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Silly Billy

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I almost feel sorry for Kwasi – his trip to the US (with presumably a begging bowl) cut short and back to London, a la Denis Healey returning from going to see the IMF in 1976. (If only, for all our sakes, this govt. was on such good terms with the IMF). Meantime, there’s a big picture of him on the front page of the Telegraph – The Telegraph – and the headline says “I’m not going anywhere”. Translation: don’t renew your Sky Plus subs for number 11, pal.

The Tories seem to be having a break from what they do best – convincing the electorate that they can run the economy – and are falling back on what they do second best: putting each others’ heads on spikes.

Still, at least the food banks are busy eh?

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  1. PS do people always say Miss (or Mizz) Truss because Mrs Truss sound like the name of someone in the “entertainment industry” who operates a dungeon?

    Apols if you’re just having your breakfast

  2. I had an email from the foodbank this week. Donations have dropped as demand has increased. The gap is alarming. We’ve been asked to be extra careful giving out vouchers. Lots of people are unable to afford enough food.

  3. There’s an announcement coming from No 10 later. Probably KK to be sacked but that doesn’t feel like this will end the turmoil at all.

    Alternatively, Truss could force another leadership contest along the lines of John Major’s “Put up or shut up” move. Although she would say “Put them up. Or. Shut them. Up.”

    Long term, the best thing for the Conservative Party and the country is a General Election. They know they are going to get a hammering – just get it over with and regroup. The opportunity to govern again might present itself within a few years, you never know.

    • Kwarteng is out for doing exactly what his boss asked him to do and then stoutly defended. I bet Truss will be delighted when her honeymoon period is over because it’s hardly going great guns while it is.

      They’re toast. This has been coming for a long time, but was speeded up when non-Brexiters were expelled from the party leaving them devoid of front-bench talent. What has happened in the last couple of weeks isn’t a blip, it’s a culmination.

                • Oh good cueing-up sir, I’ll always take any opportunity to post this:

                  So here’s a question: Why weren’t Bow Wow Wow absolutely massive? This was Perfect Pop in my book, packed full of everything you want in 3 minutes.

                  Was it simply industry antipathy towards Malcy?

                  • I saw them live and they were great. Annabella was a superb singer and had a strong stage presence.

                    I think the problem was they were too well put together. The tail wagged the dog too obviously. There was an air of manipulation about them that was discomforting , not to mention the, ahem, child sexual exploitation.

                    • Really good to hear that Annabella was a good live singer; she was certainly fantastic on record.

                      I agree about the ‘being manufactured’ thing, though that’s been a thing since forever; perhaps it was just too overtly cynically done in the case of BWW. And tbh I’d completely forgotten about the CSE issue that you and Moose mention; I can’t recall any of the details or imagery, but it’s slightly uplifting to think that sufficient people might have said “Uh-huh, nah that’s not acceptable”.

                      Real shame that that caused Annabella’s light to be dimmed (to whatever degree) as she seemed to be a talent with a lot of potential to do interesting stuff. She fell off my radar completely, so I hope she managed to develop a decent career that she was happy with. I could wiki her, of course.

                    • She was 14 when she posed nude for the cover of See Jungle! etc in a *tribute* to Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. The men were fully clothed. Her mum instigated a police investigation which went nowhere. McLaren, ever the provocateur, used the same image for an EP, Last Of The Mohicans, and a single, Go Wild In The Country. She then appeared nude again in a new photo a year later for I Want Candy. It all felt a bit grubby.

                      The band, the original Ants for Adam, had a thunderous, percussive sound. They had ups and downs, splits and reunions, and she went solo for a while, plus other projects. She’s still only in her mid fifties now. And she seemed unfazed by all the fuss at the time.

                    • Thanks Tiggs.

                      Eeesh, I’ll be careful in my searching in view of that, then, but it’ll be interesting to catch up with what she’s been doing / is doing now.

                    • The photos are tastefully done. They are not in the same league as Blind Faith. She is clearly naked but you don’t *see* anything you really shouldn’t.

                  • Antipathy towards Malcy? Honey, is you trippin’? Most people wouldn’t have known who he was, let alone that he was connected to the
                    Giant Sized Baby Thing
                    Hitmakers and their pedo-tastic album covers.

                    I listened to Dirk this week – it’s a top album, but that line-up of th’Ants wouldn’t have gone any further.

  4. Surely they can never, ever again hold themselves up as being the party who are fiscally responsible? I would genuinely love to think that this will be the final nail in the coffin for this absolute shambles of a government.
    General election now please…and then I wish Labour would very quickly introduce Proportional Representation so these dangerous and lunatic extreme right wingers will be much less likely to get near power again.

    • No, we’ve got to stay with FPTP because, as Keir says, everyone in Scotland is about to start voting Labour again – nailing on huge majorities for the party until the end of time what with it being 1997 and everything.

      And anyway millions of people up and down the country who live in safe seats absolutely adore having a vote that means absolutely fuck-all.

      I’m being SARCASTIC.

          • I’m as certain as I can be (without being encumbered by any actual facts or knowledge) that Keir is pro-PR (because how can any intelligent/responsible person not be?) but that he and the rest of the leadership have decided that it’s not tactically prudent to nail their colours to that mast at this time. I can see Labour getting a landslide at the next GE via FPTP, given current polling, and then possibly testing public appetite for PR sometime late in that first term.

            Edit: I’m aware that Conference voted strongly in favour of wanting a commitment to PR included in the next Manifesto; can’t remember the specific wording of that resolution but I still can’t see that it’ll be something which Labour go strong on in the run-up to the next GE.

              • Local accountability is a genuine concern for some people. Not sure how this could be squared with the benefits of PR.
                Perhaps with some sort of hybrid system, combining directly-elected constituency MPs (but less of them) and a number of party-selected representatives according to regional and national share of the vote.
                I’d also like to see a restriction on political appointments to the upper house, if we continue to have one. Only former PMs, Chancellors, Foreign Secretaries and Home Secretaries and their opposition shadows would be eligible. Political donors excluded.

  6. So if KamiKwaze has gone (as a result of the backlash to the mini Budget, despite what Jacob Rees-Mogg denies) where does that leave Mrs Surgicaldevice? Immediate tax cuts and grwth was her ticket to the top job. A reversal would surely mean she’s there under false pretenses.

    And to start the rumour mill now: Sunak to return to the Treasury?

  8. My meds can’t be working – I watched her press conference and actually felt sorry for her!
    A tiny wee rabbit caught in the headlights who only escaped certain death by announcing “I’ve answered four questions, that’s more than enough, laters.”
    I’m surprised she didn’t say “At least we’re not in France, thems got no petrol/diesel you know.”

  10. Can’t remember a UK government this bad in my
    lifetime.

    There isn’t one thing in the UK that isn’t significantly.
    worse than It was when they assumed office.

  11. When I heard Kwarteng had to attend an IMF meeting I almost felt the tiniest hint of pity for him. Like a new kid turning up at a secondary school where all the other pupils already knew him as that kid who publicly shat his pants. Then I remembered what an amoral, insider trading piece of self-serving scum he is.

  13. Denis Healey would sometimes get on my* bus on a Thursday evening, back up from London for constituency work/downtime over the weekend. Very affable and approachable but clearly shagged out by that point in the week/his career so people just gave him his space and privacy. This was well post-Labour Govt so he’d have been Shadow Front Bench if anything, possibly even backbencher by then, but nevertheless it was still really good to see him being Real Life and accessible.

    *I say ‘my bus’, I mean ‘The People’s Bus!!!’ This was Leeds, mid-80s, so a time when the North was still unequivocally and exhilaratingly anti-Blue…apart from Keith Joseph’s redoubt, in which I unfortunately lived. (Should have wiki’d timelines and constituency boundaries before posting).

  14. I’m actually feeling a bit sorry for her now. She’s the only person in the world, apart from a few Home Counties racists, who didn’t know how awful she’d be at this. And then, about a week ago, it dawned on her. Everyone she trusted lied to her, and everyone she ignored was right.

    Imagine her tortured dreams. Then imagine waking from them and reality being worse. She can’t make it stop. She has no allies, no advisors and no escape. The headlines, the cameras, the whispers in the Tea Room. No one has ever, ever, ever been so utterly humiliated. And it will be like this for the rest of her life.

    • I think we’ve all worked with someone who’s risen to the top with great self belief only to be the wrong person to do the job.
      I’m afraid I don’t feel sorry for her, she wanted the job, she was ’employed’by the worst interview panel and her co-workers didn’t want her.
      I don’t think she’ll even end up on the after dinner speaking circuit reduced to stopping people as if she were the Ancient Mariner saying ” I used to be prime minister now I’m reduced to being a question on trivial pursuit as the shortest serving prime minister”

    • Well, essentially these are the leaders you get when you allow Party members to choose them.

      Party MP’s should really be the ones choosing. They might not be much more intelligent than your card carying (and therefore self-excluding, in a sane world) Party member, but at least have a much more sensible view of what the candidates are actually like. Or at least (human nature etc) the candidate’s chances of returning them to their seat in the next GE.

  16. Good story in this morning’s Times about the hassles Kwasimodo faced in
    Getting a seat on a flight back to London as no one wanted to let him near
    Business or Economy

  17. The front pages won’t cheer Liz up. “Lame Duck” – the Sun (Rupe has obviously spoken). “Shambolic”- the Daily Mail, already. Only the Express is keeping Da Faith. Their masthead says “We stand with the people of Ukraine…
    The people of the UK, however, can fuck off and die”

    Go back to your pork markets and prepare for opposition.

  19. Hunt has now ripped up all of the mini-budget. Truss is nowhere to be seen.

    What if Truss resigns with immediate effect ? Does that mean – oh Lord – Therese Coffey as Deputy takes over as PM? That’ll soothe the markets and make the Tories electable! Not !

    (Hope you’re enjoying this weapons-grade satire)

  21. a single WhatsApp message from a prominent member of the 2019 intake of Tory MPs. The message said: “Rishi PM. Hunt CX. Penny FS. And it’s a done deal.”

  22. “I’ll lead Tories into next election”, says embattled Liz Truss.

    For the good of us all, let’s hope she does. We don’t want anyone who might win doing it, do we?

  23. She says ‘deliver’ a lot. All part of the scripted mantra.

    She can’t improvise at all. She waits a few seconds after a question has been asked visibly debating with herself if she can make a few off the cuff comments that will address the query, then decides she can’t and says a sentence with ‘deliver’ in it.

    If only Clement Attlee were alive today. He’d by 139 years old. Er…

  24. And now it’s come to this…

    …on 1 October, Damien Wirst, one of your and my favourite Young British Arsewipes, announced that he’s down to his last few hundred £million and is being forced to burn his very very popular paintings…simply in order to keep warm!!!1!

    That. Is. A. Disgrace!

    Where’s the humanity, Chancellor Hunt?????

      • It would have taken Jim 20 mins to arrive at the point of being able to pose that short, simple question…

        …by which time the nation had hit the Snooze button five times.

        • “A lot of our listeners, up and down the country, and we do have listeners all over the country, will be sitting down to their breakfast this morning – porridge or cereal or boiled eggs or maybe even toast with marmalade or jam or maybe even just butter, those people will be wondering where is the humanity, and if you don’t know where it is do you know why has it gone and how long is it going to take to come back? In just ten seconds, please, Garry Richardson’s on next”

  27. Newsflash:

    PM Hunt appoints Guardian-reading tofu-eating wokerati as new Transport Secretary; all private jet owners to be killed, and remains used to fill potholes in 8-lane M1 cyclepath. Seen as snub to Truss.

  28. Sadly I think the vile Braverman has engineered her own exit in the hope of having another shot at the soon to be vacant PM post. Hopefully she’ll be handed her backside for a second time.

  33. The Chief Whip has resigned (according to Richard Coles on Twitter, which doesn’t seem an odd way to find things out these days). Who’s going to maintain party discipline now?

  34. Braverman engineering her own exit for a remuneration -related reason and/or she sees an opportunity for the top job.

    Isn’t it ironic – don’t you reckon – that Schnorbitz takes over a role because the last incumbent committed a security breach. The bloke who has gone by several aliases in the past for reasons that aren’t 100% clear.

  39. I went to bed with the Chief & Deputy Whips having resigned. Woke up to find they haven’t and that they are now prowling the corridors of Whitehall looking for the 40 traitorous bastards who abstained. Couldn’t make this up.

    ps no wish to deprive Moose of a third hamper but isn’t it time to start a new thread (like what we do on the Wordle one) to save all this scrolling (especially hard on us sinisters).
    Howsabout “Silly Billy – He’s Back” “?

  41. It’s all a bit Restaurant At The End of the Universe now, isn’t it?

    Every week it’s the excellent Chris Mason outside No. 10 with his 70’s hair and ringbinder doing another 24 hour shift as the current government flings its shit at the walls inside.

    • ‘Excellent’ and ‘Chris Mason’ are not words I would put together. He was a joke as Any Questions presenter. I’m just glad anybody but him has the job now. BBC Political Editor seems like a joke job, from the people who have had the job since the days of John Cole.

      And that’s comment 300! When does Gerard Butler show up?

      • Political coverage is a bit of a joke altogether, isn’t it? Daily Politics usually gets two people from a right wing newspaper, somebody from a shadowy think-tank and a token lefty person who represents absolutely no-one and hey hey it’s all balanced. And correspondents who say “This is unprecedented… I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole career” – well of course you haven’t, you’re twelve years old. The coalition to you is like the Punic wars.

        If football was covered in such a frivolous fashion I’ve lost faith in this argument already.


  42. One person was elected by the British public with a manifesto and a mandate until January ‘25.

    So “Go Nad” has decided that a) Boris was elected as president at the last GE and b) when he’s elected he gets more than five years, unlike every other parliament.

    Give it up, love – you’re at least thirty years too old and several notches not posh enough for him.

  44. And she’s gone. Good riddance, but where can the Conservatives possibly got from here after the last 2 PMs have been the scum at the bottom of the barrel and then the scrapings?

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