Russ Jones Profile picture
Writer, 'The Decade In Tory', 'Four Chancellors and a Funeral' and 'Tories: The End of an Error' (expected soon after the election).
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Mar 13 6 tweets 2 min read
A step-by-step guide to why saying "I want my country back" is inherently racist, sexist and homophobic.

1. Logically, "back" means there was an earlier time when the country was "ours"

2. The same people wanted it "back" from the EU in 2016 too, and won. Well done you! Image 3. So logically, the latest demand for "our" country "back" cannot mean "back from the EU". We've already left. So it must, logically, mean back from a time BEFORE we joined the EU. And that means going back to some time before 1973. So ... when?
Mar 13 9 tweets 2 min read
How mad is UK infrastructure (outside London)?

I'll tell you.

A friend lost her job before Xmas. She has no car - never needed one before. But now she does, cos there are no jobs nearby.

She just landed a job. In a car, it's 12 mins away. By public transport, almost 3 hours. Cos (obviously, in a major economy!) there's no direct bus or train between 2 large neighbouring market towns in Cheshire. So she has to take 3 buses to another town, 20+ miles away, and then back again. Twice a day.

But she can't refuse the job, or she gets no benefits. And ...
Mar 13 43 tweets 8 min read
This (71-point) #TheWeekInTory is the last for 2 weeks, cos I'm away doing a book tour for Four Chancellors and a Funeral (published next week)

25% off if you order this week from Waterstones



Anyway: pop on the galoshes of despair, and let’s dive in…waterstones.com/book/four-chan… 1. Let’s start with Jeremy Hunt’s budget, which had 4 requirements:

- Make us forget Liz Truss's unfunded £45bn borrowing
- Differentiate Tories from Labour
- Please voters
- And unite the party
Feb 20 9 tweets 3 min read
Haven't got time for a full #TheWeekInTory right now, but here's what's happened so far TODAY

1. Scott Benton, who looks like The Mormons have brought out a line in plastic MAGA backroom sociopaths, offered to ask parliamentary questions and leak restricted documents for £4000 2. When found out, he burst without warning into a spasm of auto-parodic genius, claiming the fact he'd offered to leak reports should be overlooked, cos the report into his leaking was leaked

3. He said he'd be appealing. But honestly, he really, really isn't
Feb 8 44 tweets 8 min read
#TheWeekInTory is a whopper, so I'll do the promo thing first

Four Chancellors and a Funeral is out on 21 March

And please support "Tories: The End of an Error", currently being written



And now, for your pleasure, an 84-point torrent of awfulness...unbound.com/books?collecti… 1. I’m not saying things are getting a bit reactionary, but in one of this week’s saner moments Desmond Swayne, the reanimated corpse of Alvin Stardust, made the modest proposal that fly-tippers should be strangled with their own intestines
Jan 27 37 tweets 7 min read
Brace, brace for the first #TheWeekInTory of 2024.

Also, please read the tweet at the end, which my publisher insists I add, and which helps to pay for my dog to eat things (other than rotting pigeons he finds on the field). Ta 1. Boris Johnson, once voted “worst PM ever”, heroically volunteered to fight for his country, or what's left of it after his premiership

2. This is the hero who once hid in a fridge to avoid an tricky question from a breakfast TV presenter
Jan 16 5 tweets 1 min read
Reminder: the Rwanda policy was announced the day after the Sue Gray report came out.

It was only ever intended give the Daily Mail a one-day headline that didn't have to mention Partygate. It wasn't meant to actually HAPPEN. And it will never work.

It is mad that the Tories > > have now adopted this electorally unmandated, vastly expensive, gormless exercise in distraction as an ARTICLE OF FAITH.

Half the energy of govt (and £millions) is being spent on an extended quarrel about some unworkable bollocks Johnson dreamed up in a panic >
Dec 11, 2023 33 tweets 6 min read
You don’t like it. I don’t like it. Nobody likes it, and I wish it would stop. But dream on because here, for Christ’s sake, is #TheWeekInTory 1. It is 13 years since David Cameron – a thumb with a mouth slit who played at being PM in between episodes of Midsomer Murders – first promised to reduce migration, so the Tories have now announced a stunning new policy of … reducing migration
Dec 7, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
122,000 awaiting asylum decisions.

200 to Rwanda is a rounding error.

2 years ago nobody demanded this. It was invented entirely to position Priti Patel to replace Johnson. Now it's all about jostling to replace Sunak.

And we're destroying our global reputation to do this. We don't have a govt any more. They aren't interested in Britain. They're all focusing on who leads Tories after they lose the election, and laying traps for Labour. They're salting the land and slaying the cattle, like a defeated army withdrawing in recrimination and bitterness.
Dec 5, 2023 12 tweets 2 min read
I think I've finally got a grip on the govt's latest strategy.🧵

You have to earn £38,000 to move to this country.

Which means 75% of British citizens are now officially too poor to be here. Our policy will help British workers to earn higher wages.

Also, British workers should not ask for higher wages, cos it will cause inflation.
Dec 4, 2023 12 tweets 3 min read
The fundamental crisis Sunak faces.🧵

In 2019 Johnson cobbled together a coalition of voters for Brexit, by lying to them all.

But those voters all wanted different things, most of them impossible. And now the cohort is falling apart, leaving precious few actual Tories behind Some 2019 Tory voters wanted less immigration.
Some wanted £350m for the NHS.
Some, cheaper housing.
Some better jobs.

Johnson pretended Brexit could give it all to them. A panacea.

It was a lie.

And without that coalition of dupes, there's no way Tories can win.
Nov 30, 2023 13 tweets 2 min read
So I've been thinking about what the Tories are going to offer at the next election, and I think I've worked it out.

🧵 1: CUT MIGRATION

Brexit stopped the migrant-returns agreement, and their brilliant Point Based System led to far more immigrants than what it replaced.

So basically, their big policy is: undo their last big policy.
Nov 17, 2023 10 tweets 2 min read
The HoL can't block a policy that is in the govt's manifesto.

But Rwanda isn't in the Tory manifesto.

In fact, the manifesto promises to "continue to grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution".

So the HoL can - and almost certainly will - block Sunak's Plan B. It's vanishingly unlikely that Sunak doesn't know this. Civil servants will have told him, even if he didn't know already.

And that's indicative of Sunak's 4 fundamental problems.

1: He's trying to ride 10 horses at once, as his factional party rips itself apart
Nov 16, 2023 34 tweets 6 min read
In not saying it’s time to begin stockpiling, but this is the second #TheWeekInTory of the week.

And it’s still only Thursday. Send whisky. 1. It’s all going wrong for Rishi Sunak, a rejected Thunderbird that somebody pulled out of the bin and made PM for a dare

2. But there was good news for Suella Braverman, who finally didn’t have to be woke on Tuesday morning
Nov 13, 2023 5 tweets 1 min read
Judging from who is out - Braverman, Coffey, etc - it looks like Sunak has chosen his election strategy. And it's not "red wall" or "culture war".

His big problem is: his culture warriors have not gone away. The party is catastrophically split, and any choice he made would ... ... bring about a rebellion, either from the (relatively) centre-right, or from the batshit-right.

I'm glad he chose center-right, cos the country doesn't need more extremism. But the problem he now faces is that the Tory newspapers largely back the batshit-right...
Nov 13, 2023 41 tweets 8 min read
Somehow, it’s time for #TheWeekInTory again, even though it’s still only Monday. Four more days of this week to go, and we’re already up to 74 points.

Fuck-a-doodle-doo

Anyway, do a quick snort of glue, and then let’s get stuck in. 1. Suella Braverman took a break from kidnapping dalmatians to say being homeless was a “lifestyle choice”

2. The home secretary, Heinrich Hamster, followed this up with a claim that asking for an Armistice on Armistice Day was the act of a “hate marcher”
Nov 11, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
Braverman's career was hanging by a thread before today. If Pro-Palestinian marchers had caused disorder, she'd have been safe. Instead, the far right mob that she has intentionally riled-up have caused disorder.

I think she's finished.

But... ... I think this is what she wants.

Firstly: she wants to be Tory leader in 2024, and she doesn't want to be sullied by being part of the cabinet that lost the election.

Secondly, she wants to be a martyr, and resigning doesn't achieve that.

Being sacked does. Especially...
Nov 7, 2023 43 tweets 7 min read
I apologise, but try as I might, I can’t find any material for #TheWeekInTory.

Only kidding. It’s an absolute casserole. Let’s down a pint of absinth and get stuck in.

Also - trigger warning.

🧵 1. We begin with the Covid inquiry, which revealed the shocking news that everything we all knew three years ago ACTUALLY HAPPENED

2. This week it looked at the actions of Boris Johnson, a shit Aslan who we made into our Prime Minister for a laugh
Oct 31, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
This isn't about selling books, but it's genuinely distressing to see our leading broadcast journalists throw their hands in the air in shock at the COVID evidence.

I reported all of it (bar a couple of WhatsApps) as it was happening in 2020/2021.

It's *shocking* that ... ... right now you can buy my book (please don't) and read absolutely all of this - and it was published over a year ago. And I'm not even a journalist.

Yet here's Robert Peston and Nick Robinson, declaring their surprise. These people are paid huge sums to inform the public ...
Oct 30, 2023 8 tweets 2 min read
I have no answers to the agony of Israel/Palestine, and I don't assume I have enough wisdom to pick a side. Cos I don't. Not even close.

But this has been happening my entire life, and it won't end as long as both sides continue to blame "them" as a way to excuse "us". I no longer care who started it. Sifting through history for the original sin solves nothing, and by now, few hands are free from blood anyway.

More blood cannot possibly be the answer. We've tried that way, for decades, centuries. Years without end. Blood without limit.
Oct 25, 2023 26 tweets 5 min read
#TheWeekInTory is back, damn you

1. Britain faces a crisis in health, education, farming, energy, housing, childcare, social care, imports, exports, manufacturing, services, debt, growth and infrastructure, so Rishi Sunak announced his grand plan to slightly alter A-Levels 2. As Sunak finished his first and last year in office, there were rave reviews from his Tory colleagues:

3. “He’s increasingly weak”

4. “He exists in torpor”

5. “Clearly Rishi Sunak isn’t working as leader of our party”