It’s going to get worse before it gets better …
Hmnn …. as I begin this post I’m conscious that many Rusters may be fed up to the back teeth with Brexit’s latest manifestation – the General Election – but after yesterday’s developments the bee in my proverbial bonnet has been buzzing in my brain like a jackhammer road drill which has moved me to both wonder and exasperation.
Let’s see:
In the past few days we’ve had both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his Shadow counterpart John McDonnell vying to put their dicks on the table to see who can promise the biggest spending splurge since Yorkshire factory packer Viv Nicholson’s husband won the then record pools jackpot of £152,319 in 1961 and she vowed to spend it all – and then did.
Shortly after that we had the Tories claiming that Labour’s proposals would cost £1.2 trillion and bankrupt the country, whereupon Labour hit back by pointing out that this was typical Tory “fake news” because their manifesto commitments wouldn’t even be finalised until this Saturday and, when they were, they’d be fully costed down to the last penny.
Then the floods arrived, placing the whole of south Yorkshire under four feet of water, after which the Tories scored a major own goal by initially failing to do anything about it until they realised that this would remain front-page news until the affected region returned to its normal Kalahari Desert-like state.
I could go on, but I wouldn’t want to bore my readers.
Suffice it to say that the UK’s political nightmare continued yesterday, confirming the unedifying impression that we’re now trapped in some form of surrealist parallel universe in which Reason has slipped its moorings and, if it hasn’t already happened, every last detail of the ‘worst case scenario imaginable’ is being worked upon as we speak by the Establishment political class and their policy wonks with the intention of being tied up with a bow and delivered to every doorstep in the country before Father Christmas and his reindeer have even set off from Lapland.
My “The lunatics have taken over the asylum” conclusion was reinforced yesterday by last night’s Tory Party’s Election Broadcast which I watched by complete accident whilst waiting for something else to begin.
For the life of me I don’t understand the Tories’ strategy – if they have one at all.
From where I’m sitting the Labour Party may have missed a serious trick by drawing a direct comparison between Boris Johnson and US President Trump and claiming they’re political right-wing soul mates currently embarked upon a wheeze to destroy the NHS by outsourcing every aspect of it they can to profit-chasing US firms who are going to feed all NHS in-patients chlorinated chicken three times a day.
What I mean to register is that, whilst the connection between Boris and President Trump is an excellent and ‘profitable’ one for Labour to make, they’ve missed the obvious target by claiming that the pair of them have a joint strategy on anything.
Labour would gain far more Election traction by simply pointing out that Boris and Trump are both buffoons who by definition – if not legislation or court order – shouldn’t have been let anywhere near the corridors of power to start with.
In doubting earlier that the Tories had any election strategy at all, it has just occurred to me that I may have done Dominic Cummings – or whomever else is ‘pulling their strings’ – a disservice.
It’s just possible that in a “reverse ferret”, double-bluff move – having decided that Boris is a complete idiot, albeit in a strangely-car-crash-fascinating charismatic sort of a way – they are deliberately presenting him to the UK electorate as a clown [or should that be “as he really is?”], this on the basis that the public reaction will be “at least he’s not Jeremy Corbyn”.
As my next pieces of evidence, M’luds, I would like to present the following:
Firstly – for those who didn’t see it – here is a link to last night’s Tory Party election broadcast, courtesy of the BBC iPlayer service [warning: you may have to click a button or two to actually play the video] – BBC iPLAYER
Secondly, here’s a link to a piece by James Gant, reviewing the broadcast, as appears upon the website of the – DAILY MAIL
Separately – and we must present the other side of the coin in the interests of doomed impartiality – yesterday Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn gave a speech on the stump to an audience in an executive suite at Blackpool FC.
Here follows a link to the latest effort of John Crace, as regular readers will know one of my favourite political sketch-writers because he has a pronounced ability to make me smile.
As a contributor to The Guardian, I take it as read that Mr Crace is a left-wing-leaning individual but to his credit he always calls it as he sees it, see here from the website of –THE GUARDIAN
