I’m sitting here watching Andrew Marr’s Sunday morning show on the TV and in particular a one-to-one interview with Sajid Javid, our current Chancellor of the Exchequer. And honestly, Sajid Javid seems far more comfortable and well-versed in touting his fear-mongering bullshit about what a Labour government lead by Jeremy Corbyn would be like than discussing in-depth any potential post-election Conservative Party pledges. Give him his due, Andy Marr is constantly picking him up on it and correcting him but seriously guys – all I’m left feeling is that the Tory party are terrified of having their empty promises exposed and they’re running shit-scared of the electorate…
Tag: politics
Haters Gonna Hate
So apparently we’re having a General Election on December 12th, and the usual election campaigning has begun. My understanding of election campaigning is that each political party should tell us what THEY intend to do for the country, and once we’ve heard what all the different parties tell us exactly what THEY intend to do for us all, we make an informed choice and each choose which party to vote for.
However, already (only one day in) things have become confused. If I hear a Conservative politician speak on the campaign trail, I expect him or her to convince me why I should vote for the Conservative Party by explaining basic Conservative policies. Or when a Labour politician is given air time, I expect Labour Party policies to be expounded positively. Instead, Tories seem intent on telling me what an awful mess a Labour Government would make of the country, and Labour are falling over themselves to slag off the Tories.
Personally I don’t want to vote for anyone who is effectively saying ‘ Don’t vote for them, they’re crap’ as a favoured twisted campaign tactic – hiding behind negative anti-other-guy criticism is hardly germane to the question of what YOUR party can positively offer to prospective voters. My message to all those Haters-Gonna-Hate-style politicians out there – forget spewing your skewed opinion on what you think your opponent might or might not do, stick to voicing only your OWN message in plain straightforward language. And if you can’t do that, don’t expect me to vote for you…
Fandango’s One Word Challenge: Germane
One Liner Wednesday: 25 September 2019
Colleagues… Welcome back to our place of work…
Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow, today in Parliament – the first day back for MPs after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s contraversial prorogation of Parliament was declared unlawful by the UK Supreme Court 🙂
Eleven Nil
When it comes to Who Won the Week for me this week, the answer has to be the eleven judges of the UK Supreme Court who today unanimously judged Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s recent prorogation of Parliament to be illegal! So instead of being completely shut down until the middle of next month as determined so undemocratically two weeks ago by our arrogant Prime Minister, Parliament will now be resumed tomorrow morning at 11.30am, hopefully in nice time for Wednesday’s usual weekly Prime Minster’s Questions at mid-day.
Prorogation is one of those words I’d never really heard before its defining debut this summer, and had absolutely no idea what it actually meant until very recently. But now the nuanced differences between having an ordinary Parliamentary recess (a break in everyday proceedings in the House of Commons at this time of year to allow for all the annual party conferences to take place, while other important Parliamentary business like Select Committees can continue to meet) and prorogation’s complete blanket ban on all Parliamentary business for the duration at such a critical political moment of national crisis are foremost in our minds.
Regardless of differing and oh-so-divisive political opinions on Brexit, the Supreme Court’s ruling today that no-one can be above the law – not even would-be World King Boris Johnson – has to be a good thing. Deliberate and devious manipulation of historical political practices and procedures in order to prevent proper Parliamentary scrutiny of shifty shenanigans can surely never be condoned in law – that to me would be a clear mis-use of Prime Ministerial prerogative power, and would potentially set a loop-hole precedent in perpetuity that has now thankfully been closed.
With any luck Boris Johnson’s sneaky running-down-the-clock Brexit-by-the-back-door plan has been well and truly stymied by today’s ruling by the Supreme Court – Government must always be held to account and not be allowed to ride rough-shod over process and procedure (not to mention long-standing party colleagues) in the self-serving scramble to manage any disastrous damage-limitation from their spectacular own-goal minority status in Parliament.
However churned up the ground beneath has become, however obfuscated the waters of mud-slinging democratic debate within the current House of Commons, the rule of law must always stand firm regardless…
Who Won the Week? 15 Sept 2019
I have two joint contenders for Who Won the Week this week, both relating to the current UK political debacle surrounding Brexit and bungling Boris Johnson, our fledgling floundering Prime Minister…
My husband and I like to listen to BBC Radio 4 every morning while we’re pottering about in the bedroom getting up and dressed. Sometimes we hear a whole interview or whatever, and sometimes we just hear snippets in the passing. One morning during this week I heard a comment made by someone (didn’t catch the name) at a local Conservative Club (didn’t catch where) about his personal opinion of Boris Johnson.
What do you think about Boris Johnson? asked the interviewer. The reply came without hesitation from contender number one: ‘Well he thinks he’s Winston Churchill, but he’s not. He’s a buffoon.’
Ha! And this from a bona-fide paid-up member of the Tory Party… Imagine what members of the opposition parties think of him!
Contender number two comes in the form of Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who during a televised Press Conference with said buffoon commented:
‘Negotiating FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) with the EU and the US […] is going to be a Herculean task for you. We want to be your friend and ally, your Athena, in doing so’
Classically-educated Boris Johnson in a previous Prime-Ministerial Press Conference referred to preferring to allow his Brexit negotiators to continue negotiating with the EU ‘without the Sword of Damocles over their necks’ referring to imminent danger hanging by the most slender of threads potentially clouding their ability to negotiate properly.
So it seemed very fitting for Leo Varadkar to use characters from Greek mythology to send a subtly teasing (yet serious at heart) message to our PM – because when Hercules went on a mad rampage and destroyed his wife and children, it was Athena who intervened, knocking him out and thereby preventing any further damage… Says it all, really…
You, sirs, together absolutely win the week for me hands down – top comments from both of you, and they still make me smile even today 🙂
Tory Party Leadership Contest: A Proper Food Fight
I was half-listening to an informal TV interview held with a group of Tory Party members of the public this afternoon about their views on the two opponents in the current Tory Leadership contest, when one woman said something that caught my attention and really made me smile.
She commented that Boris Johnson was a bit like the sugar rush of an ice cream sundae, all frothy and fun while it lasts; but Jeremy Hunt was more like a boring cheese sandwich – dull but with far more long-term nutritional substance (or words to that effect!) 🙂
Teflon Trump
Fandango’s Provocative Question this week asks:
‘Do you believe that Donald Trump is an effective American President who should remain in office despite having accepted aid from a foreign adversary (Russia) and having committed obstruction of justice into the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential elections? Do you believe that Trump should or should not be impeached for his actions? Why?’
Ooohhh, interesting question, and most definitely provocative… perhaps you should prepare for a bit of a rant… Being a Brit – and a proud Scot at that – I’m so excrutiatingly embarrassed to think that Donald Trump has any Scottish genes running through his blood. You could say I’m black-affronted by his behaviour, and fair scunnered by his sense of superciliousness…
Even taking only the very first opening phrase of Fandango’s question, personally I don’t think Trump is an effective American President at all, regardless of any alleged complicity in proven Russian interference in the last Presidential election process. The man’s a bloody nightmare of a President no matter what, psychologically insecure with an obvious inferiority complex as long as his ridiculous tie and then some. And to be honest at this point I couldn’t care less if he’s impeached or not – as long as he’s not re-elected to a second term.
He says whatever he likes, whenever he likes, however racist or misogynist his particular opinion of the moment may be, then either avoids answering, contradicts himself or flatly denies it when someone calls him out on it. His behaviour is curiously childish and churlish, he yearns for constant attention but can’t accept criticism of any kind. He pretends to be a ‘man of the people’ by bad-mouthing whatever is the standard American version of ‘the establishment’ but in reality he is also as far removed from your average American as any other spoiled-brat dad-made millionaire.
His narcissistic, nationalistic plan to ‘Make America Great Again’ seemingly at the expense of undermining America’s previously secure standing on an increasingly growing international stage is, to my mind, worryingly misjudged and myopic. Trump clearly admires autocratic rule rather than democratic leadership – he schmoozes sycophantically with Putin and Kim Jong Un, smugly salivating at what he seems to see as their singular success.
And as far as pulling the US out of both the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran Nuclear Deal with such pompous political posturing – well, that may well backfire spectacularly in the long-run, speaking more of braggadocio bully-boy big-mouthed bluster and badly-judged brinkmanship than deft diplomatic discussion and decision-making.
Meanwhile his public picking of a pathetic playground fight with China over trade tarrifs is unashamedly ramped-up with more of the same social media spewing he rallies round and relies on so consistently. I’ve heard of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, but to many of us across the globe this off-the-scale level of divide-and-rule deliberate world order disruption is tipping dangerously close into megalomania.
Running a country is a very different beast from running a company – not that he’s necessarily got a good track record on that front, either. After all Trump is not CEO of USA plc – so when he inevitably screws up this time he can’t just let the country file for bankruptcy, pass on the losses to the poverty-stricken bulk of the population and walk away without a second glance, Teflon-coated to ensure nothing looking remotely like failure (financial or otherwise) ever sticks to him personally.
OK, I’m done…
