It’s only a couple of days since I did #TheWeekInTory, and here I am again because – oh hell, you already know why.
Anyway, here we go, you lucky, lucky bastards
1. Chris Pincher was accused of groping 2 men after getting indescribably pissed
2. He did it in a place that’s – genuinely – called “Cad’s Corner” in one of the Tory Party’s favourite members-only clubs, and nothing says “this unacceptable behaviour was totally unexpected” like providing it with a designated venue
3. Pincher resigned, but Boris Johnson, the randy yeti who is still, at the time of writing, our Prime Minister, didn’t withdraw the whip from him
4. Pincher had already had to resign as a whip in 2019 for groping people
5. And faced investigates into groping in 2017 too
6. In fact Pincher’s behaviour was so well-known, govt minders had been specifically appointed to keep an eye him, even though his **actual job** was MP’s welfare
7. Despite years of warnings, in Feb Johnson appointed him as a whip for a second time anyway
8. Johnson claimed “HR law” meant he wasn’t allowed to NOT give Pincher a job
9. No such law exists, and also, what the spangly tartan fuck?
10. The PM’s spokesman refused to deny Johnson had referred to “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” before giving him the job
11. A Tory backbencher said he’d been groped by Pincher twice in the last 8 months alone, and nothing was done about it
12. And so, inevitably, Operation Save Big Dog once again reached the “eating his own faeces in the garden” stage. It was Déjà vu, all over again
13. The PM accepted Pincher’s resignation, just like he accepted Allegra Stratton’s over parties
14. The PM's spokesman said “the PM wasn't aware of the allegations”, just like he did over parties
15. The PM said he “considers the matter closed”, just like he did over parties
16. The PM said he wasn’t aware of any scandal, just like he did over parties
17. Then he said he wasn’t aware of any SPECIFIC scandal, just like he did over parties
18. Then he said he wasn’t aware of any 𝙎𝙀𝙍𝙄𝙊𝙐𝙎 SPECIFIC scandal, just like he did over parties
19. Then he said he WAS aware of rumours of scandals, but only the unproven ones, just like he did over parties
20. Then he finally admitted he knew all about it and was actively involved, just like he did over parties
21. Johnson, star of last week’s best sex scandal, denied Conor Burns had walked in on him getting a blowjob in the office, just like Johnson denied all the parties
22. Neil Parish, tractor-wanking star of last month’s best sex scandal, said Pincher should lose his seat
23. Multiple ministers reportedly refused to defend Johnson, because they've finally become sick of their place in the stitched-up, crawling Human Centipede through which the PM’s endless stream of thick, lustrous bullshit has to pass before it reaches the public
24. In the absence of fall-guys or basic sense, Johnson chose to admit he’d known all about Pincher, but had to “balance” sexual assaults against Pincher’s “skills” as a the whip responsible for minimising scandals
25. Is it too early to mark this “skill” down as a failure?
26. Johnson then went back to saying he hadn’t known anything, then he had, but also “forgot” about the earlier Pincher scandals
27. Senior aides said the PM had been given a “first-hand account” of sexual assaults by Pincher, just days before he was appointed in Feb
28. So No 10 denied they had lied all the dozens of times they’d definitely lied, because “At the time that was the PM's view”
29. This means Downing Street’s official definition of truth is now: whatever the PM's scattered wits can recollect at the time
30. Some ministers were struggling to keep up with this, including two of our dullest tools
31. Rubik’s gobshite Dominik Raab, over the course of 15 seconds, asserted he wasn’t aware of Pincher’s behaviour, but also that he'd “pulled Pincher to one side” because of the groping
32. Cigar-chomping Uncle Fester impersonator Therese Coffey said she definitely knew the PM was unaware aware of the scandal, cos she HADN'T asked him
33. This bullshit jamboree was the moment Ben Wallace chose to launch a new bill protecting the UK from “govt disinformation”
34. Coffey said “Tory men do not have particular problem with sexual harassment”
35. It’s a pity she hadn't been able to make it to court to defend convicted sexual assaulter Charlie Elphicke
36. Or convicted sexual assaulter Imran Ahmad Khan
37. Or Mark Menzies, who paid a male Brazilian escort for sex and asked him to precure a load of meth
38. Or Mark Garnier, who admitted referring to his secretary as “sugar tits” and instructing her to buy sex toys for him
39. Or Stephen Crabb, who texted a 19-year-old he’d just interviewed for a job, inviting her to meet him for sex
40. Or Brooks Newmark, who sent sexually explicit messages to party workers
41. Or Andrew Griffiths, who sent 2000 explicit messages to 2 barmaids in just 2 weeks
42. Or David Davies, who’s senior aide described as a sexually inappropriate misogynist
43. Or Damien Green, who resigned after being too handsy with an activist half his age
44. Or the unnamed cabinet minister who invited his secretary to “come and feel the length of my cock”
45. Or another who grabbed a journalist and said “God, I love those tits”
46.Or Daniel Kawczynski, who urged a commons researcher to go on a date with a wealthy donor older than her father, who she had already rejected three times. She called it “sleazy in the extreme”
47. Or Bob Gale, who said female journalists subjected to such sexual assaults were just “wilting flowers” and that the women were “mainly responsible”
48. Or Boris Johnson, who managed to grope both journalist Charlotte Edwardes AND another woman AT THE SAME LUNCH
49. Clearly Carrie Antoinette was prepared to overlook that, and also overlook Pincher – she had openly questioned his appointment as early as 2017
50. Caroline Nokes said she’d seen Pincher hammered at work twice in the same week, reported it, and it had been ignored
51. She claims male parliamentary staff had been warned to “steer clear” of Pincher
52. Nick Robinson said Pincher’s behaviour was so infamous around Westminster that “even the dogs in the street” knew about it
53. Former whip Mark Harper said “we cannot go on like this”
54.But we are. And to prove it, deranged ukulele enthusiast and follicular fire-hazard Michael Fabricant rocked up, claiming, astonishingly, that Johnson’s only fault was “loyalty”
55. This will come as quite a surprise to all of his betrayed previous wives and mistresses
56. Fabricant went on to suggest Chris Pincher is the real victim here, rather than all the recipients of his multiple sexual assaults
57. A Tory MP told LBC “We are eeking-out the final hours and days of this Government. We aren’t talking about weeks or months”
58. Peter Bone, a child’s drawing of their vampire grandad, said none of this was important because nobody had even heard of Chris Pincher. Or Barbra Streisand
59. In other news: the govt’s stern memo ordering Covid to stop doesn’t seem to have worked: cases rose 30% in a week
60. So the Tories cut sick pay for NHS staff who are off work with Covid, cos obviously that’s sane
61. The govt began considering 50-year mortgages that your kids will have to inherit, making it impossible for your kids to own a home cos they’re too busy paying for yours
62. Johnson’s 2019 election claim that he’d build 40 hospitals is now facing an official investigation on the grounds it was “significantly misleading” under electoral law
63. This is because they’re actually building just 5 hospitals
64. The science minister said Britain was “becoming a science superpower”, and then over 100 grants to UK scientists were immediately suspended because our govt got bored with its own Brexit, so voted to break its legally binding commitments under international law
65. And then the constitutionally slack-brained Liz Truss tweeted a complaint that Beijing had “abandoned its legally binding commitments” to Hong Kong
66. Nurse Ratched prototype Priti Patel condemned as “wokeism” the move for Universities to create “safe spaces”
67. She then said the govt needed a “safe space” to discuss Rwanda policy, which was her excuse for not telling anybody how many millions she’s wasted on it
68. Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Microsoft Paperclip standing to attention, claimed Brexit allowed us to do the vaccine rollout
69. It was pointed out that the vaccine rollout happened while we were still under EU rules
70. So JRM genuinely claimed the EU would have chosen not to vaccinate people
71. Unperturbed by reality, he then claimed that Brexit is allowing us to ease the cost-of-living crisis
72. And then reality turned up: the Brexit divorce bill rose by €10 billion this month because the £ is so much weaker than the Euro after Brexit
73. And the OBR said Brexit has cost £100 billion in lost output, and £40 billion to the treasury PER YEAR
74. You can think of that as a tower of £10 notes over 700 miles tall – twice the orbital height of the International Space Station – and all wasted
75. That money could have helped single-parent families, as this week over 50% of them slid into poverty due to benefits cuts
76. So obviously, because of all his caring about the cost-of-living crisis and the economy, Boris Johnson spent almost half a million quid on an official govt jet to fly him home from a private weekend break in Cornwall
77. And it’s still only Tuesday
I hope you're OK.
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Our system was so badly gamed because it is still based on the "decent chaps" theory of govt. All it takes is people who aren't decent chaps, and it all falls apart.
Ideas for how a new govt could begin fix things. Perfect? No. But suggest better rather than criticising🧵
Set up a manifesto comparison site. Parties enter SPECIFIC pledges, SPECIFIC budgets, SPECIFIC yearly targets.
Example: we will spend £40bn on 200,000 houses by 2024.
If you can't state your goal, budget and timetable, you don't have a plan. Those are the basics.
All parties pledge, so voters know what they're getting. No more manifestos saying "we believe in Britain". It means fuck all.
To enforce pledges, if a party misses more than 20% of its annual targets, a general election is called automatically.
Brexit is a biblical curse that is ruining us. Johnson, it's chief architect has already started smashing it up, breaking international law.
Now he has nothing to lose, so will he attempt more destruction? Or will saner (ha!) voices in the party stop him?
Johnson's Levelling Up agenda has so far done absolutely nothing, and we have no money, a massive financial crisis coming in Aug, and a party that refuses to do any redistribution. Plus, the Levelling Up team has almost all quit.
Will anyone want to run it? Will it vanish?
Half the party wants to fix public finances by increasing taxation on those who can afford it. The other half wants to cut taxes for the wealthy on the bewildering assumption that they'll suddenly spend all the money they've thus far hoarded.
I've been struggling to think of anything to put into #TheWeekInTory. Quiet, innit?
Only kidding. It's an absolute casserole. This is the 3rd of these in 6 days, and is almost certainly already out of date.
Regardless, this is my life now, and I'm taking it out on you...
1. Boris Johnson became the third successive Tory Prime Minister to have their career destroyed by Boris Johnson
2. Always stickers for tradition, the Tories first promised, and then proved completely incapable of Getting Exit Done
3. This all began with the resignation of Oliver Dowden, the Minister Without Portfolio
4. After 43 resignations in 24 hours, we ended up having portfolios without ministers, including the govt’s flagship Levelling Up Dept, which was, irony of ironies, absolutely flattened
What's the plan? And bear in mind these people are professional politicians.
Option 1:
Johnson survives to the next election
Option 2:
Johnson staggers on for months but falls before election
Option 3:
Johnson lasts 6 weeks at best
Option 4:
Johnson goes now
🧵
Option 1:
Rolling disaster, constant rebellion, likely moves by 1922 committee, and hard to deliver any policy cos of constant firefighting. Still faces a parliamentary inquiry into PartyGate lies. In the unlikely event he survives until a GE, he'll lose it massively.
Option 2:
Maybe he can limp on for a few months, but haemorrhaging votes. After he goes there won't be time for a new leader to rescue much before a GE, and it'll still be an electoral disaster for Tories, who will all be soiled by supporting Johnson against public wishes.
I just found myself trying to think of ONE THING this govt has done to improve ordinary lives.
And quite honestly, I can't. Can you? I mean, seriously - anything?
Compare this with what the last Labour govt did, which I list below.🧵
HEALTH
Reduced NHS waiting times by 82%
85,000 more nurses
Free eye tests and bus travel for over 60s
Heart disease deaths down 150,000
Cancer deaths down 50,000
Free breast screening for 50-70 year-olds
In-patient waiting lists down half a million
Created NHS Direct
POVERTY
600,000 children lifted out of poverty
1 million pensioners lifted out of poverty
26% increase in child benefit
Introduced winter fuel payments
Made improvements to 1 million social homes
Introduced child Tax Credits
Created 3 million child trust funds
Yes. I can think of a way forward. And here it is 🧵
Sell it. It could become a tourist attraction, or a grand hotel, or a museum, or a combination. Thousands of new jobs, millions of tourists, and the sale alone would raise billions.
Then use that money to build a new parliament outside London.
Also sell all the gov buildings that proliferate around Westminster, the most expensive real estate in Europe. Relocate the jobs.
Spread the gov depts around the regions. Transport in Tonypandy. Pensions in Portsmouth. Defence in Doncaster. Treasury in Tadcaster.