Russ Jones Profile picture
Sep 26 39 tweets 7 min read
#TheWeekInTory

1. We begin with our new leader, Margarine Thatcher, who in only 3 weeks has become PM, finished off The Queen, taken 2 weeks away from work, ruined our relations with the US, crashed the economy, and started backbench rebellion to remove her from office
2. Having performed 4 cowardly U-turns during her own endless leadership campaign, Truss now seems to now think was is the key to her success

3. So she unthinkingly announced she’d be accompanying the new (yet also very old) King on his tour of Britain
4. She then bravely announced she wouldn’t be doing that at all

5. And then she boldly claimed she’d never said she would

6. Having demonstrated her lack of brain and courage, the PM completed her Wizard of Oz impression by introducing us to her missing heart
7. She lovingly told us tax cuts worth 1800x more for the richest 5% than the poorest 5% were "entirely fair"

8. And in a sign she was ending the grotesque expenditure of Boris Johnson, in her last year at the Home Office she increased dept spending by 45% on items including:
9. Fine dining at luxury restaurants

10. “Extensive supplies from top wineries”

11. £1,840 for Norwich City mementos

12. Luxury wallpaper – does any of this sound familiar – provided by Osborne and Little (George Osborne’s family business)
13. £1,800 on a “wellness” app

14. £4,000 at a top hairdresser (who presumably also does the Thatcher doll at Tussauds )

15. £10,000 at Fortnum and Mason

16. And a £900 adult colouring book, cos we’re now governed by people who don’t read books, merely apply crayons
17. Then she went to the USA, and was so successful the White House said it would suspend the “special relationship”

18. Having assured us a trade deal with USA would be done "in weeks" if we voted for Brexit, Truss now told us there is no possibility of a deal with the USA
19. In a further effort to wipe from our minds the endless squalor and scandal of the Johnson years, her new Chief of Staff features in an FBI bribery investigation, is employed by a lobbying firm and only “seconded” to Number 10, and seems to be using tax-avoiding measures
20. A top Truss backer said of the Chief of Staff: “I've never heard of such an arrangement, and it is obviously quite wrong”

21. So this week the govt changed the rules to make his alleged tax-avoiding measures legal
22. Simon Clarke, a mouse-fart made flesh and shoved into a beige suit, explained the reason the Tories had been complete dogshit for 12 years is that they “haven’t had a clear run” and it had been “crisis after crisis”

23. He voted for all those crises
24. Anyway I’m not sure “it’s too difficult for us” is quite the reassurance he was aiming for

25. He went on to explain that the point of raising National Insurance was to pay for public services, and therefore they were cutting National Insurance to… pay for public services
26. The richest gain most from cutting NI. The poorest gain just 63p. Poverty averted!

27. While Clarke's smooth brain was busy de-fragging, he told viewers the govt was “unapologetically pro-growth”, and then along came Kwazi Kwarteng to shrink the economy by 3% in 3 hours
28. “Great to see sterling strengthening on the back of the new UK Growth Plan” tweeted shaved Afghan hound and Treasury Minister Chris Philp as sterling nosedived to its lowest point in 37 years
29. Philp said “markets will see that the government has a credible and responsible economic plan”

30. The markets nodded sagely, and then immediately crashed

31. So the govt said it refused to comment on the market, which is a shock to point 29
32. It also refused to release analysis by the Office of Budget Responsibility, a sure sign that it’s all gonna be great

33. Kwarteng was overheard saying “Who cares if sterling crashes” at the Groucho club while celebrating Brexit. We are about to find out who cares
34. Kwarteng might be new to some of you, so an intro: he is the former minister for Brexit, then of Business, Energy and Growth.

35. All those things are going just swimmingly, so he’s now been made Chancellor, just in time to hit his devastating peak form
36. Just before his budget, former hedge-fund manager Kwarteng met other hedge-fund managers, and by staggering coincidence when he did his budget reports said “every one of them was shorting the pound”

37. Insider trading carries a sentence of 7 years. Just making you aware
38. Kwarteng also lifted the bankers’ bonus cap

39. Every one of those hedge-funds made millions, and their resulting huge bonuses won’t be taxed

40. Insider trading also carries unlimited fines. Just in case you were wondering
41. Kwarteng then said he would force people who have low paid jobs to get higher paid jobs. I bet that never occurred to them!

42. On a roll – or crack, it’s hard to tell – he cut stamp duty to help the poor. Experts said the cut would raise inflation and only help the rich
43. After Kwarteng did his fiscal event all over our carpet, the pound plunged to the lowest level against the dollar that it has ever been since Alexander Hamilton stopped rapping long enough to invent it in 1776
44. Kwarteng even managed to make the pound tank against the Russian Ruble, which I guess animated thumb Ben Wallace will now claim is proof our tanks are working

45. I present an array of opinions from Tory MPs and former Tory ministers:

46. “Liz is fucked”
47. “It’s a shit show”

48. “Everyone who isn’t mad hates it”

49. “There’s a 10-15% chance it’s genius. There’s a 70-80% chance it’s a disaster”

50. “It's economically reckless and political suicide”
51. “This whole thing boils down to infectious childlike optimism. It would almost be endearing if it wasn’t so completely and utterly fucking mad”

52. “There will come a time where people have to say ‘I know it’ll make us look chaotic, but we can’t go on like this’”
53. “They are already putting letters in as they think she will crash the economy”

54. “It’s the kind of thing that's usually tried in Latin American countries without success”

55.These are her friends, by the way.
56. A banking analyst predicted the £ would drop below $1 in the next couple of weeks – it was at $2 under Gordon Brown

57. Anyway, it all went so brilliantly that Kwarteng has already announced a new fiscal plan on 23 November, a bold prediction about his career chances
58. Work and Pensions minister Chloe Smith escaped from the set of Rings of Power long enough to defend a £55,000 tax cut for millionaires while the £20 Universal Credit uplift is ended

59. Maths fans will be excited to learn £55,000 is 52 years of £20 Universal Credit uplift
60. Meanwhile new Home Secretary Suella Braverman aimed for “New Priti Patel” but landed on “Secret Squirrel struggles with International Law for Dummies”

61. First she told police she “expects them” to cut the number of murders by 20%
62. Not solve them, you’ll notice: just stop them from happening – but she didn’t tell them how or give them any more resources

63. Then she unveiled her not-medically-proven theory that the best antidote to work-related stress is: do more work and relax in front of the TV less
64. But even this bit of political genius is one up on Health Minister and cigar-chomping Uncle Fester impersonator Therese Coffey, who – faced with record breaking waiting lists and the highest Covid hospitalisations in a year – prioritised her war against the Oxford Comma
65. Once her aggressive battle against punctuation choices was out of the way Coffey – part of a govt that inherited an NHS guaranteeing 48 waiting time for GP appointments – promised a grateful public they wouldn’t wait longer than 336 hours
66. In other news: PR giants who were given dodgy Covid contracts are now being given contracts to lead the inquiry into Covid, which sounds much better if you bark it from the back of a truck full of armed blackshirts towards a cowed and terrified public
67. In a sure sign Brexit is going well, the “Brexit bonus” for farmers was scrapped

68. And having howled madly against immigration for years, the govt signalled it plans to allow loads more immigrants

69. And the role of Minister for Brexit Opportunity was abolished
70. This brings us to Jacob Rees-Mogg, a spindly, posturing mantis who was beaten with a Latin phrasebook at an impressionable age, but IMO nowhere near hard enough

71. It was found his “independent consultation” on reintroducing Imperial measurements gave no option to say: no
72. In the face of catastrophic climate disaster Mogg said we “must get every cubic inch of gas out of the North Sea”

73. He then he lifted the ban on fracking after claiming said opposition to fracking was being funded by Putin

74. He is funded by fossil-fuel investors
75. The head of fracking company Cuadrilla said fracking in the UK won’t work

76. Never mind fracking - if there’s a premium on terrible ideas, I want drilling rights to Jacob Rees-Mogg's head
77. And in case you thought it was over, Boris Johnson, London’s very own Witless Dickington, is still here, first telling startled MPs about the great leadership of Vladimir Putin, then reportedly sending Hugo Swire to the House of Lords to annoy David Cameron “for a laugh”
78. A Johnson cabinet minister and senior aide were accused of sexual misconduct

79. The UK announced it would unilaterally ignore the NO Protocol

80. The nation’s most senior Treasury official was sacked for no reason
81. And – tragically – we lost Nadine Dorries, a beef-witted, one-woman riot of idiocy, who vanished from Twitter without warning. Please don’t send flowers: she worries they’d outsmart her
Next month my book comes out, and it would be lovely if you'd buy it. It's very thick, so you can burn it to keep warm, or to roast the roadkill we'll all be surviving on by December.

unbound.com/books/the-deca…

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More from @RussInCheshire

Sep 26
Long (long!) attempt at joined-up thinking about how the country could resolve many of its issues, revitalise democracy, return power and agency to regions, improve our economy, and transform into a green, higher-skilled nation.

(I've said some of this before - apologies)
We have a crisis.

No, let me correct that. We have about 40 crises, almost all of them emerging from the same fundamental political idiocy: lack of investment, and an dumb faith that low tax and a feral market will solve everything.

40 years of it. Look at the result.
George Osborne promised his corporate tax cuts and shrinking the state would revitalise the nation, create growth and raise wages.

He did it every year from 2010-2016.

And every year from 2010-2016 he cut his growth forecasts, wages and £ fell, and we slid into despond.
Read 51 tweets
Sep 24
The problem with #RingsofPower has nothing to do with "woke" or "not being true to Tolkien". 🧵

The problem is: it's terribly written. No character does anything for any reason except to move the plot along. Everything is perfunctory. The pacing is all over the place. No menace.
The dialogue is flat and unimaginative. The structure is feeble.

Structure:
Like any "big cast" show, they should have had 1-2 episodes focussing on relatable characters (as in LOTR) then gradually introduced the others - that way, we care.

I don't care about any of them.
I'm kinda curious about who The Stranger is, but I expect when I find out my response will be ... oh.

I don't care if anybody else lives or does. They're all, almost without exception, humourless, flat cyphers, defined almost entirely by hairstyles and costumes.
Read 14 tweets
Sep 23
The thing is ...

I've run a company. Tax cuts are NOWHERE NEAR as important as a stable, strategic plan. Customers who feel confident to spend. Education that provides skills. Trading laws you can predict. Knowing more or less what the currency will be worth in 6 months.

🧵
For the last decade we've thrown away all such plans, all such stability. The govt told us The Market would provide.

They ran a 12 year experiment in The Market Providing, and it's been a slow motion catastrophe (with occasional fast-motion disasters thrown in).
We have shit productivity cos we have shit training, and that's cos we don't invest in education.

We have shit international trade cos we left the EU, and told the world we don't care about laws, so nobody trusts that today's agreements will still be observed in 3 months.
Read 11 tweets
Sep 17
Because it will be terrible, I am live-tweeting the movie "Greenland".

The story so far: Gerard Butler is salt of the earth who works as an architect, lives in a huge mansion with a Supermodel Wife, and has an accent that is better-travelled than he is.

This all makes him sad.
Lady from Deadpool is his Supermodel Wife, and they can no longer speak to one another. To make sure the viewer knows this has been awkward for a while, Butler is made to say "how long is this going to be awkward". Just saying it is easier than acting.
Everybody on the radio and TV is talking about a comet called Clarke, and Gerard Butler's son has drawn a terrifying picture of a comet called Clarke.

I wonder if comet Clarke will be a plot point in this?
Read 47 tweets
Sep 16
My 4 great Tinder fails🧵

Her: Describe yourself
Me: I'm like an early draft of Chewbacca that somebody found in a bin and taught rudimentary table manners

She immediately unmatched me
Her: Are you romantic?
Me: Well, I won't sweep you off your feet, but when you're least expecting it I will push you over in the Tesco frozen food aisle

She immediately unmatched me
Her: I've always wanted a food fight
Me: Me too
Her: I'd throw trifle at you any day
Me: And I'll throw a tin of luncheon meat at you

She immediately unmatched me
Read 5 tweets
Sep 15
For no reason at all, here's the story of the most famous and important person in the entirety of human history that you've never heard of.

It's not surprising you've never heard of him. He's incredibly vague.
He was born in Germany around 1400 (+/- 10 years), the son of a goldsmith for a local bishop (or he may have been a cloth merchant).

The boy was named Johannes Gensfleisch, which translates to Johnny Gooseflesh, and that in itself is amazing. Imagine his school years!
You have to imagine them, cos he vanished until he was between 24 and 44, and turned up in Strasbourg working as a gem polisher - although possibly this was somebody else (but if there were 2 people called Johnny Gooseflesh knocking around 1434 Strasbourg, I'll eat my leg).
Read 19 tweets

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