Bumper Rise for Children Face Ban

Yet another unworkable policy pledge from the Tories in an attempt to distract from the mounting crisis of Brexit. They seem to have found a whole heap of funding from somewhere or other (you know, money that might have been quite useful back in those heady days of austerity when Cameron was running around cutting everything to the bone only to later lament about not doing it harder and faster. So what if it was an ideological choice that ended up contributing to swathes of needless deaths) and now they’re keen to show that they’ve got all sorts of useful ideas.

For one thing, they have technological solutions to all sorts of problems. The border situation is going to be absolute cakewalk compared to the new computer wizardry they’re going to be unrolling on an unsuspecting educational system.

So, the basic premise that the right have pledged to rebel against is the fact that we’re in an increasingly aesthetically orientated world. Our fearless dear leader knows this better than most as he diligently messes up his hair before each step on his staircase to ultimate power. Johnson has long understood the importance of a public image. As such, he doesn’t want any of the little bastards to rise up and usurp him. I mean, he wants the youth of today to understand that there are higher concerns above what you look like and he wants to help them realise this Utopian vision.

All schoolchildren will get fitted with high-spec contact lenses, just like in a Black Mirror episode or similar. These lenses will blur the faces of everyone around them, meaning that they can no longer determine someone’s attractiveness. In the coming years, these lucky youngsters will learn to appreciate the subtleties of voice and personality, growing as individuals who aren’t weighed down by the tyranny of looks.

Johnson: I Will Win Election in Jail

Hubristic megalomaniac says what? Johnson is following the Trump playbook after all and, while we shouldn’t get our hopes up too high, impeachment proceedings have started against him. While it all could come to nothing but stacks of jailable offences that won’t touch him until he comes out of the other side of the presidency but we can keep holding on hope that one day he’s going to get what’s been coming to him for the past seven decades and counting.

But this is about our home-grown (if you can count him as that. He was born in America. So there’s a certain amount of culpability they really ought to claim) leader who seems to be more than happy to sing from the fascist hymn sheet. Trump proclaimed to a crowded rally that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes.

While he didn’t seem ready to put that little boast to the test, there was probably some truth to it unlike the vast majority of the nonsense he comes out with. Johnson, on the other hand, will have to be considering whether or not he can still scrape together votes from behind bars at Her Majesty’s pleasure. And given the fool she’s been made to look of late, I can’t imagine Liz II will feel too badly about locking up the latest sorry excuse for a PM.

What an indictment of our system, the demonstration of our boulevard of broken promises, that people like Johnson, and Trump, can demonstrate for all to see just how despicable they are and people will still manage to muster support for them. Yes, the leaders of the other major parties aren’t exactly the brightest stars in the firmament but is the bar so low that we’ll endure a proven liar who’s shown themselves to have contempt for the rules?

Thomas Cook: Pledge to Claw BBC

It’s very difficult in the business world. No sooner does a large corporation go down than others who are still afloat, regardless of whether or not they’re in anything like the same sector, start sneering. And for it to be the BBC poking fun at the imperiled holiday firm felt like extra salt in the wound.

And it’s not as if the BBC are so very great in the first place. Providing quality programming that serves the needs of as many of the country as possible while still making sure to inform, entertain and whatever the third one is isn’t as easy as you might think. Maybe it was Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s nine million Emmys that made a few executives at the beeb get ever so slightly too big for their breeches. It wasn’t a good look, we can say that much.

Anyhow, when you’ve been beaten down by economic circumstances, it doesn’t take too much more to push you over the edge. Kicking someone while they’re already on the floor might make you feel good about yourself but you shouldn’t forget that your victim won’t feel that they’ve got much left to lose, thereby increasing your own chances of retaliation.

Sure, it’s a death rattle from the deflating corpse of the package holiday vendor but those can still have their impact. A beloved relative on their deathbed might let loose with what they really think of all present and disinherit an unsuspecting grandchild. Or a corpse might release a really noxious smell as it decomposes. You never know who’s going to get really hurt. Anyhow, the executives who’ve found themselves so suddenly out of a job are going to go on a clawing spree. It wouldn’t be great if they went after those ungrateful customers but they can take an eye for an eye with a business rival.

MPs Expect Cover-up

Like a worm on the end of a hook, Johnson is doing his very best to wriggle his way out of a sticky situation and thus far, it’s proving to have limited results. The bar of civility is ratcheting down all the time, the right-wing playbook is out in full force. Some put this down to the twisted genius of Dominic Cummings. The question of whether or not he deserves such a label is still up for debate. Daring to flout convention just because you can isn’t exactly courageous.

The next thing to see is exactly how Johnson thinks he’s going to get his way on this one. He’s trapped between the law and a hard place, but he’s still screeching from the hilltops about how we’re going to leave, come what may at the end of October. You know, in direct contravention of the bill parliament passed against him that he’s been saying so many nasty things about of late.

It’s good to know that MPs have their eyes open right now. Any illusions they might have had at one time or another about our less than spotless PM ought to have fallen away. The fact that they ever existed is something of a concerning factor, but still. He’s not going to follow the rules and that’s not something you want to hear about a leader in a nation of laws. Trusting the person in charge seems to be something we used to do.

Maybe in time, he’ll start caring a bit more about what people think. Hordes of scapegoats, Cummings at their head, will start getting chucked under the bus to try and preserve Johnson’s image. He’ll bring out excuse after excuse in the hope that the general public will keep on falling for the same old tricks. We’ll see if it works and vomit more than a little.

Furious Boris Hits Boiling Point

We live in what feels increasingly like a sad, dispiriting world. Words like traitor and worse are bandied about with frightening regularity. While it’s true that all sides are defaulting to dangerous rhetoric, with accusations of coups and tinpot dictatorships being flung from the left and sabotage levelled from Johnson himself, it’s from the top that the worst messages are proliferating.

It’s hard to know what the strategy is, or indeed if the PM has one. He’s trying to stoke a base like the dangerous demagogue on the other side of the pond does (see? I can do it too) or attempting to rile the other side into attempting to oust him with the weapons they have to hand, all of which would run the risk of the country crashing out of the EU without a deal as the deadline expires. While it’s a relief that no one seems to be falling for the dirty tricks, nothing is changing and people are getting hurt.

Still, a man who can mutter humbug while his female colleagues are telling him that they’re receiving death threats with his language plastered across them, well, it seems incredible that we’ve reached this point. For such a man to be in charge feels like a satire gone wrong. We are on the other side of the looking glass and curious just isn’t the word for it.

By the time this is over, it will be the actions that have mattered the most. But that’s not to say that words don’t have a particular power of their own. The PM is someone who takes care to seem careless with what he says, even though it’s a rehearsed, practice facade that day by day is crumbling under the strain of the job he wanted for so very long. What’s clear is that respect, civility, whatever you want to call it, was out the window last night. We have to hope that the same won’t be said for our institutions.

There’s a Special Place in History Waiting for Humiliated PM

For goodness sake, don’t keep telling him that he’s special. As if every day of his life (before the tainted crown touched his head in July) hadn’t been confirmation of that fact. Who else could get away with their signature style being wackiness with a hint of being pulled through a hedge backwards and a celebrated lack of preparation? I suppose John Humphrys has been lauded for his laid back approach when it comes to interview prep (which doesn’t work for science interviews and the like where a basic understanding of the subject under discussion helps. But I digress).

So, it was a day and a half yesterday where the UK supreme court (I know, who knew we had one of those too? What with all the press the US one gets, it could so easily be another superbowl situation where there’s just the one) declared its unanimous verdict that the prorogation was null and void to the point that it can be considered as never having happened. The MPs are already back to work. Quite the upset for the government who insist that Brexit will still be happening at the end of October even though the prorogation was nothing to do with that, no. Just a coincidence for the two thoughts to be linked.

Anyway, thanks to the sticking power of certain previous PMs, this sort of defeat doesn’t spell an automatic resignation in the way it might once have done. Cracking. Bottom smacked for lying to her Maj, Johnson is back in action, sticking to all the same old lines and doing… what exactly? Momentous as it all feels at the moment, not a fat lot has changed. Still, it’s good for certain people to be sticking to their guns and insisting that there’s to be no election until the threat of no deal is well and truly done away with. This will be remembered and the future will find the shame this murky period of history deserves.

100% Dayflight Robbery

Yeah, I’m nicking the pun on the Sun’s front page, what of it? Almost everyone else went with something or other about fat cats. Well, a handful of outlets chose to focus on Corbyn’s latest internal party hiccups. Interestingly, on none of the front pages I looked at, is there any speculation on the ruling the Supreme Court is due to hand down at some point today. Funny that the Telegraph didn’t want to talk about yet another humiliating potential defeat for Johnson and instead crowed about more accusations against the Labour leader. Not that there’s any bias floating about.

Anyhow, I have mixed feelings about the whole Thomas Cook situation. I know, that’s what you all wanted from me, economic commentary from yet another person who isn’t fully versed in the situation. When I first heard about the news, it didn’t come as all that much of a surprise, given that we’d heard about the problems the holiday operator has been having and the decline of package holidays in general.

But then come the ripples as consequence of such a dramatic nosedive. People are stuck out and about around the globe, with irate hoteliers demanding payment because they don’t quite trust that they’re going to get theirs. Those who’ve been looking forward to trips away have them abruptly cancelled. A hell of a lot of people have lost their jobs.

My ill-informed impulse was that the government was right not to bail the company out of its dire straits. This sort of full stop has seemed to be on the horizon for quite some time. However, it does seem a bit callous that this has come to quite such a dramatic head. I imagine that understanding a bit more of the background and that might help me to a more nuanced point of view but so much news is happening all the time, it’s hard to stay up to date. Anyway, the Supremes are going to be talking soon.

Independent Schools Will be Abolished by Nuclear Test

It’s a very specific new type of weapon, alright? One that targets privilege. It’s a difficult time for Labour, they’re against renewing Trident (I think. To be honest, by this point I’m not sure what Labour’s stance is on anything in particular and I’m rather afraid to check. It’ll change in another five minutes depending on the grand old leader’s whims and the rabid newspaper coverage), but they’ve just come out as wishing to get rid of independent schools. It turns out that with the latest technological developments, you can’t achieve one without depending on the other.

This move comes at a dangerous time for independent schools, with the fact that Eton could be held responsible for producing two rancid sacks of excrement, one shiny, one very messy haired, as a couple of our recent political leaders.

I will admit the fact that I went to a grammar school. While that means I didn’t pay fees, it’s also true that there were plenty of people in my classes who would have otherwise gone to an independent school and indeed went to one during their primary years. But wait, there’s more. My father taught at an independent school for the latter part of his career. So, my hands aren’t exactly clean when it comes to the fee-paying system although I was always resentful of the fact that my dad got even more holiday than we did (mired in the working world, I didn’t appreciate at the time quite what halcyon days they were).

Anyway, my point is that I’ve pretty much always disliked the fact that we have a separate educational system that will probably do wonders for you but it’ll cost your parents an arm or a leg. I just don’t think it’s right. Communist notion though it may be, I can’t help but think that if everyone’s children had to go through the same schools, the basic level of quality would be higher. Heretical, I know.

New Evidence Could Force Clean Break Brexit

It is unfortunate that the dark side has all the best rhetoric. They get to be the side of change, progress and plenty of other things besides. I’m not at all just griping that I was on the side of the status quo and am still bitter that the argument I backed lost. My point is that no-deal and clean break Brexit both sound like less fuss than the upheaval of getting a deal through.

You know, besides the fact that no country in the world trades solely on WTO rules and we’ll still have to get a trade deal at some point, we’ll have just ensconced ourselves in a far weaker position once we get down to bargaining. And yet Farage wangs on and the front pages decide to print it.

The more interesting thing is the idea that there’s some new evidence. For years now we’ve been wanging on about the same stuff, no deal bad, inevitable economic flailing, mounting division, all that jazz. Then again, we were told during the referendum campaign that the idea of no deal was the notion of rampaging hysterical Project Fear. But then, new evidence came to light after the vote went the unexpected way, it turns out that everyone was downright giddy at the prospect of hamstringing the economy and baffling the rest of the global community.

The slide of inevitable events has never felt more  unstoppable. Johnson is pissing around, taking friends on holiday, grandstanding wherever possible before running away from anything resembling a challenge. It’s almost as if at such a difficult time it would be useful to have someone resembling a statesman in charge. But his messy little head keeps getting turned around by recent events, not thiings like the government’s own papers about how bad Brexit would be, but stuff like what people reckon. We’re doomed, basically.

EU Hatches Plot to Sink Thomas Cook

They really can’t bear to let us go, can they? For a while, the EU thought they could frustrate the process by doling out the merest scraps from the table, calling it a deal and then sitting back while they knew the utterly sovereign UK parliament would have no choice but to reject it. But Johnson was much too canny for those plots to take full effect.

As such, the disgruntled Brussels bureaucrats had to come up with alternative arrangements to scupper the UK economy. After a lot of head scratching, soul searching and meat platters, it was decided that they were going to work behind the scenes to bring down major UK companies, one by one. Withdrawing the likes of Nissan and Honda from doing more trade in the UK was just the start of proceedings, next on the agenda was the beginnings of dismantling home grown economic activity.

First, go for the low hanging fruit. It’s no secret that the internet has been rather hard on the travel industry. After all, if you can get superior deals online, especially without the need to talk to anyone, why would you go through an intermediary? But obviously, it’s been sabotage that has sent Thomas Cook down the tubes rather than the pace of progress and that.

The real thing to worry about is what the nefarious EU are going to take apart next. The tentacles of corruption have invaded all the way throughout the various structures of the hotchpotch that makes up this country. The EU want to make us suffer without them so they might well strip apart what makes us so special. Like pork pies and exceptionalism. And with Thomas Cook having gone down the tubes, we won’t even be able to find a way to get off the hellish shores of Brexitania. Then we’ll be sorry.