitingly-titled “Clandestine Channel Threat Commander” tasked with, amongst other impossible things, pushing migrant boats back out to sea, in direct contravention of international law and British Navy regulations

40. A leak from inside the MoD said Patel’s plans were “completely potty”, “inappropriate, impractical and unnecessary” and had “more holes than a slice of Swiss cheese”. I’ll put them down as a ‘maybe’

41. Priti Patel then had an argument about this with some ice-cream

42. James Cleverley, a hugely successful one-man campaign against nominative determinism, joined in, but confused “virtue signalling” with “obeying the law”

43. Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh had a solution: “We should never have lost Calais in 1558. Why not take it back?”

44. Then Sir Edward, a vocal, life-long Brexit fan, said we should pay the EU to manage migration for us, but it has been very warm, and he does look like a man who has been in the sun far too long

45. Speaking of Brexit, it was revealed Tate and Lyle, Tory donors and No Deal cheerleaders, will gain £73m if we get No Deal, because they can import more of the very unhealthy sugar they supply

46. So obviously, the govt started a TV campaign telling us to stop being fat

47. The govt condemned the Russian state, which said it had a vaccine that hasn’t been approved by regulators

48. And then it was revealed UK’s much-vaunted 90-minute rapid Covid test has not been approved by regulators

49. The govt said children would be safe if we re-opened schools

50. And then Boris Johnson said he would “bulldoze schools” in which there were Covid outbreaks, which seems a smidge excessive if Covid can’t spread in schools

51. The govt said there was no evidence any children had caught Covid in school. Schools are closed, so it would be difficult right now, but let’s not try to apply logic any more

52. An international study found pupils over 12 are just as susceptible to Covid-19 as any adult

53. Scientists called for routine testing of teachers and pupils

54. The Schools Minister said no because, I’m sorry, I have no idea why the Schools Minister said no, and neither does he. People asked. He didn’t have an answer.

55. And then Immigration minister Chris Philp asked if he could re-record a live interview, after he forgot what country he was from

I’m sure it’ll be fine.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 18.08.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

It’s Tuesday, #TheWeekInTory is already 80 points long, and I’m very sorry you have to read it.

And even more sorry I had to write the bloody thing.

Anyway, here goes.

1. The govt announced quarantine for people returning from France

2. It waited until everyone had made travel plans, then brought the policy forwards 24 hours

3. And then an MP using the name “Grant Shapps” helpfully told everybody the wrong date for the start of quarantine

4. Irony’s own Bermuda Triangle, Priti Patel, said migrants were only coming here because the French are all racist and Germans torture people

5. Days after MoD said Patel’s plans for channel protection were “completely potty”, the Navy refused to send warships into the Channel

6. And the UN said her ideas were “very troubling” and would cause “fatal incidents”

7. The govt proceeded with plans to end the furlough scheme, after think-tanks predicted would cost 2 million jobs

8. Universal Credit requires £11bn extra investment to make it cope with current levels of claims, and here come another £2m

9. So naturally, the govt made applications for Universal Credit “online only”, after removing 4000 computers from libraries and job centres since 2015

10. The govt claimed 90% of homeless people were helped off the streets, but data actually showed rough-sleeping rose sharply

11. So govt will scrap the ban on evictions in 5 days’ time, predicted to cause 220,000 extra people in England to become homeless just as winter starts

12. The National Residential Landlords Association said the ban on evictions was “an unnecessary hindrance to our members”

13. 28% of Tory MPs are landlords, and I’m going to mark that down as “an incredible coincidence” and ask no further questions

14. News of unnecessary hindrances brings me to top fireplace salesman Gavin Williamson. He started the week modestly, with a cheery pledge to starve 175,000 children of immigrants, by stopping their free meals while their families cannot legally work or claim benefits

15. All the way back in the mists of time (in May) the govt instructed Ofqual to tell teachers to spend hours per-pupil creating estimated grades, which were reviewed and approved by headteachers

16. But then toothsome mantis Gavin Williamson decided teachers know less than quickly-written and badly-tested software does, and commissioned an algorithm to invent grades for this year’s students, based largely on totally different students from different years

17. The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) offered to help assess the outcome of the algorithm after staff at Dept for Education raised concerns. But the govt put barriers in the way which would prevent the RSS from operating properly for 5 years. So they couldn’t help.

18. Gavin Williamson is on record instructing Ofqual to design a system that could not allow grade inflation

19. But this week, in a wildly unpredictable turn of events, he blamed Ofqual for – brace yourself – designing a system that did not allow grade inflation

20. But private schools did get grade inflation, an average 8x the increase state schools got

21. On average, 40% of state schools results were downgraded, and in Northern England it was as high as 84%

22. In some subjects, 98.9% of results from private schools were inflated

23. The Times reports the govt still plans to use the algorithm for GCSE’s, but will not downgrade any results, only upgrade them: which only benefits private schools

24. And then a maelstrom of policy changes began: first, students were barred from appealing against results

25. Then they were permitted to appeal results, at a cost of £113 per exam

26. Then it was announced schools would pay the fees, even though schools are not only closed, but broke, having had £7bn cut from their budget by Tories

27. And then it was announced the appeals would be free, even though Ofqual has no facilities to handle that number of appeals

28. And then they cancelled the appeals program completely

29. All that appeals stuff happened in just 48 hours

30. When Scotland used the algorithm, it led to a crisis and had to be abandoned, and Tories called for the Scottish Education Minister to resign

31. Regardless, the UK govt implemented the algorithm that had just been proven to fail, and seemed surprised when it failed

32. The Minister of Innovation said A-Levels don’t matter as much as “grit and determination”, and his failure at Harrow “taught me how to hustle”. He is the 5th Lord Bethan, and “hustled” his way to a hereditary peerage as a result of his Dad dying. Good hustling, dude!

33. Gavin Williamson said there would be “No U-turn, no change”, which I think he got from a sign outside a toll-booth on the M6

34. Boris Johnson said, “be in no doubt about it, the exam results that we’ve got today are robust, they’re good, they’re dependable for employers”

35. The Daily Mail – yes, even them – reported the govt only changed its mind after the headmaster of Eton – yes, even them – complained about the unfairness

36. The UK Equalities Watchdog warned it would intervene because the algorithm results were discriminatory

37. Gavin Williamson claimed he only spotted the flaws “at the weekend”, but hours later it was revealed the Commons Education Dept warned him of all these flaws and dangers, in person, and then in a report sent to him on 10th July

38. On the steps of Downing St the day he became PM, Johnson said “My job is to make sure your kids get a superb education, wherever you are from. I will take personal responsibility. The buck stops here”.

39. Boris Johnson is busy “glamping”, so in his absence it was decided the buck stops at the head of Ofqual, who simply followed ministerial instructions; and at Gavin Williamson’s permanent secretary, who was unceremoniously sacked for doing what his boss told him

40. Meanwhile, Williamson felt the best use of his time was to pose for a photo with little on his desk but a cup, a seemingly empty file, and a whip (for reasons that bewilder, but are in keeping with his apparent background as a mildly disturbing minor Addams Family character)

41. Winston Churchill’s grandson, a Tory MP, said of Gavin Williamson “what could have been in the Prime Minister’s mind that led him to appoint so mere, so unreliable, so wholly unsuitable a man to one of the most important jobs in Government”

42. A Tory MP said “It was as clear as day that there would be an issue, given what happened in Scotland, yet they fucked around”

43. A poetic Tory MP said the govt was “wanking into the void”, and if that’s not the name of a band by midnight, what’s the point of anything?

44. There are now calls for Ofqual to be abolished and replaced with something that will probably be worse, but as yet no news on which unqualified but vaguely aristocratic Tory MP’s wife will run it. I’ll keep you posted.

45. Meanwhile, Gavin Williamson had promised to provide laptops to disadvantaged students during the lockdown, but only half the required laptops were delivered, and 27 Academy Trusts got just 1 laptop each, to be shared between over 2000 students

46. After the stunning success of this bit of Artificial Intelligence, the govt announced plans to boost Whitehall AI spending by £200m. The money will go to Faculty AI, which has links to [checks notes] a Mr Dominic Cummings, resident of Whitehall and Specsavers in Durham

47. Rumours that the govt has an algorithm that turns every minister into Chris Grayling are unfounded

48. Chris Grayling – I mean, Gavin Williamson – now has to persuade parents that he’s competent enough to make schools safe for their kids to return. Good luck with that, Gav.

49. The govt had 5 months to plan and execute one exam policy affecting 335,000 students

50. The govt now has 4 months to plan and execute over 2000 Brexit policies affecting 67 million of us, and every business in the country. Brace, brace.

51. On the subject of Brexit, this week Boris Johnson said there would only be a customs border in the Irish Sea “over my dead body”.

52. The same Boris Johnson signed the Withdrawal Agreement that creates a customs border in the Irish sea

53. Trade Secretary and part-time punchline Liz Truss promised “I will consign these unfair tariffs to the bin of history” when she makes her stern demands in a trade deal between USA (world’s biggest economy) and UK (2% of global trade). I bet the USA is shitting itself.

54. Meanwhile, after Liz Truss sang the praises of a potential deal with NZ (value: 4% of the trade we will lose with a No Deal Brexit) the NZ deputy PM said “Britain is not match fit for trade talks” and was “beset with inertia”

55. Boris Johnson promised “lower costs and a bonfire of red tape” as a result of Brexit

56. So imagine my shock when this week the govt pledge £355m to help companies in NI deal with “a new wave of red tape”

57. The govt scrapped Public Health England in the middle of a pandemic. Cos that’s what we need. Not testing. Just a new sign over a door.
.

58. It then appointed Dido Harding to the replacement organisation, even though the replacement organisation didn’t exist at the time

59. Some notes on Dido Harding, in case you’re unfamiliar with her impressive record of failing upwards

60. The Evening Standard – a Tory-supporting paper – wrote of her “Dido Harding’s utter ignorance is a lesson to us all”

61. She ran the programme that spent 15x the worldwide average building a tracing app that she was told wouldn’t work, unsurprisingly didn’t work work, and which it then scrapped without publishing accounts of where that £13m went

62. She runs Test and Trace, described as “not fit for purpose, let alone world-beating” by the chair of NHS Providers

63. Her £100m Test and Trace programme traced only 56% of cases, compared with Blackburn council, who traced 98% without a penny of new funding

64. She is a Tory peer, married to a Tory MP, who is adviser to a group that campaigns for the defunding, break-up and sale of the NHS; and if you wanted that, putting somebody famous for “utter ignorance” in charge would be a good first step

65. She’s on the board of The Jockey Club, which is based in Matt Hancock’s constituency and gave tens of thousands in donations to Matt Hancock, and then coincidentally got dispensation to stay open for 180,000 unwitting fans when the Covid 19 outbreak began

66. A major Jockey Club sponsor is Randox, to whom her husband is an adviser, and which coincidentally got a £133m contract to produce testing kits without any other providers being allowed to bid for the work

67. Her husband – get this – is a “Govt Anti-Corruption Champion”

68. More govt anti-corruption, and Serco got a £108m contract, just months after it was fined £2.6m for buggering up a previous contract. The minister awarding the contract? A former Serco lobbyist. Chief exec of Serco? A Tory MP.

69. Meanwhile, Medical Examiners have been instructed not to make public the results of investigations into hundreds of deaths of NHS workers who didn’t have PPE

70. The value of utterly useless PPE rose from a mere £50m last week to £300m this week

71. And who got the contracts for useless PPE? A company part-owned by a friend and advisor to Liz Trust. Did I say Trust? I meant Truss. Definitely not Trust.

72. Meanwhile, Sajid Javid, employed full-time as an MP, also took a job at banking giant JP Morgan; cos if the last 10 years has taught us anything, it’s that there’s no danger in MPs or bankers not fully concentrating on what they’re doing

73. The Royal Society issued a report saying relaxing the lockdown early would “inflate deaths and deepen recession”

74. So obviously, the govt relaxed the lockdown in Leicester

75. The Chief Exec of the care home charity CIC said the care sector was “being left to prepare for a second wave alone” as it has received no advice or assistance from govt

76. 10% of care home residents died of Covid in the first half of this year. Not laughing now, are you

77. Weeks after it was proven Russia was regularly attempting to pervert UK democracy, a report found “an ongoing risk of cyber security incidents within Cabinet Office due to the vulnerability of legacy IT systems”, and Michael Gove is directly responsible for fixing it

78. Michael Gove was found to use an insecure email account under the name “Mrs Blurt” (and boasting of blurting as a way of deterring spies is, shall we say, novel) to discuss govt business with Dominic Cummings. So I don’t have terribly high hopes

79. The govt continued to focus on the big stuff, by converting a privy council room in number 9 Downing St into a TV studio it dubbed “the best in the world” – but then again, isn’t everything in this list?

80. The “best in the world” studio isn’t big enough to fit socially distanced journalists, the PM hasn’t even got an official spokesman, and Civil Service regulations prevent one from being appointed but the govt hadn’t realised that

It’s Tuesday. We have 3 more days of this week to go.

I’ll be here again in a few days, and in the interim I will accept gifts of good single malt whisky, or heroic doses of laudanum

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 14.09.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory had to pause for a bit while I dealt with a poorly old mum. So this is actually about 3 weeks, very compressed

I dreaded coming back to this. I mean, honestly, where do you start?

Deep breath…

1. Theresa May couldn’t agree a Withdrawal Agreement (WI) because – in news that will shock the millions who warned about this – it’s impossible due do without accepting EU rules, or harming NI, or breaking up the UK, or crippling the economy, or all of the above

2. Nevertheless, Boris Johnson agreed a WI from the EU

3. Then Tories voted to accelerate the Withdrawal Agreement through parliament, specifically so it wouldn’t have to face scrutiny

4. And Boris Johnson withdrew the whip – sacked – 21 Tories who didn’t support the delay

5. Then he won an election by promising the WI was “oven-ready” and “brilliant”

6. Later, in a massive shock, it was discovered the WI contains all the problems that prevented May from agreeing it

7. So the govt announced it would just break the law and ignore its own treaty

8. Each MP’s Oath of Allegiance includes “I will give my loyalty to the United Kingdom… uphold its democratic values … and observe laws faithfully”

9. All 5 living ex-PM’s oppose this plan

10. Every living ex-Tory leader opposes it (except IDS, but c’mon, it’s IDS)

11. So now the govt which sacked 21 MPs for opposing the WI is threatening to sack any MPs who support the same WI

12. The actual Police Minister said it’s OK to break the law

13. The Lord Chancellor, Britain’s highest law officer, said it’s OK to break the law

14. The Attorney General, responsible for advising the govt on legal matters, said it’s OK to break the law

15. The Lord Chancellor and Attorney General are barristers, and the Bar Council guidelines say you will be struck-off if you “knowingly advise a client to break the law”

16. Same day, Foreign Secretary and irony no-fly-zone Dominic Raab said Iran “must comply with its legal commitments and treaties”

17. Gavin Williamson and Mark Francois were nominated for the MP Of The Year Award

18. This was the last known sighting of Mark Francois

19. Michael Gove said in a July speech “failures of policy and judgement”, are generating a “crisis of authority” and “Politicians like me must take responsibility for the effect of their actions”

20. Gavin Williamson is still in his job

21. But the head of Ofqual was sacked

22. And the most senior education civil servant had to stand down

23. In fact, resignations by senior civil servants are up 14% in a year

24. But 44% of new senior appointments are personal friends of Michael Gove, in one of those amazing coincidence things

25. Other amazing coincidences, a sub-thread:

a. Public First, a company led by Govt and Cummings associates, was handed a contract to help Ofqual with the exams fiasco. The contract wasn’t put out to tender

b. Gove appointed ex-girlfriend Simone Finn as adviser to Cabinet Office. Finn immediately paid her own company to “shake up the Cabinet Office”

c. Gove handed a contract (without tender) to PWC, a company that pays him £5000 per hour to give speeches

d. Gove gave £21k to Signal AI, a company associated with Gove and Cummings, to ask Tunisians what they think about Covid

e. Faculty AI, associated with Gove and Cummings, got £400k to analyse tweets by UK citizens. So if I vanish one dark night, tell my family I tolerated them

f. And another contract went to the cousin of Tory MP Tom Tugendhat to “analyse the awarding of govt contracts”, which is like a spiral, wrapped inside a Möbius strip, encased in a corkscrew, and tethered to a twat

26. Anyway, back to the fun: Home Secretary and Nurse Ratched cosplayer Priti Patel authorised “more painful” Taser guns, clearly anticipating more determined rioters

27. She then abandoned a deportation flight after it was found every passenger had leave to stay in the UK

28. Matt Hancock said we should get back to work as there is “little evidence” coronavirus is passed on in offices, having seen Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings catch coronavirus in their office

29. Then he voted for himself to continue to work remotely for 11 more weeks

30. Tories told us to lose weight

31. Then they paid us to go and eat out

32. Then they told us face-masks were essential

33. But not in schools

34. Then they were essential in schools

35. Then they told us to keep social distancing

36. Then they held a meeting of 50 PMs in a room with a capacity for 29

37. Then only 8 minutes later, they tweeted that the were updating advice to ban meeting in groups of 30

38. Then they banned you from meeting more than 6 people

39. But you can still go to the pub, 30 of you can attend a wedding or (more likely) a funeral, 30 of you get in a rugby scrum, and you can sit on a packed train carriage with 80 other people

40. Oh, and obviously, grouse-shooting is exempt. After all, what are we: French!?

41. And the new ban didn’t start for a week, and excluded the St Leger horse racing meet, where 3640 people crowded together making money for The Jockey Club; and isn’t it amazing that Matt Hancock is MP for Newmarket, where his major donors The Jockey Club are based?

42. So now the R number (which Boris Johnson was “absolutely committed to keeping below 1”) is at 1.7

43. Matt Hancock made a big deal of £60k compensation for families of NHS workers who died fighting Covid. The govt simultaneously stopped all their benefits

44. Hancock then started a scheme to financially support those forced to self-isolate, paying them up to (that’s “up to”) £13 a day

45. In preparation for the forthcoming homelessness epidemic, Tory councils voted to fine people £1000 for being too poor have anywhere to sleep

46. The govt said it was “ramping up to 150k tests a fortnight” 3 months after they claimed they were doing “over 100k tests a week”

47. Matt Hancock said he was changing the law to allow nurses to give flu vaccinations, unaware nurses already give over 93% of flu vaccinations

48. Then he launched a campaign to fight obesity, and immediately closed the agency responsible for delivering it

49. And then he advertised for a person to replace the head of Public Health England. The advert said no experience in health is required. In a pandemic.

50. The govt announced Operation Moonshot!, an exciting-sounding £100bn plan to test 10m people a day using technology that doesn’t exist, delivered by the people behind the PPE crisis, Brexit, Gavin Williamson, and Chris Grayling literally failing his own intelligence test

51. Meanwhile, we ran out of home testing kits

52. Then more shortages led us sending people on 500-mile round trips for a Covid test, in what experts have dubbed “the full Cummings Experience”

53. Six months after the first case in the UK, despite having diligently spent over £1bn on contracts with sweet suppliers and dormant companies with no employees, the UK still is not capable of producing a single piece of hospital-standard PPE

54. Researchers from King’s College London found Tories “employed overt disinformation” with “new levels of impunity” in the 2019 General Election

55. The govt was “formally warned for threatening press freedom” (putting us in the same classification as Russia) by the Council of Europe, which the UK co-founded in 1949 to protect human rights

56. It was then reported Boris Johnson plans to opt out of human rights laws

57. Meanwhile, a cross-party group of MPs is threatening to sue Boris Johnson if he continues to ignore calls for an enquiry into Russian interference in UK politics. People connected to the Putin regime paid £160k to play tennis with Boris Johnson

58. The leader of Scottish Tories tweeted “I would have no hesitation in voting against any legislation which would allow chlorinated chicken or hormone-injected beef. That’s a categorical assurance.”

59. He then voted to allow chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef

60. The govt voted not to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower enquiry

61. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions was quoted as saying “it is not my job to worry about people starving to death in the UK”

62. The govt announced new Covid restrictions with a densely worded 10-page legal document, released at 11.38pm on Sunday night, just 22 minutes before police, hospitals, health officials, local councils, schools and businesses had to implement them

63. The document ends: “no impact assessment has been done”, surprising nobody familiar with Brexit

64. Environment news, and as a liveable world slips relentlessly from our grasp, the UK spent just £2000 – not a typo – tackling environmental damage to the British countryside

65. They spent £46m (2300 times as much) telling us to get ready for a Brexit that didn’t happen

66. And the Tory-appointed head of the Environment Agency endorsed proposals to weaken laws on the cleanliness of rivers, lakes and coastlines

67. Meanwhile the Fisheries Minister posed “catching mackerel” with a rod that had no line in a sea that has no mackerel, and I had to order a fresh barrel of satire

68. Nine months into Boris Johnson’s “levelling up” agenda, the gap between rich and poor pupils has grown 46%

69. And finally, because no list of abject failure is complete without him, Chris Grayling literally resigned from Intelligence

Thank you for coming to my TED talk. Please pick up your complimentary revolver on the way out, and remember to write a will.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 21.09.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory returns for the second time in 4 days

The weeks grow shorter, but the days last forever

Anyway: don your athletic support, lower your visor, drink heavily, and start with some comparatively minor corruption…

1. The consultant who advised the govt to look for “alternative arrangements” on the Irish Border is in line for a £200m contract if alternative arrangements go ahead

2. But to facilitate this, the govt has to break international law with the Internal Market Bill (IMB)

3. Nobody can tell us what the “alternative arrangements” are, but the IMB passed through parliament anyway

4. The UK’s highest-ranking law officer in Scotland resigned over the IMB

5. The UK’s special envoy on media freedom, Amal Clooney (yes, that one) quit over IMB

6. The former (Tory appointed) ambassador to USA said the IMB was “hugely damaging to our international reputation”

7. Those snowflake liberal Remoaners Toby Young, Peter Hitchens and Tim Montgomerie turned on the govt over IMB. As did every living former-PM

8. Joe Biden said there would be no UK/US Trade Deal if the IMB went ahead

9. Iain Duncan Smith said “we don’t need lectures” from Joe Biden

10. Trump’s special envoy to NI also said there would be no Trade Deal

11. Apparently, IDS does need lectures. Who knew?

12. Oh, and IMB also includes a provision allowing the govt to break absolutely any law, absolutely any time

13. Unrelated, I’m sure, but the number of “problem drinkers” in England doubled this year

16. So the govt cut funding to alcohol addiction services

15. Dominic Raab, whose job it is to understand the Good Friday Agreement, admitted he hasn’t read the Good Friday Agreement

16. His excuse is: “it’s not a novel”. True. Novels tend to be longer than 35 pages, aren’t vital to solving conflicts that killed 3600 people

17. The PM, who literally voted to break a deal he signed with the EU, said the EU was “not negotiating in good faith”

18. The next morning, NI minister and arch memo-misser Brandon Lewis went on TV and said “I believe the EU is negotiating in good faith”

19. It was revealed the Smart Freight System to handle post-Brexit trade won’t be ready until at least April 2021.

20. That’s at least 4 months without a freight handling system, during the time of year we rely on food imports the most

21. The Road Haulage Assoc said a meeting with Michael Gove to discuss border checks provided “no clarity” and was “a washout”

22. An official report says 2-day queues at Dover in January are “a certainty”

23. So the govt closed a Covid test site in Kent, to convert it into a lorry park, in what experts (well, me) are calling “the world’s shittest game of whack-a-mole”

24. The govt said people would be fined £1000 if they don’t self-isolate after getting a positive test

25. And then all tests ran out in the 10 worst-hit Covid hotspots

26. And then all home testing kits ran out, nationally

27. And then the website for booking tests broke, and just showed a series of error messages

28. And then the govt said the system was under strain cos people were asking for tests when they didn’t know they were infected

29. So [deep breath] you must self-isolate after getting a test that doesn’t exist, and you can only get a test if you already know the result

30. Naturally, honesty no-fly-zone Priti Patel went on Radio 4 and announced tests were available everywhere and there were “no problems getting tests”

31. Same day – same hour, in fact – Boris Johnson said the testing system “has huge problems”

32. Jacob Rees-Mogg, who simply cannot shut up about fish, said we should stop the “endless carping” about not being tested for a fatal infection

33. Boris Johnson went on national TV and announced a “£100bn moonshot” approach to Covid, which would test “10m people per day”

34. Three days later, in front of a Parliamentary Committee, said he “didn’t recognise” the figure of 10m a day

35. And it was reported his half-brother is on the board of the business that would get most of the £100bn budget, which I’m sure is just a massive coincidence

36. Officials branded the moonshot as “Moonfuck”

37. And then Matt Hancock had to ask other cabinet ministers to stop referring to him as “Matt WankCock”

38. Despite appearances, these are not 7 year old boys

39. Food news, and Tory MP Douglas Ross said “I have seen the difference free school meals can make, and I want to make sure nobody falls through the cracks”

40. Douglas Ross voted against free school meals

41. Boris Johnson said we cannot put punitive restrictions on food imports from the EU (to force them to give up on Ireland), or we will starve

42. And then, minutes later, he agreed with a Brexiter MP who said we SHOULD put punitive restrictions on food imports from the EU

43. Boris Johnson said “I venerate our civil service” after sacking the innocent heads of multiple departments to protect friends including Gavin Williamson and Dominic Cummings. And as a result, people leaving the civil service rose 14% in a year

44. Planning-ahead news: an international conglomerate pulled out of a £16bn power project because the govt hasn’t performed its part of the deal for the last 20 months

45. Funding cuts since 2010 meant the govt had to inject £700m to prevent further education going bankrupt

46. This week it was found the govt – which last week voted not to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry – has also failed to deliver its promise to remove the same dangerous cladding from at least 2000 tower blocks. Sleep well.

47. And then the govt said files on Grenfell were “lost forever”, after a laptop was wiped. Cos everything is always stored on a single laptop. We all know this.

48. The govt runs G-Cloud, its own dedicated cloud backup service, which has been active since 2012. So… yeah.

49. At a committee in parliament, an MP read out the Covid test figures. Dido Harding, in charge of testing, said “I’m sorry, that’s just not true, I don’t know where that number is from”

50. It was from her own report. Page 8. In bold type.

51. Dido Harding said “nobody could predict” a rise in demand for testing

52. Govt scientists predicted it, and in a July report sent to Dido Harding – maybe it was a different one? – said “July and Aug must be a period of intense preparation for a Sept resurgence in Covid”

53. Oh, and standard advice says the NHS must always prepare for cold and respiratory infections to spike immediately after the return to school in Sept

54. Dido Harding wasted £13m on a “world-beating” testing app that cost £12.3m more than the German app, and didn’t work

55. She is now in charge of the test-and-trace service which has collapsed completely

56. So naturally, it was reported the govt wants to sack the head of NHS England and install Dido Harding instead. Let’s make the most of that successful record, eh?

57. In June the govt tweeted “grab a drink and raise a glass, pubs are reopening”

58. The PM said “it is your patriotic duty to go out and enjoy yourselves”

59. This week they said the public is responsible, and “people going to the pub fuelled the rise in Covid”

60. So the govt closed pubs at 10pm, cos it’s well-known viruses only pop out for last orders.

61. Matt Hancock said the govt “threw a protective ring around care homes”

62. A leaked document said care homes are now being asked to accept patients who are known to have Covid

63. Hospitals were banned from launching their own testing regime for staff and patience because… nope, nobody knows why. Just because.

64. There hasn’t been a meeting of COBRA (the govt’s committee for national emergencies, headed by the PM) since 10th May

65. As Covid infections surged, Matt Hancock said restrictions are increasing, and pointed to a chart showing the govt has “moved to alert level 3”. Level 3 is “a gradual relaxing of restrictions”. Not only can’t he remember his own alert system, he can’t even read it.

66. Despite travel restrictions, it was reported the PM flew off for a long weekend in Perugia, where his friend the Russian billionaire Evgeny Lebedev lives. He denies it, but the airport has his landing documents. So either he’s lying or… no, that’s the end of that sentence

67. In June the govt spent £500m on a GPS satellite system to replace the one we lose due to Brexit

68. In July it was reported “we bought the wrong satellites”

69. This week the govt cancelled the programme and began asking the EU if we can keep on using their GPS system

70. A cross-party committee of MPs found nurse-Ratched cosplayer Priti Patel “bases immigration policies on anecdotes and prejudice”

71. It found her dept has “no idea” what its annual spending achieves, and referred to “the wreckage that [Patel’s dept’s] ignorance caused”

72. She is one of the favourites to replace Johnson

73. This is because it was reported the PM is thinking of quitting because he’s worried about his personal finances: the poor man has to “pay tax”, “buy his own food” and “support 4 of his 6 children”. Oh, the humanity!

74. And Jonathan Aitken – look him up – continues to get privileged access to parliament despite a ban on MPs who have served more than a year in prison. Which he did. And it was hilarious.

75. And finally, because he always needs a guest appearance, Chris Grayling, the man who awarded a ferry contract to a company with no ships, has got a £100k appointment to advise ports

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 28.09.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I was gonna leave #TheWeekInTory until Friday, but at their current rate it’ll be 1000 tweets long by then, and I’m worried about you, mate.

It’s OK to get drunk on at 5pm on Monday, isn’t it? Well, that’s my recommendation anyway. Here goes…

1. In June Boris Johnson said to Black Lives Matter protestors: “I hear you”, and acknowledged the “incontrovertible, undeniable feeling of injustice” that “we simply cannot ignore”

2. So obviously, 40 Tory MPs refused to take part in unconscious bias training

3. The govt shut pubs an hour early, seemingly under the impression coronavirus (an inert, sub-microscopic infectious entity with no brain or nervous system) can tell the time

4. The govt demanded we all follow the rules

5. The govt exempted House Of Commons bars from the rules

6. Health Minister Helen Whately said “people who get drunk and leave the pub to keep on partying should remember their responsibility for the nation’s health”

7. Helen Whateley, who is *actually* responsible for the nation’s health, was sober when she said this. Presumably

8. After 6 months of world-leading “throwing apps in the bin but taking the cash anyway”, the govt finally proudly released an NHS Testing App

9. It didn’t work with NHS tests

10. Or on 18% of phones

11. Or in Scotland or Northern Ireland

12. And a report said only 10% of the us will use it, cos we don’t trust Dominic Cummings with our data

13. Nor should we: the Data Commissioner said Cummings’ proposed changes to privacy law will see the UK barred from sharing global data, and cost the UK economy “up to £80bn”

14. Meanwhile the promise of 500,000 tests per day won’t be reached because, in news that should shock nobody, the govt failed to order enough raw materials

15. So the govt stopped releasing evidence of how many are being tested, cos if you don’t look at it, it isn’t real

16. The govt, which only weeks ago was demanding we go back to work or all get sacked, now demands we all stay at home

17. Them the govt said the reason the UK had the worst Covid response AND worst economy in Europe is because we are “freedom-loving”

18. And then govt freedom-lovingly banned schools from using any materials that criticised capitalism

19. Not content with this, they also banned schools discussing “victim narratives”, which is going to make it tough to maintain their national anti-bullying strategy

20. And then a leaked report said the govt was planning to freedom-lovingly deploy the military on the streets

21. Meanwhile, the govt announced only 24% of businesses have done any preparation for Brexit, and only 30% of cross-channel HGVs have the correct paperwork

22. The govt finally admitted what they’d been told repeatedly since 2016, and said Brexit would create 2-day queues of 7000 lorries at Channel ports

23. 7000 lorries (at the average 16.5m each) is 1155km. That’s a queue over 700 miles long. Every day.

24. To solve this, the govt announced a new internal border in Kent, helpfully relocating 700 miles of queues to London, Essex, Surrey and East Sussex instead

25. A month ago, Tory MP Sir Edward Leigh was demanding we “take back” Calais. Now we’re essentially abandoning Kent.

26. Because we only had 4 years to plan for this, our lovely new border will start on 1 January and be controlled by software that – and you should probably open a second bottle around now – won’t be ready until at least 4 months later

27. Oh, and border checks won’t be ready in Northern Ireland either

28. But we might not have a problem anyway: it was revealed there are just 2000 EU haulage permits for our 40,000 UK hauliers. That’s 5% of what we need, for any Govt Ministers struggling with the maths

29. And we don’t even have enough pallets for the goods we import, cos we currently rely on a supply we share with the EU, and have neither the wood nor the treatment plants, nor the required chemicals to make and treat our own

30. So now the govt has to make a 200m border, a mechanism for policing it, an internal passport system, software, admin, buy 38,000 permits and grow enough trees for 700,000 pallets. In 3 months.

31. It had 5 months to add up some A-Level results, and that went swimmingly

32. I’m sure supply-and-demand won’t force prices sky high, cos it never does when you have 5% of the food the nation needs and a govt which boasts about breaking the law, but it was also announced tariffs will add £3.1bn to the nation’s food bill in Jan 2021

33. As a mark of confidence, Jim Ratcliffe, Britain’s richest man and a leading Brexiteer, buggered off to Monaco

34. And an unnamed minister was quoted: “We are stuck in a bind. If we try to cancel Brexit we destroy ourselves; if we go ahead with it we destroy the country”

35. The London School of Economics reported the long-term cost of Brexit will be 2-3 times the cost of Covid

36. So Rishi Sunak cancelled the budget, cos once again, if you don’t look at it, it doesn’t exist

37. JPMorgan shifted £200 billion out of the UK and into Germany calling it “a result of Brexit”.

38. At least 22% of our entire national economy depends on international banks based in the City of London, so when the largest one fucks off, it’s a relaxing development

39. Theresa May said the govt’s bill to break international law is “reckless” and “risks the integrity of the United Kingdom”

40. The Attorney General, who takes an oath to parliament, the Queen and The Bar to observe the law, said she was “very proud” to be breaking the law

41. The UK is a signatory and legal guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to the island of Ireland after 3600 violent deaths. The Attorney General, who is sworn to maintain peace, says Brexit will break the GFA, and she is “extremely proud” of that too.

42. Turns out, the advisory Professor who told her she should go ahead and break the law and endanger peace in Ireland is the partner of Michael Gove’s special advisor. It’s amazing, these coincidences. Almost as if they don’t want to listen to anybody else

43. Speaking of which, Boris Johnson’s old friend and unfailingly irrumating backer (google it) Charles Moore, who has spent his life demanding the end of the BBC, and said the BBC causes “human misery worthy of Dickens” (does he mean Mrs Brown’s Boys?) is in line to run the BBC

44. And it was reported ex Daily Mail Editor Paul Dacre, who shouts c*unt so much his meetings are called “the vagina monologues”, and whose paper is banned as a Wiki reference cos it lies so often, is going to be put in charge of Ofcom: ensuring decent and honest broadcasting

45. Oh yeah, and Boris Johnson tweeted “a free press is vital in holding the government to account”, which is probably why the people holding his govt to account are being replaced with his mates and cheerleaders

46. Tory MP and successful conscience-donor Andrea Jenkins got paid £25k from a thinktank that doesn’t exist

47. And because no list is complete without a disturbing nocturnal visitation from the smirking angel of death, Priti Patel was accused of incitement to racial hatred

48. Whilst Patel, Jenkyns and the Attorney General were busy redefining “the party of Law and Order” the rest of the govt took a wild swing at “the party of fiscal responsibility”, when it was revealed the govt has wasted £3,895,556,000 since March.

49. This includes unsafe testing kits; face masks that don’t work; broken tracing systems; useless antibody tests; cancelled ventilator challenge; and inexplicable contracts to sweet manufacturers and dormant companies with no employees, to provide PPE that never arrived

50. The govt, which insisted schools and universities reopened, said it was now vital to lock down students and prevent them from mixing in large groups

51. And then the govt said it was sanctioning class sizes of up to 60 which … remind me, is that more or fewer than 6?

52. Matt Hancock said “we’re giving up to 11,000 iPads to care homes to enable residents to connect with loved ones”

53. “Up to” is a bit telling, but even if it’s 11,000, there are 21,700 care homes in the UK. I guess they’ll just have to share. Goodbye forever, nana!

54. And finally, if you feel all alone in despairing at this: you aren’t. Belief in Britain as a “global force for good” has fallen 10% since 2019. I, for one, am shocked to the core.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 01.10.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

IHey Russ, didn’t you just do #TheWeekInTory on Monday?

Yes. Yes, I did.

But you’re having to do another on Thursday?

I don’t make the rules. And apparently, Boris Johnson doesn’t either.

Anyway, here we go again…

1. Boris Johnson said “The rules are very simple”

2. Then he got the rules wrong

3. Then he said “the rules are confusing”

4. Then he said he’d fine anybody breaking the rules £1000

5. Then his dad broke them

6. Then Boris immediately didn’t fine him a penny

7. This week’s fabulous quote from an anonymous Tory MP: “[Boris Johnson] genuinely doesn’t give a flying fuck what the policy is, he’s never done the homework, so he doesn’t know anything. There really is no point in talking to the Prime Minister about policy at all”

8. To make life less confusing for Boris, the Tory MP for 1950s Jaguar showrooms, Desmond Swayne, suggested every pub should just make up its own rules

9. Mr Swayne refused to take unconscious bias training: said he didn’t need it

10. Last year he was caught wearing blackface

11. Mind you, a poll found 60% of Tory members are openly Islamophobic, so [shrug]

12. In March Rishi Sunak, the nicest Tory, said “Nobody will go hungry as a result of Coronavirus”

13. This week, Sunak rejected calls to end cuts to benefits for the poorest 300,000 children

14. Let’s move on to this week’s best bewildering assault on logic. The Tory leader of Herts Council (which presumably means he’s the best one they’ve got) said the govt should abolish local councils so that local councils could remain Tory. Read that twice. I had to.

15. Over 80 Tory MPs confronted Boris Johnson, concerned about increasing length of his shortcomings, and demanded a say in future policy

16. Then they voted for the Internal Market Bill, which removes their say over future policy

17. Theresa May said the Internal Market Bill, which also breaks international law, was “reckless and irresponsible” and “risks the integrity of the United Kingdom”

18. See if you can guess who didn’t vote against the bill. Go on, have a guess. Yep. Theresa May

19. Hard-line Brexit cheerleader and Beta-version human Steve Baker said on Radio4 “many members of the Tory party are seriously concerned about parliamentary democracy and the rule of law”

20. So obviously, the next day, he too voted to break the rule of law

21. And the Lord Chancellor, the Attorney General, and the Solicitor General for England and Wales all voted against a clause in the bill “requiring Ministers to respect the rule of law and uphold the independence of the Courts”, cos why would they? They’re only in charge of law

22. So the EU, the other signatory to the deal, launched a legal action to stop us breaking it

23. We now have 3 months to resolve this case so we can get a vital trade agreement

24. An Argentinian / EU trade dispute has been ongoing since 2012. That’s a bit more than 3 months

25. All of this is, of course, to let us Get On With Brexit, primarily, judging by the rhetoric, so we can save our fish; which must be why this week, heroic Boris Johnson, our very own Sir Plankton Churchill, quietly gave away our fishing rights for another 3 years

26. It was revealed Financial Services businesses operating in the UK have relocated $1.6 trillion in assets to the EU ahead of the Brexit deadline

27. For context, the UK’s GDP is $2.8 trillion. Fairly simple maths, I don’t need to point it out to you.

28. It was revealed UK data about terrorists and serious criminals would “legally, have to be deleted” in the event of No Deal, because it would become illegal for the EU to share the information with us. So we would no longer be able to track terrorists.

29. To avoid import tariffs on car parts, we spent this week attempting to pretend Turkey was actually British

30. Sadly, the EU owns a map, so yep: we’re paying tariffs on car parts

31. The car industry said this would mean £100bn in losses, and be “catastrophic”

32. Fortunately, this week the govt admitted it is preparing finances to support “around 4 million unemployed for a significant period of time”. The maximum unemployment benefit is £74.35 a week, so… sleep well.

33. However, whilst preparing for mass unemployment, the govt doesn’t see much value in spending a penny saving jobs in the £12bn arts and culture sector, because who needs London to remain a major global destination for millions of tourists who love our arts and culture?

34. Doesn’t matter: we’re not keen on foreigners anyway, as Priti Patel was keen to point out when she genuinely suggested we build machines to generate massive waves to drive them all back into the sea, like a modern-day Cnut. This is not a typo. You just think it is

35. Next, she suggested we ship migrants to uninhabited Scottish Island, until it was pointed out all the ones you can land on are inhabited

36. Undeterred, the cabinet’s favourite Rosa Klebb impersonator suggested building concentration camps for migrants on a literal volcano

37. This idea wasn’t rejected cos it’s insane – it was rejected because it’s expensive

38. And we need the cash for Deloitte, who we pay to run a national Test & Trace programme that doesn’t work, whilst simultaneously selling a programme which *does* work to local councils

39. Matt Hancock told the Commons the govt trial on the use of Vitamin D as a treatment for Covid “sadly, did not appear to show any impact”

40. There has been no govt trial on the use of Vitamin D as a treatment for Covid

41. But in seemingly good news – no, really! – we now have four times as many ventilators as we had when the virus first hit

42. Oh, hold on: we can only use one fifth of them because we forgot to train enough staff. That’s more like it.

43. The govt pressed on with appointing Charles Moore as Chair of the BBC, even though he was fined for refusing to pay the licence fee, and even though the Tory head of the Culture and Media Committee said Moore being appointed would be “beyond the pale”
Russ

44. Charles Moore said “The Korean sets up a grocery store, which the black then robs – that is the caricature. One explanation is that there really is something different about blacks”

45. And he can also “detect in black men an indifference to normal social constraints”

46. And finally, a leaked letter from the Cabinet Office Minister to all heads of department said governance was “infantilised” and “unacceptable”, so at least one person in Whitehall is aware of the things the rest of us have known for years

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 05.10.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I was gonna do another #TheWeekInTory but, try as I might, I could not find a thing they’d done wrong since Friday.

No corruption. No ineptitude. No lies. No hypocrisy. Just a solid 96 hours of honest, decent and reliable governance.

Only kidding: it’s an absolute shit-show…

1. A report found the “Eat Out To Help Out” scheme cost £500m and didn’t do a single thing to improve the economy of the UK’s hospitality sector

2. However, it did help to double the number of infections, although they forgot how to count, so didn’t notice

3. As infections spiked, the govt briefly woke up and introduced local lockdowns

4. But predictably, the local councils responsible for implementing the new plans were given literally (not making this up) 5 minutes warning and no additional resources whatsoever

5. It was revealed absolutely not a single penny of the £1.58bn “Arts Rescue Plan” announced to great fanfare in July has actually been handed out to the artists or venues relying on it

6. So unsurprisingly, the country’s largest cinema chain had to close, costing 5,500 jobs

7. But thankfully Work and Pensions Minister Thérèse Coffey was on hand to reassuringly tell them they can all become Care Workers with “very little training” (I’m sure nursing is a doddle)

8. Slight problem: in June the govt froze millions in funding for training care workers

9. But it’ll be fine, won’t it? I mean, who needs to train care workers? We have plenty, don’t we? Oh, hold on: this week it was revealed care workers are caring for 2,400 families each, which is 10x the recommended number

10. Good News for Boris Johnson, as a poll of Tory Members found they think Gavin Williamson is even shitter than the PM

11. Bad News: they think every other Conservative MP is better than the PM, and only 28% of them think he’s up to the job. And that’s his fan-club.

12. So Boris Johnson went on a charm offensive (and did both), and promised to build 40 new hospitals

13. Seemingly he had forgotten – or hoped we had – that he also promised to build 40 new hospitals a year ago, and then … how can I put this? … didn’t

14. The 40 new hospitals have £3.7bn budget

15. Unfortunately, 40 new hospitals would cost at least £24bn

16. And there’s backlog of £6bn in maintenance and repairs, so the day it was launched the “new hospital fund” was £2.3bn short of building a single Lego Hospital

17. Last week Boris Johnson said the Covid rules were simple, then forgot them, then said they were complicated, then said he’d fine people breaking them, then didn’t fine his own dad

18. This week his own dad broke the rules for a second time and [tumbleweed]

19. So 6 days after the PM went on TV to assure us the lockdown rules were simple, the govt has announced it will announce some simplified rules. But not yet. Soon. In a bit. First we need another few levels of announcements about announcements, cos there’s no rush fellas.

20. I always try to find a supportive and approving quote about Boris Johnson from an star-struck anonymous Tory MP: this week, I have an embarrassment of riches

21. “It’s like ‘carry on coronavirus’, with Boris as Sid James and Matt Hancock as Kenneth Williams”

22. “I find myself bewildered at the clownish lack of professionalism in Downing St”

23. “If you drop something which is entirely ornamental [meaning Boris] it tends to lose its appeal”

24. “We’ve gone from eat out to help out, to drink up and piss off”

25. The Tories called loudly for the firing of the SNP’s Margaret Ferrier for travelling by train after being found positive for Covid

26. No word yet about them calling for the removal Tory MP Peter Gibson, who travelled 250 miles by train with Covid symptoms

27. Peter Gibson is part of the new “Red Wall” intake of Tory MPs, so presumably was keen to return to his constituency to inform them that 1/3 of them would be £1000 a year worse off due to govt cuts

28. It was revealed that 5 years after Tories pledged to end money laundering with the announcement “there is no place for dirty money in Britain”, absolutely no action has yet been taken, and the legislation has been gathering dust since 2015

29. But thankfully, non-corrupt ministers like Robert Jenrick, who takes “donations” (which are apparently different from bribes) from housing companies, are still doing the right thing, such as unlawfully overruling his own officials to grant a £50m tax saving to a donor

30. And a legal challenge was launched over a £580k contract to friends of Dominic Cummings, with no competitive tendering

31. Oh, and Matt Hancock takes “donations” from the horse-racing fraternity, and excluded the highly profitable Cheltenham Festival from the lockdown

32. The former Chief Scientific Advisor said Cheltenham Festival “probably helped to accelerate the spread” of coronavirus

33. Not that we’d know, because it appears a mere 227 days after the first case, the govt still hasn’t learned to import data into an Excel Spreadsheet

34. Any IT manager would tell you Excel is not the way to store the data of up to 67 million people – it is spreadsheet software for a max of 1 million records

35. 16,000 tests were lost, and over 50,000 potentially infectious people may have been missed by contact tracers

36. On 2nd June, Boris Johnson announced he would take “direct control” of Covid

37. So 125 days later, he couldn’t tell us the social distancing rules, how many records had been lost, or explain why 4 different lockdown regimes exist in Greater Manchester alone

38. But human spork Matt Hancock rushed out to say NHS Test and Trace are working hard, neglecting to mention the slightly awkward truth that NHS Test and Trace is not run by the NHS, but by a private business under the guidance of the effortlessly terrible Dido Harding

39. Highly effective private business Serco do our contact tracing, which is why some of its tracing staff report being so under-occupied they have managed to watch 3 entire series of The Good Place and play computer games all day for months, while 60,000 Britons died

40. I have no idea if the Queen has noticed her govt’s honesty, but this week she said “having trusted, reliable sources of information is vital”

41. We enter flu season under a govt you can trust, but who accidentally failed to send the flu vaccine to GPs for over a month

42. And the average hours for teachers increased from 53 to 70 hours per week, as they attempt to cope with endlessly shifting instructions

43. Teachers are also having to be cleaners in schools, as there is no additional money for adaptations to keep staff and students safe

44. As the govt prepares for 4 million unemployed in 2021, Rishi Sunak said he would introduce “job coaches”, and said 4 million of us being coached for *up to* 2 hours to do jobs that don’t exist would be “the first time that people will realise government could be helpful”

45. A report found “trust between ministers and staff is being severely eroded” by a 7-month delay in the bullying inquiry into Home Secretary and horcrux, Priti Patel

46. She then made a speech in which she voluntarily opted to define herself as opposite to those who “do good”

47. Possibly to distract from this, health minister Lord Bethell rushed out to claim Covid 19 would make us as proud as the Olympics

48. Covid 19 has killed about as many as you can fit into an Olympic Stadium, so maybe that’s what he meant

49. A quick detour into the magical, spinning world of gaffe-hamster Lord Bethell: last week he tried to distract from govt student cockups by claiming Covid 19 was predominantly caused by “late-night intimacy” and not by, for example, failing to trace infections

50. Earlier, Bethell tried to distract from govt A-Level cockups by claiming him failing A-Levels didn’t prevent him hustling to his lofty position (momentarily forgetting the hustling assistance he gained when his dad, the 4th Lord Bethell, hustled his way into a grave)

51. And finally, in an image that will haunt you, Matt Hancock announced he would only snitch on his neighbours if he was “watching them having an Animal House-style hot tub party”. Watching. He said watching. Matt Hancock. Watching.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 08.10.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

The thing I regret most about #TheWeekInTory is the actual events.

But just behind that is the fact I called it #TheWeekInTory, when in reality I am having to do one every 2 days.

Anyway, grab a pint of Laudanum, hide any sharp objects, and dive in…

1. A few days ago Boris Johnson excitingly announced 40 new hospitals he’d excitingly announced only last year; and then he arbitrarily upped it to 48 hospitals, cos whatever

2. To show how serious he is, he allocated a budget that will pay for slightly fewer than 2 hospitals

3. I don’t want to put doubt in your mind, but he’s promised us a garden bridge, and airport on a floating island in the Thames, and a bridge to Ireland…

4. Anyway, he then promised to turn Britain into “a new Jerusalem”, one of the most violent and divided places on earth

5. Pledging to unify the nation, he decried lawyers as “lefty do-gooders”, hot on the cloven-heels of Priti Patel

6. The ex-president of the Supreme Court said by “undermining the rule of law” the govt “is going down a very slippery slope” towards “dictatorship and tyranny”

7. Boris Johnson then listed all the great things he was going to do in the coming [unspecified period of time], but mystifyingly forgot to mention “Operation Moonshot”, which was the £100bn centrepiece of his Covid strategy only [specified period of time] 25 days ago

8. Un-phased that his Grand Plans last less than a month, he promised wind-turbines would power all UK homes within 10 years

9. He’s only slightly out: a report the next day found at the current rate, the govt will not meet its low-carbon targets for [checks calendar] 700 years

10. And now onto led-by-the-science news: back in May, only 47 days after South Korea introduced mandatory quarantine and free tests with a 24-hour results, the govt introduced quarantine after arriving UK airports

11. But we made it voluntary

12. And then we paused it

13. And then we re-introduced it, but made it shorter

14. And then we added fines

15. But we didn’t tell anybody to police the system

16. And then we said it was all under review

17. And now we’re talking about maybe announcing something new in November

18. But in the meantime, a man operating under the name “Grant Shapps” floated the idea that passengers should have to pay for their own tests, cos nothing says Serious About Public Health like an 8-month delay before shrugging and saying “oh, do it yourself”

19. But first (cos he wouldn’t want to rush things) a mere 253 days after the first UK case, and after a barely-worth-mentioning 60,000 deaths, the govt is considering maybe setting up a task-force to think about quarantine and testing at airports

20. In charge of this Quest for The Truth is Matt Hancock, a forlorn Weeble who this week refused three times to tell parliament whether Serco are still being paid for all the tests they lost, which means they definitely are

21. Hancock bought 1m antibody tests which dept for evaluating tests has said “cannot be trusted”

22. He’s has already blown £30 million on antibody tests that were “not fit for purpose”. He learns from his mistakes, and that’s why he’s now making much more impressive mistakes

23. Rishi Sunak said the jobs of all actors were “not viable” and they should find a new career, using the govt’s shiny new careers website

24. Almost every person who uses that site is advised to become an actor. It’s the first recommendation in almost every case. No, really.

25. The UK arts sector generates over £23 billion a year and employs 370,000 people

26. The UK fishing sector generates under 1.4 billion a year and employees 24,000 people (7% as big)

27. Guess which one Rishi Sunak, the man in charge of the budget, says is viable

28. But some sound decisions are still being made: a company run by associate of a Tory peer got a £122m contract to provide PPE only 7 weeks after the business was founded, with no competitive tendering and, thus far, no PPE delivered. So that’s OK then

29. 250,000 businesses NOT closely aligned with leading Tories can’t access the loans the govt promised

30. But because the govt didn’t track the loans it did give out, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to get repaid for a few of them. Well, I say a few. £26 billion. Pennies, really.

31. A cabinet minister said “local lockdowns have no effect. I don’t know why we’re doing them”

32. Another cabinet minster said “there’s no science behind the 10pm pub curfew, it’s back of a fag packet stuff”

33. So the govt said they would introduce more local curfews on pubs

34. But obviously, they told the newspapers about this, but didn’t inform the actual councils responsible for delivering it. Cos why would you?

35. Oh, and obviously, poor areas of the country were found to be four times more likely to be locked down than rich areas.

36. Fraser Nelson, editor of Tory cheerleader The Spectator, said: “Around the world, no govt has been judged to do a worse job by its people, and no country has created as much debt: no matter how you look at it, we’re pretty much the worst in the developed world”

37. And the head of the UK Covid Task Force said that even if we develop a vaccine and somehow manage to order it correctly and get it delivered to the right address, vaccinating all of the UK “is not going to happen”, which is funny way to issue a few thousand death warrants.

38. Anyway, we’ve giggled enough at the dead, let’s move on to the homeless: official analysis of govt housebuilding plans shows it would cut affordable housing by 47%

39. Robert “Elwood” Jenrick defended this policy on the remarkable grounds that he was “on a moral mission”

40. And so, onto Brexit, and Tory MP Tom Tugendhat, who voted to build border checkpoints in Kent, and voted to build a 27-acre lorry park in Kent, and voted to build infrastructure to cope with 70-mile traffic jams in Kent, called on the govt to stop all this building in Kent

41. Feral pipe-cleaner Michael Gove said “things are still looking very positive” and that he thinks the UK now has a 66% chance of what he once called “the easiest deal in history”

42. However, the lead EU negotiator said “it is difficult to feel optimistic about a deal”

43. Boris Johnson, who has spent the last 4 years telling us the Human Rights Act is a terrible thing that Brexit will finally free us from, has been forced to promise the EU that he won’t rip up the Human Rights Act, cos we really desperately need a deal

44. Sadly, he also promised he’d stick to the Withdrawal Agreement, and didn’t. So the EU said the UK deciding to break international law “calls into question trust in future promises and negotiations”, which absolutely nobody saw coming, except for everybody.

45. With only 7 days to go until the deadline for a deal – no, really, 15th Oct is the deadline – the UK chief negotiator, who wants to amend state-aid rules, admitted “no extensive text on state aid rules will be admitted” by the UK

47. So we want the EU to scrap its rules, and replace them with a set of vague, airy concepts that we can’t even put into words, 4 years after we voted to do this idiocy, and a mere 27 years after the campaign to leave the EU began

48. But there finally some great news about Brexit: Daniel Kawczynski, top Tory bullshit-hoover, and graduate of the Shaggy school of denialism, proudly announced he’s been appointed Trade Envoy to Mongolia. So we’re saved!

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 15.10.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Here comes another #TheWeekInTory, and I’m afraid it’s quite lengthy.

The positive we can take from this is that if you start now, you can probably get through the 2 bottles of gin you’ll definitely need before the end.

Uncork and begin…

1. Boris Johnson announced a new 3 Tier lockdown system, with the lowest Tier being “medium”, like at McDonalds

2. As part of the announcement, the Chief Medical Officer reassuringly said the plan wouldn’t work

3. The govt said “in all cases, we are following the science”

4. It was revealed the SAGE science committee told the govt to lockdown weeks ago, but that bit of science wasn’t followed very far

5. SAGE went on to say the govt’s “world-beating” £12bn Test and Trace system was having only “a marginal impact on transmission rates”

6. Dido Harding, head of Seemingly Everything, said Test and Trace would be “local by default” and be “highly efficient”

7. She then handed £12bn to Serco, which is highly efficiently charging us £7360 per day for consultants. To trace Covid infections. Which they aren’t doing

8. Serco’s CEO is the brother of an ex-Tory MP. His partner is a Tory donor. Serco’s ex-head of PR is now a Tory Health Minister

9. If you feel all this is a bit corrupt, you can complain to the govt’s Anti-Corruption Champion, John Penrose, who is married to Dido Harding

10. Meanwhile an investigation by the Good Law Project found PPE suppliers owned by Tory donors or associates were paid 30% more per item than similar businesses globally. I’m talling you: John Penrose. He’s your fella. He’ll get to the bottom of it, fo shizzle

11. And only 34 days since the announcement of Boris Johnson’s “brainchild”, the £100bn Operation Moonshot, it was quietly scrapped, along with (apparently) Boris Johnson’s brain and around 28% of his children

12. A Tory MP said Boris Johnson’s “personal skillset this doesn’t play to this. He’s not a details, manager type. He’s a picture painter”. On the side of wine-boxes, mostly.

13. Another said “I think it’s obvious this is a government happier picking fights than governing”

14. Another said Boris Johnson “prefers to get on with dog-walking” and “let’s Dominic do the work”

15. Chastened by reports local authorities were given only 5 minutes notice of previous lockdowns, this time the govt gave them … 7 minutes notice of the meeting to discuss it

16. Except some MPs didn’t even get that, and were only invited after the meeting had started

17. And the govt invited the MP for Sunderland, who had to inform them she was only of 3 Sunderland MPs. The govt was “surprised to be informed” of this

18. The dep Chief Medical Officer said the infection rate in the north “never dropped” meaning the relaxation of lockdown was at the expense of lives oop north

19. Then the govt said they would “devolve more decision-making” and “give more financial aid to local authorities”

20. But the aid is conditional on the “devolved” local authority doing what the govt wants, which is quite a novel a definition of “devolved”

21. So, following criticism, the govt briefed the press that it was going to consult more with regional govts

22. Literally 2 hours later, the govt briefed the press that Manchester was moving into Tier 3 restrictions. The Mayor of Manchester was not consulted (or even informed) about a decision he must implement, and which affects the largest city-region outside London.

23. A Tory MP, anxious about the lockdown affecting businesses over the party season, asked the PM “what can you tell us about Christmas”. Boris Johnson replied, “it’s a religious festival that’s been celebrated 2020 years”, which I’m sure helps us all

24. Matt Hancock insisted we all follow the science and adhere to the 10pm pub curfew that scientists say makes absolutely no improvement on infection rates

25. Then Matt Hancock broke that curfew, in a House of Commons bar

26. And then Matt Hancock said “The drinks are on me but Public Health England are in charge of payment methodology so I will not be paying anything”

27. In August, Public Health England was scrapped by [checks notes ] Matt Hancock

28. But prior to that, Tories imposed budget cuts of 5% to 10% on Public Health England for each of the previous 7 years

29. Unsurprisingly, it was reported that hospitals in the north of England would run out of beds within 7 days

30. The govt said “Hospital Trusts should consider cancelling all non-urgent treatments”

31. The govt then refused to drop fines it imposes on Hospital Trusts which cancel non-urgent treatments

32. So Matt Hancock announced the reopening of Nightingale Hospitals, which were closed last time because nobody could send patients to them, due to them not being staffed

33. They still aren’t staffed: Matt Hancock’s’ “urgent boost to nursing training” doesn’t start until 2021

34. Fortunately, the govt began a campaign to get ballerinas to retrain, and then scrapped the campaign 24 hours later

35. In June, Boris Johnson announced an “urgent” £1.57bn Arts Rescue Plan

36. A mere 127 days later, it “urgently” got around to paying out some of that money

37. Except by now the £1.57bn had become £257m, which is 16% of the plan they originally announced

38. Meanwhile, in news that will surely leave you all stunned and astonished, a month after work began on HS2 the budget for it has already risen a further £800m

39. Boris Johnson congratulated Marcus Rashford on the MBE he was awarded for his efforts to overcome the cruel policies of Boris Johnson

40. The Law Society raised concerns about the “dangerous rhetoric” of Home Office Minister and Mouth of Sauron, Priti Patel

41. The next day, a migration lawyer was victim of a knife attack, and senior lawyers said “Responsibility and accountability for this attack lies squarely at the feet of Priti Patel”

42. The Home Office announced plans to catch migrants in a big net and OH MY GOD

43. And then Lord West reassuringly said, “we need to deal with migrants in a concentrated place, a camp or whatever”. He didn’t mention whether Arbeit Macht Frei, but it’s still only Thursday, and who can tell what the remainder of the week will bring?

[ Open 2nd bottle now ]

44. Speaking of dates: today is 15th Oct, the absolute, immoveable deadline for trade talks that mighty, fearsome Boris Johnson laid down to the cowed and quivering EU

45. Talks continue tomorrow. Because obviously, duuur

46. This is the third absolute deadline imposed by the British that has been missed because the British have temporarily inverted arse and elbow

47. This didn’t stop Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew from berating haulage businesses for not being ready for Brexit on 1 Jan

48. The Road Haulage Assoc pointed out we have only 1,668 of the 33,000 EU Haulage Permits we need on 1 Jan

49. Software to control our borders won’t be ready until 4 months after 1 Jan

50. And the govt is “still in the planning stage” of the “Kent Passports” we need on 1 Jan

51. And construction of Kent’s “world’s largest lorry park” is behind schedule, so probably not ready on 1 Jan

52. Fortunately the govt is well-prepared, and plans to install 1000s of Portaloos in Kent, the garden of England, to be used by lorry drivers trapped in 2-day queues

53. And our food standards will still be fine, as Tory MP Nadhim Zahawi tweeted “Our manifesto was clear. We will not compromise our animal welfare and food standards”

54. He then voted to compromise our animal welfare and food standards, as did the rest of the Tory Party

55. And then govt used an obscure rule to deny MPs a vote on whether to allow chlorinated chicken

56. Meanwhile, 20 years after North Sea Cod became so overfished the WWF declared it “economically extinct”, Tory MPs voted to reduce protections designed to let fish stocks recover

57. So, after Brexit, our current plan is to accept tariffs that will destroy our manufacturing sector, and border delays that will destroy farming exports and imperil food supplies, and destroy the farming sector … all so we can go and catch a fish that doesn’t exist

58. But at least we’ve now “got back control”, and therefore we can level up the playing field by implementing the govt’s landmark “digital tax” policy on giants such as Amazon

59. This week it was announced Amazon will be exempt from the digital tax

60. Speaking of tax exemptions, it was revealed Dominic Cummings has had a £30,000 council tax bill “written off” because he built the house illegally, so it doesn’t count as a real house, or summat. Sorry, my hurricane-force sarcasm briefly turned me more northern.

61. And on the subject of extreme dodgy dealing, let me direct your attention to Robert Jenrick, who set up the £3.6bn “Towns Fund” for the 101 most deprived town, and then gave the maximum grant of £25m to his own constituency, which is the 270th most deprived town

63. His explanation was that he, Jenrick, did not make the decision. It was made by a colleague, Jake Berry.

64. Jake Berry also got money for his constituency. By a dazzling coincidence, that decision was made by – you guessed it – Robert Jenrick

65. Finally: at a meeting led by Liam Fox, the TaxPayers Alliance (insanity-pushers to the Tory Party) advocated cutting pensions immediately because half of old people “won’t be around to vote against you in the next election”, and the other half “will have forgotten by then”

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 20.10.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory returns, and I’m very sorry, but it’s a monster. The little scamps have achieved quite a lot in the – yep – FIVE DAYS – since the last one.

Let’s dive straight in with probably the most gobsmacking sentence you’ll read all year…

1. NHS staff were polled on whether, in recognition of their efforts to fight Covid 19, they would prefer to be given a badge or a snack box

2. It was reported 2 out of every 3 hospices will have to make redundancies. In a pandemic.

3. The govt published a poster: “We plan to cut all homeless people in half by 2025”, which is a bit severe even for Priti Patel

4. The govt insisted we all comply with Test and Trace rules, and then excluded restaurants in the Palace of Westminster from Test and Trace rules

5. In Sept Boris Johnson announced a £100bn “Operation Moonshot” to fix Covid “within months”

6. A month later it was leaked Moonshot was cancelled

7. The next day it was revealed the govt still pays over 200 private consultants up to £7000 per day each to work on Moonshot

8. So 2 days after it was cancelled, it was reinstated, but now Boris Johnson said it will “take time”

9. We’re still giving £100bn to private suppliers for a vaguely rapid thingy to do a hazily defined whatchamacallit that will happen too slowly to produce any useful results

10. In May Boris Johnson reassured a grateful nation that “nobody will go hungry as a result of Coronavirus”

11. He then denied food to the UK’s 600,000 poorest children

12. So Marcus Rashford ran a campaign to get the kids fed

13. Then Boris Johnson congratulated Rashford on the MBE he got for his campaign to overturn the cruel policies of [checks notes] Boris Johnson

14. And then 3 days later, Boris Johnson refused to feed the kids again

15. And then, (because let’s face it, allowing children to starve barely raises an eyebrow any more) the govt won a vote in parliament to prevent child refugees from being reunited with their families, because obviously that’s helpful to … anyone know who that helps? Anyone?

16. But the govt pressed ahead with helping British people to lose weight (by starving them), and it was reported the (obviously) private contract to provide emergency food-parcels is charging £44 for a box that costs just £19 at Aldi. And the govt one contains rotting food.

17. In Sept Boris Johnson said “a free press is vital in holding the government to account”

18. This week, govt scientists reported they are being banned from speaking to the press, due to “the difficult political landscape”, meaning silencing science is a purely political act

19. More media news, and it was revealed that following a long, noisy, mostly Lineker-focussed campaign to cut the wages of BBC staff, the Tories offered to increase the wage of the BBC Director General from £100k to £280k, but only if it could be Boris’s friend Charles Moore

20. In June the govt gave a contract for PPE worth £32m to Pestfix, a sweet warehouse with assets of £18,000. The govt paid 75% upfront, and the delivered materials turned out to be faulty

21. The govt has since awarded 5 additional PPE contracts to Pestfix, worth £313m

22. The govt is now being sued to find out why it’s covertly handing out almost £350m to a crisp warehouse for PPE it has proved it cannot supply, and Pestfix is using the £350m to pay lawyers to stop us finding out why it got £350m in the first place. Still no PPE.

23. And now, the latest update on Mark Francois…

Nope, that’s all I’ve got. Moving on…

24. Boris Johnson announced the new lockdown rules were “simple enough for anybody to understand”

25. He immediately got them wrong, telling the press separated parents could not see their children, convenient for a man who famously only acknowledges 57% of his offspring

26. Anyway, Johnson then said the rules were obviously too complicated, so he would overhaul them. Again

27. He said he’d liaise with local regions, and provide “improved financial support”

28. He then forgot to liaise with local regions, and cut their financial support

29. Boris Johnson said “whatever happens, nobody gets less than 93% of their current income”

30. People get a max 67% of their current income

31. The govt said it would “stop at nothing” to support people in Tier 3 areas

32. The govt stopped at £7.85 per person in Manchester

33. By contrast, Robert Jenrick improperly arranged a £25m gift to his own constituency – £237 per head, 30x as much as Manchester

34. And Boris Johnson paid £100k of public money for “IT advice” from Jennifer Arcuri, who this week admitted they were actually having an affair

35. Anyway, the Mayor of Manchester didn’t ask for such largesse, or even offer to pole-dance for the Prime Minister; he just asked for Manchester to get the same amount of money per person that is being given to Lancashire.

36. Boris Johnson said he “completely understands” why Andy Burnham objects to the settlement

37. And then Boris Johnson stopped understanding, and said Andy Burnham was “playing politics” and therefore he would impose direct rule on the region’s democratically elected Mayor

38. And in further boost to the govt’s support for regions, Daniel Kawczynski, Tory trade envoy to Mongolia and successful brain donor, called for the Welsh Assembly to be scrapped

39. Kawczynski then called for improvements to his local hospital to be scrapped. In a pandemic

40. And then, after many eventful years calling for Britain to leave the EU, and objecting to a (non-existent) plan for an EU Army, Kawczynski, a technically sane man, tweeted that we should “begin the process of creating an alternative EU” that is “predicated on defence”

41. Brexiters insist we can strike great deals around the world, and immediately failed in negotiations with Manchester and Wales

42. Which brings us onto Brexit: and Boris Johnson’s oven-ready deal has skipped the middle-man and gone straight into the toilet

43. This week the PM appeared on TV in the guise of a traumatised Shredded Wheat, and told us all we should get ready for No Deal

44. It was reported Boris Johnson was “startled by the EU insistence” that he sticks to the agreements that he, personally, insisted the EU signed

45. So the PM said we should walk away and have an “Australian-type deal with the EU”

46. It was quickly explained to the PM that Australia doesn’t have a deal with the EU

47. So Boris Johnson, now a master of detail, amended it to Canada-style deal next time he was asked

48. But then it was revealed the Canada/EU deal includes an arbitration mechanism that Boris Johnson has already rejected

49. John Redwood, a Tory MP and Vulcan, insisted all we want from the EU is the same thing Canada gets, such as protection of our fishing industry

50. Canada doesn’t have a fisheries deal with the EU

51. After a dizzying evening chasing reality in circles, it became an Australian-type deal again

52. The business secretary was asked the difference between No Deal and Australian Deal and had to admit: nothing

53. Brexiter Andrew Bridgen said we wouldn’t be limited to trading on WTO rules, we could trade on “WTO plus”, a thing that doesn’t exist

54. The Chairman of the Royal Inst for International Affairs said “it now seems likely that Brexit will lead to the break up of the UK”

55. The head of the CBI and head of the Fed of Small Businesses said the UK is not ready for No Deal

56. Tesco chairman said the UK will have months of food shortages after No Deal

57. British Pharmaceutical Society said there would be shortages of medicines if we have No Deal

58. Even William Shatner – yes, you read that correctly – got involved, explaining that Brexit means smaller overseas businesses importing into the UK have to pay £1000 just to file the forms to register for VAT, and therefore would likely stop trading with us

59. Reassuringly, the govt said it was “determined to continue to seek a deal”

60. And then the govt told the EU not to bother coming to London for more talks

61. And then multiple Tory MPs, each provided with real human brain, tweeted identical suggestions to “sod the EU”

62. Michael Gove, a quasi-sentient almond who last year said “Let no one be in any doubt how difficult and damaging [No deal] would be”, now went on TV and insisted the EU had to “make constructive moves towards a deal”

63. He then said, inside the same 2 minutes at the dispatch box in parliament, that talks had “effectively ended”; and then that the EU had taken the “constructive move” he demanded; and then that as a result, talks could now “intensify”. Wait for it…

64. And then he refused to restart negotiations anyway, cos honestly, what do words even mean any more

65. He claimed in parliament the UK would “do better” without the law enforcement cooperation we get from the EU, which made even Theresa May gasp “utter rubbish”

66. And then Michael Gove said we shouldn’t worry about the 12% unemployment the IFS predicts would be caused by a No Deal Brexit, because we can create lots of new jobs building enough lorry parks to obliterate Kent

67. I’m sure we’ll be fine, because the govt proudly announced a trade deal with Côte d’Ivoire, to which we sell 0.13% as much as we sell to the EU

68. The world-beating Test and Trace service sent hundreds of people to be tested at a testing site in Kent that doesn’t even exist

69. And then the world-beating app that is designed to give accurate information the public can rely on sent a series of incorrect and contradictory risk-level alerts

70. But good news: profits at Serco are expected to jump 18%, which I’m sure is your top priority right now

71. And on the subject of profit, Boris Johnson is rumoured to want to resign in March because his salary is too low. Which means in the middle of a Brexit crisis and a global pandemic, the Tory party will spend months fighting over which Dementor becomes the next leader

72. It’ll be Priti Patel, obviously, because this week she announced she, personally, would tell judges what constitutes “inhuman or degrading treatment” (being an expert) and they should no longer use the globally accepted UN Declaration on Human Rights

73. And now, unexpectedly, an all-bishops finale! The Archbishop of York was denied the traditional peerage on his retirement. I don’t know if you noticed – it’s hardly worth mentioning, really – but he’s the first black Archbishop we’ve ever had

74. The excuse given by the govt was that it “needs to limit the size of the house of Lords”, days after ennobling 36 peers including Boris Johnson’s brother, Ian Botham, and Claire Fox, an unrepentant apologist for IRA terrorism who just happened to support Brexit.

75. Five archbishops appealed to the govt not to breach international law, which seems like a reasonable thing to ask. It’s the law. Don’t break it.

76. Beta-version human and self-styled “Brexit-hardman” Steve Baker said “of course they entitled to these views”

77. And then Steve Baker went on to say if they have the views they’re “entitled to”, they should be thrown out of the house of lords; and the Church of England, which the Queen is head of, should be disestablished. A perfectly sane response to being asked to obey the law.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 23.10.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

It is 4 days since the last one, and here’s another 69 items.

But as it’s the weekend, let’s start #TheWeekInTory with a frivolous and jolly story about our own govt deliberately starving hundreds of thousands of children…

1. In May, Boris Johnson promised “nobody will go hungry as a result of Coronavirus”

2. He then denied school meals to the 600,000 poorest children

3. So Marcus Rashford ran a campaign to get the govt to feed children, which – just think about that: he had to *campaign* for it

4. Then Boris Johnson congratulated Rashford on his campaign to overturn the cruel policies of, erm, Boris Johnson

5. And then 3 days later, Boris Johnson refused to feed those kids during school holidays

6. So this week Labour organised a parliamentary vote about it

7. And 322 Tories voted against feeding hungry children

8. Vicky Ford, the Children’s Minister (who you’ll be surprised to hear neither looks nor sounds like a ludicrous Dickensian villain) went ahead and voted against feeding children

9. Tory MP Jo Gideon voted against feeding children. Jo Gideon, in case you didn’t think things could get any more unbelievable, is also the chair of “Feeding Britain”, a charity that campaigns to end food poverty and hunger in the UK.

10. Tory MP Paul Scully waved away the grumbling parents of kids with grumbling tummies, and said “children have been going hungry under Labour for years”, seemingly forgetting Tories have been in power for a decade

11. Tory MP Ben Bradley, who once had to apologise for suggesting sterilising the poor, said feeding children will simply “increase their dependency”. On food. Yeah, wean the little bastards off it. It’ll do them good in the end, which will be around 3 agonising weeks.

12. At this point, pause to consider that MPs get their food and drink subsidised. A £31 meal in a parliamentary restaurant costs MPs £3.45. In 2018 this subsidy cost the taxpayer £4.4m. I can’t find any record of Tories like Ben Bradley voting against this.

13. Pressing on: Ben Bradley also said “Some parents prioritise other things ahead of their kids. Small minority, yes… but some do”. Yes, and a small minority of Tory MPs have been arrested for rape. Should we send them all to prison?

14. Also, Mark Francois voted (by proxy) to keep kids hungry. Not related to the previous item. Why would you think that?

15. Tory MP Nicky Morgan said the govt voted to starve 600,000 children cos a Labour MP called a Tory MP scum. And that’s not a scummy thing to do at all.

16. Tory MP David Simmonds said Marcus Rashford’s experience of poverty in secondary school “took place entirely under a Labour government”. Rashford was 11 when Tories came into power, making David Simmonds are rare example of an ad hominem attack on yourself

17. Simmonds then said Labour’s parliamentary vote was “all about currying favour with wealth and power and celebrity status”. He might be right – the govt managed to unify Gary Linaker and Nigel Farage in condemnation of their denial of food to kids

18. Brandan Clark-Smith (who voted to starve kids) demanded “more action to tackle the real causes of child poverty”

19. So at once, the govt cut minimum wage for furloughed people. They now get 2/3 of the money the govt says is the absolute minimum it is possible to survive on

20. And then it was revealed that low-paid workers who have to isolate due to Covid can claim £500. Yay!

21. But if they’re told to isolate by the govt’s contact tracing app, they can’t claim anything. Un-yay.

22. Long story short: the govt cannot spend £120m feeding children. But it can spend £522 on the Eat Out Scheme, which its own report said contributed “negligible amounts” to the hospitality economy, and Boris Johnson admitted drove up infection rates – especially in the North

23. Those infection rates caused the govt to move Manchester into Tier 3

24. So the Mayor of Manchester asked for a £90m support package (1/6th of the money the govt spent causing the problem in the first place)

25. The govt said no, £60m

26. The Mayor said, how about £65m?

27. The govt said no, £60m

28. The Mayor said ok, fine, we’ll take the £60m

29. And then govt offered Manchester £22m, and then went to the press and said the Mayor was “being unreasonable”

30. The negotiations were led by Robert Jenrick, who recently set up a fund for the poorest 101 towns, then awarded his town £25m even though it is the 270th poorest, and therefore not even eligible

31. £25m is £237 per person

32. Manchester gets £7.85 per person

33. Robert Jenrick gave Manchester (2.8 million people) £22m

34. Robert Jenrick gave Richard Desmond (1 person) £45m

35. The talks broke down when the govt wouldn’t spend an extra £5m

36. The govt plans to spend £7m vitally rebranding “Highways England” to “National Highways”

37. Manchester Young Conservatives tweeted “Boris has lied about helping us in the North. It’s time for him to go”. Don’t look – they deleted it. Suspect somebody had a word.

38. Meanwhile the govt said Manchester will get the £60m after all, and chaos continue to reign supreme

39. But that £60m is brief reprieve for the Tories of Manchester, as a govt report said Tory seats in the North of England (the so-called “Red Wall” seats) can expect to lose at least 4000 jobs *each* as a result of Brexit, even if we do get a deal. More if we don’t.

40. The govt rushed to begin its first airport Coronavirus testing, a mere 211 days after mandatory airport testing was begun in South Korea

41. South Korea has had 8 deaths per million

42. The UK has had 665 deaths per million

43. More airport news, as the govt finally accepted Brexit will cause “up to 8-hour delays at passport checks” and asked the EU to allow UK citizens to queue at EU-only lanes. Like we did when we were in the EU. But we aren’t now. So tough.

44. A senior diplomat said, “Having grown up in Brussels, Boris Johnson values the ability to travel freely to the continent”. You’d think Boris Johnson would foresee this problem when he led the campaign to stop that freedom.

45. The independent reviewer of Terrorism Legislation said the UK “will be increasingly unable to cope” after Brexit, as we lose access to EU data-sharing agreements

46. And a No-Deal end to UK/EU scientific collaboration will leave London with a £3bn annual deficit

47. In the space of 38 days, the govt announced the £100bn “Operation Moonshot” to solve Covid; then cancelled it; and then re-launched it again after it was found they’d accidentally continued to pay over 200 private consultants up to £7000 a day to work on it.

48. So this week, Boris Johnson said Moonshot would continue, but it’s goals “would take time”, which is the literal opposite of what he said it would do when it first announced it, and makes the entire thing absolutely pointless

49. And now it’s been admitted that Operation Moonshot would be quietly folded into the existing £12bn Test and Trace programme, and the £100bn has vanished. Apart from the bits the Serco consultants took for doing… nothing.

50. But Boris Johnson said the Test and Trace programme was “helping a bit”, and “a bit” is the least you’d expect if you’d spent £12bn

51. And then the £12bn Test and Trace programme fell to its lowest success rate so far, identifying only 60% of at-risk people

52. Local councils, with no additional funding, are tracing 98% of cases

53. A quick sweep though other epic successes you may have missed (or deliberately blocked out): Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch declared that it should be illegal to teach about inequality

54. The Cabinet Secretary said the report into “vicious and orchestrated” bullying by Home Secretary and Dementor Priti Patel “may never see the light of day”, cos if you have a report that vindicates you, you definitely sit on it as long as possible

55. And the appeals court unanimously overturned Priti Patel’s policy of removing people from the UK without giving them access to legal process or justice because – and I’m paraphrasing the judges here – what the fuck, Patel? What the actual fuck?

56. Undeterred, she announced plans to make rough-sleeping “grounds for removal of permission to be in the UK” and “denial of legal aid”. So if you’re too poor to have a home, you must pay for a lawyer or she’ll shove you in the sea

57. After an unnamed Tory MP said it “looks bad to be handing top jobs to your friend and old boss”, Charles Moore, Boris Johnson’s friend and old boss, withdrew as next BBC chair.

58. The new favourite is Richard Sharp, the – yep – friend and old boss of Rishi Sunak

59. You’ll be amazed to hear this: Richard Sharp is a major donor to the Tory party. These little coincidences keep on happening

60. The govt decided to prevent EU citizens from having physical proof of their right to live in their own home

61. Grant Shapps threatened to “seize control of Transport for London” to save it from financial ruin at the hands of Sadiq Khan, who – the bastard – achieved a mere 71% reduction in the debts caused by his noble predecessor, Boris Johnson

62. Matt Hancock, facts at his fingertips, told MPs from Yorkshire their constituents could go on holiday abroad

63. But not in the UK

64. And then that they CAN go on holiday in the UK

65. But can’t leave Yorkshire

66. He then said “I’ll get back to you” about the details

67. A cross-party report found “the UK’s foreign policy is adrift”, that it lacks “clarity, confidence and vision” and that Britain is “absent from the world stage”. All of which is very soothing, as we move into the govt’s proclaimed goal of a post-Brexit Global Britain.

68. And we can all relax: the govt is finally supporting culture in the UK, specifically the Nevill Holt Opera, which performs private operas, and is owned by Boris Johnson’s friend (and – jaw on floor! – Tory donor) David Ross, who is worth £700m so really needs the money

69. The Nevill Holt Opera only functions in the summer, so thank god it has been prioritised with £85,000 to “maintain operations” in October. And now, in honour of the opera, the fat lady can sing, cos I’m off to drink myself into oblivion. Join me.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 26.10.2020

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Amazingly, this is my third #TheWeekInTory in 7 days, and if anybody wants to pay for me to go somewhere comparatively sane and relaxing for a week, I’m up for it.

I hear Mogadishu is nice.

Anyway, buckle up, here we go…

1. Previously on The Week In Tory: the govt campaigned for Brexit so we can “look after our own”, and then immediately voted not to

2. Instead they opted to let up to 900,000 children go hungry during school holidays, including – bless you Santa Johnson – Christmas

3. In July, when the govt lifted the original lockdown, Rishi Sunak, the nicest Tory, tweeted “I can’t wait to get back to the pub”

4. This week he voted to let thousands of kids starve, and as a result was barred for life from his local

5. Ben Bradley, a Tory MP and Al Murray character made of Lego, spent last week appealing for justice and opportunity for “working class white boys who have been left behind”

6. He then voted to deprive them of food

7. Then this stout defender of the working class said food vouchers for poor kids will just end up being used in brothels and crack dens

8. He said he knows kids living in these conditions, and yet, like a true humanitarian, he appears to have done absolutely nothing about it

9. He also overlooks the fact that the vouchers can only be used to buy food, and I’ve yet to find evidence that crack dens commonly set up a tuck shop

10. He then invited his critics to visit “one of the country’s most deprived schools, who’s Head agrees with me”

11. The school’s governors replied to say neither they, nor the Head, agreed with him

12. It’s Monday, and most experts estimate that by Wednesday afternoon, Ben Bradley will have dug himself a hole deep enough to see kangeroos

13. Tory MP Gary Sambrook said it was OK for kids to go hungry during holidays, because they’ve “been benefiting from free school meals during term time”. It will come as a shock to Sambrook to discover humans require food on quite a regular basis

14. Tory peer Baroness Barran went on radio and said Tories had done other things to help poor children, such as extra money for emergency Universal Credit

15. So the govt announced it was reducing emergency Universal Credit by £20 a week

16. Tory MP Selaine Saxby said if businesses help starving kids she “very much hopes they will not be seeking any further govt support”

17. Selaine Saxby consistently votes against measures to reduce tax avoidance, cos avoiding tax is the sort of govt support she’s fine with

18. McDonalds offered 1m free meals over half term, proving to the govt that it is possible for clowns to make moral decisions

19. At a Downing St press conference, the govt repeatedly declined invitations from the media to praise businesses providing meals to hungry children

20. Matt Hancock said local councils had been provided with “a huge amount of extra investment” to feed kids

21. Since 2010, Tories cut funding to local councils by 60%

22. The Tory council in Boris Johnson’s own constituency joined the campaign to give free school meals

23. Matt Hancock, a sentient teaspoon and ever-dependable master of detail, went on radio and said there had been “lines of communication” between Boris Johnson and Marcus Rashford

24. Marcus Rashford said there hadn’t

25. 2000 paediatricians condemned the govt

26. The Children’s Commissioner it was “like something out of the pages of Oliver Twist”

27. An anonymous Tory MP said it was a “political disaster” and he had “never known so many Conservative MPs and council leaders so angry”

28. Senior Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin said the govt had “misunderstood the mood of the country”

29. Tobias Ellwood, Tory MP and spine-donor, voted with the govt, but is now openly calling for the policy to change

30. Multiple Tory MPs have predicted a U-turn, which means at least the govt won’t go hungry over the holidays: it’ll have all those lovely words to eat

31. And then, cos they don’t know when to stop, the govt cut the laptop allocation for England’s most deprived schools by 80%

32. In a not-at-all-obvious attempt to distract attention, 112 Tory MPs (98% of whom had just voted to let children starve at Christmas) wrote to Keir Starmer to complain of the “widespread abuse” they received as a result of Angela Rayner calling one of them “scum”

33. They must have been unable to find a pen and paper when there was a 375% increase in Islamophobic incidents after Boris Johnson referred to Muslim women as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”

34. They were probably having difficulty with a gummed-up biro when Boris Johnson called gay men “bum boys”. or said black people were “picaninnies with watermelon smiles”, or said in parliament that proven death threats against female Labour MPs were “humbug”

35. And perhaps they didn’t have an address for Home Secretary and Thor’s sister Priti Patel after she made an incendiary speech attacking “lefty” immigration lawyers, one of who was stabbed 4 days later by a far-right activist

36. Speaking of witch – tsk, me and my spelling – more than 800 lawyers and judges wrote to the govt demanding an apology from Priti Patel, and saying her “rhetoric and hostility” risks “undermining the rule of law”

37. After demanding local councils “build build build”, Michael Gove personally stepped in the oppose building in his constituency

38. There’s a fine line between spin and outright lies, and that is just one of many lines Michael Gove has caused to disappear

39. The govt confirmed it was going to start charging 20% VAT on PPE. In a pandemic

40. The govt said it would be fine, cos care homes can claim back the VAT

41. But the govt’s own advice says “Care homes … are unlikely to be able to recover any VAT on PPE”

42. Rishi Sunak said he would provide the NHS with “whatever resources it needs” to cope with the pandemic, which is why the NHS is £1bn short of funds needed to pay wages to the end of the year

43. SAGE said Test and Trace, the centrepiece of our Covid strategy, was “having only a marginal impact”

44. Test and Trace system achieved new heroic heights, as it was revealed of 268m records, just 104 cases had been pursued

45. Labour’s NHS IT System was described by Tories as “one of the worse scandals ever in terms of waste of public money”, costing £12bn over 6 years

46. By contrast, the Test and Trace system has spent £12bn in just 4 months and failed to meet a single target set for it

47. Tory MP Bernard Jenkin called for Dido Harding to be sacked

48. Matt Hancock said he had (finally) published the highly critical 2016 report into the UK’s lack of preparedness for a pandemic, which his dept had seen and then done nothing at all to act upon

49. Due to some terrible and entirely unpredictable oversight, the version he published was incomplete and heavily redacted, cos that’s exactly what you’d do if it wasn’t massively embarrassing

50. Only 211 days since South Korea started mandatory test and quarantine at its airports, the UK govt announced plans to do the same

51. Except unlike South Korea we’ll charge people for tests

53. Deaths per million in South Korea: 8

54. Deaths per million in UK: 665

54. It was then reported that Bankers and Hedge Fund Managers would be exempt from quarantine because obviously the virus, a non-living sub-microscopic entity with no brain or nervous system, will figure out how rich you are before deciding whether to infect you

55. Boris Johnson held a meeting with UK business leaders, and urged them to follow the govt’s guidance in preparing for Brexit

56. The govt hasn’t agreed a deal, so has not yet issued final guidance for preparing for Brexit

57. Then it was reported Boris Johnson won’t make a decision about whether to accept a Brexit deal until he finds out if Trump has won the election, because an important part of Taking Back Control is not being able to decide a thing until we find out what Donald is up to

58. Assuming the election happens cleanly (and Trump is involved, so god knows) this leaves businesses just 31 working days to implement a plan for the end of a 41 year period of stability, in the middle of a pandemic that most believe will be at the peak of its second wave

59. But huzzah! the govt announced a deal with Japan that was “even better than the one Japan has with the EU”

60. But whoops! the EU/Japan deal prevents either side from offering better terms to anybody else, and our deal with Japan is 5% of the one we lose with the EU

61. The former ambassador to USA (under both Tory and Labour govts) said the UK’s plans for handling a Joe Biden presidency are “profoundly clumsy and stupid” and that “Number 10 is absolutely clueless” about how to manage a post-Brexit relationship with the USA

62. Between them, the EU and USA account for around 60% of the UK’s total trade, so deliberately losing one, and then accidentally losing another is definitely a reason to be intensely relaxed about the whole thing

63. And that’s why, spurred by their stunning victory over UK trade, a group of Tory MPs led by Steve Baker, a scale model of C3P0 made entirely out of ham, is urging the formation of a “European Research Group for the pandemic”

Gas and air, please. In heroic quantities

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 23.01.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

It’s been a while, but for the masochists amongst you, here’s the return of #TheWeekInTory

1. The PM said he’d done nothing wrong, and had therefore apologised to the Queen for doing it

2. He claimed he hadn’t broken rules because nobody had told him the rules, which he wrote

3. He said he’d have to wait for Sue Gray to tell him whether the gathering of people drinking booze from a suitcase and playing on his swing during a DJ set was a party

4. He claimed it had taken him 25 minutes to realise this might not be a business meeting
Russ Jones

5. Dominic Cummings said he’d “swear under oath” Boris Johnson green-lit parties

6. Dominic Raab said there hadn’t been a party, and he should know, cos the party was in his honour

7. And then Johnson hid in the back of a car, a fridge presumably not being readily available

8. Downing St said it was untrue the PM was warned ahead of the party

9. Reports said Sue Gray had the email warning the PM ahead of the party

10. And Downing St staff told newspapers it was “inconceivable” a party could have happened without Johnson’s approval

11. In no way to change the topic, the govt launched Operation Red Meat, a dazzlingly successful exercise in limited and specific failure, which I present to you in the following sub-thread.

(Hey, you try writing this shit without it getting complicated!)

a. the govt tweeted it was talking to Ghana about making our migrants go there for processing

b. Ghana said this was complete bollocks, and called Johnson’s Operation Red Meat “Operation Dead Meat”

c. The govt deleted their Ghana tweet and pretended it didn’t just happen

d. The govt said it was now entirely safe to lift Covid restrictions

e. Then the govt said we should excuse Johnson’s behaviour – he was distracted because his child was very ill with that “entirely safe” Covid, which your kids must now risk without masks, because FREEDOM

f. Boris Johnson’s emotional comfort turbot, Michael Gove, said he would continue “levelling up the country”

g. Then the levelling-up fund for public transport was cut by 50%

h. So it’s all going terrifically well, but enough Red Meat – back to the main thread…

12. Playdoh nonentity Dominic Raab, said the Tory party was behind Johnson

13. Behind Johnson, David Davis stood up and told him to resign

14. And Christian Wakefield defected to Labour

15. And 5 other Tories are reported to be considering defecting

16. Govt whips were accused of blackmailing MPs into supporting Johnson

17. In a bold challenge to logic, the govt said they wouldn’t look for evidence of this unless they found evidence

18. 12 Tory MPs said it had happened to them

19. No, not that kind of evidence

20. MP Nusrat Ghani said she’d been sacked as a minister because she was told “Muslim women [made her] colleagues feel uncomfortable”

21. Chief Whip Mark Spencer tweeted he never used the words attributed to him

22. They hadn’t been attributed to him

23. He then deleted the tweet

24. Then he had what seemed to be a bit of a breakdown, and wrote the tweet again, this time denying any such event had ever happened

25. Then No10 said they had discussed the thing that didn’t happen with Nusrat Ghani in July

26. It was reported chief whip Mark Spencer spends most of his days inventing dazzlingly clever new insults for his colleagues-

27. The most Wildean examples include:

– Anthony Mangnall = Anthony Wanknall
– Tom Tugendhat = Tom Tugentwat

28. Mark Spencer is 52 years old

29. It was suggested the Chief Whip might not be very good, compared to the previous occupant of the role

30. To put this into context, the previous guy was Gavin Williamson, a supernaturally incompetent lurching tower of wrong wearing the teeth of a starved horse

31. Even so, PMs suggested bringing Williamson back, which means a Staffordshire village will soon need to advertise for a new idiot, but at least we’d have a non-blackmailing Chief Whip

32. It was immediately reported Williamson had also engaged in blackmailing colleagues

33. As part of her ploy to replace Johnson, Liz Truss, ITV4 made flesh, claimed she’d resolve Brexit in a month, a prediction previously made by

– David Davis (2016)
– Theresa May (2017)
– Liam Fox (2018)
– Jacob Rees-Mogg (2019)
– Boris Johnson (2020)
– and Lord Frost (2021)

34. As part of Rishi Sunak’s ploy to replace Johnson, he said he would look after the finances and had “low tax dreams”

35. He then decided not to even bother chasing £4.3 billion of fraudulent Covid claims

36. And he introduced the highest taxes for 28 years

37. And AAAARGH!!

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 27.01.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I’m rushing out an interim #TheWeekInTory cos… damn

1. The sleaze watchdog said Johnson escaping the sack for his earlier £142k decorating corruption was “bonkers”

2. During that week’s ludicrous scandal, he’d told parliament he’d never even met the wallpaper lady

3. He’d met wallpaper lady during the cause of this week’s ludicrous scandal: his birthday party during lockdown

4. On the day of that shindig, the PM wrote a letter a 7-year-old telling her she was right not to have a birthday party, but still claims he didn’t know the rules

5. Johnson said his bash wasn’t a even party, just 30 pals, singing happy birthday, drinking, breaking all the guidelines, and being ambushed by cakes

6. Anyway, he said only his essential work-bubble had attended

7. “Work-bubbles” never existed. That’s not a thing

8. And that “work-bubble” seemed to include his wife, his favourite interior designer, and a passing make-up artist. And Rishi Sunak

9. Sadly, for the 2938th time, his barber couldn’t make it

10. Yet another former Tory minister breached rules over lobbying and Covid contracts

11. A report found after 12 years and £14 billion of implementation costs, Universal Credit still isn’t fit for purpose

12. Another report found the govt’s Help to Buy scheme to fix the housing crisis wasted £29 billion and made the housing crisis even worse

13. Playmobil chancellor Rishi Sunak wrote off £4.3 billion in fraud

14. So Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy, scrapped funding for kids TV cos we don’t have any money left. Nnng!

15. And the minister for tackling fraud resigned cos there’s too much fraud

13. Playmobil chancellor Rishi Sunak wrote off £4.3 billion in fraud

14. So Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy, scrapped funding for kids TV cos we don’t have any money left. Nnng!

15. And the minister for tackling fraud resigned cos there’s too much fraud

16. Dominic Raab confirmed to journalists that ministers – including the PM – must resign if they break the law or lie to parliament

17. Journalists asked him if that meant Johnson should resign if he was found to have done those things

18. Raab said no, of course not

19. Johnson confirmed the govt would publish all of Sue Gray’s report

20. Raab said they wouldn’t

21. Downing St said they would

22. Johnson said it would just be highlights

23. Downing St said it would be most of it

24. Raab said it might be redacted

25. No 10 said it might just be an executive summary of all their misconduct, because the full report might be too long

26. Yeah mate, I know the feeling.

27. Johnson said publication would be “on the basis previously stated”, which by now could mean literally anything

28. And then the police rocked up

29. So the UK had now reached the stage where our govt was grateful to be facing criminal investigations, cos it gave Johnson an excuse to delay Sue Gray

30. Police said there was no reason to delay Sue Gray

31. The govt said Oh fuck

32. Feral gonad Sajid Javid told Radio4 that Tory inconsistencies were damaging democracy

33. Radio4 asked him if he’d just admitted Tory inconsistencies were damaging democracy

34. He immediately denied he’d said it. Literally the next sentence

35. Then the Tories had to launch an official investigation into their own Islamophobia

36. And, look, I hate to break this to you, but this thread has still only reached TUESDAY

[Crack a bottle or do some primal screaming, and then let’s press on]

37. On Wed Johnson told parliament he hadn’t lied, and we have the fastest growing economy in G7

38. Half the G7 is growing faster than us

39. So that was a lie to parliament about a lie to parliament, to detract from another lie to parliament. The famed bullshit turducken!

40. In December Johnson said it was “absolute nonsense” that he’d intervened to prioritise the evacuation of dogs from Afghanistan over the rescue of humans

41. This week an email showed he’d personally intervened

42. Raab said the email didn’t exist, while reading from it

43. Jacob Rees-Mogg, who looks like somebody made the Microsoft Paperclip stand to attention, said “My experience is very few people lie in public life”

44. In-house Tory jazz-mag The Spectator called JRM “laughable” and the Tory Reform Group called him “irresponsible”

45. But only 3 days into the week, the only ministers still prepared to defend the PM are laughable bassoon JRM, and the exuberantly stupid flapdoodle Nadine Dorries

46. And this week’s really big bag of insane bollocks is still to come

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 28.01.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

3rd #TheWeekInTory of the week. This covers events since Thursday morning

(Yes, you read that correctly)

Let’s go!

1. Liz Truss, a Foreign Secretary we got off Gumtree, blew £500,000 on a private flight to Australia to sign a trade deal that probably makes us poorer

2. That’s enough to buy her 166 of her famed £3000 lunches

3. The most expensive commercial flight that day cost £7000, which is – check my maths – less than half a million quid?

4. And it would have got her there faster

5. Australia’s former PM called Truss “deranged”

6. Her flight landed the day Alok Sharma said the govt was providing “a practical demonstration of honouring our COP26 climate promises”

7. Also, Jacob Rees-Mogg launched more coal mines in what he called “our green and pleasant land”

8. He’s never seen a coal mine, has he?

9. JRM, a cross between a spindly mantis and the concept of gout, said we needed coal to support our “heritage railway” industry

10. So, sure, the planet will die, but at least there will be a fancy ancient steam-train to cart away the corpses

11. Rishi Sunak, the discarded draft of an Aardman sidekick who threw away £4.3 billion last week cos he couldn’t be arsed tackling fraud, is now privately threatening to resign if he can’t raise National Insurance, cos he’s just realised he’s run out of money
… back to the top

12. Johnson said the National Insurance rise was vital to “fix social care”, something he’s assured parliament he has already fixed on – by my count – 27 separate occasions since he was elected. I mean, just in case anyone is looking for examples of him lying to parliament

13. The Defence secretary, discussing airlifting animals out of Kabul, said “at no stage did the prime minister ask me to make a way for those pets. Not at all”

14. An email showed the PM asking to airlift animals out of Kabul

15. The PM denied the email exists

16. It does

17. Dying palm-tree Michael Fabricant said a fellow Tory complaining of Islamophobic abuse didn’t look Muslim enough to abuse*

18. Nadhim Zahawi was revealed to have been “instrumental” in securing millions of allegedly corrupt loans to David Cameron’s billionaire pal

19. Pitch for a TV show where Tory MPs tell ludicrous stories to excuse their greed. It’ll be called I’m-All-Right-Jackanory

20. Priti Patel, Home Secretary and Mouth of Sauron, admitted (yet another) “unlawful and secret policy”, this time stealing phones from migrants

21. Plague update: professional obscurity and extremely amateur Tory MP James Heappey said we were “emerging from the pandemic”

22. We have the highest death toll in Europe

23. Over 600,000 cases, 12,000 hospitalisations, and 2000 deaths this week

24. Regardless, the Tories announced everything is now *awesome*, and lifted all restrictions

25. 300 scientists called this “reckless”, cos Tories were creating a hub for infection with excellent global transport links to 3 billion people who still haven’t been vaccinated

26. On to Partygate, where Tories spent the first half of the week insisting the PM had been ambushed by a cake

27. And then they spent the second half of the week insisting cakes don’t exist

28. Clearly, the quantum state of cakes is a complex issue than needs looking into

29. Sadly, the Met police said they don’t investigate crimes that have already happened

30. When we’d all finished laughing at this, police said there wasn’t enough evidence for an investigation anyway

31. Sue Gray immediately found evidence

32. So the police said there was now TOO MUCH evidence for Sue Gray to report

33. The Met immediately offered to let No 10 partygoers pay fines rather than be interviewed by police

34. Oh, and the fines will not be made public, so nobody’s career will suffer

35. Not asking any questions and keeping all punishments secret makes me VERY confident they’ll get to the bottom of things

36. Incidentally, Sajid Javid’s brother is Dep Assistant Commissioner of the Met Police

37. There is, however, some good news: Dry January is over

The Week in Tory – Posted 31.01.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#SueGrey is imminent, so I’ll do a quick #TheWeekInTory for the stuff that will be drowned out

1. The Tories celebrated 2nd anniversary of Brexit, which costs us £800m a week

2. The Tories then celebrated a huge new trade deal with Greenland, which makes us £6m a year

3. Startled haddock Michael Gove asked for “Christian forgiveness” over Johnson running a frat-house in 10 Downing Street

4. This was the latest in a series of excuses, which I will now remind you of in a sub-thread

—
a. No party happened

b. It happened but wasn’t a party

c. It was a party but wasn’t organised

d. It was organised by nobody told me it broke rules

e. It broke rules but I didn’t know the rules

f. OK fine, I wrote those rules, but I thought it was a business meeting

g. After 25 minutes watching people drink from a suitcase, play on swings, and do a DJ did a set, I worked out it might not be a business meeting

h. I didn’t kill the stripper [OK, I made that up, but would it shock you?]

i. I’ve done nothing wrong

j. I have apologised to the Queen for “doing nothing wrong”

k. I have also apologised to parliament for “doing nothing wrong”

l. This is disproportionate

m. I am a big dog who dominates his party

n. Quick, everybody shout a stupid policy, cos I need saving

o. My child was poorly with Covid, now take your fucking mask off in school, it’s safe

p. My wife made me do it

q. WAR WAR WAR
—

5. Anyway, Brave Sir Boris is NOT running away, simply flying to Ukraine so he can [checks notes] make a phone call to Putin

6. Liz Truss, Maggie Thatcher from Elizabeth Duke, announced sanctions hitting Kremlin money in UK companies

7. Sanctions will not hit Kremlin money in the Tory Party

8. US officials expressed “dismay and frustration” at Russian money still “entrenched” in our governing party

9. So that’s this year’s (first) embarrassing foreign disaster dealt with – now onto last year’s embarrassing foreign disaster: Afghanistan

10. A report found the PM’s chief of staff skipped tackling the withdrawal from Kabul cos he wanted to go and watch the cricket

11. Johnson insisted he hadn’t authorised saving pets instead of humans from Kabul

12. Emails showed he had

13. So now the govt says officials often write the PMs instructions for him, while the PM has no idea what’s going on

14. Is it bad that I find that slightly reassuring?

15. Stoned halibut Michael Gove announced a new £1.5 bn “levelling up” fund, which amounts to £3 per person per week. We’re rich!

16. Except it’s not new money, so actually amounts to £0

17. 2m “red wall” households expecting to level up will be the worst hit by Tory tax rises

18. Tories announced a multimillion £ cut of all the “Brexit red tape” they had promised would never happen

19. 4 months ago they spent £335 million to fund red tape Brexit caused in Northern Ireland, which they are now cancelling

20. But they can’t cancel it, cos it’s EU rules

21. Tories wasted £2.7 billion ordering PPE that didn’t work and got a warning for “extreme negligence on an industrial scale”

22. 20% of govt Covid contracts in 2020/21 raised a “red flag” for corruption using internationally recognized standards

23. Bewitched trellis Theresa May said “nobody is above the law”. Sure

24. The Met dropped corruption charges against Johnson, a one-man game of shag, marry, avoid, for lack of evidence over Jennifer Arcuri

25. Arcuri then released 100 pages of evidence police didn’t look for

26. The Met division where Sajid Javid’s brother is a senior officer told Sue Gray her report into parties could **not mention parties**

27. Rishi Sunak told the UK’s National Crime Agency to “butt out” of investigating Covid fraud

28. And researchers found the Johnson administration “more corrupt than any UK govt” since the study began in 1945

29. So that’s nobody being above the law, is it?

30. Plague update: last week the govt cancelled masks in schools to get Johnson out of trouble for 15 minutes

31. Infections soared, and now 415,000 kids are off sick with Covid

32. So a week later, masks are back in schools and Johnson is still in trouble

33. Only 3 months after its vaccine policy drove 40,000 workers out of care homes, the govt did a U-turn on vaccines

34. It then changed Universal Credit rules to force people to go and work, ideally in care homes

35. And MI5 were asked to investigate “security risk” Boris Johnson after it was found he often left top secret papers “lying around his flat” during his illegal parties

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 01.02.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

As you can imagine, the latest #TheWeekInTory is quite long, and I strongly recommend consuming heroic doses of whatever sedative, alcohol or narcotic gets you through this. The war on drugs is temporarily suspended.

Light up, let’s get stuck in…

1. Our PM, Sir Plankton Churchill, cancelled a call to Putin so he could go to parliament and tell them he must focus on phoning Putin

2. Theresa May, a tin seabird that’s swallowed a kazoo, asked Johnson whether he was too thick to understand the rules, or too corrupt to care

3. Andrew Mitchell became the 2nd long-term Johnson supporter to tell him to go and spend more time with his family. Or somebody else’s. Boris isn’t picky.

4. Because Johnson had quite obviously lied to parliament, he covered up by [checks notes] lying to parliament some more

5. Johnson said he’d got “all the big calls right”. Oh, is that right pal?

6. An Imperial College study says his delayed first lockdown cost 20,000 lives

7. It found he prioritised 2020 Christmas over public safety, and as a result 80,000 more people died by Feb 2021

8. Johnson accused Labour frontbenchers of having a drug problem, seemingly forgetting he works with shite in sheep’s clothing Michael Gove

9. He accused Starmer of letting off Jimmy Savile, which is a lie so big even the speaker rebuked Johnson – albeit 24 hours too late

10. Johnson claimed we had the fastest growing economy in G7: we’re 6th

11. He said crime was down 14%: it’s up 14%

12. He said he’d “got Brexit done”, just before the constitutionally slack-brained Liz Truss headed off to continue negotiating the supposedly “done” Brexit

13. Truss promised Brexit will all be sorted in a month

14. She had also promised that in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021

15. Truss was given a direct quote from the Sue Gray report, and refused to discuss it because “I won’t comment on hypotheticals”

16. Truss also sat unmasked for an hour next to the entire cabinet in parliament, and then told them she had Covid

17. She was sat immediately next to Priti Patel, Miss Trunchbull in larval form, and I don’t fancy Truss’s chances if “Razors” Patel gets poorly cos of this

18. Straight after that, Johnson piled into a room with 365 Tories and a few trillion Covid particles, to tell maskless MPs he takes the pandemic seriously

19. He reassured MPs his old campaigner Lynton Crosby was coming back to fix shit

20. Crosby said he’s not taking the job

23. 2/3 of voters want Johnson to resign

24. 83% think he broke rules

25. 75% think he’s a liar

26. Presumably Tory MPs think this is all just fine and dandy, cos they still haven’t ousted him

27. Not all though: Angela Richardson, aide to Michael Gove, resigned in disgust

28. Tory MP Peter Aldous called on the PM to resign

29. Tory MP Tom Hunt said Johnson’s story is not “acceptable, excusable or defensible”

30. Other Tory MP quotes:

31. The entire party “is fucking deluded”

32. “Boris still things this is all a game”

33. Johnson is “a bastard [who will] do anything to wriggle off the hook”

34. “I have to say, isn’t the PM just fucking awful?”

35. “He’s dead, we’re just waiting for the coroner”

36. “I am currently in Europe and can report the PM is turning our country into a laughingstock”

37. Sue Gray said there was a culture of excessive drinking in Downing St

38. Oliver Dowden, Tory Chairman and adenoidal Morph cosplayer, said the PM is “committed to tacking the underlying culture” of everybody getting pissed whilst driving a country

39. Johnson is on record saying “I drink an awful lot at lunch”

40. Gavin Barwell said drinking didn’t happen under Cameron or May, so the “underlying culture” is basically Johnson

41. So an whole new govt dept is being formed to try to stop the PM getting pissed and fucking up

42. Other news: Michael Gove’s forthcoming epoch-making “Levelling Up” policy promises less money than Tories have cut *just since 2020*

43. His other main idea – and I use that word quite wrongly – is that people from poor areas should not to move to London to find better jobs

44. You have to get 200 pages into the Dept of Health annual report before you find where they hid the fact they’d wasted £8.7 bn of their £12 bn PPE orders

45.That’s the same as a stack of £10 notes 60 miles high, maths fans

46. And they published a 100-page booklet on the benefits of Brexit

47. It says we can now create freeports, which we could before Brexit

48. It says we can now cut plastic bags, which we could before Brexit

49. It says we can now add crown marks to pint glasses, which we could before Brexit

50. And it says we can have blue passports, which we could before Brexit

51. And that’s it. For £800 million a week.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 04.02.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory is my 3rd this week, but feels like my 30th. And it probs won’t be the last.

1. Operation Save Big Dog reached the “eating his own faeces in the garden” stage, as his aides “strongly advised” Johnson not to lie about Starmer and Savile, then he did it anyway

2. He said he had nothing to apologise for, and raising Savile was “the right thing to do”

3. His aides threatened to resign if he didn’t apologise

4. Instead of apologising, he said everyone had misunderstood him, cos yeah Boris, WE’RE the problem here

5. Johnson’s sentient comfort blanket Michael Gove said it was a “slip of the tongue under pressure”, even though Johnson had rehearsed it in front of advisors before PMQ

6. Munira Mirza resigned. She was described as “Boris Johnson’s brain”, so thankfully we haven’t lost much

7. Johnson said he was “very sad she’s decided to leave”

8. He then claimed her leaving was his grand plan all along

9. His comms manager said “We’re very sorry Munira has decided to leave No 10”

10. And then his comms manager immediately quit too

11. Then 3 other aides quit

12. So Johnson compared himself to a lunatic monkey from the Lion King *on purpose*

13. And then a flange of spineless Tories started claiming Johnson forced resignations cos of his aides’ roles in parties

14. Two of them hadn’t even been aides when the parties happened

15. Rubik’s gobshite Dominic Raab said lying to parliament about paedophilia was “the normal cut and thrust” of politics

16. And bestial antique dildo Jacob Rees-Mogg said the real problem in public life wasn’t the PM lying, but people “doubting the PM’s faith and honesty”

17. And then, having lost all his chief advisors, offended every one of Savile’s victims, been bollocked by the Speaker, called himself a gibbering ape, and forced most of his venal backbenchers to lie for him, Johnson tried to withdraw his remarks about Starmer anyway

18. After which, seemingly still in the dark about, yknow … reality… James Cleverly, a dazzlingly effective one-man campaign to disprove nominative determinism, went on radio to still defend the Savile claims

19. Major Tory figures: “What a shitshow”

20. “It’s Armageddon”

21. “Johnson and his Poundland cabinet. You think it can’t get more ridiculous, and somehow he seems to make it worse”

22. “The problem isn’t just Boris. The problem is the party that chose him. They’ll want Liz Truss next, not a frightfully good idea, to put it mildly”

23. So Johnson, a punctured bin-bag full of custard and Viagra, claimed Lynton Crosby was coming back to run No 10

24. This was a surprise to not only Crosby, but to No 10, who’d had no warning

25. Crosby said he’d answer the phone if Johnson called, but wouldn’t work for him

26. More than a dozen Tory MPs have called for him to go, which means over 300 of the shit-spackled goons still think this is all fine

27. Moving on: now we’re free from the stranglehold of the evil EU, energy prices rose 54%

28. In EU-dominated France they rose 4%

29. Rishi Sunak, a YTS kid who boasted he knew how to defuse a bomb and now has to style it out, said he had to raise energy prices

31. In UK, Shell made a 14-fold increase in profits and paid rich shareholders $8bn

30. France taxed oil profits rather than put up prices

32. Sunak couldn’t be arsed to chase a piddling £5 bn just last week

33. But he generously gave every household a £200 “rebate”

34. Except it’s not rebate, it’s a loan – basically bribing poor voters with their own money while Shell pays itself billions to destroy the planet

35. And Sunak simultaneously cost every household £2,875

36. The Bank of England predicted inflation will reach 7%

37. So ministers told people not to ask for pay rises

38. Then the *next day* ministers told off the Bank of England for urging people not to ask for pay rises

39. GDP forecasts were slashed for the 11th year in 12 years of Tory rule

40. And Uncle Fester cosplayer Therese Coffey won’t release a report into lives of low-income people cos “it is necessary to protect the private space” of ministers who’d be affected by negative coverage

41. Brexit news: and once again our national experiment with the bounds of sanity broke international law in NI

42. Liz Truss said she’d have it all resolved in a month

43. Boris Johnson secretly told the DUP there was a less than 30% chance of it *ever* being resolved

44. The Stormont leader resigned in protest, imperilling the entire shared NI govt

45. Johnson said the NI protocol was “crazy”

46. Johnson had personally negotiated it, signed it, and forced it through Parliament without scrutiny, having already cancelled our democracy once

47. Meanwhile chaos at channel ports continues, with emergency traffic measures being triggered 11x more this year than has ever happened since records began

48. Jacked-up Pob doll Michael Gove published his long-awaited “Levelling Up” plans to help poor regions

49. It gives wealthy areas 10 x more funding than poor regions

50. Much of his plan was copied directly from Wikipedia

51. The rest was copied directly from Theresa May’s 2017 regeneration plan, which failed completely

52. The IFS said Gove’s masterplan was “unlikely to work”

53. The CBI chairman said “it is simply not good enough”

54. And in total, it provides less money than the Tories have cut from poor areas in the last 2 years alone, and which themselves were on the back of 10 years of record-breaking austerity. Happy Levelling Up, Red Wallers!

55. So these economic masterminds have given us the worst collapse in household incomes for 30 years … which was last time they were in charge

56. Theresa May, who cut arts funding by 50%, wrote to her local council to complain about them closing local arts facilities

57. And the official statistics authority reprimanded Johnson and Rosa Klebb tribute act Priti Patel for lying about a 14% fall in crime, cos it’s actually gone up by 14%

58. This is all in just two days. Two. Two fucking days.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 08.02.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Prepare to be pissed off by #TheWeekInTory (since Saturday)

1. Spoof minister and literal mad woman in the attic Nadine Dorries agreed to an interview without understanding what “interview” means

2. She appeared next to her wall of bookshelves, which contained no books

3. And then she claimed the internet is 10 years old

4. Please note: the book-free, tottering technophobic abomination who seems incapable of sane media appearances is also our Minister for Culture, Digital and Media, and the reason the gene-pool needs a lifeguard

5. Liz Truss went to the aide of “Baltic allies across the Black Sea”, 2 different places 700 miles apart

6. Tasked with preventing war with Russia, Truss instead to provoked war with China over the Falklands, like a cartoon Thatcher so thick you could stand a spoon up in her

7. Meanwhile that spoon, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the ethical anti-abortionist who makes money flogging abortion pills, spread disinformation about contraception

8. Chris Phelps, minister for tackling disinformation, refused to correct that, or Johnson’s disinformation about Savile

9. And then a mob attacked the leader of the opposition over Johnson’s Savile slur

10. The PM, a horny Honey Monster in a suit he’s borrowed for a tribunal, refused to withdraw the remarks

11. It’s 4 months since an MP was stabbed to death by a fanatic spouting disinformation

12. Deflated scrotum Peter Lilley said “both sides should apologise”, seeming to think there was equal blame attached to the liars who deliberately kickstarted a riot of violent fanatics; and innocent people who as a result get death-threats from a baying mob

13. At least we have honest Rishi Sunak, who is having a go at being Chancellor during his gap year, and claimed we were seeing 54% energy price increases (compared with 4% in France) because we’d had a “colder than usual winter”

14. It was one of the warmest on record

15. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Napoleon Dynamite cosplaying a Regency abattoir-creeper, was put in charge of delivering all the advantages of Brexit

16. He has previously told us there won’t be any advantages to Brexit for half a century, so let’s see how he does

17. I’m not suggesting Johnson won’t last that long, but his new PR chief Guto Harri is so committed to the PM’s long-term survival that he’s said he’s going back to his old job in 6 months max

18. Harri had previously called Johnson “hugely divisive” and “sexually incontinent”

19. In response, Johnson threatened to report Harri to the police for blackmail. Pals then?

20. Harri is responsible for making the PM look good, and in a sign of his professionalism got off to a simply marvellous start by reassuring us Johnson “is not a complete clown”

21. BoJo then began Harri’s tenure by performing a rendition of some of his favourite disco classics. No, really.

22. They ruined ABBA, and now it’s Gloria Gaynor’s turn

23. Also joining the circus, Steve Barclay, a man so devoid of personality his DNA profile says “404 error”

24. You will have forgotten Steve Barclay exists by the time you’ve finished this sentence

25. This is also true if you are Steve Barclay

26. Barclay is now PM’s full-time Chief of Staff, as well as holding 2 other govt positions, which presumably aren’t now being done at all

27. Another of Barclay’s proliferation of new jobs is “Levelling up”, which is also apparently being done by beached mudskipper Michael Gove

28. So we have 2 ministers for something that we all know isn’t gonna happen, and no ministers for things that should

29.When asked to tell MPs how the hell this is gonna work, Barclay didn’t even turn up. Or maybe he did, and people just assumed he was the curtains.

30. He’s so committed to levelling up wages for the poor that this week the govt told the poor not ask for better wages

31. And the head of the Levelling Up taskforce said he wants Britain to become “like Renaissance Florence”, a place where the richest 3 families had 70% of the wealth, slavery was normal, and there were annual riots over bread shortages

32.Which brings us to Brexit, and shattered supply chains pushed up food prices so much there’s been an 11% increase in foodbank use since Jan 1

33.Scientists found PartyGate had “undermined trust in govt advice” and stalled the booster programme for 5 mil unvaccinated people

34. So Typhoid Liz Truss rocked up unmasked in parliament and gave half the cabinet Covid

35. And it’s reported Boris Johnson has begun “exploring opportunities” on the US lecture circuit for $250k per speech, cos ruining a country doesn’t mean you can’t make a pile of cash

36. Minor stories from our newly grown-up and serious govt: a Tory backer demanded repayment of £200,000 donations because he hadn’t been given his promised magic show from ex-minister and minor Addams Family character Penny Mordaunt. No, really.

37. The govt wants to use “Brexit freedoms” to reduce safety regulations in cars, which I’m sure is exactly what you voted for

38. Scientists urged MPs to move to “incredibly cheap” renewable energy to prevent spiralling costs as the world squabbles over the last carbon fuels

39. Instead, Rishi Sunak put all the costs on you, and urged “emergency investment in North Sea gas” while Shell paid out billions in profits to shareholders

40. It is 3 months since COP26, when the Tories said “we owe it to our children to deliver on our climate promises”

41. So Boris Johnson took a private jet to Blackpool for 2 hours

42. And Michael Gove was back again, meaning 2 things: shit was about to get much much worse; and somewhere in Surrey a park suddenly felt a lot safer

43. Gove was found to have closed multiple Birmingham schools at a cost of millions over an imaginary “Islamic plot”, which he had based on one unsubstantiated photocopy of an anonymous letter that turned out to be evidence-free racist bollocks

44. Sajid Javid, a child’s drawing of pure greed superimposed onto a competitively evil snooker ball, said his plans for cutting NHS waiting lists were so good that NHS waiting lists would continue to grow for years

45. And then Boris Johnson proudly announced bold and ambitious new targets for cancer treatment

46. They’re exactly the same as the existing targets, which the Tories haven’t met since 2015

47. And finally, the govt condemned Jimmy Carr’s joke about the Roma community, which it mostly hated because it had interrupted the govt while it was passing multiple pieces of legislation to suppress the Roma community

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 11.02.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I would hate to ruin your weekend, so let’s do #TheWeekInTory now, and get it over with.

Events since Tues

1. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the haunting end-product of The Child Catcher having hate-sex with a pendulum, was made “Minister for Brexit Opportunities”

2. It is 10,388 days since UKIP began the Leave campaign, so Brexit mastermind Rees-Mogg’s first move was to ask people who read The Sun to tell him what the hell any of it meant

3. The Public Accounts Committee found the only effect of Brexit was severe damage to UK trade

4. The Committee had told Tories for 4 years solid to sort out infrastructure at ports thrown into chaos by Brexit, but they’d done fuck all

5. Top Brexiteer Natalie Elphicke said port chaos is DEFINITELY NOT CAUSED BY BREXIT, merely caused by all the things Brexit had done

6. Boris Johnson, an abandoned candyfloss who does Prime Minister impressions, appointed unquestioning apparatchik Mark Spencer to be Leader of the House

7. Spencer is under fire after he allegedly sacked someone cos her “Muslimness” was upsetting fellow ministers

8. In a bizarre spasm, Spencer had voluntarily outed himself as being responsible for this

9. Then he’d deleted the tweet

10. Then he apparently underwent some sort of temporary mental aberration, and wrote exactly the same tweet again

11. Then he denied it was him

12. Now Spencer says “people in the real world” (which he sometimes visits) don’t care about partygate

13. 83% of people said they cared A LOT about partygate

14. John Major said Johnson was a “distinctly shifty” threat to democracy and should resign

15. So Guto Harri, Johnson’s effortlessly terrible new Comms chief, retweeted somebody agreeing with this notion

16. And then he deleted that tweet

17. And then the blathering shambles updated his Twitter bio to plead that he shouldn’t be held responsible for what he says

18. Britain’s first surviving heart, brain and ethics donor, Lucy Allan, said Major wanting Johnson to quit was “subverting democracy”

19. In 2019 Allan had demanded May quit

20. And only last month Allan said Johnson’s position was “terminal”

21. Off to 8-bit culture minister Nadine Dorries, who was happy for Johnson to lie, be corrupt, dissolve democracy, break international law, and be found guilty of crimes by the Met, but “if he kicked a dog I’d probably withdraw support”

22. Has anyone seen Dilyn recently?

23. Dorries then removed restrictions on Murdoch’s interference with the editorial independence of newspapers, which bodes well for democracy

24. Rishi Sunak boasted of his ongoing economic success

25. A report found his plans will push 1 million households into destitution

26. Sajid Javid, an Obscurial crammed inside a suit and forced to work in an office whilst plotting your destruction, pledged 15,000 new health workers

27. Brexit alone cost the UK 26,000 NHS workers

28. And there are 52,000 NHS staff off sick with Covid

29. And 1 in 7 NHS staff plan to quit, citing pay and conditions as the main reason

30. So naturally, Javid promised no improvements in pay or conditions

31. Meanwhile 200,000 new people are infected every day, and Covid deaths are up 43% from last week

32. So Johnson said he’d scrap Covid rules a month earlier than the most optimistic estimates allowed

33. He didn’t even discuss this decision with scientists

34. A SAGE member said “this is pure politics, not science”

35. Chris Witty was “blindsided” by the announcement

36. Gillian Keegan, health minister, knowingly held a face-to-face meeting while positive for Covid

37. The Met, now under new – I’m gonna use the word “leadership” in the absence of anything better – is considering reopening enquiries into Johnson’s refurb and Tory blackmail

38. Kwasi Kwarteng said fraud wasn’t an everyday experience

39. Fraud is up 36%

40. And Rishi Sunak wrote of £4.3 billion lost to fraud in a single year

41. North Korean wannabe Nadhim Zahawi suggested students should be officially banned from criticising Boris Johnson

42. Just as Johnson was telling parliament his partygate crisis was over, a new photo emerged

43. It showed Johnson with tinsel, Santa hats and open bottles of champagne 2 days after he’d told the public “I can tell you once again that I certainly broke no rules”

44. He told MPs the Met has already seen that photo

45. The Met said they hadn’t

46. They both talk bollocks, so either could be true

47. Anyway, that’s yet another “work meeting” being investigated by police

48. More than 50 are now being investigated

49. Liz Truss, a foreign secretary you’d expect to get free with a HappyMeal, told MPs the “toughest sanctions” against Moscow would be in place by 10 Feb

50. On 11th she flew off to terrify Moscow with those sanctions, having unfortunately neglected to put sanctions in place

51. Moscow, for some reason unterrified by the clumbidextrous doofus Truss, said speaking to her was “like talking to a deaf person”

52. Her diplomatic mission was so good, reports described her as “throwing insults” and “accusing people of not listening”

53. ITV reported “if anything, the situation is now worse than before she arrived, which is an achievement in itself”

54. Russia then walked out of a press conference Truss had arranged to tell everybody how well her negotiations were going

55. And then, to demonstrate how mighty Britain can be when not held back by the evil EU, Machiavellian genius Boris Johnson went on TV to *publicly announce* his top-secret plan for outwitting Putin

56. All since Tuesday. Haven’t the little scamps been busy!

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 17.02.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

The UK faces 5 crises: Brexit, Covid, Economy, Ukraine, and the PM’s belief that all business meetings should involve a glitterball.

Let’s dive into #TheWeekInTory

1. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nosferatu trying to fit in at a Bible Study Meeting, declared Brexit was “already a success”

2. Exports to the EU fell 14% – that’s £20 billion lost

3. Rees-Mogg then promised he would soon cut all the red tape he’d just spent 20 years campaigning to create. He just needed Sun Readers to inform him how to do it, and then all would be well

4. Same day: Nathalie Elphicke, who is so dense no light can escape her, boasted that the main benefit of Brexit was new jobs created by all the red tape she pledged to immediately destroy

5. That extra red tape increased the cost of essential food imports by up to 60%

6. Unsurprisingly, this helped push inflation to its highest level for 30 years

7. So the PM boasted to MPs that jobs are up

8. The official stats watchdog said jobs are down 600k, and warned the PM to stop lying to parliament

9. So instead, he repeated his jobs lie on Twitter

10. Govt scientific advisors told the PM not to end free Covid testing

11. So we’re ending free Covid testing

12. Half the PPE from “VIP” companies connected to leading Tories wasn’t used

13. But on the bright side, companies connected to leading Tories got £1.7 billion

14. Meanwhile a much-lauded £200m vaccine factory was put on sale having failed to produce a single dose

15. At least that money might help with the cost of trundling horcrux Priti Patel’s exciting new idea, which will add £2.7 bn to the cost of asylum seekers and will fail

17. So Patel appointed the man behind Australia’s asylum plan to fix her shit

18. Australia’s asylum plan is described as “inhumane”, “degrading” and “a failure”

19. Meanwhile 4000 Afghans we took last year are still in B&Bs, cos the govt isn’t competent enough to help them

20. This might be cos they’re too focused on getting Netto Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s official photographer to take 5 publicly funded portraits of her EVERY DAY

21. Since taking office, she’s had a new official portrait taken every 5 hours, including 5 a day in Russia

22. So while the Foreign Secretary was more focused on her Instagram game than preventing WW3, we sent Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to de-escalate regional tensions and escalating military build-up

23. He did this by selling arms to Ukraine

24. And then (cos we’re now a mighty, independent and dominant world power again) Russian officials told Wallace there was “close to zero” point in him even being there, and abandoned his meeting to attend one with an EU delegate instead

25. The govt said they’d put pressure on Russia by cracking down on money laundering

26. The govt had “leant on” a Tory minister to drop plans ending Russian money laundering via London in 2017, so the scheme was scrapped

27. Putin must be shitting himself. Well, pissing.

28. Meanwhile another stunning success by Truss, who was making good on her assurance she would resolve the NI Brexit border problem by the end of Feb

29. Pro-Brexit MPs described her performance as “a disaster”

30. NI politicians said there was “very little progress”

31. And even Boris Johnson said there was less than 30% chance of it ever – ever – being resolved

32. Sadly the PM was still reeling from his realisation it might not have been a good idea to employ an official photographer to take a snap every time he breaks the law

33. So we moved from “there wasn’t a party” to “I only danced to ABBA for 10 minutes, and then I had to leave to make a phone call to the Queen”

34. Speaking of whom, the PM is now briefing that he did nothing wrong, which must be while he called the Palace to apologise for it

35. The govt, which had promised to release all details of reports into parties, formally asked the police to hide the 300 worst photos of parties

36. So now the govt is being taken to court to force publication of the full report it already promised parliament it would release

37. Also in court this week, Matt Hancock, PeeWee Herman reflected in the back of a spoon, who was found to have acted illegally in appointing his £37bn pal Dido Harding

38. Hancock claimed on twitter the court had found him innocent

39. The court had found him guilty

40. Brexit hard-man Steve Baker’s constituents set up a movement to stop their futures being destroyed by their own MP, a maniac who approaches life with the ever-so-pleased air of someone desperate to be asked if he’s finished his Rubik’s Cube yet

41. Permanent backbencher and top-flight word-understander Mark Jenkinson railed against a tweet he said demonstrated the “rank misogyny of the left wing towards Priti Patel”

42. The tweet didn’t mention Priti Patel

43. Or, for that matter, any women at all

44. Boris Johnson laughed on live TV when told Keir Starmer had received death threats over the PM’s Jimmy Savile bullshit

45. Actual Bishops emerged to say Johnson should “feel ashamed” over the slur, and called govt lies “rancid and dangerous”

46. Even whispering abomination Iain Duncan Smith suggested Johnson can’t cling to power any more

47. And police had to warn No 10 they’d face criminal charges if it was found they cheated on their questionnaire about the previous set of criminal charges they were facing

48. You might think this is a shit-show, but Tory Chairman Oliver Dowden, who seems to be Scooter the Muppet after an unexpected flash-fire, said the main problem with British society was people that people weren’t OK about rampant prejudice any more

49. And then Dowden courageously said he would make needless prejudice OK again by engaging in a “vigorous defence of the values of a free society”, whilst in the background his govt tried to outlaw the right of anybody to protest against them

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 23.02.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory

1. Jacob Rees-Mogg, Minister for Brexit Opportunities and a posturing Regency undertaker, had a busy old week

2. He said “Britain should unilaterally accept other countries’ regulations”, a subtle shift from his earlier “regaining our independence” work

3. Then he said there was “no point” in testing produce imported into Britain

4. No 10 said they would definitely not scrap the testing of imports

5. Whitehall insiders were quoted: “Oh, it’ll just be Rees-Mogg not knowing what he’s talking about again”

6. And then JRM launched a study on the “economic benefits” of reintroducing imperial units, which are: zero

7. Regardless, he espoused our “ancient freedom” to work out how many thrupnies are in a florin before we can buy a scruple of rice. Assuming we import rice any more

8. Brexit cost UK firms had a record £4.5 billion of customs fees (in imperial money), which beat the previous record by 64%. World-beating stuff!

9. Farmers said the govt “shows a total lack of understanding of how food production works” as Brexit destroys their industry

10. We just culled 40,000 healthy pigs because we haven’t got enough staff to care for them or prepare them for the table

11. 200,000 more pigs face the same fate – almost quarter of a million animals thrown in a bin

12. All while we have 2.5 million people using foodbanks

14. Meanwhile Tories got £3m from 6 donors, each of whom – amazing coincidence – were subsequently appointed to top public jobs

15. And an “advisory board” has been formed to meet secretly with the PM, but you have to donate £250,000 to the Tories to join it, because democracy

16. Our last Minister for Corruption resigned at the dispatch box because there was too much corruption for him to cope with it

17. Randy dust-bunny Boris Johnson didn’t bother to replace him, so now we no longer have a Minister for Corruption. Well, plenty for. None against

18. 6th worst plague in human history news: and health experts said it would be “very unwise” to scrap self-isolation

19. So we scrapped self-isolation

20. Johnson declared “we are in a different world”

21. His scientific advisors were asked if they agreed. They all said no

22. Health experts said “It is reckless. It has no public health rationale” when asked if we should scrap free testing

23. We scrapped free testing

24. A govt advisor (non-paying variety) said: “This is against scientific advice, and against what the WHO, BMA, RCN, NHS advise”

25. BMA said this is “premature”, “incredibly concerning” and “completely illogical”

26. Johnson said he was “in favour of encouraging personal responsibility”

27. He was asked if he would take personal responsibility if found to have broken the law

28. He refused to answer

29. He’s now the first sitting PM in history to be interviewed by police under caution

30. The govt said it can’t afford to provide primary schools with air filters to keep kids safe

31. Then the govt spent £12 million to send a picture of the Queen to every primary school

32. More education: and they launched a plan to scrap tuition loans for poorer students, making it impossible for them to attend university

33. And as part of our a low-carbon plan, the govt is cutting funding for public transport that will mean the end of 1/3 of bus services

34. Having assured us construction companies would definitely pay to replace Grenfell-style flammable cladding, Boris Johnson’s emotional comfort turbot Michael Gove now says the taxpayer will fund the £9bn cost

35. 20% of Tory donations come from the construction industry

36. Playdoh minister for shouting at his own demons Dominic Raab proudly announced terrorists would now face polygraph tests

37. “Most psychologists agree that there is little evidence that polygraph tests can accurately detect lies” – American Psychological Association

38. WW3 news: and the EU sanctioned 350 Russian politicians

39. Meanwhile Tories sanctioned 3 Russians, all of whom have been on the US sanctions list since 2018

40. When BBC asked an expert in Russian politics if UK sanctions would work, he gave a one-word answer: “No”

41. Detail-centric dynamo Boris Johnson told parliament he had sanctioned football boss Roman Abramovich

42. When MPs asked him to correct this obvious mistake, he told them he hadn’t made a mistake

43. 24 hours later Downing St said he had made a mistake

44. Tories also sanctioned 5 quite small Russian banks and nobody else, allowing (as Robert Peston said) “anyone who thinks they will be targeted to ship assets out of London by the lorry load”

45. One quarter of the cabinet took Russian-linked donations since Johnson became PM

46. Meanwhile Nadine Dorries, who borrowed her brain from crab, said she was determined to “end the north-south divide” in TV production, and force people to make things outside London

47. And that’s why she wants to close the BBC studios in Salford

48. Rees-Mogg popped back to announce it should be illegal for anybody paid by the state to support Black Lives Matter

49. The IP address of Bob Blackman’s office was found removing Wiki entries about money he gets from Azerbaijan days after he denied lobbying for Azerbaijan

50.And finally, Tories have learned from their mistakes, which is why their mistakes are even better the 2nd, 3rd, or 100th time around: Andrew Bridgen is being investigated for alleged paid lobbying, just as Owen Paterson was less than 3 months ago
… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 28.02.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory Armageddon Special covers events since Wednesday

1. A lucky (legal term) week for Jacob Rees-Mogg, the brain of a tapeworm trapped in the body of another tapeworm, who moved £44m of his money out of a Russian bank only days before he sanctioned it. Phew!

2. Defence Sec Ben Wallace reminded a definitely terrified Putin that Britain had “kicked the backside of Tsar Nicholas I in 1853”, and we would do it again, grrrr

3. Remind me: how did the Charge of the Light Brigade work out?

4. And then Liz Truss (Cunk on Foreign Relations) gave her backing to any UK citizen travelling to Ukraine to fight

5. It is illegal for UK citizens to fight in any war UK isn’t involved in

6. So presumably we’re either now at war, or we have to arrest the Foreign Secretary

7. Since 2016 we’ve issued just 6 (six) fines for breaches of existing sanctions

8. There have been 132 proven breaches of British sections, but Tories ignored 126 of them

9. So Putin is probably even more scared of our sanctions regime than he is of shouty old Ben Wallace

10. EU sanctioned 350 people. We sanctioned 3. All 3 have been sanctioned by USA since 2018

11. Tories said they’d legislate to prevent shell companies being used to launder Russian money

12. But we’re not going to BEGIN that until the next session of parliament in 2023

13. Duplo Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was back to reassure us the Tory Party would keep the £2m of Russian donations since Johnson became PM. Phew!

14. She went onto explain sanctions weren’t happening faster because “clever lawyers” were delaying the move

15. An actual clever lawyer explained: law firms can’t hold up actions. Only a court can, and there have been no court orders to delay anything

16. Truss was asked to name the law firms she had claimed were delaying sanctions

17. She couldn’t name one. Not one.

18. Meanwhile Brendan Lewis (who got £25,000 from Russia) said Russians give us money “because they admire us”

19. To prove how admirable we are, we rolled out our world-class response to the refugee crisis

20. We started by refusing to set up safe routes for refugees

21. Then we stopped granting visas to Ukrainians

22. Then we issued guidance saying Ukrainian refugees who come here via a 3rd party country can’t claim asylum

23. But we also banned all direct flights, meaning it’s impossible to NOT come to UK via a 3rd country

24. Then Home Office minister Kevin Foster said he would help Ukrainians to escape death if they promised to pick fruit for him

25. Fruit-picking doesn’t begin until August, so I guess we’ll just have to ask Mr Putin to put his genocide on hold until the raspberries are ripe

26. Then the govt said asylum seekers need to pay a £95 fee and attend an in-person interview at a UK Embassy before being considered

27. And then we moved the Embassy

28. And then randy haystack Boris Johnson said Ukrainians could come here if they have family in the UK

29. But his definition of “family” didn’t include people over 18

30. Or the parents of people over 18

31. Or siblings

32. Not content with that, we then sent Home Office staff to Paris to turn back Ukrainians boarding the Eurostar to London

33. Then Johnson claimed “the UK is way out in front in helping refugees”

34. We offered £40 million aid to Ukraine

35. We also cut their aid to £0 last year

36. But we did shine the Ukrainian flag onto the front of Downing Street, for the virtue signalling fans amongst you

37. The 4000 refugees we grudgingly helped out of Afghanistan last year are still having to survive on £40 a week and living in B&Bs, whilst being legally prevented from working.

38. Not one of them – not one – has had their asylum application completed yet

39. This is mainly because Sauron’s gnome Priti Patel has actively gutted our asylum system

40. James Cleverley defended Russians in UK politics, saying “do you think dual nationals should be denied a vote?”

41. He denied a vote to EU dual nationals in the Brexit referendum

42. What else happened since Wed? Oh yes: PartyGate, and Boris Johnson told his cabinet he “wants to give his side of the story” about events

43. Previous versions of his side of the story are now presented in this fun little sub-thread, as if things aren’t stressful enough

He has claimed:

a. The parties didn’t happen

b. They did happen but weren’t organised

c. They were organised, but were work events

d. Johnson didn’t know about the work evens

e. Johnson knew, but didn’t attend

f. He attended, but after 25 minutes figured out people drinking booze from a suitcase while a DJ played meant this probably WASN’T a work event

g. He apologised to the Queen for doing something wrong

h. He denied doing anything wrong

i. Then he shouted “Savile” and ran away

44. Anyhooo, back to the main thread: and the latest story is that taxpayer’s money wasn’t used for any of the booze at the “work events”

45. Which means they can’t have been work events, because work events are – complex stuff, but try to keep up, Nadine – PAID FOR BY WORK

46. Leaks from Scotland Yard’s investigation found No 10 drink parties regularly “descended into carnage” with wine sprayed up the walls (won’t somebody think of the wallpaper!)

47. None of this should surprise Sunak, who this week also got questioned by police about attending

48. Hus latest improvements to benefits payments will leave the 9 million poorest people worse off

49. And Tory changes to student loans will cost disadvantaged students the most, but high-earners will “stand to benefit substantially”, quelle surprise

50. The UK faces the biggest fall in living standards since 1950

51. The PM was formally reprimanded for the 2nd time in a month for claiming employment rose 600,000

52. It fell 600,000

53. And he didn’t just lie once. He told the same lie to parliament 7 times in a day

54. The govt abandoned its own health advice on Covid, writing a memo that “public health advice would not be met in NHS or social care”

55.Unsurprisingly a record 400 staff per week are quitting the NHS

56.And care homes in England lost 1600 beds in the last 3 months

57. But at least the names of the companies given £4.9 billion in Covid loans are being kept secret, making it impossible to detect corruption

58. Although we have literally given up on having a minister for tackling corruption, so it’s probably a moot point

59. And finally, a Christian group in the constituency of Born-Again Christian and beta-version humanoid Steve Baker has begun an organised prayer vigil to stop his genocidal opposition to action on climate change

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 08.03.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory is about 10 days – I was busy.

So were they. This is an 86-point epic.

1. Matt Hancock, a spork owned by the Milk Tray Man, relaunched his career by claiming snogging people in the office didn’t breach social distancing guidelines, because ??love??

2. As WW3 ramped up the Tories decide to prove to the Russians that we have a serious govt for serious times

3. It’s chosen tactic for proving this was: knighting Gavin Williamson, a supernaturally incompetent lurching tower of wrong, wearing the teeth of a starved horse

4. He did NOT get his gong for being Johnson’s mate. He got it for “services to the nation”, including being sacked for leaking National Security info, fucking up an entire year of exams, and telling Russia to “shut up and go away”

5. Russia didn’t. Which brings us to Ukraine

6. Beautifully upholstered moral vacuum Edward Leigh said Lincolnshire is “too full for Ukrainians”, what with it containing the 4th most sparse population of any English county

7. Dominic Raab said “we have a reputation second to none across the world” for helping refugees

8. The Etch-a-sketch deputy PM then immediately said the EU was better than the UK at helping refugees, because they’re closer to Ukraine

9. Ireland, which is further from the Ukraine, took 3500% more refugees than UK

10. The govt said Ireland helping Ukraine is a security threat to Britain, cos Ukrainians (who Tories claim we’re welcoming) might come to UK (using a border scheme Tories designed)

11. Priti Patel, the larval form of Miss Trunchbull, refused to open safe lanes for refugees

12. Then Boris Johnson told reporters we would set up safe lanes

13. So then Patel said she would set up “a new humanitarian route to enter Britain”

14. And then Boris Johnson said we weren’t setting up humanitarian routes

15. Then Patel said UK had set up a “very generous” visa processing scheme, based in Calais

16. So Ukrainian refugees with relatives in UK started walking across Europe to Calais in the middle of winter

17. Then No 10 admitted the Calais centre doesn’t exist

18. And then we put up posters in Calais telling Ukrainians there would be “no visas delivered in Calais”

19. So Patel said the centre is not set up, but “we are planning one” and meanwhile refugees should phone the “free application hotline” instead

20. The hotline isn’t free

21. And the hotline number doesn’t work from outside the UK

22. So: refugees have to walk 2000km to Calais to apply for a visa we won’t give them, at a centre that doesn’t exist; and before they enter the UK they have to call a number that only works if they’re already in the UK

23. But the Home Office changed its colours to Ukrainian blue and yellow, so that’s fine

24. And then the Home Office boasted of “the first visa scheme in the world” to help Ukraine

25. That’s because all the other countries scrapped visas and just took in terrified refugees

26. And then Patel told refugees reaching UK to go to Paris or Brussels instead, and then the arch-Brexiteer asked the EU to pick up the cost of her own refugee scheme

27. Hot on Patel’s cloven-heels, Liz Truss encouraged Britons to volunteer to fight in Ukraine

28. The UK defence chief had to inform her it would be unlawful to do this

29. Shortly after, Putin put his nuclear arsenal on “high combat alert”

30. He said he “won’t name” the person who had prompted this escalation, but “it was the British foreign secretary”

31. Part of Boris Johnson’s laughably hazy 6-point plan for Ukraine is “diplomatic efforts” to de-escalate the conflict, and I’m sure we can agree Truss raising the risk of nuclear war means we’re off to a great start

32. An anagram of Elizabeth Truss is Haziest Bluster

33. Truss was asked how many visas have been given to Ukrainians since the war began

34. She said “I have no idea”

35. It’s 50

36. More than 50 people were invited to illegal Downing St parties during lockdown

37. We airlifted 94 dogs and 68 cats out of Kabul

38. We gave 700 Russian millionaires rapid “golden visas”

39. Poland has taken over 800,000 refugees

40. Truss then tried to blame a Labour MP for sanctioning so few Russians

41. She apologised, saying the details of who is in govt were “written wrong in her notes”

42. Truss then refused 3x to say whether Russia’s invasion is a “war of aggression” because she said she “doesn’t understand what that means”

43. She then said the International Criminal Court (ICC) would handle such issues

44. The ICC doesn’t have jurisdiction to do that

45. Luz Truss’s mind is like a multibillion-dollar stealth weapon: nobody can detect it, but it can still cause phenomenal damage

46. Still, she beats Nadine Dorries, who boasted that Russian’s RT station would no longer be available on British TVs

47. She forgot to mention she’d done nothing to achieve this. The EU did it

48. Boris Johnson, this war’s Sir Plankton Churchill, promised a crackdown on dirty money in the UK

49. The crackdown won’t begin for 18 months, giving oligarchs plenty of time to shift their cash out

50. And Johnson has cut the budget for the department that does investigators into that dirty money by 13%

51. But at least the Tory chairman owns a company offering “luxury lifestyle management services” to the Russian elite Tories also claim to be targeting

52. Stung by criticism he isn’t being harsh enough on dodgy Russians who give his party millions, Johnson ordered Tories to vote in parliament for a loophole, allowing Russian oligarchs 6 months before they have to declare any assets liable for sanction or seizure

53. The EU has sanctioned over 750 Russian individuals and companies

54. Canada: 908

55. USA: 1195

56. Britain: only 35 new sanctions

57. So naturally, the PM said “The UK has led the way with our toughest ever sanctions package”

58. Harrowing antique dildo Jacob Rees-Mogg moved £44m of his money out of a sanctioned Russian bank just before sanctions hit

59. Rees-Mogg’s govt then offered £40m of humanitarian aid to Ukraine, which JRM could pay with the money he withdrew, and still have a nice £4m profit

60. Patel refused to waive visas cos of a risk of “spies and security threats” entering

61. Sunday Times quoted multiple security sources saying Johnson overruled them and gave a peerage to his pal (and son of KGB spy) Evgeny Lebedev, who was described as a “security threat”

62. Johnson says all those sources, who are high-ranking members of British security forces, are lying about Russian spies

63. James Cleverly said it didn’t matter than Lebedev’s family were all spies, because his own dad was a chartered surveyor

64. Meanwhile post-Brexit rules meant charity aid supplies to Ukrainian refugees were held up for 2 days at Dover

65. Charity workers coming into contact with Brexit for the first time called the entire thing a “waste of money and waste of time”

66. This seems to have come as a shock to Brexit’s Desmond Swayne too. The reanimated corpse Alvin Stardust said it was “monstrous” that we have to fill in forms to trade with the EU, and called for the border to be made “seamless” after campaigning for a border for 30 years

67. Sajid Javid blamed it all on the NHS, for using gas supplies from Russia

68. Unsurprisingly we’re down over 110,000 NHS staff

69. Which brings us to plague news, and remember that time we didn’t have a stockpile of PPE because the govt didn’t plan for a pandemic?

70. And then we ended up paying 5x the normal price for PPE sourced from associates of govt ministers, who suddenly became millions of pounds richer?

71. And while we waited for the PPE, thousands of health workers and hundreds of thousands of UK citizens died? Remember that?

72. Well now our plan is to burn 15000 pallets of our newly created PPE stockpile every month, so we end up with no stockpile again

73. That’s enough PPE to fill a queue of HGVs 7 miles long, up in flames, every month

74. And this comes as Covid hospitalisations are at the highest rate for almost a year

75. And a new variant has been discovered, which seems far more risky

76. So Philip Davies wrote to every govt department, telling them to scrap every single Covid precaution

77. And a few minor stories you may have missed

78. Johnson’s flagship promise to build 4000 zero-emissions buses reached the halfway mark

79. Don’t get over-excited, I just mean he’s built zero. Plenty of emissions though!

80. Salaries for the dept working towards net-zero have been cut by 20%

81. But MPs will get a £2,200 pay rise

82. Johnson was castigated for the 3rd time in a month for claiming unemployment is down 600,000

83. It’s up 600,000, and climbing

84. So DWP blocked access to the data that was used to study the very clear relationship between benefit sanctions and suicides

85. Levelling up news, and changes to student loans mean low-earning graduates will pay £28[k] more, while the wealthy pay just £15k more

86. And finally, quietly in the background, startled halibut Michael Gove moved ahead with plans to abolish the electoral commission and put the Tories in charge of honest elections, a move a parliamentary committee called “undermining the independence of our electoral system”

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 16.03.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory

1. It’s been a busy 3 weeks, during which we’d denied entry for refugees, allowed refugees if they’d pick fruit, turn back over 600 refugees in Calais, hung posters in France saying, “no visas here”, and taken 0.015% the number refugees taken by Ireland

2. This week the Home Office followed up on their *excellent* start by sending emails to displaced people in Ukraine, asking them to head INTO THE WAR ZONE to attend a visa application appointment at a UK centre 500 miles from their home

3. And that visa centre is shut

4. Michael Gove, with the soul of a hyena, said the UK had “granted 300,000 visas”

5. Sky News asked if he was sure about that number

6. Michael Gove, with the mind of a goldfish, said the UK had “granted 3000 visas”

7. And only 300 people have actually been allowed in yet

8. Poland has taken over 1.8 million

9. So Boris Johnson, an internationally recognised lodestone for bullshit, said “we have taken more refugees than any other country in Europe”

10. And then he halted Home Office plans to expand the refugee offer

11. Meanwhile Daniel Kawczynski, the gobshite’s gobshite, tweeted it would be “immoral” and “left wing” for Britain to take refugees

12. Instead he said kids, pensioners and pregnant women fleeing Russian bombardments should “remain on the front line” for “their own good”

13. Having bravely volunteered Ukrainians to the front line, he bravely deleted his Twitter account because people mocked him for being as thick as a boxing day turd

14. But the govt has eventually done the right thing, having finally exhausted all the alternatives

15. The Tories created a website where you can register to house a refugee

16. The website crashed

17. When it did occasionally work, it was discovered you need to know the individual names of any refugees you wanted to help, and the govt wouldn’t assist with that in any way

18. Michael Gove suggested the best way for Ukrainian refugees to let volunteers know their names was to “set up an Instagram account” (presumably while being shot at in a freezing crater that used to be their bombed-out home), quickly learn English, and “advertise”

19. Gove said he’d “had it up to here” with people saying his govt was dishonest about its commitment to refugees, and that “Labour introduced the Hostile Environment”

20. It was 2012 when Tories announced their policy to “create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment”

21. Trundling horcrux Priti Patel said incredibly slow visa applications were necessary because of Windrush, which ended in people being unable to access benefits

22. Windrush only happened because of the Hostile Environment the Tories created, and are still running

23. Sajid Javid said he had considered taking in a refugee, but decided not to because “he wouldn’t be a good host”

24. He’s worth over £8m, and owns 3 homes in the UK

25. One has 5 double bedrooms, a Star Wars themed cinema, and a self-contained guest barn

26. But he can’t put up a refugee, cos he’s not around to offer canapes

27. Patel tweeted it was “appalling misinformation” to suggest Ukrainians still needed a visa to enter the UK

28. Same day, Boris Johnson announced details of the visas Ukrainians needed to enter the UK

29. Tory MPs accused Patel of misleading the House of Commons (again) over visas

30. Patel told MPs “I have made it clear, the visa application centre has now been set up and we have staff in Calais”

31. That Calais visa centre is in Lille, which is 70 miles from Calais

32. And it didn’t exist when she told parliament it “has how been set up”

33. But she did tell MPs refugees could take “a free Eurostar” to the quantum fluctuating visa centre in Calais/Lille, so that must be a relief to them

34. Or maybe not, since no such train route exists

35. This week Boris Johnson wrote a Telegraph article blaming the EU for not using its influence to prevent Putin’s expansionism

36. In 2014 Boris Johnson wrote a Telegraph article blaming EU influence in Ukraine for Putin’s expansionism

37. Warming to his theme of Bullshit Tsunami, Johnson denounced our dependence on oil from a brutal undemocratic dictatorship that has invaded neighbouring lands

38. So instead, he went to ask for more oil from Saudi Arabia, a brutal undemocratic dictatorship that invaded Yemen

39. And Jacob Rees-Mogg, a cross between a cursed dildo and the concept of gout, claimed UK “leads the way” in removing corrupt Russian money from our system, thus proving the UK had previously led the way in allowing corrupt Russian money in our system

40. Bearing that in mind, grant me the balls of Nadine Dorries, who launched a “crackdown on people telling lies, using the internet to exploit innocent people”

41. She then asked Microsoft “when are you going to get rid of algorithms”, which are the basis of computer science

42. Meanwhile Facebook deleted quotes by Dorries and Boris Johnson for breaching their decency standards

43. Dorries then announced “400 new jobs” in culture

44. This consisted of her firing 600 people, moving 400 of their roles to Manchester, and cutting the remaining 200 jobs

45. Covid: and the former Corruption Minister (who earlier resigned cos there was too much corruption) said Tory Covid policy was “happy days if you were a crook”

46. As cases soared and scientists globally warned “the pandemic is not over” the Tories leaped into inaction

47. They cancelled funding for Covid tracking apps

48. And cancelled funding for Covid transmission studies

49. And cancelled all travel restrictions

50. And abolished the Covid declaration form on entry into UK, so we have no clue about new infections

51. Sajid Javid, apparently the health minister and a child’s drawing of infinite irresponsibility superimposed onto a competitively evil gonad, said Britain is “in a very good position” as 12,000 people ended up in hospital with Covid

52. Then he cut NHS training for new staff

53. The NHS already has 94,000 full time vacancies

54. And because of cuts a record 791 medical graduates were refused training places this week

55. Unsurprisingly Javid said we should “prepare ourselves” for many deaths. I’m gonna do 10 press-ups and bleed my radiators

56. Grant Shapps celebrated this great health news for people who somehow make it through alive, saying “you can now travel, like in the good old days”

57. And Greg Hands tweeted his delight at the memory of his 1985 move to Germany, where he went to live and work

58. They’re both members of a govt that ended the right to do any of that

59. Boris Johnson said the NI Protocol (which he negotiated, said was “brilliant”, and pushed through parliament without scrutiny) now needed “significant changes” because he said it might break the law

60. Courts ruled the Protocol is “not simple, but it is lawful” so we’re stuck with it

61. MPs said the Festival of Brexit is a £120m “recipe for failure”, “vague”, “shape-shifting” and “an irresponsible use of public money”. Therefore a perfect celebration of Brexit

62. Rises in prices for energy, heating, oil, water, council tax, broadband, food and National Insurance all happened before Russia invaded Ukraine

63. But they all happened since Brexit

64. So after their last stunning success, the ERG transformed into a pro-fracking group

65. COP26 chair, climate super-champion, and the world’s first spine-donor Kwasi Kwarteng suggested fracking should go ahead in 138 English constituencies

66. Of those 138 MPs found only 5 would allow fracking under their OWN homes, but were all for it under anybody else’s

67. And speaking of COP26, this week it was revealed a Tory peer – no, not Evgeniy Lebedev, a different one – had attended that conference as a **Russian delegate**

68. Needles to say, the govt denied Russia was too embedded in the Downing St operation

69. And then it emerged Russia had fitted all the electronics, computers, recording and broadcast equipment for the ghastly £2.6 million Downing St briefing room that was only used for Allegra Stratton to admit to illegal parties, and for Johnson to watch Bond movies.

70. Minor stories you may have missed, or may wish you had: only 29% of students with disabilities were approved for govt disability grants

71. We suddenly face a multibillion-pound bill from China, because we forgot to collect customs duties on Chinese imports for SIX YEARS

72. Having left the Charity Commission without a chair for a year, the Tories finally found a former Tory candidate (what a coincidence) to take over, just in time for the review of whether private schools should still be charities

73. And finally, some much-needed good news: the law banning the import of dead wild animals from trophy hunters was axed after “lobbying from a small group of wealthy Tory peers”. And I bet that’s a huge relief to voters in those Red Wall seats

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 24.03.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I was going to do #TheWeekInTory, but try as I might, I can’t find a single thing they’ve done wrong this week.

Only kidding. It’s been an absolute casserole. 91 items long, you poor fuckers.

Drink heavily before, during and after.

Here we go:

1. Boris Johnson got things off to a cracking start by telling adoring 79-year-old Tory youngsters that Ukrainians huddling in basements to survive a murderous Russian invasion was the same as an obsessive, Daily-Express-inspired quibble about energy efficient lightbulbs

2. Johnson – who says he “leads the world” on Ukraine – was subsequently uninvited from a summit on the war

3. Sajid Javid told R4 “Russians mislead their public all the time”, and then immediately denied Johnson had even said the Brexit / Ukraine thing. Which he said. On TV.

4. Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy, told BBC “of course the PM doesn’t regret saying it”

5. An hour later it was reported Johnson “regrets the remarks”

6. An hour after that Johnson said he regrets nothing. Still keeping up? It’s OK, neither is Nadine.

7. A report emerged of Johnson telling people Russian oligarchs were “buying influence in the Tory party”

8. So Priti Patel said Putin might use Ukrainian women and children to “infiltrate the UK”

9. It’s a fair point: they’re cheaper than Tory donors, and Putin loves a bargain

10. On the night Putin invaded Ukraine, it turns out Boris Johnson had attended a secret fundraising dinner with Russian donors

11. Meanwhile Alan Duncan, who had argued that the UK shouldn’t sanction Russian oil, was this week reported to be working for a Russian oil trader

12. Senior Tory Bernard Jenkin said it was “unbelievable” that Johnson ennobled a man who got all his money from his KGB-officer father, overriding warnings from the security services

13. Johnson denied it happened

14. Dominic Cummings said he personally watched it happen

15. Almost 140000 Brits have volunteered to house Ukrainian refugees

16. So the Tories issued 8300 visas, which – help me out, maths fans: is that enough?

17. We have now generously offered – but not yet delivered – visas to 1 in every 372 people fleeing Ukraine

18. Researchers described the “excessive bureaucracy” of our refugee programme as “completely unworkable”

19. So to ensure Ukrainians understand her govt’s welcome, Priti Patel created a law to put them in jail for 4 years if they lack proper visa paperwork

20. Not even a UK jail – they’ll be shipped to “camps” overseas

21. Patel’s first choice of location was a literal volcano in the middle of the Atlantic

22. In a first for Patel, this idea was quickly abandoned because it’s “demonstrably insane”, which is usually her sweet spot

23. So now Patel said refugees will be stored “offshore”, but nobody knows where, and Australian experts described the idea as “a human rights disaster”

24. All this makes UK “the most anti-refugee country in the world” according to Médecins Sans Frontières

25. Despite this, Tory chairman and betwattled Morph cosplayer Oliver Dowden announced Boris Johnson has a “real emotional connection” with refugees

26. So deep is that connection that Boris Johnson intervened to airlift 96 dogs out of Afghanistan rather than humans

27. So the PM tweeted “warm wishes to Afghan friends in the UK”, all of whom still await asylum approval

28. Then Johnson said it’s “not up to him” to work out if he’d allow a refugee in his house, proving he’s really taken the whole PartyGate “I know nothing” thing to heart

29. Posturing mantis Jacob Rees-Mogg loomed up, like your worst stilton nightmare, and implied he was glad Ukraine had been invaded cos it let Tories “get away” from the “fluff” of the PM getting pissed in the garden all day while 160,000 Brits died from Covid

30. JRM said Ukraine was finally an opportunity to “roll back wokery”, and then to demonstrate his unerring commitment to free speech he said Britain should “refuse to use socialist vocabulary”

31. Oliver Dowden said people criticising those nice Russian oligarchs are “racist”

32. The PM’s unofficial advisor Charles Moore joined in, telling R4 “the govt’s refugee policy isn’t racist. It’s just that we like Christians in this country and Muslims should go elsewhere”

33. Words. They can be so difficult.

34. We flushed and flushed, but Dowden bobbed back up, blaming a Labour govt for the energy crisis. Tories have been in office 12 years

35. And then he asserted – out loud, where any passing psychiatric professional could hear him – that privet hedges would vote Conservative

36. Defence secretary and novelty pencil eraser Ben Wallace spent several minutes on a hoax call from a pretend Ukrainian minister

37. He then said it was “standard practice” for Russians to do this sort of call, which makes you wonder why he took several minutes to work it out

38. Despite it being “standard practice”, Priti Patel and Nadine Dorries then both fell for hoax calls

39. Rishi Sunak, having a go at being Chancellor during his gap-year, made an impassioned statement on Ukraine while Boris Johnson hunched behind him, practicing his gurning

40. Sunak said he wouldn’t be homing any refugees, but he and his wife would help “in other ways”

41. One of those other ways is Sunak and wife urgently doing absolutely nothing to withdraw their family investment in Russian businesses, for which I’m sure Ukraine is grateful

42. As foodbanks stopped accepting donations of potatoes cos recipients can’t afford the fuel required to cook them, Sunak decided to boast of all the different types of bread he can afford to buy

43. He then claimed “Tory policy has led to a million fewer living in poverty”

44. That policy is: manipulating the data by changing the way Tories measure poverty

45. Tory Scott Benton said the best way to avoid fuel poverty is “to get a job”

46. Getting a job doesn’t seem to help much: poverty in working households is at the highest level ever recorded

47. And Sunak just pushed another 1.3 m into poverty. He’s the best one. They keep saying he’s the best Tory

48. Warming up for his pitch for becoming next Bullshitting PM, Sunak told parliament he was cutting taxes as he announced the highest jump in taxes since the 1940s

49. He boasted of “the biggest cut in fuel tax 70 years”, taking petrol prices all the way back to where they were 4 days earlier

50. A month after claiming he’d created the “fastest-growing economy in the G7”, he’s caused the biggest drop in living standards since the 50s

51. But – huzzah – at least we’ll get a 1p tax cut in 2024, coincidentally scheduled for the day before the general election is pencilled in.

52. Sunak then posed for perfectly life-like photos depicting him – the richest MP there has ever been – putting petrol into his Kia Rio

53. He said he was cutting VAT on solar panels which “the EU would not allow us to do”

54. The EU did it last year

55. Sunak then teed-up us blowing a hole in the NI Protocol, which Johnson negotiated, told voters was “a great deal”, and forms the basis of his 80-seat majority

56. This brings us to Brexit, and the USA said breaking the Protocol mean they wouldn’t even attempt a trade deal

57. And then the USA said no matter what, a trade deal with a “shrinking UK” – which was the whole basis of our Brexit plan – wouldn’t be worth their time and effort

58. Not that it matters much, since the Public Accounts Committee said Brexit trade deals will “not deliver any actual economic benefits”

59. Former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib announced plans to take Johnson to the Supreme Court to prove Brexit is worse than remaining in the EU

60. More Quantum Fluctuating Tory Manifesto news, as Oliver Dowden was back to hit out against “net-zero dogma”, seemingly unaware he fought an election on a manifesto promising to deliver net-zero

61. P&O sacked 800 workers and then rehired replacements at 30% of minimum wage

62. The govt said it was shocked and appalled by this sudden news, despite having been told by P&O the day before it happened, and doing nothing to prevent it

63. The Tories now claim it P&O have broken the law (and the Tories let them, but shhhhh)

64. A maritime law specialist said it isn’t actually against the law, cos the legislation P&O used was signed off by Chris Grayling, the Home Bargains Pennywise, in 2018

65. Even so, the govt was so upset that Grant Shapps and Kwasi Kwarteng tweeted an angry tweet about it

66. They addressed the tweet to a man who had resigned as P&O chairman months before any of this happened

67. Then they deleted the tweet and sent it again to the right man

68. And then irony no-fly-zone Kwarteng said P&O’s ineptitude had “lost the trust of the public”

69. Clattering halfwit Natalie Elphicke was so incensed she told a protest rally that she would “be marching for the people of Dover”

70. Three days later, she abstained from voting to save P&O jobs

71. In fact, not a single Tory MP voted to prevent “Fire and Hire”

72. Grant Shapps said Tories would send a message that P&O sacking workers was “disgraceful treatment that would never be tolerated”

73. The same Shapps – perhaps using a different identity – was author of a paper arguing “it should be easier for firms to sack workers”

74. P&O had taken £10m grants to furlough workers, £150m as a bailout, and then its owners paid £250m to shareholders

75. To prove how terribly cross Tories were about all this, they gave the P&O owners an additional £50m as part of Rishi Sunak’s ever-so-clever Freeport Scheme

76. So crepuscular Regency abattoir-creeper Jacob Rees-Mogg sympathetically said he intended to scrap even more employment rules

77. He said “safety laws that are good enough for India are good enough for UK”

78. Workplace deaths per year in the UK: 112

79. In India: 48,000

80. Speaking of avoidable mass-deaths, despite the govt writing a terse memo telling the pandemic to pack it in, infections are up 400% since mask restrictions were lifted

81. 3.3 million people were infected in just 7 days

82. Admissions in England are up 26% in a week

83. So health secretary Sajid Javid moved on from last week’s soothing advice to “brace yourselves” for loads of deaths, and now says primary school kids should “socialise a bit less”. Cos cutting down on 7-year-olds having dinner parties beats simple preventative measures

84. Speaking of utter failure to perform basic duties, senior officials reported the PM is “too lazy” and “unfocused” to read briefing papers, even on Ukraine

85. Instead, they send him summaries of sensitive material in WhatsApp messages, in breach of govt security regulations

86. All Johnson’s WhatsApp messages are still there, except for the ones about Covid contracts, which he seems to have entirely accidentally deleted, just as the Covid enquiry begins. The “delete awkward evidence” button is in the Settings menu of WhatsApp

87. Also, Matt Hancock failed to declare WhatsApp messages he exchanged with disgraced former Tory MP Owen Paterson during last year’s illegal lobbying scandal

88. And his week Tories dropped plans to cap earnings from MP’s second jobs, which they promised after Paterson

89. They then rejected new rules to prevent “discriminatory language” in parliament

90. Which brings us the person in charge of equality, Kemi Badenoch, who said the black schoolgirl Child Q being strip-searched just shows how much the UK cares about minorities

91. She then boasted the British Empire achieved “good things”, overlooking the small matter of 100 million deaths

92. Despite this, dying palm-tree Michael Fabricant rushed out to boast UK still had an excellent “soft-power” score of 64/100

93. It was 75/100 before Brexit

94. Finally, glistening human polyp David Cameron tried to rehabilitate his rep by posing for photos at one of the 2800 foodbanks his own policies had created

95. And research showed his decision to “cut the green crap” has added £150 a year to every fuel bill in the country

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 01.04.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

This edition of #TheWeekInTory falls on April Fool’s Day, and there’s an obvious temptation to slip a fib into this.

I didn’t.

So if you feel fooled, it’s only cos some of you voted for these gibbering apes.

Anyway, here we go, with the longest, stupidest one yet…

1. Grant Shapps (who has more identities than Jason Bourne, somebody else people would travel halfway round the world to punch) was ooooh, livid about P&O, and demanded workers be reinstated

2. He tweeted “P&O Ferries has ripped up 800 workers’ rights and hung them out to dry”

3. P&O’s owners pointed out that they’d told Shapps they were going to do this a year ago, and he’d implicitly given them the go-ahead for the sackings, telling them “you will need to make commercial decisions” that are best for P&O

4. Boris Johnson told parliament P&O had broken the law – and he hates that kind of thing – so “We will take them to court to defend British workers”

5. This week the govt dropped plans to take P&O to court, leading experts to say “it looks like they’ve got away with it”

6. Last month’s relaxation of public health measures has been so successful that this week Covid infections reached a record high, and hospitalisations of older people are 15% up on the last Omicron peak

7. So obviously, from today free Covid testing has been scrapped too

8. And funding for tracking Covid has been axed, cos if you don’t look, it isn’t really happening

9. When presented with the option of reintroducing basic public health measures, the health secretary instead went with advising primary school children to “socialise a bit less”

10. The “protective ring” thrown around care homes was breached (again) as the cost of tests for visitors rises to £73 per month, and becomes voluntary

11. And then, to thank health staff for their work, sacrifices and avoidable deaths, Sajid Javid scrapped their free parking

12. So sad news for the NHS, but fabulous news for Tory peer Michelle Mone

13. She was reported to have directly lobbied govt ministers to place orders for PPE from a company she was secretly involved in, via a tax haven – cos you wouldn’t wanna pay tax on your profiteering

14. The Mone-adjacent company bought PPE for £46m, then sold it to the govt at 3x the price, and pocketed the difference

15. And the PPE was never used cos it failed inspections

16. And it looks the PPE was somehow – surely by accident – issued with fake approval certificates

17. And the entire thing had been negotiated between Mone and ministers using private email accounts, so there would be no papertrail

18. Govt guidelines forbid the use of private emails for govt business. But they also forbid illegal profiteering, and look where that got us

19. Rosa Klebb tribute act Priti Patel didn’t want to miss out, so made a “flagrant breach” of ministerial code by intervening to get a PPE contract for a company represented by her friend and former advisor

20. Startled turbot Michael Gove was involved in granting the contract

21. That company’s profits jumped from £38m to £166m

22. After the last lobbying scandal – and I know it’s hard to keep track – the PM said he would “crack down” on the practice, and put a cap on MPs earnings from second jobs

23. This week he quietly scrapped those promises

24. And so ex-social care minister Caroline Dineage immediately took a lucrative second job at a social care business owned by a Tory donor

25. The Met continued their Cosmo-questionnaire-based approach to crimefighting, and issued 20 fines for people involved in PartyGate

26. The fines coincided with the opening of the Covid Memorial wall, and also with the day Tory MPs chose to throw a jolly party for themselves, what larks

27. Tories entered the shindig via a line of mourners from Covid deaths, and not one Tory MP looked at them. Not one

28. Follicular fire-hazard Michael Fabricant, having experienced this, was moved to tweet his outrage – not about the flatly ignored mourners, but about the wine at the party being merely a “passable” House Merlot, and not up to his usual standards

29. On the way in he said “We’re going to have a lot of fun”

30. On the way out, clearly briefed by somebody smarter, such as the animal corpse on his head, he said it “wasn’t a party, just colleagues having dinner and drinks”, which is exactly what they just got fined for

31. Months ago, as PartyGate kicked off, Solicitor General Alex Chalk put it in writing that he would resign if there was “a scintilla of a suggestion” anyone had broken the law over Downing St parties

32. Alex Chalk has not resigned as Solicitor General. I know. I’m amazed too

33. Boris Johnson suggested the fines simply showed that he was being honest when had told parliament “There was no party and no rules were broken”

34. The ministerial code says “Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament will be expected to offer their resignation”

35. Dominic Raab, the kind of Justice Minister you’d expect to find on Gumtree, admitted laws had been broken

36. Johnson listened politely, then said he would remain “pretty firmly on his position” that no laws were broken

37. And then No 10 said laws had been broken

38. But Johnson refused to admit laws were broken

39. To help out, the police said laws had been broken

40. No 10 then had some sort of episode, said “we do not formally accept laws were broken”, and began denying Raab had said laws had been broken. Which he had said. On TV.

41. No 10 then claimed the PM denying parties wasn’t a lie, even though police had fined 20 people for those parties

42. Faced with a paradox hard for any mind to handle, let alone his, Raab said the PM’s bullshit was merely him “telling the truth, to the best of his ability”

43. And then, in a magisterial challenge to irony, Raab complained we “can’t believe a word that comes out of Putin”

44. So off to the NATO summit, where our world-leading PM, Sir Plankton Churchill, was ignored by everybody, and ending up alone, gazing forlornly at the ground

45. The govt boasted it had sanctioned 18 oligarchs, cos we don’t want dodgy Russian money queue-jumping honest visa-applicants

46. 8 of those 18 got into this country via the Tory policy of “golden visas”, using dodgy Russian money queue-jump honest visa-applicants

47. Rishi Sunak, the rejected first-draft of an Aardman sidekick who is pretending to be a chancellor, said “I want to make it clear that there is no case for UK business investing in Russia”

48. His family has a £727m stake in Russian business, but he blamed his wife for that

49. He said anyone blaming his wife should be ashamed, but at least he hadn’t gone all Will Smith on their ass

50. He’ll go slap-happy when he finds out the ministerial code says ministers “must ensure no conflict arises between their public duties and their private interests”

51. Sunak told MPs he was a “tax-cutting chancellor”, and to prove it he introduced the biggest rise in taxes since the 1950s

52. Energy bills rose 54%, so his brilliant plan for people with terrifying fuel debt was to force them into deeper debt, with a mandatory £200 loan

53. He then – and bear in mind he’s supposed to be an expert on this stuff – said just because he was lending money to people who then had to repay it, that didn’t mean it was a loan

54. David Davis – so good they named him once – said Sunak is “making the economy worse”

55. To celebrate this glowing review, Sunak, who’s primary skill appears to be taking his jacket off, got his official photographer to snap him (jacketless) posing as he filled up his very own Kia Rio

56. Except he’d borrowed the Kia from a supermarket worker

57. But he paid for the fuel, bless him, although it wasn’t easy. Footage showed the guy in charge of our nation’s money battling heroically as he got confused between a credit card and a can of coke, while desperately attempting to negotiate a till at a petrol station

58. After his wily Kia Rio ploy fell through in about 4 seconds, he told MPs he really drives a “battered old Golf”

59. He seems to have forgotten about the Range Rovers and 3 other luxury cars he owns, some of which he keeps at his modest, man-of-the-people pad in Santa Monica

60. He told MPs it was impossible to say whether Brexit had hurt the economy, mainly cos he didn’t give a shit, what with him being massively rich

61. Then, seemingly having cleared the cache in his brain, he told MPs it was “always inevitable” that Brexit would hurt the economy

62. At the last general election Rishi Sunak had campaigned for a party promising their Brexit would make every person in Britain £993 a year richer

63. It’s made every household £3,600 a year poorer

64. That’s very nearly enough money to fill up a Kia Rio

65. Research found the £20 Covid increase in Universal Credit lifted 400k children out of poverty, so naturally Sunak scrapped it

66.And then, in a major shock to those who have been observing his levelling up plans, it was shown his changes to student loans hurt the poor most

67. He’s clearly holding his levelling-up-o-meter upside down

68. Economists said his plans leave 1/5 of the UK in poverty

69. He said “I am comfortable with the choices I made”

70. 3 hours later, he was reported to be “panicked” into considering throwing his entire plan away

71. As previous Tory decisions to scrap green investment added £190 a year to energy bills, an SNP MP asked Johnson in parliament how people in Scotland could afford to heat their homes

72. Johnson – the actual Prime Minister – responded by calling him a fatty. In parliament

73. Priti Patel, the Gnome of Sauron, promised a “fairer, more compassionate” Home Office after a report found her dept was cruel, incompetent, and badly managed

74. This week the report’s author said in 2 years since then, Patel had done almost nothing to fix her dept

75. Only 8 of 30 recommendations have been even *partly* implemented, and the report said it was “disappointed” 13 times

76. So Patel, stalwart in her adherence to reality, said she was “pleased the report says significant progress has been made”

77. She also designed a scheme for EU citizens to keep living in the UK, which is so good it means 2 million of them now face deportation

78. A new independent (but Tory) head of Ofcom was announced, responsible for overseeing social media regulation and protecting broadcasting

79. He immediately said he wants to privatise Channel 4 and scrap the BBC funding model

80. The man now in charge of regulating social media proudly stated that he’s never used social media, but “is aware of it” because his children told him about TikTok

81. He went on to say how much he admired Laurence Fox, that waxy, lurching manifestation of entitlement and stupidity, because “I know his family”, which I think we can all agree is a GREAT reason to support Fox constantly undermining public health in a pandemic

82. Nadhim Zahawi, a child’s drawing of pure greed superimposed onto a competitively evil gonad, announced he would force all schools to become academies by 2030

83. This was because “evidence” showed academies “deliver the best possible outcomes”

84. The “evidence” actually shows academies perform 23% worse than council-run schools

85. Then Zahawi proudly announced a bold new idea – never tried before, not at any parents’ evenings ever – of getting teachers to tell parents if their kids were doing badly in school. Cool.

86. Local elections are coming, and the public need honest communications about what they’re voting for

87. So the govt was found to have illegally spent £100,000 of public money on “Tory Propaganda” ads on Facebook, targeted on areas where they are defending small majorities

88. Etch-a-sketch thundercunt Dom Raab was back, with a new bill of human rights to guarantee free speech

89. But you have to exercise your free speech in monastic silence, cos Priti Patel has simultaneously banned any protests that is loud enough for anybody to hear

90. Patel, the Shetland Pony of the Apocalypse, was also found this week to have breached human rights by her policy of literally stealing phones off asylum seekers

91. More human rights news, as Johnson promised to ban conversion therapies that claim to “cure” gayness

92. He then did a U-turn on that promise

93. Then he did a U-turn on the U-turn… do we need to coin the phrase “W-turn”?

94. But he hasn’t banned conversion therapy for being transgender

95. And then Tory MP Jamie Wallis came out as transgender

96. And so, as a consequence all this, Jamie Wallis is now a member of a political party with a stated policy – at least for the next 10-15 minutes – of “curing” Jamie Wallis of being Jamie Wallis

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 08.04.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

1. Let’s start #TheWeekInTory with PartyGate, where randy Honey Monster and (no, really) Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied 20 fines meant there had been wrongdoing

2. This doesn’t quite explain why he had personally phoned the Queen to apologise for all the wrongdoing

3. Regardless, The Met issued MASSIVE fines of £50 for breaching lockdown rules

4. Last week a £2,200 was handed down to a member of the public (who didn’t live or work in Downing St) for breaching lockdown rules, thus proving we’re all equal in the eyes of the law

5. Maria Caulfield said the PM was “very clear there was wrongdoing”

6. Same TV show, she said the PM “did not believe there was wrongdoing”

7. Dom Cummings (Lucius Malfoy after a flash-fire) said “the PM encouraged attacks on junior officials” to distract from his own crimes

8. Having promised to release all party photos to the Sue Gray inquiry, No 10 now refuses to release photos, and denies they even exist

9. Anyway, off (very slowly) to Dover, to find a week of 23-mile, 30 hr traffic jams as a combination of Brexit paperwork and P&O problems hit

10. Last week the govt promised to sue P&O

11. It dropped that promise 4 days later, once it had attracted enough good headlines

12. The govt had also promised to improve worker’s rights

13. This week the govt shelved those plans for the second year running

14. Kent had a “temporary traffic management system” that we were told would be scrapped in Oct 2021, by which time Brexit would be simply marvellous

15. This week that temporary traffic system was made permanent, in recognition that Brexit will never stop being dog-shit

16. This brings us on to a cross-party report this week, which found Brexit has caused 500,000 agriculture vacancies

17. So the govt issued 30,000 temp visas, which is 6% of what we need

18. Amazingly, this didn’t solve the problem

19. Nor did a 50% increase in farm pay

20. But it has led to a huge increase in food prices and costs for farmers

21. Lack of workers means crops are going unharvested, and left to rot

22. The loss of crops, cost increases, and damage to supply chains caused by Brexit has been “financially ruinous” to UK farmers

20. But it has led to a huge increase in food prices and costs for farmers

21. Lack of workers means crops are going unharvested, and left to rot

22. The loss of crops, cost increases, and damage to supply chains caused by Brexit has been “financially ruinous” to UK farmers

26. But at least it’s better than the horror of Ukraine, where 6.5 million refugees seek homes, and our world-leading govt has taken 43 days to issue just 2700 visas

27. So far only 500 refugees have been allowed into the country. Out of 6.5 million

28. Naturally, given the urgent crisis, this week the Home Office chose to shut down part of its visa system, which officials called “chaotic”

29. And then the govt admitted they’ve been “giving Ukrainian refugees the wrong guidance” on how to apply to come here for over a month

30. The Tory refugee minister in the Lords said his own govt’s response to refugees was “embarrassing”

31. Undeterred – but definitely still turd – Home Secretary and rabid Dolores Umbridge cosplayer Priti Patel’s put forward lovely new plans to criminalise refugees

32. They were rejected by the House of Lords after the lord chief justice pointed out they “breach international law”

33. Over to Number 11, where Rishi Sunak, who is being chancellor during his gap year, made loads of friends in yet another devastatingly successful week

34. He began by blocking the Green Homes plan that would have reduced energy bills

35. Then he forced everybody with rocketing and terrifying fuel debt to take on an additional £200 of fuel debt, whether they like it or not

36. Sunak then insisted giving people money that they had to repay “doesn’t make it a loan”

37. Brandon Lewis, out of his depth on a sheet of graphene and battling to hold 2 ideas in his head at once, told an interviewer “It is a loan, let’s remember. No, it isn’t”

38. To show how much he sympathised with the desperate plight of the poor, Sunak generously donated £100,000 to foodbanks

39. No, hold on: let me correct that: he donated £100,000 to his old boarding school Winchester College, alma mater of some of the richest people on earth

40. In his next act of empathy, Sunak demonstrated a great way we could all avoid freezing as his fuel and tax policies cause catastrophic hardship: leave behind all the massive problems you just caused, and fly off to your £5m holiday home in sunny Santa Monica

41. Feral gonad Sajid Javid said it was “right and fair” that we all pay more tax than we can afford

42. He then said it was right and fair for Rishi Sunak’s billionaire wife to avoid tax she can easily afford, cos what are we: animals? Or – god help us – Belgians?!

43. Akshata Murthy (Mrs Sunak) has non-dom status, so doesn’t pay tax on most of her billions of income

44. This includes income derived from the £727m stake she has in Russian businesses that her husband spent last week telling the rest of us we shouldn’t invest in

45. Sunak said his wife was only avoiding tax cos she’s Indian

46. But being Indian doesn’t make you exempt from UK tax if you live/earn here

47. And being non-dom isn’t an accident of birth: she pays £30k a year for it

48. But it has allowed her to avoid £20m of tax

49. The average Brit worker pays £6k per year in tax, so Murthy’s greed has wiped out the entire contribution of 3,330 British workers

50. And then the govt, by some amazing twist of happenstance, chose her family firm to be recipients of £50m in contracts

51. Let us enter the (presumably quite large) orbit of Eric Pickles, former housing minister and current twat, who respectfully attended the Grenfell Inquiry

52. He respectfully told them he was too busy to answer their questions

53. He said the fire killed 96 people. It killed 72, which he respectfully couldn’t be arsed remembering

54. Still, he’s an improvement on Nadine Dorries, who ignored a committee of MPs telling her the new Ofcom head shouldn’t get the job because he has a “clear lack of depth”

55. The same flaw hadn’t stopped Dorries getting into cabinet, so she pressed on regardless

56. The last time Dorries appointed a head of the Charity Commission – and a friend of Boris Johnson’s, wouldn’t you just know it – was December, and he lasted barely a week

57. So this week, without bothering to run an appointments process, she appointed a different member of the Tory inner-circle as the new charities head

58. MPs had already rejected this one too, as being “slapdash”, and I think I’m starting to spot a pattern

59. The Tory chair of the culture committee said the actions of Dorries simply proved “the public appointments process is broken”

60. Taking her queue from this, Dorries then moved on to breaking Channel 4

61. Dorries (the actual Culture Minister, and not a woman dragged in front of the cameras straight from a fight outside a flat-roofed pub) said C4 being publicly funded was “holding it back”

62. C4 isn’t publicly funded, and Nadine is so thick you could stand a spoon up in her

63. Dorries’s sterling native stupidity didn’t stop Ben Bradley (the Lego form of Al Murray) from using her as a role-model, so he also claimed C4 gets “£ from the taxpayer” and can’t raise its own funds

64. It raises its own funds via advertising

65. Grade B MP David Warburton was suspended for class A drugs, and for sexually assaulting 3 women

66. It probably won’t help his defence that he’d posed for photos next to a baking-tray full of cocaine

67. Tory whips knew about his drugs/assaults for weeks, and did nothing

68. Warburton has checked himself into a psychiatric unit

69. He somehow jumped the place of the 60% of children’s mental health referrals currently being rejected, because a decade of Tory cuts (which Warburton voted for) has left us unable to care for our kids

70. Perhaps Warburton will pay for his own care, maybe using the undisclosed £100k he just took from a Russian businessman

71. This was hot on the cloven-heels of Priti Patel, who this week took a £100k “donation” from an oil trader

72. A donation is not the same as a bribe. One is illegal, the other legal. But occasionally, by some chance-in-a-million fluke, they produce identical results

73. For example, days after getting a donation from an oil trader, Patel opposed windfall taxes on oil company profits

74. Which brings us to the energy crisis, and 2 weeks ago the PM promised a “long-term energy policy” based around windfarms

75. And then 9 cabinet ministers – the usual supercluster of arrant gobshites, Patel, Dorries, Rees-Mogg etc – demanded a cut in support for windfarms

76. So the PM’s “long-term energy policy” has lasted 2 weeks, and today’s wild, sweaty fumble in the policy tombola has led to a new one: 6 nuclear power stations instead, which won’t open for decades, and for which there is no money

77. There’s also no money for home insulation, which is the cheapest, fastest, and greenest way to conserve energy and reduce bills, and could start tomorrow

78. However, ministers did launch a plan to drop the ban on fracking, contradicting their own manifesto pledge

79. Other manifesto pledges: a mini-thread, as if you haven’t suffered enough

a. “We will not raise National Insurance”

b. National Insurance increased by 10%

c. “We will keep the pension Triple Lock”

d. They abolished the triple lock

e. “No-one will have to sell their home to pay for care”

f. People still have to sell their homes for care

g. “We’ll build rail between Manchester and Leeds”

h. Scrapped

i. “40 new hospitals”

j. Isn’t happening

k. “We will cap energy bills”

l. Energy bills are up 54%

m. “0.7% of GDP on international aid”

n. They ended most international aid

o. “We will host the first ever LGBT conference”

p. So this week govt cancelled that conference as 100s boycotted it in protest at Tories failing to outlaw conversion practices for transgender people

80. Anyway, back to the main thread, which – yep – is still grinding on, you poor fuckers. The latest broken pledge on clean energy came the same week the IPCC said “extreme steps” are needed immediately to avert “catastrophic climate change”

81. Faced with this existential threat, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the result of a Dalek having hate-sex with a pendulum, said he supported extracting “every last drop of oil from the North Sea”

82. Bear in mind this lot hosted the COP26 climate summit less than a year ago

83. Although Boris Johnson did take a private jet to Devon to attend it, which should have given us a hint about his intentions

84. And if that wasn’t a big enough clue, the Tories let Shell pay £0 tax on oil and gas production last year, and instead we PAID THEM £92 million

85. Research this week showed in 2 years the PM has told 17 uncorrected lies in parliament, and ministers a further 27

86. The ministerial code says any falsehood must be corrected, or the minister must resign. But still they cling on

87. And finally, 5 million people had Covid last week, experts called the cancellation of health measures a “perfect storm”, and 3000 NHS staff per week are off sick with the virus

88. So naturally, we chose this exact moment to cancel free rapid testing.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 13.04.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

As some of you might expect, the latest banshee howl that is #TheWeekInTory is quite lengthy, and I advise a deep dive into your preferred sedative before beginning.

Let us begin where the last one ended, which is, astonishingly, a mere 5 days ago [queue wobbly screen]…

1. Having spent a week insisting there was nothing wrong with avoiding £20 million in tax while being responsible for raising tax, Space Family Sunak have now concluded that for PR purposes their monumental, sickening greed is “not compatible with British fairness”

2. Sunak insisted he should not be associated with his spouse for tax purposes

3. This came as a shock to the rest of us, for whom our spouse’s income affects every personal tax matter, every mortgage application, and all benefits claims

4. But you can’t you expect poor, bewildered Sunak to understand the UK’s rules, especially as it seems he’s spent half his time as chancellor accidentally pledging allegiance to a foreign state for tax purposes, and promising to make USA his forever home

5. Parliamentary rules state MPs must be UK residents for tax purposes, so Sunak broke both MP’s rules and the Ministerial Code, both resigning matters. He didn’t resign

6. And then it was revealed Sunak had listed his wealth in the Cayman Islands to avoid even more domestic tax

7. He also failed to list his wife’s £690m stake in Russian businesses in the register of members’ interests, even though the govt of which he is a senior member has given that company multiple contracts, and even though he told us all not to invest in Russia

8. So by Sunday we’d discovered Sunak was chancellor of one country while legally domiciled in another, claimed his wife didn’t pay tax cos she was from a 3rd, got paid by a trust fund in a 4th, and was secretly breaking the rules of his job to give money to a 5th

9. So to prove he’s now 100% committed to his job, his nation, and our struggle, he moved out of 11 Downing St and into one of his 4 giant luxury houses

10. Furiously glaring testicle Sajid Javid leaped to Sunak’s defence, saying it would be “morally wrong” not to put up taxes

11. And then Javid admitted he’d spent 20 years as a non-dom avoiding paying those taxes, but there was “nothing immoral” about it

12. He then pressed SHIFT + F5 in his brain, and announced Tories would “tackle aggressive tax avoidance and evasion”, like all the stuff he did

13. Sunak, laser focussed on what was really pissing us off, decided “divulging the tax status of a private individual is a criminal offence”, and he HATES criminal offences, as we all know

14. So Boris Johnson – yes, Boris Johnson – ordered an ethics inquiry into Sunak

5. In all the kerfuffle, you may have missed the news about Nadine Dorries, which is understandable, since she’s so dense no light can escape her

16. This week the exuberantly befuddled Nadine claimed opponents of her plan to privatise Channel 4 were “ill informed”

17. This claim is only slightly undermined by the fact she’d argued for the privatisation whilst still not having the faintest idea how Channel 4 operates

18. She said only 7% of TV production companies get money from Channel 4

19. It’s actually over 50%

20. She said privatisation would finally force the majority of TV to be made outside London

21. 66% of Channel 4’s UK content is made outside London

22. She said Channel 4 was currently a debt-risk and should be more like Netflix

23. Netflix is has over $15 billion of debts

24. She said Channel 4’s advertising revenue has collapsed

25. All advertising collapsed during the pandemic. Channel 4’s has recovered

26. She said Channel 4 becoming like the big streamers would protect its news service

27. None of the big streamers provides a news service

28. Let’s visit Boris Johnson, a leaking bin-bag full of custard and Viagra, who began the week by heroically facing a terrifying inquisition from GBNews interviewers Esther McVey and Philip Davies, who just happen to be Tory MPs he gave jobs to

29. The interview probably breached Ofcom rules because we are in an election cycle, meaning press interviews must meet defined impartiality standards, such as not being a cosy chat between people with one brain between them

30. Johnson still lied, telling McVey he would introduce more lockdowns, despite promising MPs there would be no more lockdowns in Feb

31. Don your biohazard suits and let’s see what’s been happening to Priti Patel, answer to the question “what did Bellatrix Lestrange do next?”

32. This week Patel surprised us all with her first ever attempt at an apology, in this case over the Ukrainian visa fiasco

33. Let’s be honest, even for a first attempt it wasn’t a wildly successful apology

34. She admitted it was “always easy to blame someone else”, and then immediately blamed somebody else, claiming her insistence on shellshocked Ukrainian children completing byzantine visa application forms in a foreign language “is not the problem”

35. She insisted she couldn’t let refugees into the country without visas just in case we ended up with a repeat of the Windrush scandal

36. The Windrush victims all had visas, but the Tories locked them up and kicked them out of the country anyway. Details schmetails

37. Patel boasted of a “surge of staff to Calais” to cope with applications

38. Reporters found she’d actually sent “two guys, a table, and some crisps”

39. So nobody can get in, and in news that will shock 48% of us and be ignored by the rest, nobody can get out either

40. Brexit is going so well that we had to close 23 miles of motorways in Kent

41. Instead of tackling crime, Kent police now have to patrol the 30-hour queues of HGVs to ensure weeping drivers don’t simply abandon their vehicles as their livelihoods gently rot in the back

42. Boris Johnson, who won an election telling us Brexit was done, has now become so bored with Brexit not being done that he told German leaders he was ready to rip up the protocol

43. A committee of MPs concluded Brexit will make us more reliant on imported food, not less

44. But MPs found we probably can’t that import food, cos by the time HGV drivers finally escape our shores, most of them have concluded it’s not worth coming back

45. Such is the demand for food that as inflation reached a whopping 7%, the cost of basic foodstuffs rose by 12%

46. More than 550 foodbanks warned parliament they were at “breaking point” because supporters can no longer afford to give donations, and rising poverty sees centres overwhelmed by desperate demand

47. Foodbank use has doubled since January

48. John Redwood said the govt needed to sort out import/exports at Dover, finally catching up with where everybody else was in June 2016

49. Well, everybody except for Dominic Raab, a betwattled, box-faced Etch-a-Sketch dingbat who famously didn’t know what Dover was for

50. This week Raab applied his fierce wisdom and keen intellect to a spiffing new Human Rights Act, and introducing something he was SURE would be better, because it would “counter wokery”, an indefinable, shape-shifting curse that makes people have basic manners

51. Raab’s human rights plan was immediately condemned by the Joint Committee on Human Rights for “weakening protections”, for not being based on any evidence, for undermining the right to a fair trial, and for suggesting some classes of people should have fewer human rights

52. To Westminster, or maybe Pentonville: and despite a ban on MPs employing wives, 2 aides to gropy cocaine enthusiast David Warburton said they were unable to report his misconduct, because the person paid £52k of public money to handle complaints against him was his own wife

53. Fellow Tory MP Simon Hart defended this arrangement, claiming MPs – such as Simon Hart – who employed their wives delivered “real value for money” for the taxpayer, presumably on the basis that it minimises the risk of MPs facing costly criminal prosecutions

54. Even so, brace for another prosecution soon: it seems Warburton had secretly lobbied on behalf of an iffy Russian businessman without revealing that the Russian had given him a £150,000 loan, and that he wasn’t able to repay it

55. A former Tory minister said, “This is symptomatic of a party in terminal decline. We are in a death spiral”

56. Also on Monday… no, really, we’re just on Monday… Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy

57. Crispin Blunt, Tory head of the all-party group on LGBTQ+ rights, said the conviction of his friend Khan for abusing a child was an “international scandal”

58. So half the LGBTQ+ members resigned from the group, because Blunt refused to quit

59. And then Blunt quit anyway

60. So now, only a week after we had to cancel an LGBTQ conference because 100s of LGBTQ groups objected to Tory policy on “conversion therapy”, a Tory MP has managed to make half the gay members of parliament stop being members of the group for gay parliamentarians

61. Meanwhile (former) Tory Rob Roberts is still acting as an independent MP, and refusing to step down from his seat a year after being suspended from the Commons for making repeated unwanted sexual advances

62. This is despite his suspension leading to a recall petition of his own voters, which he lost, therefor the regulations mean he now has to face a byelection. He still hasn’t agreed to step down. He’s just sat there, immoveable, undermining democracy

63. And so to the big news of the week, as Boris Johnson, a crapulous Honey Monster crammed into a suit he’s borrowed for a tribunal, got a fixed penalty notice for attending parties during Covid lockdown, thus becoming the first sitting PM ever convicted of a breaking the law

64. Johnson still insists he hadn’t lied to parliament, because he had naturally assumed the rolling stream of parties involving suitcases of booze, DJs, birthday cakes, party hats, tinsel and people playing on swings in the garden were simply standard govt meetings

65. Johnson wrote in the forward to the Ministerial Code that to “win back the trust of the British people we must uphold the very highest standards of propriety, and this code sets out how”

66. That very same Ministerial Code says ministers must resign if they lie to parliament

67. Johnson has told parliament the following lies:

a. “All guidance was followed completely in No 10”

b. “There was no party and no Covid rules were broken”

c. “I have been repeatedly assured there were no parties”

d. “I follow the rules”

e. “There was no Christmas party. Covid rules have been followed at all times”

f. “I can understand how infuriating it must be to think that the people who have been setting the rules have not been following the rules, because I was also furious”

68. Rishi Sunak – last year’s Best Available Tory whose primary skill now appears to be removing his jacket on Instagram – also got fined, even though he had told parliament “I did not attend any parties”, which was another flagrant lie

69. Sunak didn’t resign either

70. A whole fesnying (google it) of Tory MPs rushed out to independently tweet nearly identical messages of irrumating (don’t google it) support for Johnson

71. These were led by be-Tangoed Party Chairman and adenoidal Morph cosplayer Oliver Dowden, who said he was “fully behind” the PM, the ideal position from which to stab him if the polling turns bad

72. It turns out it was absolutely right for Allegra Stratton to resign for making a joke about illegal parties she hadn’t attended, but absolutely wrong for Boris Johnson or Rishi Sunak to resign for attending those illegal parties

73. Later, somebody who was genuinely prepared to admit that he is Grant Shapps was sent out to defend Johnson, immediately got confused by his brief, and said Johnson’s actions were “indefensible”

74. Various floundering attempts at avoiding consequences were deployed, such as: Johnson can’t resign cos we’re at war

75. We’re not at war. Although don’t put it past them to declare war if it buys them an hour to clean up Johnson’s latest stinky brown gift to the nation

76. The next attempt to keep Johnson in power came from a backbencher struck with the brilliant idea of stating in public that all the alternative potential Tory leaders were “damaged people”, which isn’t exactly wrong, but is a monumentally stupid thing to admit out-loud

77. Another Tory argued Johnson couldn’t resign, because that would send a message to Russia that we’re a soft touch, somehow convincing himself Russia hadn’t figured this out for themselves during all their years of giving money to Tories so they could avoid the law

78. Reports emerged that the world-leading PM wanted to recall parliament to discuss the risk of chemical weapons in Ukraine

79. And then reports emerged that Ukraine could go fuck itself, cos there was no way our world-leading PM wanted to face parliament right now

80. The next desperate gambit was to insist the PM hadn’t broken any laws because he’d only broken the law for 9 minutes

81. So presumably the “party of law and order” is now behind the notion that an 8-minute burglary doesn’t really count. Especially if nobody eats cake

82. Johnson, leader of this seemingly eternal gobshite jamboree, has already said he attended a party for 25 minutes, so that idea floundered, and the burgary is off

83. Next preposterous claim: the PM didn’t understand the rules, and therefore wasn’t immoral, merely stupid

84. Unfortunately the Tory MPs using this defence have merely shown they’re immoral AND stupid

85. Gibbering ukulele fanatic and dying palm-tree Michael Fabricant had a go at defending the PM by insisting NHS doctors get pissed at work all the time

86. Hospitals don’t allow alcohol on the premises – not even in a suitcase

87. So in a year, we’ve gone from the people of Britain applauding health workers from their doorways to MPs abusing health workers to keep a bullshitting one-man game of Shag/Marry/Avoid in power

88. Gilead commander’s wife Liz Truss was taking a break from “leading the world on Ukraine” to undertake the urgent task of being photographed sitting with eerie serenity in an haunted orchard, but she somehow found time to say she “fully backs” the PM

89. This doesn’t entirely explain why she’s registered 2 domain names for a future leadership bid

90. Despite Tory MPs attempting to overwhelm us with their panicky blunderbuss of fuckwittery, only 6% of the public believe the PM is honest, and 57% of us want him to resign

91. A rising number Tory MPs have had enough, OK with the 150,000 deaths, but not with this, and have begun sending letters of no-confidence to the 1922 committee

92. The public are being encouraged help matters along by writing a letter of complaint to their own Tory MP

93. This, of course, assumes their Tory MP isn’t one of the ones who – in this week alone – have been found guilty of paedophilia, or suspended for railing coke and doing sexual assaults, or celebrated the anniversary of them refusing to step down for being handsy as fuck

94. Anyway, minor stories hidden behind the more obvious vortex of broiling chaos – and do try to remember the missing £20 million of Sunak tax as you read these

95. UK benefits – already the worst in Europe – have now fallen further, reaching their lowest level for 50 years

96. Meanwhile Minister James Heappey complained that he couldn’t survive on his £106k salary

97. After every single Tory MP voted against making rented housing fit for human habitation, 1 in 8 privately rented homes are now a “serious threat to people’s health and safety”

98. And after a decade of the lowest funding in its history, half of A&E patients now wait over 24 hours to be seen

99. 23% wait more than 2 days

100. 80% of hospitals reported storing patients in desperately needed ambulances because wards are packed with Covid cases

101. The NHS said spiralling Covid infections were “being ignored for ideological reasons”, cos stopping spindly, posturing mantis Jacob Rees-Mogg from whining is more important than public health

102. The NHS said the “living with Covid” policy was “dooming the health service”

103. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine said the Tories abandoning cheap, workable and basic public health measures in a pandemic was “breaking the basic agreement to provide a health service”

104. They said the NHS is in “a deeper crisis than ever before”

105. GP numbers have fallen every single year since the Tories promised to increase them in 2015

106. This week a study fond 44% of teachers said they plan to quit due to “unmanageable workload”, made worse by constant rolling absences caused by unconstrained Covid

107. And finally, the chairman of Enfield Conservatives has been suspended for dressing up in a Nazi uniform for “perverse-themed” parties, but said he didn’t remember

108. I don’t know about you, but I think I’d remember dressing up in a Nazi unform for a perverse-themed party

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 25.04.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

It’s been a challenge to find anything to write in the latest #TheWeekInTory. They’ve all been such well-behaved boys and girls.

Only kidding: it’s absolute carnage.

Don your biohazard suits, top up your breakfast absinthe, and let’s dive in

1. Under Boris Johnson, 10 Downing Street now holds the record as the most law-breaking address in the country

2. A just-fined Johnson promised to “set the record straight” by finally telling the truth about the thing he also denies telling hundreds of lies about

3. Having acted contrite for a record 18 minutes in parliament, Johnson performed a “pantomime” to backbenchers so tonally crass that multiple Tory MPs walked out

4. Steve Baker called it “an orgy of adulation, a festival of bombast” and said the PM “should be long gone”

5. Baker called the cabinet “dumb and happy”, which is rich from a science-denying dolt cursed with the self-satisfied grin of someone desperate to be asked if he’s any good at Connect 4

6. The Justice Minister resigned cos Boris Johnson is “inconsistent with the rule of law”

7. David Davis said Johnson was “morally delinquent”

8. Mark Harper said Johnson was “no longer worthy of office”

9. However Alexander Stafford said we should forgive the PM “as a Christian country”, only slightly undermined by the PM attacking the Archbishop of Canterbury

10. Johnson was deluded enough to think this cluster of backstabbing, squabbling dingleberries could be persuaded to block a plan to have him investigated for years of quite obviously lying to parliament

11. His MPs refused to block the inquiry, so it’s going ahead

12. But Johnson said the inquiry was unnecessary, because he’d learned his lesson about lying to parliament, and to prove it he immediately lied to parliament about there being more people in work now than before the pandemic. There are fewer

13. Last year’s “Best Available Tory” prize-winner Rishi Sunak said “the govt must do everything it can to deal with the cost-of-living challenges”

14. It is 2 weeks since he did absolutely nothing to deal with the cost-of-living challenges

15. Boris Johnson insisted he was “getting on with the job” of fixing the cost-of-living crisis, just like he fixed Brexit in 2019

16. He then ignored the cost-of-living crisis, and bravely flew off to India, cos he urgently needed to sign **absolutely no new trade deals**

17. Thrashing around for anything positive to say about himself, Johnson alighted on Ukraine, and reminded everybody he had led the world on support for the country

18. A FOI request revealed only 1/4 of the aid Johnson promised to Ukraine has actually been delivered

19. A whistle-blower working on the govt’s Ukraine asylum system said it is “dysfunctional and useless”, with a “pattern” of visa applications “accidentally” going missing that seems designed to prevent any Ukrainians from actually being allowed into the country

20. Besuited batrachian monstrosity Andrew Bridgen was found by a high court judge to have lied under oath

21. To prove he wasn’t a liar, Bridgen, who lost the case, said “actually I won the case”, and is now facing an inquiry by the parliamentary standards watchdog

22. But he still found it in himself to write a Daily Express column, teaching morality to the Archbishop of Canterbury

23. This was due to the Archbishop speculating that God might not like the idea of us shoving the most vulnerable people on earth into a concentration camp

24. The idea arose from what we must, I suppose, call “the mind” of smirking, razor-faced angel of death Priti Patel, who opted to distract us from Boris’s problems by announcing a pointlessly cruel scheme to achieve nothing and annoy everybody

25. Her great plan was to ship Africans who had been people-smuggled to Britain straight back to Africa, so they can be smuggled again, thus creating a self-perpetuating market for criminals, and inventing Snakes and Ladders for cunts

26. Just 8 days before the announcement the Refugees Minister had said there was “absolutely no possibility of sending refugees to Rwanda” and that if there was, he would know about it

27. He didn’t know about it, and resigned

28. Patel told MPs asylum seekers would live in Rwanda until accepted in the UK

29. Turns out the policy will force people to claim asylum in Rwanda instead of UK, so Patel’s tactic for distracting from stories about Johnson lying to parliament was: lie to parliament

30. Junior MPs without the wit to refuse were rolled out to defend the indefensible, and seemed even less well-briefed than usual

31. Tom Hunt battled Year 7 geography to claim Tories were “offshore processing in a safe European country, Rwanda”

32. Tom Pursglove, minister for illegal immigration, and therefore a man you’d expect to have a few details up his sleeve, had done his homework, and told the BBC that “clearly in Africa there are many countries in Africa, and this is one”. Well done, Tom

33. Meanwhile banjaxed halfwit Lucy Allen claimed “the point of [sending people to Rwanda] is to be a deterrent”, which will come as a shock to [checks notes] Lucy Allen, who reassured us that “Rwanda is a wonderful welcoming country” and demanded the left stop trashing it

34. 10 months earlier the Tories had condemned Rwanda for “human rights violations including deaths in custody and torture”

35. Johnson, picking up that Lucy Allen vibe, informed parliament Rwanda is “one of the safest countries on earth”

36. In 2020 the UK accepted 100% of claims for asylum from “safest county on earth” Rwanda

37. We also told Rwanda we were disappointed they “did not support the UK recommendation to provide support to trafficking victims, including those held in government transit centres”

38. So to summarise: the UK govt is simultaneously encouraging Ukrainians to take refuge here, designing a system to prevent Ukrainians claiming refuge here, and launching a scheme to send trafficking victims to a place we condemn for not helping trafficking victims

39. Claims the scheme would save money weren’t helped by Andrew Mitchell admitting it would be “cheaper to place asylum seekers in the Ritz”

40.Theresa May, a tottering mechanical seabird that has swallowed a kazoo, said the scheme lacked “legality, practicality and efficacy”

41. The Church of England said the policy was “against the judgement of God”

42. By contrast, renowned Christian Jacob Rees-Mogg said the opportunity to be whisked 4500 miles away to be locked in a concentration camp run by torturers was an “almost Easter story of redemption”

43. And the UN said the plan breaches international law

44. Which leads us to Brexit, where haunted, shag-happy dust-bunny Boris Johnson was once again announcing he was preparing to breach international law by throwing out his own agreement, for the umpteenth time

45. Both the Brexit campaign and the 2019 Tory Manifesto promised to AT LEAST match the regional funding we got from the EU

46. Imagine my – and 48% of Britain’s – surprise when it turns out regions are getting less than half the funding they used to get from the EU

47. The PM announced another delay in changes to import checks, making it the 4th time in 4 years that he’s delayed the implementation of his “oven-ready deal” on the quite reasonable grounds that it’s based on technology that is exclusive to the Marvel Cinematic Universe

48. The Kent traffic system was relaxed to prove Brexit was working

49. Four hours later the system was put in place again, cos Brexit isn’t working at all

50.Brexit is also behind an 80% drop in visits by foreign students, risking 40,000 UK jobs and a £3.2bn industry

51. To solve the supply chain crisis he caused, Boris Johnson launched a taskforce last autumn

52. This week the govt admitted the taskforce had been closed within days of being launched, and before it had even held a single meeting, but having generated a lovely headline

53. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the exact physical intersection between the concept of rickets and a cursed dildo, told parliament the Brexit treaty he had insisted was brilliant in 2019 was now invalid, because the govt had its fingers cross when it signed

54. He then lurched wildly around Whitehall, leaving notes on empty desks to inform non-existent people that they should work harder at generating treaties for him to later ignore

55. This is a bold move for somebody famous for lying down on the job

54. He then lurched wildly around Whitehall, leaving notes on empty desks to inform non-existent people that they should work harder at generating treaties for him to later ignore

55. This is a bold move for somebody famous for lying down on the job

57. It is also just one week since Nadine Dorries, the reason the gene-pool needs a lifeguard, demanded Channel 4 become more like Netflix, so it is almost inevitable that Netflix’s share price immediately tanked 35%

58. So Dorries opted to make a TikTok about her job, seemingly straight after a prolonged lunchtime celebration of doing well in a Wetherspoons meat raffle

59. She then told rapt viewers that she runs one of the govt’s largest departments

60. It’s one of the smallest

61. The video showed Dorries being rightly proud of her innovative department, which had, that very day, invented the concept of downstreaming tennis pitches

62. She went on to claim her complete absence of pertinent knowledge about her brief was caused by dyslexia

63. Researchers into dyslexia expressed the opinion that dyslexia was probably not an adequate explanation for the lavishly scattered wits of Nadine Dorries

64. We welcomed the return of Matt Hancock, who appears to be PeeWee Herman reflected in the back of a spoon, and announced to an expectant public that he’s written a book detailing his massive success in killing 100,000 people during Covid

65. Not sure if his book will include this week’s news that Hancock had accepted “hospitality” from Randox, had failed to declare it, and then headed a dept that gave £500m to Randox

66. Randox were also behind the Owen Paterson scandal, which ended sooo well for Tories

67. And finally, as we slide closer to complete planetary breakdown, Steve Baker moved from “scrutinising” climate change to posting papers actively denying it’s happening

68. Baker is seen as a key organiser for whoever succeeds Johnson, and I’m building a bunker

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 10.06.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

A round-up of a typically marvellous #TheWeekInTory

1. Loving crowds of flag-waving patriots loudly booed Boris Johnson, the one-man game of shag, marry, avoid who is still – amazingly – our PM

2. Priti Patel, the Shetland Pony of the Apocalypse, told Tory MPs not to attempt to sack Johnson because of the Jubilee

3. They obliged, and instead attempted to sack him less than 24 hours later

4. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the harrowing result of a Dalek having hate sex with a pendulum, had previously said 33% of Tory MPs with no confidence in Theresa May was “a disaster”

5. A total of 41 percent of Tory MPs have no confidence in Johnson, which JRM said was a “great success”

6. Ministers have their jobs because of the PM, so are supposed to back him. If you assume they all did, that means 75% of Tory backbenchers didn’t back him

7. An-arch Johnson loyalist leaped to his defence, telling journalists “Off the record, he is fucked”

8. Johnson turned up on TV wild-eyed, agitated and constantly sniffing, to babble incomprehensibly about his amazing accomplishments

9. There’s a fine line between madness and genius, and it looked like Johnson had just snorted that line

10. A govt whip said Tory MPs should now “shut the fuck up”

11. Nadine Dorries didn’t shut the fuck up

12. Instead Dorries, forever trapped at Lambrini o-clock, “defended” the govt’s record by publicly admitting it had made shit preparations for Covid for 6 years

13. Feral gonad Nadhim Zahawi described his own govt as “a circular firing squad”

14. Johnson, chastened and humbled by his Partygate shame, reassured his disgruntled MPs by telling them he’d “do it all again”

15. To “get on with his job”, he headed to Blackpool to do a bewildering speech

16. He said the UK has the worst economy in the G7 cos “we came out of the pandemic first, so had a faster recovery”

17. So – deep breath – we’re doing badly because we are doing so well. Huh?

18. His solution to the cost of living crisis, is telling everyone to earn less, and cut nurse pay by £1,600 in real-terms

19. Hospitals are now opening on-site foodbanks, not for patients, but for nursing staff who already can’t afford to feed themselves on their wages

20. Having scored brilliantly on his first two solutions, he moved onto housing

21. He began by saying we need 300k more homes

22. Then he said building more homes isn’t the answer

23. Then he said it was Labour’s fault for not building enough homes

24. Then he said he built more homes than Labour when he was mayor

25. 63% of the homes built in London when he was mayor were started by Labour

26. Then he repeated that building more homes isn’t the answer

27.So he promised to build 300k new homes

28. And then he said he wouldn’t meet his manifesto promise on housing, which guarantees – yep – 300k new homes

29. Clearly feeling he’d settled that matter, he then spent a few minutes of his speech bewailing the lack of olive and banana plantations in Blackpool. No joke.

30. Confident he had regained the trust of us all, he moved onto fixing mortgages.

31. He announced that to help renters save for a deposit, he would sell their rented homes, so there would be fewer of them, which will make rents cost more, making it harder to save. Brilliant.

32. But he had a lovely idea, which is to force banks to accept people’s benefits as a mortgage, meaning people who are currently unable to eat on collapsing benefits will soon be able to buy a that doesn’t exist, if they simply stop eating even more

33. Johnson called this a “housing revolution”

34. Shelter called it “baffling, unworkable and dangerous”

35.Michael Gove, a beached mudskipper dressed in boy clothes, called it a “marvellous scheme”

36.The New Economics Foundation called it “totally detached from reality”

37. Chris Philp, drawing the short straw and having to defend this gibberish, explained on TV that selling houses currently available to rent would not reduce the number of houses available to rent because…

38. The end of the previous sentence has not yet been discovered

39. Economic news! Brexit has cost us £31bn in a year, making everybody 5% poorer

40. To help out, Rishi Sunak, whose primary skill appears to be taking off his jacket, ignored warnings about insuring against interest rate rises, which this week cost us £11bn

41. And the govt is burning £4bn of substandard PPE that it had ordered at above-market value from its pals

42. So that’s £46bn wasted since Monday, the equivalent to £3,600 per hour for 1458 years, or £1 per second, every single second since the Romans withdrew from Britain

43. Let’s get the screaming out of the way, and move onto minor incidents of the week

44. Top priority for the govt: refusing to sign up to standardised USB ports, meaning Apple’s “lightning connector” will work everywhere on earth except here. Yay we are saved!

45. After a Tory MP had to quit his seat for watching porn TWICE in the chamber of the House of Commons, the govt announced it would not reveal details of it’s other MP’s on-site masturbation habits for “national security reasons”

46. A former 12-time Tory candidate was imprisoned for sending racist death threats to David Lammy

47. The cost of the Grenfell Tower inquiry reached £150m, compared to the £293k of “savings” which caused the fire in the first place

48. “I’m not interested in social mobility”, said Katharine Birbalsingh, who is the govt’s social mobility tsar

49. She then said Boris Johnson “isn’t a good role model”, proving a broken cock is right twice a day. Sorry, did I say cock? I meant cock.

50. Priti Patel claimed the UN refugee council backed the Rwanda deportation plan

51. The UN refugee council said her plan breached the law, and it’s being contested in court

52. The Home Office claims Ukrainian asylum seekers and children excluded from the Rwanda plan

55. But the govt admitted the “vast majority” of peers would block the bill, rendering it pointless

56. Daily Express said Brexit would not be done for decades, will cost £1.4 trillion, and Jacob Rees-Mogg’s ideas for it are “impossible”

57.Commence howling now

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 27.06.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory

1. Let’s start with spindly, posturing mantis Jacob Rees-Mogg, who this week blocked a bill that spares elephants from torture

2. As foodbank use reached 2.6 million, JRM spent £1400 per person for ministers to learn how to create a “powerful personal presence”

3. Last year Lord Geidt, Boris Johnson’s ethics advisor – think of it as like being Shane MacGowan’s dental hygienist – had said his resignation would be a “last resort” and would only be used to send “a critical signal into the public domain”

4. This week he resigned

5. Geidt said prime minister and abandoned candyfloss Boris Johnson had placed him in an “odious” position by asking him to approve (another) breach of the ministerial code

6. Johnson has had 2 ethics advisors, and they have both resigned over Johnson’s irredeemable behaviour

7. John Penrose, govt anti-corruption tsar, said “You can’t just pretend it doesn’t matter”, and also quit

8. But the truth is, it doesn’t matter to Johnson, who is now reported to be scrapping the ethics role, meaning there will – quite literally – be no ethics in Downing St

9. The govt’s new “cost of living” tsar was discovered to have said Johnson should resign over PartyGate and the overwhelming tsunami of other ethics breaches and corruption

10. He also said Johnson “lacks intelligence”

11. Speaking of lacking intelligence, deep-cover minister for gibberish Grant Shapps was reportedly considering temporary visas for EU workers to sort out our airport chaos, which is the worst in Europe because we threw out EU workers

12. Airlines bosses said “idiot ministers” and Brexit are to blame for the crisis

13. Shapps said it was cos airlines overbooked seats

14. So obviously Peter Bone, a child’s drawing of his vampire grandad, said the govt should deliberately overbook deportation flights Rwanda

15. A number of things have subtly changed since the Rwanda plan was first announced by Priti Patel, a smirking, razor-faced ghoul with all the warmth and tenderness of a Klingon backstreet abortionist. I will now describe them…

16. Patel had promised she’d only deport asylum seekers after they’d been vetted by an independent watchdog

17. The watchdog hasn’t been set up

18. She had promised children would not be deported to Rwanda

19. Her policy treats children the same as adults

20. She had promised people would be processed in Rwanda and, if accepted, could return to the UK

21. Deportees can’t return to the UK under any circumstances

22. And in April she promised “tens of thousands” would be resettled. Oh is that right, Priti?

23. By May the promise had dropped from tens of thousands to “about 300”, and at that rate it would take Patel 34 years to meet her original target

24. Then the promised number of deportations dropped to 50

25. Then to 30

26. Then to “fewer than 10”

27. A govt source said “we will operate the flight even if there is just 1 person on it”

28. Patel said the policy was “about securing value for money”

29. She paid Rwanda £120 million, hired a jet at £500,000, and by this week was deporting just 7 people
30. Patel said the policy “would act as a deterrent to people crossing the channel”

31. The day she announced the deterrent, 116 crossed the channel in boats

32.On Tuesday 260 people crossed, an increase of 124%. Excellent deterring, Priti!

33. Ethereally wrong Thatcher cosplayer Liz Truss said people criticising the policy hadn’t suggested any alternatives

34. The UN said this was “categorically untrue”, and they’d offered “many, many suggestions”

35. The UN said UK policy “violates fundamental principles”

36. The Church of England said the policy is “against God’s laws”

37. So ministers talked openly about expelling bishops from the House of Lords

38. And then Prince Charles called the policy “appalling”, so monarchist Tory columnists began talking about scrapping the monarchy

39. It’s all terribly, terribly sane

40. In the end we deported exactly (let me check my maths) zero people for our £120 million, because the European Court of Human Rights – which Churchill helped to set up – stopped the flight

41. You can, I’m sure, picture the scenes of joyless masturbation on the Tory backbenches when they discovered a glorious new enemy in Europe

42. Example: Brendan Clarke-Smith, who said “this is effectively a war”

43. Meanwhile Priti Patel said “we will not be deterred”

44. So to clarify: Patel wanted to disrupt the plans of people acting illegally, which would deter them. But when her own plan acting illegally was disrupted, she said she will not be deterred,

45. Her lavishly scattered wits prevent her from comparing these two concepts.

46. And it seems to be catching: Tory MPs called for us to leave the ECHR

47. Meanwhile Liz Truss, our 8-bit foreign secretary, published a bill to scrap the NI protocol so we could defend the Good Friday Agreement, which is protected by – yep – the very same ECHR

48. So they’re now fighting an impossible battle to save the ECHR at the same time as fighting an impossible battle to destroy it.

49. Minister for bullshit legal excuses Suella Braverman said the bill was necessary because “the NI economy is lagging behind the rest of the UK”

50. The NI economy is the strongest in Britain except for London, cos NI still has access to the single market

51. Johnson called the proposed changes “relatively trivial”, and then called the changes “absolutely vital”, like some sort of Schrodinger’s twat

52. The govt’s top independent legal advisor said it was “very difficult to credibly” claim the bill didn’t break international law

53. The ex-head of govt’s legal dept said the bill is “one of the most extraordinary pieces of legislation I have ever seen” and was“hopeless”

54. A Tory backbencher said “the government is lying to its own MPs and the media” about the legality of its bill

55. In Wakefield, the Tory candidate admitted Brexit was “built on lies”

56. He then likened the Tories to Harold Shipman. A reminder: this is their own candidate

57. Meanwhile the Tory candidate in Tiverton and Honiton refused to say whether she thought Boris Johnson was reliable or honest

58. As rail strikes loom, betwattled walking Tango advert Oliver Dowden launched an online petition to make himself do something about it

59. Back to priapic dust-bunny Boris Johnson, who launched a new food strategy to tackle the cost of food, obesity, childhood hunger, and climate

60. The strategy contains nothing about the cost of food, obesity, childhood hunger, or the climate

61. It does, however, suggest the poor should eat more venison, cos things aren’t mad enough

62. The govt’s advisor on food strategy said “it is not a strategy”

63. Meanwhile the benefit for low-income families to get fresh fruit was moved to online-only

64. It went well

65. The scheme’s pre-payment food cards don’t work

66. The scheme’s helpline wasn’t manned

67. And 52,000 of those targeted for accessing benefit can’t sign up cos they don’t have internet access or the necessary paperwork

68. After Tories scrapped 25,000 NHS beds, health minister and furious gonad Sajid Javid said the NHS “doesn’t need any more money”

69. He did, however, say it should be more like Netflix, which has debts of $14.5 billion and expects to lose 2 million subscribers this year

70. Average wages fell at the fastest rate for more than 2 decades, and we have the worst economy in the G20 except for Russia, which is under global sanctions

71. The govt genuinely claimed the reason for our shocking performance is that we “ended mass testing for Covid”

72. To shift focus, the govt commissioned a private “attack dossier” to prove Labour can’t be trusted with the economy

73. The dossier showed Tories were worse at the economy than Labour, so they didn’t publish it – it was leaked by someone with a great sense of humour

74. Tory minister Helen Wheeler ended up having to apologise after calling Blackpool a “godawful” place

75. Blackpool is the planned location of this year’s Tory Conference, and I’m already looking forward to the resulting fun and games

76. And finally, after last week’s announcement that the govt would extend the “right to buy” to include people who haven’t even got enough money to eat, startled halibut Michael Gove admitted they hadn’t even bothered to do an impact assessment on the idea

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 01.07.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Because I was busy last week, this episode of #TheWeekInTory covers more than 7 days, but not – you’ll be amazed to hear – the 700 years it would take most govts to get through this lot.

Remember, it’s OK to want to scream or take drugs during this epic.

Brace, brace…

1. The Tories lost 2 by-elections in a single night, and by record-breaking amounts

2. A dignified response came from defeated Tory candidate Helen Hurford, who locked herself in a dance studio (the traditional fridge presumably being unavailable)

3. Inspired by Hurford expressing herself via the hidden medium of secret dance, our heroic PM Boris Johnson ran away from his own party conference

4. One of his own MPs said his absence was “no great loss to us”

5. Another said “he’s shown absolute contempt for colleagues”

6. Sinister count (not a typo) Michael Howard said the PM should resign

7. Robert Buckland said Johnson should “look in the mirror and do better”

8. Johnson seems to have been face-down over lots of mirrors, so he skipped a queue of 500,000 patients to get his septum fixed

9. Meanwhile Tory Chairman and adenoidal, chronically be-Tangoed culture warrior Oliver Dowden managed to cancel himself by quitting

10. Mouth of Sauron Priti Patel had her usual grasp of reality, and said “we’ve done incredibly well” in elections they’d just massively lost

11. Hot on Patel’s cloven-heels was Boris Johnson, who said he would “listen to voters”

12. Voters said they wanted him to quit

13. Johnson immediately abandoned listening to voters, said their opinion “doesn’t matter”, and the public should “expect more of the same”

14. He then announced he wanted to remain in power until at least 2030, and tragically he didn’t mean half-past-eight

15. To prove he was up to the epic and wildly improbably task of being in the job another decade, he organised a photo-op of himself going “jogging”

16. He was dropped 25 feet away in a chauffeur-driven car, and then got out and pretended to finish a run

17. Only 3 weeks after 1/3 of his MPs voted against him in no-confidence vote, “several dozen” of his MPs submitted letters demanding another no-confidence vote right away

18. His ethics advisor resigned after being asked by Johnson to break the law

19. And the govt refused to release records of Johnson’s “negotiations” with his old chums as he was handing out massive and iffy Covid contracts to them

20. But a Tory peer took £3000 per month (undeclared) from a company in return for “opening doors” to those cushy contracts

21. Emails show him saying he “would not promote the company” in getting contracts from human spork Matt Hancock unless he was (unlawfully) paid for it

22. To prove they’re in nobody’s pockets, Tories auctioned off dinner with Johnson, tottering avian monstrosity Theresa May, and glistening polyp David Cameron for £120k

23. Johnson’s anti-corruption tsar – who also quit – said “you can’t just pretend this stuff doesn’t matter”

24. But small business minister, flocculent walnut and master of the Freudian slip Paul Scully said it doesn’t matter because “politicians are held accountable at the bollocks box”

25. And speaking of bollocks, Johnson buggered off to Ukraine again

26. Analysis shows every single official call or visit to Zelensky has come within 4 hours of Johnson facing another self-caused crisis

27. Anyway, with Johnson gone, Etch-a-Sketch thundercunt Dominic Raab was left in charge, and Britain immediately ground to a complete halt

28. Grant Shapps falsely pretended it was all cos airlines had sold every seat to two passengers

29. Criticising two people occupying one space is a bit rich from Shapps, who has more identities than Jason Bourne (who people also travel halfway round the world just to punch)

30. Airline bosses said the problems were unrelated to seats, but “completely to do with Brexit” which had been an “abject failure”

31. Over 8000 job applications to help fix the airport problems had to be rejected because Brexit means we can’t employ them

32. Meanwhile rail strikes began, and Shapps said it was “crazy” to suggest he wanted them to go ahead

33. Train service operators said Grant Shapps had stepped in to rule that he would “not allow” them to negotiate with unions to avoid strikes

34. Shapps, minister responsible for transport (but not understanding his own job), refused to join in talks cos “it is not my responsibility”

35. During the pandemic he took back from rail companies the responsibility to negotiate terms – so it literally is his responsibility

36. Addled Tory MP and bewitched thumb Mark Jenkinson said the strikes were “a vision of Labour’s Britain”, seemingly struggling to remember who the govt is right now

37. Two-thirds of the public support the strikes

38. Polls also showed the public think the govt is failing HUGELY on inflation, immigration, the economy, NHS, housing, tax, transport, benefits, crime, Brexit, the environment, education and employment

39. So, just the minor stuff, then?

40. As a free bonus, they’ve also chosen to fail on decency: after an earthquake hit Afghanistan, Liz Truss, ITV4 made flesh, said “the UK stands ready to support them”

41. 1600 Brits had offered homes to Afghan refugees, but in 9 months only 2 refugees have been placed

42. A report blamed govt “disorganisation and chaos”, costing £1.2 million a day

43. So the govt cut by 25% the number of staff working to fix it

44. The PM said, “This is a very, very generous, welcoming country”, and to prove it, they’re going to electronically tag migrants

45. The tagging plan breaks the govt’s own guidance, which was published – by the Tories – in January

46. The Times said Priti Patel was furious at UK judges who stopped her shipping desperate refugees who had broken no laws off to Rwanda, and she called the judges “racist”

47. Given who said it, this demented claim is only extraordinary because it replaced a far more important story

48. The Times had originally used the space to cover Johnson’s attempts to give Carrie – then his mistress – two £100k senior jobs when he was foreign secretary

49. Johnson had then called The Times and pressured them to pull the story – and they did, despite the story being true

50. Dying palm-tree Michael Fabricant claimed Johnson had merely asked officials if a “highly qualified person, his wife Carrie” could be his chief of staff

51. But she wasn’t his wife at the time – his actual wife was fighting cancer and caring for approx 57% of his acknowledged kids

52. And I’m not sure a degree in Theatre Studies and Art History makes Carrie “highly qualified” for govt either

53.But that wasn’t the whole story

54. It turns out Carrie’s withdrawal as a candidate for the jobs was the result of Boris’s latest mistress-related gagging order about his positively barnyard breeding habits

55. In this case the gagging order seems to have been: kneel down and gag

56. While Johnson was “independently” promoting Carrie’s suitability for a job, a fellow MP had walked in on her giving him a blowjob at work

57. The MP in question seems to have been Gavin Williamson, a lurching stack of inadequacy wearing teeth stolen from an exhumed donkey

58. Rumours now claim Williamson had been given his massively undeserved knighthood in exchange for agreeing to stop informing his fellow MPs about the noshfest he’d witnessed between Johnson and Carrie, who Gavin had nicknamed “Princess Nut Nut”

59. Everyday office life in Johnson’s govt now includes oral sex, drunkenness, parties, bullying, missing vital meetings, watching tractor porn, conducting affairs, and taking drugs

60. And on it goes: Chris Pincher had to resign after getting pissed and groping two men

61. Pincher had already resigned as whip in 2017 after making unwanted passes at a man who described him as “a pound-shop Harvey Weinstein”

62. Despite him losing the same job TWICE for essentially the same offence, Peter Bottomley said “I hope Pincher is soon back in govt”

63. So to summarise: Johnson got in trouble with his Johnson. Pincher got in trouble for pinching. Fabricant fabricated. Bottomley reached rock bottom. And James Cleverly … well, he remains the exception to the rule

64. Meanwhile David Warburton will face an inquiry over cocaine use, which will be hard to defend since, in his wisdom, he posed for photos next to fat lines of charlie

65. He’s also being investigated for alleged sexual harassment and secretly accepting £150k for “advocacy”

66. I have my doubts his colleagues see much wrong in being paid to pull strings – Brandon Lewis said it was “right” and “absolutely fine” for Prince Charles to accept suitcases containing €1 million in cash from controversial Qatari politicians

67. Literal mad-woman-in-the-attic Nadine Dorries was back, performing a sexually suggestive duet with Boris, based around the number “69”

68. Then she claimed there had been 11 world wars

69. Then described her “long-standing memory” of a sporting event that never happened

70. Reports say at least 6 Tory MPs plan to defect to other parties

71. The remaining Tories announced a new trade deal to “help British farming” that will leave UK farmers £300m worse off

72. The govt said “workers cannot expect pay rises” because it would cause inflation

73. Then the govt said we must become a “high wage economy”, seemingly without anybody getting higher wages

74. However, pensions will rise by 10%, because obviously inflation isn’t caused by the only demographic with a majority of Tory voters

75. Oh, and MPs got a £2000 pay rise in March

76. And then ministers said they wanted “to ease restrictions on City bosses’ pay” so they could prove the “benefits of Brexit”

77. A study found Brexit would keep wages down by at least £470 per person per year for at least decade

78. And we’ve just experienced the worst quarter of UK trade on record

79. And Brexit has cut trade/GDP by another 8%

80. Add those numbers to our 40-year record 9% inflation, and we’re talking about a 17% drop in typical standards of living

81. All of this came as a surprised to Tory minister and sheared Afghan hound Chris Philp, who claimed NHS pay has “kept up with inflation”, when it’s actually left NHS workers £6000 per person behind inflation since 2010

82. Somehow, despite all this, when they were asked for some of the other benefits of Brexit (beyond making multimillionaires into multi-multimillionaires and a 17% pay cut for everyone else) the govt struggled

83. Jacob Rees-Mogg – a cross between the memory of rickets, and Lucius Malfoy after a flash-fire – said his top Brexit benefit was centred around a plan to change what he called “funny numbers” on signs inside the Dartford Tunnel

84. Other than fixing Dartford’s subterranean integers, JRM, minister for Brexit Opportunities, boasted Brexit meant sparkling wine could now use plastic bottles

85. Clearly feeling he’d proved his point, he said the govt won’t bother to assess whether Brexit has been a success

86. Then he deleted data about MP’s attendance, just months after he’d stalked around leaving notes on civil servants’ desks demanding constant attendance

87. Health update, and Tory NHS privatisation since 2012 had led to a “significantly increased” number of avoidable deaths

88. Meanwhile, in an entirely unexpected turn of events, the govt’s charming policy of releasing raw sewage into our drinking water hasn’t gone well, as random inspections revealed the polio virus had returned

90. Laurence Fox, a pestilential eruption of idle xenophobia, privilege and stupidity, stuffed into the waxy corpse of an exhumed Regency orphanage worrier, changed his Twitter profile pic to a swastika made of Gay Pride flags

91. The Tory chair of London’s police and crime commission met this with a gentle tweet of “Oh Laurence” and a “chuckling” emoji

92. Energy minister Greg Hands admitted he forgot to ask the Hinkley Point B power station to remain open a year longer to ease the energy crisis

93. And after Tories increased rough sleeping 280% in 10 years, Michael Gove secretly introduced a bill to criminalise rough sleeping

94. More legislation news, as the govt began smashing up international law and human rights in a floundering orgy of ineptitude and vandalism

95. First, international law: in their latest attempt to Get Brexit Done, the govt passed a bill to undo the all the Brexit they assured us they’d “got done” in 2019

96. Boris Johnson’s oven-ready deal has now skipped the middle-man, and gone straight into the toilet

97. How’s it going? Well, it is now 2,175 days, 3 prime ministers, 128 ministerial resignations, and 8% of our entire national economy since ceaselessly muddled beta-version humanoid John Redwood predicted Brexit would be “quick and easy”. That’s how it’s going.

98. Theresa May, Vogon Poetry in motion, stood up in parliament and opposed the bill, saying: “As a patriot, I would not want to do anything that would diminish this country”

99. As a patriot, she then couldn’t be arsed to vote against it

100. Tories said smashing up the NI Protocol was what the people of NI want

101. Only 5% of people in NI want it

102. So we’re about to break international law and endanger peace to achieve a Brexit whose only acknowledged benefits are: adjusting signposts in Dartford Tunnel

103. Straight after the “party of law and order” had voted en-masse to break the law, they moved onto human rights

104. To set the tone, Danny Kruger asserted in parliament that women don’t have a right to autonomy over their own bodies

105. This was just a warm-up for a proposed new Human Rights bill that says your rights can be taken away if you act in any way the govt doesn’t like

106. Immediately afterwards, a protestor was taken away by police officers for saying things the govt doesn’t like

107. The govt will no longer allow “trivial human rights” cases, but it will be up to ministers to decide if it’s trivial

108. And govt is no longer obliged to “actively protect someone’s human rights” – an opt-out so Tories can simply ignore anything protecting your rights

109. The author of the bill, box-faced, thick-necked Play-Doh action figurine Dom Raab, said “we’re focused on fighting crime”

110. And to prove it, Boris Johnson hinted at a snap general election rather than face a parliamentary inquiry into all the crimes he’s committed

111. And then a parliamentary committee was informed that only the PM can approve investigations into his own conduct, which is, quite honestly, the only reason this shit keeps happening. And now they’re trying to write that idea formally into law

112. And finally, even as his ministers said he was focusing on crime, chief gibbon Boris Johnson was focused on attempting to illicitly fleece donors for £150,000 to build himself a family tree-house

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 05.07.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

It’s only a couple of days since I did #TheWeekInTory, and here I am again because – oh hell, you already know why.

Anyway, here we go, you lucky, lucky bastards

1. Chris Pincher was accused of groping 2 men after getting indescribably pissed

2. He did it in a place that’s – genuinely – called “Cad’s Corner” in one of the Tory Party’s favourite members-only clubs, and nothing says “this unacceptable behaviour was totally unexpected” like providing it with a designated venue

3. Pincher resigned, but Boris Johnson, the randy yeti who is still, at the time of writing, our Prime Minister, didn’t withdraw the whip from him

4. Pincher had already had to resign as a whip in 2019 for groping people

5. And faced investigates into groping in 2017 too

6. In fact Pincher’s behaviour was so well-known, govt minders had been specifically appointed to keep an eye him, even though his **actual job** was MP’s welfare

7. Despite years of warnings, in Feb Johnson appointed him as a whip for a second time anyway

8. Johnson claimed “HR law” meant he wasn’t allowed to NOT give Pincher a job

9. No such law exists, and also, what the spangly tartan fuck?

10. The PM’s spokesman refused to deny Johnson had referred to “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” before giving him the job

11. A Tory backbencher said he’d been groped by Pincher twice in the last 8 months alone, and nothing was done about it

12. And so, inevitably, Operation Save Big Dog once again reached the “eating his own faeces in the garden” stage. It was Déjà vu, all over again

13. The PM accepted Pincher’s resignation, just like he accepted Allegra Stratton’s over parties

14. The PM’s spokesman said “the PM wasn’t aware of the allegations”, just like he did over parties

15. The PM said he “considers the matter closed”, just like he did over parties

16. The PM said he wasn’t aware of any scandal, just like he did over parties

17. Then he said he wasn’t aware of any SPECIFIC scandal, just like he did over parties

18. Then he said he wasn’t aware of any ?????????????? SPECIFIC scandal, just like he did over parties

19. Then he said he WAS aware of rumours of scandals, but only the unproven ones, just like he did over parties

20. Then he finally admitted he knew all about it and was actively involved, just like he did over parties

21. Johnson, star of last week’s best sex scandal, denied Conor Burns had walked in on him getting a blowjob in the office, just like Johnson denied all the parties

22. Neil Parish, tractor-wanking star of last month’s best sex scandal, said Pincher should lose his seat

23. Multiple ministers reportedly refused to defend Johnson, because they’ve finally become sick of their place in the stitched-up, crawling Human Centipede through which the PM’s endless stream of thick, lustrous bullshit has to pass before it reaches the public

24. In the absence of fall-guys or basic sense, Johnson chose to admit he’d known all about Pincher, but had to “balance” sexual assaults against Pincher’s “skills” as a the whip responsible for minimising scandals

25. Is it too early to mark this “skill” down as a failure?

26. Johnson then went back to saying he hadn’t known anything, then he had, but also “forgot” about the earlier Pincher scandals

27. Senior aides said the PM had been given a “first-hand account” of sexual assaults by Pincher, just days before he was appointed in Feb

28. So No 10 denied they had lied all the dozens of times they’d definitely lied, because “At the time that was the PM’s view”

29. This means Downing Street’s official definition of truth is now: whatever the PM’s scattered wits can recollect at the time

30. Some ministers were struggling to keep up with this, including two of our dullest tools

31. Rubik’s gobshite Dominik Raab, over the course of 15 seconds, asserted he wasn’t aware of Pincher’s behaviour, but also that he’d “pulled Pincher to one side” because of the groping

32. Cigar-chomping Uncle Fester impersonator Therese Coffey said she definitely knew the PM was unaware aware of the scandal, cos she HADN’T asked him

33. This bullshit jamboree was the moment Ben Wallace chose to launch a new bill protecting the UK from “govt disinformation”

34. Coffey said “Tory men do not have particular problem with sexual harassment”

35. It’s a pity she hadn’t been able to make it to court to defend convicted sexual assaulter Charlie Elphicke

36. Or convicted sexual assaulter Imran Ahmad Khan

37. Or Mark Menzies, who paid a male Brazilian escort for sex and asked him to precure a load of meth

38. Or Mark Garnier, who admitted referring to his secretary as “sugar tits” and instructing her to buy sex toys for him

39. Or Stephen Crabb, who texted a 19-year-old he’d just interviewed for a job, inviting her to meet him for sex

40. Or Brooks Newmark, who sent sexually explicit messages to party workers

41. Or Andrew Griffiths, who sent 2000 explicit messages to 2 barmaids in just 2 weeks

42. Or David Davies, who’s senior aide described as a sexually inappropriate misogynist

43. Or Damien Green, who resigned after being too handsy with an activist half his age

44. Or the unnamed cabinet minister who invited his secretary to “come and feel the length of my cock”

45. Or another who grabbed a journalist and said “God, I love those tits”

46. Or Daniel Kawczynski, who urged a commons researcher to go on a date with a wealthy donor older than her father, who she had already rejected three times. She called it “sleazy in the extreme”

47. Or Bob Gale, who said female journalists subjected to such sexual assaults were just “wilting flowers” and that the women were “mainly responsible”

48. Or Boris Johnson, who managed to grope both journalist Charlotte Edwardes AND another woman AT THE SAME LUNCH

49. Clearly Carrie Antoinette was prepared to overlook that, and also overlook Pincher – she had openly questioned his appointment as early as 2017

50. Caroline Nokes said she’d seen Pincher hammered at work twice in the same week, reported it, and it had been ignored

51. She claims male parliamentary staff had been warned to “steer clear” of Pincher

52. Nick Robinson said Pincher’s behaviour was so infamous around Westminster that “even the dogs in the street” knew about it

53. Former whip Mark Harper said “we cannot go on like this”

54.But we are. And to prove it, deranged ukulele enthusiast and follicular fire-hazard Michael Fabricant rocked up, claiming, astonishingly, that Johnson’s only fault was “loyalty”

55. This will come as quite a surprise to all of his betrayed previous wives and mistresses

56. Fabricant went on to suggest Chris Pincher is the real victim here, rather than all the recipients of his multiple sexual assaults

57. A Tory MP told LBC “We are eeking-out the final hours and days of this Government. We aren’t talking about weeks or months”

58. Peter Bone, a child’s drawing of their vampire grandad, said none of this was important because nobody had even heard of Chris Pincher. Or Barbra Streisand

59. In other news: the govt’s stern memo ordering Covid to stop doesn’t seem to have worked: cases rose 30% in a week

60. So the Tories cut sick pay for NHS staff who are off work with Covid, cos obviously that’s sane

61. The govt began considering 50-year mortgages that your kids will have to inherit, making it impossible for your kids to own a home cos they’re too busy paying for yours

62. Johnson’s 2019 election claim that he’d build 40 hospitals is now facing an official investigation on the grounds it was “significantly misleading” under electoral law

63. This is because they’re actually building just 5 hospitals

64. The science minister said Britain was “becoming a science superpower”, and then over 100 grants to UK scientists were immediately suspended because our govt got bored with its own Brexit, so voted to break its legally binding commitments under international law

65. And then the constitutionally slack-brained Liz Truss tweeted a complaint that Beijing had “abandoned its legally binding commitments” to Hong Kong

66. Nurse Ratched prototype Priti Patel condemned as “wokeism” the move for Universities to create “safe spaces”

67. She then said the govt needed a “safe space” to discuss Rwanda policy, which was her excuse for not telling anybody how many millions she’s wasted on it

68. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Microsoft Paperclip standing to attention, claimed Brexit allowed us to do the vaccine rollout

69. It was pointed out that the vaccine rollout happened while we were still under EU rules

70. So JRM genuinely claimed the EU would have chosen not to vaccinate people

71. Unperturbed by reality, he then claimed that Brexit is allowing us to ease the cost-of-living crisis

72. And then reality turned up: the Brexit divorce bill rose by €10 billion this month because the £ is so much weaker than the Euro after Brexit

73. And the OBR said Brexit has cost £100 billion in lost output, and £40 billion to the treasury PER YEAR

74. You can think of that as a tower of £10 notes over 700 miles tall – twice the orbital height of the International Space Station – and all wasted

75. That money could have helped single-parent families, as this week over 50% of them slid into poverty due to benefits cuts

76. So obviously, because of all his caring about the cost-of-living crisis and the economy, Boris Johnson spent almost half a million quid on an official govt jet to fly him home from a private weekend break in Cornwall

77. And it’s still only Tuesday

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 07.07.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I’ve been struggling to think of anything to put into #TheWeekInTory. Quiet, innit?

Only kidding. It’s an absolute casserole. This is the 3rd of these in 6 days, and is almost certainly already out of date.

Regardless, this is my life now, and I’m taking it out on you…

1. Boris Johnson became the third successive Tory Prime Minister to have their career destroyed by Boris Johnson

2. Always stickers for tradition, the Tories first promised, and then proved completely incapable of Getting Exit Done

3. This all began with the resignation of Oliver Dowden, the Minister Without Portfolio

4. After 43 resignations in 24 hours, we ended up having portfolios without ministers, including the govt’s flagship Levelling Up Dept, which was, irony of ironies, absolutely flattened

5. The previous record for most ministerial resignations in a 24 hour period was 6, dating back to the 1930s

6. Having achieved 7 times that number without even breaking sweat, this govt has – at long last – actually achieved some #WorldBeating

7. Johnson said the resignations didn’t matter because there was “a wealth of talent in the party”, which must be why Nadine Dorries was dragged into the cabinet, seemingly fresh from a fight over the outcome of a meat raffle outside a flat-roofed pub

8. Despite the “wealth of talent”, Tory Whips said “we can’t find enough MPs to fill the spaces caused by resignations” and govt had to be literally cancelled

9. And amid the mass resignation, Johnson’s emotional support turbot Michael Gove actually managed to get himself fired

10. This marked the end of an epic journey through the Thoughts and Beliefs of Michael Gove, Age 54 and ¾

11. He started his quest in 2015 by telling us Johnson was his best Brexity friend

12. In 2016 he backed Johnson, and said he should definitely be Prime Minister

13. He then knifed Johnson on the day he was due to announce his leadership, saying didn’t have any morals

14. By 2017 Johnson’s missing morals didn’t stop Gove teaming up with him to oust Theresa May, a spindly seabird who had swallowed a kazoo, but was still somehow our PM

15. In 2019 he joined Johnson’s govt and said Johnson was brilliant again

16. In 2020, 2021, and throughout 2022 Gove said Johnson was definitely moral enough to remain in power, despite all the lying, corruption, parties, shagging and illegal moves to cancel parliament

17. Johnson is now the third successive Tory leader to have sacked Gove

18. Nadhim Zadawi’s journey to enlightenment was much shorter: 9 hours to go from believing Johnson had enough probity to appoint him chancellor, to believing Johnson has so little probity he should quit

19. Zahawi started the day promising to be a “Chancellor who gets things done” and he’s not wrong: in the 24 hours he’s had the job he’s lost half his treasury team, tried to oust his boss, faced a reshuffle, and been placed under investigation by the National Crime Agency

20. A bolshie Johnson boasted of his success in leading a populist govt that he now can’t lead, and which is neither popular nor technically a govt

21. He told MPs the only way he’d resign was if he could no longer defend the country

22. Unfortunately that country was Ukraine

23. It was suggested “men in grey suits” would have to shift Johnson out of Number 10

24. It soon felt like men in white coats would be more appropriate

25. Five ministers saved paperwork by resigning in a single letter

26. By contrast, all 4 of Grant Shapps remained loyal

27. At least until the evening, when Shapps joined ministers telling the PM to quit

28. Amongst those protesting their loyalty to the squatter while telling him to fuck off were Priti Patel, the Shetland Pony of the Apocalypse, and vague legal-guesswork hamster Suella Braverman

29. Shortly after, Braverman went on TV to proclaim she wanted to become leader, and in a particularly bold tactic she began her campaign by reminding a party that hates immigrants and the poor that “I came to this country with nothing”

30. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the harrowing outcome of a bout of hate-sex between a Dalek and a bassoon, nobly said he would refuse to serve under another PM

31. In much the same spirit, I have nobly refused to date Beyoncé

32. Relentlessly bewildered Tory red-waller Lee Anderson said he wasn’t scared of a possible election, reasoning – and I use that word quite wrongly – that “I’m here because of Brexit, I’m here because of Boris, I’m here because of Corbyn, and none of that has changed”

33. Johnson now claims he has to stay, because 14 million voted for him

34. In fact 25,351 voted for him, cos he’s a constituency MP, not a president

35. 25,351 is fewer than voted for ventriloquist Jamie Leahey, who came second on the last series of Britain’s Got Talent

36. And so, after a wild 36 hours on Entirely Sane Island, we now have a PM who has superglued his hands to the steering wheel, has told colleagues they’d have to “dip their hands in blood” to remove him, and plans to challenge the Queen with “sack me if you dare”

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 11.07.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I wish it was an exaggeration, but it is only 3 days since my last #TheWeekInTory, his is the 4th in a week, and… here we go again.

Like the shoe-stretchers my mum got me for Christmas, they’re the stinky gift that keeps on giving.

Let’s dive in…

1. Previously on The Week In Tory: thermonuclear tribunal magnet Boris Johnson battled to survive, as Steve Baker told the BBC “I believe the Conservative Party is the only party capable of good government”, and just behind him over half of that government resigned

2. In a stunning return to form, prognosticator of prognosticators Jacob Rees-Mogg, that disturbing merger between The Child Catcher and the concept of rickets, predicted Boris Johnson would remain as PM for 20 years

3. Johnson resigned the same day

4. But being Johnson, his resignation didn’t achieve a fucking thing, because he is still PM

5. His own party described his not-really-a-resignation as “Revolting” and “Ridiculous”, and one cabinet minister who remained loyal to Johnson said “That speech was a fucking disgrace”

6. Because Johnson is now out of power, he remained in power, and not only appointed a new cabinet but also invented a completely new job as a reward for top supporter Peter Bone, a child’s drawing of their vampire grandad

7. If you thought the last lot of ministers was bad…

8. The new Northern Ireland secretary had to ask officials if he needed a passport to go to Northern Ireland

9. And new appointee Sarah Dines attempted to excuse Chris Pincher sexually assaulting people by saying the fact the victim was gay “doesn’t make it straightforward”10. And another over-promoted mediocrity, Lia Nici, began her ministerial career by repeating the disproven slur that the deputy leader of the opposition had spread her legs in parliament to distract the poor PM

11. Anyway, on this occasion it seems Leave does not mean Leave

12. Johnson said he had learned from mistakes over parties, and that’s why his main reason for staying in office was so he could continue to use the country house which is the PM’s official residence, because he’d scheduled a massive party there

13. The PM then reassured the nation he would announce no new policies, because he didn’t have a mandate

14. Three hours later he announced a new policy which was – you’ll be amazed to hear – yet another cut to social care, which broke yet another of his own election promises

15. Johnson also admitted that while he was foreign secretary, he had held a secret meetings with a known senior KGB agent, who he met during his weekend getting absolutely hammered at the “anything goes” party palace of a billionaire friend (who he later ennobled)

16. This week’s sex scandal was a leaked recording of Johnson offering a job to a woman he’d had an affair with

17. This replaced last week’s sex scandal, which featured Johnson offering a different job to a different woman he’d had an affair with

18. And that replaced the previous week’s sex scandal, where he’d been found getting a blowjob off that women in his official govt office

19. And that replaced a sex scandal relating to rumours he’s got his hairdresser pregnant and she’d had to move to Canada and go into hiding

20. Anyway: blowjob woman – try to keep up – is now his current wife, and as we face devastating cuts to benefits, leaks revealed she and Johnson blew £200,000 to terrifyingly vajazzle their Downing St flat, which included thousands of pounds spent on *literal* gold wallpaper

21. Despite spending over £3000 on a replica of the drinks cabinet Rudolf Nureyev owned – the ownership of which is vital to leading a nation, as I’m sure we all agree – their defenders waved aside their profligacy by insisting Boris and Carrie “didn’t even have a salad bowl”

22. Anyway, Johnson’s lucky successor now faces a (presumably quite short) career surrounded by the sort of baroque decorative horrors normally only seen when intrepid reporters follow revolutionaries into a gaudy, despotic presidential compound

23. Disgusted by Johnson’s greed, Michelle Donelan quit as Education Secretary after just 31 hours, but still took her £17,000 severance

24. This week’s 3rd Education Secretary is James Cleverly, a stunningly successful one-man campaign to disprove nominative determinism

### Tweet deleted for legal reasons ####

28. As part of their earnest campaign to finally get an honourable leader scandal-ridden Johnson, the candidates leaked dossiers listing the involvement by their rivals in drugs, using prostitutes, tax dodges, illegal loans, and secret illegitimate children

29. 15 candidates have put their names forward, or 11 if you only count Grant Shapps once

30. Priti Patel is tipped to stand, unperturbed by the fact her flagship Rwanda policy is not only illegal, but that the small-boat migration it “fixes” has doubled since she announced it

31. In fact Patel, the Garden Gnome of Sauron, has done so well that the Royal Navy has now threatened to “walk away” from its job of stopping migration, because her policy has, in their words, “spectacularly backfired”.

32. Under party rules you only need 8 supporters to stand, but Ben Wallace – who was favourite just 3 days ago – couldn’t even scrabble together that many, so has decided to remain being simultaneously our defence minister and a life-model for ornamental rubber doorstops

33. Don’t feel too sorry for Ben Wallace, because reports say he’s been discovered taking £10,000 donations from a law firm lobbying to overturn UK sanctions on Putin, which falls under the defence portfolio of … let me check … oh yes, Ben Wallace

34. Liz Truss – Cunk on Foreign Relations – has decided to turn the tide on the massive unpopularity and failure of Johnson, and her strategy was to label herself “Boris Johnson continuity candidate”, proving she understands this as much as almost everything else

35. We also welcomed Sajid Javid, a cartoon of pure greed superimposed onto a competitively evil gonad, who this week was described as “a complete shit” by one of his own backers

36. Javid’s pitch to the nation is based on his competence, and I suppose only overseeing the worst health waiting lists in history while ignoring basic precautions over Covid is a step up from his predecessor, Milk Tray Man cosplayer Matt Hancock, who fiddled while 180,000 died

37. Jeremy Hunt has decided to stand as the least-insanely-right-wing candidate, and chose Esther McVey as his running mate, describing her as a “star”

38. If she’s a star, it’s a white dwarf, in that she’s incredibly dense, and generates absolutely no new material

39. Hunt needs to win over his party of economic geniuses who left us with the slowest recovery from recession in history, the highest debt for 200 years, highest tax since 1947, highest inflation for 50 years, most expensive housing in Europe, and the worst economy in the G8

40. To do this he wants to reduce corporation tax – already one of the lowest in the OECD – to 15% so we can compete with NOBODY BECAUSE WE’RE ALREADY LOWEST

41. And then, fully attuned to the needs of the country, he said his top priority was to end the ban on fox hunting

42. Meanwhile Nadhim Zahawi, the cross testicle now in charge of our money, had an extraordinarily productive first 4 days in office

43.He announced an end to austerity (the 17th “end of austerity” pledge since 2019), and then 3 days later promised 20% more austerity cuts

44. Meanwhile he lost half his staff, campaigned to sack his boss, and got investigated by the National Crime Agency and his own department. All in four days.

45. He followed up by HMRC announcing they had “red flagged” him over his opaque tax affairs before he even got the job

46. HMRC said a red flag is enough to stop you from getting an MBE, so “the idea he could be chancellor or even prime minister is unbelievable”

47. Fellow candidate Grant Shapps refused to get drawn into trans culture wars, the first time he’s ever been clear about identity

48. Even so, one MP said “The last time Grant said he’d help me win an election I nearly ended up in prison”, so I think we’ll put him in the “maybe” column

49. Rishi Sunak is standing for PM so he can overturn the disastrous economic legacy of Rishi Sunak

50. He’s campaigning in the belief that the nation wanted to get rid of the guy who was fined for illegally partying, and would now vote for the other guy who was fined for illegally partying

51. It’s going well: his fellow MPs described Sunak as “a treacherous bastard”

52. “Honesty Candidate” Rishi was chancellor of UK while avoiding tax by registering as citizen in another country, claiming his wife didn’t pay tax cos she was from a 3rd, being paid by a trust fund in a 4th, and secretly breaking the rules of his job to hide money in a 5th

53. Sunak told the media he is a “serious candidate for serious times”, which will come as a shock to those who remember the actual chancellor being unable to work out how to use a credit card when he was paying for petrol in the Kia Rio he pretended he drove

54. To make himself relatable, Sunak won’t answer questions about how many billions he’s worth, cos “I’ll probably get it wrong”

55.Equally ept Tory MPs sent completely independent tweets backing Sunak, but forgot to remove the instruction “add your own infographic below”

56. Steve Baker’s opening – and, as it turned out, closing – gambit was a campaign based around a riddle in the style of an optician’s sight test, upon which was superimposed a photo of Baker with what looked like a meat cleaver through his head

57. His campaign lasted less than 8 hours, but he greeted reality’s latest challenge to his fantasy world in his traditional style, displaying the ever-so-pleased look of a man who is simply desperate to be asked if he’s finished his Rubik’s Cube yet

58. He immediately lent his backing to Suella Braverman, a human-sized gerbil that has mindlessly gnawed through very nearly half of a borrowed copy of International Law for Dummies

59. Also backing Braverman is Desmond Swayne, the reanimated corpse of Alvin Stardust

60. Penny Mordaunt, who is a real person and not a minor Addams Family character, has all we expect from a prospective Tory PM – she’s a former magicians assistant who impressed the public by failing to make it into the top 10 in a celebrity diving show on ITV2

61. Mordaunt pitched herself as the Competency Candidate, and to prove it her inspiring campaign video was based around footage of convicted killer Oscar Pistorius, a murdered Labour MP, and a Paralympian who hadn’t given permission to appear, and demanded to be removed

62. So the Mordaunt campaign had to be relaunched less than 2 hours after it started, which is easily 1 hour and 53 minutes longer than anybody expected Mordaunt’s campaign to remain in one piece

63. It is rumoured that cursed dildo Jacob Rees-Mogg will also throw his top-hat into the ring, and if he teams up with Penny Mordaunt we can simply cancel parliament and replace it with repeats of The Munsters

64. Also standing – sorry, I know this is taking a while – is Kemi Badenoch, the former equalities minister who opposes equality, refuses to condemn conversion therapy, mocked gay marriage, and published a much-mocked report denying the existence of racist police

65. She described herself as possessing a “nimble centre-right vision”, and somehow managed to misuse all of those words

66. Tom Tugendhat demonstrated how much the public wanted him, by publishing an opinion poll in which his name didn’t even appear

67. Having ethically demanded more thought, nuance and depth than Johnson’s cretinous habit of endlessly repeating three-word-slogans, Tugendhat launched a campaign using a TWO-word-slogan, and repeated “clean slate” about 16 times during a 2-minute TV appearance

68. His grasp of detail is such that his proposed solution to Brexit is to form a new mini-EU comprising neighbours who aren’t part of the EU. It would contain the UK, Ireland (already in the EU), Sweden (already in the EU) and Norway (associated with the EU as part of the EEA)

69. Tugendhat – remember, this is the clever one – went on to explain that he could solve the NI crisis because he’d fought for his country, although I’m not sure if “I’m a British soldier and want to have a fight” is as quite likely to defuse tensions in Belfast as Tom thinks

70. Rehman Chishti was seemingly invented merely so he could be defeated, like a nameless pre-titles bad guy in a Bond movie

71. Research found only 27% of his own constituents know he exists

72. Chishti pretty much guaranteed his return to obscurity by launching his bid for power with a publicity photo that aimed for “staring at manifest destiny” but landed on “I can’t work out how to use the toilet on this train”

73. And bewitched thumb Mark Jenkinson tweeted that his campaign would involve blowing smoke up his arse and promising the moon on a stick. I’m not joking. He really did.

74. Anyway, polling shows the highest-rated potential leader is Dominic Raab, who isn’t even standing

75. Raab scores a mighty 4%, and is – I repeat – the most popular candidate. Nobody that is actually standing got more than 3%

76. And even the pointless Raab was massively beaten by candidates called “None of the above” (30%) and “Don’t know” (28%)

77. But to prove they’re all completely different to the widely-hated Boris Johnson, every single candidate backs Johnson-era austerity for the poor, tax cuts for the rich, illegally shipping people off to Rwanda, removing your human rights, and trashing international law

78. This last one – illegally breaching the NI Protocol – has this week led to the govt being sued for millions in compensation by our own ports, who were forced by the govt to spend a fortune on Brexit protocols, which are now being illegally cancelled by the govt

79. Meanwhile, Johnson’s final straining turd into the recoiling palm of a disgusted nation – his resignation honours list

80. Amongst those expecting to join the 768 unelected members of the House of Lords (the Commons only has 650 members) are the following dignitaries:

81. There is Paul Dacre, gigantic Boris Johnson fan and former Daily Mail boss, who, as guardian of our national morals, listens so little and bellows “cunt” so often that his meetings have become known as “the vaginal monologues”

82. And finally, Nadine Dorries, the dumbfungled physical manifestation of a fight outside Greggs, who may soon become a peer with a life-long say over our national politics, despite being out of her depth on a sheet of graphene

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 13.07.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

It’s finally happened.

#TheWeekInTory has turned into The Day In Tory.

Here we go…

1. Boris Johnson plans to stage a no-confidence vote in his own government. I mean… how do I follow that up?

2. With this: the Tory right is determined to get 8-bit minister Liz Truss elected through thick and thin (here represented by Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg)

3. Dorries – trapped forever at Lambrini o’clock – said Truss is “a stronger Brexiteer” than her or JRM

4. Truss campaigned and voted for Remain and said Brexit would be a disaster. Which it is.

5. This, it should be noted, is the last recorded time Liz Truss was right

6. It was also reported that Tories tried to intervene to change the Channel4 annual report so it would fit with Dorries’ addled privatisation plans.

7. For fans of dystopia, this is the first time in Channel4’s 40-year history this has happened

8. A poll of “who would make a good party leader” showed the best person was Rishi Sunak

9. He got a net score (people approving minus people disapproving) of minus 5. He’s the best one.

10. Even amongst Tory voters, only one candidate (Sunak) scraped a positive net score

11. But it gets better: a poll by the Evening Standard found 12% of people knew “a great deal” about candidate Stewart Lewis, putting him far ahead of Zahawi, Braverman or Hunt

12. It’s worth noting at this stage that Stewart Lewis doesn’t even exist. They made him up.

13. Because the REAL candidates love their country and want to help fund it, this week we had to deal with the elaborate tax arrangements of our likely next PMs

14. Sajid Javid had “exploited non-dom tax loophole” and refused to reveal the location of his offshore trust fund

15. And it was reported there are now investigations by the National Crime Agency and Serious Fraud Office into the personal finances and tax status of Nadhim Zahawi, the actual chancellor and (until very recently) candidate for PM

16. To demonstrate how interesting he is and how much he thinks about others, a woman passed out during Zadawi’s riveting leadership launch speech about how much he cares for this country, so he compassionately ignored her and carried on talking

17. Sunak’s slogan is “Ready for Rishi”, but he wasn’t ready for questions – he closed the launch cos people started asking about his wife’s tax affairs

18. In the brief period he was fit to face journalists, Sunak vowed to tackle inflation, reduce inequality, and lower taxes

19. A treasury official said Sunak would “stoke inflation and inequality” and cause a “fiscal black hole of tens of billions of pounds”

20. The official said all 11 original candidates were “disciples of Recep Erdogan”, the Turkish president overseeing 80% inflation

21. Sunak promised he would “run the economy like Thatcher”, who destroyed whole industries and left almost 4 million out of work

22. He then said Boris Johnson “has a good heart”, which is a tenuous claim, and doesn’t make up for his appalling brain and scrofulous soul

23. Meanwhile, in news to cheer the country, Boris Johnson was reported to have “not ruled out a comeback”

24. And Zahawi – a week after saying Johnson wasn’t fit to hold office – now said he would give Johnson a cabinet job if he wanted one

25. Suella Braverman – who appears to have been bitten by a radioactive chipmunk – went down the traditional Tory route of offering to cut benefits for everyone, shoving us into penury

26. But obviously no cuts for pensioners, cos they vote

27. At her campaign launch Kemi Badenoch insisted business desperately wanted her to cancel Net Zero policies

28. The next day Unilever, Coca Cola, Scottish Power, Thames Water and Lloyds called on candidates to defend and maintain Net Zero policies

29. While Banedoch’s was speaking, single occupancy toilet stalls at the back of the room were pointlessly bestrewn with makeshift “men” and “ladies” signs, because culture wars have driven her to see threats everywhere, like a kind of Mary Wokehouse

30. While she’s not being obsessed with effluent, Banedoch, who wants to lead the Party of Law and Order, admitted that – while she’s not being obsessed with rooms full of effluent – she had hacked the website of a Labour opponent

31. And so, the last 8 candidates were

Badenoch (Mary Wokehouse)
Braverman (Mary Workhouse)
Truss (Mary Madhouse)
Sunak (Mary Poorhouse)
Tugendhat (Army Guardhouse)
Mordaunt (Lairy Alehouse)
Zahawi (Greedy Shithouse)
and Jeremy Hunt (Dopey Titmouse)

32. Senior Whitehall staff accused Penny Mordaunt of neglecting her ministerial duties for months because she was focussing on her leadership campaign

33. She can’t have focussed very hard, because her campaign logo is identical to that of a group aligned to the Labour Party

34. Mordaunt, leaping aboard the Culture War Express, said she has never supported changes to the Gender Recognition Act

35. This will come as a shock to 2019 Penny Mordaunt, who told an awards ceremony by the LGBT community that she was about to support changes to the act

36.Priti Patel – the answer to the question “What did Frau Blücher do next?” – ended up not standing to be leader, so “I’m too busy” wasn’t her excuse for not even bothering to turn up to a Home Affairs Committee hearing into her disastrous Rwanda policy

37. Jamie Wallis was found guilty of failing to stop after a crash

38. He said he was swerving to avoid a cat

39. Sadly, the same didn’t apply to Tobias Ellwood, whose home was attacked with a croquet mallet – no, really – after he was reported to have run over a different cat

40. While the candidates raged about what labels to put on rooms people shit in, Covid cases surged to 350,000 and the NHS issued a Black Alert – the highest level of emergency

41. Unsurprisingly only 1/3 of Britons now trust their government, the lowest in the OECD

42. And finally, I’m not suggesting this is end-times, but the House of Commons had to delay proceedings because – during the driest weather in years – water somehow began pouring in through the roof of the chamber

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 18.07.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

A single-tweet #TheWeekInTory

1. Tories sacked Johnson for being a liar

2. Tugendhat was cheered hugely by the public for being the only candidate to say Johnson is a liar

3. Tories cheered yet more Johnson lies in parliament today

4. And then the Tories eliminated Tugendhat

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 19.07.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory is here again, dammit

1. We flushed and flushed and flushed, but Boris Johnson keeps bobbing back up

2. This week the horny honey-monster managed to call a no-confidence vote in himself, then forgot he’d done it

3. Regardless, all (but one) Tory MP felt this was absolutely fine

4. Sir Edward Leigh, a shabbily upholstered Chesterfield crammed into a blazer he found at a regatta, defended Johnson on the grounds that he is not “a mass murderer”. And who among us expects more from our PM?

5. Johnson proved he learned his lesson about lying to parliament, and that lesson was: I’m great at lying to parliament

6. He told MPs “We have rounded up those county lines drugs gangs, 1500 of them so far”

7. This is actually the number of telephone lines closed down

8. In the competition to replace him, Tom Tugendhat was cheered hugely by the public for being the only candidate to say Johnson is a liar

9. His fellow MPs then cheered yet more Johnson lies in parliament

10. And then Tories eliminated Tugendhat from the leadership contest

11. Tom Tugendhat tweeted “We are only as strong as we are united”, which will surprise [checks notes] Tom Tugendhat, who tweeted his opposition to people becoming stronger by uniting to strike for more pay

12. So 10 days after kicking Johnson out for being an incompetent liar in whom they had no confidence, Tories voted complete confidence in him

13. Having proved he was still PM-material, Johnson immediately blew-off a COBRA crisis meeting so he could throw himself a party

14. Kit Malthouse was asked “where was the PM” this weekend, and said “I don’t know”

15. He should have known, cos it was rumoured Malthouse was at the same party

16. And then the PM went off for a day playing at Top Gunt, in an orgiastic spasm of Mr Benn dressing-up

17. Suella Braverman – a cross between Torquemada and Secret Squirrel – reassured the voters she would gleefully remove any protection from them being tortured

18. Somehow this wasn’t quite the selling point she had imagined, and she was also eliminated from the election

19. Braverman said she was “blown away” by the support she’d received from her fellow MPs, “if not in their votes, then in their hearts”

20.Wait until she finds out they don’t have hearts either

21. Feral gonad Nadhim Zahawi used the hashtag NZ4PM, but if you visited http://NZ4PM.com you were redirected to Penny Mordaunt’s campaign

22. Given their record it’s surprising, but Tory MPs didn’t take to this demonstration of vast ineptitude, so Zahawi was out too

23. It’s probably for the best: imagine if we ended up with a PM steeped in scandal, such as the one gathering around Zahawi’s £26m of “mystery loans” and his opaque tax affairs. He’ll have to just remain chancellor

24. So let’s have a look at the surviving candidates

25. Rishi Sunak boasted of his “seriousness” and “competence”, and said his greatest weakness is “striving too hard for perfection”

26. Behind him was a Ready For Rishi sign in which he’d misspelled the word “campaign”

27. You’d think backbench nonentity Jack Brereton would be a natural Sunak supporter: he published a poster in which he quite genuinely threatened to “continue the levelling of Stoke-on-Trent” (you lucky constituents) and then spelled his own name wrong

28. Brereton is actually backing Mordaunt, a 3D printout of Captain Pugwash who in a baffling statement seemed to suggest her great weakness is delegating responsibility to her Burmese cat.

29. And Kemi Badenoch modestly claims her weakness is she is – if anything – TOO funny

30. Meanwhile Elizabeth Truss (anagram: haziest bluster) said her weakness is being “over-enthusiastic”, certainly compared to anybody who has ever met her

31. Sadly, that’s a small number: since the campaign began she hasn’t been brave enough to do a single broadcast interview

32. Sunak, who when he’s not being a master of detail is a Sensei of removing his jacket for Instagram, is still favourite to win

33. As a sign of how good he is, he’s got the lowest % of votes for any leadership candidate since Ted Heath in 1974. And Sunak is the popular one

34. Penny Mordaunt set out her bold new direction following Johnson. Here is week one of the new direction:

35. She began by being accused of lying about her naval record

36. Then she did a u-turn on one of her signature policies

37. Then she said “you can’t break promises to a partner”, while saying we can break the promises we made in the Northern Ireland Protocol

38. She also ignored scientific evidence and backed homeopathy (or as doctors call it, a glass of water)

39. Then she did some dressing up in a uniform she seemingly doesn’t have the rank to wear

40. And then Lord Frost told everybody she “did not master the details” necessary to do her job

41. Then she denied her lies about Turkey were lies at all (they were)

42. And then Mordaunt, who had fought her seat in 2019 campaigning on the slogan “Get Brexit Done” and promising an “Over Ready Deal” said that in 2022 she would “Get Brexit re-Done”

43. Well: that all sounds totally different from Johnson! Well done, Cap’n Penny.

44. David Davis – so good they named him once – rocked up to support Mordaunt, with the bedraggled mien of somebody who had recently eaten quite a lot of tablets, and had spent the subsequent days investigating a bin during quite a heavy finale at Creamfields

45. Across town, Liz Truss made a speech assuring us she was “ready to lead”, and then immediately got quite arrestingly lost while vainly trying to leave a very small room that had just one door, through which she had entered barely 10 minutes before. Reassuring, innit?

46. Truss continued to demonstrate her quite lavishly scattered wits by claiming she became a Conservative because she felt “let down” by the school she had attended in Leeds

47. The Tories were in charge the entire time Liz Truss was at school in Leeds

48. Kemi Badenoch said she wanted to be Britain’s first black PM

49. It looks more likely she might end up becoming Britain First’s black MP, after that far-right fascist organisation publicly endorsed her

50. Badenoch said she had strong principles and opposed Net Zero

51. 2 days later it got hot, so now she supports Net Zero

52. Proud of her “honest politics”, she said “I know what it’s like flipping burgers at 16, on min wage”

53. The min wage didn’t exist when she was 16

54. Oh, and Kemi Badenoch voted against raising that minimum wage. Obvs

55. She might have endlessly malleable views, but she is focussed on the big issues: she wants to start a fight with Ben & Jerry’s for being “woke”, presumably on the basis she thinks ice-cream is sentient

56. It certainly appears more sentient than YTS-kid Rishi Sunak or taxidermised vole Liz Truss, who both want us to believe they alone can stand up to Putin, but made Sky cancel the next leadership debate because they both chickened out

57. While this was going on, Priti Patel couldn’t be arsed turning up to a parliamentary committee on her Rwanda Policy

58. And Dominic Raab couldn’t be arsed turning up to a session on his Bill of Rights policy

59. Cos who needs scrutiny? They’ve all done brilliantly so far

60. Meanwhile Matt Hancock – PeeWee Herman reflected in the back of a spoon – hosted a radio show as an attempt at rehabilitation, which descended with horrifying inevitability into him nodding in weepy silence while callers told him he was a fucking terrible human being

61. Two years into the Tory Party’s centrepiece “levelling up” policy, the north-south divide in incomes has widened by 30%

62. The Tory Crime Commissioner was banned from driving after being caught speeding 5 times in 12 weeks.

63. And as these squabbling wangs argued about whether ice-cream approves of statues of slavers, Covid cases rose to 3.5 million, the tarmac at Luton airport melted, UK pay fell at the fastest rate on record, and 14.5 million slipped into poverty

64. It is still only Tuesday

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 03.08.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I hate #TheWeekInTory. But that’s what it’s for, right?

1. The leadership election is down to two: Liz Truss, a Maggie Thatcher knock-off you’d find at Elizabeth Duke, and Rishi Sunak, the chef from Ratatouille having a go at being a lifestyle coach after the rat abandoned him

2. Capt Birdseye impersonator Penny Mordaunt was out after the unexpected failure of her grand vision of a Little Britain where we all team up to “write a theme tune”

3. Instead, Mordaunt tweeted that Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak would “murder the Tory party”

4. I don’t know if they’ve settled on a General Election slogan, but that must surely be in the shortlist

5. If you’ll excuse the mixed cutlery metaphor, Nadine Dorries, a woman with a fork in a world of soup, tweeted an image of Rishi Sunak literally stabbing Boris Johnson

6. A Tory MP spoke for us all by tweeting “FFS Nadine! Muted”

7. Others called Dories “disturbing”, “dangerous” and “appalling” – unsurprisingly, less than a year after a Tory colleague was stabbed to death

8. Johnson is probably going put Dorries in the House of Lords

9. Meanwhile, Rishi Sunak set out his stall as the serious candidate with the nicest shoes by announcing his policy for Britain’s own independent renewable energy supply to save money

10. Except the announcement banned onshore windfarms, and backed gas, which is 6x as expensive

11. Experts described his plan as “economic illiteracy”. Remember: he’s the “sensible” one

12. Sunak refused to back windfall taxes on gas giants because it would “prevent them from investing”

13. BP said a windfall tax would not affect its investments at all

14. Truss also said “I don’t believe in windfall taxes”

15. Truss’s former employer is Shell Oil

16. Sensing they were merging into a supercluster of twats, the candidates tried to differentiate themselves over Scotland

17. Truss said she’d “ignore” the country’s democracy

18. By contrast, Sunak is proved his love of Scotland by telling everybody he thinks that’s where Darlington is

19. He then said he was the “most northern Chancellor we’ve ever had”

20. He was born in Southampton, went to school in Winchester and Oxford, and works in London

21. Truss said she would “hit the ground from day one”, her bold promise to govern like a shot goose

22. Truss – a former LibDem and former Remainer who is now a Brexiteer on the right of the party – said she had the “determination” and “single-mindedness” of Thatcher

23. In reality contortions around Brexit make her the second-most likely person in the govt to belong in a circus

24. She said the first-most-likely – Boris Johnson – should have remained PM, while actively campaigning to replace him and “rip up his pledges”

25. Then she promised to deliver his pledge to “level up”

26. She would do this by levelling-down wages for public workers in poor areas

27. Then, with the iron will of Thatcher, she u-turned on that plan

28. And then, with the fierce honesty of Johnson, she lied about it

29. She promised that unlike Sunak, she would reduce public spending

30. In 2 days she made £330bn of unfunded spending commitments

31. Think of that as a stack of £10 notes towering 2,277 miles high, or 10x the orbital height of the International Space Station

32. Having promised 10x the requirement to literally walk into space, she said she’d offset that by doing £11bn of cuts for poor people, which abacus fans will recognise a very slightly less than £330bn

33. And then she said she’d “balance the books” (but not her psyche)

34. She was definitely winning over her audience: wildly enthusiastic Truss supporter and Young Tory Anna McGovern told the BBC Truss was “probably the best of a bad lot”

35. Another fervent Tory supporter told the media Truss “lacked charisma”

36. To prove them wrong, Truss did a photo-op with some kids, who’s live-commentary defined the experience as “awkward”

37. After that success, Truss promised a “bonfire of rights”, cos unelected leaders burning printed materials while removing our rights is totally reassuring

38. She said she’ll overturn 2400 pieces of legislation before the next election, which means parliament will have to debate and pass 28 pieces of legislation per day

39. And she plans to do this while sacking 90,000 of the civil servants required to deliver the plan

40. But she’d barely broken sweat. She then said she became a Tory in protest at her terrible education in Leeds

41. Tories were in govt the entire time she was in school

42. And her school was so bad, it got her into Oxford

Let’s take a quick breather to remind ourselves that we genuinely thought Boris Johnson was an exception.

Oh, you suckers. Removing Johnson is like scraping mould off a cheese. Wait a week: it’ll be green again

Anyway, have a quick absinthe, and let’s continue…

43. Truss told a live-yet-stupefied TV audience “I’m naturally a thrifty person, I like saving money”

44. Last year she spent £1308 of public money on a single dinner, overruling her own officials who told her to go somewhere cheaper

45. So now the leadership competition is between

– a small-state Remainer who wants to spend £330bn that doesn’t exist, and acts like she’s a Leaver;
– and a small-stage Leaver who gave us the highest taxes for 70 years, and acts like he’s a Remainer

46. Let’s don our biohazard suits and visit Priti Patel, the larval form of Miss Trunchbull, who wrote “it is very important to me” to face mandatory scrutiny by the Home Affairs Select Committee

47. She didn’t turn up, and hasn’t attended a meeting of the committee since Feb

48. Patel’s department doubled-down on her Rwanda plan for thousands of refugees and migrants, saying it had proved “a great success” and was “entirely safe”

49. Rwanda said they only had capacity for 200 people

50. And it’s cost £120m, which is £600,000 per refugee

51. And we haven’t actually sent any refugees yet, cos our courts reckon it’s probably illegal

52. And since the plan was launched, the number of migrant crossings has doubled

53. And a parliamentary committee said Rwanda is “not safe enough” and told her to scrap the scheme

54. Hot on the cloven-heels of Patel’s great success, the govt quietly removed commitments to women’s rights and “bodily autonomy” from an international agreement. Totally fine, right?

55. And we still haven’t appointed a science minister, a month after the last one quit

56. Britain now has the worst inflation in the G7, at easily 9%, and predicted to rise to 17%

57. A Bank of England economist said 80% of the reason for our inflation is Brexit

58. And we have the worst economic dip for 300 years

59. And nobody in govt wants to look at facts

60. For example, Suella Braverman, a cross between Torquemada and Secret Squirrel, had accused Channel 4 of “scandalous fake news” when they reported the divorce bill could reach €50bm

61. This week the divorce bill reached €50bn

62. That’s £1517 per household, on top of the £1428 per household Brexit has already cost us in damage to trade

63. So Sunak said he’d sell Channel 4 to “improve standards”

64. There is no comparable plan for selling Suella Braverman. We’re stuck with her standards

65. And this week those standards led her – the actual Attorney General – to proposing a ban on lawyers telling govt its policies are unlawful

66. Not to be outdone, Rishi Sunak said people who “vilify Britain” will be treated as extremists

67. Meanwhile Michael Gove (who amongst all the resignations somehow managed to get himself sacked as Boris Johnson’s Emotional Support Turbot) said the govt is “not functioning” and incapable of “essential functions”

68. Presumably this opinion means Sunak has to lock Gove up

69. Last month Jacob Rees-Mogg, a harrowing bewitched dildo who smells like the inside of a grandfather clock, said he wouldn’t serve under any PM but Boris

70. And in Jan he said a General Election should be called if Johnson was ousted

71. But it’s August now, and he’s probably sure you’ve forgotten, so now he’s backing a transition to Liz Truss without a General Election, so he can carry on being Minister for Brexit Opportunities

72. This is a bit like being Minister for Brigadoon

73. Unlike Gove, JRM has avoided Sunak’s prison camps by identifying the only thing he thinks is still working after 12 years of his party being in charge: test cricket

74. Out in the real world, the Port of Dover declared a “critical incident” as daily queues exceeded 12 hours

75. Desmond Swayne, the corpse of Alvin Stardust dipped in Barocca-wee, has spent years loudly demanding an end to free movement across the channel, and is obviously now loudly demanding the ability to move freely across the channel

76. His fellow Tory deep-thinkers called for more French passport checks

77. In Jan Tories turned down a £33m plan to double the number French passport checks

78. And there are no significant queues on the French side anyway, which should be a clue about where the problem lies

79. Planes, trains and automobiles have all ground to a halt, so all four of Grant Shapps arrived, like the Horsemen Of The A-twat-alypse, to denounce rail strikes

80. To fix it, he said he would never, under any circumstances, hold talks to stop the rail strikes. Cool. Cool.

81. The High Court ruled “the govt acted unlawfully” in appointing Dido Harding during the Covid pandemic

82. We have the worst staffing crisis in NHS history, and a cross-party committee described an “absence of any credible govt strategy” for dealing with it

83. But Boris Johnson, a pissed Yeti gorged out of his addled mind on Viagra, but still pretending to be our PM, didn’t bother with a strategy. Instead, he went off to play soldiers

84. First, he spent a day dressing up and pretending to throw hand grenades

85. And then he spent £95,200 of public money to squeeze into a “Top Gunt” outfit and have a go in a fighter jet for an hour

86. And then he threw a “lavish celebration” with Carrie at the home of the billionaire donor behind last year’s butler-delivered posh takeaways scandal

87. When people asked Johnson do his job, Tory lickspittle Richard Holden said we should let them “get married in peace”

88. They’ve been married a year

89. So Johnson said he would now stop being our not-Prime Minister, and go on holiday for the rest of his premiership

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 26.09.2022

 

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory

1. We begin with our new leader, Margarine Thatcher, who in only 3 weeks has become PM, finished off The Queen, taken 2 weeks away from work, ruined our relations with the US, crashed the economy, and started backbench rebellion to remove her from office

2. Having performed 4 cowardly U-turns during her own endless leadership campaign, Truss now seems to now think was is the key to her success

3. So she unthinkingly announced she’d be accompanying the new (yet also very old) King on his tour of Britain

4. She then bravely announced she wouldn’t be doing that at all

5. And then she boldly claimed she’d never said she would

6. Having demonstrated her lack of brain and courage, the PM completed her Wizard of Oz impression by introducing us to her missing heart

7. She lovingly told us tax cuts worth 1800x more for the richest 5% than the poorest 5% were “entirely fair”

8. And in a sign she was ending the grotesque expenditure of Boris Johnson, in her last year at the Home Office she increased dept spending by 45% on items including:

9. Fine dining at luxury restaurants

10. “Extensive supplies from top wineries”

11. £1,840 for Norwich City mementos

12. Luxury wallpaper – does any of this sound familiar – provided by Osborne and Little (George Osborne’s family business)

13. £1,800 on a “wellness” app

14. £4,000 at a top hairdresser (who presumably also does the Thatcher doll at Tussauds )

15. £10,000 at Fortnum and Mason

16. And a £900 adult colouring book, cos we’re now governed by people who don’t read books, merely apply crayons

17. Then she went to the USA, and was so successful the White House said it would suspend the “special relationship”

18. Having assured us a trade deal with USA would be done “in weeks” if we voted for Brexit, Truss now told us there is no possibility of a deal with the USA

19. In a further effort to wipe from our minds the endless squalor and scandal of the Johnson years, her new Chief of Staff features in an FBI bribery investigation, is employed by a lobbying firm and only “seconded” to Number 10, and seems to be using tax-avoiding measures

20. A top Truss backer said of the Chief of Staff: “I’ve never heard of such an arrangement, and it is obviously quite wrong”

21. So this week the govt changed the rules to make his alleged tax-avoiding measures legal

22. Simon Clarke, a mouse-fart made flesh and shoved into a beige suit, explained the reason the Tories had been complete dogshit for 12 years is that they “haven’t had a clear run” and it had been “crisis after crisis”

23. He voted for all those crises

24. Anyway I’m not sure “it’s too difficult for us” is quite the reassurance he was aiming for

25. He went on to explain that the point of raising National Insurance was to pay for public services, and therefore they were cutting National Insurance to… pay for public services

26. The richest gain most from cutting NI. The poorest gain just 63p. Poverty averted!

27. While Clarke’s smooth brain was busy de-fragging, he told viewers the govt was “unapologetically pro-growth”, and then along came Kwazi Kwarteng to shrink the economy by 3% in 3 hours

28. “Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan” tweeted shaved Afghan hound and Treasury Minister Chris Philp as sterling nosedived to its lowest point in 37 years

29. Philp said “markets will see that the government has a credible and responsible economic plan”

30. The markets nodded sagely, and then immediately crashed

31. So the govt said it refused to comment on the market, which is a shock to point 29

32. It also refused to release analysis by the Office of Budget Responsibility, a sure sign that it’s all gonna be great

33. Kwarteng was overheard saying “Who cares if sterling crashes” at the Groucho club while celebrating Brexit. We are about to find out who cares

34. Kwarteng might be new to some of you, so an intro: he is the former minister for Brexit, then of Business, Energy and Growth.

35. All those things are going just swimmingly, so he’s now been made Chancellor, just in time to hit his devastating peak form

36. Just before his budget, former hedge-fund manager Kwarteng met other hedge-fund managers, and by staggering coincidence when he did his budget reports said “every one of them was shorting the pound”

37. Insider trading carries a sentence of 7 years. Just making you aware

38. Kwarteng also lifted the bankers’ bonus cap

39. Every one of those hedge-funds made millions, and their resulting huge bonuses won’t be taxed

40. Insider trading also carries unlimited fines. Just in case you were wondering

41. Kwarteng then said he would force people who have low paid jobs to get higher paid jobs. I bet that never occurred to them!

42. On a roll – or crack, it’s hard to tell – he cut stamp duty to help the poor. Experts said the cut would raise inflation and only help the rich

43. After Kwarteng did his fiscal event all over our carpet, the pound plunged to the lowest level against the dollar that it has ever been since Alexander Hamilton stopped rapping long enough to invent it in 1776

44. Kwarteng even managed to make the pound tank against the Russian Ruble, which I guess animated thumb Ben Wallace will now claim is proof our tanks are working

45. I present an array of opinions from Tory MPs and former Tory ministers:

46. “Liz is fucked”

47. “It’s a shit show”

48. “Everyone who isn’t mad hates it”

49. “There’s a 10-15% chance it’s genius. There’s a 70-80% chance it’s a disaster”

50. “It’s economically reckless and political suicide”

51. “This whole thing boils down to infectious childlike optimism. It would almost be endearing if it wasn’t so completely and utterly fucking mad”

52. “There will come a time where people have to say ‘I know it’ll make us look chaotic, but we can’t go on like this’”

53. “They are already putting letters in as they think she will crash the economy”

54. “It’s the kind of thing that’s usually tried in Latin American countries without success”

55.These are her friends, by the way.

56. A banking analyst predicted the £ would drop below $1 in the next couple of weeks – it was at $2 under Gordon Brown

57. Anyway, it all went so brilliantly that Kwarteng has already announced a new fiscal plan on 23 November, a bold prediction about his career chances

58. Work and Pensions minister Chloe Smith escaped from the set of Rings of Power long enough to defend a £55,000 tax cut for millionaires while the £20 Universal Credit uplift is ended

59. Maths fans will be excited to learn £55,000 is 52 years of £20 Universal Credit uplift

60. Meanwhile new Home Secretary Suella Braverman aimed for “New Priti Patel” but landed on “Secret Squirrel struggles with International Law for Dummies”

61. First she told police she “expects them” to cut the number of murders by 20%

62. Not solve them, you’ll notice: just stop them from happening – but she didn’t tell them how or give them any more resources

63. Then she unveiled her not-medically-proven theory that the best antidote to work-related stress is: do more work and relax in front of the TV less

64. But even this bit of political genius is one up on Health Minister and cigar-chomping Uncle Fester impersonator Therese Coffey, who – faced with record breaking waiting lists and the highest Covid hospitalisations in a year – prioritised her war against the Oxford Comma

65. Once her aggressive battle against punctuation choices was out of the way Coffey – part of a govt that inherited an NHS guaranteeing 48 waiting time for GP appointments – promised a grateful public they wouldn’t wait longer than 336 hours

66. In other news: PR giants who were given dodgy Covid contracts are now being given contracts to lead the inquiry into Covid, which sounds much better if you bark it from the back of a truck full of armed blackshirts towards a cowed and terrified public

67. In a sure sign Brexit is going well, the “Brexit bonus” for farmers was scrapped

68. And having howled madly against immigration for years, the govt signalled it plans to allow loads more immigrants

69. And the role of Minister for Brexit Opportunity was abolished

70. This brings us to Jacob Rees-Mogg, a spindly, posturing mantis who was beaten with a Latin phrasebook at an impressionable age, but IMO nowhere near hard enough

71. It was found his “independent consultation” on reintroducing Imperial measurements gave no option to say: no

72. In the face of catastrophic climate disaster Mogg said we “must get every cubic inch of gas out of the North Sea”

73. He then he lifted the ban on fracking after claiming said opposition to fracking was being funded by Putin

74. He is funded by fossil-fuel investors

75. The head of fracking company Cuadrilla said fracking in the UK won’t work

76. Never mind fracking – if there’s a premium on terrible ideas, I want drilling rights to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s head

77. And in case you thought it was over, Boris Johnson, London’s very own Witless Dickington, is still here, first telling startled MPs about the great leadership of Vladimir Putin, then reportedly sending Hugo Swire to the House of Lords to annoy David Cameron “for a laugh”

78. A Johnson cabinet minister and senior aide were accused of sexual misconduct

79. The UK announced it would unilaterally ignore the NI Protocol

80. The nation’s most senior Treasury official was sacked for no reason

81. And – tragically – we lost Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy, who vanished from Twitter without warning. Please don’t send flowers: she worries they’d outsmart her

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 03.10.2022

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory
1. Our new PM, Margarine Thatcher, said she was “absolutely committed” to cutting tax for the rich

2. Then she cancelled tax cuts the rich

3. Truss boasted she was prepared to make unpopular decisions

4. But her decisions were unpopular, so she cancelled them

5. Truss was asked “How many people voted for your plan”, and replied…

6.

7.

8. [ profound silence ]

9.

10.

11. … “What do you mean by that?”

12. Thatcher famously said “The lady’s not for turning”

13. Truss has done 8 U-turns since she began her leadership campaign

14. She rotates so often, she’d be more useful if you painted “MOT” on one side, “TEST” on the other, and stuck her on the pavement outside Kwik Fit

15. Her abandoned 10-day experiment with tax cuts has cost us £65bn

16. If you can’t imagine what £65bn looks like, just think of a thermonuclear moron relentlessly burning £3,600 per hour, every single hour since the birth of Christ

17. While 3 million Britons need foodbanks

18. But think of the real victims: Kwasi Kwarteng said the meltdown had “really ruined my sleep”

19. A Kwarteng ally the problem was that Kwasi is TOO clever

20. Kwarteng is the smartest man in the room, as long as the room only contains Gavin Williamson and cheese mould

21. To demonstrate this point, Hedge-funders at the champagne party to celebrate the budget describe him “a useful idiot”

22. But Kwarteng said he was only at the party for 15 minutes, and somebody else organised it, which is a defence that worked a treat for Boris Johnson

23. Tory chair Jake Berry was also at the party, and defended it – and I use the word “defended” quite wrongly – by saying the bankers who profited from the Tory Party’s sinking economy “should be lauded” for making political donations to – yep – the Tory Party

25. Berry went on to say people who can’t pay bills as a result of his party’s policies should “get higher salaries or higher wages and go out there and get that new job”

26. Only last month Tories were telling us not to ask for higher wages cos it would cause inflation

27. In her leadership campaign Truss promised to “hit the ground”, and this weekend she apologised for not “laying the ground”

28. She’s like a wife-beater, but for mud

29. British Gas had to take out a full-page advert to correct the PM’s misinformation about energy bills

30. Truss was warned too. Insiders told her, “Don’t do this, no one will like it” and she responded “I don’t care”

31. She cares now

32. Senior officials inside Downing St describe her as “completely mad”

33. Another Number 10 insider said the govt is “fucking insane”

34. Tory MPs are unhappy. They preferred it when Truss disguised her incompetence more competently

35. The Times reported they could not find a single Tory backbencher who supported what we still have to call “the mini-budget”.

36. Certainly not Michael Gove, the Tory Party’s emotional support turbot, who said “I don’t believe the budget is right”

37. Meanwhile top Scottish Tory Douglas Ross – not a hard position to reach, since there are only 6 competitors – urged Holyrood to “match these bold plans”

38. Now he’s going to have to urge Holyrood to NOT match these bold plans, cos they boldly abandoned them in today’s sweaty lunge at the Tory policy tombola

39. Truss claims she didn’t make the decision on tax, it was Kwarteng

40. Kwarteng says it was all Chris Philp’s idea

41. And Chris Philp said he “wasn’t the prime mover in this”

42. Police are on the lookout for the Big Boy who did it, and then ran away

43. Anyway, my advice to the entire govt is to is invest heavily in Marmalade Futures, cos they’re toast

44. Enter Simon Clarke, who is so devoid of personality that his official portrait is the curtains behind him

45. Clarke said “if I was to describe one word for Liz, it is purposeful” just as she abandoned her purpose

46. Clarke defended bungs for the rich while promising the govt would slash our “very large welfare state”

47. Two points: he’s the fucking levelling-up minister; and our benefits are the least generous in Europe, lower than 36 comparable economies, and half the OECD average

48. Chris Philp, a shaved Afghan hound who has accidentally got a job in the treasury, continued our deep-dive into insanity by saying “no business under 500 people will be subject to business regulations”

49. Presumably this means your local chippy can now serve you anthrax

50. Philp promised to change the regulations so more companies can be described as “small business”

51. I’ll save him the effort: if his shambolic party remains in office, half the FTSE will be a small business by Christmas

52. Anyway: after a month in the job Truss’s approval is lower than Boris Johnson’s was in the final poll before he was forced from office

53. Speaking of which, constitutionally slack-brained Boris Johnson irrumator (don’t Google that word) Nadine Dorries is back on Twitter

54. Dorries loyally celebrated her return by loyally criticising Truss for “throwing the Chancellor under a bus”, and claiming one of Boris Johnson’s faults was that he was TOO loyal

55. This will come as stunning news to all of of Boris’s ex-wives and mistresses

56. Over 70% of voters think the Truss has “lost control of the economy” after only 26 days in office, 3 of which she spent out of the country, and another 14 mourning the last monarch

57. Then Truss continued her winning-streak by falling out with the new monarch

58. She told the King, a life-long climate campaigner, to stay away from the COP27 climate summit, so she can water down our climate commitments without him intervening

59. Climate is the remit of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the waxy corpse of an exhumed Regency orphanage-worrier

60. Rees-Mogg claimed the collapse in the pound was because we didn’t do any fracking 2 years ago

61. He said fracking would go now ahead, with the approval of local communities

62. He then said areas may be “encouraged to frack” by bribing them with “GP surgeries and schools”

63. “Vote for your town to be rattled by earthquakes. pollution and environmental damage while we destroy the climate for a quick profit, or we won’t provide you with healthcare or education for your kids” is a very on-brand message for this govt

64. Rees-Mogg was booed as he arrived at the Tory conference, but said “They’re shouting but it’s perfectly peaceful. And the right to peaceful expression of your view is fundamental to our constitution.”

65. JRM voted for the Tory bill that outlaws noisy protest

66. While we were all distracted by a budget fiasco that we didn’t vote for, Truss quietly appointed Rees-Mogg’s business partner (and Tory donor) to be a trade minister that we didn’t vote for – he’s not an MP so she sent him to the House of Lords for life. Because democracy

67. Democracy part 2: days after Number 10 said it would stop the highly questionable practice of allowing the PM’s chief of staff to be paid by a private lobbying group, 2 more senior advisors to Truss were found to be doing exactly the same thing

68. Irradiated gerbil Suella Braverman said the UK has “too many migrant workers” and “they’re not contributing to growing our economy”

69. On the same day, her smooth-brained boss Liz Truss said we must “increase the number of migrant workers”, to help “grow the economy”

70. And now, off to Birmingham for the Tory Party’s annual gobshite jamboree

71. Half the hall was empty

72. The chair of the Young Conservative Network got things off to a great start by describing Birmingham as “a dump”

73. He apologised for the misunderstanding, saying “I’ve always enjoyed my visits to your city”

74. In the last year he’s tweeted “Birmingham is firmly the worst city in the UK” and “Birmingham is the worst city in the UK”, so I can see how we might have misunderstood him

75. And he’s also tweeted “Birmingham has one of the highest Muslim population in Britain, you can draw conclusions from that”

76. Oh, I’m drawing conclusions, Daniel Grainger. I’m drawing them HARD

77. It’s only Monday

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 06.10.2022

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Drink heavily, buckle up, and let’s get started with a visit to the Tory Party Conference, where the most dense things in the known universe are packed into one room, and we all pray it reaches critical mass and explodes.

Yet another #TheWeekInTory

1. Liz Truss – ITV4 made flesh – got dressed up as a fictional fascist to present her List Of People Who Disagreed With Me, and are therefore enemies

2. No news yet on whether the “enemies list ” included Liz Truss from the previous day, who believed in different things

3. In her speech to the Insane Clown Posse, Truss said there was “no alternative” and “I am ready to make the hard choices”

4. Barely 24 hours earlier she’d switched to an alternative because the hard choices were too hard

5. Truss claimed said she had reduced taxes for millions

6. The IFS found for every £1 given to workers in tax cuts, £2 was being taken via a freeze in thresholds

7. And the Telegraph reported the tax burden had risen £21 billion

8. The govt insisted windfall taxes would damage energy companies and prevent them from doing essential investment

9. The boss of Shell Oil – Truss’s former employer – called on the govt to impose a windfall tax on them and said it wouldn’t affect investment

10. On a roll – or perhaps crack, it’s hard to tell – Truss then claimed she was the first Prime Minister to go to a comprehensive school

11. She isn’t even the first female Tory PM of the last 5 years to go to a comprehensive school (May’s school was a comp when she was there)

12. Truss refused to confirm she trusted Kwarteng

13. Kwarteng clearly has personal concerns about the job market, and claimed Tories inherited record unemployment from Labour

14. They didn’t – it was 7.9% in 2010, compared to 10.7% under Major, and 11.9% under Thatcher

15. The next fiscal event being left on our doorsteps was due on 23 Nov

16. The govt brought that forward to calm markets

17. Then Kwarteng rattled the market again by forgetting he’d brought the date forward

18. Kwarteng then blamed the cock-ups on the Queen being dead

19. Truss said “I grew up in the 1980s, which were characterised by boarded up shops, people with no hope turning to drugs, families struggling to put food on the table. And that’s why we need to get back to Thatcherism”

20. Thatcher was in charge when all of that happened

21. Truss’s brain is like a dazzlingly high-tech stealth weapon: impossible to detect, but still capable of inflicting enormous damage

22. She went on to say she wanted to “stabilise the markets”

23. In 2018 a seemingly completely different Truss said “I embrace chaos”.

24. That version of Liz Truss must be over the fucking moon

25. Truss – seemingly in battery-saving mode – promised the conference “growth, growth, growth”

26. The pound immediately dropped, gilts rose, the FTSE fell, and the UK’s credit rating was downgraded to “negative”

27. But at least Jacob Rees-Mogg – the precise physical intersection of a cursed dildo and the concept of gout – has plans for nuclear power

28. Unfortunately his plans are: use nuclear tech that doesn’t exist, and reduce safety measures for nuclear tech that does exist

29. Then it was discovered he’d been “seeking to evade scrutiny” of fracking

30. Downing St sources called his plans “half-baked” and “unworkable”, which will come as a shock to everyone familiar with the “research” done by the former head of the European Research Group

31. JRM said “if people want to call me Tory scum, I don’t mind”. Over to you, twitter!

32. Even after the tax U-turn, the richest people still gain 40x more than the poorest

33. A report found 330,000 deaths linked to austerity, so the govt said: more of that, please

34. Corporation Tax cuts cost £18.7 bn, and the Kwarteng confirmed £18 bn of cuts to public sector

35. So it’s a direct transfer of wealth from the poor to corporations

36. £18 bn is £3600 every hour for 558 years, taken from the poor and handed to the rich

37. The 10 most common reasons a lawyer is disbarred include: misleading people, moral turpitude, and being unethical.

38. Suella Braverman, a lawyer, “justified” cutting benefits by misleadingly claiming people “choose to top up their salaries” with welfare.

“Choose to”.

39. Braverman, also claimed to have “contributed” to a legal textbook

40. The book’s author says she “made no written or editorial contribution”, merely did some photocopying for him

41. She the revealed an asylum plan that the UNHCR says breaks international conventions

42. Braverman – who is what happens when a Horcrux gets into a guinea pig – waxed lyrical about shoving the most desperate people on earth onto a plane and flying them to a detention centre in Rwanda. “That’s my dream. That’s my obsession”

43. Senior Tory backbencher Roger Gale called it “a childish re-write of failed UKIP soundbites”

44. Nadine Dorries was dragged away from a fight over the outcome of a meat-raffle long enough to say Truss had “lurched to the right”, has “no mandate”, and should call an election

45. Truss blamed it all on Kwarteng

46. So Gove attacked Truss

47. Then Badenoch attacked Gove

48. So Mordaunt attacked them all

49. Then Braverman attacked Truss

50. So Simon Hoare and Badenock both attacked Braverman

51. These squabbling wangs are our government

52. Lee Anderson – a physics-defying vacuum which actually *repels* ideas – said the economy will only have a “big problem” when Wetherspoons are empty

53. Wetherspoons warned of £30m losses, and put nearly three-dozen pubs up for sale

54. The belligerently awful Andrea Jenkyns said, “we want universities to be bastions of free speech, not pushing critical race theory”

55. So free speech, but only if it coincides with what Andrea Jenkyns’ thinks. Assuming she does.

56. She went on to claim people were getting a degree in Harry Potter Studies rather than construction

57. 245000 students are studying courses related to construction. The number of students taking degrees in Harry Potter Studies is precisely [ checks notes] zero

58. Miriam Cates told a fringe event that further education should be cut back to “stop young people being indoctrinated”

59. Schools and hospitals have been told to find £11 billion of cuts, and I’m sure that’s drawing millions of students to the Tory cause

60. More health news: and having learned lessons from Covid, Thérèse Coffey rejected scientific advice and cancelled 70,000 doses of Monkeypox vaccine

61. Meanwhile David Davis – so good they named him once – said we should replace the NHS with a US-style insurance-based system

62. Truss’s favourability ratings are now lower than the worst ever scores for Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn … and she’s only been in the job 30 days

63. Let’s wrap up our visit to the Tory’s annual fuckwit jamboree, which started badly and ended worse

64. Several people at a party celebrating LGBT diversity amongst Tories had to be removed from the event after using homophobic slurs

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 07.10.2022

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I did #TheWeekInTory yesterday. Since then:

1. Lee Anderson assaulted someone on camera

2. The govt planned a public info campaign about saving energy

3. Then cancelled it

4. Then the energy minister said the govt is ideologically opposed to helping avoid an energy crisis

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 14.10.2022

Original thread begins at this tweet.

#TheWeekInTory

tl:dr – AAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH!!!

I’m sorry. This is the biggest yet.

So drink heavily, and let’s begin what seems 1000 years ago, but was actually this week

[ Cue wobbly flashback effect ]

1. Parliament demanded this week’s Prime Minister, Margarine Thatcher, appoint an ethics adviser, despite Truss insisting she doesn’t need one

2. As with all Truss decisions, this was immediately tested by a thorough slap in the chops from the following bits of reality

3. Suella Braverman was formally reprimanded for mishandling sensitive documents

4. Then Kwasi Kwarteng’s celebratory champagne reception for hedge-fund managers who made billions from his shite budget “may have broken the ministerial code”, or what’s left of it after Johnson

5. While working as an MP Kwarteng was reportedly paid £20k a month as a “political advisor” to budget-profiting hedge fund manager Crispin Odey

6. And Kwarteng was found to have had “undisclosed, secret meetings” with Saudi oil firms – remember, all this in one week

7. Then Lee Anderson – clearly misunderstanding the Tory memo about “no infighting” – went outside for a fight instead, and assaulted a member of the public on camera

8. After which cocaine was found in multiple rooms following “raucous parties” at the Tory conference

9. And Jonathan Gullis, a Neanderthal’s toe pretending to be schools minister, was accused of breaching the ministerial code over a £7k donation

10. And then, perhaps worried we’d gone 3 mins without a scandal, Conor Burns rocked up to reportedly grope a man at the conference

11. Seemingly this wasn’t his only adventure at the Tory’s Festival of Gobshitery: Mel (Scary Spice) B implied Burns had admitted something else to her in a conference lift

12. Burns is due to for a Knighthood from ethical mastermind Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list

13. Burns is the member for Bournemouth West, or was until he was sacked

14. It’s not going great for Tory Bournemouth: Tobias Elwood, the Tory MP for Bournemouth East, also lost the whip in July – two MPs, both had the whip withdrawn

15. Burns then tweeted his delight at record employment

16. Less than an hour later, employment fell 107,000

17. The Tory “levelling up” campaign was declared illegal, and breaking the law seems a pointless step to take for a policy you’ve got no intention of delivering

18. An unnamed cabinet minister – now they get bashful! – suggested tax cuts for women who have children so we can solve next month’s workforce crisis in a mere 2 decades

19. This party removed freedom of movement for workers, and introduced a 2-child limit on benefits

20. Deputy PM and giant, trundling, cigar-chomping colicky baby Thérèse Coffey was found incapable of answering 18 different questions about govt policy in just 3 minutes

21. She did, however, find time to reportedly scrap anti-smoking plans. She’s the health minister

22. And then, in words that neatly explain the entire mindset of this govt, she told Radio 4 that “Poor people are richer than you think”

23. Let’s focus for a moment on Suella Braverman – who is either Heinrich Hamster or Joseph Gerbils – and who had quite a week

24. Lifelong Eurosceptic Michael Howard criticised Braverman’s latest spin of the Brexit Policy Randomizer Wheel as a “clear breach of international law”

25. Then Braverman put Liz Truss’s flagship India trade deal on “the verge of collapse” by insulting Indian nationals

26. From there it was just a short goose-step to her next move: reclassifying modern slavery as “illegal immigration”

27. Braverman’s next dick-move was to say she wants to make cannabis a Class A drug

28. Liz Truss said she would not make cannabis a Class A drug

29. Braverman said she wants to “cut immigration”

30. Truss wants to increase immigration

31. A reminder that Braverman sits to the right of Truss around the same sodding cabinet table

32. And to the right of Braverman sits … nope, nobody is to the right of Braverman

33. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Microsoft Paperclip standing to attention, was tasked with coming up with growth plans

34. They were all too mad for even Liz Truss to accept, and in the words of The Times nobody could “find alternative policies that would plausibly work”

35. So the growth, growth, growth policy made the economy shrink, shrink, shrink

36. Gilt markets fell so far that it wiped out an entire decade of gains in one week

37. Rees-Mogg responded by saying the BBC describing actual events was a “breach of impartiality guidelines”

38. He then said we shouldn’t blame him for the current massive economic problems, because they began “before this govt took over” (meaning Liz Truss)

39. He was a senior member of the previous govt

40. And so was Liz Truss

41. Just after the markets closed the BoE announced it would “not extend intervention”

42. And then, just before the markets opened the next day, the BoE announced it would “prolong intervention”, meaning the policy lasted 12 hours during which nobody did anything

43. The IMF called govt policy – whatever it happened to be during any particular atomic instant – a “material risk to UK financial stability”

44. And the IMF issued – for the first time ever – a SECOND warning in a fortnight to the govt about its tax and energy policies

45. But this wasn’t even discussed at cabinet, cos they were busy squabbling about whether pot was better than coke, and making wild guesses about the quantum state of immigration and slavery policy

46. Lord Frost, after years saying we should cut ties with the EU, now says we should expand the Foreign Office so we can rebuild ties with the EU

47. He said there “has been an overzealous wish to avoid contacts with the EU”, and presumably he doesn’t own a mirror. Or a memory

48. Meanwhile the results of Frost’s last idiotic idea are still playing out. The boss of Port of Dover told MPs “We do not have a solution that’s going to work” when the next load of Brexit-related border checks start next May, cos this shit NEVER ENDS

49. And in the middle of all this, Liz Truss’s spokesman took it upon himself to state that the PM “doesn’t believe Michael Gove is a sadist”. No context, he just up and said it

50. Meanwhile the National Grid said we could face 3-hour rolling power cuts this winter

51. When asked if we should use less energy to avoid this, the actual energy minister said “We are not sending that out as a message”

52. Then the govt dropped plans to tell people how to use less energy, the reason being: Liz Truss is “ideologically opposed” to helping people

51. Then Truss’s ideology changed again, and she said the govt WOULD run a campaign to cut energy use

52. Three weeks after a leaked Treasury report showed UK energy producers have £170bn in excess profits, the Treasury now claims the report doesn’t exist

53. They used this quantum fluctuating report as an excuse not to do a windfall tax, and force you to pay higher bills instead

54. And then 2 days later they said they WOULD do a windfall tax, but only on renewable sources, cos climate change is for wimps

55. From here it was just a short hop-skip-and-jump to batshit climate minister Graham Stewart insisting fracking and drilling for oil in the North Sea “is good for the environment”

56. His govt’s policy also opposes the expansion solar farms

57. Spare a thought for Greg Hands, cos it sounds like he could use the donation

58. Hands said “The best way to prevent energy blackouts is to vote Conservative”

59. He also had “absolute confidence” in Kwarteng

60. And he said reversing the budget would be “Labour chaos”

61. Which brings us, inevitably, onto finance news. Deep breath, everyone

62. Truss’s growth plan has proven so successful that the UK is the only member of the OECD predicted to have zero growth in the next year

63. When she became PM (4 epic weeks ago) Truss railed against “Treasury orthodoxy” and sacked the dept’s top expert

64. The markets panicked, so Truss did her 11th U-turn since becoming PM, and appointed an orthodox Treasury veteran again, then ignored him

65. In her conference speech Truss said there was “no alternative” to the 45p tax cut

66. She then scrapped the 45p tax cut

67. The IFS said spending plans would cost 200,000 public sector jobs

68. So Truss said there would be no job cuts

69. The IFS said there would be £60bn in spending cuts

70. Truss said there would be no spending cuts

71. The IFS said in that case, the govt has to scrap its tax cuts or the market would tank

72. Truss said she would keep her tax cuts

73. Unsurprisingly, the market tanked

74. Truss raced out to do a “charm offensive” for backbenchers, and got the latter part right

75. Her uplifting speech to the 1922 committee was described Tory MPs in the following terms:

76. “The worst I’ve witnessed from any PM”

77. “Funereal”

78. “I feel embarrassed to have sold [the PM] as a safe pair of hands. I sold them a pup”

79. “The PM took zero responsibility for driving the economy into a wall”

80. “Catastrophic misjudgement”

81. “It was horrific. She’s not going anywhere but she can’t survive”

82. “We are being offered the choice of a shit sandwich… Or a shit sandwich with extra shit”

83. After that stunning success, Truss headed straight off for her weekly meeting with The King, who greeted her with the words “Back again? Dear oh dear”.

84. Nadhim Zahawi, a child’s drawing of pure greed superimposed onto a competitively evil gonad, said the govt was still committed overcoming the Anti-Growth Coalition it had just invented

85. Truss then reversed her tax cuts, and joined the Anti-Growth Coalition

86. Kwasi Kwarteng said “I’m not going anywhere”, and then got on a plane home to be sacked

87. His time in office was shorter than Liz Truss’s leadership campaign

88. Seemingly the airlines have a rich line in irony, since Kwarteng’s flight performed a U-turn before it landed

89. Truss fired her chancellor for delivering the specific central policy of Truss’s own leadership bid

90. This chaos wiped £300 billion of the value of UK assets

91. That’s £3,600 per hour, every single hour for 9512 years, and we have 3 million using foodbanks

92. And the OBR forecast said the budget has a £70bn hole in it

93. That’s £3,600 per hour for another 2219 years

94. And that’s just what they’ve wasted THIS WEEK

95. Gilts – govt bonds – kept on climbing, sending pension funds and mortgages back into crisis

96. Bankers told the FT the UK is now “uninvestable”

97. To settle the markets Truss appointed Jeremy Hunt, who’s face expresses the uncomprehending optimism of a spaniel chasing a ball into the Large Hadron Collider

98. Our 4th chancellor in 4 months is so brilliant with money and numbers that he once “forgot” about 7 homes he owns

99. Let’s not judge: who amongst us can honestly say we haven’t occasionally forgotten about 7 homes we own?

100. Its rumoured Grant Shapps is offering to become “caretaker PM”, making him the 4th Tory PM in 3 years

101. Also the 5th, 6th, and 7th

102. He has more identities than Jason Bourne, somebody else that people will travel halfway around the world just to punch

103. Shaved Afghan hound Chris Philp has also been sacked from the Treasury, which is equivalent to bleaching the murder scene

104. After this, Truss held a press conference to announce she now answers to the name Rishi Sunak, and is confident about the way forward

105. So confident that when she was asked if she’d resign, she cut the press conference short and ran away

106. The pound immediately fell yet further, borrowing costs rose yet more, and a Tory backbencher said “even by her standards that was really bad”

107. In other news: accounts showed in her last month as Foreign Secretary Truss blew almost £2 million on personal travel. In a month.

108. In context: her predecessor spent just £67,000 in six months

109. Truss then called for “efficiency savings” from all govt depts

110. A study of 275 parties in 61 countries found the Tories are the most right-wing of all – including Italy’s new “fascist” party

111. The public spending watchdog began investigating the “irresponsible waste of public money” that was the £120m “Festival of Brexit”

112. Even Truss advisors the right-wing Institute of Economic Affairs say she should resign cos there’s “no point” to her being there

113. And the 1922 committee says it’s “ready to change the rules” to allow the “a pile of no confidence letters” waiting to be sent

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 20.10.2022

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Boy, am I glad I waited until after 1:30 to do #TheWeekInTory

1. It seems an age, but only 6 days ago Elizabeth Truss, an anagram of Haziest Bluster, promised parliament she “absolutely” stuck to her leadership promise of “not planning public spending cuts”

2. She then sacked her chancellor for agreeing with her, and appointed demonic pixie Jeremy Hunt, who promised £40 billion of cuts

3. Hunt was immediately undermined by reports Truss had asked feral gonad Sajid Javid to come back as chancellor, but Javid said: no fucking way

4. Truss brains-trust member Jason Stein said it didn’t happen cos the PM “sat in the cabinet with Javid for 10 years” and “knows who is shit”

5. So Truss sacked her brains-trust

6. Another aide said Truss “pretended her relatives had died” to get out of going out in public

7. So Margarine Thatcher managed to sack her ex-chancellor, undermine her current chancellor, piss off her alternative chancellor, kill several relatives, and lose her valued advisors in only 2 days

8. Her efficiency drive has made Truss simultaneously Betty *and* Frank Spencer

9. Truss has spent her entire career as PM (and by “career” I’m using the definition that means “to move fast and without control”) promising to protect pensions

10. Hunt refused to say they were protected

11. Then Truss said she was “absolutely committed” to protect pensions

13. And then No 10 said they were “no longer committed to” protecting pensions

14. All in one day

15. Last week Truss said Labour’s energy price policy showed “they have no plan and aren’t serious about governing”

16. “No plan / not serious” is now Truss’s energy price policy

17. Hunt U-turned on every single major policy, except the one about making bankers richer while we all starve

18. Truss said she did this to “provide economic stability”

19. The markets immediately fell again

20. To provide more “stability”, she then performed a scatty and distracted press conference in which she gave identical answers to all 4 questions, regardless of subject

21. It lasted 8 minutes

22. The song American Pie is 8 minutes 42 second long

23. The markets fell again

24. Christopher Chope, a child’s drawing of their vampire grandad who quite clearly hadn’t noticed LITERALLY EVERYTHING, claimed tax is at an “all-time high” and corporation tax should not be increased

25. Under Thatcher, corporation tax was 52%

26. It is currently 19%

27. Truss, out of her depth on a sheet of graphene, then agreed to answer urgent questions in Parliament

28. She didn’t turn up

29. Instead, Captain Pugwash cosplayer Penny Mordaunt reassured MPs about our great leader

30. Mordaunt, who claims to be good at this shit, boasted that Truss wasn’t “hiding under a desk”, but was doing something more important than *running the country*

31. Number 10 said Truss was meeting Graham Brady, even though Brady was actually sat in the chamber at the time

32. Perhaps Brady was avoiding going into his office, where – despite the rules saying they’d be ignored – it was reported at least 100 letters of no confidence were landing

33. His room must look like that time the Dursleys refused to let Harry go to Hogwarts

34. No 10 said Truss was “fucking busy”, which makes a change from Boris Johnson, who let the country fall apart cos he was busy fucking

35. While Mordaunt continued to explain why the PM wasn’t there, Truss turned up and sat counting her blinks in baffled silence

36. To put a positive spin on things, a delighted Downing St briefed that Truss had got through an entire cabinet meeting without any minister telling her to quit

37. Nadine Dorries said “I cannot imagine there’s one G7 country which thinks we’re worthy of a place at the table”

38. Truss polled at 7%, making her 3% less popular than our 10% rate of inflation

39. Tories suggest Hunt should be installed as PM

40. Only 45 days ago Hunt got the backing of just 18 MPs, although polling suggests this will constitute a majority after the next election

41. Being Tory Leader is like being Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher: every idiot fancies a go, nobody last long, and there’s a good chance you’ll bump into Voldemort’s soul

42. The mention of evil brings us neatly to Suella Braverman, aka Joseph Gerbils

43. She blamed the nation’s troubles after being in charge for 12 years on “the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”

44. After her battle with tofu, Heinrich Hamster – I mean Suella Braverman – resigned, leaping from Hard Bean Curd to Has-Been Turd in a single bound

45. So Truss has added yet another vengeful ex-minister to the pile. She promised growth. She didn’t say of what.

46. Braverman lasted 43 days in her job, which one day less than mooning twat David Blaine spent in that Perspex box

47. Braverman said she’d gone because of a “technical infringement of the rules”, which turned out to be: another incidence of sharing confidential govt documents, for which she already got an official reprimand just one week ago

48. Steve Baker – who managed to get himself called “a cunt” on live TV by Krishnan Guru-Murthy – then claimed Truss wants to reappoint Braverman to her cabinet in the new year

49. I hate to break it to you, Steve, but …

50. Events have overtaken Baker and Braverman but regardless, she was unlikely to return, claiming she quit over “concerns about the direction of this government”, although if she’d hung around another half hour the direction would have changed

51. Anyway, those concerns about direction will be soothed now, cos her successors, Grants Shapps, can face in 4 different directions at once

52. Shapps is Truss’s 2nd Home Secretary, but makes up for being 3rd rate by there being at least 4 of him

53. Four days ago Shapps was showing off his spreadsheet of Tory MPs keen to topple Truss

54. Three days ago he was made Home Secretary working for Truss, while she overturned the policies of – herself – and Hunt enacted the policies of Rishi Sunak

55. Time for a sedative?

56. Helpfully, Thérèse Coffey can get you some, cos she’s been found handing out unprescribed medicines to her friends and families, which is illegal

57. Having risked lives and stoked antibiotic resistance, the health secretary then prevented action on obesity and smoking

58. Dan Poulter – ex Tory minister and GP – said the health secretary’s “ultra-libertarian” stance would cost lives

59. And so, onto fracking

60. The Tory manifesto on which they were all elected, says they’d continue the ban unless evidence showed it didn’t cause earthquakes

61. The only active UK fracking site caused 192 earthquakes in 182 days

62. So Jacob Rees-Mogg – the mind of a tapeworm tragically trapped in the body of a different tapeworm – said he wants more of it

63. Labour put down a motion to continue the ban, which (reminder) is literally Tory policy

64. So obviously Tory backbenchers were ordered to vote for a massively unpopular and dangerous policy that goes against their own manifesto, cos that’s where we are now

65. The Deputy Chief Whip wrote to all Tory MPs, emphasising “This is not a motion on fracking. *This is a confidence motion in the Govt.*”

66. Then – 10 mins before the vote – banjaxed climate minister Graham Stuart told PMs “Quite clearly this is not a confidence vote”

67. Then, in the middle of the night, No 10 emailed journalists to tell them it definitely, definitely was a confidence vote

68. And then the next morning the transport secretary said it wasn’t

69. Around 40 bewildered Tories said they’d vote to keep the ban on fracking

70. The result of this exotic experiment with anarchy was: Tory MPs were seen engaging in scuffles outside the voting lobbies, one whip ended up in tears, and the chief whip was heard to said, “I am fucking furious and I don’t give a fuck anymore”

71. Rees-Mogg was seen “shouting and bullying” other MPs, which must be like getting mooed at by a cursed bassoon

72. It’s reported a gang including Rees-Mogg and Coffey literally picked up a crying MP who was voting against them, and pushed him into their own voting lobby

73. A palpably furious Charles Walker told the BBC it was “inexcusable”, “a shambles and a disgrace”, and railed against his own “talentless” govt

74. The whips both resigned

75. Half an hour later the whips both magically un-resigned. Perhaps they bullied themselves into it

76. Then it turned out Liz Truss herself didn’t vote in the a confidence vote on Liz Truss

77. The following day Number 10 claimed she DID vote, but “forgot to swipe her pass”

78. Rees-Mogg responded: “This is a govt that is functioning well”

79. Meanwhile it’s reported Truss’s top strategist arranged for Kwasi Kwarteng and Nadhim Zahawi to meet with a Libyan warlord connected to a Putin-affiliated mercenary group

80. Neither Kwarteng or Zahawi registered the meeting in the official record. Cool. Cool.

81. Polls show an election tomorrow would see Tories reduced from 365 seats in 2019 to *48* seats, making the SNP the official opposition

82. In a stunning return to form, Kwarteng, the Oracle of Spelthorne, predicted Truss had “bought herself a few weeks” to steady the ship

83. “I’m a fighter not a quitter” said Truss, and then quit

84. She said she had tried to deliver on the promise of Brexit

85. What promise? Brexit has reduced trade by 16% and costs us more than twice as much as the forthcoming austerity cuts

86. We now face a one-week emergency process to find a new leader of this gobshite conga, who will not elected by you, me, or any Tory members

87. James Heappey admitted not a single member of the cabinet had pointed out any problems with the mini-budget

88. And Tories are now looking for a new prime minister drawn from this bunch of geniuses

89. Although it might be non-minister Rishi Sunak, the chef from Ratatouille having a go at being a motivational speaker after being abandoned by the rat

90. Anyway: in just 4 months we’ll have had 3 Prime Ministers, 4 Chancellors, and 3 Home Secretaries, and we haven’t even got started on the inevitable reshuffles, sackings and vindictive recriminations

91. And it’s only Thursday

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 07.05.2022

Original thread begins at this tweet.

It’s been a while (because I’ve been writing a book) but adopt the position, drink heavily, and brace, brace for the return of #TheWeekInTory

Only 72 points. A quiet week.

1. Forget about the old amoral Tory party: this is the shiny new Tory party, now led by Captain Ethics

2. And to prove it, Marcus Fysh is being investigated over his income and expenditure

3. And Steve Brine is being investigated for paid lobbying

4. And Henry Smith for incorrect use of taxpayer-funded stationery

5. And Matt Hancock for being the Dim Reaper – no, sorry, for his I’m A Celeb jaunt

6. And all-terrain idiot Scott Benton, who admitted on camera that he would happily break parliamentary rules in return for payment from the gambling industry

7. And of course Boris Johnson, an ethical black hole, barrelling across the political universe in dogged pursuit of acquisitive havoc, who seems to be being investigated for literally everything he’s ever done or said

8. The current PM, Thunderbird 0.5, also had a good week, telling at least four untruths to parliament

9. He claimed Tory councils charge lower council tax than Labour

10. Council tax in Labour areas is actually an average of £329 lower than under Tory councils

11. Then Sunak said housebuilding had been higher when Johnson was London Mayor

12. That’s not true

13. Then he said there were more disadvantaged people in Scottish education

14. That’s not true either

15. And then he said crime was down

16. And nope, that’s not true

17. So Sunak, a ethics chatbot with the hair of a Lego Elvis told 4 lies in less than an hour

18. From there, it was straight onto maths, with Sunak demanding more sums in schools so people could be as smart as him

19. He immediately made a basic maths error during PMQs

20. Then Captain Delivery admitted there aren’t enough maths teachers to deliver his maths plans anyway

21. But Karren Brady had a solution: every teacher should resign

22. Instead, kids would be taught by …

23. … the end of the last sentence has not yet been discovered

24. Tom Tugendhat said Britain now had “effective powers to tackle hostile activity taken on British soil”

25. And then the Tories voted to defeat a plan to prevent “malign foreign political donations”, a preventative move that had been proposed by the former head of MI5

26. Tugendhat explained this away with the argument: “The law already makes robust provision. Foreign donations are banned”

27. In 2021 alone, £12.9m in donations from undeclared foreign sources made it to UK political parties

28. Suella Braverman, a Home Office minister with all the warmth of Cersei Lannister having a go at being a trauma therapist, shoved new anti-protest law through parliament just in time for the coronation

29. Tom Tugendhat said it was a “chance to showcase our liberty”

30. The police immediately used the new law to arrest people for crimes that aren’t crimes, and which they hadn’t even committed

31. A week from now, Lee Anderson is speaking at an event called “Free Speech and Cancel Culture with Lee Anderson”

32. But this week, he explained that that anybody doesn’t support the monarchy should be barred from speaking about it, and instead should simply “emigrate”

33. Somebody very patient should sit down with Lee and try to explain what “ending freedom of movement” means

34. Michael Gove was back, which is problematic, because trying to describe him is like trying to find the right words at the scene of a nasty accident

35. The beached mudskipper made us fund the construction of a private hut on the roof of his office, just for him to smoke fags in

36. It turns out this is pretty much the only construction Gove is in favour of

37. Having scrapped housebuilding targets, Gove then set about deterring new homes one at a time, personally stepping in to prevent 165 “generic” houses

38. So you can have a house, but only if it doesn’t look too much like a house – is that it?

39. Fewer houses on the market is, of course, excellent news if you own a spare home that you can rent out

40. Five cabinet members own a spare home that they rent out, including Jeremy Chunt and Braverman

41. They make around £10,000 a year each from rent

42. Chickenfeed to Matt Hancock, the dad from a gravy advert, who went on GMB to explain that his appearance on I’m A Celeb was not “primarily for the money”

43. His appearance on GMB earned him a £10k appearance fee

44. Accursed guinea-pig Braverman’s primary excuse for her anti-migrant plan is that “modern slavery laws are being abused”

45. Her own dept report proved this isn’t even a bit true, and said small-boat migrants are “no more likely” to be in modern slavery than anybody else

46. Bob Seely went on TV to explain that treating migrants like shit is humane because “if a pregnant woman comes over, she is not going to be removed”

47. There is no provision to exempt pregnant women

48. And Seely appeared to suggest he hadn’t even read the law

49. So we all went out to vote at local elections, apart from those who couldn’t because the govt had disenfranchised over 2 million people to defeat voter fraud

50. More Tory MPs have committed sexual assaults in the last 5 years than the total cases of voter fraud

51. Greg Hands said Boris Johnson is an asset and a great campaigner

52. 3 days later Hands admitted Johnson was not campaigning

53. Although Johnson did a piece to camera from the back of his car

54. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and is now facing a police investigation

55. In Johnson’s absence, Tories had candidates including a man who’d suggested stoning migrants, another who shared a post saying “shoot P*kis on the spot”, and the former head of neo-fascist organisation Britain First

56. The Tories did some expectation management, predicting a worst-case scenario of “up to 1000 seats lost”, so that when they *only* lost 500 seats it would look like a triumph for Sunak

57. They lost well over 1000 seats

58. And this is from a historically low baseline – the last local elections lost the Tories over 1300 seats

59. A week later, this loss led to the resignation of Theresa May, a baffled seabird that had swallowed a kazoo

60. Even the Telegraph said the Tories are “destined for oblivion”

61. Tory MPs were so happy with the results, they were nearly trampled in the rush to the pub, so they could get tanked up on expenses and trash-talk their own party to journalists

62. “It’s a bloodbath”

63. “I blame Rishi cos he brought down Boris”

64. “Sunak’s claim that stability has been restored is shot to bits. These results are on track to be catastrophic for the party”

65. “Sunak can’t blame these results on last year’s chaos. He started that chaos”

66. “The highest taxes for 70 years. There’s a price to be paid for that”, said one ministry insider

67. Meanwhile minister-in-cider Nadine Dorries got stuck in, starting a public fight with Gavin Barwell about whether Sunak was a even more shit than May, or slightly less shit

68. A report found the crisis in social care was the result of Tories “letting one of our most important public services languish in constant crisis for years”, including appalling lack of workforce funding

69. So the Tories cut £250 million from social care workforce funding

70. Meanwhile the Tories lifted the ban on animal testing for beauty products as a “Brexit benefit”

71. The huge demand for this move was demonstrated by the 80 major beauty brands which signed a letter condemning the move

72. But there is good news – no, really – from Jacob Rees-Mogg’s constituency, where the Tories were “totally wiped out”, meaning Frack the Ripper will be released onto the job market as soon as we have a general election

73. Buy garlic

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 12.05.2023

Original thread begins at this tweet.

For a change, I’m going to begin the latest #TheWeekInTory with some news about Labour.

Don’t think this makes things any better, because it doesn’t.

I implore you, by all you hold dear, not to read this thread.

1. Under Labour NHS wait averaged 9 weeks

2. After 13 years in power, the Tories’ latest PM, a deep-fake Thunderbird called Rishi Sunak, promised “bring waiting lists down” to 18 months as one of his “Five big pledges”

3. This week Steve Barclay admitted missing that pledge

4. Its OK if you don’t know who Steve Barclay is: his own family couldn’t pick him out of a line-up of one. He’s so bland his DNA profile says “404 error”. His official photo is the curtains behind him. He’s safe from my usual character assassination, cos he was born without one

5. Another Sunak “key pledge” is to bring interest rates under control, so let’s see how that’s going

6. This week, interest rates rose for the 12th consecutive time, reaching their highest level for 15 years

7. Asked why inflation is higher in UK than other parts of the world, Prof Martin Weale (ex Bank of England economist) put it down to “the effects of Brexit and limiting immigration”

8. So the Tories said they had to limit more immigration to make Brexit come true

9. The immigration bill reached the Lords, and Sunak urged them not to “override the will of the people”

10. The people didn’t vote for this bill, which isn’t in any manifesto

11. And nobody – not even Tory members – voted for Little Rishi Sunak

12. Tory Lord Farmer told parliament: “Two-fifths of people think stopping the small boats is more important than tackling NHS waiting lists”

13. In fact immigration is the most important issue to fewer than one fifth of us, and the NHS is most important to 55%

14. Immigration minister Robert Jenrick claimed “the Refugee Convention says people should seek sanctuary in the first safe country”

15. It doesn’t

16. So Number 10 had to issue a statement saying the immigration minister was wrong about the basics of immigration policy

17. The Archbishop of Canterbury called govt migrant policy “morally unacceptable and politically impractical” that would cause “great damage to the UK’s interests and reputation”

18. “The Archbishop is wrong”, tweeted top bishop-basher Andrew RT Davies

19. Suella Braverman was officially rebuked for the second time for claiming 100 million migrants are coming to the UK

20. Michael Heseltine said Braverman was generating “a very nasty flavour of commentary” on immigration

21. The former head of the British Army, given a peerage by the Tories, said Braverman was “continuing to run down the remaining political capital” of Sunak’s administration

22. But he can do that on all his own, as Sunak abandoned the Tory pledge to recruit 6000 GPs

23. He said people should be happy that there are 2000 more GPs than in 2019

24. There are actually 825 fewer

25. Then he took a £6,000 helicopter journey for a trip that would have cost £30 by train and got him their faster

26. He announced that pharmacists would now be able to hand out antibiotics instead of non-existent GPs doing it

27. The pharmacy Sunak’s own mother had worked at said “there is not enough funding for pharmacies” and “providing antibiotics over the counter is not a good idea”

28. The pharmacist said the idea wouldn’t work unless pharmacy staff got more training

29. But rather than do that, the Tories suggested doctors should get LESS training.

30. The Tories now want school-leavers to “skip university” and go straight into a job as an NHS doctor

31. Even the Telegraph asked “who in their right mind would trust the work-experience GP”

32. Some Tories now want Penny Mordaunt to replace work-experience PM Sunak, on the grounds she has the key prime ministerial attribute of looking good in a Battlestar Galactica costume

33. Housing news: and it is now 4 years and 4 PMs since a planned ban on no-fault evictions was first announced by Theresa May, a low-budget supervillain who looked like she’d cut your nose off with a pair of pinking shears if you said “less” instead of “fewer”

34. The legislation still hasn’t been published, and figures this week showed no-fault evictions rose by 50%

35. The Tories also quietly dropped their promise to abolish “feudal” leaseholds, all of which is great news for landlords and landowners, but not so much for you or me

36. This week we plumbed the shallows of Lee Anderson’s intellect: on Monday he said if people didn’t like this country they should emigrate

37. On Wednesday, a singer said she didn’t like this country and wanted to emigrate, so Anderson attacked her on social media

38. After every single UKIP councillor in England hilariously lost their seat in the recent election, the rump of UKIP is now called the Reclaim Party, and this week it was joined by Andrew Bridgen, the rump of the Tory party

39. In 2019 Spud-u-Hate had said Anna Soubry should face a by-election when she changed parties

40. This week Bridgen rejected calls to face a by-election after he changed parties

41. He then started a lawsuit against Matt Hancock, a kind of PeeWee Herman reflected in the back of a spoon, who had accused him of spouting “antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories”

42. Is it OK for me to hope they both lose?

43. Bridgen was kicked out of the Tory party for comparing Covid vaccines with the Holocaust, which Sunak said was “completely unacceptable”

43. Sunak then refused to rule out an alliance with the Reclaim Party, which would make “completely unacceptable” Bridgen accepted again

44. A Number 10 spokesman ruled out deals with other parties two hours later, making it one of their longer-lasting policies

45. Earlier this year, Sunak promised to scrap 4000 EU laws within his first 100 days

46. He then shunted his deadline back to “by the end of the year”

47. This week Kemi Badenoch cancelled the whole thing

48. So, because they love parliamentary sovereignty so much, the Tories gave £4m to a private Anglo-American law firm, and asked them to scrap our laws instead

49. Works out at £1k per law

50. It typically takes parliament between 2 months and 2 years to pass or repeal a law, so £1k should do it, right?

51. Honey Monster Boris Johnson got 245x that much from taxpayers for his PartyGate legal bill

52. He’s worth an estimated £6m

53. Anyway: Badenoch said she had to scrap the scrapping of laws that protect us, because civil servants had been uncooperative

54. An hour later she told the HoC she’d really scrapped the policy cos she’d thought of a better idea

55. But she couldn’t tell anybody what it is

56. Meanwhile the EU restricted the amount of arsenic in baby food, a law that – praise be – the UK is now free from. Yay!

57. Badenoch ended up getting bollocked by absolutely everybody, not least The Speaker, who shouted “Who do you think you’re speaking to?” at her

58. Mark Francois, who is as short as two thick plans (and vice versa), asked her “What on earth are you playing at?”

59. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the precise physical intersection of a macabre bassoon and the aura of rickets, accused Badenoch of “lacking ministerial drive”

60. And then he accused his own party leader of “behaving like a Borgia”

61. It’s 2 weeks since Richard Sharp resigned as BBC chairman for helping arrange a secret £800k loan for Boris Johnson

62. So other parties called for a politically independent BBC chair next time

63. Tories rejected that, and instead announced that they want to scrap the license fee

64. Karren Brady said all teachers should quit and get another job rather than a pay rise, and then we’d employ new teachers (who don’t exist) for higher wages

65. No, I don’t get it either

66. But teachers seem to be way ahead of Brady – there are now 46,500 unfillable vacancies for teachers, and the body representing them called it an “unaddressed crisis” that will damage Britain’s economy for a generation. Meh. Sack ’em all.

67. Freeports news! Ben Houchen, a Tory Mayor on Teeside, denied “industrial scale corruption” after reports he’d sold land valued at £482m to a private company for £100

68. Quite right too. Land registry records show he actually sold it for £96.79 (ex VAT)

69. Once it runs as a Freeport, it’ll be largely able to make up its own policies and conditions, and become a part of Britain that is literally run by an unelected corporation

70. Oh, and the govt is giving corporations taxpayers money to do this

71. Liz Truss, ITV4 made flesh, decided to follow up on her scatological experiment with Britain’s economy by flying to Taiwan to start a war with China

72. The Tory chair of the foreign affairs committee called it “the worst kind of Instagram diplomacy”

73. After the Met Police pre-crimes division arrested 64 innocent people for merely *thinking* about doing a protest, Tories lined up to condemn the tentpole Tory anti-protest policy that Tories had boasted about passing only one week earlier

74. Their signature policing policy was condemned by:

– David Davis (so good they named him once)

– Chris Philp (a shaved mandrill that has escaped its enclosure)

– and Desmond Swayne (the reanimated corpse of Alvin Stardust)

75. Suella Braverman – Heinrich Hamster – shrugged it off, saying she wouldn’t intervene in police operations

76. It is two weeks since Braverman – Joseph Gerbils – intervened in police operations when she opposed the seizing of racist dolls from a pub in Kent

77. Steve Brine, Tory chair of the health committee, was found guilty of breaching ministerial rules when lobbying ministers during the pandemic, as part of his second job working for private health company

78. After the govt’s badger cull killed literally half the badgers in the country, an official report called the policy “a self-perpetuating failure”, “confused and flawed” and “ineffective and misguided”

79. So the govt expanded the cull areas

80. Andy Haldane – the economic advisor to “hey, at least he’s less mad than Kwarteng” chancellor Jeremy Hunt – said the govt has a “dearth of coherent strategy” and is “not really in the race at any kind of scale”

81. Haldane was previously on the govt’s Industrial Strategy Council, before the govt abolished the Industrial Strategy Council

82. This week Tory minister Greg Clark called that abolition “a piece of vandalism that was completely without purpose”

83. And finally, the govt said the retirement age will have to be raised “after the next election”, but refused to do it now, because bewildered pensioners are the only people who still vote for this havoc

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 19.05.2023

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I was going to do #TheWeekInTory but it’s been so quiet.

You should be so lucky. It’s an absolute fucking casserole. 111 points in a week.

At some point you’ll need to tap “Show replies”, or give up and get howling drunk instead. Bottoms up!

1. Nigel Farage became the last human (and the first toad) to admit Brexit has failed

2. It’s been *months* since we changed PM, so this week Tories began ousting Rishi Sunak, the chef from Ratatouille having a go at being a lifestyle coach after being abandoned by the rat

3. “The party are giving up on Rishi” said one Tory MP, and the loving quotes from his devoted fanclub just kept on coming

4. “[MPs] are realising that the end is nigh”

5. “A storm is brewing”

6. “[MPs] will roll the dice again if they think they will lose anyway”

7. But it isn’t all a circular firing squad: James Duddridge said “We need to unite around Rishi’s five-point plan”

8. Sunak immediately said he was “no longer committed” to at least one of those 5 points, which he announced just 3 weeks ago

9. And all four of Grant Shapps admitted delivering the rest of the five-point plan “may be difficult”

10. He had a good week, Shapps, beginning with him claiming Brexit finally lets Britain control immigration

11. Immigration has risen tenfold since the Brexit referendum

12. Shapps said “I was never a Brexiter, so it’s not my ideology”

13. In 2016 he wrote “I’m backing Brexit all the way, as hard as you like”

14. Shapps then popped up on TV to deplore “radical left” policies, but couldn’t name a single “radical left” policy he disagreed with

15. Shapps claimed Tory policies meant “we have seen the end of 18 month waits” for NHS care

16. Same day: the govt announced hit had missed its target of ending 18-month waits for NHS care

17. Reminder: the Tories inherited an average NHS hospital waiting period of 9 weeks

18. The Tories announced a new £1bn semiconductor strategy as a benefit of leaving the EU

19. The EU’s semiconductor strategy is worth 37 times as much

20. The head of the UK’s top semiconductor startup called Sunak’s plan “frankly flaccid”

21. James Dyson said the policy is “scandalous neglect” and “a mere political slogan”

22. Car manufacturers warned they may have to scrap plans to build in UK due to Brexit

23. Kemi Badenoch said it’s not due to Brexit

24. Ford, Vauxhall and Jaguar said it definitely is

25. So the Tories offered to give Jaguar £500m to please, please, please not fuck off to France

26. Instead, Barclays fucked off to France

27. Anyway: now we’ve got back control, the Tories have to beg the EU not to implement the deal our govt literally just negotiated

28. Demonic fingerbob Jeremy Hunt said he wanted to increase immigration so businesses can “find the labour they need”

29. Same day: Sunak said he wanted to cut immigration

30. These are the sensible grown-ups, brought in after the chaos of stunned guppy Liz Truss

31. Speaking of which, Truss, aka Margarine Thatcher, went to Taiwan to provoke a war with China and get her photo on the front page of The Telegraph

32. Tory defence committee chairman Tobias Elwood called her “selfish and disloyal”

33. Suella Braverman, a Horcrux trapped inside a guinea pig, said The Lords shouldn’t block her mad, cruel and probably illegal asylum bill, cos it is “the will of the British people”

34. Just 10% support sending people to Rwanda

35. Over 43% oppose her entire asylum bill

36. The Bar Standards Board is investigating claims Braverman breached the lawyer’s code with her “racist sentiments and discriminatory narratives”

37. For the first time in history, the govt decided to simply ignore a parliamentary vote, and did what they wanted regardless.

38. More good news for democracy fans, as Tom Tugendhat also ignored an official plea by the Electoral Commission to close loopholes allowing other countries make secret donations to UK political parties

39. Tom Tugendhat is the actual security minister

40. Matt Hancock, a cross between The Milk Tray Man and a divorced spork, boasted that “I’m a normal person now”, and implored other politicians to “just, like, be normal”, while he clutched a pint and stood on one leg, shouting in a pub

41. Off to the National S̵o̵c̵i̵a̵l̵i̵s̵m̵ Conservatism Conference

42. Daniel Kawczynski, a prattling tower of ceaseless inadequacy, was reprimanded for attending in 2019, cos it’s a turd-bestrewn playpen for far-right maniacs

43. This time, half the Tory party turned up

44. Things began with Jacob Rees-Mogg, an apparition of a pitiless Victorian dentist that appears to you just before you die, who claimed Brexit had prevented the Ukraine invasion

45. I’ve fact-checked this, and Ukraine has, in fact, been invaded

46. From there Rees-Mogg, who was in the cabinet when the Voter ID law was agreed, admitted Voter ID was just a “clever scheme” to “gerrymander” votes for Tories

47. Rishi Sunak said he was confident he’d win the next election

48. Of course he’s confident: his side cheats.

49. Anyway, to solve a problem affecting 0.000001% of votes, the Tories turned away 1.2% of voters, a number 12 million times larger

50. 53% of those turned away are non-white

51. And in Lincs, 800 uncounted votes were “found” a week after 2 Tories won with only 535 votes each

52. Teesside’s Tory mayor Ben Houchen is under pressure as part of a long-running saga about him allegedly selling about £400m of public land to a private company for £96.50, in what a Labour MP calls “truly shocking, industrial-scale corruption”

53. Houchen claimed “every single document, contract, paper, email, advice relating to Teesworks has been reviewed and given a clean bill of health”

54. This week the National Audit Office said that’s not true, and told Houchen to retract his bullshit

55. Oliver Dowden, a be-Tangoed, adenoidal Morph cosplayer who fills the cubic hole left by Dom Raab, told parliament “We have one of the fastest growth rates in the whole of the G7 since Brexit”

56. We actually have the slowest and lowest growth in the G7 since Brexit

57. Danny Kruger said the country’s problems are all down to “Marxism, narcissism and paganism”

58. The Tories have been in charge for 13 years

59. Kruger blamed it all on a “dystopian fantasy of John Lennon”

60. John Lennon has been dead for 42 years

61. Kruger demanded the a return of the “normative family” and an end to divorce

62. Kruger was secretary to Boris Johnson, a one-man game of Shag, Marry, Avoid who left his wife at home while he perform his positively barnyard breeding rituals all over Jennifer Arcuri

63. But his colleague Miriam Cates is in favour of lavish intercourse, insisting we should all Fuck For Britain, because “individualism” (which is what the Tories have always advocated) “has completely failed to deliver babies”

64. “Children are not an economic burden”, said Cates

65. She’s a member of a party that won’t give you benefits if you have more than 2 children

66. And under the Tories, UK childcare is twice as expensive as the OECD average

67. Cates said “Having a home and a secure job … are not the only conditions to starting a family”

68. She is a member of a party that has reduced home ownership by 13%, and gutted job security by reducing union and workplace rights

69. Cates went on to claim “cultural Marxism” was “destroying our children’s souls”

70. John Mann, the govt’s antisemitism tsar, describes the term Cultural Marxism as “a conspiracy theory with anti-Semitism at its core”

71. A Tory MP said Cates would “drag the party back to the dark ages”

72. It can go there without any help from Cates

73. Douglas Murray said we shouldn’t reject nationalism just because it had caused 2 world wars: the third one is predicted to be a humdinger!

74. Lord Cruddas accused Labour of rigging elections via the dastardly ploy letting people vote

75. Katharine Birbalsingh told the conference that if you loved your country, you’d tweet under your own name

76. Katharine Birbalsingh tweets as @Miss_Snuffy

77. And the Tory Party’s emotional support turbot, Michael Gove, wrapped things up by saying the conference had been “evidence of the intellectual energy we have in the center-right”

78. There’s a fine line between madness and genius, and Gove appears to have snorted that line.

79. A Tory MP said Gove and Braverman are “not fit for office”

80. So Gove and Braverman went back to their offices, and helped introduce student loan reforms which will make richer graduates pay less than poor ones do

81. Adam Afriyie faces illegal lobbying accusations cos he repeatedly promoted vaping without mentioning that his wife owns shares in a vaping company

82. And police began investigating Julian Knight for a “serious sexual assault”

83. Damian Green celebrated his childhood habit of swimming in raw sewage, so we should all take it easy about living in a river of shit

84. So baffled herring Helen Whately promised to fix the sewage problem her party had caused in a mere 25 years

85. The plan is to let water companies keep their £57bn dividends, and instead raise your water bills by £10bn, which will also raise water company profits

86. Whately is also refusing to explain why she claims £3,250 a month rent expenses

87. Universal Credit is £368 a month

88. James Heappey claimed “hundreds of thousands” of Afghan refugees claim asylum here

89. It’s actually 12000

90. And the govt is attempting to ship them to Rwanda anyway, including an air force veteran who fought alongside British forces against the Taliban

91. Snowflake news, and a Tory crime commissioner launched a police investigation into a Labour candidate, because – and this is really important stuff, so take it seriously – he’d used the colour blue on his leaflets

92. Sunak, a ethics chatbot with the energy of the 7th most impressive Apprentice candidate, campaigned to be Tory leader with a video showing him shredding EU laws

93. This week he dropped his promise to shred 4000 EU laws

94. Instead, we’re only scrapping 600 laws, including those making our govt cut toxic air pollution and the amount of cyanide in baby food

95. This prompted Priti Patel, the Shetland Pony of the Apocalypse, to say Sunak is overseeing the “managed decline” of the Tory party

96. She then called for the return of Truss-style tax cuts, cos they were such as success

97. Kwasi Kwarteng, a dead-eyed functionary from the Death Star, refused to apologise for crashing the economy, insisting the public regularly told him “you tried your best”. Sure. Sure.

98. Kemi Badenoch, aka Mary Wokehouse, is also manoeuvring for position to replace Sunak

99. It’s going well, with one of her Tory Brexiteer backers saying “any chance she did have of being leader has been completely wiped out” and “she’s crashed and burned”

100. Suella Braverman also hopes to be the next PM

101. I wish her well. Only 13% of voters have a positive opinion of her, compared with 53% negative

102. She started her campaign by railing against any “experts and elites” aka, people who know how to do things

103. Then she decided to evict 1000s of Afghan refugees, for the fourth time since we airlifted them out of Kabul

104. This gained her lots of Tory fans

105. “I just think she should resign”, said a Tory councillor. “I don’t think she knows what she’s doing”

106. Tory MPs on Braverman: “It makes me despair”

107. “You would think being home secretary was some side hustle”

108. “She hasn’t got a prayer of becoming leader. She is overpromoted as it is”

109. “Outrageous. It was all about her ambitions, not about improving things”

110. And then all-terrain idiot Brendan Clarke-Smith popped up with a simply marvellous solution for all the poverty his party has caused, which is to buy cheaper beans, something no poor person would have thought up on their own

111. But lopsided carnival barker Ann Widdecombe clearly felt cheap beans was still a bit too wishy-washy, and insisted anybody too poor to make a 40p cheese sandwich should just shut up and do without food entirely

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 26.05.2023

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I don’t like it.
You don’t like it.
The Tories definitely don’t like it, cos the fuckers keep blocking me.
But it’s happening anyway.

Brace, brace, for #TheWeekInTory

1. Let’s start with David Cameron, the ex-PM who charmed us all with his polished manners, lacquered hair, and varnished face

2. The glazed polyp was back this week, to insist we should not criticise the Rwanda plan “unless you have a better idea”

3. I have: stop doing it. Attempting to ship just 37 people to Rwanda last year cost the same as 235 years of asylum allowances, and it was such an effective deterrent that illegal immigration rose by 24% in a year

4. Yes, after 13 years ignoring everything else so they could bring down immigration, immigration hit record levels, and everything else is going to shit

5. In November, froth-weight ninny Rishi Sunak said he’d bring immigration down below 2019 levels (220,000)

6. By Monday he’d adjusted expectations, promising to bring it below “the level he inherited” (500,000)

7. On Tuesday it reached 606,000

8. Sunak assured us he had “not lost control”, which presumably means ALL THIS is exactly what he wanted to happen

9. Iain Duncan Smith, a child’s drawing of sublime idiocy superimposed onto a competitively evil gonad, said the country was “addicted to cheap labour”, so we must pay Brits more to do the work

10. He opposes pay rises for nurses, doctors, teachers, or rail workers

11. So the govt pushed down wages by reducing by 20% the amount a migrant can earn

12. IDS then said if Tories don’t reduce migration “the public will mark us down” cos “we have been in power now for four years”

13. He can’t count above 10 without taking his shoes off

14. During those 14 years (Iain), Tories stopped benefit if you have a 3rd child, and ended legal aid if you earn over £12k

15. Thatched hobo Boris Johnson earned £6m last year, is about to have his 8th child, but got £245k to fight an inquiry into things he’s admitted he did

16. While preparing to defend the indefensible, Johnson’s taxpayer-funded lawyers found his diary, which allegedly listed all the times he’d had friends over at Chequers during the period when lockdowns made this illegal

17. So his own lawyers reported him to the Cabinet Office

18. And then the Cabinet Office reported him to the police

19. So Johnson sacked his lawyers and threatened to sue the Cabinet Office

20. But in order to sue, he’ll need new lawyers, who will – you guessed it – once again be funded by the taxpayer

21. An internal source says the newly exposed material shows “fairly clear evidence of criminality”

22. Johnson’s pals rushed to “help”. Jacob Rees-Mogg, a zombie Jarvis Cocker made entirely out of string cheese, admitted he’d visited Chequers with his family during lockdown.

23. Nadine Dorries – Johnson’s very own Greyfriars Bobby who has made it halfway to being an idiot savant – is reportedly threatening to stand down and cause a byelection because the Covid Inquiry is picking on her beloved Boris

24. And Johnson’s sister Rachel helpfully volunteered that “all the rules were followed whenever I went to Chequers”, and act which would have been against the rules

25. There follows a sub-thread of reaction quotes from impressed Tory MPs and peers:

a. “Are you determined to turn our party into a skip fire?”

b. “The whole [Johnson] family have a massive sense of entitlement”

c. “Would the last Tory MP to leave the building please turn off the lights.”

d. “He [Johnson] is like a bad smell that does not seem to go away”

26. Anyway: galoshes on, and let’s pay a visit to Suella Braverman, an irradiated beaver locked in a staring competition with the inevitability of failure

27. This week she was accused of asking civil servants to help her avoid a driving fine

28. She denied four times that this had happened

29. It had definitely happened, which means she broke the ministerial code by lying

30. The code also says ministers mustn’t ask civil servants to do anything other than official work – such as helping to avoid a speeding fine

31. The former top civil servant at the Brexit dept said “This is a breach of the ministerial code [and] a real lapse of judgment”

32. In the end, Braverman opened a window, tensed slightly, and squeezed out a hot, fresh apology to Rishi Sunak, Britain’s first known spine donor

33. Sunak, a student of ethics who is being PM during his gap year, admitted there had been a “perception of impropriety”, which is against the ministerial code, and that’s why he’d decided Braverman hadn’t broken the ministerial code

34. Lego Elvis isn’t the only one struggling with the basics: it emerged that Braverman “keeps getting facts wrong” and makes so many “basic errors” that her dept now has a dedicated team to fact check any statement she makes to the Cabinet

35. More on getting shit wrong: NSPCC wrote to Braverman and Sunak, telling them their “inaccurate or divisive claims” about grooming gangs are making children less safe

36. Fresh from this, Braverman announced new limits on foreign students, to “help boost Britain’s economy”

37. Foreign students add £36 billion a year to our economy, which you can think of as a pile of £10 notes over 223 miles high, which we’re about to set fire to in the middle of an economic crisis

38. More quotes for Tory MPs who are clearly admirers of Braverman:

a. “I don’t often say people are completely useless, but if her desk had not been occupied I wouldn’t have noticed”

b. “She is already a liability”

c. “You can’t use your official position to get privileged treatment”

d. “It is blindingly obvious she is not up to the job and her attitude, tone and lack of administrative ability are detrimental to the govt”

e. “She has never been up to the job. With each passing day more evidence emerges of her poor judgement”

f. “She should absolutely go”

g. “She is peddling inflated rhetoric and giving speeches that trash the Conservative brand”

39. So: literally the next day: fresh allegations of Braverman breaking the ministerial code, this time over undeclared links with the Rwandan authorities

40. The former head of Standards in Public Life said “I would have thought that could be a breach of the ministerial code”

41. But Braverman blames all her problems not on her bracing and seemingly bottomless clodhoppery, but on small boats

42. This is despite over 75% of small boats asylum claims from 2018 still awaiting her decision

43. And this week she tried to get out of voting for her own signature small boats bill, which makes it look like she doesn’t want to solve the problem, simply to exploit it

44. A Tory insider said “The chief whip is at his wit’s end with Suella”

45. Meanwhile, still stuck at his wit’s beginning, James Cleverly went on a 4 day tour of the Caribbean in a luxurious, taxpayer-funded private jet that costs £10,000 per hour

46. The jet is described by its leasing company as “the ultimate statement of wealth”

47. For those lacking such wealth: good news, inflation fell

48. Bad news: it’s still higher than forecast, so prices are still zooming up

49. Terrible news: food inflation hit a 45-year high

50 . Halving inflation is the third of Sunak’s Five Pledges to have failed in the last three weeks

51. He also dropped non-pledge pledges to improve animal welfare

52. And dropped the promise to improve air quality

53. And to maintain food standards

54. And the promise to build 40 hospitals by 2030, now pushed back another decade

55. As waiting lists spiral to over 7 million, and over 2.5 million are unable to work cos they’re off sick, the number of people who died while waiting in A&E has risen 40% since 2019

56. So rather than building hospitals, improving pay and conditions, or allowing migrant health workers into the country, Sunak plans to cut migrant nurses, and “legally compel” GPs to offer patients private healthcare.

57. The guy who promised integrity at the highest level told this week’s PMQs that the IMF predicts “stronger growth” in the UK than in Germany, France or Italy

58. The IMF actually predicts the UK will have the lowest growth in the G7 over the next 2 years

59. To help with growth, Sunak is at least determined to press ahead with his flagship “freeports” policy

60. A govt report found freeports are “of no economic benefit” to the country

61. I wonder who they will benefit? Let’s pop to Teesside and find out!

62. Teesside Tory mayor Ben Houchen is accused of “industrial scale corruption” just cos he sold public land the size of Gibraltar and worth £100m to a freeport company for slightly less than 97 quid

63. Then taxpayers paid £246m to clean the land for the new owners

64. The deal allows the 2 new owners half the profits from any the scrap on the site

65. So they made £50m, before a single one of their promised new job has been created

66. And what’s more, nobody can find any evidence that they’ve invested in the project at all

67. Under pressure from MPs, Michael Gove, a bestial melding of Gordon the Gopher and JarJar Binks, told parliament he’d already set up an inquiry into this scandal

68. He hadn’t

69. So he said he’d do an inquiry, but not via the National Audit Office, which reports independently to parliament: he’ll set up a new investigative body instead, which will report only to him

70. And he’ll choose who is on the body. So that’s nice and independent, then

71. Other news: police requested a fifth bail extension for the Tory MP arrested for rape a year ago

72. In free-speech news, the govt banned a leading chemical weapons expert from a govt event because a few years ago he said “Bloody Tories” on Twitter

73. A major Tory donor is under investigation for tens of millions in money laundering

74. Jeremy Hunt was officially reprimanded by the UK Statistics Authority for claiming state debt would fall, when in fact it would rise

75. And Damian Green did a one-man performance of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch, describing a blissful childhood of bathing in fresh human turds, so now he answers to Damian Yellowish-Brown

76. Before this idiocy ends, a few more quotes from delighted Tory MPs

a. “The latest election-winning slogan from the amazing Sunak PR machine seems to be ‘let them pick fruit and swim in shit’.”

b. “I feel like I’m in the wrong party”

c. “They need sacking”

77. No, I’m not done. Off to Brexit, the Tory Party’s raison d’etre: and it remains entirely on-brand, with only 9% of voters saying it’s been a success, and 62% saying it’s been a failure

78. Even amongst Leave voters, almost twice as many think it’s a failure than a success

79. UK fruit exports have dropped by 55% since Brexit

80. Brexit food trade barriers cost us £7bn

81. Brexit is responsible for a third of food price inflation

82. And the number of UK companies relocating operations to Germany to avoid Brexit paperwork rose 266% in a year

83. But it’s not all bad news: 10% of Tory MPs have already decided to stand down at the next election

84. This now includes Dominic Raab, who I’ve often mocked for his square head, but I won’t do that now. I’ll simply point out that his haircuts cost £8, which is £2 a side

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 09.06.2023

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Last week I was away, so this is technically slightly more than #TheWeekInTory. That’s my way of apologising for it being fucking massive.

Remember to tap “more replies” if they don’t immediately show.

It’s Friday. My advice: it’s best to do this drunk.

Here we go…??

1. Let’s start with PartyGate, and joyless claymation ethics droid Rishi Sunak decided to sue his own inquiry for having the temerity to ask to see the things he always said it could see

2. He said he wouldn’t hand over WhatsApp messages that are “unambiguously irrelevant”

3. The Inquiry said only they could just what’s relevant

4. The govt said they’d already judged, and the Inquiry could trust them, honestly

5. The Inquiry “said no way, dude, hand them over”

6. So the govt said, “what messages? We haven’t even seen them, guv”

7. So the Inquiry showed Schrodinger’s Twat Rishi Sunak the bit in their terms where he’d said they had to right to see everything

8. So the govt asked for a Judicial Review

9. It is 2 months since the govt said it wanted to abolish Judicial Reviews

10. The Lord Chief Justice said the govt couldn’t possibly win the case

11. So Sunak decided to go ahead regardless, at a cost of at least £100,000

12. Then, essentially just to annoy Sunak, Boris Johnson said the Inquiry could have all his WhatsApp messages anyway

13. But it turns out these are only the messages sent AFTER all his shit decisions had been made

14. He said the rest were on a phone that’s too much of a security risk to switch on

15. GCHQ called bullshit, and said there is no risk whatsoever in turning the old phone on

16. This week: reports of yet more illegal parties, this time at Chequers

17. You need a heart of stone not to laugh your tits off when you discover this only emerged because Johnson wrote it all down in his diaries

18. And his own legal team saw it, and reported it

19. So Johnson sacked his legal team, who had already cost the taxpayer £225,000

20. And now he needs a new legal team, at a new cost of £1 million

21. If you or I earn more than £12,475, we can’t get legal aid

22. Fat Malfoy earned £6m this year

23. It was also revealed he’d lost us at least £10bn by chaotically scrawling a vital Australian trade deal on a scrap of paper in the toilet

24. The deal prevents us from selling beef to Oz

25. But Oz can sell beef to us

26. Australian said he had “given away the kingdom”

27. Johnson demanded London’s Labour mayor “commits to keeping Uxbridge Police Station open”

28. Uxbridge is one of 60 stations the Boris Johnson announced the closure of, back when was merely Witless Dickington, the pussy-bothering Mayor of London

29. Democracy news, and the govt lost a parliamentary vote on their iffy Public Order Bill

30. So for the first time in our entire national history, they simply ignored parliament, and inserted the overturned law into another bill, bypassing democracy entirely. Kewl. Kewl.

31. The 40 hospitals we were promised would open in 2030 won’t start to be built until 2033

32. And there’ll only be 6 of them

33. Steve Barclay, an explosion in a nothing factory, said work had begun on improvements to 2 London hospitals

34. The hospitals said they were unaware of any work. Or of Steve Barclay, the nonentity’s nonentity.

35. Barclay also indefinitely delayed his plan for increasing the NHS workforce due to “various things that have been happening in recent years”

36. For example, his own govt

37. After 5 years, research shows the 2-child cap on benefits has not reduced birth-rates or pushed people into employment

38. But it has pushed over 1.5 million kids into poverty

39. And this week research showed Universal Credit pushed an additional 600,000 kids into poverty

40. Top over-achiever Suella Braverman, aka Chinchilla the Hun, doubled her disapproval rating in a single week after attempting to avoid the consequences of speeding

41. Three other Tory MPs from her dept were also found to have illicitly claimed driving fines on expenses

42. She announced a new policy to deter foreign students

43. Foreign students add £41.9bn a year to the economy

44. Universities warned their funding model is “broken” and will collapse entirely if we lose another £41.9bn just to be horrid to foreigners

45. Braverman promised immigration below 200,000

46. It exceeded 600,000

47. So Robert Jenrick said counting immigrants was now “not particularly helpful”

48. But Sunak continued counting anyway, and said his small boats plan was starting to work, cos crossings are down 20%

49. But all crossings in the whole of Europe are down 30% due to bad weather, so we’re actually 10% up

50. Suella Braverman told MPs the asylum backlog is down 10,000

51. The asylum backlog is actually up 17,000

52. She refused to correct her statement to MPs

53. When in 2019 the govt refused permanent right to remain for 141,000 EU nationals living long-term in the UK, the Tories promised they wouldn’t ever be charged for using the NHS

54. This week, bills were sent out charging them for using the NHS

55. Over 53% of UK now wants a closer relationship with the EU

56. Only 14% want more Brexit

57. Sunak said he wanted to reduce immigration, and not give a pay rise to teachers

58. Same week, he announced a policy of wooing foreign teachers to move here for a £10k pay rise

59. Sunak supported an anti-trans speech, saying “We mustn’t allow a small but vocal few to shut down discussion”

60. It is 2 weeks since his govt blacklisted a high-ranking weapons expert from giving important military advice because he’d once tweeted “bloody Tories”

61. Matt Hancock, aka The Dim Reaper, a quasi-sentient teaspoon who accidentally became health minister, was forced to apologise for breaking lobbying rules

62. And Bob Stewart was charged with racially aggravated abuse

63. The govt’s sewage taskforce has only met once in a year

64. And the housing taskforce hasn’t met AT ALL for over a year

65. This may be related to warnings from housebuilders – 20% of Tory donations – that they don’t want the housing market to be fixed at all, thanks

66. At the current rate it will take 4700 years to build enough windfarms

67. So the govt reiterated its ban on large-scale onshore windfarms

68. Then Sunak took a £38k helicopter trip for a 64 mile journey that would have cost £30 on the train

69. On World Environment Day

70. Then he took a helicopter on a 2 mile journey to visit a man who had donated £50k to the Tories

71. Off to Washington, where Sunak confirmed there are still no plans to even discuss the trade deal he’d absolutely guaranteed us we’d have when he was campaigning for Brexit

72. Instead, Sunak announced an infinitely meaningless “Atlantic Declaration”, a one-directional love-in with USA, which was so important that Biden couldn’t even be bothered to stay for the announcement

73. US economist Larry Summers said Brexit was a “historic economic error”

74. He’s right: UK factories blamed Brexit for their 16th consecutive month of falling exports

75. In March the govt cut social care funding by £500m

76. So this week the govt asked for an “army” of volunteers to do social care instead, for free, doing 170,000 hours per week

77. Tech-bro Sunak announced he wants the UK, which has no large-scale AI businesses, to become the global centre of oversight for AI legislation

78. He seemingly didn’t notice the USA and EU already signed an agreement about that in January

79. Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy, went on TV to say “the last thing I would want to do would be to cause a byelection in my constituency”

80. Four hours later, she resigned with immediate effect, causing a byelection in her constituency

81. This is because she hoped to become a peer as part of Horny Honey Monster Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list

82. Except she wasn’t on the list, cos Sunak blocked it, so she had a strop

83. And Johnson didn’t resign, he was pushed out

84. Also, he has no honour

85. He also gave a knighthood to Jacob Rees-Mogg, the harrowing result of a Dalek having a bout of hate-sex with a pendulum

86. JRM tweeted “Brexit allows us to lower food prices”

87. UK food inflation is at 19%, the highest level since 1977, and the highest in Western Europe

88. And a damehood for proven bully Priti Patel, the larval form of Miss Trunchbull

89. Major news organisations are boycotting the Tory Conference because the Tories have started charging £137 per journalist, just to APPLY to cover it. And the application might be refused.

90. Equality news, and the North East has slid further into poverty since the Levelling Up agenda was announced

91. But the govt did give £150k Levelling Up grant to a Russian Tory donor who is Putin’s former economic minister, and is worth at least £366m

92. And another donor, Crispin Odey, was alleged to have sexually harassed 13 women

93. And another is involved in a multimillion dollar money laundering investigation

94. The Nat Inst of Economic Research said Jeremy Hunt’s policies were “engineering a recession”

95. The IMF said we’d have the deepest recession in the G20 later this year

96. The OECD predicts we’ll have the highest inflation

97. And 800 mortgage products were pulled, almost as many as under the drive-by premiership of gawping, blank-eyed calamity-magnet Liz Truss

98. So, feeling our pain, the Tories launched a campaign against inheritance tax (which only affects the richest 4%), led by furious gonad Nadhim Zahawi, who was recently sacked for not revealing he’d had to pay over £3m in fines cos he hadn’t declared income

100. And unexpected people’s champion Prince Harry said the govt is at “rock bottom”. Tune in next week to see if he’s right

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 16.06.2023

Original thread begins at this tweet.

By any standards, it’s a pretty hectic #TheWeekInTory, and it’s been a battle to get this down to a readable size.

If you like this nonsense, consider buying my books (links at the end). Or just retweet, or whatevs.

Remember to tap “Read replies” to see the full thread…

1. Crystal meth Barbie, Nadine Dorries, said she would never quit and cause a by-election

2. Four hours later, she quit and caused a by-election

3. But – being Nadine – she couldn’t cope with the complexities of this basic task, and still hasn’t formally resigned

4. Her resignation is a form of temper tantrum, for once not conducted outside a Greggs at 2am, but resulting from her not getting a peerage

5. She’s previously said the Lords was “cronyism at its worst”, and she’d be “lobbying for a bill to massively reduce the Lords in size”

6. Regardless, today’s version of Nadine’s brain says she’s victim of a class-based plot to keep her out of the Lords, rather than, for example, a rational decision to not hand lifetime power to someone who acts like she’s been plucked at random from a brawl outside a kebab shop

7. Johnson had promised Dorries she was on the honours list he’d given to Sunak

8. Sunak, a chatbot with the hair of a Lego Elvis, said she wasn’t on the list

9. Dorries still hasn’t worked out Johnson is a liar, so she demanded release of WhatsApp messages to prove her case

10. At the same time the govt is suing itself to prevent the release of WhatsApp messages about Covid

11. Despite all this, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Nosferatu attempting to blend in at a Bible Study Meeting, said Johnson was “in pole position for a future leadership contest”

12. Minutes later, Johnson resigned rather than face the consequences of his contemptible actions, not least of which – and I don’t wanna make this all about me – was him resigning literally 2 minutes after I’d finished my last Week In Tory, the selfish bastard

13. Fat Malfoy said the inquiry he personally set up and designed was a “witch hunt”, and a pretty successful witch hunt too, cos it easily found a fat, blond, shambolic one, who was wielding his famous Inexhaustible Bullshit Spell

14. In 750 years of parliament, he’s the first PM to be found to have deliberately misled the Commons

15. Johnson claimed he believed he was telling the truth at the time he said it, cos his crack team of leggy, blonde, teenaged advisors had told him parties weren’t parties

16. Turn out his “advisors” in this case were two Daily Mail journalists

17. And then, three days after quitting, Johnson was announced as a Daily Mail journalist

18. However, former PMs have to get parliamentary approval before taking new jobs, and Johnson hasn’t

19. So he’s committed a “clear breach of the rules” just one day after quitting because he’d been found to have committed a clear breach of the rules

20. And the day after that, he was photographed driving without a seatbelt

21. He quit rather than accept a 30-day suspension from the committee he had personally set up to find the truth

22. Johnson leaked the report, and said it proved there was biased against him

23. Cos he’d leaked it, his suspension was immediately increased to 90 days

24. Team Johnson then threatened deselection for any Tory who agreed with verifiable reality

25. The committee listed 16 additional illegal gatherings, which – hilariously – Johnson’s own legal team uncovered while reviewing the evidence Johnson gave them to form his defence

26. Top spine-donor Rishi Sunak was urged to cancel Johnson’s resignation honours and strip him of the £115,000 a year for life normally due to all the non-disgraced former PMs

27. Instead, Sunak allowed almost all Johnson’s honours, and signed off the £115k for life

28. Don’t wanna worry you, but the day Shit Aslan resigned, a new “National Conservatism Party” was registered with the Electoral Commission.

29. Johnson’s was also found to have held parliament in contempt

30. But nowhere near as much contempt as parliament has for him

31. Just 7 Tory MPs are still defending him, out of a party of 357, and by a massive coincidence they are almost entirely people he has just “honoured”. There will now be a small sub-thread of the lucky recipients. (Hey, you try keeping this shit organised and brief).

a. Jacob Rees-Mogg, an aristocratic goth supervillain made of string-cheese, who dressed up as a harrowing antique dildo for Halloween, and then the wind changed direction and he got stuck. Knighthood.

b. Michael Fabricant , a deranged, reality-repelling ukulele enthusiast who can easily pass for an Oompa-Loompa that’s been loaded into a cannon and launched head-first into Dougal from The Magic Roundabout. Knighthood.

c. Priti Patel, the Shetland Pony of the Apocalypse, a proven bully, sacked cos she lied multiple times about holding illicit meetings with a foreign power that we don’t even official recognise, and described as “completely potty” by the Royal Navy. Damehood.

d. Simon Clarke, a mouse-fart made flesh who formed part of the core team that destroyed the economy under Liz Truss. Knighthood.

e. Andrea Jenkyns, famous for dressing as an irradiated lemon to remorselessly stalk the streets, giving the middle finger to the public. Damehood.

f. Guto Harri, who described Johnson as a “sexually incontinent [and] divisive” man who was “dragging the country down”, then – miraculously – was hired to save him during Partygate, and then – not at all miraculously – failed. Knighthood.

g. Shaun Bailey, who had to resign in disgrace because he’d been photographed at an illegal party back in those heady days when Johnson was still in favour of consequences for breaking laws. Life peerage.

h. Martin Reynolds, who had the nickname “Party Marty” because he’d invited over 100 people to an illegal Downing St party, told them to “bring your own booze”, and later wrote “we seem to have got away with it”. Life peerage.

i. Shelley Williams-Walker, who had the nickname “DJ SWW” because she’d been in charge of the playlist at the illegal Downing St party on the eve of Prince Philip’s spartan, socially distanced funeral. Damehood.

j. Ross Kempsell, a 32-year-old man who heroically managed not to laugh out loud while Johnson said his hobby was making buses out of wine boxes, rather than his real hobby: money, getting pissed, and shagging. Kempsell is also Boris Johnson’s tennis partner, so: Life peerage.

k. Charlotte Owen, a devastatingly unqualified pretty, blonde 29-year-old intern described by colleagues as “staggeringly junior”, and whose main political job had been showing visitors the way to meeting rooms. Life peerage.

l. Ben Houchen, Tory mayor on Teesside, who is currently facing mounting accusations of wholesale corruption. Life peerage.

m. And – without doubt the least deserving in a pretty strong undeserving field – an OBE for Johnson’s hairdresser

Back to the main thread …

32. Johnson is also being loudly, publicly and pathetically defended by Brendan Clarke-Smith, a rare Johnson acolyte who ISN’T getting a knighthood, on the basis that he’s pretty fucking benighted to start with

33. Something called Nigel Adams – no, me neither, he seemingly only exists so he can be killed off, like a pre-titles Bond villain – quit as an MP to support Johnson’s honour, which is a bit like setting yourself on fire for the glory of Discworld

34. In his resignation statement, Johnson said “I take my responsibilities seriously”

35. He’s missed 187 Commons votes in the 9 months since he stopped being PM

36. And in the 7 years he’s been MP for Uxbridge, he’s only mentioned the place 4 times in parliament.

37. Quotes about Johnson from adoring Tory MP this week:

a. Shut up and go away

b. Narcissistic twat

c. His actions are akin to mutiny

d. He’s convinced by his own truth, in his own righteousness – there’s no apology, no taking responsibility. It all feels very Trumpian

e. This is the grand finale of the Boris madness. Good riddance

f. There’s no coherent logic to [the resignations] – he and Nadine are just spitting the dummy

g. The pantomime has to end. He has to be stopped by whatever means and the sooner the better.

h. The way he has behaved in insulting the process of the House of Commons is disgraceful. He thinks he can just casually insult parliament.

i. His refuseniks will not let it lie so the damage to the party will be huge

38. And so onto news you may have missed: comparatively (a low bar) honest Robert Jenrick told parliament 20% of immigrants are adult men pretending to be children

39. It’s actually less than 1%. He has not corrected or apologised to parliament

40. Sunak cancelled the £3.6 billion “towns fund” intended to form a central plank of Levelling Up

41. The govt is facing legal action over its “unlawful” policy of putting unaccompanied kids in asylum hotels, which led to hundreds being kidnapped by criminal gangs

42. Lurching abomination Daniel Kawczynski was revealed to have lobbied the Electoral Commission to overturn its own ban on foreign political donations, just so he could accept £10,000 from a “Mongolian friend”

43. Tory MP and flocculent walnut Paul Scully failed to make the shortlist to be Tory London mayoral candidate, even though he was – and you should read this out loud, cos it’s amazing – the only Tory MP put forward as a candidate

44. Grant Shapps said he wanted to “boldly go where no country has gone before” and harness power directly from space.

45. His budget for this is £4.3 million, which is exactly what Lowestoft Council just spent on 16 new huts on the seafront. So… good luck with that, Shapps!

46. Brexit has left us with the worst exports in the last 8 years of any country except Japan, which had to stop exports because of a nuclear disaster

47. So the the govt plans to charge an extra fee on all food imported from the EU, which will drive up food inflation

48. As a result, global bond markets have such faith in Sunak’s economic management that our borrowing costs are now higher those under mad vandal Liz Truss

49. And the government made it illegal to walk slowly. No, really.

50. They did this by ignoring – for the first time in our 750-year parliamentary history – a Commons vote that had already rejected the proposed ban

51. The former Tory chairman called it “fascism” and human rights organisation Liberty called it a “constitutional outrage”

52. Royal Mail issued stamps celebrating Windrush

53. Oxford Uni says 57000 people were affected by the 2018 Windrush scandal

54. Since then, only 940 have received compensation, after 5 years. That’s 1%

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 27.06.2023

Original thread begins at this tweet.

Pop on the galoshes of despair, and let’s wade into #TheWeekInTory (slightly delayed from Friday, because I was busy getting drunk and shouting at ministers on the telly).

Remember to tap “more replies” (or whatever) if you can’t see the full thread.

1. Remember that time, ages ago, when Boris Johnson was found to be a liar, ditched by his party in a 354 to 7 vote, humiliated in front of the entire world, and literally barred from Westminster?

2. No reason for mentioning that: it just alleviates the doomscrolling

3. Johnson quit rather than face voters’ first preference: yeeting him into the fucking sun

4. Instead he was yeeted into the Daily Mail, where for £1m he produced what looked like an infomercial for diet pills generated by Kazakhstan’s 3rd most promising challenger to ChatGPT

5. By taking the Daily Mail gig, the half-Yeti, half-tribunal-magnet was immediately found to be in “clear breach” of ministerial rules, just 24 hours after he’d been forced to quit as an MP for breaking the rules of his previous job

6. Bob Seely denied he’d ever called the Privileges Committee “a kangaroo court”

7. He was filmed calling it “a kangaroo court” 3 days earlier

8. Exuberantly gormless flapdoodle Nadine Dorries still hasn’t worked out how to do the instant resignation she promised 2 weeks ago

9. Johnson, an ethical black hole barrelling across the political universe in search of acquisitive havoc, gave a life peerage to Charlotte Owen, a 29-year-old blonde, widely rumoured to either be his secret daughter or his secret lover

10. It was discovered this week that Owen’s contribution to public life had boiled down to “providing maternity cover leave”, and acting as a “part-time executive assistant”

11. She also claimed to have worked in George Osborne’s constituency office for one whole month

12. People who actually worked in Osborne’s constituency office said this isn’t the case – she’d never been there

13. After the revelations, Charlotte Owen’s spokesman – how many 29-year-old interns get a spokesman? – her spokesman said he “no longer speaks for her”

14. A Tory source called the peerage “impossible to defend – she was just incredibly junior”

15. Another Tory MP said “diehards still think [Johnson] is the best electoral asset we have ever had” but in reality “that person was Jeremy Corbyn”

16. Meanwhile a whistleblower from No 10 said because Johnson refused to wear a mask, his staff were told there was “no point” them wearing masks either

17. As a result they were “ill all the time”, preventing No 10 from operating properly during the pandemic

18. Another PartyGate video emerged, causing resigned-in-disgrace-then-ennobled Shaun Bailey to say it made him “very upset” as he had “never seen it before”

19. Reports said Bailey had been at the party where the video was taken

20. Johnson’s emotional support turbot, Michael Gove, said the parties were “terrible” and “indefensible”, which must be why he immediately rushed out to [checks notes] abstain on the vote suspending Johnson from parliament

21. He was joined in doing nothing at all about Johnson’s constant lies to parliament by Incredible Shrinking Man Rishi Sunak

22. In total, 225 Tory MPs, including most of the Cabinet, abstained from voting on whether Johnson’s lies mattered

23. The only cabinet member to attend the Partygate debate was Penny Mordaunt, a sign-spinner outside Poundland on Battlestar Galactica, whose job meant she wasn’t allowed to stay away

24. Three days later, James Cleverley – who isn’t – said he “couldn’t remember” what had kept him away from the Privileges vote

25. He’d been keynote speaker at a drinks event, and as he was going into the party the media had asked him why he was there instead of voting

26. Off to the Covid Inquiry, where the govt refused to hand over Johnson’s notebooks, citing “security concerns”

27. But Johnson’s spokesman said the govt “is in the process of returning the notebooks to him, so they can’t be very concerned about their contents”

28. The inquiry heard at least 18 vitally important areas of pandemic planning had been stopped so the govt could plan for whatever emerged from that day’s sweaty fumble inside the Brexit Policy Tombola

29. And those plans were for a Brexit policy that was scrapped anyway

30. A top official at the Cabinet Office gave evidence that during Covid, the nation’s need for PPE, the collapse of the UK economy, and financial support for businesses and citizens had “not been considered in any meaningful way”

31. And poor people, especially in the North, suffered worse during Covid due to Tory cuts to health services

32. But futile, complacent, glistening human butterbean David Cameron denied austerity had any effect on anything whatsoever, which kinda makes me wonder why he did it

33. Meanwhile a report found half a trillion of underinvestment by govt in the last decade has “left Britain’s economy trapped in a doom loop”

34. So Cameron changed the subject, and said Gay Marriage legislation was his proudest achievement

35. The same-sex marriage act was a LibDem policy, forced on Cameron by the coalition agreement

36. And although 117 Tories voted for gay marriage, 127 voted against. So it happened DESPITE the Tories, not because of them

37. Steve Barclay, a man so lacking in personality that he failed his Myers-Briggs test, was reported to have delayed the vaccine programme because he wondered if it was “good value for money” to save the lives of you and your family

38. A senior member of the vaccine programme said: “[Barclay] was a total dick, a total control freak, but also not very good at it”

39. So naturally, Sunak promoted him

40. To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Windrush, the govt disbanded the unit tasked with Home Office reform after the Windrush scandal

41. Immediately following that scandal, the Tories promised 30 key reforms

42. Only 8 of them have been implemented

43. Only 1 in every 4 Windrush claimants have yet received a penny in compensation

44. It is 7 years since the Windrush scandal

45. So this week Suella Braverman – aka Joseph Gerbils – scrapped a post-Windrush commitment for more independent scrutiny of immigration policies

46. Despite record asylum claim backlogs, Braverman – aka Heinrich Hamster – told her staff to stop making asylum decisions so they could retrain to implement a new policy wheeze she’s dreamed up, which isn’t even legal yet, and experts say may never be legal

47. Meanwhile we discovered her previous wheeze – the Rwanda policy – will cost £169,000 per person, but she says it will be “worth it to deter illegal migration”

48. Except the govt admitted the Rwanda policy probably won’t deter illegal migration

49. And an independent, cross-party House of Commons report said the govt’s “stop small boats” policy is “harmful, impractical and costly”

50. So obviously, the Home Office also admitted the policy might not stop small boats. Hey, at least they’re consistent.

51. The govt awarded – without competition – £1.6bn to a firm providing 3 barges to store 500 immigrants each

52. That’s just for 2 years

53. So to cut the cost of keeping asylum applicants in hotels, we are spending £533,000 per person, simply to make migrants more miserable

54. And the govt’s deliberate policy means we still can’t process their applications

55. Even hardcore anti-immigration Brexiteer backbench dementor Richard Drax (full name: Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) called the costs “alarmingly high”

56. I’m not sure who this performative cruelty is meant to impress: despite years of toxic, divisive, life-threatening rhetoric, a poll found UK was still the country with the most positive attitude to refugees. Give yourselves a high-five. No, not you Nigel.

57. Economics news: and 13 years into their plan to cut state debt, our state debt has risen from 64% of GDP in Labour’s last year in office, to 100% of GDP today

58. As wages shrink, Helen Whately promised the govt would abide by the findings of pay review bodies

59. Same day: a cabinet minister told The Times the govt probably wouldn’t abide by the findings of pay review bodies

60. The OECD reported the UK now has the worst pensions in the developed world – 29% of average earnings, compared with 100.6% in Netherlands

61. Due to the ongoing Conservative Economic Miracle™, we also have the worst inflation in Europe

62. And the highest interest rates in Europe

63. And the highest Covid mortalities in Europe

64. And the lowest number of doctors per capita in Europe

65. So Tory MPs briefed that the inflation crisis was all the fault of the Bank of England, and not the govt

66. Two weeks ago, Sunak had said on live TV that if inflation didn’t reduce by half, “It’s on me personally. I’m the PM”

67. So Jeremy C/Hunt rushed into inaction, forcing the banks to agree a “grace period” for people unable to pay their mortgages, which is something the banks already do, and have done for years

68. The Mortgage Broker’s Association called it “water pistol to put out a fire”

69. As vast leaps in inflation and interest rates took a 25% bite out of anybody paying a mortgage, Sunak, who is worth around £650 million, told us to “tough it out”

70. The ex head of the BoE said Brexit – which Sunak backed – is to blame for our #worldbeating inflation

71. And in Sept, yet more Brexit import checks will be added, which will push food prices higher still

72. So the Tories began charging reporters £125 each to merely attend the Conservative Party conference, seemingly in the hope nobody would turn up with a mic and questions

73. Obviously “reporters” – and I’m using that word very much in air quotes – from GB News, the Daily Mail and the Telegraph are exempt from the charge.

74. John Redwood, a congenitally wrong Vulcan dolt (and “the nastiest man in politics” according to the woman who married him), told Question Time he’d never suggested we’d get a free trade deal with the USA

75. Oh really, Redwood? “The US/UK Agreement could become a template for other deals worldwide” – John Redwood, 29 April, 2020

76. Kemi Badenoch launched an Ofsted investigation into a school because she fell for a widely-debunked story about a child pretending to be a cat

77. Bob Stewart, already facing criminal charges over an alleged “racially aggravated incident”, was found to have hidden his directorship of an Azerbaijani defence company, while he was a sitting member of the HoC defence committee

78. HS2 was “paused” to save money, even though a report said the pause would increase costs by £366m

79. A Tory mayor went to a LGBTQ+ event, then wrote that he had “repented” for his attendance, and then resigned because he’d apologised for accidentally doing a decent thing

80. And Daniel Korski, the Tory candidate for London mayor, was accused of sexually assaulting a TV producer

81. Sunak said NHS waiting lists are coming down, and then 83 seconds later in the same interview, Sunak said NHS waiting lists are not coming down

82. And finally, slack-brained, quasi-sentient teaspoon Matt Hancock was found to have used taxpayer’s money to pay a parking fine given to the removal company that was shifting him out of the family home

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 30.06.2023

Original thread begins at this tweet.

I did my last #TheWeekInTory at lunchtime on Tuesday. So this is just what’s happened since then.

Pick your jaw up, Mabel: there’s nothing surprising about this level of mayhem anymore.

(Long thread, so tap “show replies” if it seems to cut off midway)

1. The Tory’s London mayoral candidate, Daniel Korski, was accused of groping a TV producer’s breasts inside Downing St

2. Korski insisted he would definitely not be pulling out of the race under any circumstances

3. Korski pulled out of the race the next day

4. No 10 said they would not investigate Korski, because there’d been no official complaint

5. An official complaint was made 7 years ago, and ignored

6. Several other women have since come forward with “very interesting stories” about Korski’s (allegedly) roaming hands

7. More respect for women, as Etch-a-Sketch thundercunt Brendan Clarke-Smith, a shite in sheep’s clothing, tweeted abuse at a woman who was simply thanking the Samaritans for helping her during a mental health crisis

8. We flushed and flushed and flushed, but Clarke-Smith popped back up again, this time smeared like a dirty protest all over the parliamentary report that found an “unprecedented and coordinated” campaign to undermine democracy over Johnson’s Partygate lies

9. Clark-Smith tweeted that he was “shocked and disappointed” that anyone could think he’d undermined the legitimacy of the committee

10. On 9 June he called the committee “a parliamentary witch-hunt which would put a banana republic to shame”

11. And on 15 June, he called it a “kangaroo court … spiteful, vindictive and overreaching”

12. And on the day of the vote, he put on a kangaroo tie and refused to vote in parliament. So … case closed, I think?

13. Also criticised for contemptuously undermining parliament:

a. Nadine Dorries, trapped forever at Lambrini o’clock

b. Priti Patel, the larval form of Miss Trunchbull

c. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the unholy and harrowing result of a Dalek having hate-sex with a pendulum

d. A furious, irradiated lemon called Andrea Jenkyns

e. Follicular fire hazard Michael Fabricant

f. A bewitched thumb with its own Twitter account, Mark Jenkinson

g. And Zac Goldsmith, who was told to apologise for undermining parliament, but resigned instead of facing consequences, just like Wank-Yeti Boris Johnson did

14. Goldsmith hasn’t properly resigned, of course. A bit like Nadine. He’s still a Lord. But he resigned in a way that lets him keep all the money and privilege

15. He claimed he hadn’t quit because of Partygate, but because of how much he loves the environment

16. He’d been fine with millions of gallons of raw sewage for ages, but suddenly, the environment mattered

17. Andrea Leadsom, a waxwork Thatcher that’s spent too long leaning against a radiator, said it was “Flat wrong” that Sunak had done nothing to help the environment

18. Sadly for Leadsom, the previous day the govt’s own advisors said the Tories have “missed climate targets on almost every front”, and its signature policy of greenlighting new oil and gas fields in the North Sea is “utterly unacceptable”

19. Breaking news (that actually broke 5 years ago, but TV news has only just noticed): and when he was Home Secretary, Boris Johnson shook off his protection team so he could secretly attend an “anything goes” party at the palace of a former KGB agent

20. Johnson then put that agent’s son – Evgeny Lebedev – into the House of Lords

21. This was despite the House of Lords Appointment Committee (Holac) saying Lebedev shouldn’t get a peerage on national security grounds

22. MI6 also sent 2 agents to visit Johnson in person, and beg him not to do it

23. Italy’s secret services were also watching Lebedev, and warned Britain of the security dangers

24. And The Queen was even asked to intervene

25. Despite all this, Johnson overruled MI6 and Holac, and created Baron Lebedev of Siberia. For life.

26. Oh, and Fat Malfoy’s new job at the Daily Mail is an “unambiguous breach” of the rules, cos he failed to get permission from the ministerial appointments watchdog

27. Immigration update: the 2019 Tory manifesto promises to “continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution, with the ultimate aim of helping them to return home if it is safe to do so”

28. So naturally, the Tories now fiercely oppose that policy

29. This week, every wheel came off the Rwanda plan, including some wheels we didn’t even know it had

30. First the govt admitted the policy – which is designed to be a deterrent – won’t actually be a deterrent

31. Then they admitted it’ll cost almost £170,000 per person

32. Then the bill was torn to pieces by a House of Lords that had only just been packed with hand-picked amoral idiots who were supposed to support this nonsense

33. And then the entire policy was ruled illegal in the Royal Court of Justice

34. Incredible shrinking man Rishi Sunak said “I respect the court”

35. Suella Braverman, at a loss without the lion and the wardrobe, said she didn’t respect the court because it was “rigged against the British people”

36. Her actual job is upholding the legal system

37. She went on to suggest courts should be abolished or ignored because “the majority of the British people” demand a Rwanda policy

38. On Question Time, not a single person in the Conservative majority audience supported the Rwanda policy

39. Simon Clark, a mouse-fart made flesh, said we now have to ditch Human Rights Act to save the Conservative Party. Not the country or its people. They and their fundamental rights don’t matter. The Conservative Party is all that matters.

40. Anyway: prime minister Rishi Sunak is still battling to overcome the legacy of chancellor Rishi Sunak, and said the following were his priorities:

a. Stop Small Boats (judged illegal)

b. Half inflation (it’s grown to highest in G7)

c. Grow the economy (the economy shrank)

d. Cut state debt (it’s grown to 100% of GDP, highest for 62 years)

e. Cut NHS waiting times (they’ve grown to a record 7m)

41. That’s how well his *priorities* are going. Percival Q Christ, just imagine the state of everything else.

42. To cut waiting times, Sunak announced £480bn to employ 300,000 NHS workers

43. That’s only enough money to pay 10,000 NHS workers

44. Sunak said he “believes in transparency” and has “nothing to hide” from the public

45. Since becoming PM, he’s blocked a record number of Freedom of Information requests

46. With his trademark competence, this didn’t stop the news leaking that Sunak had been given free, undeclared use of a helicopter by a Tory donor who received £135m in Covid contracts

47. And now transparent Sunak is going to court to block the Covid inquiry from accessing govt WhatsApp messages

48. As if that’s not enough transparency, it turns out Sunak has also been writing and signing official documents with erasable ink for years

49. Sunak claimed the Home Office is “on track” to clear the asylum backlog by January

50. It doesn’t bode well: to clear the backlog by Jan, they’ll have to process an application every 4 minutes

51. The average current processing period is 157 days

52. And of 1280 officials doing this work, only 140 are qualified

53. A decade after startled halibut Michael Gove scrapped the school building and repairs programme, this week he was shocked to discover our dilapidated school haven’t got better all on their own

54. 600 schools were found to be on the point of collapse and in “critical condition”, with the death or injury of your kids now being judged “very likely”

55. The cost of school repairs is now estimated to be three times more than Gove saved by cancelling it a decade ago

56. Brexit news, and the Society of Motor Manufacturers warned the wonderful new, Boris-negotiated, Sunak-backed Brexit tariffs that begin in January 2024 will be an “existential threat” to the future of car production in the UK, costing at least £106bn in lost revenue

57. Meanwhile, in another outstanding bit of Taking Back Control, malignant gonad and 24/7 excuse hamster Iain Duncan Smith now says the Brexit he already claimed he’d done in 2016 and 2019 is now impossible until Biden is ousted from office, because of Irishness or something

58. While all this was going on, a report found the Home Office had been (probably illegally) removing people from the country without sufficient evidence, and nothing has improved in the 10 years since the last report found the very same thing

59. The report concluded “this is no way to run a government department”

60. Lee Anderthal – forgive me – Lee Anderson was officially rebuked for breaking MPs rules cos he used parliamentary property to promote his hilarious – although not intentionally so – TV series

61. And all of this – Rwanda, that gobshite Anderson, the defence of Johnson, undermining courts and parliament – is simply to satisfy the whims and desires of mythical Red Wall voters

62. And it’s going so well that Labour now has 2x as many votes as Tories in Red Wall seats

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 10.07.2023(ish)

Original thread begins here.

This is my first attempt to do #TheWeekInTory on Threads, and it might all go horribly wrong (although that would be on-brand for this government).

1. Let’s start with Robert Jenrick, who ordered murals of cartoon animals at a children’s asylum reception centre to be painted over because they were “too welcoming”

2. This was such a dick-move that even Nigel Farage labelled it “a bit mean”

3. Johnny Mercer announced that foodbank use is a “personal decision” and not related to poverty

4. UK benefits are now £140 per month below the UK’s absolute minimum cost of living

5. It must just be a strange coincidence that those “personal decisions” rose from 40,000 to 2,986,000 as soon as the Tories made everybody poorer

6. Ten Tories were found to have interfered with the Privileges Committee over Partygate, including Zac Goldsmith, the accidental islamophobe

7. Goldsmith said he would be “happy to apologise”

8. And then he immediately … didn’t actually apologise

9.Despite this, No 10 said Goldsmith had the PM’s full confidence

10. An hour later Goldsmith was gone

11. Goldsmith said he’d resigned because Sunak’s govt is “lethargic” on climate

12. To prove him wrong, Suank plans to drop his flagship £11.6 bn climate pledge

13. Goldsmith also said he’d quit because the govt is being “misleading”, rather than the real reason: his bessie-mate Darth Bagpuss had just been kicked out of parliament

14. Yep, Boris was back again, proving it’s it just a good man that you can’t keep down, and railing against what he called “bone-headed” ULEZ

15. ULEZ was literally Johnson’s idea when he was London mayor

16. This didn’t stop Ben Bradley, a Cabbage-Patch doll of the Pub Landlord, from announcing he’d scrap ULEZ if he’s magically made Mayor of the East Midlands

17. There is no ULEZ in East Midlands

18. “Ben is the smartest person in politics I know” said Lee Anderson, who clearly hasn’t yet been introduced to the Downing St cat

19. Speaking of which, Anderson has now taken to making guests on his chat show eat cat food

20. Oh, and he kept the cat food in his pocket, in case things aren’t fucking weird enough already

21. Perhaps he’d been dipping into it himself, which might explain why he was too ill to attend the launch of his new batshit Tory groupuscule, whose main plan is to cut visas for care workers at a time when we need at least 627,000 more of them

22. A senior Tory said, “The last thing the Conservative Party needed was a new sub-group of fanatics”. Yet here we are

23. Another member of this sub-group believes young men are being pushed into crime the existence of a female Doctor Who

24. And another is Jonathan Gullis, whose word-cloud is just a child’s drawing of a monkey, some sticky fingerprints, and drool

25. It almost makes you relish the return of Sajid Javid, a feral gonad who this week argued that MP’s pay should be doubled while admitting in the same speech that Tory ministers are “not very good at their job”

26. He’s one of the smart ones, remember

27. Still, more cash will come in handy for poor old Thunderbird 0.5, Rishi Sunak, who was reported to have taken £88,000 in undeclared air travel, donated by a Tory backer based in a tax-haven

28. Sunak also claimed he hadn’t heard of Mantrac, a company alleged to be breaching sanctions by continuing to invest in Russia

29. He should have: he accepted £5 million from Mantrac’s owner last year

30. So this week, entirely unconnected, he introduced a proposal to prevent public bodies boycotting foreign powers, such as Russia

31. He’s got such strong control over his party that at least 50 Tory MPs immediately said they’d rebel against the plan

32. Clearly strapped for cash, Sunak chose this moment to donate the cheapest available bottle of wine from the Westminster gift shop to a school in his constituency

33. Last year he gave £100,000 to his old private school, Winchester, one of the richest and most prestigious schools on the planet

34. And another $3m donation to a wealthy private liberal arts college in California

35. But in the UK, arts are apparently the enemy, as Sunak announced he would “get tough” on university arts courses, because they are “full of people who don’t vote Tory”

36. He also said arts graduates don’t do enough for the economy

37. UK arts add £115.9 billion to the UK economy, and are 1 in every 8 UK businesses

38. In January Sunak made “Five promises”

39. By April they’d become “Five pledges”

40. In June they were “Five priories”

41. It really doesn’t matter what he calls them, because Sunak, so weak he could qualify as a homeopathic remedy, has missed all five of them

42. Sunak found time to comment on “cheating” by Australia’s cricket team

43. But he said he hasn’t found time to read the Partygate report

44. It’s 3 pages long

45. And this week, police began 2 more Partygate inquiries

46. From there, straight to Westminster Abbey, where Sunak read a bible passage about how important it is to help the hungry

47. And then he went to Westminster to insist he shouldn’t help the 1 in 7 families who can’t feed themselves

48. Leading Brexiteer, Tory MP, former UKIP candidate and the world’s first surviving brain donor George Eustice said we need more EU workers, and called for a return to the free movement of labour that he’s just spent two decades campaigning against

49. Be-Tangoed abomination Oliver Dowden was castigated for using a “baseless” invented statistic at PMQs, after the Treasury said – and I’m paraphrasing, but only slightly – “I have no fucking idea what the gibbering clown is talking about”

50. He was only doing PMQs because Sunak has the lowest attendance of any PM since records began in 1979

51. Pop on your Hazmat suit, and let’s pop over to Suella Braverman, who this week saw her plan to make everybody everywhere have an absolutely shit time suffer record defeats in the Lords

52. Back in Jan, Chinchilla The Hun said the vast majority of trafficking victims were “gaming the system”, so she introduced rules to make it harder for them to appeal their case

53. This week she u-turned after it was found 88% of cases of trafficking were genuine

54. Her rhetoric is so bad that she even lost the support of smirking edgelord Steve Baker, a beta-version humanoid maths-wizard made from bits of discarded sociopath

55. Which leads us nicely into the latest Tory infighting news:

56. Tory MP Justin Tomlinson called party chairman Greg Hands “embarrassing”

57. I wanna be there when Justin realises Greg’s deputy is Lee Anderson

58. A leading Tory demanded an urgent reshuffle because “this is not a competence cabinet”

59. A senior minister predicted a “total clearout” of Tory MPs at the next election

60. At that election, a poll this week predicted the Tories would be reduced to under 100 MPs for the first time in their entire 345 year history

61. David Davis – so good they named him once – accused Tory donor Mohamed Amersi of bribery, corruption and blackmail

62. Meanwhile, irradiated lemon Andrea Jenkyns made her pitch to be Philomena Cunk’s understudy when she suggested teachers should combine their strikes about pay with a nice holiday

63. As a record 170,000 NHS staff left due to stress, workload and pay, Tories launched a new long-term workforce plan, the main headlines of which are: reduce training, and don’t award a pay-rise

64. The reviews of the plan weren’t kind:

“Completely illogical and uneconomical” – the BMA

“An attempt to handcuff us to a sinking ship” – British Dental Assoc

“Not yet enough to tackle the crisis in cancer care” – Macmillan Cancer

“Leaves patients at higher risk” – Hospital Consultants Assoc

65. Boris Johnson pretended to fall asleep when asked about that time he appointed a known drunken groper to the job of making sure MPs behaved themselves

66. Chris Pincher was finally suspended for 8 weeks, which is only a record for the year because Johnson ran away rather than face his 12-week suspension

67. So it’s now likely there’s going to yet another by-election, this time in Pincher’s seat

68. Ministry insiders said minister-in-cider Nadine Dorries still hasn’t worked out how to do the resignation she promised, but if she did, the resulting byelection would be the worst ever defeat in the whole of parliamentary history

69. And in Boris Johnson’s old constituency, things are so bad that Tory leaflets don’t mention either Boris Johnson or the Conservative Party

70. Anyway, let’s end on a brighter note: “Let’s not kid ourselves,” said a cabinet minister, “It’s game over for us”

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 02.08.2023(ish)

Original thread begins here.

Apologies for my recent absence, which was due to being busy or drunk.

But here’s #TheWeekInTory, which is best accompanied with absinthe and simmering rage. Don’t pretend I didn’t warn you.

This is 88 points long, and Threads doesn’t always automatically show it. So keep clicking to show the next message, until you see “The End”

1. After spending £61 billion on HS2 – that’s a pile of £10 notes 420 miles high, fact fans – this week the project was described as “unachievable” by the govt’s own infrastructure watchdog, which found “insurmountable problems” with HS2’s “definition, schedule, budget, quality, benefits, viability and delivery”.

2. Other than that, it’s going spiffingly

3. This week the govt’s Major Projects watchdog also called Rishi Sunak’s green pledges “unachievable”

4. And called the govt’s pledge of aid to countries most affected by climate change “near impossible”

5. And described the 40-hospitals promise as “inconceivable”, even though only 11 of the hospitals “can actually be described as new”

6. This didn’t prevent personality donor Steve Barclay – an explosion in a Nothing factory – from giving desperate patients a reassuring virtual reality tour of the 40 hospitals that don’t exist and won’t be built

7. More boosts for national pride as Sunak’s Net Zero plan to electrify UK rail by 2050 won’t be complete for another 240 years

8. But that’s nothing: at the current rate, we are 4,700 years from building our target number of windfarms

9. Yet even four millennia is a bit too quick for Priti Patel, the Shetland Pony of the Apocalypse, who said the govt should pause Net Zero “until the public is ready”

10. A poll found 76% of the public is ready for Next Zero now. If not sooner.

11. So to get his green agenda back on track, Sunak – an chatbot with the hair of a Lego Elvis – decided to prioritise 475 Tory voters in Uxbridge over a liveable planet

12. Boris Johnson and Grant Shapps demanded Sadiq Khan scrap ULEZ, which must have come as a shock to Boris Johnson (who created ULEZ) and Grant Shapps (who urged Khan to expand ULEZ in 2020)

13. As half of Europe burns, Sunak took a pointless chartered jet to Aberdeen to announce 100 new oil and gas licenses

14. Our PM, Thunderbird 0.5, claimed burning fossil fuels for another 50 years was “entirely consistent” with his pledge to stop burning fossil fuels within 30 years

15. The move was described as “truly dangerous” and “moral and economic madness” by Just Stop Oil.

16. Sorry, not Just Stop Oil. It was actually the Secretary General of the United Nations

17. Responses from Tory MPs:

18. “The wrong decision at precisely the wrong time”

19. “On the wrong side of history”

20. “He [Sunak] must think voters are idiots”

21. But Sunak’s emotional support turbot, Michael Gove, attacked green policies, and said it was “absolutely right” for him to take a chartered plane to Greece while Greece burns to the ground because of climate change

22. Zac Goldsmith called Gove “a monster”, and said Sunak had “no authentic interest whatsoever” in the planet’s survival

23. So to prove him wrong, Sunak axed the role of the govt’s most senior climate official

24. The govt cares so much that it can’t even provide details of how many people it has working on climate change, which means it’s frighteningly few

25. But if you’re too busy to wait for their other policies to kill you, Sunak announced he wants to end 20mph zones, so you can die under the influence of a bus before you have time to boil alive

26. Sunak said he’s doing this to “support drivers”, and he supports them so much that he travels everywhere by helicopter

27. He took a 200-mile helicopter ride to Wrexham, even though the train took just 10 mins longer

28. And £10,000 for another helicopter ride, so he could go to dinner

29. And Sunak, the rejected early draft of an Aardman sidekick who is having a go at PM-ing during his gap year, has also changed his explanation of a secretive £38k private jet donation THREE TIMES, in what one Tory MP said looks “on the face of it, like a conscious breach of the rules on political donations”

30. And speaking of breaching rules, the House of Commons found 10 Tory MPs had made “a coordinated attempt to undermine parliament’s workings” over the PartyGate lies told by former prime minister Darth Bagpuss

31. Sunak punished these democra-vandals by making them do … absolutely nothing. No apology. No sanctions. No consequences whatsoever

32. To change the subject, Sunak accused Sadiq Khan for not building enough houses

33. Last year Sunak boasted that he’d changed the funding formula to prevent Khan from building enough houses

34. And then Sunak said his crackdown on small boats is going “much better than expected” two days after the highest ever number of small boat landings

35. Health news, and Britain’s top A&E doctor said the Tory winter NHS plan will “kill thousands”

36. A report found the NHS is now “ten times worse” than when the Tories inherited it

37. And it’s not being helped by what we’re still supposed to call Conservative Economic Competence, which has resulted in so much hunger that 11,000 Britons were hospitalised with malnutrition last year, the highest number since the Victorian era

38. Having paid millions to its mates for PPE we couldn’t use, this week the govt paid for £225 million of that PPE to be set on fire, releasing as much C02 as the annual output of 3,700 UK households

39. Unsurprisingly, the Press Standards Authority ruled that it is entirely accurate to call Matt Hancock a “failed health secretary”.

40. No news yet on whether it’s OK to call him The Dim Reaper

41. Sticklers for tradition, the Tory candidate to replace Hancock will be renowned harbinger of calamity Nick Timothy, the architect of Theresa May’s disastrous 2019 campaign

42. Meanwhile Nadine Dorries’ local council urged her to step down as an MP immediately in a strongly worded letter that she’s incapable of even opening, let alone reading.

43. This is because Crystal Meth Barbie had promised she’d step down “with immediate effect” on 9 June, but still hasn’t worked out how to do it

44. She hasn’t spoken in parliament for over a year

45. And she hasn’t met her local council for 4 years

46. But she did find time to write an “aggressive” letter to the UK’s top civil servant, demanding to be put on the resignation honours list of drive-by prime minister Liz Truss

47. Meanwhile Andrew Rosindell – who has been under police investigation for sexual offences and misconduct in public office for over 2 years, and hasn’t set foot in parliament since 2020 – has been reselected as a Tory candidate at the next election

48. Picking up the baton, his colleague Julian Knight has been accused of sexually harassing three young women

49. In democracy news, Michael Gove launched a plan to increase the value of secret and undeclared political donations by 50% ahead of the next election

50. He said this 50% rise was to “keep up with inflation”, which is at 8%

51. Gove opposes pay increases to keep up with inflation

52. Gove also handed back to the treasury £1.9 billion intended to help with the housing crisis because he “couldn’t find anything to spend it on”

53. At least 270,000 people are homeless in England

54. Cabbage Patch nonentity Charlotte Owen, who is either Boris Johnson’s illegitimate child, Boris Johnson’s disturbing lover, or the luckiest unqualified part-time intern in the world, took her lifetime place in the House of Lords

55. So did Ben Houchen, still facing accusations of “industrial-scale corruption”

56. Also Ross Kempsell, whose main contribution to public life was: not laughing when Boris Johnson described his fictional wine-box-to-bus hobby

57. A House of Lords report said the appointments “call the entire honours system into question”

58. This week, the few remaining parts of the Lords that AREN’T an unqualified spurt from Boris Johnson’s incomprehensibly fecund loins, found the UK’s security and policing will be endangered by the policies of the person in charge of security and policing, Suella Braverman

59. Braverman was also found to have broken the law by denying asylum seekers her wildly generous £3 a week to live on

60. And continuing with Chinchilla The Hun: she was forced to delay imprisoning asylum seekers on a huge, desolate, inhumane barge after a report called it a “floating Grenfell”

61. Presumably she gives as much of a shit about that as about the PREVIOUS Grenfell, because this week a report found only 1/3 of the Grenfell recommendations have yet been implemented

62. And only 1 in 5 tower blocks have yet had the required sprinkler systems installed

63. Kemi Badenoch celebrated a glorious new Brexit benefit as she joined the CPTPP trade bloc of 11 nations, 10 of whom we already had deals with as members of the EU

64. CPTPP will add 0.08% to our GDP

65. Leaving the EU cost us 4% of our GDP

66. So Brexit has lost us 4900 times more than CPTPP will gain

67. But embarrassment’s Liam Fox celebrated a “vote of confidence in the UK” as Renault announced 19k new jobs and £6bn investment

68. The 19k jobs and £6bn investment are all happening outside the UK. Only Renault’s 22-person exec team will be here, cos we don’t tax their enormous income

69. As a result of not taxing the only people with any money left, we can’t pay NHS wages

70. So Sunak launched a new plan to fund NHS pay rises by charging migrants higher fees to come into the country, temporarily forgetting that his policy is to not let them into the country at all

71. The move was described by NHS workers’ representatives as “borderline racist”, and by me as “galactically crass and stupid”

72. Sunak then applied his fiscal genius to education, announcing he’d bar foreign students from taking what he called “low value degrees”

73. This will cost Britain’s higher education sector 1/5 of its income, bankrupt many universities, and shoving the UK down the global educational league table

74. Former Tory education secretary Justine Greening called the policy “anti-levelling up in action”

75. Meanwhile Ben Wallace, a life-model for ornamental doorstops, had a hissy-fit because Ukraine showed a “lack of gratitude” about the aid we’re giving them

76. We’ve given Ukraine 18% the amount the EU has, and accepted one-seventh as many refugees as Germany or Poland

77. Wallace then announced he’s standing down as an MP, not least because – in his words – Suella Braverman “must not be allowed to use the armed forces to mop up her incompetence”

78. Anyway, Braverman prefers to let her incompetence slosh around unbridled. See, for example, the “massive own goal” she created when she ruled we should no longer describe asylum seekers as “asylum seekers”, which means she can no longer use the asylum seeker budget to fund her plans for asylum seekers, rendering the whole thing undeliverable.

79. After losing two by-elections, Sunak was expected to do a reshuffle, but reports said he couldn’t because his MPs were refusing to be promoted to cabinet

80. One said there was “no point climbing the greasy pole, because there will be no pole left to climb” after the election

81. It’s not surprising they expect to lose: since Sunak took office, Britons have experienced the biggest fall in wealth since WW2

82. So accursed Morph cosplayer Oliver Dowden said “the best route out of poverty is a job”, even though 1 in 20 working people cannot afford food every day, and he opposes giving them pay rises

83. To prove they have their fingers on the pulse, Education secretary Gillian Keegan said private education (average cost £20,480 a year) costs about the same as a holiday to the Mediterranean (average cost £943)

84. Senior Tories accused the govt of “moral failing” because they still haven’t banned LGBTQ+ conversion therapy five years after they promised they would

85. Caroline Dinenage, responsible for investigating bias in the British media, hosted a drinks event for GB News inside parliament.

86. Attendees included Priti Patel, Mark Francois and Suella Braverman, the three wishes you end up with when you piss off the wrong Genie

87. The Tories dragging the UK out of the Erasmus scheme was like kicking UK science in the balls, so the PM said he’d make up for it with “the Turing scheme”, a pile of shit named after the UK scientist for whom the Tories had gone the whole hog, and chemically castrated

88. And finally, the latest Brexit climbdown means we won’t – after all – be replacing EU quality marks with a UK version that allows lower standards, news that must be a huge worry for Jonathan Gullis, whose entire career depends on the UK having no standards at all

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 14.08.2023

Original thread begins here.

It’s time for #TheWeekInTory, which is actually slightly more than a week, cos I was busy.

All of which is to say: sorry for the following 107 (107, for fucks sake) bits of spattering, omnidirectional governmental carnage that have happened in the last few days.

Just keep going until the end, or until you decide to welcome death’s sweet embrace instead.

Here we go…🧵

1. Let’s start with the economy, and claymation Apprentice candidate Rishi Sunak said there was finally “light at the end of the tunnel” on interest rates and inflation

2. He was backed up by demonic fingerbob Jeremy Hunt, who said “Our plan to reduce interest rates is working”

3. Two hours later, the Bank of England raised interest rates again

4. And then the next day, Hunt admitted inflation was going to go up again too

5. “You’ve got to trust me,” Sunak told LBC. “You’ve seen me during the pandemic. I know how to manage the economy”

6. During the pandemic, the UK had the worst economic performance in the G20

7. And since Sunak entered Downing St, we have performed worse than any advanced economy on the planet, including Russia, which is subject to crippling global sanctions

8. Meanwhile one of his backbenchers said, “To get inflation under control, people do have to be poor”, and it’s a bold strategy to write Labour’s election leaflets for them

9. From there, it was straight to an update on Sunak’s promised “jobs miracle”, as figures found the fastest rise in jobseekers since the Tories came to power in 2010

10. So to keep us focussed on something else, Thunderbird 0.5 proudly launched Small Boats Week, which immediately sank

11. To kick things off, Penny Mordaunt off Battlestar Galactica proclaimed “our asylum policies work”

12. And then Lee Anderthal off Stig of the Dump proclaimed “we have failed on asylum, there is no doubt about it. It is a failure”

13. As part of the govt’s plan to stop ruthless bastards shoving vulnerable migrants onto dangerous boats, ruthless bastard Suella Braverman shoved vulnerable migrants onto a dangerous barge

14 .This was as a deterrent to people crossing the channel in small boats

15. Except only one of the people moved onto the Bibby Stockholm had actually arrived by small boat

16. And to prove the deterrent effect, figures showed the number of small boat crossings had increased to a record level during Small Boats Week

17. Sunak said the Bibby Stockholm was a “cheaper and more orderly accommodation for those arriving in small boats”

18. It costs £1.6 billion for 500 refugees

19. You could send those 500 refugees on a year-long Disney Caribbean cruise for £1.8 billion

20. Dorset Council, the Health and Safety Executive and the Fire Brigade warned Sunak that the barge was unsafe

21. But it’s OK, betwattled orange abomination Oliver Dowden said we can ignore the Fire Service, because its largest union is affiliated with Labour

22. So dying in a boat fire is a party political issue now, is it?

23. Anyway, Small Boats Week began with the Home Office breaking its own rules by trying to force disabled people and torture victims onto the Bibby Stockholm

24. Then Lee Anderson said refugees should “fuck off back to France” if they don’t like being held in detention centres, which doesn’t immediately suggest he understands the word “detention”

25. This prompted some quite salty responses to Anderson from other Tory MPs and peers

26. “Toe-curling”

27. “A fascist who doesn’t represent the same party as me”

28. “Cheap populism”

29. “Chaotic and unsophisticated”

30..“Making the Tories into the Even Nastier Party”

31. But for balance, let’s hear from soul-donor Alex Chalk, who suggested “life imprisonment” for “lefty lawyers” who did their actual job of acting on behalf of their clients in court

32. Chalk then said that the words “fuck off back to France” was “a reflection of a tolerant nation”

33. To prove their tolerance, the Tories initiated a “targeted campaign” against specific a lawyer who they claimed was aiding migrants and was working for Labour

34. She’s an unpaid volunteer, unaffiliated with Labour, and due to the govt’s actions she has now received death threats and had to employ 24/7 security protection

35. The Law Society and the Bar Council issued a rare joint statement, saying they were “gravely concerned” about the Tories’ behaviour

36. David Davis, so good they named him once, said: “the primary thing that’s been revealed has been the startling incompetence” of Suella Braverman’s dept

37. Even Priti Patel said her replacement, Chinchilla The Hun, has a migrant policy that is “alarming and staggering”

38. And then a £400k Home Office drone for tracking small boats crashed into the sea

39. And six migrants drowned

40. And we’d still only reached Thursday

41. On Friday shit got worse in a very literal sense, when Legionella was found on the Bibby Stockholm, and everyone who’d just been proudly marched on board was ignominiously marched back off again

42. To be fair, the govt only wants to integrate migrants into Britain, and forcing them to experience dangerously infectious water is certainly that

43. As evidence: 57 swimmers at the World Triathlon Championships went down with diarrhoea after being forced to swim through the oceans of sewage that are now our nation’s top produce

44. So giant, cigar-chomping toddler Thérèse Coffey said “Tories must show they care about the environment”

45. It was Coffey’s policy to pour raw sewage into our rivers and streams

46. Anyway, back to the Bibby Stockholm, the latest dismal policy failure, which was so instantly terrible that within hours the Tories had given up on the barge, and were urging us to leave the European Convention on Human Rights instead

47. Tory MP Bob Neill called leaving the ECHR: “a completely foolish idea and absolutely wrong. We’d be in the same company as Russia and Belarus. No Tory should want to be in that sort of company”. Yet they are.

48. I don’t want to worry you, but Sunak is following up the success of Small Boats Week with NHS Week

49. And it began with health minister Maria Caulfield flatly stating that under her govt, NHS performance will definitely get worse

50. Sunak then blamed the record 7.5 million waiting list on striking doctors

51. The waiting list was 7.44 million before strikes began

52. And on day one of NHS Week, the govt announced its solution to cancer patients not being seen within the 2-week mandatory target. It increased the target to 4-weeks. So you’re more likely to die of cancer, but at least the treatment target isn’t embarrassing to the Tories

53. Steve Barclay, a stock-photograph made flesh, said the NHS should outsource healthcare to the private sector to cut waiting lists and improve standards

54. Same day: a govt report found the number of outsourced services failing to meet required standards had risen by 73%

55. Still better than the Tories though, who have promised to clear the asylum backlog by the end of the year

56. At the current rate, they won’t clear the backlog until 2036

57. But Robert Jenrick accidentally revealed this to be a deliberate policy, admitting “if you process the claims of asylum seekers more quickly that encourages more people to come”

58. To clarify things: the Tories have a policy of clearing the backlog, and another policy of keeping it as large and expensive as possible. Can we just lock the two policies in a room and let them fight it out, while we get on with having a competent govt?

59. Anyway, to make room for the people they’re deliberately failing to process, the govt has shoved thousands of Afghan refugees who had worked with UK forces out of their temp accommodation

60. Johnny Mercer said he “will have failed if any of them end up living on the streets”, but “that has not happened, and that is not going to happen”

61. The next day, one fifth of them reported themselves to local authorities as homeless

62. Meanwhile Sunak, a man so weak he could qualify as a homeopathic remedy, was accused of “cooking the books” in his desperation to achieve – well, anything. Over 6,000 people were wiped from asylum processing even though their applications weren’t complete.

63. Tory MP Craig Mackinlay said the 6000 had “just disappeared into the underground economy without a trace”, much like the 100s of kidnapped migrant kids they lost earlier this year

64. Sunak then accused Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted one-woman riot of idiocy, of failing to do her job after she hadn’t turned up in parliament for over a year

65. But Sunak said he wouldn’t actually do anything about it

66. Dorries had promised to “resign with immediate effect” on 9 June

67. It’s August, and she is now refusing to either resign, or to do her job

68. In 2014 Dorries said “where MPs fall down is when they ignore their constituents”

69. She hasn’t held a constituency council meeting for three years

70. Reports say she’s waiting to resign so a by-election happens during the Tory conference, just to embarrass Sunak

71. Little does she know…

72. That’s it. Little does she know…

73. Little does she know, Sunak is unembarrassable: as the planet recorded its hottest month for 800,000 years, the Mediterranean burned, USA fried, China saw a month of record 50-degree temperatures, and almost 100 people died in Hawaiian wildfires, Sunak’s family was revealed to have signed a billion-dollar deal with BP just days before Sunak opened hundreds of new licenses for oil and gas extraction

74. Sunak says this coincidence is “of no legitimate public interest”

75. He then claimed the new gas licenses would “make energy more affordable” for Britons

76. Last year his own party chairman, Greg Hands, tweeted “more UK production wouldn’t reduce the price of gas”

77. And Kwasi Kwarteng, a dead-eyed functionary from the Death Star, said the licenses “would not affect the wholesale market price”

78. Meanwhile environment minister Theresa Villiers was found to have secretly held £70,000 shares in Shell, which is a massive conflict of interest
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79. It’s OK though: her punishment is that she [checks notes] promised not to do it again

80. And then the govt removed climate change – which has already caused over 2 million deaths and cost $165 billion in damage – from its official risk register

81. So Tory peer Zac Goldsmith has said he would vote Labour in protest at his own party’s “apathy” towards the climate

82. Grant Shapps indicated the govt would refuse to help with fuel poverty this winter

83. But the govt did increase by one third the money it spends on sending the children of our diplomats to Eton and Winchester, so that’s OK then

84. And we have enough money to pay for Rishi Sunak to take a taxpayer-funded private flight within the UK every 8 days since he became PM, more than double the previous record

85. Meanwhile research shows the Tory policy on govt bonds has cost us £251 billion, which is 76 times the amount lost on Black Wednesday, and the same as £8900 for every UK household

86. Brexit news, and in 2021 Priti Patel, the Garden Gnome of Sauron, launched “talent visas”, which she said were “attracting the best and the brightest talents from around the world”

87. This week it was revealed those marvelous talent visas received just 3 applications in 2 years

88. We then dropped our own quality assurance checks and accepted the EU ones, about which we no longer have any say, which exciting news for Take Back Control fans

89. And the promised post-Brexit checks on food coming into the UK were delayed for a 5th time, when the govt realised Brexit was causing the very inflation they’re committed to reducing

90. Other news: Police are investigating Tory Welsh secretary David TC Davies for a hate crime after he bemoaned the “number of Gypsy Traveller sites in the county”

91. Meanwhile Mel Stride applied his laser intellect on upskilling the nation to meet the challenges of AI, by volunteering people over 50 to become bicycle delivery drones at Deliveroo

92. Mel Stride is 61. Big Mac and large fries to Russ In Cheshire please, Mel.

93. Robert Jenrick caused yet another security incident when he left his ministerial box unattended on a train

94. He then said the Rwanda policy – which was ruled illegal in court – was being undermined by a Labour advisor. During 7 straight minutes of questioning, he couldn’t name the advisor, what department they worked in, or what they’d done to undermine the policy

95. So instead of Rwanda, the govt is now suggesting we put refugees on a frikkin volcano in the middle of the frikkin ocean, like Doctor Evil

96. The chosen island has no infrastructure, food supply, legal system, police or medical centres

97. This plan was already rejected in 2020, when even zombie Jarvis Cocker Jacob Rees-Mogg called it “impossibly expensive to do”

98. There were shrugs of outrage as reports found MPs had made £10m from second jobs in the last year, leading one Tory to say “it looks like across all benches, we’re just lining our pockets”

99. All benches? 97% of that £10m was earned Tory MPs, including £4.8m for Darth Bagpuss Boris Johnson to perform his gibberish assaults on common sense to rooms full of pissed bankers

100. Among those earning outside incomes are the multiple Tories acting as presenters on GB News, which this week faced four separate Ofcom investigations into exactly how it can be “unbiased” to have Tory MPs interviewing Tory MPs about how brilliant Tory MPs are

101. Three-quarters of the UK’s prisons were found to be “in appalling condition” and “dangerously overcrowded” following a 38% cut in prison budgets, and a policy of locking people up for talking too loudly during protests

102. One third of the country has “dangerously low levels” of prison and probation staff

103. Two people on Liz Truss’s resignation honours list have refused to accept, saying they’d be “too humiliated”

104. But thankfully, the govt has a solution to the housing crisis. It wants to abolish the need for planning permission for barn conversions in England’s national parks, which is great news for their pals from Eton who can afford vastly expensive barn conversions in glorious locations

104. The CEO of England’s national parks called the plan “one of the most bonkers examples of environmental destruction I could think of. It’s just crackers”

105. So to prove the Tories aren’t crackers, Matt Hancock, the dad from a gravy advert who is somehow still an MP, lip-synched his rendition of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie, and the entire nation cringed itself into the shape of a pretzel and prayed for a quick death

107. And finally, as Britain faces existential crises over the economy, health, education, climate, transport, housing, investment, productivity, childcare, infrastructure, farming, tourism, exports, imports, energy and manufacturing, Number 10 was forced to distance itself from Kemi Badenoch’s grand plan to employ a “Lavatory Tsar” to make sure signs on toilet doors aren’t “woke”

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 25.10.2023

Original thread begins here.

#TheWeekInTory is back, damn you

1. Britain faces a crisis in health, education, farming, energy, housing, childcare, social care, imports, exports, manufacturing, services, debt, growth and infrastructure, so Rishi Sunak announced his grand plan to slightly alter A-Levels

2. As Sunak finished his first and last year in office, there were rave reviews from his Tory colleagues:

3. “He’s increasingly weak”

4. “He exists in torpor”

5. “Clearly Rishi Sunak isn’t working as leader of our party”

6. Even the Speaker had to bollock Sunak, who has begun a discombobulating habit of asking HIMSELF questions during PMQs, and then bouncing on the spot as he answers, looking for all the world like his puppeteer is having an argument in Italian

7. Sunak’s famous “five promises” from 2022 have since been downgraded to “ambitions”, because not one has been delivered

8. He is now the least popular PM ever, and only beats gawping abomination Lettuce Truss because she didn’t last long enough to take the poll

9. This doesn’t perturb Truss, who plans an “alternative budget” on the same day Jeremy Hunt delivers his real one

10. She will be doubling down on the renowned success of her last budget, which cost the UK £350 every 21 minutes until it was abandoned after just eight days

11. Meanwhile Jeremy Hunt, a man who could be replaced by a spaniel with a pocket calculator, is to step down at the next election, rather than face the humiliation of a “Portillo moment”, which will condemn him to wear loud trousers on vintage trains for as long as BBC2 exists

12. Only 3% of Brits think Sunak is doing a good job

13. To put this into context, 3% of Brits think the earth is flat

14. As evidence of Sunak’s stunning abilities, the Tories lost two incredibly safe seats in byelections
3:30 PM · Oct 25, 2023

15. These seats were formerly held by Chris Pincher, the Groper of Tamworth; and Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy who had seemingly become an MP after being plucked at random from a fight outside a kebab house

16. Dorries was held in such affection, her local party chief said she was “about as useful as a chocolate teapot”

17. Her wannabe replacement, Andrew Cooper, told voters to “fuck off” before the election, and then flounced out halfway through the count

18. Sunak said a general election is “not what the country wants”

19. Polls show 78% of Britons want an immediate general election

20. Conservative peer Zac Goldsmith urged people not to vote Tory, saying “The PM simply could not care less”

21. Meanwhile, self-styled “Brexit Hardman” Steve Baker, a vainglorious wazzock with the ever-so-pleased look of someone desperate to be asked if he’s finished his Rubik Cube, said the Brexit he demanded should have been called off because too few people voted for it

22. Tory policies led to 3.8 million Brits living in destitution last year, a rise of 148% since Sunak implemented his plan to make us all rich

23. A record-shattering 1 million of the destitute are children

24. The destitution was mainly caused by Tory benefit freezes

25. So Sunak, an ethics chatbot with hair like a Lego Elvis, said he plans to freeze benefits for another year

26. Then he scrapped the cap on banker’s bonuses

27. Unrelated, I’m sure, but rumours suggest Sunak wants to go back into banking after his gap-year as PM ends

28. He also invested £2m of the govt’s Covid fund for small startup businesses in companies linked to his wife (net worth: £730 million)

29. A parliamentary report found Sunak’s policy of scrapping Net Zero to reduce energy bills will increase energy bills

30. Sunak’s £1bn plan to expand EV charge points created exactly zero new chargers in the 3 years it’s been running

31. And Lee Anderthal came to the defence of the govt’s amazing scheme for the £100bn railway from London to Manchester to stop short of Manchester. And London

32. He said wasting £100bn on a useless railway to and from nowhere was fine, because a functioning HS2 would only encourage people to go to Bradford and “who wants to go to Bradford? Anyone here from Bradford? Why would you want to get there quicker?”

33. Mark Harper admitted the “absolute commitments” to invest in local transport that Rishi Sunak made 2 weeks ago aren’t commitments at all, merely “examples of the sorts of things money could be spent on”

34. This makes it one of Sunak’s longer-lasting policies

35. Tom Hunt insisted he’s “not xenophobic”, but revealed his evidence-free theory that in town centres across Britain “people speaking English is a rarity”

36. Only 1.3% of the population of the UK doesn’t speak English. And they mainly speak Welsh

37. Tory MP Marcus Fysh said “private rents are the key cause of core inflation”, so because he’s part of a govt committed to cutting inflation, he refused to back the govt’s own policy that would see those inflation-causing rents fall. One in five Tory MPs is a landlord.

38. And so, because the UK now has record demand to fix insecure housing, the Tories refused to implement their own manifesto pledge to ban no-fault evictions

39. Then Robert Jenrick said he wouldn’t build any new towns because they’d be “filled with illegal migrants”

40. So to house the illegal migrants they [checks notes] refuse to house, the Tories paid £15.3m for derelict land that they sold had for £6m just one year earlier
Russ Jones

41. Harrowing antique dildo Jacob Rees-Mogg got given £17,000 for being sacked from a govt job he did for only 7 weeks

42. And weeks after it was discovered Tory education cuts had left hundreds of schools at risk of collapse, over half those at risk still haven’t been surveyed

43. Perhaps its cos we’ve got no money, although James Cleverley, a stunningly successful one-man campaign to disprove nominative determinism, managed to spend £1m on private jets for two vitally important overseas visits to [checks notes again] The Solomon Islands and Jamaica

44. Peter Bone, a child’s drawing of their vampire grandad, was recommended with suspension from parliament after he revealed his unique management technique of waving his genitals in the face of his staff

45. Thatched Uncle Fester impersonator Thérèse Coffey said her complete failure to plan for fatal flooding was because she was looking for rain from the west, and it actually arrived from the east

46. And finally, Suella Braverman stood on a guide dog. I know this happened a couple of weeks ago, but … Suella Braverman stood on a fucking guide dog.

I have 2 books, The Decade in Tory (out now) and https://unbound.com/books/four-chancellors-and-a-funeral, released early 2024. I appreciate your support!

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 07.11.2023

Original thread begins here.

I apologise, but try as I might, I can’t find any material for #TheWeekInTory.

Only kidding. It’s an absolute casserole. Let’s down a pint of absinth and get stuck in.

Also – trigger warning.

1. We begin with the Covid inquiry, which revealed the shocking news that everything we all knew three years ago ACTUALLY HAPPENED

2. This week it looked at the actions of Boris Johnson, a shit Aslan who we made into our Prime Minister for a laugh

3. Cabinet office records said Johnson was “weak and indecisive” and “cannot lead”

4. But Johnson’s defendants said Covid was merely “the wrong crisis … for his skill-set”, which is the skill-set of a children’s entertainer on mandatory leave

5. Then Dominic Cummings turned up, exhibiting the glassy-eyed stare of an unqualified accountant doorstepped by Watchdog

6. He’d spent the pandemic conducting iffy eye-tests and charming his team with supportive messages calling them “useless fuckpigs”, “morons” and “cunts”

7. Johnson believed Covid to be “a hoax” on the day over 4,000 died from it in Italy

8. Meanwhile Matt Hancock – Peewee Herman reflected in the back of a spoon – wanted the authority to decide “who lived and who died” in the event Covid WASN’T found to be entirely made up

9. Johnson said Covid was “nature’s way of dealing with old people”, and the elderly should “accept their fate”

10. Part of that fate was him being prepared to “recklessly” kill the Queen by exposing her to Covid, until he was talked out of a regicidal palace visit by staff

11. Johnson then asked Dominic Cummings to invent a “dead cat” story to get the pandemic off the front pages, because BoJo was “sick of it”

12. Cummings revealed that Johnson had given “direct bungs” to newspapers “dressed up as Covid relief”, in return for positive coverage

13. Number 10 officials said at the time, “Govt isn’t actually that hard but [Johnson] is really making it impossible”

14. They called the govt’s response to the pandemic “a terrible, tragic joke”

15. But the thatched sex-yeti did make a fine contribution to science, with his mind-blowing and not-medically-proven theory that Covid could be treated by aiming your hairdryer up your nose

16. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the precise physical intersection of a harrowing antique dildo and the concept of gout, said Johnson was merely “an antidote to group think”

17. But Tory Lord Bethell said Johnson did “everything he could” to avoid focusing on the pandemic

18. This was, it is claimed, because Johnson didn’t want to take the limelight off his “Brexit triumph”

19. Brexit triumph update: Brexit has caused a 22% slump in UK exports to the EU, which was once our biggest market

20. And because Brexit saved the NHS, patients now face “severe drug shortages” due to delays and higher costs

21. In light of this, Rishi Sunak, a rejected early draft of an Aardman sidekick, said Britons “must be prepared to fail”, and we must applaud him leading by example

22. Sunak took a break from his gap-year pretending to be a Prime Minister to audition for his next job, as Elon Musk’s desktop bobble-head

23. Sky News described the Musk/Sunak softball interview as “One of the maddest events I’ve ever covered”

24. Sunak said the risk of extinction from AI was on the same scale as that from nuclear war

25. But good news for fans of The Terminator, because Sunak responded to this existential threat by letting Musk regulate AI all by himself

26. As Sunak smilingly told us AI would destroy our jobs, futures, and possibly lives, Musk immediately unveiled an AI product with what he called “a rebellious streak”, and I began digging a bunker

27. Tory MP’s responses:

28. “The PM is offering the electorate dystopia. Thick, thick, thick”

29. “I despair at No 10’s naivety”

30. “Head in hands. It’s utterly breathtaking. Unbelievable crassness.”

31. Speaking of witch (typo): Suella Braverman claimed rough sleeping is a “lifestyle choice”

32. Funny how that “lifestyle choice” became 175% more popular when the Tories introduced austerity

33. Chinchilla the Hun’s solution to people forced to live in tents is: ban tents

34. Ben Howlett called Braverman “actually evil”

35. She then went on to describe people asking for a ceasefire as “hate marches”

36. She says she opposes asking everybody to stop killing one another, because it ruins the meaning of Armistice Day

37. It didn’t seem to matter that the police have already said no such march is even happening

38. Braverman’s previous great success, the Bibby Stockholm Legionnaires Disease Breeding Facility, failed fire inspections again

39. So the govt now has to reduce the number of people it can hold, making the entire cost-saving exercise 17% more expensive than the thing it replaces

40. And the Home Office is being investigated for unlawfully segregating asylum seekers by nationality or race

41. Esther McVey, one of the brightest stars in the political fundament, accused Just Stop Oil of vandalising a 1651 painting that she somehow thinks depicts the Suffragette movement

42. Fun fact: the “Suffragette” painting she’s defending was vandalised by Suffragettes in 1914

43. Former Tory chair Brandon Lewis has taken a six-figure job at a company owned by sanctioned Russians

44. Another former Tory chair, Bim Afolami, is being investigated over payments from a lobbying firm

45. And yet another former Tory chair, Jake Berry, accused an unnamed (but we all know) Tory MP of being a serial rapist

46. Being Tory chair sounds like a relentless, high-stakes game of gobshite whack-a-mole

47. Tangoed Morph stunt double (and, yep, former Tory chair) Oliver Dowden said there was no cover-up of the rape allegations, even though the party had known about it for ages, but hasn’t taken action against the alleged culprit

48. But Dowden couldn’t deny the Tory party had quietly paid for the alleged victim to get treatment

49. Michelle Mone finally admitted involvement in a £200m rip-off PPE company, after denying it for 3 years, when she wasn’t too busy buying private jets with her profits

50. The Tory chair of the Environment Select Committee has been asked to resign, after it was found he was a member of a group opposed to solar power, but in favour of bee-killing, trophy hunting, culling badgers, and fox hunting

51. Bob Stewart was found guilty of racial abuse

52. Crispin Blunt was arrested for rape and drug offences

53. Peter Bone was kicked out of the party for waving his tallywacker at a member of staff

54. Gillian Keegan denied Tories have a “cultural issue” with sexual misconduct. So here’s a list to help Gillian:

a. Imran Ahmad Khan: sexual assault

b. Charlie Elphicke: sexual assault

c. Michael Fallon: resigned after groping incident

d. Rob Roberts: sexually harassed a junior member of staff

e. Chris Pincher: accused of groping multiple times

f. Neil Parish: watching porn in parliament

g. Julian Knight: still under investigation for sexual assault

h. Mark Menzies: paid a male escort for sex, showed him round parliament, and then asked him to procure crystal meth

i. Stephen Crabb: texted a 19-year-old he’d just interviewed for a job, and asked her to meet him for sex

j. Mark Garnier: referred to his secretary as “sugar tits” and made her buy sex toys for him

k. Brooks Newmark: sent sexually explicit messages to an undercover reporter investigating his habit of sending sexually explicit messages to people

l. Damian Green: resigned after being accused of groping a Tory activist half his age

m. Andrew Griffiths: found to have repeatedly raped and abused his wife, and sent over 2000 sexually explicit messages to other women

n. David Warburton: promised “not to remove my clothes again”, if the woman he had just groped would let him back inside for more cocaine

o. Unnamed Tory MP: woke up drunk in a brothel, didn’t know how he got there, and had lost his clothes

p. Unnamed Tory MP: told his secretary to “come and feel the length of my cock”

q. Unnamed Tory MP: groped a female journalist and said “God, I love those tits”

r. Boris Johnson: accused of groping 2 women during a single lunch

t. Andrew Rosindell: as part of a “gentleman’s agreement”, has not attended parliament for a year while facing indecent assault investigation

u. He must have a different definition of “gentleman” than I do

s. And then there’s the spreadsheet of 36 sexually untrustworthy Tory MPs that is handed to new staff, as a sort of field guide to the degenerates and dangerous monsters they’ll be working for

55. Anyway: back to the smorgasbord of odium and despair that’s still, incredibly, running this country

56. Kemi Badenoch announced a “£1.4 trillion trade deal” with Florida, which isn’t a trade deal, and would only be worth £1.4 trillion if Florida gave us their entire GDP

57. And now a guest appearance by former Tory MP and exuberantly gormless flapdoodle Nadine Dorries, who claimed social media firms have a “big dial” that they turn to make everybody more left wing

58. She went on to assert Boris Johnson was taken down by “shadowy forces” which she has imaginatively nicknamed “Moneypenny”, “Skyfall” and “M”, but it’s possible she just fell asleep face down on her keyboard during a James-Bond-and-Lambrini marathon.

59. This culminated in her claim that No 10 has a “shadowy fixer” employed to kill people’s pet rabbits

60. Meanwhile, away from this turd-bestrewn right-wing playpen, the UN described the UK as “in violation of international law” over our levels of poverty

61. The independent Institute for Government described Tory policies as a “doom loop” that had left vital services “crumbling”

62. And the Tory solution to the sewage pollution crises was revealed to be: changing the definition of “pollution”

63. In the face of catastrophic and irreversible climate disaster, Sunak announced new North Sea oil and gas licenses to “bring bills down”

64. Energy secretary Clare Coutinho admitted they “won’t bring bills down”

65. And finally, the Tories revealed marvellous new plans to brand anybody “undermining” the UK as an “extremist”. So if this is my last tweet, it’s because I’m paying a long, involuntary visit to a black-ops site in Mogadishu.

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 13.11.2023

Original thread begins here.

Russ Jones
@RussInCheshire
Somehow, it’s time for #TheWeekInTory again, even though it’s still only Monday. Four more days of this week to go, and we’re already up to 74 points.

Fuck-a-doodle-doo

Anyway, do a quick snort of glue, and then let’s get stuck in.

1. Suella Braverman took a break from kidnapping dalmatians to say being homeless was a “lifestyle choice”

2. The home secretary, Heinrich Hamster, followed this up with a claim that asking for an Armistice on Armistice Day was the act of a “hate marcher”

3. Joseph Gerbils then broke ministerial rules by writing an article undermining the police

4. Her literal job is – or was – to support the police

5. And then she called the police biased, cos right-wing protests are more often banned

6. There might be a reason why: FOI requests show right-wing protests had over 10x the level of arrests for violence compared to left-wing

7. Senior police said the actual Home Secretary was “giving permission” for the far-right to engage in yet more disruption and violence

8. Royal British Legion, Met Police and General Sir Richard Dannatt (Tory peer and former head of British Army) all supported the right to march

9. But Braverman insisted peaceful marchers had links to terrorism, and suggested that Ulster politicians were much the same as Hamas

10. Grant Shapps said Labour was “trying to politicise the weekend” by not saying the incredibly incendiary thing Braverman had just said

11. Another Grant Shapps said he “sees no reason for Suella to resign”

12. And then a different Grant Shapps refused to back her

13. And then a 4th Grant Shapps said he “won’t make a prediction” on her future

14. All in one day

15. Police said Braverman’s words were “a factor” in right-wing attacks on them

16. Tory MPs described Braverman as “unhinged”, “ignorant” and “dangerous and divisive”

17. Four former Tory ministers called on her to be sacked before Sunday

18. But on the other hand, Tory minister Neil O’Brien called peaceful protestors “rabble of racists, cranks, antisemites and moronic terrorism-glorifiers”, so who knows what’s true?

19. So our nation’s first ever spine donor, Rishi Sunak, asked the Chief Whip to assess party feelings about whether it was OK for the home secretary to incite a riot or not

20. One Tory minister said “as well as being an unpopular PM, he now becomes a weak and unpopular PM”

21. Imagine everybody’s shock when the legal, peaceful protest turned out to be peaceful and legal

22. But the noble counter-protest by the Braverman-invited far-right led to assaults on police, drugs, knives, batons, knuckle-dusters, and 92 arrests

23. As a result – and apologies to everybody who beat me to the joke – Suella Braverman has made the “lifestyle choice” to be unceremoniously sacked

24. She’s so popular that when he heard the news, one Tory MP texted ITV the word “Rejoice”

25. But Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger – Pru Leith’s least appealing bake – are already plotting to getting Braverman elected Tory leader

26. And Marilyn Manson’s mum, Jacob Rees-Mogg, said it was a mistake to sack Braverman, cos she “understood what the British voter thought”

27. This is despite Conservative Home listing her as the most unpopular of all Tory MPs, up against – let’s face it – pretty vigorous competition

28. Thatcher’s advertising guru said UK now “needs saving from five more years of stagnation, cruelty and despair” under Tories

29. So as part of Sunak’s plan to fix the problems caused by austerity and Brexit, he’s brought back the guy who gave us austerity and Brexit

30. David Cameron brings to the role a winning combination of smooth eloquence, polished manners, lacquered hair, and a varnished head

31. It’s less than a year since Sunak called Cameron’s foreign policy “naïve”, so now he’s appointed him to be Foreign Secretary

32. Cameron has only just criticised Israel and supported Gaza, and now his job is to do the opposite

33. Tory MPs seem delighted to have the ex-PM back: “WTAF!!! … an unelected Foreign Secretary appointed by an unelected PM”

34. A former Cabinet minister was asked if the party would approve of Cameron’s return, and replied “There is no party at this stage”

35. Sunak – who promised integrity at every level – has appointed Cameron despite him being found by 4 separate inquiries to have displayed “a significant lack of judgement” about Greensill Capital, an alleged “Ponzi scheme” that paid Cameron millions a year

36. Anyway, I’m not suggesting the Tories have run out of talent, but they’re reduced to packing the cabinet with people who aren’t even MPs

37. This means the new Foreign Secretary, a glazed polyp in a £10,000 suit, can’t even answer questions in the House of Commons

38. Meanwhile shunted to be our new Home Secretary: James Cleverley, a stunningly successful one-man campaign to disprove nominative determinism

39. Cleverley said he is – prepare to be shocked – “absolutely committed to stopping the boats”

40. His two spectacularly failed predecessors – “Chinchilla the Hun” Braverman, and Priti Patel, the Shetland Pony of the Apocalypse – were also absolutely committed to stopping the boats. They didn’t stop the boats. Maybe they need committing for a bit longer.

41. In fact, the Tories have introduced 173 changes to migration policy since 2010, which is more than one per month

42. And over 40 policy announcements about small boats just since 2019

43. None of this has stopped small boats. Its just possible posturing isn’t the solution.

44. Anyway, this makes it Cleverley’s 8th govt appointment in 7 years

45. Grant Shapps has had 10 jobs in 7 years

46. Steve Barclay, an explosion in a nothing factory – and also sacked as health minister today – is leaving his 7th job in 6 years

47. And 15 housing ministers since 2010

48. Scratch that – 16. Rachel McClean just got sacked as housing minister, simply for failing to deliver the govt’s no-fault eviction ban 11 years after it was first promised

49. No fault evictions have risen 38% in a single year

50. Ministers for science, environment, schools, transport, health, social care, cabinet office and housing have all resigned today

51. Grizzling Uncle Fester impersonator Thérèse Coffey also said it was the “right time” to leave the govt, and is wrong by only 13 years

52. If you ignore the 62 who resigned in one day under Boris Johnson, a Fat Malfoy we made PM for a dare, that makes today the biggest mass resignation on record – but it barely raises an eyebrow after 13 solid years of political carnage

53. Meanwhile two of the remaining cabinet members – the Tory Party’s emotional support turbot Michael Gove and Kemi Badenoch – are refusing to speak to one another because Gove had a messy affair with Badenoch’s pal

54. And Nadine Dorries, a woman who is trapped forever at Lambrini o’clock, suggested Michael Gove was drunk at work. Maybe he couldn’t get coke. Coca Cola, I mean. Naturally.

55. Anyway, take a deep breath, because it’s Tory Relaunch time. Again

56. It’s only 6 days since Sunak last relaunched his govt, with a King’s Speech that Tory MPs described as “a damp squib”, “dull as ditchwater” and “not even pretending to govern any more”. I shall categorise this as a stunning return to form.

57. The govt still hasn’t even finished *counting* how many schools it has let fall down on its watch

58. But it has found time to give an £11.5 million contract to a Tory donor to supply temporary classrooms

59. No other companies were invited to tender

60. Gavin Williamson has been warned not to breach ministerial rules – which he’s breached countless times before – as he accepted a new job with a “lifestyle influencer” credit card company in Brazil, while still being an MP in England

61. To be honest, they should really be warning Brazil about Williamson, who is a lifetime collection of blunders lent physical form, fitted with the teeth of a starved horse, and sent skittering around Westminster with instructions to break everything.

62. If you think things have never been worse, you’re not paying attention to the Covid Inquiry, where Simon Case, the most senior civil servant, said “I’ve never seen a bunch of people less well-equipped to run a country”

63. He described Boris Johnson’s leadership as “mad” and “poisonous”

64. Johnson had told Case he wanted “bigger fines” for people who broke lockdown rules, less than 2 weeks after he broke lockdown rules to throw a birthday party for himself in No 10

65. And Matt Hancock, Keith Harris gone to seed after being abandoned by Orville, was described as being a serial liar with “nuclear levels” of overconfidence, who was “so far up Boris Johnson’s arse that his ankles are brown”. Poetry.

66. NHS news, and Sunak said “we are making real progress” in reducing waiting times

67. The next day, NHS figures showed waiting times were the worst in UK history, and the waiting list is now 7.7 million people, which is more than 10% of the entire population

68. The day after that, the NHS had to cancel thousands of operations after the govt refused to provide funding

69. And just one day after that, Sunak “downgraded” his absolute promise to cut NHS waiting lists by the end of this year

70. But the govt did approve a £480m deal for Palantir to look after your NHS health data

71. Palantir is owned by a far-right Trump backer, and was involved in the Facebook/Brexit/Cambridge Analytica fake news scandal, so that’s reassuring

72. Update on the govt’s terribly urgent plans to cut the cost of living, and Andrea Leadsom reassured us energy will be cheaper “within 10 years”, so just keep shivering

73. Since Sunak’s “improvements” to onshore wind laws, not a single onshore wind farm has been built

74. And Jeremy Hunt, a Chancellor who at this point could be replaced by a confused spaniel with pocket calculator, is now considering cutting tax for the rich, while introducing a further £4bn in welfare cuts for people with health conditions

… back to the top

The Week in Tory – Posted 16.11.2023

Original thread begins here.

In not saying it’s time to begin stockpiling, but this is the second #TheWeekInTory of the week.

And it’s still only Thursday. Send whisky.

1. It’s all going wrong for Rishi Sunak, a rejected Thunderbird that somebody pulled out of the bin and made PM for a dare

2. But there was good news for Suella Braverman, who finally didn’t have to be woke on Tuesday morning

3. The day after she was sacked, Braverman wrote a resignation letter

4. One Tory MP described it as “narcissistic crap”

5. But Jacob Rees-Mogg, the waxy corpse of an exhumed Regency orphanage-worrier, said Braverman was “in touch with the mood of this country”

6. 72% of the UK wanted her sacked, including 61% of Tory voters

7. Braverman claims Sunak made a secret deal with her when he was trying to become leader

8. Sunak must be hoping details of the deal don’t leak out

9. But Braverman’s nickname is “Leaky Sue”, so … eeeesh!

10. Even GB News described Braverman as “disloyal, ineffective and incompetent”

11. But all of those things strongly appeal to the Tory right, which is why tractor wanker Neil Parish told Sunak to “prepare for war” over Braverman’s sacking

12. The govt’s illegal migration policy was found to be an illegal illegal migration policy

13. As a sign of the govt’s competence, it has taken 4 PMs, 5 home secretaries, £140m in bungs, £169,000 per asylum seeker and £2m in legal fees to send absolutely nobody to Rwanda

14. The Supreme Court ruled the Rwanda plan was illegal under international law

15. So Tories demanded we break international law

16. But the Supreme Court ruled the Rwanda plan also broke 5 British laws

17. So Lee Anderthal, an actual MP, said we should “ignore the laws”

18. Sunak, who once boasted he was “obsessed with details”, said he would “not allow a foreign court to block these flights”

19. It was a British court, a minor detail that seems to have eluded him

20. Sunak announced that to “serve democracy”, a policy that was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court is now going to be implemented by a man absolutely nobody voted for, even though the plan doesn’t even appear in the 2019 Tory manifesto, so nobody voted for the policy either

21. The Supreme Court ruled the policy unlawful because Rwanda isn’t safe

22. Suella Braverman, who is what happens when you feed Priti Patel after midnight, accused Sunak of having “no credible plan B”

23. So to prove her right, Rishi Sunak said he’d pass a new law, ruling that Rwanda IS safe

24. I don’t know why he doesn’t just pass a law saying Gaza and Ukraine are safe. It’s so obvious now I’ve said it!

25. Robert Jenrick said the govt has been working on plan B for “several months” and Braverman had known all about it

26. He then said Braverman wasn’t lying when she said she knew nothing about it. He can hold two positions at once, like Schrödinger’s twat

27. James Cleverley didn’t deny he’d described the Rwanda plan as “batshit”

28. He went on to say a new Rwanda treaty would be in place “within days”

29. The next day, the govt said they hoped to introduce it within a year, if they don’t lose an election first. Which they will

30. Cleverley, who isn’t, told BBC news the Rwanda plan was already working as a deterrent, even though it doesn’t exist

31. Which begs the question: why does it even need to exist, if it’s already working?

32. Fortunately, we know have a “Minister for common sense”, Esther McVey, which to a satirist is on par with being a pub landlord on the day George Best walks in

33. Number 10 were unable to describe exactly what a “minister for common sense” would actually do

34. McVey’s job description was supposed to impress the Tory right, but, well …

35. Jacob Rees-Mogg, an apparition of a pitiless Victorian dentist that appears to you just before you die, said McVey’s job was a “silly title, ridiculously tokenistic, won’t impress anyone”

36. McVey is so common-sensical that she was sacked as housing minister after just 8 months, during which her biggest discovery was that there was a “whole new way of doing architecture”, with people now “doing it on a computer”. Imagine!

37. As housing minister she failed to act on the 575 tower blocks identified as at such risk of collapse that high winds could knock them down, which the govt has known about for almost 3 years, but only was only made public this week

38. Meanwhile the Tories have decided to reduce UK safety regulations governing toxic chemicals, which I’m sure is exactly what you voted for in 2016, Brexiteers!

39. Great news for conflict-of-interest fans, as Steve Barclay, a stock photograph made flesh, became the new environment minister, even though he’s married to an exec from a water firm that pumps sewage into our rivers

40. And the new health minister, Victoria Atkins, is married to the boss of one of the world’s biggest sugar companies and a massive cannabis farm

41. Laugh? Atkins resigned in 2022, cos PM Darth Bagpuss was damaging the party’s “integrity, decency, respect and professionalism”

42. Over to Greg Hands, who as Tory Chair did such a good job of telling the same shit joke 1500 times that he lost his party over 3000 council seats and left the party 22 points behind Labour

43. He’s now in charge of Business, so you can tell already it’ll be good

44. One month after Sunak’s Tory Conference speech promised he’d be the “change candidate”, he revealed himself to the “change back again” candidate, as David Cameron returned from his preposterous squillionaire’s woodshed to occupy a TV chair in the foreign office

45. Cameron said “I believe in public service”

46. He should tell that to the guy in his bathroom mirror who fucked the entire country, then abandoned public service with a cheerful little hum, so he could make millions working for an alleged “Ponzi scheme”

47. Cameron, a thumb with a mouth-slit, also spent his time being paid to promote controversial Chinese investments in Sri Lanka

48. Unsurprisingly, China was the first govt to congratulate Cameron on his return to govt

49. More comeback news, as Kwasi Kwarteng, a dead-eyed functionary from the Death Star who presided over the single worst economic shitstorm in living memory, called Cameron’s return “the politics of yesterday”

50. And Liz Truss, a knock-off Margaret Thatcher you’d buy from Elisabeth Duke, revealed her latest plan to make us all richer, which consists of scrapping the minimum wage, abolishing paid holidays, and tearing up worker’s rights. Hands up who’ll vote for that!

51. And we welcomed back irradiated lemon cosplayer Andrea Jenkyns, who was so impressed by Cameron’s return that she sent a letter of no confidence in Rishi Sunak, clearly hoping to make it record-shattering four PMs in a single parliament

52. Her letter includes the following sentence in support of Boris Johnson (which I have quoted verbatim): “Yes Boris, the man who won the Conservative Party a massive majority, was unforgivable enough.”

53. Andrea Jenkyns was a Tory education minister. I mean … woah.

54. She continued: “It is time for Rishi Sunak to go and replace him with a ‘real’ Conservative party leader”

55. Andrea Jenkyns was elected as a “real” Conservative MP under David Cameron. I’ve checked: her behaviour is not due to a head injury.

56. It’s claimed 54 Tories are preparing to write letters of no confidence, which – if it happens – would be enough to trigger yet another leadership election

57. But the tally will be done by Lee Anderson, and he can only count to 20. And that’s only if he takes his shoes off

58. Luckily, Sunak was saved from this fate by the accidental arrival of his first success of his 13 months in office, as inflation peaked, and he could finally promise your bills would fall

59. The next day it was announced you bills will rise by 5% in January

60. So Lee Anderson, the deputy chairman of the Tory Party, said he is “far from pleased” with the Tory Party

61. And Tory peer Peter Cruddas called Cameron’s return a “coup” and said “Remain has won”

62. I’ve waited a long time to say this: “We won. Get over it”

… back to the top

Boris Johnson

Original thread begins at this tweet.

MEGA-THREAD (sorry)

Boris Johnson was born in USA, and lived there using the name “Al” until he went to Eton, at which point contemporaries said he invented “the eccentric English persona” we know now.

His family calls him Al in private. “Boris” is just a marketing brand.

His Eton tutors wrote: “He sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility … He is, in fact, pretty idle … I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception”

His ability to invent a phrase got him a career in journalism, but “invent” quickly became a problem: he was sacked by The Times for making up a quote, and lying about it. His colleagues said he was no great loss, as he’d been disorganised, chaotic, and lacking in basic skills.

Because he is essentially not employable, his dad, a former diplomat, wangled him a job writing about Brussels for The Telegraph. But he quickly became bored by reality, so stopped attending meetings, and instead would sit in his hotel, inventing stories about EU politics.

This isn’t a secret, by the way. He openly admitted to doing this, in writing, to his own readers. It was blatant.

“Some of my most joyous hours have been spent in a state of semi-incoherence, composing foam-flecked hymns of hate”, he wrote.

A diplomat appearing in Johnson’s made-up articles described the experience.

“He was the paramount of exaggeration and distortion and lies. He was a clown – a successful clown”

The EU spokesman Willy Hélin – renowned for his politeness – called his column “A load of bullshit”

Around this time, Boris Johnson was recorded agreeing to help his former school friend, the convicted fraudster Darius Guppy, beat up a journalist who was investigating his activities.

The plan was to give him black eyes and break his ribs.

It’s on record.

Johnson moved into politics, and became Shadow Arts Minister.

When reports said he was having an affair with Petronella Wyatt, Johnson called the story an “inverted pyramid of piffle”.

But it was true. He’d lied to party leader Michael Howard, and was sacked for lying (again).

He became London Mayor, and claimed he’d end rough sleeping. It increased 130%.

He said he’d recruit 5,000 Met police. The Met lost 5,000 officers on his watch.

He said he’d “double special constables to 10,000”. There were under 3,100 when he left office.

He said he’d create 100k affordable homes, then simply changed the definition of “affordable” to make it look like he had.

A report found “housing likely to be made available for London’s poorest citizens plummeted on Mr Johnson’s watch” from 7,500 a year to just 780.

He spent £320,000 of taxpayer money on water cannons that aren’t even legal in the UK. To prove they were safe, he promised to be blasted by them live on TV.

That promise was a lie. It never happened, and the water cannons were sold off for scrap at a £310,000 loss.

He spent £60 million on a commuter cable-car, suggesting 63 million people a year would use it. At the end of its first year, it had 4 (four) regular commuters per week.

He spent £46 million on a garden bridge that never even got off the drawing board.

He promised he’d remain London Mayor until his term ran out. Then he quit as London Mayor 2 years early, just to land a safe seat in Uxbridge.

He won in Uxbridge by promising to “lie down in front of bulldozers” to stop a new Heathrow Runway, then abstained on the vote.

He’s the most likely source of the 2015 “Cameron Fucked A Pig” rumour (which came from a “distinguished Oxford contemporary” of Cameron’s, of whom only 3 people fit). It’s almost certainly a complete fabrication.

In 2016 he admitted to The Times that he dyes his hair blond.

He was a Remainer.

He told the House of Commons in 2013 “I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it … I do not know whether any honourable Members are foolish enough to oppose eventual Turkish membership of the EU”

In 2016 he said: “Britain’s geostrategic interests [are] pretty intimately engaged” with EU membership

He wrote articles including “Quitting the EU won’t solve our problems”, which said “most of our problems are not caused by Brussels”

He said: “We are – and we will remain – a paid-up, valued, participating member of the Single Market. Under no circumstances, in my view, will a British government adjust that position”.

And, of course, the whole £350 million thing, which … well, you know.

There’s not much point in repeating all of the well-known and documented lies of the Brexit campaign, but there were 1000s.

If you don’t know now, you never will.

If you know but still think it’s OK, you don’t care about reality.

So let’s move on.

His team admitted he never wanted to win the referendum. He hoped to lose, so he could succeed David Cameron and become Tory leader, without having to do any work.

And he’d still have an enemy over the water he could blame everything on.

He never intend to win.

After accidentally winning the Leave campaign he tried to become PM.

His own running-mate, Michael Gove, told people not to vote for Johnson: “I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead”

He tried again after May, and during his *actual job interview* to become PM, the police turned up to his flat following reports of a violent argument, during which Carrie said “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything”

During one campaign interview, he stole a journalist’s phone, said “oh for fuck’s sake” when others asked him about some of his lies, and then – and this is hard to believe, but true – he hid in a fridge until they all went away.

He said he had an “Oven-ready deal” to resolve Brexit. He didn’t. It began to fall apart less than 2 weeks after it was implemented, and Sunak had to scrap most of it and do a different deal.

Johnson promised he’d vote against the Sunak deal, and then didn’t.

On the day Johnson’s “Oven-ready deal” went into effect, a journalist asked a senior member of the Vote Leave team, now a core member of the Johnson administration, what he thought of it.

“It’s crap. It’s basically the same as May’s deal”.

“There will be no checks on goods from GB to Northern Ireland or Northern Ireland to GB”, Johnson promised.

“There will be checks as goods head into Northern Ireland”, said the Treasury in a public correction. But he still repeated his lie throughout the 2019 election campaign.

On the day he became PM he said: “I am announcing now – on the steps of Downing Street – that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared”.

No such plan existed. Still doesn’t. Entirely made up.

He said, “Protecting vulnerable children will remain our priority after Brexit”, and then later the same week he dropped legal protections for vulnerable and unaccompanied children.

And then Covid came.

Johnson had already closed the govt’s anti-pandemic Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee months earlier. He’d ignored the findings of Exercise Cygnus, which highlighted “gaping holes” in our preparedness. He hadn’t even looked at the pandemic response plan.

Johnson missed 5 COBRA meetings about Covid, and between 31 Jan and 30 Mar 2020, his govt missed 8 intergovernmental calls or conferences to discuss a unified approach to tackling the pandemic.

What was Johnson doing instead of tackling Covid?

In Feb 2020 he asked Dominic Cummings, “Do you think it’s OK if I spend a lot of time writing my Shakespeare book?” because “this divorce is very expensive”.

Cummings wrote: “he wanted to get back to what he loves while shaking down the publishers for some extra cash.

In late Feb 2020, as tens of thousands were dying overseas from Covid, Dominic Cummings told Johnson that unless he sacked the useless Matt Hancock: “we are going to kill people and it’s going to be a catastrophe”.

Johnson did not sack Hancock.

But he did try to take credit for Hancock quitting, claiming that as soon as the video footage of Hancock breaking distancing rules emerged, he had acted. In reality, Hancock resigned 48 hours later, while Johnson had a long weekend at Chequers

March. In the morning SAGE issued advice to stop shaking hands. The same afternoon, Johnson visited a hospital and said he “shook hands with everybody, you will be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands”.

He also shook hands with everybody on This Morning later that week, where he outlined his plan to “allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population” rather than taking measures to stop a quarter of a million deaths.

“Let the bodies pile high”, he later said.

A senior advisor said of his Covid approach: “What you learn about Boris was he didn’t chair any meetings. He liked his country breaks. He didn’t work weekends. There was a real sense that he didn’t do urgent crisis planning. It was exactly like people feared he would be”.

As, under Johnson’s idle leadership, Britain became one of the only countries in the world to keep schools, ports and airports open, a Harvard prof of epidemiology said: “I could not believe it. My colleagues here in the US assumed that reports of the UK policy were satire”.

Rather than do the boring, non-flashy, but useful things, such as isolating and closing ports, Johnson spent £66m on a headline-grabbing Nightingale Hospital in Birmingham that treated exactly zero patients during the entire pandemic. Zero. Not one.

The Tories spent approx £400m a month buying up the entire bed capacity of the nation’s private hospitals to deal with Covid.

In the year to Mar 2021, those private contractors treated no Covid patients AT ALL on 39% of days, and only 1 patient on another 20% of days.

He appeared to place Brexit posturing above healthcare, as he refused to accept an invitation from the EU to join a scheme to share PPE and ventilators. Instead his spokesman said we are “no longer a member” so would “be making our own efforts”.

So we had no PPE or ventilators

He made a secret, probably illegal deal with James Dyson to adjust tax regimes in Dyson’s favour, in return for ventilators that Dyson couldn’t even make.

“I am First Lord of the Treasury,” wrote Johnson, “and you can take it that we are backing you to do what you need”.

He opened an illegal VIP lane for bids to provide PPE coming in from “government officials, ministers’ offices, MPs, members of the House of Lords”.

Only Tory members, MPs etc were told about this. Civils servants reported “drowning” in hopelessly implausible bids from VIPs

This meant they didn’t have time to deal with real bids from actual suppliers. Hundreds and hundreds of millions – billions in fact – vanished into VIP lanes, going to well-connected Tory insiders who often didn’t deliver anything usable, and sometimes delivered nothing at all.

An investigation found at least £1.6 billion had been handed to companies directly connected to the Tory Party. Transparency International found 1/5 of all govt contracts related to the pandemic “raised a red flag” for corruption.

An independent report by the Centre for the Study of Corruption found Johnson’s administration was “more corrupt than any UK government since the Second World War”, and that there was an “absolute failure of integrity at Number 10”

Govt guidance said patients should be moved from highly infected hospitals into care homes without getting a Covid test. At least 38,000 died as a result.

Over the same period in S Korea, not a single care home patient died of Covid. Not one. At all.

In the middle of the first wave in June, experts prepared an official report on the likelihood of a second wave, predicted it could kill a further 100,000 people, and outlined what we should do to prepare.

On 13 July Johnson indicated to parliament that he hadn’t even read it.

Meanwhile, parties were going on constantly in Downing St. He attended some, started at least one, and wandered into one, stayed 25 minutes, left without telling anybody to stop, and later pretended he hadn’t known it was a party. The drinks, dancing and DJ didn’t tip him off.

He ennobled his own brother, and Claire Fox, an supporter of IRA terrorism who has never apologised. He also ennobled a Brexiteer cricketer he liked.

But he shoved 21 of his own MPs out of the party because they insisted he stick to one of his Brexit promises.

He suspended parliament illegally, lied about it to The Queen, and pretended he was getting IT lessons from Jennifer Arcuri, when in reality he was thrashing away on top of her like a stranded beluga whenever his cancer-stricken wife wasn’t looking. When the news broke, he lied.

He lied about parties to the public. He lied about parties to parliament. He lied about parties to The Queen, and even had the balls to sympathise over Prince Philip’s spartan, socially distanced funeral, when there had been 2 parties in Downing St the night before.

Reports say that during the ABBA-themed party in his own Downing St flat on his birthday, top secret documents were left lying around on the desk for anybody to see, and somebody got so pissed they accidentally set off the alarm, bringing police running to save everyone.

Two years running, Johnson ignored expert advice about not relaxing the lockdown at Xmas.

For the first time in their 100 year history the top 2 medical journals did a joint plea not to do it.

Both years saw massive rise in Covid deaths 3 weeks later, killing around 33,000.

He cancelled school meals for hungry kids, then abused people who complained. Then he lied about discussing it with Marcus Rashford.

And then, when Rashford got an honour for his work, Johnson congratulated Rashford on his success in overturning his own policies.

When Owen Paterson was done for iffy lobbying, Johnson tried to change the rules so Paterson wouldn’t have to face punishment.

When Chris Pincher was done for groping, Johnson tried to change the rules so Pincher could keep his job.

He’d been warned about Pincher groping many, many people, but had said “Pincher by name, Pincher by nature” and gave him a job anyway.

Pincher was thought so bad, had to have “minders” to prevent him getting “incredibly drunk” and groping people again. Johnson knew this.

Johnson wrote the introduction to the ministerial code, but when Partygate happened he attempted to re-write the code to remove the bit about him having to resign for lying.

He then tried to get the scandal investigated by somebody who had been at one of the parties.

When that didn’t work, he gave the job to Sue Gray, who found “failures of leadership and judgement”, so Johnson attempted to cajole her into dropping the entire inquiry.

Under Johnson, 10 Downing St became the most law-breaking address in Britain: 126 fines.

Eventually things became so bad that over a 36 hour period, 62 of the government’s 172 ministers, private secretaries and trade envoys resigned in disgust.

Previous record: 11.

Even so, Johnson wanted to make a comeback.

He claimed over 100 MPs had affirmed they would support him in his bid to replace Liz Truss. But he refused to release a list of backers, and journalists could find only 61 people who could possibly back him – all the rest were backing somebody else.

He claimed he should come back because he was “uniquely popular”. In fact, by this time he was the least popular prime minister since modern polls began after WW2, and had even lower approval rates than Jeremy Corbyn – the least popular opposition leader EVER

He said “I take my responsibilities seriously” as defence against the PartyGate inquiry.

In his 7 years as MP for Uxbridge, Hansard lists him mentioning the place 4 times. And two of those were on the same day.

He’s missed 187 Commons votes since leaving as PM.

He lied to parliament over PartyGate. He lied to the inquiry into those lies. He committed contempt of parliament by leaking the report and denigrating the offices of parliament.

Parliament has existed for 750 years.

He is the first PM ever to be castigated for lying.

… back to the top

Thomas Cochrane

Original thread begins here.

You probably won’t have heard of Thomas Cochrane, which is a shame because he once one of the most famous people in the world, a national hero, a disgraced fraudster, sublime annoyer of the French, apparently the owner of absolutely tiny feet, and an astonishingly accomplished piratical maniac.

This is his story. Buckle up.

Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane was born to a wealthy, aristocratic family in 1775 in Hamilton, Scotland, and I should confess immediately that despite everything I really admire the guy. You kinda have to.

But it’s also ok to think he was capable of epic twattery, and if he was alive now he’d be in jail or Downing Street. Probably both.

Practically as soon as he was potty-trained, he began his career of indisputable heroism, technical innovation, radical politics, flagrant nepotism, corrupting elections, stock-market fraud, almost starting world wars, legalised piracy, mercenary warfare, and shameless bullshit.

As a warm-up, aged just 5, he was registered as a crew member on no fewer than four simultaneous Royal Navy ship.

This meant, on paper at least, he’d gain the years of service required for later promotion. This practice was 100% illegal, obviously, but loads of rich families did it.

And just in case, his father also secured for the boy a commission in the Army.

This meant by the age of 11 he was – on paper – simultaneously fighting on 4 separate warships, route-marching across a couple of continents, and receiving daily tutoring at his home in Fife.

His real-world naval career began aged 17, when he joined a ship under his uncle’s command. The Royal Navy in those days was surprisingly meritocratic. Noble birth would only get you so far in a service that prioritised competence; and Cochrane had it.

By age 20 he was a lieutenant, was transferred to the flagship, and immediately fell out with absolutely everybody who wasn’t related to him, and many who were.

None of this was out of character for Cochrane.

Throughout his career, both at sea and on land, he quarrelled lavishly and spectacularly with superiors, subordinates, political opponents, party colleagues, multiple admirals, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the entire body of officers and sailors of the Chilean navy.

I think we call that “life goals”.

His capacity for causing trouble was breath-taking: within months of joining the Royal Navy he was court-martialled for disrespect.

It was also widely rumoured – probably accurately – that he was shagging the wife of his commanding Admiral. Normally this would result in a duel, but Cochrane was a famously bloodthirsty maniac, and nobody wanted to fight him.

So instead, he was often sent on seemingly suicidal and impossible missions in decrepit boats, just to get rid of him.

Despite this, he not only survived: he thrived because he was – depending on who you ask – either remarkably good at killing the French and Spanish; or just as good as anybody else, but one of the lucky few who survived long enough to tell their side of the story.

You would not be wrong to picture this.

Cochrane took part in a couple of successful actions, and was given command of the 14-gun ship “Speedy” – one of the smallest in the Royal Navy – in which he charged around the Mediterranean like a maniac, violently attacking anything that could float and wasn’t a dead gannet.

His men loved him. Genuinely. He treated them well and paid them lots.

Plus, he was astonishing. In his first year in command, Speedy captured or sank 53 enemy ships – one a week. No swash was left unbuckled.

In most cases, he planned as meticulously as he could, but in his most celebrated action he unexpectedly stumbled upon a huge Spanish ship and had to improvise.

He began the action at a massive disadvantage, a side-effect of his own brilliance.

Whenever a ship was captured, they had to send it back to port, with some of his own crew on board. He’d captured so many that his ship was already struggling with half its normal capacity.

And then El Gamo rocked up.

El Gamo was four times the size of Speedy, with twice as many guns and six times as many crew.

In such circumstances a captain was expected sail away as fast as possible, even throwing his own guns and water overboard to make the ship lighter and faster.

Cochrane was having none of that. Instead, in frankly dazzling display of seamanship and courage, said “fuck it” and sailed straight at her, enduring a couple of full broadsides as he charged.

He began by getting as close as he could while sailing under a false flag. The moment the shooting began, he switched to the Union Jack and stood on the deck as the Spanish fired a few hundred tons of iron at him.

He had nowhere to hide on a ship so small. He’d have felt it was dishonourable to hide anyway. So he stood on the deck, not returning fire, as the Spaniards blasted cannon at him for 15 minutes.

Cochrane had realised El Gamo was so much bigger than his own ship that if he got close enough to literally bump hulls with her (oo-er) she wouldn’t be able to fire down onto his decks. But he’d be able to fire into her hull, point blank.

So that’s what he did, blasting holes in her from inches away.

When El Gamo’s crew tried to board Speedy, he just steered 20 feet away.

When the Spanish boarding party ran back to fire their guns at the now shootable Speedy, Cochrane just crashed into El Gamo again, and kept firing point blank.

After a bloody half hour of this, he led his tiny crew in an absolutely insane attack.

The only man he left aboard Speedy was the ship’s doctor, who didn’t even know how to steer it.

Not only that, Cochrane actually charged using only half his men – he sent the rest around the back of the ship to attack from behind.

So he ended up beating almost 400 armed Spaniards with just 54 knackered men, only 27 of whom charged from the front. He only lost 3 men.

Honestly: amazing.

In those days, when a captain captured a ship, the govt literally bought it off him. The admiral got a cut, so did the officers – even the men did. They all got rich, but Cochrane got INCREDIBLY rich.

That year in the Med made Cochrane an Admiral, vastly famous, and epically wealthy. He retired and went into politics as a “radical”, committed to ending the practice of rich people corruptly buying seats in parliament. A noble aim.

Unfortunately, his opponent in the seat of Honiton (recent home of tractor wanker Neil Parish) had no problem with buying votes. Cochrane lost the election.

But he wasn’t a man to give up, so he tried again a couple of years later, won the seat, and ended his life in the Lords.

Stirring music. Fade to black. Exit via the gift shop. What a hero.

Right?

Ummm… Ok, this is where things become a bit … odd.

Turns out, Cochrane won the seat of Honiton by the simple expedient of paying ten guineas per vote.

He denied doing it at the time of the election, but a decade later he literally stood up in parliament and announced he was only there because he paid for each vote. It was blatant corruption, and the polar opposite of what he went into politics to achieve.

He then took a bit of time off from winning global conflicts and corrupting democracy, cos he had an idea for some tunnelling equipment, which he patented along with an engineer you might have heard about: Brunel.

It was used to build the Thames Tunnel.

Then he gave some thought to paving, and patented the use of asphalt, which is still used on pretty much every road in pretty much every part of the world.

He did that. Asphalt. On his day off.

He also invented multiple improvements to naval equipment and street lighting.

And poison gas, which he advocated launching into France. So … a mixed bag.

But it wasn’t all fun: he next became embroiled in the aptly named Great Stock Exchange Fraud.

In 1814, as the Napoleonic war continued, a man arrived in a pub in Dover, claiming he was aide to a British General, and had news: Napoleon was dead, and war was over. Word spread fast, and the Stock Market went ape-shit.

The value of govt bonds soared in the morning, and then, as it became increasingly clear the entire thing was a hoax, the value plummeted again in the afternoon.

Plus ça change.

But why would somebody perpetrate such a hoax?

Who could possibly gain by telling palpable lies to a gullible public about the collapse of a major European political infrastructure?

What sort of person would use his fame to go around bad-mouthing our banking institutions while his secretive backers make a fortune betting against them?

It is a complete mystery, obviously.

Investigations found that days before the fake news arrived in Dover, 6 individuals purchased £1.1m of govt stocks, which they sold during that morning’s boom.

£1.1m is equivalent to a few billion today. We’re talking big money.

And one of those investors? Thomas Cochrane.

The pretend aide spreading rumours in Dover was the arrestingly-named Charles Random de Berenger, a Prussian aristocrat who had been seen entering Cochrane’s home on the day before the hoax.

Cochrane was arrested and put on trial, and his defence came down to this:

What do I, a mere life-long sailor, know about pubs in our major ports?

How can I, a mere member of the House of Commons, be expected to understand the stock market?

You can trust me; I’ve only been telling documented lies since I was 5 years old.

It was stirring stuff.

He was found incredibly guilty, stripped of his knighthood and his naval rank (literally stripped – his sash was torn off him and thrown down the courtroom steps).

He was then expelled from parliament, fined, and sentenced to be put in the stocks in a public place, and pelted with whatever old shite passers-by could find for a few hours.

This sounds mild, bordering on being quite fun in a village fête kind of way; but it often resulted in the criminal losing an eye or two, and those who had become fans of Cochrane began to lobby against the sentence.

People in this country don’t want our political heroes to face justice, do we?

But mainstream politicians, keen to see justice and honesty retain a place in our society (as if!), insisted Cochrane should be punished. They pointed out that he was not exactly a stable, law-abiding character.

A few years earlier one of his parliamentary colleagues had barricaded himself into his own home to avoid an arrest warrant. Being a decent chap who wants the best for everybody, Cochrane had offered to come to his aid.

And that all sounds quite kind and helpful until you realise Cochrane’s plan was to gather together some old shipmates, bombard the London townhouse with cannon, and then storm it, leaving the property destroyed and the arresting officers (and probably everyone else) dead.

A good indication of Cochrane’s views on the boundaries of acceptable behaviour.

Yet the public loves a rogue, especially one who annoys the French, and enough people were passionately pro-Cochrane that the evidence no longer seemed to matter.

His sentence was downgraded, and other than a £1000 fine, he essentially got away with a (probable) vast fraud.

Or did he?

Cos there is another explanation.

There have been long suggestions the entire fraud was just … a fraud. The theory is that the Admiralty wanted to publicly disown Cochrane so they could send him on a secret mission to destabilise Spanish South America, and plausibly deny it was on behalf of Britain.

This fits in with the next bit cos, honestly, Cochrane had barely warmed up.

To escape the controversy, Cochrane took his family and moved to, of all places, Chile, a nation which officially didn’t exist, being a colony of Spain.

He immediately became friends with the leaders of the independence movement, and just 2 months later he was made not just a citizen, but an Admiral in the Chilean Navy, and told to win their independence.

His default plan for practically everything – from a roast-beef dinner, to a friend’s marriage, to a Spanish flagship – was to destroy it in a demented fury.

So he set about organising the Chilean navy with his usual zeal.

And yet, in the proud tradition of Britons abroad, he refused so utterly to speak any Spanish that the entire Chilean Navy had to learn English, and widely hated him for it.

But against all odds he held things together long enough to help free Chile and Peru from their colonial masters. This added Spain to the list of people who hated Cochrane, alongside France, Chile and much of England.

Yet remarkably, in less than two years, and without speaking a word of the local language, he helped bring about independent government across the region.

Then, presumably bored by peace, he apparently started a rumour that he wanted to invade Saint Helena and free the imprisoned Napoleon from his exile.

Napoleon would then (it was supposed) forgive Cochrane for single-handedly sinking half the French Navy, and then (it was supposed) Napoleon and Cochrane would join forces to rule a unified South America.

You won’t be shocked to learn the Chileans and Peruvians were less than keen on this idea, so Cochrane was cordially invited to fuck off to a different continent.

So he came back to Europe, and did basically the same thing again, this time in Greece.

He joined the Greek independence movement, and in only a couple of years his military skills had helped to free the nation from Turkish rule.

The weird thing is, he appeared to be fiercely pro-Empire, but also entirely opposed to the notion of colonial rule.

Everybody should be free, except when they were taken over by Britain, in which case they should just be grateful.

This idiotic collection of incompatible ideas is not as rare as you’d imagine.

Anyway, after he’d pretty much single-handedly demolished Napoleon’s navy, driven the Spanish out of South America and battered the Ottoman Empire into dust, the British decided it was time to let bygones be bygones, and he was invited home again.

By the time he got back to Britain, everybody seemed to have forgotten we’d just kicked him out in disgrace, and he was swiftly knighted for a second time, reinstated into the Royal Navy as an Admiral again, and given a seat in the House of Lords.

By the time the Crimean War began, Cochrane was an old man. But that wasn’t why the Navy didn’t give him a command.

Bluntly, the British concluded Cochrane was too likely to lead a daring attack against all the odds, and risk the entire fleet.

Aged 80, he was still a nutter.

But he didn’t want to sit out a good fight, so he hired a warship – yeah, you could do that in those days – crewed it out of his own pocket, and offered to charge up and down the Russian coast bombarding their ports, like a mad octogenarian pirate.

He lived long enough to be photographed, and died aged 84 during surgery.

He is buried in Westminster Abbey, a location which means, unlike Nelson’s monument, not a single pigeon gets to shit on him. He’d probably jump out of his grave and beat it to death if one tried.

And to this day the Chilean Navy holds an annual wreath-laying ceremony at his grave

The end.

Yes, I’m well aware he’s the model for Jack Aubrey in the (truly BRILLIANT) books by Patrick O’Brien – that’s how I first heard of Cochrane.

Somebody should turn his life (or the books) into an epic series.

… back to the top

Francis Drake

Original thread begins here.

If you liked my Thomas Cochrane thread – and you’d be mad not to – here’s some more historical naval shenanigans, this time featuring the story of Frances Drake.

You might think you know this story. But I bet you were never told the interesting, ludicrous stuff that makes history fun.

Let’s start in 1588, when as you probably know, Spain launched a huge fleet with the aim of overthrowing Elizabeth I and conquering England.

At least in part, they did this to stop our pirates from being such a monumental pain in their arse.

But also: we had the wrong flavour of God, or something. The Spanish strongly felt out imaginary friend should be the same as their imaginary friend, and decided to kill us until we agreed.

You’ll know this bit too, I’m sure: as the 130 Spanish ships approached out coast, the Brits packed our most ancient and decrepit boats with junk, set them on fire, and shoved them towards the Spanish.

The Armada scattered, and the weather took care of the rest, driving them towards the Dutch coast.

Thus, the great military achievement of the Elizabethan era was settled by a combination of a typical English summer and an aquatic bin fire.

But somebody had to come out of it a hero, and that somebody was Sir Francis Drake. Enter the propagandists.

The things you “know” about Drake are mostly false.

He didn’t finish his game of bowls before being bothered to defeat the Spanish – that story didn’t appear until some 40 years after the events, and bad weather kept him in Plymouth: not fannying around with ball games.

And Drake wasn’t knighted by Queen Elizabeth in a scene of heroic majesty on the deck of the his ship, the Golden Hind. A visiting French diplomat did that, largely cos it wasn’t deemed especially important.

Elizabeth was retrofitted into the story during the Victorian era, when somebody decided tying female monarchs to national heroism might lend some legitimacy.

You see, the demands of nationalist propaganda predate The Daily Mail, and British culture cannot have an innate stoicism unless our heroes do something stoical, ideally at moments of national crisis, and in front of eyewitnesses who can do lightning-fast woodcut illustrations.

The truth?

Aged about 12, Drake became apprentice to a neighbour who owned ship that traded with France.

By his early 20s, he was ready for his first foray into piracy and slave-trading, which is unpleasant enough on its own; but without wishing to undermine a national legend, he was an absolute bloody shambles at it too.

He raided Portuguese settlements in West Africa, stole as many of their recently captured slaves as he could, then headed off to the Americas to offload the cargo.

But somehow, Drake managed to fail to sell the purloined slaves, not even at a knock-down price.

The 90 slaves were released without payment, and remarkably the expedition (which had a business plan of stealing something in high demand, and then selling it for pure profit) still managed to made a loss.

God knows, I don’t want to elicit sympathy for slavers, but this was a bit like letting a casino go bankrupt: you have to wonder how inept the management must be.

Anyway, the next year Drake was back, determined to make a better fist of things.

If anything, it got worse.

This time, he tried to do honest trading on the Mexican coast, with the full knowledge of the local Spanish authorities.

But the Spanish back in Spain weren’t happy about this arrangement, and ordered Drake gone. With no warning, Drake was attacked in port. Two thirds of his ships were sunk, and he only escaped by running away and swimming out to sea. Yknow: like heroes do.

The Spanish having a bit of a stroppy turn was probably because Drake was, as we’d describe it now, a bloody maniacal pirate bastard, who before he went to Mexico had murdered and robbed his way around the North Atlantic on a regular basis

Still, he felt aggrieved that his “honest” job still ended in him being set on fire and chased into the sea.

In a right old mood, Drake decided to exact his revenge on the Spanish in central America.

So in 1572 he formed an alliance with a band of escaped African slaves in Panama, and between them they planned a surprise attack on a Spanish mule-train of silver and gold, which was being exported from the Spanish empire in Peru.

As it was transported overland through the thick jungle where the Panama Canal now sits, Drake attacked the convoy, and liberated the loot.

But he was injured in the melee and was bleeding heavily. He abandoned all the cash, plus his newfound slave friends, and scarpered.

All his newfound new slave friends were captured and killed. But he didn’t pause to grieve for long: his plan had nearly worked.

So the following year he decided to surprise the Spanish by doing – let me check my notes – EXACTLY THE SAME THING AGAIN.

This time, if anything, things went a bit TOO well.

When the dust cleared after his second not-so-surprising surprise attack, Drake found himself in possession of 20 tons of silver and gold, and nowhere near enough manpower to carry it.

His party separated out the more valuable gold, and buried the silver.

(This event probably gave rise to the legend that pirates bury their treasure).

Drake’s party, weighed down with literally tons of gold, then began the laborious trek back through 20 miles of pathless, mountainous jungle, to the shore where their raiding boats awaited.

Except, whoopsie! – the boats weren’t there. Our majestic hero had failed to tie them up properly, and they’d been washed away. He and the gold were trapped on the shore.

And the vengeful Spanish were in hot pursuit.

So Drake quickly cobbled-together a flimsy driftwood raft and, dignity intact, half-sailed, half-sploshed his way out to his flagship to get aid.

He and his gold made it back to England, where he fully expected a hero’s welcome. Oh, Francis, have you learned nothing?

In his absence, the English had signed a truce with the Spanish, which made it impossible for Drake to be officially acknowledged.

The Crown still took its half the money though. Obvs.

And so, after four failed attempts, Drake’s first taste of success led to him abandoning all his silver and most of his men, and then losing half his remaining profits to a monarch who officially refused to accept he even existed.

Still, he put it down as a rare “win”.

Drake’s other major achievement, apart from the Armada business, was the first circumnavigation of the globe under a surviving captain.

Ferdinand Magellan made the first circumnavigation, but as a consequence of a minor planning error, Magellan failed to stay alive to the end of the journey; so Drake gets the plaudits.

When Drake landed in what is now California, he *claimed* local Indians placed a hat on his head. And he *claimed* this technically made him king of the entire continent.

Back in London, lawyers with as many scruples as Drake (but far more competence) used this hat-based rumour to justify taking over the whole of America. So Drake got knighted.

His uncharacteristic run of good luck continued with the Armada victory, and afterwards he decided to capitalise on his sudden fortune by launching… The English Armada!

(He wasn’t a fan of original ideas, our Francis)

Anyway, off he toddled to finish off the last few bits of the Spanish navy.

Drake’s fleet consisted of 6 galleons, 60 heavily armed merchant vessels, 80 assorted smaller ships, and 23,000 men.

Meanwhile the remaining Spanish fleet was down to just one galleon and 1,500 men.

In a stunning return to form, Drake failed dismally, losing 20 of his own vessels and 12,000 lives.

As he fled home, morale amongst Drake’s remaining fleet was unsurprisingly not great.

So, seemingly just to cheer himself up, he decided to attack the defenceless coastal town of Vigo, which he pounded with cannon for four days before landing and setting the remains on fire.

Yet even though Vigo was completely undefended, Drake still managed to lose another 500 men in the utterly pointless attack.

Back home, his disgrace was such that he was barely allowed near so much as a gravy boat for six years, and when he did return to the sea few could call it a success.

He failed dismally in his planned conquest of the Azores and the Canary Isles.

And then, perhaps feeling European war wasn’t his true metier, he led another a campaign against the Spanish in Central America.

You’ll be astonished to hear it didn’t go swimmingly.

He lost the battle of San Juan, buggered up a raid on Puerto Rico, and was nearly killed in a meaningless skirmish off El Morro. Loss after loss after loss.

And then, finally giving up on the sea, he decided to assault Panama by land, which worked out just about as well as any of his previous ventures.

Most of his men died of dysentery in the jungle without achieving a single military success.

And then, on 28 January 1596, Sir Francis Drake also shat himself to death, and was buried at sea between the wrecks of two of his own scuttled British ships.

And as metaphors go, that’s pretty on-the-nose.

End of thread.

… back to the top

The Twisted Brain Wrong Of A One Off Man Mental

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