#boris johnson is incompetent

[hunnter]

You’ve heard of Suella Braverman getting sacked then rehired a week later after leaking sensitive information while home secretary, now get ready for Liz Truss having her phone hacked by Russia while she was Foreign Secretary but getting the whole story covered up by Boris Johnson so that her leadership bid wasn’t hurt by it

#can we go like 12 hours without a fresh story of corruption and incompetence happening in the govt #theres too much fucking news!!!! #uk politics #liz truss #suella braverman #boris johnson #article #my posts

[labourites]

Wes Streeting destroying every single thing about Boris Johnson & his value brand Conservative party in under 2 minutes 🔥🔥🔥

#tory incompetence #british politics #tory cunts #tory scum #wes streeting #uk labour #labourites #vote labour #great britain #boris johnson #tory lies #keir starmer #ukpolitics #britain 🇬🇧 #btitish politics #politics #uk government

[chriswhodrawsstuff]

Amateur Hour

I’ve been feeling very frustrated of late for a number or reasons and, unlike many people nowadays, the first person I look to for blame is myself. It’s important to check the basics first and it is usually much more simple to change something in you than to look for others to blame. Years of therapy have told me to be wary of being too hard on myself and I’ve had too many people in the past,…

View On WordPress

#actually autistic #Autism #boris johnson #broken britain #dunning krueger effect #Human nature #incompetence #insights #Life #morality #rishi sunak #virtue signalling #wisdom

[zmkccommonplace]

There simply is no case for Boris, no justification for any continued role in public life. None of the accusations against him — his constant lies, his disregard for Westminster conventions — would matter in the slightest if he were just competent, but he is not.

#boris johnson #incompetence

[novoki]

Gladstone: Chief Mouser of the Treasury

Larry the Cat gets a ton of attention across the internet for his role as Chief Mouser at No. 10, but nobody knows about Gladstone which makes me super sad so i’m here to rectify that:

Gladstone is the Chief Mouser of Her Majesty’s Treasury in Whitehall, London. he was appointed in 2016 following Larry and Palmerston’s appointments as Chief Mousers of No. 10 and the Foreign Office respectively - and should get just as much as, if not more (as i personally believe), attention as them!

why, you say? well ohoho i’m glad you asked:

1) he’s better at his job than Larry

Larry is well-known for his “lack of killer instinct” and is notoriously bad at his job as Chief Mouser. the press calls him “Lazy Larry” due to his tendency to sleep on while mice run amok and in 2012 was almost fired from his position due to incompetency!

Gladstone, by comparison, is a natural mouser. 

Gladstone’s catch count was last reported as 22, far higher than Larry’s (if not as high as Palmerston’s, i’ll admit). Gladstone made his first catch within 48 hours of arriving at the Treasury whereas it took Larry just under two months. Larry also had to have an assistant appointed, Freya, to help with mousing duties; Gladtsone catches all his mice himself, and has even moved onto flies, as can be seen above.

2) he’s fashionable as all hell

while all the cats of Whitehall are undoubtedly adorable, only one can hold the title for best dressed: Gladstone.

clearly, Larry and Palmerston have nothing on Gladstone. both have simple solid-coloured collars whereas Gladstone is leading the fashion revolution with every new bowtie he wears.

in fact, he’s started a trend with his bowties! when Evie and Ossie became the new Chief Mousers of the Cabinet Office in late 2016, they sported Gladstone’s iconic bowties. #styleicon

3) he’s a social media influencer

the last reason Gladstone should be just as much a household name as Larry and Palmerston is because his job isn’t only limited to mousing - he also uses his platforms to spread the message about his work:

Gladstone’s Twitter and Instagram is filled with constant updates as to what the Treasury is doing, and he often features in simple ‘5 things about ___’ videos that are cute as well as informative. he’s also seen frequently supporting global events like Pride yearly (hence the rainbow bowtie above).

4) in summary: he’s awesome

now that Palmerston has retired to lead a more chill life, and now that Larry looks to be on the horizon of replacing Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, perhaps it’s time to acknowledge how cool Gladstone is and pay him the respect and attention he deserves?

#in other words: my latest hyperfication #cats in power is so fucking funny though #cats in power #cats of the world #cats #funny #uk politics #gladstone the cat #larry the cat #palmerston the cat #chief mouser #lol #comedy #uk #united kingdom #cats in politics #hm treasury #westminster #whitehall

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

They’ve suspended Matt Hancock for going on I’m a celeb. Thoughts?

YEAH THEY HAVE

Okay so for those just joining us let me explain this latest dance segment in the clown show

So during the Pandemic, back in the days of Big Dog the Clown being our Prime Minister and encouraging us all to go out and catch COVID because he thought that would make us all stronger, our Health Secretary was a terrifyingly incompetent humanoid blancmange called Matt Hancock. As with all of BlowJo's Cabinet, Matt got the job because he was absolutely fucking terrible at everything except being an oily sycophant. Imagine, if you will, they looked around the circus and saw, not even a clown, but one of the freaks in the freak show; not because he even fit the profile for 'circus freak', but because all he had to do was sit there and guard the bin or something equally useless, and that was all he could achieve (for about 71% of the time, and he would otherwise get distracted by candy floss, which he would try to eat by ramming it into his own nostrils and then get into a muddle and cry); and then imagine that guy is who they selected to be in charge of safety for the acrobat show, and called him Chief Safety Clown.

This guy.

So obviously Britain immediately generated one of the worst covid mortality rates on the planet.

But he didn't stay in position too long, because in the summer of 2021, he broke his own lockdown rules by, yes you guessed it, having a greasy affair with an aide in his Downing Street office and taking her on taxpayer-funded dates. And obviously, that was a big problem because the public were super furious with politicians breaking the lockdown rules, so Boris Johnson did the sensible thing and fired him LMAO LOL ROFL I'm sorry I can't keep a straight face, Boris Johnson said it was completely fine and he could stay.

But uh. Matt Hancock decided a lynch mob was not a scenario he'd planned for, so he resigned, and bumbling ham Sajid Javid took over instead.

So, that explains who he is. Now, his signature move is basically to just fellate whichever ringmaster will give him a job, because as you may have guessed, he certainly is not capable of getting a job otherwise, other than guarding the bin. So as the latest ringmaster auditions began, he immediately set about making little "Rishi is the Greatest Briton" badges and generally doing a really good imitation of Nadine Dorries, except for Sunak instead of Johnson.

...which didn't work because Rishi Sunak passed him up for a job entirely lol

So as far as I can see I think Matt Hancock has finally realised that the only reason he was given a job was because Boris gave him one for doing good cheering. I think he's actually spotted that no one else even likes him, because he's greasy and disgusting and also killed loads of people. So if he wants to get back into politics - or indeed if he wants to move from there into the lucrative world of after dinner speaking - he needs to build his public profile as someone who is likeable and doesn't kill a chunk of the country and doesn't have grubby wandering hands like moist prehensile plums.

So, he decided to go on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here.

(???!?!?????)

Except the thing is, "being an MP" is actually a job, and you are actually expected to pretend to do that job. I don't know how anyone else's jobs work, Tumblrs, but I personally am not allowed to just... go to Australia for three weeks without taking any annual leave and abandon the office, and also get paid to do so while still drawing my salary. And it turns out nor are MPs.

His excuses so far are:

I can be an MP in the Australian outback, I'm going to talk about dyslexia so really I'll still be working

I don't think I can work in politics for much longer because I'm bad at guarding the bin and Rishi won't let me do anything else even though I said his hair looks nice :(

Let's see how this is going down!

Oh to have a job where you can decide for yourself you're taking a month off, abandon your work and responsibilities, get paid shedloads and face little consequence. I'm sure he'll be an inspiration to other public servants

-Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union which represents senior civil servants

The prime minister believes that at a challenging time for the country, MPs should be working hard for their constituents, whether that's in the house or indeed in their constituencies.

-Rishi Sunak's spokesperson

Matt Hancock isn’t a ‘celebrity’, he’s the former health secretary who oversaw the UK having one of the highest death tolls in the world from Covid-19 while breaking his own lockdown rules. The fact that he is trying to cash in on his terrible legacy, rather than showing some humility or seeking to reflect on the appalling consequences of his time in government, says it all about the sort of person he is.

-Lobby Akinnola, from the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaign

Following a conversation with Matt Hancock, I have considered the situation and believe this is a matter serious enough to warrant suspension of the whip with immediate effect

-Conservative chief whip, Simon Hart

I’m looking forward to him eating a kangaroo’s penis. You can quote me on that.

-Deputy chair of the West Suffolk Conservative Association, Andy Drummond

So there we have it, folks! It's going super well!!!!

But having the whip suspended means "expelled from the party until the matter is resolved", which means he is, as of now, no longer a Tory - he's an Independent. I imagine his constituents are delighted.

#politik #asks

[aspionagee]

Ao3 Masterlist

Thought I might compile all of my fics in one place, here they are! (Username is aspionage)

completed:

The Parent Trap(87k): Harry Evans, raised by single mother Lily Evans and her best friend Mary Macdonald, begins at Hogwarts and is shocked to meet his twin brother, Simon Potter. The two of them quickly begin plotting to get their parents back together, and switch places over the summer. Closely based off the movie.

Sybillance(457k): A Wrong-Boy-Who-Lived fic where Harry Potter is taken back from the Dursleys aged nine to live with his family. He has to learn to try and bond with his parents and siblings after growing up without them. Features parental Sirius Black, Slytherin Harry and lots of angsty family moments.

oneshots:

Evening, Prime Minister!(5.6k): Minister for Magic Hermione Granger tries to cope as she is forced to deal with Boris Johnson's incompetence during the pandemic.

have yourself a merry little christmas(9.1k): The marauders all gather in Godric's Hollow for Christmas, all with secrets they're trying to hide from each other. Entirely Christmas fluff. Wolfstar and Jily.

Harry Potter and the Duke of Edinburgh Award(11.9k): Harry and his Gryffindor yearmates go on DofE together, featuring all of the drama that brings.

wips:

The Rat Trap: Sequel to the Parent Trap. Peter Pettigrew escapes from Azkaban, and Harry and his family must cope with the fallout, including the revelation that Simon may not actually be the Boy-Who-Lived. Also features Seer Ron, and a Regulus Black who isn't as dead as some might think.

A Patchwork Family: In the summer before third year, Harry is sent to live with Snape and Draco until school starts again, and the three of them gradually begin to realise how wrong they are about each other. Lots of angst, Harry and Draco brotherly bonding and non-biological Severitus.

#ao3 #fanfic #harry potter #james potter #lily evans #sirius black #remus lupin #draco malfoy #jily #wolfstar #wbwl #severitus

[capnsoapy]

congratulations to boris johnson for managing to resign in disgrace twice in nine months

(detailed explanation of Johnson's premiership below if you need to catch up)

After David Cameron resigned due to the Brexit referendum (2016), and Theresa May resigned after failing to enact Brexit (2019), Boris Johnson became the next UK Prime Minster.

Soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and Johnson was in charge of the UK response. Lockdown laws were implemented, so meetings with others were highly restricted and it was an offence to do so; the exact rules changed frequently as the infection spread.

During this period (2020-2021), Boris Johnson held a number of work meetings and parties at Downing Street. When rumours of this circulated (Nov 2021), he repeatedly insisted in parliament that this was not true.

These claims were escalated from rumour with the publication of the "Sue Gray report"; an in-depth investigation into the so-called "Partygate" scandal, which resulted in (amongst other things) Boris Johnson being fined for breaking the law (May 2022).

When this news broke, a vote of no confidence was held in Johnson, and though it narrowly failed to oust him as Conservative leader (59-41), shortly afterwards a slew of Tory MPs began resigning in protest, threatening to collapse the government. His hand was forced, and he resigned as party leader (Jul 2022).

However, he continued as an MP, and so the inquiry continued over whether him lying to parliament should result in him being expelled from the house. During this inquiry, Johnson has claimed that any misleading was due to incompetence and ignorance, rather than intentionally lying (Mar 2023).

Boris Johnson received a copy of the inquiries findings, which recommended he be suspended and that a by-election be held to potentially replace him. After seeing the evidence and conclusions, Johnson immediately resigned (Jun 2023).

The full report will be published to the public shortly.

#ukpol

[komododraggggqueen]

“Would you rather have President Boris Johnson?”

We already had Prime Minister Boris Johnson. The monarchy did not, and by definition could not, stop an incompetent leader from taking the reigns of power.

In fact, an elected head of state might have been able to sack Boris Johnson when he refused to resign. The monarch is honour bound not to do things like that precisely because they’re unelected and unaccountable.

Yes, sometimes bad leaders take charge. That is not a pretext to withhold democracy. The United States didn’t tell the electorate they weren’t allowed to pick the head of state any more because they picked Trump in the past. We will pick a bad president at some point. That’s democracy. The monarchy is not an adequate response to that.

It is perfectly possible to have an elected head of state with even less power than the monarch. The President of Ireland has less power than King Charles, but he’s still elected directly, democratically and with majority approval, he is still bound by term limits, and his wealth and prestige extend only to him, not his entire extended family of inbred, born-to-rule, privileged brats.

#anti monarchy #republicanism #uk politics #monarchy #coronation #king charles #charles iii #prince andrew #michael d higgins #boris johnson

[fallofcorruptbritain]

Scientists not consulted on Eat Out to Help Out - Sir Patrick Vallance - BBC News

Read this article to see how Johnson. Sunak and the other idiot, Hancock, who was Health Minister at the time, did not have a clue during the pandemic in Britain.

Far from managing and containing the spread of Covid, they made it worse by imposing Tory political dogma and sheer callousness ("let them die, they've had their time anyway" with regard to the elderly).

These men are guilty of lies, incompetence and sheer ignorance... and then covering up their appalling actions afterwards. They effectively committed crimes against the British public at large through their misdeeds and wrong decision-making. This cost people's lives.

They should all be prosecuted and jailed... but instead we allow them to get away with their callous crimes as if nothing happened, and then let them go on to make more stinking money on the back of it from tacky TV game shows and public speaking tours, as if they were heroes.

Britain is one messed-up country, and these political chancers have made fools of us.

#uk politics #british politics #conservative party #fuck the tories #britain #tory party #uk #rich v poor #cost of living crisis #tory covid disaster #covid deaths #covid19 #covid enquiry

[zer0-g]

Hitman Achievements inspired by this post

A Room With A View: Push Donald Trump off of his own tower

Agent 91/47 Charges: Kill Donald Trump while dressed as a court judge

Bad Hair Day: Plant a bomb in Donald Trump's new wig

Slight Chance Of Sunburn: Tamper with Donald Trump's new tanning booth

Twitter's Revenge: Kill Elon Musk with a flock of ravenous birds

"X" Marks The Spot: Crush Elon Musk with the new company logo

Account Terminated: Electrocute Elon Musk with the Twitter servers

Putting The "Twit" In Twitter: Let Elon Musk die due to his own incompetence

You Don't Say?: Smother Ron DeSantis with a Pride flag

Gator Getaway: Push Ron DeSantis into alligator infested waters

Fire Safety Drill: Trap Ron DeSantis in a classroom and light it on fire

"Florida Man Pulverises Politician": Convince a bystander to attack Ron DeSantis for you

Crowning Achievement: Kill Charles Windsor in the middle of the coronation

Wrong Ceremony: Lock Charles Windsor in The Queen's casket before it's cremated

Diana Sends Her Regards: Kill Charles Windsor with the specialised paparazzi camera while he's being driven around

Performance Issues: Eliminate Andrew Windsor by spiking his drink with a viagra overdose

Should Have Gone Vegan: Poison Piers Morgan's dinner

Foul On The Field: Trick Piers Morgan with the explosive football

Stroke Of Genius!: Trigger a stroke in Piers Morgan by switching his medication

That's News To Me: Kill Piers Morgan live on TV

A Vote For Green Party: Poison the "Lettuce Truss" and feed it to Liz Truss

Conservative Killing: Kill Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss all at once

Prime Ministers And Prime Pork: Kill Boris Johnson and David Cameron in the Peppa Pig costume

Where Guy Fawkes Failed: Blow up the main chamber of Parliament when all targets are present

I Cast A Spell On You: Kill J.K. Rowling using a wand or broomstick

Potion Making 101: Add something special to J.K. Rowling's cauldron

Best Selling Novel: Topple a bookcase of transgender novels on top of J.K. Rowling

Awkward Transitions: Have "Robert Galbraith" cause the murder of J.K. Rowling

#hitman #my posts #I had fun with these #if anyone wants to add onto this please feel free #I feel like agent 47 would support trans people

[notwiselybuttoowell]

The Conservatives have been in power since 2010. They have visited upon us austerity, inequality, Brexit, corruption, an almost willful incompetence, lethal xenophobia and migrant-bashing, and a “culture war”, largely provoked by themselves, cynically feeding on their supporters’ sense of self-pity – an extended exercise in gaslighting in which perpetrators claim to be victims. Satire has found itself struggling in the face of grotesques such as Boris Johnson and Priti Patel – a reboot of Spitting Image failed spectacularly because if anything it made the trolls by whom we had the misfortune to be governed seem less beyond the pale than they actually were. Despite all that, or perhaps in the face of it, British comedy at its best has become a haven of considerateness, diversity, multiculturalism, richer in its comedic detail and observation and truth to reality than ever before. Certain notions of what comedy should be, while still prevalent, are increasingly discredited. Take the idea that comedy should be “edgy”, a belief persisted in by, among others, Ricky Gervais. This seemingly sharp, rebel imperative has been exposed by, among others, the standup comic James Acaster, as a libertarian pretext for punching down. It was as if to counter the pain and division, at times seemingly deliberate political callousness and strife, that comedy made its dialectical shift from cruelty to kindness as the 00s gave way to the 2010s. At its best it has become not merely banally escapist but a genuine and humane haven. It is a world away from our broken world, and yet British comedy has never been in a better moral state. It has been strengthened by its inclusivity, its diversity, its neurodiversity, all the embedded values of political correctness. It is no longer merely the stories of angry or frustrated white men, though white men are certainly given a more than fair representation in the modern British comic firmament. And it’s this concern for inclusion, as embodied in the work of a Bethany Black, that gives rise to the kindness I allude to: a determination never to punch down, a rule to which even Frankie Boyle solemnly abided in 2020, despite his form earlier in his career.

#british comedy

[bitterlybisexualbard]

Tory MPs of the last 7 years

Name: David Cameron

Won the general election because: His opponant ate a sandwich kinda funny

Best known for: Fucking a dead pig

Left office because: He only called for a Brexit referendum because he was weirdly confident Remain would win, and had absolutely no plan on what to do if Leave won. Saw the shitstorm on the horizon and did not want to preside over it. Resigned in disgrace.

Name: Teresa May

Won the (snap) general election because: Labour wasn’t racist enough about Brexit/she simply refused to leave when she lost her majority and instead ghosted the Queen until she’d found a few non-Tory MPs willing to back her in return for bribes. Was PM BEFORE the snap election based on Tory party leadership votes.

Best known for: Almost restarting the Troubles in Ireland and doing the world’s most awkward dance to ABBA.

Left office because: The EU wouldn’t accept any of her Brexit deals, and parliament wouldn’t sign off on her agreeing to the terms the EU set. Resigned in disgrace.

Name: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson 

Won the (snap) general election because: Labour wasn’t racist enough about Brexit/WTF knows, the British public are apparently easy for Eaton boys who can’t get a sentence out without two racist remarks and ten weird sounds that aren’t actually words. Was PM BEFORE the snap election based on Tory party leadership votes.

Best known for: Hoh boy. Where to start? Breaking laws he literally introduced to the public during lockdown and then saying he broke them because he “didn’t understand them” is probably the standout. Also looking like a teddy bear possessed by horny racist on purpose.

Left office because: See above. Also nepotism. Resigned in disgrace after clinging on as long as he possibly could.

Name: Liz Truss

Won the general election because: Not applicable. There was no election. She won the Tory party leadership vote because her main opponent was a brown Hindu.

Best known for: The Queen dying. Somehow being even more incompetent than Boris Johnson.

Left office because: Her own party of corrupt, hard-right capitalists thought her plans to lift caps on banker bonuses and refusal to tax energy companies or place long-term price caps in the middle of a cost of living crisis were extremely bad. Also no one actually liked her in the first place. Resigned in disgrace.

#UK politics #boris johnson #liz truss #next up: #either de Pfeffel Johnson again somehow (genuine possibility) #or Jeremy Hunt: the man best known for fucking over the NHS turning up to parliament off his face on drugs and then disappearing for months #supposedly the brown Hindu Rishi Sunak is also a possibility but again he is brown and Hindu and Tory party members are extremely racist

[mythologeekwriter]

How am I meant to take these people seriously

Asked if the expletive-laden exchange on WhatsApp suggested that the relationship between Sturgeon and the former prime minister had broken down, her former adviser Liz Lloyd replied: “I think broken down to a degree overstates what was there to break.”

Evidence also emerged on Thursday morning of what appeared to be detailed decision-making on pandemic restrictions and strategy being conducted by WhatsApp messages, in seeming contradiction of Sturgeon’s insistence that she did not conduct her government’s Covid response through informal messaging.

#uk politics #Juno talks

[petermorwood]

“What’s a Mess Webley?”

cw: suicide

That’s a question asked several times after this post went up.

A Mess Webley is the apocryphal “Pistol, Service, Revolver .455, officers (disgraced) for the use of”...

...kept in the Mess, which is where military personnel dine and socialise.

Yes, that’s a wild boar, yes, it’s wearing a top hat and yes, it’s smoking a cigarette in a holder. Because Tradition.

*****

Resorting to the Mess Webley allowed the aforementioned disgraced officer to retain a modicum of honour and integrity, if not necessarily any moral high ground, by Doing The Decent Thing.

To avoid making a mess in the Mess, it’s preferred that DTDT takes place outdoors or at least out-open-window; a .455 is a stonking big soft-nosed bullet and decorators cost a fortune.

*****

It wouldn’t happen in 10 Downing Street anyway; honour, integrity, morality and decency have played no role at that address for a long while now.

As mentioned in the other post, that famous flood of “my-integrity-cannot-tolerate” resignations came from the same shoal of hypocritical remora-fish who had let every preceding incident go by without putting their names to anything.

There were plenty of incidents: Google “Boris Johnson” + “Scandals”, “Cover-Ups” and don’t forget to add their regular associate “Lies” because he was incompetent at the Cover-Up bit as well as so much else. 

*****

BJ redecorated the flat where he lived over the shop to the tune of +£200,000 / +€236,000 / +$240,000. Yes, decorators do cost a fortune, especially when there’s a chance someone else might foot the bill. However this bit of chicanery became public (as usual) and BJ had to dip into his own pocket instead.

It’s far from the most tasteful fix-up, though there are advantages.

DTDT in this room, on that sofa, and it’s possible nobody would see a difference.

#cw suicide #mess webley #military protocol #not entirely serious #british politics #boris johnson #bojo #bozo

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

From the news I'm getting here across the Pond, it seems like Liz Truss has perhaps achieved a marvel in that she's turning out to be more incompetent than Boris "Big Dog" Johnson. What are the chances the U.K. will have a new Prime Minister by the end of the year?

Yeah, she's exactly as competent really but, and this cannot be overstated, the person whose mess she's inherited IS Boris Johnson. But she compounds this with a Chancellor who is much, much worse.

Uh, this answer got long, sorry about that, but lol what can you do? Exercise restraint? Pfft.

By the end of the year... probably slim, as hilarious as the letters of no confidence are; the party can't survive another new leader that quickly. Johnson's greatest legacy - his greatest gift to the left - is the one he was always going to leave: he rose to power on a platform of 'feelings not facts', a method that is highly effective in the short term but horrendously unsustainable in the long run, once the shine of the bombast wears off and people realise that the bins aren't going out anymore. You cannot bluster and jazz hands your way through running a country indefinitely. You have to be competent at the daily grind.

Big Dog was not.

But during his tenure, everyone either threw all their weight behind him to suck his Union Jack-coloured cock and get a cushy ride themselves, or they were openly fired for disloyalty. He single-handedly created a Tory party that was defined by patriotism-flavoured incompetence. And then the bubble burst, and his old nemesis Mr Consequences came calling, and the situation was, very suddenly, that he was hot garbage - just absolute weapons-grade 'this is not a place of honour' levels of toxic - to have in charge of the party, but most importantly, crucially, none of them could get rid of him without also incriminating themselves.

That's why it took so long before the wave of resignations finally kicked things into happening. That's why it had to be a wave of resignations. None of the limping high school debating champions that were left in government could survive without him; even though he was actively poisoning them, they would die immediately with him gone. The tipping point came when finally that particular cost-benefit analysis see-sawed the other way.

And what's left? What was always going to be left: a hardcore radical group of 'feelings not facts' fascists, and an insipid hodgepodge of self-deluded clowns with the life skills of a particularly underwhelming five-year-old, all of whom are embroiled in bitter internal bitching wars and cliques and spend their days writing each other's names in a Burn Book rather than doing their jobs.

Everyone is blaming each other. No one is taking responsibility. The party can no longer agree on anything, except perhaps "Woe is us."

This latest leadership contest was actually a vicious thing that added to the damage and made the in-fighting worse. If we now add ANOTHER to the pile... well. I think we would see, at minimum, mass defections to UKIP. Very possibly some new political parties, like what Labour did when Jeremy Corbyn was too left-wing for them so Angela Smith and Chuka Umunna founded Change UK and claimed it was because Corbyn was racist and then Angela described people of colour as "black or a funny tinge... you know, a different... from the BAME community" and then Change UK was quietly dissolved after 10 months and no one remembers them anymore. It would be a disaster, is what I'm saying.

A new Chancellor, though... that's more likely, I think. Kwasi Kwarteng was rumoured to have had an affair with Liz Truss and honestly I strongly suspect that's why he got the job - he wrote a stupid book about economics that no one liked, on the night of the Brexit vote was overheard by a journalist saying “Who cares if sterling crashes? It will come back up again", and then became Chancellor, and then released a mini-budget last week that has tanked the pound to the lowest performance against the dollar since records began and immediately embroiled his PM into a financial crisis so bad she literally went into hiding for a day and a half. The UK is... actually completely fucked, as of this week. I cannot overstate what a fucking unmitigated disaster that budget is, or the damage it's causing. We were already doing very badly. This is catastrophic. This is like having an infected foot and everyone being concerned because it's turning gangrenous, and then Kwasi turns up and chops off both your legs and your dominant hand and then also the legs and dominant hands of everyone else present as well, except for himself and his rich mates. We are a long, long way beyond "First, do no harm."

But Kwarteng is also very replaceable.

However:

Liz Truss is extraordinarily stupid. I honestly don't know if it will occur to her to sacrifice him. If she's sensible she will; but 'sensible' is not a word I associate with Liz Truss.

The other option, of course, is an early general election being called, for the seven-hundred-and-fifteenth time in the last decade I stg. However, Tories only call for those if they stand a chance of winning.

One poll yesterday put Labour thirty-three points ahead of the Tories.

To put that into perspective, if that were to translate into a GE performance, the outcome of the vote would leave the Tories with...

THREE SEATS.

But! Of course! It's not so simple anyway:

That was an opinion poll, and those are always more extreme than an actual vote because people use them to express dissatisfaction. A vote would not be that extreme.

That was one of several polls yesterday. If we take an average, the actual figures are:

Labour are nineteen points ahead of the Tories.

Would you like some context?

In 1999 when Tony Blair won his landslide Labour victory - the greatest Labour lead in recent history - do you know what his polling lead was?

Twelve points.

Lol

So it is vanishingly unlikely the Tories will call a GE themselves. Their only hope now is that they can somehow do a good enough job to fix their party and win public confidence back before the next GE, which will be no later than January 2025.

In ENTIRELY UNRELATED NEWS I'm sure, Labour have just declared that they are backing a change to a proportional representation voting system in place of the UK's archaic first past the post system. Funny that.

#politik #the adventures of big dog the clown #going to need a new tag