Thread by @RussInCheshire

It’s been a while (because I’ve been writing a book) but adopt the position, drink heavily, and brace, brace for the return of #TheWeekInTory

Only 72 points. A quiet week.

1. Forget about the old amoral Tory party: this is the shiny new Tory party, now led by Captain Ethics

2. And to prove it, Marcus Fysh is being investigated over his income and expenditure

3. And Steve Brine is being investigated for paid lobbying

4. And Henry Smith for incorrect use of taxpayer-funded stationery

5. And Matt Hancock for being the Dim Reaper – no, sorry, for his I’m A Celeb jaunt

6. And all-terrain idiot Scott Benton, who admitted on camera that he would happily break parliamentary rules in return for payment from the gambling industry

7. And of course Boris Johnson, an ethical black hole, barrelling across the political universe in dogged pursuit of acquisitive havoc, who seems to be being investigated for literally everything he’s ever done or said

8. The current PM, Thunderbird 0.5, also had a good week, telling at least four untruths to parliament

9. He claimed Tory councils charge lower council tax than Labour

10. Council tax in Labour areas is actually an average of £329 lower than under Tory councils

11. Then Sunak said housebuilding had been higher when Johnson was London Mayor

12. That’s not true

13. Then he said there were more disadvantaged people in Scottish education

14. That’s not true either

15. And then he said crime was down

16. And nope, that's not true

17. So Sunak, a ethics chatbot with the hair of a Lego Elvis told 4 lies in less than an hour

18. From there, it was straight onto maths, with Sunak demanding more sums in schools so people could be as smart as him

19. He immediately made a basic maths error during PMQs

20. Then Captain Delivery admitted there aren’t enough maths teachers to deliver his maths plans anyway

21. But Karren Brady had a solution: every teacher should resign

22. Instead, kids would be taught by …

23. ... the end of the last sentence has not yet been discovered

24. Tom Tugendhat said Britain now had “effective powers to tackle hostile activity taken on British soil”

25. And then the Tories voted to defeat a plan to prevent “malign foreign political donations”, a preventative move that had been proposed by the former head of MI5

26. Tugendhat explained this away with the argument: “The law already makes robust provision. Foreign donations are banned”

27. In 2021 alone, £12.9m in donations from undeclared foreign sources made it to UK political parties

28. Suella Braverman, a Home Office minister with all the warmth of Cersei Lannister having a go at being a trauma therapist, shoved new anti-protest law through parliament just in time for the coronation

29. Tom Tugendhat said it was a “chance to showcase our liberty”

30. The police immediately used the new law to arrest people for crimes that aren’t crimes, and which they hadn’t even committed

31. A week from now, Lee Anderson is speaking at an event called “Free Speech and Cancel Culture with Lee Anderson”

32. But this week, he explained that that anybody doesn’t support the monarchy should be barred from speaking about it, and instead should simply “emigrate”

33. Somebody very patient should sit down with Lee and try to explain what “ending freedom of movement” means

34. Michael Gove was back, which is problematic, because trying to describe him is like trying to find the right words at the scene of a nasty accident

35. The beached mudskipper made us fund the construction of a private hut on the roof of his office, just for him to smoke fags in

36. It turns out this is pretty much the only construction Gove is in favour of

37. Having scrapped housebuilding targets, Gove then set about deterring new homes one at a time, personally stepping in to prevent 165 “generic” houses

38. So you can have a house, but only if it doesn’t look too much like a house - is that it?

39. Fewer houses on the market is, of course, excellent news if you own a spare home that you can rent out

40. Five cabinet members own a spare home that they rent out, including Jeremy Chunt and Braverman

41. They make around £10,000 a year each from rent

42. Chickenfeed to Matt Hancock, the dad from a gravy advert, who went on GMB to explain that his appearance on I’m A Celeb was not “primarily for the money”

43. His appearance on GMB earned him a £10k appearance fee

44. Accursed guinea-pig Braverman’s primary excuse for her anti-migrant plan is that “modern slavery laws are being abused”

45. Her own dept report proved this isn’t even a bit true, and said small-boat migrants are “no more likely” to be in modern slavery than anybody else

46. Bob Seely went on TV to explain that treating migrants like shit is humane because “if a pregnant woman comes over, she is not going to be removed”

47. There is no provision to exempt pregnant women

48. And Seely appeared to suggest he hadn’t even read the law

49. So we all went out to vote at local elections, apart from those who couldn’t because the govt had disenfranchised over 2 million people to defeat voter fraud

50. More Tory MPs have committed sexual assaults in the last 5 years than the total cases of voter fraud

51. Greg Hands said Boris Johnson is an asset and a great campaigner

52. 3 days later Hands admitted Johnson was not campaigning

53. Although Johnson did a piece to camera from the back of his car

54. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and is now facing a police investigation

55. In Johnson’s absence, Tories had candidates including a man who’d suggested stoning migrants, another who shared a post saying “shoot P*kis on the spot”, and the former head of neo-fascist organisation Britain First

56. The Tories did some expectation management, predicting a worst-case scenario of “up to 1000 seats lost”, so that when they *only* lost 500 seats it would look like a triumph for Sunak

57. They lost well over 1000 seats

58. And this is from a historically low baseline – the last local elections lost the Tories over 1300 seats

59. A week later, this loss led to the resignation of Theresa May, a baffled seabird that had swallowed a kazoo

60. Even the Telegraph said the Tories are “destined for oblivion”

61. Tory MPs were so happy with the results, they were nearly trampled in the rush to the pub, so they could get tanked up on expenses and trash-talk their own party to journalists

62. “It’s a bloodbath”

63. “I blame Rishi cos he brought down Boris”

64. “Sunak’s claim that stability has been restored is shot to bits. These results are on track to be catastrophic for the party”

65. “Sunak can’t blame these results on last year’s chaos. He started that chaos”

66. “The highest taxes for 70 years. There’s a price to be paid for that”, said one ministry insider

67. Meanwhile minister-in-cider Nadine Dorries got stuck in, starting a public fight with Gavin Barwell about whether Sunak was a even more shit than May, or slightly less shit

68. A report found the crisis in social care was the result of Tories “letting one of our most important public services languish in constant crisis for years”, including appalling lack of workforce funding

69. So the Tories cut £250 million from social care workforce funding

70. Meanwhile the Tories lifted the ban on animal testing for beauty products as a “Brexit benefit”

71. The huge demand for this move was demonstrated by the 80 major beauty brands which signed a letter condemning the move

72. But there is good news – no, really - from Jacob Rees-Mogg’s constituency, where the Tories were “totally wiped out”, meaning Frack the Ripper will be released onto the job market as soon as we have a general election

73. Buy garlic

I get told off by the publisher if I don’t mention my forthcoming book, which you can order here

unbound.com/books/four-cha…

Or my previous book, a 5* Sunday Times bestseller, which you can order anywhere, but ideally somewhere that pays their tax bill