Iain Duncan Smith has been knighted. I am also an incompetent prick, yet I remain unrecognised, possibly because my incompetence doesn’t have much impact on the most vulnerable members of our society.
Normally, i am indifferent to the perennial honours system debate, but this really makes me mad, coming hot on the heels of the elevation of Goldsmith and Morgan to the Lords for services to their chum in Downing Street.
The question is, what can we do about it? The electorate have rejected the other potential governing parties. The good people of Chingford seem happy to be represented by the awful Duncan Smith. So do we just shrug and cue up the next Beatles podcast? Or is there, somewhere, revolution in the air? As Bruce so sagely put it, “you can’t start a fire without a spark,” but where’s the spark, readers?
What can we do about it?
Fuck all.
Sign the petition!!
https://www.change.org/p/uk-government-and-parliament-we-object-to-iain-duncan-smith-receiving-a-knighthood?recruiter=false&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_medium=whatsapp&utm_content=washarecopy_19804614_en-GB%3Av9&recruited_by_id=39ad2500-295c-11ea-908a-4186e6fa8c39
I did!
http://chng.it/WWGgjmt8kL
As did I.
Anyone thinking of not signing it should watch this and reconsider:
Who is entitled to sign these petitions?
I would do so at once, but it feels that, as an ex-pat, I may not be entitled to.
I hope I am wrong.
His title should be Moribund the Bogeymeister.
No argument here – we have “Sir David Amess” representing us. Not representing me though. He voted Leave every time.
We had a chance of some chamge at the Voter Reform referendum in 2011, but for some reason there was a landslide vote for “Change? Not for me, thanks all the same,” a result that still staggers me.
FYI, a quirk of this site or its software is that posts do not show up in the Recent Posts” list unless there is at least one reply.
I have noticed that too, MC. I always make a point of making a short comment on my own threads once I have posted it.
I then use my army of sock puppets to bump them to the top of the charts!
Who are you calling a sock puppet? mmmmffm
Get gack in the gox!
Gollox
It boils my piss but to be honest I am listening to Tony Joe White at the moment and there was no-one more chilled than him. Suits my mood perfectly because I don’t want IDS spoiling a weekend.
SIR TONY JOE WHITE you jackass!
The pressing task is this: do what you can to make sure that Labour’s next leader is someone electable.
This is absolutely right
Probably not going to happen without the cleansing of the leadership of at least one union.
It doesn’t really matter that much – there are no block votes. I agree that one union in particular could do with a clear-out though.
I may be over-hopeful, however I have a hunch that the leadership election will show Momentum to be something of a Potemkin village.
If not, and Jane Horrocks is elected, then I’ll have to concede that it is Game Over for Labour.
Suck it up. Nothing to be done about it.
We’ll have to wait until November, when hopefully the spark will be about 30 feet below the Commons chamber, right next to a couple of hundred barrels of black powder, during some fully attended debate about how to make more poor people suffer.
IDS’s knighthood was inevitable as was John Bercow becoming the first outgoing speaker not to be honoured. BoJo is spiteful.
Almost as much as Trump who spent Christmas Eve complaining that Justin Trudeau had edited a twenty second Trump cameo from Home Alone 2 before it was broadcast on Canadian TV. The fact that the edit was made in 2014 a full year before Trudeau became prime minister and two years before Trump won the presidency is irrelevant. It’s still Trudeau’s fault.
Right on…the spite is the thing that is there, that is blatantly hateful and that boot right down in your face ….there is one BIG thing that can be done: encourage, talk, engage people thoughtfully to participate in the next elections “Or is there, somewhere, revolution in the air?” I think there is a spark and it’s not just in Britain. The public, our kids our friends should be lifted up, encouraged by factual, truthful debate and be rid of the Etonian morons and therefore the Cumming’s and Bannon’s of this world who despise the anyone voting for anybody even slightly left or liberal. Please stop the defeatist “There is nothing that can be done” crapola. Let the revolution spark be ignited by the Afterworders! Onwards and upwards folks.
“Afterworders of the world unite!” There’s a tee shirt right there! We’re right behind you Bings .
Big an arsehole as he is, Johnson actually had little to do with this honours list (apart from getting his placemen Goldsmith and Morgan into the Lords). I understand it was mostly compiled and approved whilst Theresa May was still PM. The next one will be where Johnson gets his placemen in.
Don’t kid yourself. He will have tinkered at the edges.
Next on the list for retribution will be the judiciary. Michael Howard (Lord Howard to me and you) has already said that judges ‘distort’ the law to support the conclusion they are looking for, citing the decision that BoJo’s actions were illegal when he prorogued Parliament. I never thought I’d see the day when a Tory Government attacked The Supreme Court for being partisan.
Mid-90s, MH wanted to be the UK’s Chief of Police – like they have in nice countries like Chile and Uganda. The judicial establishment understandably weren’t having that and he’s never forgiven them.
The Tories haven’t had a proper fuck-you majority to play with since 1987-92, and then they were distracted by the defenestration of Thatcher, the Poll Tax and a recession. That’s three decades of scores to settle. Oh boy.
“Yes it hurt. Yes it worked”
Now bend over, this is gonna smart.
Of course he tinkered at the edges. Like I said, that’s how Goldsmith and Morgan got on. But with the time these things take, it WAS mostly done before he took office. The next one will be when he really gets going.
Really gets gonging you mean?
I’ll get me ermine….
The honour system has always been on shaky ground if we’re honest. Centuries of history in which the unworthy get honoured for kissing the right arses or doing someone more powerful’s dirty work.
There’s nothing the likes of us, who are unlikely to ever be considered for a gong, knighthood or peerage can do about it, but if people who are truly deserving of being honoured start turning them down when offered, saying that the company they’ll be keeping means they are of no actual consequence anymore, they might eventually stop dishing them out to cesspit scum like IDS, Nicky Morgan and Zac Goldsmith.
Some stats for New Year Honours 2020:
1,097 recipients
72% given for work in the community
556 women (51%)
9.1% BAME background
941 OBEs, MBEs and BEMS
156 Dames, Knights, CBEs, Companions of Honour
IDS has done plenty of work in the community – making sure there are fewer of those frightful disabled people around to offend our sights, for a start.
The honours system is an irrelevance frankly. The interesting thing is that, with huge clothes pegs on their noses, huge numbers of people have democratically voted against a party whose policies (at their most centre-leftist) they probably agree with. One can huff and puff about Etonians etc but all those people have made clear that Corbyn didn’t appear to like this country, or respect the way most people want to live their lives. Yes, it was impossible to find anyone to vote for with real enthusiasm but, having experienced Momentum’s bullying in this area, the world of Corbyn is a humourless, spiritless, intolerant vision that should gave gone to Spec Savers…
A least Annie Nightingale got something.
The only thing Duncan Smith should get is an early political grave.
I see that Factory Records designer Peter Saville has been made a CBE.
Well, at least he deserves a gong more than the pathologically evil Iain Duncan Smith.
Have we someone/anyone from England here who’d like to pen/record a song expressing their views on Duncan Smith? I keep doing that re: Northern Ireland politicians. Obviously, it does no real good, but it makes a few people feel better 🙂 Go on – if you feel strongly about it, give the toad a kicking through artistry.
But for not possessing any musical talent or instruments, I’d take up your challenge.
Perhaps I’ll just get up on stage during an Arcade Fire gig and start wailing away* in the hope that I can persuade them to compose a devastating anti- SirIDS dirge to incite the masses to rise up etc.
(*I assume this is how members of that band are recruited)
Does this mean we can call him Sid Smith, now?
Iain Duncan-Smith
Or to give him his due title as awarded through merit
Iain Duncan-Smith
Are there any advantages to becoming a “Sir”?
The only sir I know used his title to get upgrades on flights.
Macca?
I once saw IDS on an Easyjet from Berlin, looking morose (this was soon after the expenses scandal). No doubt those days are well and truly over