Thread by @RussInCheshire

#TheWeekInTory

1. It’s been a busy 3 weeks, during which we’d denied entry for refugees, allowed refugees if they'd pick fruit, turn back over 600 refugees in Calais, hung posters in France saying, “no visas here”, and taken 0.015% the number refugees taken by Ireland

2. This week the Home Office followed up on their *excellent* start by sending emails to displaced people in Ukraine, asking them to head INTO THE WAR ZONE to attend a visa application appointment at a UK centre 500 miles from their home

3. And that visa centre is shut

4. Michael Gove, with the soul of a hyena, said the UK had “granted 300,000 visas”

5. Sky News asked if he was sure about that number

6. Michael Gove, with the mind of a goldfish, said the UK had “granted 3000 visas”

7. And only 300 people have actually been allowed in yet

8. Poland has taken over 1.8 million

9. So Boris Johnson, an internationally recognised lodestone for bullshit, said “we have taken more refugees than any other country in Europe”

10. And then he halted Home Office plans to expand the refugee offer

11. Meanwhile Daniel Kawczynski, the gobshite’s gobshite, tweeted it would be “immoral” and “left wing” for Britain to take refugees

12. Instead he said kids, pensioners and pregnant women fleeing Russian bombardments should “remain on the front line” for “their own good”

13. Having bravely volunteered Ukrainians to the front line, he bravely deleted his Twitter account because people mocked him for being as thick as a boxing day turd

14. But the govt has eventually done the right thing, having finally exhausted all the alternatives

15. The Tories created a website where you can register to house a refugee

16. The website crashed

17. When it did occasionally work, it was discovered you need to know the individual names of any refugees you wanted to help, and the govt wouldn’t assist with that in any way

18. Michael Gove suggested the best way for Ukrainian refugees to let volunteers know their names was to “set up an Instagram account” (presumably while being shot at in a freezing crater that used to be their bombed-out home), quickly learn English, and “advertise”

19. Gove said he’d “had it up to here” with people saying his govt was dishonest about its commitment to refugees, and that “Labour introduced the Hostile Environment”

20. It was 2012 when Tories announced their policy to “create, here in Britain, a really hostile environment”

21. Trundling horcrux Priti Patel said incredibly slow visa applications were necessary because of Windrush, which ended in people being unable to access benefits

22. Windrush only happened because of the Hostile Environment the Tories created, and are still running

23. Sajid Javid said he had considered taking in a refugee, but decided not to because “he wouldn’t be a good host”

24. He’s worth over £8m, and owns 3 homes in the UK

25. One has 5 double bedrooms, a Star Wars themed cinema, and a self-contained guest barn

26. But he can’t put up a refugee, cos he's not around to offer canapes

27. Patel tweeted it was “appalling misinformation” to suggest Ukrainians still needed a visa to enter the UK

28. Same day, Boris Johnson announced details of the visas Ukrainians needed to enter the UK

29. Tory MPs accused Patel of misleading the House of Commons (again) over visas

30. Patel told MPs “I have made it clear, the visa application centre has now been set up and we have staff in Calais”

31. That Calais visa centre is in Lille, which is 70 miles from Calais

32. And it didn’t exist when she told parliament it “has how been set up”

33. But she did tell MPs refugees could take “a free Eurostar” to the quantum fluctuating visa centre in Calais/Lille, so that must be a relief to them

34. Or maybe not, since no such train route exists

35. This week Boris Johnson wrote a Telegraph article blaming the EU for not using its influence to prevent Putin’s expansionism

36. In 2014 Boris Johnson wrote a Telegraph article blaming EU influence in Ukraine for Putin’s expansionism

37. Warming to his theme of Bullshit Tsunami, Johnson denounced our dependence on oil from a brutal undemocratic dictatorship that has invaded neighbouring lands

38. So instead, he went to ask for more oil from Saudi Arabia, a brutal undemocratic dictatorship that invaded Yemen

39. And Jacob Rees-Mogg, a cross between a cursed dildo and the concept of gout, claimed UK “leads the way” in removing corrupt Russian money from our system, thus proving the UK had previously led the way in allowing corrupt Russian money in our system

40. Bearing that in mind, grant me the balls of Nadine Dorries, who launched a “crackdown on people telling lies, using the internet to exploit innocent people”

41. She then asked Microsoft “when are you going to get rid of algorithms”, which are the basis of computer science

42. Meanwhile Facebook deleted quotes by Dorries and Boris Johnson for breaching their decency standards

43. Dorries then announced “400 new jobs” in culture

44. This consisted of her firing 600 people, moving 400 of their roles to Manchester, and cutting the remaining 200 jobs

45. Covid: and the former Corruption Minister (who earlier resigned cos there was too much corruption) said Tory Covid policy was “happy days if you were a crook”

46. As cases soared and scientists globally warned “the pandemic is not over” the Tories leaped into inaction

47. They cancelled funding for Covid tracking apps

48. And cancelled funding for Covid transmission studies

49. And cancelled all travel restrictions

50. And abolished the Covid declaration form on entry into UK, so we have no clue about new infections

51. Sajid Javid, apparently the health minister and a child’s drawing of infinite irresponsibility superimposed onto a competitively evil gonad, said Britain is “in a very good position” as 12,000 people ended up in hospital with Covid

52. Then he cut NHS training for new staff

53. The NHS already has 94,000 full time vacancies

54. And because of cuts a record 791 medical graduates were refused training places this week

55. Unsurprisingly Javid said we should “prepare ourselves” for many deaths. I'm gonna do 10 press-ups and bleed my radiators

56. Grant Shapps celebrated this great health news for people who somehow make it through alive, saying “you can now travel, like in the good old days”

57. And Greg Hands tweeted his delight at the memory of his 1985 move to Germany, where he went to live and work

58. They’re both members of a govt that ended the right to do any of that

59. Boris Johnson said the NI Protocol (which he negotiated, said was “brilliant”, and pushed through parliament without scrutiny) now needed “significant changes” because he said it might break the law

60. Courts ruled the Protocol is “not simple, but it is lawful” so we're stuck with it

61. MPs said the Festival of Brexit is a £120m “recipe for failure”, “vague”, “shape-shifting” and “an irresponsible use of public money”. Therefore a perfect celebration of Brexit

62. Rises in prices for energy, heating, oil, water, council tax, broadband, food and National Insurance all happened before Russia invaded Ukraine

63. But they all happened since Brexit

64. So after their last stunning success, the ERG transformed into a pro-fracking group

65. COP26 chair, climate super-champion, and the world’s first spine-donor Kwasi Kwarteng suggested fracking should go ahead in 138 English constituencies

66. Of those 138 MPs found only 5 would allow fracking under their OWN homes, but were all for it under anybody else’s

67. And speaking of COP26, this week it was revealed a Tory peer - no, not Evgeniy Lebedev, a different one - had attended that conference as a **Russian delegate**

68. Needles to say, the govt denied Russia was too embedded in the Downing St operation

69. And then it emerged Russia had fitted all the electronics, computers, recording and broadcast equipment for the ghastly £2.6 million Downing St briefing room that was only used for Allegra Stratton to admit to illegal parties, and for Johnson to watch Bond movies.

70. Minor stories you may have missed, or may wish you had: only 29% of students with disabilities were approved for govt disability grants

71. We suddenly face a multibillion-pound bill from China, because we forgot to collect customs duties on Chinese imports for SIX YEARS

72. Having left the Charity Commission without a chair for a year, the Tories finally found a former Tory candidate (what a coincidence) to take over, just in time for the review of whether private schools should still be charities

73. And finally, some much-needed good news: the law banning the import of dead wild animals from trophy hunters was axed after “lobbying from a small group of wealthy Tory peers”. And I bet that’s a huge relief to voters in those Red Wall seats

If you've got this far, I'm very sorry, but please consider going one step further.

Any donation - however small - can help the Disasters Emergency Committee with humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Here's the link

donation.dec.org.uk/ukraine-humani…

And because I get shouted at when I forget to do this, here's a link to my forthcoming book about all the crap we've had to put up with since 2010.

But please - donate to Ukraine first.

unbound.com/books/the-deca…

Oh, one more thing - I'm having a few days off next week, so there might not be a #TheWeekInTory.

Please ask your Tory MP to stop being fucking crazy for a few days, cos otherwise I don't think I'll ever be able to catch up. Thanks.