On an otherwise horrible day, Priti Patel has resigned.
(My predictive spelling had her first name as ‘Prick’.)
A Silver Lining
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Musings on the byways of popular culture
Johnson out, Truss in
a precedent for
Patel out, ??? in..
Funny, how just when you think life can’t possibly get any worse it suddenly does. — Douglas Adams
I’ve heard* she’s going to be replaced by Sue Ellen, who I haven’t heard of since Dallas finished.
*Possibly incorrectly
Interesting. Priti Patel or a fictional character from the 1970s – tough call…
She didn’t much choice did she? Truss would have appointed a new Home Secretary (Braverman, so rumour has it, god help us) tomorrow anyway.
Interesting. Do Truss and Patel have previous?
Apparently they don’t get on.
Truss expects her Cabinet to speak properly.
She’s staying as an MP, though. Unless Johnson makes her Lady Witham…
Stayin’. She’s stayin’.
I met Cruella through work when she first became an MP, and even then detected an unwavering ambition fatally coupled with a charisma bypass. She should go far.
She wasn’t right wing enough.
Hopefully it means an end to that Rwandan debacle.
I know this is a bit of a stretch but it’s worth noting that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s return was down to Liz Truss. Also, her pork markets speech was no worse than the dozens of embarrassing space-filling speeches that Tory Conferences always have. It’s to her credit that she has moved from Lib Dem to Tory as a result of thinking about which party she wants to represent.
But don’t get me wrong, there will be heaps of gaffes and walking the wrong way and saying the wrong things. She needs to announce something tangible about the cost of power. She will find it very hard to survive if she tries to invoke “we’re in this together” bollocks.
She’s going to find it even harder to survive as the
Margaret Thatcher tribute act she’s been trotting out.
(“Ms Truss, Margaret Thatcher decimated industry in my
Hometown and you, Madam, are no argaret Thatcher!”)
She certainly took credit for it, although the Zaghari-Ratcliffes begged to differ…
I think that’s unfair. She could have done nothing and Nazanine would still be in Iran for sure. She can’t take all the credit but she did her bit.
Richard Ratcliffe’s view
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/21/liz-truss-brought-home-wife-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-then-failed-her
That’s a funny way of writing “realized she could never get to anything in power by staying Lib Dem”.
The kindest words I have about her is that she’s an unprincipled idiot.
I don’t know when you mentioned the pork markets speech if you were referring to the speech itself.
I find it’s her delivery, the ….pause as she waits for applause with that strange grin. Admittedly I haven’t watched her recently, I’ve been diagnosed with high blood pressure and I don’t want to add to it. I didn’t see any point in watching the ‘debates’ as they weren’t addressed to me.
“However Truss polled 81,326 votes, compared to Sunak’s 60,399 in an election with a high turnout of 82.6 per cent, with 654 rejected ballots from a total of 172,437 eligible Tory voters. It means Truss did win by a comfortable margin, but her victory was slimmer than in other recent Tory leadership contests at 57.4 per cent to Sunak’s 42.6 per cent – reflecting a divide within the governing party.” From Business Standard.
The members haven’t given her wholehearted support.
The pork markets speech was when she wasn’t well-known -and to a huge, sparsely attended arena with lots of people milling about and chatting. It also appears to me that there were auto-reader problems.
But that doesn’t explain why her cheese speech had the same tropes, the hesitance, the grin.
Just watched some of her acceptance speech, it’s a better delivery now than then but still the pauses for applauses. I know she’s speaking to the ‘faithful’ but there’s no style over substance and indeed no substance.
No matter, she will ‘deliver, deliver, deliver’, which I took to mean she will be standing in for my local postman while he’s out on strike.
What does de waiter recommend?
Reminds me of the Peter Kay joke where he rings the Indian takeaway and asks if they deliver.
“No we d’fish, we d’chicken and we d’meat”.
81,326 is less than half the membership.
82% turnout – presumably the rest have died and not noticed
Can’t see Suella Braverman cancelling the Rwanda scheme. If anything, she’ll double down on it. Or save money by hiring contractors to machine-gun the boats.
It looks likely that Jacob Rees Mogg will be appointed Business Secretary. Apart from anything else, that will make him responsible for the UK’s climate policy.
WTFF?
Some silver linings surround a dark noxious sewage based cloud of flatulence that leave the silver lining without promise and hope, just another spoiled and unhappy thing, any silver having been extracted and sold on for quick profit. There’ll be a trickle down effect but only of foul waste product over run down areas.
Would it help if I told you Dominic Raab’s career is coming to an end?
Goodbye to a bully and hello to someone who can hopefully speak proper English. innit!
A slightly connected thought I had today was that Labour should install Angela Rayner immediately as leader. I think she’ll expose Truss and her party more than Sir Kier can and i suspect she’d have a broader appeal. Women’s sport is where its at right now I like the idea of a non male general election battle…
If nothing else she can bellow ‘Tory scum!’ at Truss during PMQs.
Plus a lot of women are saying that they won’t vote for Labour until Labour decides what a woman is. Well, a couple of women on Twitter, anyway.
Agree
I know some people, almost all women actually, whose hatred of Angela Raynor is visceral. That’s not something I encounter for many other MPs. Labour ones, anyway.
@Tiggerlion have they said why?
Not coherently. Their hatred is not in the least rational. They do seem to believe there was substance to a Sharon Stone impersonation, they see her as being on the make and being uncouth. They present no real evidence. It’s visceral.
Personally, I think I she’d do a better job than Starmer but he’s not going anywhere and may shine now that Mr Charisma has gone.
I’ve quite warmed to her actually. When she’s flaying some chinless Tory jelly alive at the despatch box it’s a fine sight. Johnson couldn’t cope with being shouted at by an articulate woman with a provincial accent. Jess Philips has a similar effect.
Agreed Twang. I feel she’d eat Truss alive with zero risk of being accused of sexism or misogyny
I think Jess Phillips would be ideal.
I like Rayner but don’t think she would be the best leader; too many rough edges that wouldn’t go down well with more centrist voters. I’ve long had a preference for Yvette Cooper and have recently been impressed by Rachel Reeves. I think they could be both quite lethal against Truss and make the right noises to attract people who don’t really pay attention but still go out and vote.
Agreed. Probably RR for me. I do like Yvette but I think her moment has passed.
Yvette Cooper is the best leader Labour never had, post-Blair. And I imply no criticism of Starmer in saying that; he’s doing exactly what needs to be done and he’s doing it just right.
But Cooper would have been a fantastic leader and a fantastic PM. I’m really glad/relieved to see her back on the Labour front bench, and I really hope to see her back in government before too much longer. She’s only 53, so still plenty more to come from her.
I’ve long been a huge fan.
I’m inclined to agree with you there @jeff.
There must be dozens of us!
Sorry, she had been ruled out by Uncle Wheaty who has decided ( see above) that senior politicians must speak ‘proper English’.
The lunatic has really taken over the asylum.
No, she’s just resigned as Culture Secretary.
Having fired Priti Awful, Truss is, however, still there.
Hope she will enjoy this fleeting peak in her popularity
and premiership
Resigned, because, almost unbelievably, she’s going to get a place in the House of Lords…
Given her Merseyside roots, she’ll doubtless be
enobled as Lady Dorries of Toxic
Plenty of holes in there, and Lancasheeer already.
I like fracking
I like fracking
I like fracking
And I like to frack.
I still can’t visualise how fracking could be economically viable in the UK. The possible scale of operation is just too small. Unless wholesale gas prices should increase by several multiples, of course.
As I understand it, mineral rights in the USA belong to the owner of the land above them, who can sell extraction rights to anybody. If you own a big enough parcel of land you can do very well from leasing it. The USA is a lot more sparsely-populated than the UK.
In the UK, mineral rights all belong to The Crown and there is less vacant land.
I can see our government auctioning off fracking rights to the highest bidders, but then I can see lots of money being lost by companies trying to exploit them and a shortage of takers. Followed by investment packages of pretty-much worthless extraction rights being punted around the markets like sub-prime mortgages were in the early noughties, earning nice commissions for the chaps on each transaction.
I’m not sure that all mineral rights in the UK belong to the Crown.
If you look at land sale documents where the landed gentry have sold off fields to the hoi-polloi, you’ll see clauses in the land rights that preserve the mineral rights for the original owner, who is not the Crown, just some Duke or other (I know this because I live surrounded by land belonging to the Duke of B*****rt, and I use Open Source GIS tools to find out who owns what field round yer).
In other words, what’s been sold is the surface plane plus a stated depth of earth below that – the clauses in the sale agreement reserve anything potentially lucrative that’s well below ploughing levels for the chinless parasite descended from whoever was given the land a dozen centuries ago by some Norman invader bastard who stole it from the locals.
“With the exception of oil, gas, coal, gold and silver, the state does not own mineral rights in the UK. Generally minerals are held in private ownership, and information on mineral rights, where available, is held by the Land Registry together with details of land surface ownership.”
https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/planning/legislation/mineralOwnership.html#:~:text=With%20the%20exception%20of%20oil,details%20of%20land%20surface%20ownership.
Just caught a clip of her acceptance speech ( a clip is all I can stomach).
” I campaigned as a Conservative, and I will govern as a Conservative” (a Pinteresque pause ensues as she waits expectantly for thunderous applause, whilst most of the audience are thinking “No shit, Sherlock’).
Going for the Tony Blair playbook, and failing miserably.
It was mercifully short. The first lesson of public speaking is keep it brief.
She thanked Boris – code for please be nice to me. She declared herself as right wing, set out her priorities (cost of living/energy supply, growing the economy & the NHS) and told us all that she is not going to call an early election, so don’t bother asking.
She may be odd, however, if this speech is anything to go by, we are not going to be subjected to florid language but there will be fewer words to analyse.
Unlike Johnson, there will be actual words rather than noises.
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt” – Twain, Mark.
aka “If you’ve got nowt to say, don’t say it.”
aka “empty vessels make the most noise”
aka silence is golden
.
‘…like a booster rocket, having fulfilled its role, gently re-entering the earth’s atmosphere, I leave’
You reckon, you awful prick? You were dragged out kicking and mewling because you’re a fucking liar, at the very least and most generous estimation.
Spare us and fuck off.
Still not a hint of shame, contrition or self-knowledge.
The only honorable thing to do would be to say that he will stand down from his seat at the next general election, if not sooner, otherwise it will always be assumed that he is angling for a return to the top position. Not that honour or consideration for anyone other than himself have ever formed part of his skill set.
The idea that his constituents will have an MP until he goes is laughable. As with the Speaker’s seat, how are we allowed to have places that essentially have no democratic representation whatsoever?
I live in a constituency represented by a dreadful MP. At the next General Election – he (or his replacement if he stands down) will get around 52% of the total vote, with the other main parties getting roughly 22%, 22% and 4%. With a boundary change that means the 50%-er will get more votes. Voter-ID will suppress one of the 22%, but will I suspect affect all.
I do not vote for my MPs party, but I can vote for any of the others, none of whom will win.
Hard to imagine a scenario where 52% of voters ensure a disasterous outcome for everyone, isn’t it?
Re: “how are we allowed to have places that essentially have no democratic representation whatsoever?”
And, of course, the residents of Washington D.C. have no representation in the US senate, as there are 2 senators for each of the 50 states but none at all for the District of Columbia.
Fine words Beez.
I’m on hols and not watching news. Did he actually, literally say that? I shouldn’t be surprised, but wow.
Here’s that speech* in full.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/boris-johnsons-final-speech-as-prime-minister-6-september-2022
* garbled nonsense, can’t bring myself to listen to him. I’m a peaceful man but I can feel a rise in blood pressure if I inadvertently hear the useless lying spaffer.
Cocktavius is a narcissistic sociopathic manchild brat who has never been held accountable for any of the continual trail of wreckage left behind in his odious blubberous wake. As for his classical posturings, they are a repellent cocktail of pisstake, preen and patronise. He seeks a warped form of hero worship and love from the very people he despises. He is also as thick as a whelk, although cunning in all the right places. Short of the Tyburn Jig, we will have to make do with his plough. He can have it violently inserted up his rectum to serve as a reminder and a lesson in both hubris and nemesis. Classicist my arse.
As ever, our cosmic friend nails it.
For some reason I’ve only just seen this but, bloody hell Rob, you’ve absolutely knocked that out of the park. Beautifully and very effectively said, chum.
I raise a glass of Combat Rioja in your direction.
Don’t spill it on the sofa…
…too late already. I’m on my knees sucking the sofa.
This is not how I saw my life going.
Um, I wouldn’t suck that bit.
Mm, yeah, thanks…
…you were HOURS too late with that advice *heavewretchgagspit heavewretchgagspit*
With added Latin.
in re proiectione circuitu et futurum ipsum
Dicam nunc me esse unum ex illis Vivamus cursus felis, qui munus suum implevit
et nunc leniter re- grediar atmosphaeram et invisibiliter in aliquo remoto et obscuro angulo pacifici spargens
Et sicut Cincinnatus redeo ad aratrum meum
Can I bother you for a translation, dear heart? I never had the latin.
It’s just this bit dear boy. Did you ever want to be a judge?
on the subject of bouncing around and future careers
let me say that I am now like one of those booster rockets that has fulfilled its function
and I will now be gently re-entering the atmosphere and splashing down invisibly in some remote and obscure corner of the pacific
And like Cincinnatus I am returning to my plough
Yes. I paraphrased but only slightly. My typing suffers when I’m swearing out loud.
Liz Truss is married to Hugh O’Leary. I wonder why she doesn’t call herself Liz O’Leary?
LOL!
Hugh Truss is pretty funny as well.
Jampton
Janus
No more curried eggs for me.
Rinal
Rologist
Rannnnngg??
Labour has never had a PM with a Hugh Truss.
An article in The Grauniad mentioned her Twatter address as @liztruss which I speed read as ‘albatross’. Quite.
Which it isn’t – @liztruss is one Liz Trussell, been on Twitter since 2009. It’s that @johnlewis scenario again.
The new cast of Birds of a Feather……
They seem nice.
That’ll be killing Nad’s calves.
She looked and sounded much more authoritative reading a well rehearsed speech at a lecture in front of an audience that was not expected to react. Anyone would have thought she’d just won an election after twelve years in opposition. It was the same old Tory platitudes about hard work, low tax and the central role of private business. We were never going to get any detail, but plus points for outlining just three priorities (the listener is never going to retain any more and she has to start somewhere). We were also spared any snippets of her life story, pompous quotes from fine art or any feeble attempts at a joke. It was also half the length of Boris’s farewell in the morning.
She played to her strengths and away from her weaknesses. She came over as very determined and strong-willed. She is learning fast.
I just thought it was vacuous and platitudinous…castles in the air stuff. “Spades in the ground”…has she not heard it’s all JCBs now?
“Creating an aspiration nation” – crap alliteration aside, don’t most of us aspire already.
What was this shit he said about changing the rules half-way through?
The rule that Boris gets to be PM for as long as he wants to be?
Fucking fuck right off, you fucking fat fucker.
I was baffled by that too. He quit because he couldn’t form a government after so many ministers quit in disgust. At what point was an accepted set of rules changed?
I haven’t been able bring myself to watch any platitudinous speechifying, particularly from the HoC. but p-le-a-s-e tell me that BoZo didn’t use his speech about the death of Her Madge to make it about himself?
(I have seen clips of the speeches by Macron and Trudeau, which were both beautiful and very moving).
“Yah…vewy sad…sad…NEWS! About….her majesty…who, like Pericles departing from Carthage, was taken from…from…er…US! …a few …a few days ago.
Of course, Sir Winston Churchill was her FIRST…er…Primeminister and I was in fact her LAST male Primeminister.. I think there’s a pleasing, er pleasing… er….SYMMETRY to that fact. I may yet have the Sisyphean privilege of perhaps …er…serving a future monarch and I hope and ..er indeed pray….that this will be Prince no KING! KING! Charles.
God Save the Queen! KING ! “
Absolutely nailed that there, BC; very good indeed.
Cheers!
For anyone who has seen Truss’ early years speeches
Private Eye have her as Philomena Cunk.
Margarine Thatcher is my favourite so far.
Suella Braverman Home Secretary. Silver lining ripped out and burnt. The rest of the appointments similarly horrific. Should have known.
😵
The small thrill of joy I felt by the news that Patel had resigned has been swept away by an enduring despair at the appointment of her replacement.
Any advice on how I can sleep tonight? Or any night?
You could listen to one of Liz’s speeches.
SB is a culture wars tragic and bitter about the lefty lawyers who supposedly held her back… Who exist in her imagination. Be afraid.
Farewell presents for the outgoing cabinet
Johnson – packet of condoms, suitcase of wine and a wallpaper stripper
Patel – kitten and a waterboarding kit
Raab – a gross of cards with his name and address written on it so he can hand them to others to get him home safely
Dorries – a mirror
Shouldn’t that be a waterboardin kit?
As used in Uantanamo Bay.
Gee…
Come to think of it, she wouldn’t even need the kitten
Johnson says “Any kind of stripper will do, actually…”
Jacob Rees-Mogg is now in charge of energy and tackling climate change.
Helena Handcart. We are all doomed, especially our grandchildren.
His presence is the canary in the coal mine of a non achieving crap show. Utterly worthless individual.
Ree Smug unveils his new energy plan. Brings back the Victorian treadmill powered by rounded up ne’er-do-wells.
If it’s to be ne’er do well-powered, surely Rees-Mogg, Johnson, Patel, Dorries etc should be on it not in charge of it.
Quite. For me, this appointment, above all others, shows that this is not a serious, reality based government. A trivial and ignorant man, a shill to continue the denialism and obfuscation that has already cost us decades. I despair.
He’s a catastrophe capitalist, and can now put his bets on real catastrophes.
Just an observation but that appears to be a very diverse cabinet. Some of the blue rinsers must be scratching their heads….
https://twitter.com/Conservatives?t=afqAUKk9L3587i_VelrZ-w&s=09
Not that diverse, they’re all tories.
Observation in The Times is that the Cabinet are all privately educated and diversity is more aroud education than race in politics.
Some might, but on balance they value people who have what they view as the right ideas/worldview. That’s why it was predicted that Kemi Badenoch would win if she got as far as the membership vote. They also tend to favour ideological purity over actual ability to get things done, a trait they share with many of left of the Labour Party, who voted for old white men like Corbyn for similar reasons.
The Guardian ran a think-piece this week defending calling people from ethnic minority backgrounds “coconuts” and “race traitors” where they have the wrong political views.
I’d say there’s a fair bit of head-scratching, not to mention bollocks-chatting, going on over there too.
Perhaps these people don’t join the Labour party becuase they don’t fancy spending almost their entire political career talking about being black.
One of the reasons I love living in Thailand is they’re not always banging on about being “persons of colour”. It’s like they don’t even notice it!
What the fuck flavour is a LGBTQIA toastie anyway?
Lettuce Gruyere Bacon Tomato Quinoa Inca Berries & Artichoke?! Stop politcising sandwiches!
Ah yeah but…
… you know what they call you though, once you’ve left the Eel Market?
No old white men in the top 4!
No wonder the Afterword isn’t keen. Not even an acoustic guitar in sight!
Arise, Baroness Patel of Eppin
I am alone in likin’ the way she speaks.
Is that right, Twan?
She speaks like a very significant number of people from both the South /SouthEast and, in particular, some of the minority ethnic communities. This is apparently unacceptable to many AWers, although it will be interesting to see if they change their views as and when some of the Labour backbenchers from similar areas achieve greater prominence.
That’s a fucking outrageous suggestion.
Working-class people in the Labour Party!!!
Yes. Who gives a flying one about her accent? As opposed to the words she says in it.
Or Eppin Forest, as mentioned by Enesis…. with Peter Abriel
(That’s enouh)
Who let Steve Wriht in?
Is that right, Twan?
Yes there’s as in the car.
You know what’s weird though. There’s a certain relief that it’s not Johnson, Hancock, Raab, Patel, Javid, Sunak etc. It won’t last but just for a moment…..
I agree. It was rather refreshing to see Truss actually answer a question at PMQs even if I disagreed with it, and I’ve no idea if Therese Coffey can do anything to tackle the huge task of restoring the NHS but at least there’s an engaging character in there.
Coffey has started well. She has an easy to remember acronym, ABCD, Ambulances, Blocked Care and Doctors (+Dentists). She has an instant grasp on how Care Homes function. She plans to pay them for every resident they take from a hospital bed, as if they don’t do that already. She also recognises that she can’t be the poster girl for a healthy lifestyle, so the nanny state ceases to be.
I read somewhere else that she’s made an encouraging start.
Funny, I don’t remember the build/appearance/lifestyle of the Health Secretary being brought up when it was Kenneth Clarke.
(Actually I do, but I’m pretending not to because it suits my argument)
There’s quite a famous picture of TC smoking a cigar and holding a glass of bubbly, some of which is down her front. To be honest swap the cigar for a Bensons and she looks exactly like an off-duty NHS employee.
NHS employees can’t afford champagne.
Really? My wife’s nephew’s an anaesthetist and he’s on about 70 grand.
Etienne Dumont is about fifteen quid in Tesco. Seems doable to me. Priorities, mate.
He will be in the 5% who can. Does he smoke cigars?
No, they would make him sleepy. Or sleepier. Whenever I see him he’s always sleepy, which is kind of ironic.
Anaesthetists are notorious for sampling the goods.
Don’t eat the brown* ether.
(*sorry, dark orange)
BURNT SIENNA!!!
Eric: “My wife’s nephew is an anaesthetist!”
Ernie: “Really? Your wife’s nephew is an anaesthetist?”
Eddie: “….er,
yeah I’ll get back to you on this one tomorrow boys, don’t wait up.”
I’ve got quite a large stash of Morphine. I was really looking forward to some tripped out Coleridge/Blakean experiences but all I got was awfully bunged up for my troubles and had to resort to calling in the 1st Dulcolax Dragoons to relieve Mafeking every morning.
You’re not supposed to stick it up your arse, Rob – oh, never mind.
*sighs*
It’s quite the zonker but not very Swedenborg.
Yes! Such a relief to hear excerpts from PMQs and not hear that fucking man’s voice any more.
All serpents on the same Medusa’s head.
I detect no silver lining in the reeking cloud of bottom-gas, currently surrounding Downing Street.
Doesn’t the release of bottom gas mean they’ve chosen a new Archbishop of Canterbury? Rejoice!
Put it in a pipeline = energy crisis solved. Fuck Nordstream!
God save Nordstream2!!
Enough of the black. Bring back the beef and tomato pot noodle gunge sienna, or let’s go guacamole green, with an added garlic swipe and sniff screen option.
What he said! Only not!