I was going to do #TheWeekInTory, but try as I might, I can’t find a single thing they’ve done wrong this week.
Only kidding. It’s been an absolute casserole. 91 items long, you poor fuckers.
Drink heavily before, during and after.
Here we go:
1. Boris Johnson got things off to a cracking start by telling adoring 79-year-old Tory youngsters that Ukrainians huddling in basements to survive a murderous Russian invasion was the same as an obsessive, Daily-Express-inspired quibble about energy efficient lightbulbs
2. Johnson – who says he "leads the world" on Ukraine – was subsequently uninvited from a summit on the war
3. Sajid Javid told R4 "Russians mislead their public all the time", and then immediately denied Johnson had even said the Brexit / Ukraine thing. Which he said. On TV.
4. Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy, told BBC "of course the PM doesn’t regret saying it"
5. An hour later it was reported Johnson "regrets the remarks"
6. An hour after that Johnson said he regrets nothing. Still keeping up? It's OK, neither is Nadine.
7. A report emerged of Johnson telling people Russian oligarchs were "buying influence in the Tory party"
8. So Priti Patel said Putin might use Ukrainian women and children to "infiltrate the UK"
9. It’s a fair point: they’re cheaper than Tory donors, and Putin loves a bargain
10. On the night Putin invaded Ukraine, it turns out Boris Johnson had attended a secret fundraising dinner with Russian donors
11. Meanwhile Alan Duncan, who had argued that the UK shouldn’t sanction Russian oil, was this week reported to be working for a Russian oil trader
12. Senior Tory Bernard Jenkin said it was "unbelievable" that Johnson ennobled a man who got all his money from his KGB-officer father, overriding warnings from the security services
13. Johnson denied it happened
14. Dominic Cummings said he personally watched it happen
15. Almost 140000 Brits have volunteered to house Ukrainian refugees
16. So the Tories issued 8300 visas, which – help me out, maths fans: is that enough?
17. We have now generously offered – but not yet delivered – visas to 1 in every 372 people fleeing Ukraine
18. Researchers described the "excessive bureaucracy" of our refugee programme as "completely unworkable"
19. So to ensure Ukrainians understand her govt's welcome, Priti Patel created a law to put them in jail for 4 years if they lack proper visa paperwork
20. Not even a UK jail – they’ll be shipped to "camps" overseas
21. Patel’s first choice of location was a literal volcano in the middle of the Atlantic
22. In a first for Patel, this idea was quickly abandoned because it’s "demonstrably insane", which is usually her sweet spot
23. So now Patel said refugees will be stored "offshore", but nobody knows where, and Australian experts described the idea as "a human rights disaster"
24. All this makes UK "the most anti-refugee country in the world" according to Médecins Sans Frontières
25. Despite this, Tory chairman and betwattled Morph cosplayer Oliver Dowden announced Boris Johnson has a "real emotional connection" with refugees
26. So deep is that connection that Boris Johnson intervened to airlift 96 dogs out of Afghanistan rather than humans
27. So the PM tweeted "warm wishes to Afghan friends in the UK", all of whom still await asylum approval
28. Then Johnson said it’s "not up to him" to work out if he’d allow a refugee in his house, proving he’s really taken the whole PartyGate "I know nothing" thing to heart
29. Posturing mantis Jacob Rees-Mogg loomed up, like your worst stilton nightmare, and implied he was glad Ukraine had been invaded cos it let Tories "get away" from the "fluff" of the PM getting pissed in the garden all day while 160,000 Brits died from Covid
30. JRM said Ukraine was finally an opportunity to "roll back wokery", and then to demonstrate his unerring commitment to free speech he said Britain should "refuse to use socialist vocabulary"
31. Oliver Dowden said people criticising those nice Russian oligarchs are "racist"
32. The PM’s unofficial advisor Charles Moore joined in, telling R4 "the govt's refugee policy isn’t racist. It’s just that we like Christians in this country and Muslims should go elsewhere"
33. Words. They can be so difficult.
34. We flushed and flushed, but Dowden bobbed back up, blaming a Labour govt for the energy crisis. Tories have been in office 12 years
35. And then he asserted – out loud, where any passing psychiatric professional could hear him – that privet hedges would vote Conservative
36. Defence secretary and novelty pencil eraser Ben Wallace spent several minutes on a hoax call from a pretend Ukrainian minister
37. He then said it was "standard practice" for Russians to do this sort of call, which makes you wonder why he took several minutes to work it out
38. Despite it being "standard practice", Priti Patel and Nadine Dorries then both fell for hoax calls
39. Rishi Sunak, having a go at being Chancellor during his gap-year, made an impassioned statement on Ukraine while Boris Johnson hunched behind him, practicing his gurning
40. Sunak said he wouldn’t be homing any refugees, but he and his wife would help "in other ways"
41. One of those other ways is Sunak and wife urgently doing absolutely nothing to withdraw their family investment in Russian businesses, for which I’m sure Ukraine is grateful
42. As foodbanks stopped accepting donations of potatoes cos recipients can’t afford the fuel required to cook them, Sunak decided to boast of all the different types of bread he can afford to buy
43. He then claimed "Tory policy has led to a million fewer living in poverty"
44. That policy is: manipulating the data by changing the way Tories measure poverty
45. Tory Scott Benton said the best way to avoid fuel poverty is "to get a job"
46. Getting a job doesn’t seem to help much: poverty in working households is at the highest level ever recorded
47. And Sunak just pushed another 1.3 m into poverty. He's the best one. They keep saying he's the best Tory
48. Warming up for his pitch for becoming next Bullshitting PM, Sunak told parliament he was cutting taxes as he announced the highest jump in taxes since the 1940s
49. He boasted of "the biggest cut in fuel tax 70 years", taking petrol prices all the way back to where they were 4 days earlier
50. A month after claiming he’d created the "fastest-growing economy in the G7", he's caused the biggest drop in living standards since the 50s
51. But – huzzah – at least we’ll get a 1p tax cut in 2024, coincidentally scheduled for the day before the general election is pencilled in.
52. Sunak then posed for perfectly life-like photos depicting him – the richest MP there has ever been – putting petrol into his Kia Rio
53. He said he was cutting VAT on solar panels which "the EU would not allow us to do"
54. The EU did it last year
55. Sunak then teed-up us blowing a hole in the NI Protocol, which Johnson negotiated, told voters was "a great deal", and forms the basis of his 80-seat majority
56. This brings us to Brexit, and the USA said breaking the Protocol mean they wouldn’t even attempt a trade deal
57. And then the USA said no matter what, a trade deal with a "shrinking UK" - which was the whole basis of our Brexit plan - wouldn’t be worth their time and effort
58. Not that it matters much, since the Public Accounts Committee said Brexit trade deals will "not deliver any actual economic benefits"
59. Former Brexit Party MEP Ben Habib announced plans to take Johnson to the Supreme Court to prove Brexit is worse than remaining in the EU
60. More Quantum Fluctuating Tory Manifesto news, as Oliver Dowden was back to hit out against "net-zero dogma", seemingly unaware he fought an election on a manifesto promising to deliver net-zero
61. P&O sacked 800 workers and then rehired replacements at 30% of minimum wage
62. The govt said it was shocked and appalled by this sudden news, despite having been told by P&O the day before it happened, and doing nothing to prevent it
63. The Tories now claim it P&O have broken the law (and the Tories let them, but shhhhh)
64. A maritime law specialist said it isn’t actually against the law, cos the legislation P&O used was signed off by Chris Grayling, the Home Bargains Pennywise, in 2018
65. Even so, the govt was so upset that Grant Shapps and Kwasi Kwarteng tweeted an angry tweet about it
66. They addressed the tweet to a man who had resigned as P&O chairman months before any of this happened
67. Then they deleted the tweet and sent it again to the right man
68. And then irony no-fly-zone Kwarteng said P&O’s ineptitude had "lost the trust of the public"
69. Clattering halfwit Natalie Elphicke was so incensed she told a protest rally that she would "be marching for the people of Dover"
70. Three days later, she abstained from voting to save P&O jobs
71. In fact, not a single Tory MP voted to prevent "Fire and Hire"
72. Grant Shapps said Tories would send a message that P&O sacking workers was "disgraceful treatment that would never be tolerated"
73. The same Shapps - perhaps using a different identity - was author of a paper arguing "it should be easier for firms to sack workers"
74. P&O had taken £10m grants to furlough workers, £150m as a bailout, and then its owners paid £250m to shareholders
75. To prove how terribly cross Tories were about all this, they gave the P&O owners an additional £50m as part of Rishi Sunak’s ever-so-clever Freeport Scheme
76. So crepuscular Regency abattoir-creeper Jacob Rees-Mogg sympathetically said he intended to scrap even more employment rules
77. He said "safety laws that are good enough for India are good enough for UK"
78. Workplace deaths per year in the UK: 112
79. In India: 48,000
80. Speaking of avoidable mass-deaths, despite the govt writing a terse memo telling the pandemic to pack it in, infections are up 400% since mask restrictions were lifted
81. 3.3 million people were infected in just 7 days
82. Admissions in England are up 26% in a week
83. So health secretary Sajid Javid moved on from last week’s soothing advice to "brace yourselves" for loads of deaths, and now says primary school kids should "socialise a bit less". Cos cutting down on 7-year-olds having dinner parties beats simple preventative measures
84. Speaking of utter failure to perform basic duties, senior officials reported the PM is "too lazy" and "unfocused" to read briefing papers, even on Ukraine
85. Instead, they send him summaries of sensitive material in WhatsApp messages, in breach of govt security regulations
86. All Johnson's WhatsApp messages are still there, except for the ones about Covid contracts, which he seems to have entirely accidentally deleted, just as the Covid enquiry begins. The "delete awkward evidence" button is in the Settings menu of WhatsApp
87. Also, Matt Hancock failed to declare WhatsApp messages he exchanged with disgraced former Tory MP Owen Paterson during last year’s illegal lobbying scandal
88. And his week Tories dropped plans to cap earnings from MP’s second jobs, which they promised after Paterson
89. They then rejected new rules to prevent "discriminatory language" in parliament
90. Which brings us the person in charge of equality, Kemi Badenoch, who said the black schoolgirl Child Q being strip-searched just shows how much the UK cares about minorities
91. She then boasted the British Empire achieved "good things", overlooking the small matter of 100 million deaths
92. Despite this, dying palm-tree Michael Fabricant rushed out to boast UK still had an excellent "soft-power" score of 64/100
93. It was 75/100 before Brexit
94. Finally, glistening human polyp David Cameron tried to rehabilitate his rep by posing for photos at one of the 2800 foodbanks his own policies had created
95. And research showed his decision to "cut the green crap" has added £150 a year to every fuel bill in the country
Hey, look, I'm really sorry about all of this shit that's listed above. I hope you're not too depressed.
If you feel like doing something useful, join a political party that ISN'T the Tories, prepare to do tactical votes, and donate to Ukraine
And if you feel like a longer, dafter dive into what Tories has done to the country, there's still a chance to support my forthcoming book (which includes lots of jokes to make the horror less horrific).
Apart from the utter horror of what it does to countless women and children, I can't help but feel the Roe v Wade ruling is going to turn into an absolute political disaster for those who wanted it.
For a start, this isn't some minor political scandal that people forget after a few months. It's a life-changing, maybe life-ending, utter tragedy for those affected. And for their families and friends. It won't fade into the background, and those responsible won't be forgiven.
Secondly, millions will vote with their feet, the young fleeing states that impose bans. This will gut their tax base in two ways: loss of a generation or two of taxpayers, and loss of businesses and investment that relied on those workers, but will now invest elsewhere.
By-election day in #TivertonandHoniton , so let me tell about their former MP, who was once one of the most famous people in England, a national hero, a disgraced fraudster, and an astonishingly accomplished piratical maniac.
He had quite a life.
Admiral Sir Thomas Cochrane was born in 1775 in Hamilton, Scotland, and I should confess immediately that I really admire the guy.
I also think he was capable of epic twattery, and if he was alive now he'd be in jail or Downing Street. Probably both.
Same old same old.
Practically as soon as he was potty-trained, he began his career of indisputable heroism, technical innovation, radical politics, nepotism, corrupting elections, stock-market fraud, almost starting world wars, legalised piracy, mercenary warfare, and shameless bullshit.
1. Let’s start with spindly, posturing mantis Jacob Rees-Mogg, who this week blocked a bill that spares elephants from torture
2. As foodbank use reached 2.6 million, JRM spent £1400 per person for ministers to learn how to create a “powerful personal presence”
3. Last year Lord Geidt, Boris Johnson’s ethics advisor – think of it as like being Shane MacGowan’s dental hygienist – had said his resignation would be a “last resort” and would only be used to send “a critical signal into the public domain”
4. This week he resigned
5. Geidt said prime minister and abandoned candyfloss Boris Johnson had placed him in an “odious” position by asking him to approve (another) breach of the ministerial code
6. Johnson has had 2 ethics advisors, and they have both resigned over Johnson’s irredeemable behaviour
The Horny Honey Monster is on the ropes, so I think it's time to take a quick look at the runners and riders poised to take over from Boris Johnson.
It's an inspiring list.
🧵
Liz Truss
The kind of foreign minister you'd expect to find on Gumtree. A LibDem, then a Tory. Opposed Brexit, then wanted it. Said she'd resign over it, then that she'd do anything to deliver it. Eventually decided it was too complicated and hid.
Thatcher from Elizabeth Duke.
Jeremy Hunt
A demonic pixie with persona of a polyester-blazered assistant in a soft-furnishings shop. As health minister he spent his hours auctioning your wellbeing off to – well, I’d like to say the highest bidder, but I doubt he’s competent enough to get a good price.
As some of you might expect, the latest banshee howl that is #TheWeekInTory is quite lengthy, and I advise a deep dive into your preferred sedative before beginning.
Let us begin where the last one ended, which is, astonishingly, a mere 5 days ago [queue wobbly screen]...🧵
1. Having spent a week insisting there was nothing wrong with avoiding £20 million in tax while being responsible for raising tax, Space Family Sunak have now concluded that for PR purposes their monumental, sickening greed is “not compatible with British fairness”
2. Sunak insisted he should not be associated with his spouse for tax purposes
3. This came as a shock to the rest of us, for whom our spouse’s income affects every personal tax matter, every mortgage application, and all benefits claims
1. Let’s start #TheWeekInTory with PartyGate, where randy Honey Monster and (no, really) Prime Minister Boris Johnson denied 20 fines meant there had been wrongdoing
2. This doesn’t quite explain why he had personally phoned the Queen to apologise for all the wrongdoing
3. Regardless, The Met issued MASSIVE fines of £50 for breaching lockdown rules
4. Last week a £2,200 was handed down to a member of the public (who didn't live or work in Downing St) for breaching lockdown rules, thus proving we’re all equal in the eyes of the law
5. Maria Caulfield said the PM was “very clear there was wrongdoing”
6. Same TV show, she said the PM “did not believe there was wrongdoing”
7. Dom Cummings (Lucius Malfoy after a flash-fire) said “the PM encouraged attacks on junior officials” to distract from his own crimes