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?  

Cultural Artefacts And The Zone Of Sanity

You have heard me whinge before about the world going to Hell in a handcart and in the past ten days we have had to bear the twin peaks of desperation that are the party conferences of our benighted major parties. First up we had Labour who announced a new piece of state sponsored larceny dressed up as widening share ownership. Hopeless and gormless as the Tories can appear (actually it's not an appearance - they are hopeless and gormless) it is them to whom we must look if we are going to avoid the Labour wrecking ball being taken to the economy. Cue an assembly of forced rictus smiles as the Tory party faithful attempt to put on a brave face whilst they destroy each other over Brexit. The brazen Boris Johnson makes shameless play for the leadership and poor old Theresa May essays as dignified a stab as one can manage at retaining some dignity. What a complete shambles.

So here are things to cheer us up. I've been listening to The Beatles blue album while I work - some paid labour and rather more work on the old thesis - will it ever be done? Quite possibly not. Now I know that the cool kids don't approve of compilation albums but the blue album can be excused since it reminds us just how sodding brilliant The Beatles were. Go on, search it out, ideally using it as a gateway to their entire oeuvre.

And another artefact to recommend. The Martian is the cheery and comprehensible side of sci-fi. Beatifully shot and deliberately not as portentous as the genre can be at. Behind the science (and there is a lot of it) there is a story of human endeavour and redemption. There are even some well constructed jokes. Worth a look. The bigger the screen the better. 7/10. 

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.    

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.

It's Just a Matter Of Putting One Foot In Front Of The Other

That's all there is to running, so I keep telling myself. Oh and you also have to pray (perhaps that's a bit strong - fervently hope then) that the bloody calf muscles hold up. And as you know the new orthotic insoles seem to be doing a job on the bloody calf muscles. So even on  a dank Monday morning after a dissolute weekend I was up to putting one foot in front of the other. Three miles of distance run. And it has the desired effect. Endorphins a-go-go.

But none of this improves, except on a very local level, the world at large. I heard that bloody Theresa May this morning giving forth on the enforced silencing of Big Ben (the tower needs refurbishing) - well quelle surprise, she even sounds ineffectual on that matter. Mind you, a good thing coming out of the confected silly season rage about that topic, is that John Bercow seems to be in the critical firing line. We don't like him - we've met him.

I have another film of merit to report: Disney Pixar's Inside Out. Honestly it is really sweet (not sure I've ever used that phrase before - too saccharine for the house style?) and one heart grabbing moment had Daughters Numbered One and Two (aka the Two Man Idiot Show - back in Brum for the weekend) reaching for the tissues. 8/10.

So often we come to good television late and courtesy of Netflix - thus with the bleak medical comedy Getting On. This is very dark stuff but with just enough human edge. Particularly brilliant is the jargon-fluent male Matron, Hilary Loftus played by Ricky Grover. If you haven't encountered one of his species, that is to say the over-promoted and clinically useless, then you are very lucky and have probably never worked in the health sector. If you don't laugh you have nowhere to go but to weep. Co-scripted by Jo Brand, Vicki Pepperdine and Joanna Scanlan (all of whom are integral to the ensemble piece) this is one to track down if you managed to miss it on the first pass. 

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 State Of The Union

I have been laid low for a couple of days by an unpleasant stomach bug. I'll spare you the details.

There's only so much sleeping and feeling sorry for yourself that you can do in these situations so instead I have been ruminating angrily on the state of the nation. I've looked at it from every conceivable angle and, do you know what, it's a sodding mess.

Theresa May missed a trick (something she transpires to be bloody good at) by wooing the DUP. Rather than getting into bed with the not entirely pleasant Ulster crew she should have made great play of governing without a majority, confined herself to moderate legislation and dared the newly emboldened socialists to be the ones who bring her down and pitch the nation into yet another unwanted election. Part of me actually wants us to have a Corbyn government if only so that I can commence a string of blogs under the title 'I told you so - welcome back to the 1970's.'

evidence of the social contract 1979

Schadenfreude - now there's a nice German word for the way the rest of the EU have responded to British electoral deadlock. We should let them have their day and remember that revenge is a dish best served cold. This is going to end in tears - everybody's bar the Germans who will, of course, win on penalties.   

As I say, a sodding mess.

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. 

The Political Merry-Go-Round

Well, well, well. Just for now the Tories have stopped fighting each other and crowned a new leader, or should it be leaderene. All of a rush, Theresa May has become Prime Minister, Andrea Leadsom having taken a peek over the brim of the seething leadership volcano and responded with the political equivalent of 'Sod this for a game of soldiers.'

Cameron went with some style, much as one would expect. His legacy is the impression of his political laziness (a not uncommon trait in the uncommonly gifted) which culminated in a referendum it had never occured to him he could lose. So, in short, he ended up looking a plonker - a nice twist on Enoch Powell's dictum that all political careers end in failure.

May has started rather deftly - wrong-footing the commentariat by giving Boris Johnson the Foreign Office and bringing in two thoroughly decent Brexiteers in Liam Fox and David Davis. George Osborne has been shown the (back) door as has Michael Gove. Osborne has reaped as he sowed. Gove is a slightly different case, a man who has had a lot of interesting things to say (politicians often don't) but whose recent manoeuvrings have been comically badly conceived and as badly executed.

All of which has taken the spotlight off poor old Tony Blair and the aftermath of the Chilcot Report. What are we to make of Blair in the light of the Report? Exactly what we already knew - he thinks he did the right thing and has deluded himself as to the extremes he trod in getting his way. However, much of the contumely coming in his direction is just plain cant. God knows I am no defender of Blair  but Alex Salmond's gimlet-eyed hate speech does nothing nothing more than confirm the nasty Scot as the most unpleasant man in mainstream politics.

Meanwhile in the (temporarily) sunny suburbs life goes on much as before any of this fool's comedy commenced. The Labour Party? Well, you couldn't make that stuff up, so I won't.

Crisis, what crisis?

So what is a man to do as the country careers out of control? Go to the home of Mikey B and play as his guest at Woburn for a couple of days, that's what. The whole Dunmore crew will be there so Radio Free Roberts will be silent for the next few days. 

Surely Some Mistake

Am I getting soft in my old age? Not once but twice I have heard Keith Vaz being interviewed in the last couple of days and on both occasions I have found him sane and reasonable. This can't be happening.

Exhibit A: Vaz giving a balanced and generous assessment of Theresa May in Week at Westminster. Exhibit B: Vaz criticising the same Ms May when she chose on Monday to unveil new anti-terrorist policy in a speech outside parliament.

Now I have no doubt that Vaz will soon be back at his self-aggrandising best but for now credit where credit's due.