United Kingdom

Noted English upper-class inbred Jacob Rees-Mogg blames victims of catastrophic fire for lack of common sense, failing to flee through staircases ablaze in flames and carbon monoxide. pic.twitter.com/QRCMhH2wYc

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) November 5, 2019

Boosted from the comments section, blog favourite Tony Jay:

And they’re off!!!

Yes, finally, about bloody time as well. As what will almost certainly be the most important national election in British History since 1979 gets underway the presumed frontrunner, a much-fancied thoroughbred with an awful lot of big money riding on his ample posterior, has already emptied his bowels straight out of the gate, slip-slid on skittering legs straight into the very first fence and now lies, twitching and whinnying, on the much befouled track as multiple sobbing Paramedi(a)cs try desperately to get him back in the race, while from the stands a grim faced Judge begins his descent, mercy-piece cocked and at the ready.

Is that a metaphor or an analogy? Why don’t I understand things? I blame someone.

If you’ve been listening to British Media outlets cover the topic of UK politics at any point over the last millennium (has it only been two years? Really? Is that all?) you’d almost certainly have come away with the distinct impression that this Election was very much a dead rubber. Labour were totes doomed, the Liberal Democrats were on the surge and, though the SNP were due to wipe out all the other parties in Scotland with their message of “Drank mah pish, y’anglash cants”, the only thing standing between the Tory Party of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson and an absolute majority in Parliament was the foreign-backed influence project known colloquially as ‘The Brexit Party’ and its intermittently confrontational national Gauleiter, Nigel Farage. This narrative wasn’t just set in stone, it was perma-frozen there by an unchallenged certainty that “Boris”, as his journalistic fans insist on calling him, was simply far too witty and nimble and beloved by the Average Voter for his impression of a jolly decent cove just trying hard to do the absolute best he could on behalf of Queen and Country for anyone on the Opposition benches to lay a glove on him. He’d have this all wrapped up in a matter of days and the only question was how big his win would be.

It would be an understatement of pron-cocktacular proportions to say that this narrative has proven to be, ahem, somewhat flawed.

Where do we even start with the meth-brained way the Tories have gone about the relatively well-defined business of getting themselves elected by actual living voters rather than the access-journalists they used to go to school with?

Let’s begin with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the huffily anachronistic Tory spokesman for the Department of Why Good Blood Will Out, Sirrah!, who took time away from lurking noncorporeally in the blighted ether twixt Dream and Nightmare to go on the radio and pronounce in clipped tones of flat finality that the many of the 72 poor, foreign-born peasants who burnt to death in the Grenfell Fire Tragedy back in 2017 had only themselves to blame for lacking the simple common-sense to ignore the Fire Brigade’s clear instructions to remain in their homes and instead move downstairs, perhaps to the shelter of the family crypt, or possibly the main wine-cellar, where they could have at least enjoyed a nice glass or two of Merlot while awaiting rescue. It didn’t take long for the stench of Rees-Mogg’s comments to breed pushback from the lower classes, and soon he was forced to release a statement in which he clarified that he was, of course, terribly sorry to have been unclear in his original wording and had in fact meant to say entirely the opposite of whatever it was the peons had taken offense to.

Ever the good little Conservative the BBC’s Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg was quick to praise Moggy for the speed of his apology after his ‘gaffe’. I’m sure you meant well, you bargain-basement Halbermann, but I’m afraid you didn’t help. ‘Gaffe’? People asked. What ‘gaffe’? Sneering at dead people for not having the intelligence to ignore mere functionaries isn’t a gaffe, it’s what you do when you’re a Tory scumbag trying to redirect blame away from the private contractor who broke the law to clad the building in cut-price flammable material and the local Tory council who studiously ignored all of the warnings and complaints from the tenants because they didn’t have any financial incentive to give a shit what the serfs were jibber-jabbering about.

Obviously, the next step was to bring in a professional crisis-manager, someone with the nous and the guile to pluck Rees-Mogg from the jaws of peril and fob-off the angry common folk until the Media had got bored and moved on. Obviously, yes, but that bit of common-sense didn’t occur to the mavens down at Conservative Central, because instead they wheeled out oyster-mouthed Brextremist wind-instrument and all-round blistering fuckwit Andrew Bridgen, a sad-trombone sound effect of a man who knows he was lucky to feature in the first series of the inexplicably popular reality-show ‘Britain Does Brexit’ and is so desperate to eke out his 15-minutes of fame that he’ll appear on late-night Japanese TV with a live squid hanging out of his rectum if that’s what it takes to stay ‘relevant’. His argument was that, while Rees-Mogg’s comments were “uncharacteristically clumsy”, his good friend was so “intelligent and compassionate” that what he’d clearly meant to say was that he would simply have given the residents better advice than those know nothing “experts” with their “plans” and “regulations”. Trust a Brextremist to advocate blind obedience to the ill-informed, that’s more or less their native credo. Sorry, Andrew, you’re never going to get that invite to Moggy’s country estate. You’re neither wealthy nor well-born enough, and under that cheap cologne you smell like a prole.

Moving on, there’s the matter of the Intelligence Report on Russian Interference in British Politics, including but not confined to the 2016 Election, which should have been released weeks ago but is now being kept on the down low until after the 2019 Election. Everyone involved in its creation and clearance has affirmed that it’s gone through all of the necessary stages of expert classification and is ready to be released to Parliament and the public in time to be useful, what with a General Election only weeks away. So, what’s the problem? Johnson, of course. He won’t release it. Various BS reasons have been advanced, none of them lasting very long under the intense heat of very mild questioning, and it’s coming down to the simplest of Occam’s Razors: it’s not being released because Johnson and his advisors (mainly long-term Russophile Dominic Cummings) are petrified of what’s in it.
click below to see the entire post

Foreign Affairs Guest Post: Brexit Election News – “I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOU’RE GOING TO, BUT I WOULDN’T START FROM HERE”Post + Comments

Thanks, once more, to commentor Tony Jay:

PRE-BREXIT BLUE-ON-BLUE EDITION
Rum doings on this side of the Atlantic, as the race to succeed Theresa May (the only time you’ll see those three words strung together in any sentence format) as supreme leader of the Conservative Party and (possibly, probably, maybe not, we’ll see how things shake out) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, descended into ugly levels of sleezy farce. Last week the final round of votes by Conservative Members of Parliament saw unpalatable class-war stereotype Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson sail into the final heat with almost three times as many votes as his nearest rival, Foreign Secretary Jeremy ‘The Big C’ Hunt, much to the chagrin of Johnson’s erstwhile friend and humanoid mole-creature Michael Gove, who had been two votes ahead of Hunt in the previous round and already prepping the release of numerous ‘anonymous’ leaks from his period working with Johnson on the (Lying Like Bastards for) Leave side of the 2016 referendum campaign to discombobulate the owl-faced Heir Presumptive when news of his third place finish (and automatic expulsion from the leadership race) came splatting down like a hammer made of bad faith and broken dreams. Suspicions abounded that Johnson supporters had been sneakily organised to artificially boost Hunt’s tally and ensure that Gove paid the price for back-stabbing Eton’s Shame on the eve of the last leadership election three years ago, but the scandal didn’t gain much traction because, well, what’s wrong with a bit of tactical voting? These are Tory MPs we’re talking about, it’s hardly the worst thing any of them have ever done, it’s probably not even the worst thing most of them did that day.

Speaking of which….

In the early hours of Friday morning neighbours of Johnson’s partner, Carrie Symonds, a former Head of Press for the Tory Party with whom he’s basically been living since leaving his wife and family (feel the quality of those ‘values’) were taking delivery of a fast-food order when they were disturbed by a veritable humdinger of a row taking place in Symonds’ flat, during which there was slamming and banging and things being broken, along with the sound of Symonds screaming at her other half to “Get off me!” and “Get out of my flat”, apparently furious with the infamously slobbish Johnson for spilling red wine on her couch and generally being a spoilt bastard who didn’t give a toss about domestic hygiene. Now, anyone worried that poor old Johnson might have inadvertently kowtowed to the feminazi agenda at this point will be happy to know that he gave as good as he got, demanding that Symonds calm down and leave his fucking laptop alone. (PronHub alert!!!) Upon hearing a loud scream and after going down on three separate occasions to knock on the door (no response) the neighbours called the police, who sent around a couple of vans full of armed bastards, but were soon heading back to the station after being assured that all was well and nobody was actually being choked or strangled or beaten to death with a bottle of Penfolds Grange, because, you know, posh Tories, white privilege and forelock tugging go together like cheese and toast in our neck of the woods.

This is where it gets all conspiratorial and familiar. The neighbour who called through the initial complaint had recorded some of the racket and contacted the Guardian to let them know that Boris had questions to answer. Attempts by the Guardian to confirm events with the Police ran into a bit of an Establishment roadblock, though, as the boys and girls in Blue denied any knowledge of the row, despite the Guardian having the address, time, incident reference and Police officer ID numbers. No, Sir. Nothing to report, Sir. Which is kind of against all of the rules laid down for handling Press enquiries. It wasn’t until they provided the licence plates and vehicle numbers of the vans involved and, I don’t know, the star sign and maiden name of whoever was handling dispatch duty that morning, that suddenly the dam broke and confirmation was received. How massively not suspicious in the least, eh?
click below to see the entire post

Foreign Affairs Guest Post: “THE CURIOUS CASE OF THE SLOB IN THE NIGHTTIME”Post + Comments

Many thanks to BJ Approved Foreign Correspondent Tony Jay:

BJ International Presents: The Brexit Follies
– An Alan Smithee Production

I think it was the late, great Glenn Medeiros who said, in reference to his third manager and fifth confirmed victim (WWE wrestler and pianoforte aficionado Danny “Hot Grease” Famagusta) “He couldn’t sing and he couldn’t dance, but if you didn’t want him applying a Figure-Four leg-lock and rabbit-punching your liver into patè, lying about it was always the smart move”. Wise words, Glenn, wise words. I’m sure that if he were here with us today and even passingly interested in the slow, grinding travesty that is this season of ‘Britain’s Got No Political Talent Whatsoever’, there’s no doubt that Mister Medeiros would look at the remaining Tory Leadership candidates and see the very clear analogy I’m drawing. Then he’d nod and he’d walk away, slowly, along the beach, sand between his toes, hair glistening, quietly satisfied.

Yes, it’s week two of the Contest of Charlatans and this evening the four remaining losers, plus Boris Johnson’s knuckle-cracking spokespeople, will once again ask the Parliamentary Party to throw their support behind their clear-sighted and not-at-all-ludicrous candidacies for the job of fucking up Brexit and everything associated with it in order to drag the corpse of the Tory Party a little bit further towards an inevitable General Election. Delusional optimism and naked ambition aside…. well, there’s not much left to cover, but we’ll try and drag this out for a few more pages so I don’t have to do any – actual – work before going home.
When we left them last week, the candidates had just emerged from the first round of Conservative MP’s votes and the ones who had cracked the magical 16+1 qualification score were:

Boris Johnson -114
Jeremy Hunt – 43
Michael Gove – 37
Dominic Raab – 27
Sajid Javid – 23
Matt Hancock – 20
Rory Stewart – 19

Andrea “Gaffetacular” Leadsom, Mark “Who? Why? Who again?” Harper and Esther “Black-Sheep of House Bolton” McVey were all dumped out for lack of popularity (look at my oh so very shocked face why don’t you), with Health Secretary and Yoof Outreach maestro Matt “Door” Hancock dropping out under his own steam a day later citing the need for a leader who could unite the Tory Party around the issues that Hancock felt were most important. Considering that Hancock had based his campaign on avoiding the self-inflicted mutilation of a No-Deal Brexit you would, of course, expect that he’d throw his support behind Stewart, or maybe to be more practical, Gove or Javid, but you would, of course, be quite wrong. Hancock immediately declared himself loyal to Boris the Brexiteer, proof, if needed, that the only thing more duplicitous and self-serving than a ‘One Nation Tory’ is a ‘One Nation Tory’ in a hurry to nail down his Cabinet job before the real fighting starts. Hancock’s 20 supporters were now up for grabs, and since very few of them would be expected to back one of the Brexit Uber Alles crowd they could provide a less overtly extremist candidate with some of the 33 votes needed to get through the next round of voting.
click below to see the entire post

Guest Post: <em>“Slinker, Trailer, Snorter, Failure, Rich Man/Poor Man, MI6? Meep!”</em>Post + Comments

My German is not that great. But I think I understand the headline. pic.twitter.com/WuwOGZZdz9

— Paul (@paulj71) June 13, 2019

I couldn’t resist adding the above tweet. Many thanks to BJackals Foreign Correspondent Tony Jay; the timing (2am GMT) is not ideal for him to respond immediately, but I wanted to give the maximum number of American readers time to enjoy it properly. (Also, who knows but that by tomorrow morning, there will need to be a *third* ETA… so: “The Tory Leadership Election 2019 – Sort of not-Brexit but really it is Edition”:

Hello everybody.

I recently had the very great pleasure of being lured to an abandoned Scout Hut just outside the picturesque town of Caernarfon where, for reasons I won’t go into without an opium pipe to hand, I found myself sans trousers and briefly suspended above a Welsh-Rite Satanist altar by a cunning arrangement of hooks and chains while a burly fellow in full horns-and-hooves regalia laboured away at my hairy showpiece with a length of bone-knotted horsetail and, while I was there, I thought, oh, this reminds me, I really must see if anyone at Balloon Juice would be interested in a guest-post about the current Tory Party leadership elections.

So, I did, and here it is.

Now, obviously, very few of you good people will have much of a clue who the various oddballs and grease-spots are jostling to succeed Robot/Zombie hybrid Theresa May as leader of both the Conservative and Unionist Party and (because the Tories made a post-2017 deal with the Orange-Sashed Shouting Party of White Protestant Shouty Extremism known as the DUP) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. With good reason. There’s far too many Democrats in the race to be revealed by the FTFNYT as History’s Greatest Monster to leave any cerebral room for remembering foreign politicians, many of whom are undoubtedly without a snowball’s chance in Guantanamo of getting anywhere near the shiny brass ring anyway, but, since I love to mock the evil and deluded, let’s give them all a gentle squeeze of encouragement and pop their clothes on the hook so we can have a quick butchers at what’s going on down there, eh?

First, a little run down of the actual electoral system the Tories are using to select their leader. In the past you only needed a couple of MPs backing you to get your name thrown into the hat, with prospective candidates being expected to self-audit their chances and take into account the frowny faces of Party grandees should they waste their valuable time with vanity bids, but since the last contest in 2016 they’ve concluded that so many Tory MPs are intemperate fame-whores that it would make more sense and be quicker all round if every nominee had to approach the contest with at least eight declared supporters. Don’t have that level of support? Sit the fuck down, loser.

It all starts with two rounds of voting amongst the MPs of the Parliamentary Party. After the first of these rounds candidates with fewer than 17 votes are eliminated, and after the second candidates with fewer than 33 votes are handed the revolver and a single bullet. At this point if all of the candidates have more than 33 votes (just about technically possible if highly unlikely) then the one with the least support is eliminated, and the votes continue with much behind the scenes horse-trading and back-stabbing with the one garnering the fewest votes from their fellow MPs being dropped each time. Once there’s only two candidates left in the running it’s handed over to the Tory Party membership for a month’s worth of postal voting as somewhere between 40 and 140 thousand clinically sociopathic reptiloids (no one knows the true number, or how many of them are actually alive as opposed to post-mortem bequests) get to foist a Prime Minister on the country without any input from the mere human cattle.

Democracy? Sovereignty? Fuck that, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee.

The race officially opened a couple of days ago but, of course, unofficial campaigning has been going on for weeks if not months, way pre-dating May’s official declaration of surrender. The BBC recently slipped out of its gimp-mask and furry restraints long enough to record what its political wing had revealed about their opinions. Roughly two/thirds of Tory MPs have stated their preferences, but as the Media’s political correspondents are always swift to remind viewers with a hearty laugh and a wink of admiration, Tory MPs are well known as being the most duplicitous, deceitful and downright untrustworthy electorate outside of the world of professional Boxing, so take everything with enough salt to repopulate Sodom.
click below to see the entire post

Guest Post – ““Après May le Deluge”Post + Comments