Pop Will Eat Itself (Redux)

One can get to missing these things. The Conservative Party is presently in a dire state - BoJo having lost his mojo but his majority being large enough to preclude any serious rocking of the boat. And boy does the boat need rocking as we continue to sail our way blithely into an economic depression.

Still the good old Labour Party has come to the rescue and given us a nice bit of internecine warfare to warm the cockles on these cold evenings - Corbyn suspended 

This tawdry tale is all part of Kier Starmer's attempt to detoxify his party, or that at least is the way he tells it. What we ought to remember is that (unlike Andy Burnham who may be overplaying his mayoral cards a little but has a clean bill of health hypocrite-wise) Starmer served Corbyn as a loyal lieutenant during the last parliament. Starmer suffers from what we might call Mike Pence Syndrome - wherein an outwardly decent bloke uncomplainingly bows and scrapes at the feet of an utter shit. 

And as if to bring me yet more fun, the infantile SNP is also eviscerating itself with the odious Alex Salmond cast in the unlikely role of avenging angel - Saint Alex of Salmond  

Finally if you want to see how low an Englishman can stoop, track down the clips of Nigel Farage eulogising the shit's shit, the Donald - An Englishman Abroad   

As a wise man said to me only last week - life is like a glass of champagne, drink it while it's fizzy.

Grumpy Old Man Somewhat Soothed

The definition of insanity is, we are told, doing the same daft things over and over and expecting different results. I mention this because everyday life often serves to remind me of that maxim. Most days I awake and hear the same news and it is the same things that push my buttons over and over again. Donald bloody Trump, natch. Jeremy bloody Corbyn, natch, though that irritant is on its last legs - to be superseded no doubt by the equally, though for different reasons, bothersome Keir Starmer. Litter, bloody litter. It's everywhere. It's shaming. And don't get me started on the bloody Sussexes - I mean, who cares any more? All I will say is that the Queen, God bless her, has played her usual blinder. We'll miss her when she's gone.

And so here's the cheery bit. The obverse of that maxim is that the defintion of sanity could be doing the same healthy things in order to get repeat results. Well this week I have been in Mon with the Groupie, following hard upon three days here last week with Daughter Number 2. The familiar - I have walked twice at Newborough and loved it both times - it is the best beach on the island and the bacon roll from the van on the carpark is unbeatable. DN2 and I also walked at Lligwy (second best beach?) and dined at the Harbour Inn in Cemaes and at the Tavern at Red Bull Bay, the former good, the latter excellent. More of the familiar - Groupie and I have been to Plas Newydd and to Penrhyn Castle for the umpteenth time. Top grade. We have eaten at the Panton Arms (reliably sufficient) and at the Anglesey Arms (a new and commendable find) in Menai Bridge. Savage brow soothed, Cheltenham to come.

When she feels herself compelled to talk about politics I find Emma Thompson insufferably woke, a manifestation of that educated intolerance peculiar to liberals. But that should not detract from this fact - she's the best actress currently at work. I was reminded of this last night when we watched Sense and Sensibility, in which she is terrific and for the screenplay of which she won an Oscar. 8/10. 

The world is presently obsessed with coronavirus. I am not but the bloody thing has hacked some twenty per cent off the value of my pension or more accurately it has been a convenient excuse for the tossers in the City to make the adjustment that was needed to stock valuations.  The games people play. But never mind I have had a 10p each way Lucky 31 on the first five races at Cheltenham tomorrow which will win me £13500 when it comes in. Sorted.   

A Hesitant Return To Politics

It may not have passed your attention that OG (don't you just hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person) has been deafeningly silent throughout all the electoral shenanigans that came to a halt last Thursday. What you perhaps will not have forgotten is that OG aka Big Fat Pig (don't you just hate it when people refer to themselves in the third person by two different noms de plume) has expressed a comprehensive detestation of all our political tribes.

All of which means that I was surprised by OG's reaction when the (surprisingly accurate) exit poll was unveiled on the BBC at just after ten o'clock on election night. He punched the air and allowed himself a celebratory beer. It was not that I was delighting in the triumph of the serial adulterer Boris Johnson, but that Corbyn and McDonnell would not be allowed to lay waste a country which, despite it all, I still love.

I believe in the nation state and in a mixed economy which is sceptical of state intervention. I also believe in old-fashioned public decency and education as both a right and an opportunity. Corbyn and the dangerous McDonnell would impose upon us their dreary and West-hating dogma. I punched the air because I knew I would not after all be governed by men who despise affluence and think they know better than I how my money should be spent. Only when the danger had passed did I realise how serious I had been about the prospect of emigrating. Here's hoping that The Boy Boris can pull off that elegant trick of combining fiscal conservatism with nuanced liberalism. The Pig will not be holding his breath but for a small time he will tend to optimism.    

The State Of The Polls

My second alma mater (yes I have two undergraduate degrees, hence the massively witty title of this blog) today played host to the launch of the Labour Party Manifesto. It is Birmingham City University of which I speak. A couple of days ago all post-graduate students (of which I am one) were warned that access to certain buildings would be denied today and that memo seemed to relish informing us that the nature of the event causing such closure could not be revealed 'for security reasons'. What a load of old bollocks - I immediately guessed what it was going to be. After all the Lib Dems had already sounded their pootling fanfare and the Tories presumably have more sense than to show up on a modern university campus. Anyway I just hope we charged Labour through the nose for the privilege.

I've been reading said manifesto this afternoon. It is, on balance, a dire document born of Old Labour shibboleths and bearing the imprimatur not so much of the dreadful Corbyn (or Magic Grandpa as Rod Liddle so aptly styles him) but of the gimlet eyed Most Dangerous Man in Britain, John McDonnell. McDonnell is deadly serious and deadly clever. He hates enterprise with a passion - for him it is the immoral extraction of surplus value created by and belonging to the proletariat. Many years ago I had and kept a copy of the 1983 Labour Manifesto, 'the longest suicide note in political history' as it was described. We could afford to laugh about it because there never was a hope of Michael Foot (another clever man - though more decent than McDonnell) becoming Prime Minister. It is harder to laugh these days because Labour can win. McDonnell's acuity is ranged against a tired Conservative Party led by a dilettante with no moral anchor.

You pays your money and you takes your chance. Last one out, switch the lights off.

What Have I Done To Deserve This?

I think I've posed this question before but sod it, this is my blog and I'll cry if I want to. And look at me daringly ending a sentence with a preposition - oh no it's not - of course it's an infinite marker in this usage.

So what's winding up the Big Fat Pig today? Well here I am, finding myself a citizen-subject of a country in which within the space of a couple of days arch-berk Jeremy Corbyn, arch-joke Harriet Harman, and arch-windbag Ken Clarke have all expressed their willingness 'to serve' as caretaker Prime Minister as Boris steers us knowingly over what most people think is a cliff but others believe is the tiniest of tiny steps. It tells you how little I think of this trio of selfless volunteers that I believe all are less well-suited to the premiership than the amoral Boris. Don't start me on Philip Hammond and Nancy Pelosi - two exemplars of a self-regarding righteousness that might almost put La Harman to shame. Let's just say this Phil: don't presume to tell me why I voted as I did you patronising twat. Let's just say this Nancy: I saw the IRA collection tins in Boston bars in the eighties that helped fund the bombing of innocents in cities like my own beloved Birmingham and it made me sick. And before you write in, yes I am a catholic.

But there are reasons to be cheerful. DN2 is in transit back to Brum for the weekend and she will be joined by DN1 tomorrow. We can all share the celebration of The Groupie's latest commercial triumph - she came back from That London yesterday having endured a sale process that has dragged on for three quarters of a year. Saying I am proud does it all less than justice.

While the Groupie was in the Big Smoke I watched, with no great expectations, Solo - a Star Wars Story. Here's the thing, it's good fun. It's really a western set in outer space and it overstays its welcome by perhaps twenty minutes but, as I said, it's good fun, certainly better than the first three volumes of the core Star Wars. 7/10. So, reasons to be cheerful. Oh and I forgot to say that I stocked up on wine yesterday and a sophisticated Chianti will be calling me a little later.

Of Films, Flat Track Bullies, Imbeciles And Other Annoyances

I think this has been the longest I have gone between posts on this blog. Do you know what, I just haven't been in the mood. A torpor has settled over the Big Fat Pig and he projects a general dissatisfaction with the way the world is comporting itself. Can you blame him? Brexit, bloody Brexit, Trump, bloody Trump, The weather, the bloody weather.

For heaven's sake man, pull yourself together; catch yourself on (as they say in the brilliant Derry Girls, and as they also say in the Irish family into which I married); more prosaically get a bloody grip: etcetera, etcetara [please insert exhortation of your choice].

Because when you actually remove the the self-indulgent dark glasses through which you view the world, there is still plenty of stuff to lift the heart. Mind you, none of it comes from the political scene where we have the gruesome spectacle of a Tory leadership contest in which most seem reluctantly to concede that Boris Johnson is the least bad option. All of this in a galaxy where no one has yet landed a death blow on the relic that is Jeremy Corbyn. You couldn't make this stuff up.

The Pig has endured watching Trump being entertained (royally and well) by the apparatus of the British state. Trump spent his time on the journey over thumping out tweets aimed at that political pygmy Sadiq Khan. What a ridiculous man (Trump not Khan, but then when you mention it ...). The Pig has come to the troubling realisation that Trump has done some politically good things (principally being the first man willing to get into a staring match with an immoral China) but that anything good is dwarfed by his lowering of the tone of public life to a previously unimaginable level. Were I an American (and I can think of plenty worse things to be) I would hold my nose and vote for a mediocrity like Joe Biden - this a man who was found out plagiarising no less an icon than the Welsh windbag himself, Neil Kinnock. I mean, Neil bloody Kinnock - seriously?

But what about those films I hear you ask. Two good films have cheered the Pig recently - you might call them comfort viewing. The Full Monty is not quite a great film but it has a very good run at it. It exudes humanity and dignity, which is pretty good going for a film about unemployed blokes getting their kit off for money. 8.5/10.

The second revisited favourite is, like The Full Monty, a movie that proves that short can be sweet - neither is over ninety minutes. Stand by Me is based on a short story by the copiously talented Stephen King. That source material makes for a beautiful film, locus for the directorial extraction of compelling performances from its juvenile leads. This is a work of art. 9/10.

All of which above writing has cheered the Pig up. Now, I promised you flat track bullies. I am just a little concerned by the hyping to clear favouritism of England's cricketers in the World Cup. They may go on to win but can we just remember that we have yet to meet any of the other likely three semi-finalists and, in amongst the glory have lost to a quixotic (this is a polite way of putting it) Pakistan. The old grouch in me feels a tumble from on high coming our way. I'm only saying.

2nd at Sedbergh - where's Pete gone?

As I swing into cheerfulness (it's good this bipolar lark) I will record a public thanks to BH, the organising force behind last week's QMT (it's a long story) golf tour to Appleby. Bad golf was played, good beer (and a little bad actually) was drunk and there was high drama with debutant tourist PJC conspiring to fall into the river at only the second hole of the tour from such a height that he broke his hip. Decidedly not funny, but definitely the stuff of legend. The local emergency services did him proud - rather reassuring in these austere times. The Pig's golf was modest and the weather was challenging. A great trip. Best beer, Timothy Taylor Landlord on the last night.

So now I feel a lot more cheerful - the power of the written word, even my own.

All Political Careers End In Failure - But This Is Bloody Ridiculous

So Theresa May has finally admitted defeat and we shall soon have yet another Prime Minister. At her moment of resignation she was dignified and serious - have we ever found her otherwise? But we should not allow our instinctive sympathy for a kind soul to obscure the fact of her ineffectiveness. In my lifetime we have had some bloody awful Prime Ministers (Douglas-Home, Callaghan, Brown all spring to mind) and I'm certain that none of them was saddled with such malign mood music as May. Brexit is a shaming dog's dinner, the Conservative Party is an ungovernable dog's breakfast and, to cap it all, she let that turd Donald Trump hold her hand in public. Notwithstanding such unprepossessing circumstances, it has to be said that she has demonstrated an uncanny knack when faced with a fork in the political road for steering with utter conviction down the wrong way. In all of this she threatens to deliver us into the hands Corbyn and McDonnell, a gruesome pairing which should in any sensible world be unelectable. So, sorry Mrs May, I am not sorry to see you go. Brexit means Brexit indeed.

Much more importantly you will need to know that the Overgraduate has been suffering with that most debilitating of illnesses, the summer cold. I have been unspeakably brave about the whole thing as I'm sure the Groupie will confirm. I do just have to make it clear that this was not Man Flu - which as any fule kno is much, much worse.

Mission Impossible - Fallout - a film of sustained and explosive silliness. It has first Paris and then London being trashed in chases and shoot-outs before repairing to Kashmir for a climax that twins a helicopter chase with nuclear threat. Bloody silly. Bloody well done. 6.5/10. For people who like this sort of thing etc.

For a man who is an avid watcher of Gardeners' World Big Fat Pig is not a keen gardener. It seems to him that if you weed regularly this merely stimulates the bloody things to grow back even bigger. The Pig does of course like a well-kept lawn and is pleased to report that the new Precious Mower is doing a great job, both in standard mode and the alternative mulch mode which he uses when doing the Council's job and mowing the verge at the front of Casa Piggy. As for the institutional uselessness of Birmingham City Council, let's leave that for another day.

Remember you heard it here first: Brexit means never having to say you're sorry.



    

This Sceptred Isle

I can bear it no longer. Having wailed for an age that we were all going to Hell in a handcart, it is my sad duty to announce that we have finally got there - please make sure you take all your belongings with you when leaving the handcart and remember that when alighting, never mind a gap there isn't even a bloody platform.

A new acronym has been floating around my poor befuddled head - BRINO - this one apparently stands for Brexit In Name Only. It is bandied about by those Tories who think (correctly) that May's benighted deal was inadequate. Maybe, just maybe, no better deal can be negotiated, actually no I withdraw that prevarication - of course a better deal could have been struck if we had ever been serious about it. And now that nice but ridiculous man Jeremy Corbyn wants us to go back to the negotiating table having publicly forsaken our right to walk away. I'm bloody glad I never had Jezza for a client.

I no longer care very much whether or not we depart the EU - we are led by such cretins (with other cretins standing in the wings to take their place) that it all makes no difference. What a complete mess. Those in government are not fit to govern. The alternatives are mostly barking mad. Was this my fault? That thought honestly keeps me up at night. I do know it wasn't all my doing but should I have taken up arms against this sea of troubles? Whilst I have (fairly) quietly been minding my own business, paying my taxes on time and being a good citizen, morons have taken over the country. Whenever my infant daughters used to say that they 'hated' something, I used to scold them not to be so vituperative - hate is always too strong an emotion. Well here's the news: I hate our political class. And I rather hate myself for feeling that way.

Oh well it's only a game - time to get back to researching the best place to which I can afford to emigrate.  

I refer You To My Earlier Answer

Today's unavoidable headline is the draft Brexit Agreement. I've been watching the proceedings in the Commons and have to admit to a grudging admiration for our poor beleaguered Prime Minister - she has dealt politely with a queue of backbenchers all waiting patiently to ask the same specimen of question - 'You no longer enjoy the confidence of this house, please therefore let us off the hook of doing our job by mandating another referendum, which will hopefully give a different answer and we can get on with the job of ceding our sovereignty inch by dying inch.'

I said grudging admiration for she has, of course, been comprehensively out-manoeuvred in negotiations by the EU mandarins. May is right up there with Major and Callaghan in the running for the title of worst PM under whose yoke we have laboured during my lifetime. Could be worse. Couldn't it? Corbyn anyone?  

Grumbling And Some Antidotes

I'll tell you what is true: Donald Trump is an idiot with peculiar skills; Jeremy Corbyn is an anti-semite but is so far lost in his wretchedness that he has no access to self-knowledge; criticism of the state of Israel is not per se racist; the Brexit process descends daily into a less and less amusing mess; I'm struggling to think of a current public figure who fills me with confidence. It's not just today that I feel all of these things - a little cloud of reflective misery follows me most of the time.

an antidote

Antidotes: I played golf at Cavendish Golf Club with my great mate Big Willy Mac last week and it seemed that God was in his Heaven and all was well in the world, most particularly as I parred the eighteenth before retiring to the bar for a Guinness and a bowl of chips; the next day I played twilight golf at Pype Hayes with three old rugby buddies - once again there was Guinness but no chips this time; Daughters Numbered One and Two are both home for the weekend so my family are all to hand; we had a curry last night and then watched Rain Man, a good film but not a great one - 7/10.

multiple antidotes

Life's been good to me so far.    

My Gloomy Silence

Go all the way back to the very first entry on this blog and you will find the First Rule of Marchant - WRITERS WRITE.

So why the strange silence OG? Has the world slipped into a dull quietude such that the proto-satirist has nothing to say? Well, hardly. But that's just the point - the world is as shitty as I've ever known it, and remember I lived through the seventies.

Lest we forget: the president of the United States of America is alleged to have had extramarital sex with a porn star at a time when his improbable wife (herself what I believe is styled a glamour model) was suckling their offspring. He denies this allegation but so far as I can tell nobody seriously doubts that it is true. In the sordid pit that has become American politics, the truth matters not a jot. If you shout a lie loud and long enough it suffocates all assembled truths. This I suppose is the fetid culmination of 'spin'. Truth is merely an abstract constructed by the powerful.

I am not a socialist (bet that caught you off-guard) but I am a longstanding admirer of the Labour Party. But now this steaming collective of unapologetic anti-semites suggests that I must take seriously as execrable an excuse for a public intellectual as Diane sodding Abbott. I mean, really? And as for Corbyn - well congratulations world you have found the only man (or woman) who might make Theresa May seem competent. And this matters because whilst the reckless sideshow of the Syrian bombings plays itself out there is the lamentable tale of the Windrush generation and their betrayal by the country whose labour shortages they came to plug. A tale that shames the United Kingdom.

I called Syria a reckless sideshow. You can't fight half a war and win. If Assad is to be stopped from killing his own people then he will have to be stopped by force, applied and constant force. That won't happen, indeed I strongly doubt there would be any American public appetite for it. So what we have is a 'strong' western alliance (That is to say the vile Trump, the over-confident Macron and the cowed May) saying in, effect, that Assad can carry on killing people but not with chemical weapons. So that's good then.

Do you know the first thing I do every time I turn on the old computer? I go to the newsfeeds and hope that Trump will finally have gone too far and been impeached. Come back Nixon, your country needs you.

That is why I stay silent. It saves me getting all depressed/depressing.    

A Funny Old Thing

Life, that is. I find it hard to abide either Donald Trump or Jeremy Corbyn but, wonder of wonders, I find myself incapable of a knee-jerk reaction against either of them on certain recent and select issues. Am I growing old, is my political knee no longer working?

Big Fat Pig's new mates

Trump is an odious creep. His attitude to women is antediluvian; his reaction to the latest school shootings was immoral and sententiously boastful. However his cut in corporation tax makes some libertarian sense and (at a stretch) his goading of North Korea may just have forced that rogue state to the negotiating table. Now the libertarian streak in me should not approve of the threatened trade war with China, but I have a particular animus against China (bet that's got them quaking in their boots) and if the free world is going to pick an economic fight then it should be with China. Trump is an inexcusably horrid man but, as any idiot savant, he has his moments. I still hope that he is hounded out of office in disgrace and that he will be shunned by his wider public. Fat chance.

Corbyn is a middleweight at best (even as I type this I feel an apology to all middleweights coming on) but his muted reaction to the Russian poison attack strikes me as the right one. The rush to condemn Russia has a strong whiff of the 'dodgy dossier' about it. Theresa May should be very alarmed that her stance has attracted support from the invariably wrong David Miliband - mind you Miliband did use the word 'revanchist' in his interview and I have to admit that it's a top-hole word I plan on using at the first opportunity. Russia is a kleptocracy and Putin is plainly a wrong'un but pick your fights guys, or at the very least establish your casus belli and lay it open to public scrutiny.

So that's me then, managing to be an 'apologist' (current political commentary's most overused word) for Trump, Putin and Corbyn all at the same time. Mind you after weeks of slobbing around I did run/trudge three miles this morning so I'm not a complete lost cause. Maybe my brain has gone as flabby as my body. 

What's Another Word For "Inept"?

I ask because in casual discussion I am running out of descriptors for our government's handling of bloody Brexit. We are being taken to the cleaners by an arrogant cartel that thinks itself invincible. In charge of our project of exit is an impuissant Prime Minister who never believed we should leave in the first place. At this stage we have the inglorious spectacle of the Taoiseach doing Sinn Fein's republican dirty work for it and proving that in the world of the EU a little bitty piss-ant country can, when the mood suits the grand panjandrums, hold another to ransom.

For a bit of insight on how badly we have played this read Lionel Shriver in The Spectator - EU Divorce Bill

The EU would seem to be like the Hotel California - you can check out any time you like but you can never leave. It doesn't have to be this way but we need some sodding strong leadership rather than the craven appeasement which keeps getting chucked back in our face. And my argument here is not with those Remainers who so patronisingly question my sanity (I'm sorry boys and girls but honestly I'm not a political mentalist) but with the soggy middle grounders who can't be arsed to do any job properly. For the record I go back to what I was saying two years ago: I believe in the nation state and I am that annoying hybrid, a Catholic Unionist. The greatest chance of my constitutional nirvana lies outside the EU, just as does the greatest hope for true Corbynite socialism. That's a democratic risk I am content to run. My respect for Corbyn might be greatly increased if he would stand up and admit this truth - a truth he stuck to for all those rebellious years on the back benches but which now conveniently eludes him.

Oh well, there's always Christmas to look forward to. Cheers all.

Ennui 2017

More precisely a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction. More bluntly - 2107, WTF?

Those of you paying attention (and I accept that there aren't hordes of you, but enough to constitute a gathering) will notice that I have been blogging only fitfully. Que causa (you see what I've done there - that's the second bit of foreign lingo I have gratuitously lobbed at you)? Well, I'm actually in quite good spirits so far as my own situation is concerned but boring you with gloating about what a lucky boy I am would be an abuse of this self-built platform. Mind since you ask: the Groupie is very well and building work at the country seat proceeds excitingly.

Life's compensations

No, what it is, I just have the feeling of the world going ingloriously down the shitter. The man who ought to be the leader of the free world is a boastful ignoramus - such small credit as he might be due for some anti-statist sentiments is more than negated by his unbelievable crassness. The woman who ought to be the leader of the free British (and I don't mean the Queen) is plain and simple not up to the job. Jeremy Corbyn is, well, Jeremy Corbyn - trust me on this, the man has the intellectual acuity of a plank.

But worse than that - what the bloody hell has happened to the top order batting of the England test team. This afternoon Joe Root has made a fifty in his tenth consecutive match for England. Only two of the fifties have been converted to centuries. He's a a terrific player but, I'm sorry, that pattern doesn't win tests consistently. Just as pop will eat itself, so the inelegant monster of Twenty20 will, if we are not very careful, devour proper cricket. Just look at the mess that is the former glory of West Indies cricket.

Hey, ho, this is a nice rioja.

The Clowns Are Still With Us

The forthcoming election appears cursed. Never before in the field of electoral combat has such unremitting drivel issued forth from so many.

If polls are to be believed a third of the country is content to wake up on 9 June and find Diane Abbott as Home Secretary. Meanwhile four tenths of the country can find it in their hearts to renew power in the hands of whichever clown came up with the Tory policy on social care. Give me strength. To cap it all we are asked to take Nicola Sturgeon (leaderene of a provincial faction) seriously - this a woman who is not even a candidate in the election.

One is left to sift the rubble of a collapsed citadel of good sense for the least bad option. To help you, here is a link to a clip of Corbyn's mash-brained moral relativism on his mates in the IRA. Corbyn Equivocates (Note also the BBC's craven and inaccurate captioning of the piece). "Clown" is a decidedly generous appellation.

Still, things could be a lot worse - Donald Trump could be President of the USA.  

Politics Just Got Interesting Again ... But Then Again

We're having a general election in June. Good. Should give me something to whine on about for the next few weeks.

Mind you the hurdle of the dreadful Fixed Term Parliament Act has first to be jumped. That Act, you will recall, is a monument to the hubris of Dave 'Boy' Cameron and his little mate Nick Clegg. I suggest, with all due deference, that history will judge the pair of them as smug tossers.

What then do we make of today's shenanigans? Well first up has to be the most over-publicised politician in the realm, Nicola Sturgeon. Having (correctly if a tad maliciously) taunted May as unelected and lacking a 'mandate' (surely the most overused word in modern politics) a few weeks ago, La Sturgeon now affects to bewail the snappiness of this snap election. Don't worry folks she's chuffed really because the SNP estimation is that this turn of events makes independence more attainable. And 'Good riddance' comes the chorus from the English shires - don't mention it out loud but this is very possibly part of May's calculation.

Jeremy Corbyn has professed that he welcomes the fight. I bet he does - at least when the election is lost he can resign with some degree of dignity and go back to doing whatever he did before we were asked to take him seriously.

Tim Farron. Twerp. His presence lends Corbyn gravitas.

Bloody hell, I'm sick to the back teeth of the entire shower already. 

How Tiresome

Isn't politics just wearying at the moment? This was brought solidly to mind as I listened to the sound of a man drowning live on air this morning. It was of course the feeble Jeremy Corbyn. He must be the world's best-known nonentity. After the complete botch that 'Spreadsheet' Phil Hammond made of his Budget last week, savaging the government ought to be like shooting fish in a barrel, instead of which Jezza meekly climbs into the barrel himself.

Today that awful Nichola Sturgeon has piped up about having another independence referendum. I'm afraid I'm very much of the 'let them have their freedom' school of thinking. Just see what  a complete basket case SNP Scotland would become - such a scenario is the major hope for the renaissance of Scottish conservatism. And please don't start me on Northern Ireland - I love the place and the people but when it comes to politics, well, a plague on both your houses.

Big Fat Pig's pension plan

Only one day until Cheltenham starts. Get on! I see they're predicting a Scoop 6 pool of £600k on the first day which I'm pretty sure I should be able to win, so that will be nice.

 

At Last A Glimpse Of Light

The Groupie tells me not to keep watching the cable news coverage of the U.S. presidential election since it only gets me all riled up. I, of course, keep going back and getting angrier and angrier. My angst doesn't just come from the sheer bloody awfulness of the Donald but from the inability (perhaps unwillingness is better) of Clinton to maul him intellectually. However yesterday my patience was rewarded by an impressive platform speech in Ohio by Clinton. In fact beyond impressive, it was genuinely uplifting. Track it down online and compare it to the stilted performance Trump gave via autocue earlier in the week as he outlined the foreign policy he had been given by some misguided slave wonks.

It is not always what Trump says. If you dig beneath the lewdness, the ignorance and the cant, you will find germs of good ideas in what Trump says - given how many unrelated thoughts he throws at a subject the law of averages rather dictates that this will be the case. It is his utter lack of humility that offends and his basic message - "I alone can make America great again." What drivel.

And yesterday it was not always what Clinton said that impressed - for example her instincts on tax are unsound. But the manner and tone of her delivery were, at last, reassuring. How can I put it? I know - she has her faults (they are manifest) but she also has heft and unlike her opponent, she is not a complete twat. There you go, OG has spoken - eat your heart out Charles Moore.

Used to work for big pharma - nuff said

My current hero Rod Liddle has described Labour leadership contender Owen Smith as a 'smarmy nonentity'. As ever the Boy Liddle done good. I can do no better than repeat it. Mind you, you really ought to read what Liddle says about Corbyn! You could not invent the mess that a once great institution has got itself into. How can Ed Miliband (the man who gave them as his parting gift the electoral system that landed them with Corbyn) hold his head high? He must be so proud.

A View From Over The Pond

It has been a week of much sound and fury signifying the ramping up of lies, damned lies and statistics in the EU debate. The whole thing has become tiresome and there is something decdedly distasteful about the sight of our Prime Minister getting down and dirty with the lying part of the equation. He will say pretty much anything to win and his motivation is clearly the winning of an internal Tory war. The country's interests can go hang. He is no better than the clown Corbyn whose dishonest conversion to the Remain cause fails to get the scrutiny it deserves.

For a sober neutral view (this time on the Leave side of the equation) try George F. Will in yesterday's Washington Post. Will on EU

Stockholm Syndrome

You do have to admit it, the beastly George Galloway can be very perceptive and funny. I have just heard his take on the absolutely lamentable speech by Jeremy Corbyn this morning - in case you missed it you'll find edited highlights here: Jezza Loves Europe . Galloway descibed Corbyn as a hostage in full Stockholm Syndrome mode. Spot on.

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon described in 1973 in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.

Galloway also went on to make some nicely indelicate remarks scotching the notion that we need 'Johnny foreigner' to help us achieve clean beaches and other environmental positives. Cracking stuff. I do love it when poilitical debate gets edgy.

Corbyn's line is depressingly Cameroon in its Pollyanna optimism. He acknowledges faults in the EU (too bloody right we all shout) but believes that by staying in we can influence it to change. Well how's that gone for the last forty years Jez? Even more crackers, he believes that the answer to migration of EU nationals to the UK is best addressed by universal minimum wage legislation throughout the EU. Seriously he actually said that. International Collectivism is alive and well. There are strong reasons for arguing in favour of staying in the EU but we didn't hear any of them from Labour's pet hobbit this morning.

Galloway also referred to Tony Benn's notion - you're not living in a democracy if you can't change the person making the laws. On which topic there will be more from me later.