Aye, the double standards are off the **** scale.

Yeah, but she’s unpatriotic, remember?

Meanwhile, in other news…

“Andrew Bridgen in brexity lout turns out to be liar and a really shit bloke shocker”.

https://www.thenational.scot/news/20075557.andrew-bridgen-tory-mp-lied-conduct-family-feud/

Lovely stuff. 😆

Nicely put by Stewart Lee (again).

But Johnson’s Rwanda Solution did give the Brexit government the opportunity to do what it does best, namely creating new and blameless enemies for the asset-stripped and non-specifically aggrieved British public to hate, Nineteen Eighty-Four-style, instead of them hating Johnson and his shameless cabal of outright liars and thieves as they ought to.

But I don’t think it will be enough. People who vote Tory post-Brexit and with Johnson at the helm do not give a shit what happens to anyone who isn’t from Englandshire. What does affect them is the affront to their self righteousness that ‘Partygate’ provides.

I reckon the backbenchers have seem enough polling and received enough grief from their constituents that the round is chambered and the hammer cocked.

They’ll do fatso in after the locals. They need a new leader with enough time before the next GE, but why would you start a new leader’s scorecard with a shellacking in the locals?

This shitshow have run out of options. Sure they can stoke up a bit of racist/xenophobic shit when they want, but I don’t think it will be enough now. People are seeing places shut (it’s all down to covid the blue rinsers shout even though the proprietors cite covid as one factor amongst many – supply chain issues, cost of living and lack of labour).

And the one thing guaranteed to upset the miserable old gits is the idea that whilst they were cocooned up in their bungalows, only daring to open the curtains long enough to do a bit of informing, Bozo was taking the piss living it up like the crass arsehole he is.

Johnson will not be leader at the next GE. The best solution by far is to let him take the fall for the locals and give someone else as clean and long a run as possible. Obviously we could well end up with someone who is a less incompetent bastard, but that is for later.

I hope that in a few years time we are treated to shaky camera phone footage of Johnson going through the bins in piss-stained trousers, but it is more likely he will end up living in some Black Sea resort in a life of undeserved luxury.

Like the boss, just good, old-fashioned lying

If the electorate endorse it, what can sane people do?

Yet they will still lose the next election…

Roll the turd in glitter, wrap it in a Union Jack and claim everyone else is unpatriotic.

It’s already sewn up. They know their audience.

If you do some reading up on WG Grace he is actually quite similar to Johnson in many ways.

But Grace did actually do some things that stood the test of time and are still considered ‘great’ by any measure.

Johnson has not. And will not. He’s a fraud from the tips of his toes to the ends of his carefully ‘ruffled’ hair.

And he’s Prime Minister of the UK.

Go figure.

This is the best description of this forum that I’ve yet seen.

Oh I’m not denying actually using some of this. 🙂

Any argument can be subverted if you so wish. The usual end is that the existence of god ends up being debated. Or a punch up.

But that’s for the pub. Pub debates don’t actually knock 5% off of GDP and put people into poverty so a chosen few can buy vast country estates etc.

Had a brief chat with an old boy yesterday whilst out riding. I was reading the bumf around a bridleway closure so that a load of boxy newbuild tat can be thrown up.

Him: “Their building more fookin ahses”.

Me: “Don’t vote Tory”.

Him (looking a bit put out): “They’re all as bad as each other”.

Me: “I don’t think they are, plus it looks like you can’t do any worse”.

His MP is Andrew Bridgen.

You gotta laugh sometimes.

I always thought that was what politics was about. Where the best ‘heads of the university debating team’ do battle. you know, one takes one side, the other takes a different view, regardless of personal opinion, and it’s down to who does the most convincing debate who wins.

Not necessarily. We did a bit of a debating society as life lesson thing at school. The ‘sides’ were often rigged so participants had to argue for something they disagreed with. The topics were often rigged too, so that one side was ‘beyond the pale’ but could still technically ‘win’ the argument.

These were very good lessons on a number of levels showing:

1. How ‘good’ arguments for ‘bad’ things could be constructed.
2. How waffling could bore people into voting for you to shut you up.
3. How having the last word is very important if the audience is tired, bored, apathetic etc.
4. How willing some people were to subvert their normal values to appear clever and win an argument.
5. How some people would play the man and not the ball if they were being bested.
6. How much the audience could be swayed by one well-timed and amusing cheap shot.

And many others.

A lot real-life politics should be done by seeking consensus on trivial matters, to leave time and energy for the big stuff, and the participants should always be acting in the interests of their electorate.

The 2023 local election results will be a much better barometer.

By which time, no doubt, Johnson will have been photographed getting a nosh from Jennifer Arcuri behind the Azaleas at Windsor Castle at her Maj’s wake.

But the union jack y-fronts around his ankles will sway enough folk for a GE win.

As I’ve said before.

Fabricant has been MP for Lichfield for the 25 years since it was gerrymandered into existence.

Lichfield is a prosperous semi-rural constituency about as far from the sea as it possible to be and without masses of intensive agriculture (I.e. not able claim much ‘threat’ from seasonal labour or cross channel immigration). It is culturally exceptionally undiverse (96%+ identity as white British as opposed to 85% in the UK as a whole).

So, basically they are ‘alright Jack’ if you consider diversity and immigration to be ‘problems’.

And yet they voted Leave 59/41.

Fabricant knows his audience is all. He is their elected representative and they are happy with that.

Unfathomable to me, but the first rule of showbiz is that you don’t alienate your audience. If your audience are big fans of ‘Love Thy Neighbour’….

^^^

Yes, but he acts that way (winding people up who accept that the world is a complex place and can’t be ‘solved’ by waving a Union Jack and threatening to chin people), because it appeals to enough of the electorate.

The thinking man’s idiot and the idiot’s thinking man.

He doesn’t care anyway. He made the decision to be a weasely little shit early on. The more he does it, the richer he gets. Why stop?

Still, I bet Mogg still has to pinch himself occasionally to remind himself of his luck.

“Every time I take this piss out of the electorate, they love me more. Cretins”.

Also was gutted the journo didn’t kick his teeth in for being such a condescending prick.

That’s how you get your charter ‘reviewed’, funding cut, etc.

JRM is a copper-bottomed bastard, everyone knows it, I guess his attitudes align with enough of the electorate for it not to be an issue.

🤷‍♂️

Meanwhile in Robert Jenrick’s constituency, more Brexit benefits

It’s what they voted for. Bet they’re chuffed to bits.

Just heard a bloke from a Railway magazine (yep they still exist – I thought they were just there so 14 year old boys could slip a jazz mag inside before going to the counter) on R4 sounding infinitely more ministerial than anyone from the ‘Top Team’. A bloke from a railway magazine…

Mind you, because he spoke well and spoke sense he is probably an unpatriotic, elitist, gloomster. And because he also dared to mention that rail offers on the continent are far more generous, I reckon he’s a fifth columnist traitor as well.

😆

Hey, that’s “my” MP. Will be amazed if he doesn’t get another 60% plus vote in next election just like the last 25 years – nice people where I live…

Same as Fabricant. A prosperous rural / semi-rural constituency with 95% or more identifying as ‘White British’ and only marginally in the ‘firing line’ of immigration (no huge intensive agriculture from what I can see) and yet voted 58% Leave.

I’m alright Jack and **** everyone else. A safe Tory seat if ever there was one.

How much lower can he push it with the rest of them he’ll have to give over the next few weeks and months?

Just trot out Priti Nasty each time to announce some kind of ‘Asylum Final Solution’ update and he’ll be grand. They know their audience.

It’ll be interesting to see how many don’t support him? How many actually grow a pair or develop some form of moral conscience.

A handful if that. Remember that most of them are useless bastards as well. There’s nowhere for them to go if they need to find an actual job.

He seems tomhave forgotten to shave under his jawline also.

Probably too pissed to shave properly. He has got about eight chins to work through, though.

Ian Blackford good quality and to the point as usual.

And thus will be lost on Johnson’s core support – or dismissed as an elitist or somesuch.

This government and this ‘Prime Minister’ (prize arsehole) represent the will of the people.

It’s no wonder folk from the mainland look down their noses at us with a mixture of pity and amusement. They must be laughing their tits off. Not even Orban is stupid enough to actually take his prime scapegoat out of the equation.

He really is completely shameless, isn’t he?

Yes. He’s a shifty chancer with an expensive education and good* contacts.

He has been taught since an early age that he is one of the chosen ones and he is better than everyone else.

Put succinctly he is a fat, spoiled brat.

Even more succinctly, he is a ****.

*’Good’ in the sense of self advancement

Priti Patel doesn’t come across as very bright.

When the Prime Minister is a dribbling piss artist whose only ‘cleverness’ is dropping a bit of cod Latin in every so often, then the ‘top team’ are unlikely to be intellectual powerhouses.

After the referendum there were only ever three types of person who were going to want to be associated with such an absurdity.

1. Idiots
2. Crooks
3. Idiotic Crooks

Hence the current cabinet.

Sorry for having such a low opinion of so many UK voters, but there we are.

It is well earned.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/17/why-brexit-britain-is-turning-purple-with-shame

Like a bald man masturbating alone into an open pedal bin, Boris Johnson’s Brexit Britain disgusts itself. And yet, despite being observed on the gents’ toilet’s security camera that is the modern world stage, it continues its abasement unabashed.

That’s worth the price of admission on its own. All done with Lee’s characteristic style, but also all true.

Jeez. Even by the current standards that was embarrassing. I guess the problem is if they try a rehearsal in advance they will accidently oversleep instead so just have the ones who are happy to blunder in.

Nah, they’ve just got a rota of utterly shameless lying bastards ready to deploy. The ones on the rota themselves know the only reason they’ve got to where they have is by toadying and burying any principles they may have once had. Why do it?

Position.
Status.
Money.
Covid contracts for mates.
Kickbacks from developers.
Non-exec directorships for life afterwards.
Etc.

I wonder if the tory MP that made the emotional speech about burying a parent has now been silenced, or is still angry enough to go into round 2.

I imagine the Whip’s Office or one of Carrie’s SPADs have made a call reminding him of his future job prospects.

Brandon Lewis doing his stint as toady of the day. They’re on a rotation.

Shapps-Lewis-Jenrick occasionally Raab on the stroker of the day rota.

Note that Truss, Gove and Sunak will not go anywhere near it.

The key thing though is to make a note and whenever any tory muppet starts trying to take the highground about law and order keep reminding them.

I’m locked and loaded for the moment some gammon has a pop about riding my bike where I shouldn’t.

I’ll start politely by stating that rules are something of an elastic concept these days and see where it goes from there.

I’ll give it a try, ta!

I turn it around the other way (so that the handle is against your back).

Is the padding good enough that you don’t feel it jabbing you?

It’s OK, I have now seen the light with the help of Ernie.

Summarising across a few threads I can now say I am convinced of the following course of action.

At the local elections I am going to vote Tory. This is because they are sat on a 80 seat majority, so will win the next election come what may. Johnson has his faults but Truss, Raab, Sunak, Gove would be worse. And anyway, Boris is just giving people what they want. He’s not such a bad bloke really – spur of the moment confetti socialism with a patriotic wrapper – it’s the best we can do, after all.

Starmer is just a neoliberal shill, so there’s no way I could vote Labour, unless they bring back Corbyn. The Libdems are neoliberal shills to a man too – so I can’t vote for them either. Voting Libdem or anything else is tantamount to a spoiled ballot anway, so I’ve just got to roll my sleeves up, stop being a gloomster and get behind Boris and, more importantly, Britain.

I will also be advising anyone I meet that this is basically the only way forward.

👍🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧👍

I know I can’t win a STW argument against a man of your unique skills.

You are totally correct. I lose.

The best answer to the question actually asked by the OP is ‘Partygate’ and not to ignore a single opportunity to remind someone of it.

And you can get the very last bit of water out of the Repack bladder if you vigorously blow then suck on the hose (no sniggering at the back). It obviously sounds a bit weird, but who cares if you get a couple of extra mouthfuls of water on a hot day.

One grumble about the Repack that I forgot about. Why the silly bladder neck handle? Sure, it makes filling the thing a bit easier, but it creates daft dead space. Another thing I did when I’d just got it and was running through packing layouts was to slip an additional pouch onto the webbing belt at the front. I wouldn’t put something solid and chunky in it, but if I was going on a bigger ride and was considering not taking that extra trail snack, I could always use that as a solution too.

I don’t want to get into an argument with you, Ernie.

I’m new around here but my more experienced co-STWers inform me that you are considered a ‘forum big hitter’ that also does a tidy line in behind the scenes sneaking. Allegedly.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others – type thing.

TTFN.

I got a Repack 4l for around forty quid – there are bargains to be had if you look (or are willing to sell your sould and get it from Amazon).

It is excellent. I’ve had to rationalise and change what I carry a bit, but that is no bad thing in its own right.

No idea what you mean old chap.

35/77 = 45% broadly in favour of shipping migrants to a third world country with a record of incarceration and ‘losing’ the papers of such people.

As the other poster said – if you consider that some of the “don’t knows” are likely to have felt some embarrassment but be in favour then it is by no means a stretch to get to 52% in favour. Presumably you’re cool with 45% of the population of a developed country, naturally ‘protected’ by being an island, with a ludicrously high standard of living, supporting a policy of this nature? If so, why don’t you just say it?

Presumably socialism is just for the ‘right’ kind of person. 🤷‍♂️

And of that a few will be lying, and the 23% don’t know are more likely to be the normal too ashamed to say what they think.

And you start getting closer to 52/48…