What you hear me say may not be what I've said. This is the week when it all happens; or maybe next week or October 14th or October 17th or October 31st. Clarity is clearly not in view. It is obvious to all but those who want to deny it that BOJO the DODO (do or die offer) is trying to impose what he wants on everybody else and removing any opposition to such moves as best he can. However, and one has to admit he is displaying his highly devious nature to the full, he wants to blame everyone else for what the poor boy is having to do. Of course as a new Prime Minister he needs a Queen's speech to put his policies forward. By the way the last Conservative Prime Minister forgot to have one for several months, well ten to be precise, but who cares about what has happened before. Before a Queen's speech, which is the annual opening of each Parliamentary session, the old Parliament is closed for a few days. This is called prorogation. So BOJO wants a Queen's speech, all very legal, and has decided to prorogue Parliament before it happens, still fine. However, at a time of national crisis, with only two months to go before we leave the EU, his prorogation is going to last for at least five weeks. Now here I am using the BOJO/DOCU (Dominic Cummins) tactic of saying something that is broadly true but not really. Yes it will be over 35 days, five weeks, but Parliament would only sit on weekdays and not usually Fridays so it could be said to be 23 days but I didn't. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, sorry back in Parliament, which comes back from its summers hols today, those MPs of all parties opposed to a "no-deal exit" are trying to introduce a bill that would force BOJO to seek an extension from October 31st if there is no agreement with the EU over a deal to leave. Quite a few very senior figures in the Conservative party are part of this group and intend to vote for such a bill, effectively voting against the government. BOJO and his mates first threatened to expel these people from the party. It hasn't appeared to have much effect. So now, yesterday, BOJO has announced that if he loses the vote he will call a snap election, hinting it would be on October 14th, a Monday, and go to the country, presumably saying its not my fault please vote for me and let me carry on as
A little bit of old news first; the DODO will soon be extinct. Yesterday we saw that our new PM, BOJO the DODO (hence the above byline), would indulge in a series of games and blame-shifting so that, regardless of our national interest and the views of the majority of our elected representatives, he would do anything to achieve a promise he has made. BOJO lost a vote on a motion to give MPs control of the House of Commons on Tuesday night. This allowed the MPs to try, and it looks as though they will be successful, to force through a bill which would order the Prime Minister to write to the European Union and ask for a further extension of Article 50. Twenty one of his own MPs voted against him and, indulging in real bully-boy tactics and having first threatened these people, he decided to throw them out of the party. These included the man who was chancellor a few months ago, the grandson of Winston Churchill and Kenneth Clarke, the longest serving MP of nearly 50 years and a very reasonable and distinguished politician. The following day the bill was debated and passed, including an amendment which was passed because the government failed to allocate any tellers to count the no votes. Next, BOJO, desperate to be able to blame someone, anyone, else for the mess he was in, asked to call a general election. He needed a two thirds majority in Parliament which mean he needed support from a good number of opposition MPs. He failed; again. He then blamed Jeremy Corbyn for failing to grant an election, calling him chicken and frit. His argument included the memorable phrase that this was the first time a leader of the opposition had voted for confidence in a government. This was a magnificent example of how BOJO will twist facts to shift blame. Labour, and all other opposition parties, had not shown confidence in his government, they had shown utter distrust in him and his advisors and stupid ministers who follow him. If a general election was called for October 15th, as BOJO wanted, it could mean that, on October 31st, we would still crash out of the EU with no deal as, should he win, he could overturn any laws with his new majority. Should he lose, he could then claim he had been thwarted by others in his "do-or-die" promise of leaving come what may and never asking for an extension. So, if the opposition resists calls for this sham election, BOJO is as dead as a DODO with no MOJO. He has to ask for an extension (one promise broken) and we will not leave on October 31st (DODO extinct). He will also look an idiot, something to my eyes he has managed even without the help of opposition parties. This morning, it appears, that the opposition parties are standing firm on not agreeing to an election before October 31st. BOJO and DOCU (Dominic Cummings) have totally miscalculated everything and all that is left is for them to broadcast facts about their next mistake. They may still get that early election. There are still things they can try. Wait and see. It seems, as I write this, that a part of the JO family may have avoided extinction by resigning from Parliament and BOJO's government. The Prime Minister's brother has left the government and is standing down as an MP. Watch this space. September 6th 2019
So who is the real chicken about to get stuffed. That was the week that was and sadly, for my older readers, there was no Millicent Martin to sing about it. Oh what fun that team would have had and I'm sure the indomitable Willie Rushton could have impersonated Boris Johnson just as well as he did Harold MacMillan. I think all politicians need to be able to show they have the skill to manipulate but they must do so from a position of conviction in their views and by clearly stating the full facts to the public. BOJO does neither. Let's end the week with two examples of how, like other dictators, he positions himself as the public saviour but in his wild rhetoric actually completely distorts the facts. Number 1. BOJO has most definitely implied to Jo Public (JOPU I suppose) that he is going to the Council of Ministers meeting on October 17th and 18th and will negotiate a good deal for us all. LIE. All negotiations are held between the UK and the European Commission headed by Michel Barnier. The Commission works to guidelines drawn up by the Council of Ministers but the Council do not negotiate. In fact all they can do in October is agree to an extension and all 27 of them must agree.
Number 2. Boris has stated a general election must be called to decide all of this and has even called the leader of the opposition a chicken for not agreeing. We all know why he needs this election (see last blog) but because of our parliamentary system of first past the post such an election would most likely solve nothing and most definitely prove nothing. It is possible, under our system, for one party to have more of the public share of the vote but less seats than another party. So it is possible that leave voters could all vote for BOJO and the Labour party win. I agree unlikely but possible. More to the point is that unless BOJO has a complete majority of seats we would still be where we are now. So an election would not solve the Brexit problem. LIE.
The only way, repeat the only way, to discover if the majority of our population, unburdened by constituency boundaries, want his Brexit, any Brexit or no Brexit, is a referendum. If he really believes that most people agree with him and his "I'll get a deal or else we leave with no deal" attitude, a referendum would prove this. Is BOJO really the real chicken? After all, it takes one to know one.
September 9th 2019
The Battle of Hastings (without Amber Rudd), Offa's dyke and the rule of law. I made a promise, to myself, not to write any blogs to this site over the weekend but I came very close to breaking it. Luckily I didn't and so had no need to join any peasants or vagrants who might have occupied the same ditch. My reason for nearly doing so was a quote from Dominic Raab (DORA as he is now known in BOJO's cabinet). Once a law is passed it is judges who then interpret it, should it need to be interpreted. The government do not do so and so DORA is pushing boundaries by saying the government will look very closely at the EU Withdrawal Bill 6 and see how to interpret it. Since I wrote that, first thing this morning, much has happened. The Bill has become an Act, a law. But still there is a feeling that somehow, by some devious means (and it would have to be very devious), BOJO the PM will find a way around having to obey that law. To remind you this law says that if, by October 19th, the government has not agreed a deal with the EU and if Parliament has not agreed to a no-deal, BOJO must write to the EU and request an extension to Article 50 until at least 31 January 2020. There is an amendment which says that the previous PM's deal with some changes agreed at cross-party talks should also be voted on. That is the law. He has to do it if those circumstances are in place. However, he is reported as saying he won't do it, he won't ask for an extension. So today our Parliament has debated whether a Prime Minister should, or will, obey the law. Really. I wonder what the younger generation think about this. Before I became an adult I grew up under Atlee, Churchill. Eden (not certain about his credentials for deviousness with regard to Suez), Macmillan, Home and Wilson. No one had to question whether they would obey the law. But now................... Tonight Parliament is being prorogued. It will close for five weeks. Interestingly it will return on October 14th, the date of the Battle of Hastings. Perhaps our PM has studied history more closely than we think. After all, his brother Tostig, sorry Jo, has already rebelled. This was the original date of his desired general election. The change was nothing to do with Jewish holidays. It was to avoid a comparison with that famous battle, essential once the current MP for Hastings had walked out on him. I'm beginning to think that BOJO is now closely studying OFFA's book on dyke building for a solution to the Irish backstop. Oh and having watched much of Parliament today I can confirm that when an election does come the Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrat manifestos will be written by a large number of Tory MPs who spent most of the time given to them to address the house to saying what these parties would do. It beats explaining what they are doing, especially when they either don't know or don't want us to know. September 11th 2019
Did Boris Walsingham tell Elizabeth a lie upon which she made a headless decision? Just when you thought it was safe to come out of your shelter, the bomb went off. The highest court in Scotland unanimously ruled that the Prmie Minister acted unlawfully in proroguing Parliament. The judges said that BOJO was attempting to prevent Parliamentary scrutiny of his government and their actions. The judges stated that BOJO was motivated by the "improper purpose of stymieing Parliament". "The Court will", they said, "accordingly make an Order declaring that the prime minister's advice to HM the Queen and the prorogation which followed thereon was unlawful and is thus null and of no effect." This effectively means that, one, Parliament should still be sitting and two, far more seriously, our PM misled the Queen in advising her to suspend Parliament.
Apparently, so the legal experts say, the government could have appealed this immediately but they didn't. Instead they have appealed to United Kingdom Supreme Court in London and the appeal will be held starting next Tuesday. When the decision will be announced in not known.
You may well ask why am I so grumpy about this. The answer is that I believed I lived in a democracy where politicians, the people you and I elect to represent us, were basically honest. I have no problem with some of them having views I disagree with but when they lie to me, to you and to our Monarch, things have reached a new low. Whatever the result from the Supreme Court next week does not remove the fact that a very senior number of British judges believed he had lied. That is frightening. One judge said that "the only inference that could be drawn was that the UK government and the prime minister wished to restrict Parliament". Many MPs have said that Parliament should be immediately recalled but BOJO has said this will not happen before the Supreme Court's ruling on the case. As Joanne Cherry QC MP said, from the moment the ruling from Scotland was made it was illegal for Parliament not to sit. BOJO is over-riding this and waiting until the matter is heard in London. Now, tonight, Michael Gove has announced that the government will not comply with a Parliamentary request to provide details of communications from advisors to the government with regard to this prorogation. So the executive, with what I think are rather spurious reasons, is not complying with the legislature. They have however released a document showing the best, worse or doctored view of what may happen in a no-delay scenario. I don't believe anything any more. September 12th 2019ITV says Brexit could see a shortage of feet amongst other things. So where are we now. BOJO denies lying to the Queen. BOJO will not recall Parliament until the Supreme Court has made its decision. The government have published a scenario for what might happen in the event of a no-deal. There is some dispute as the whether this is the worst case scenario or a base scenario. The scenario was leaked to the Sunday Times a few weeks back, after which MIGO said it was an old assessment, and I have heard some say it is virtually the same as was leaked. Apparently the government will soon publish its mitigating decisions which, to you and me, means what action they are taking to avoid all the things that the scenario said would happen. You may join me in wondering why, if the assessment was old as MIGO said, are they working out how to avoid the disasters mentioned. Surely it would be better to publish a new, updated scenario and work out how to deal with that. I wouldn't say this myself but some people have been saying the government and the PM are being very devious and are liars.. I have adopted this new approach following an intervention last night from the Business Minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, (KWKW), who, in an interview, announced that he wouldn't say the Scottish judges were biased but many people were saying that they were, Ian Hislop take note. To avoid a court case for slander all you need do, I assume, is couch your feelings, your opinions, the message you want to get across, as being those of Joe Public. I think it could work. I also think it is the way that most dictator operate. BOJO made it very clear today that he didn't share this view but he didn't sack his minister who many people are saying should be sacked. Not that I would. Returning to the disasters that may befall us in the event of a no-deal exit these include a shortage of fresh food, medicines, fuel, honest politicians and the truth in general. It will take lorries up to 3 days to arrive through Dover. However Nigel Farage (rhymes with garage) isn't the least bit worried because there are over 100 active ports in the UK and we could use these instead of Dover. Now Nigel may have forgotten that some of those ports couldn't even receive the ferries but presumably, adopting Dunkirk in reverse, Nigel would ask all small ships in the UK to sail across to Calais, pick up a couple of fresh strawberries from Italy and return home. Just to finish on a different note. A report on the ITV News website this morning actually said there would be foot shortages. I'm sure they've corrected it by now. At first I thought that having cut our links with Europe we would be returning, everywhere, to the old imperial system but, due to these foot shortages, a yard would now be just 2 foot. September 18th 2019
Please define the word press so I can define the word liar and other definitions. This was going to be an almost Brexit free post but, watching the news at lunch time today, I saw Boris Johnson talking to a man in a hospital during a visit and when accused of making a "press opportunity", our PM looked at the camera filming them and said "there's no press here". He sadly didn't then add "wow you've got a big selfie stick". A pity as if he had I would not have decided that here was an inveterate liar: our PM. I was also delighted to discover earlier in the week that negotiations with the EU were going so well that papers had been exchanged. Amazing. Sweet papers perhaps. I then learned that the PM had found a landing zone, assumed this to be on Pitcairn Island and secretly knew that Bounty wrappers had been exchanged. I have recently, partly for my own benefit, introduced an internal search engine to this site. Once I started using it I discovered that what was intended as today's blog has been the subject of several other blogs in time gone by. I wanted to question, it would appear yet again, our use of the word celebrity. My reason for this stemmed from the opening of another season of Strictly Come Dancing. Professional dancers were paired with celebrities, of whom only two had I really heard of and none of whom I would consider celebrities. I really want someone to define "celebrity". I looked it up and it appears to mean well-known but no mention as to how many people need to know you before you are well-known. One "celebrity" is a BBC sports reporter. With the number of TV viewers I suppose he is well-known. James Hanratty was a child murderer and as such also well-known. He too must have been a celebrity. I wouldn't want to be put in the same category as Hanratty, Hitler, very well-known, Saddam Hussein and others. One could argue that a celebrity is well-known for doing good. Reporting sport on TV is a job, not particularly involving doing good. So let us stop this celebrity over-use and describe people by the job they do, sportsperson, reporter, actor etc. and not assign the word celebrity to nearly everyone. The word has now lost its meaning. Forget it. The previous grumps were in April 2016, October 2017 and November 2017. There, you don't need to search. September 20th 2019
If it makes me money, who cares what I write or who gets hurt. Not a good week for journalists or ex Prime Ministers. Why would anyone want to write about, nay seemingly boast about, being off their head on cannabis while at Eton or even, so I read, disclose that he continued to take it with his wife in later life. It's nothing to be proud of, nothing that really needed to be disclosed. The art of a good biography is to tell the life of the subject, obviously the writer, but certain things which, in my humble opinion are on wrong side of good, can be omitted. Furthermore, it has been common knowledge and convention, even among the common people, that you do not repeat private conversations with the monarch. Not only does DACA repeat it, he tells that he actually sought for the monarch to intervene in a political situation. I never liked the guy and now he has provided me, in his words, with proof that my dislike was not misplaced and that he was, and probably is, a nasty piece of work, solely seeking publicity and fame. Talking of nasty pieces of work brings me, once again, to the role of so-called journalists who work for so-called newspapers. The papers are nothing of the sort, having very little news, hardly any informative comment on what news there is and mainly dealing in cheap gossip about, usually, a well-known person. Please note no use of the word celebrity. The sole purpose in running these bits of gossip is to sell papers so the front page headline, the one you see in the shops, are very important. Hence, this week, two gossip rags ran stories about prominent sportsman's private lives. They claim there is a public interest, You can do that about anything. I'm sure running a story about the sex life of Rupert Murdoch would have some public interest but I've not seen the story yet. To get the story the journos breached these people's private lives and that of their families. The journalists who allow themselves, presumably at the behest of the men who hold their purse strings, their salaries, to invade people's lives in the way they do are, in my opinion, scum, the very worst part of our current society. I agree with all Ben Stokes said. It was a disgusting story. I will admit that as I so disapprove of such stories I have not read it nor do I really know what it was about. Suffice to say, the subject of the story hated it, it was about something very personal and nothing to do with his profession and should never have been written or published. Had J K Galbraith still been around, I am sure he would have written about these gossip spreaders in a new book called The Effluent Society. You may not know but a collection of Sun journalists is almost certainly known as an effluvium. September 24th 2019 (12.30pm)
BOJO the DODO (do or die offer) is extinct. Despite everything you may read or hear, this is a non-Brexit story. The eleven highest judges in our land have unanimously ruled that our Prime Minister acted unlawfully in proroguing Parliament for five weeks earlier this month. In effect they stated that prorogation did not take place and, as such, parliament will resume this session at 11.30am tomorrow. The judges had to decide whether they could pass judgement (they did), and what limits the PM had to this power. On this second point they looked at Parliamentary sovereignty, the fact that Parliament makes laws that all must obey and the fact that a Prime Minister and their cabinet must be accountable to Parliament. The judges said they had to decide whether the prorogation of Parliament had the effect of frustrating or preventing Parliament carrying out its constitutional functions. They agreed this was not a normal prorogation. They also said that no justification for such a long prorogation had been put before the court. They concluded that the decision to advise Her Majesty to prorogue Parliament was unlawful because it stopped Parliament from carrying out its constitutional function. Finally the court looked at what the legal effect of the findings they had made was and what remedies the court should grant. Having made the decision that the advice given was unlawful, it was void and had no effect. They finished by stating that Parliament has not been prorogued and this is the unanimous judgment of all 11 Justices. It was left to the speakers of both houses to decide what to do next and John Bercow announced his decision to resume the sitting of Parliament tomorrow at 11.30am. Where does this leave BOJO. As I write this he has said nothing, that is a blessing because at least he hasn't lied. I find it hard to believe that a man found to have carried out an unlawful act at such a high level, lying to the monarch, is fit to be our PM. I may decide to grump some more later tonight. Maybe I will have even more to grump about; seems likely. September 26th 2019 (12.30pm)
Please BOJO, you have been humiliated, now capitulate and surrender. It doesn't take a vast amount of intellect to see what Boris Johnson's current plan is. He has two aims. He wants to whip up public frenzy against Parliament and the opposition and place himself as the champion of that public. He then wants to goad the opposition MPs into calling a vote of no confidence in his government so he can have a general election. Let's look at that second point first. Presumably Johnson thinks that in a general election, he, by being the public favourite will win a huge majority and be able to press on with his Brexit plan. Except that's not his plan, is it? His need for a general election is to get Parliament out of the way so he can press on with his Brexit plan without any parliamentary scrutiny. He failed with a five week prorogation, perhaps he could get away with a two week one. Many political pollsters agree that any general election now would probably result in a very similar parliament to the one we have now. It would not solve Brexit. BOJO's claim that we should have an election and sort this out once and for all is almost certainly false. It will sort nothing but it could, indeed might, end up with us leaving the EU without a deal because an election campaign is in progress and we "accidentally" seem to slip out. Of course it will be no accident. Just to fill you in on how things could work. If today, September 26th, BOJO lost a no confidence vote there would be 14 days for someone to try to form an alternative government. If they can't, and by then it would be October 10th, a general election would be called and Parliament dissolved, not prorogued. The chances of getting a general election before October 31st, and our default Brexit leave date, is remote. Time is needed to campaign, elections are usually held on a Thursday and full results seldom known till the following Friday, sometimes even later. Practically October 31st would be the first date and a new government wouldn't be sworn in till some days later. So the reason, as I see it, that BOJO wants an election is the same as his reason for a five week prorogation: to avoid scrutiny and get his no-deal Brexit. And however much you may think he wants a deal, I can assure you that getting a new deal through all its stages is virtually impossible before October 31st. BOJO cannot get a deal and keep his promise about leaving on October 31st. Make no mistake the October 31st deadline means, in my opinion, leaving with no-deal. Opposition MPs refusing to agree to an election are not running scared, are not chicken. They are acting in a way they believe is correct. However, the first part of his plan is disgusting. It is exactly that though; a plan, a strategy. His words are rehearsed. Continually using the word surrender to describe an Act of Parliament then changing it to the humiliation act then the capitulation act, is, as said, inflammatory language. It was designed to belittle Johnson's fellow parliamentarians of whom he is certainly no better and debatably far less of a person and a human being. As John Bercow said today, by way of a reprimand to all MPs, they could and should be opponents not enemies. The difference between robust debate and hate filled abuse and bullying is vast. It takes an intelligent person to know the difference. A person without a vast amount of intellect will sadly just say what he has been told to say. In the United States, in my view, the whipping up of public hatred seems to have elected a president. I do not want that to happen in my country. Oh, and one thing seriously worries me. It is not just threats made to politicians that we should abhor. The children are listening. I leave the final words to Peter Yarrow. This song, and I urge you to listen to it, is written by a septuagenarian who has spent all his life fighting for peace and social justice. Yesterday's performance by our present PM. totally convinced me that the current leader of the opposition is far more statesmen-like, whatever his views, than our current PM.
Excuse me Miss, I may have done a whoopsie in the book corner. This is how I have heard events. I think they are correct. At a book launch yesterday Dominic Cummins (DOCU to his friend) said that sorting out Brexit was a walk in the park. It was recorded, it was heard. Suggested by a reporter today that it was not a walk in the park, DOCU asked who said that. You did said the reporter. No said DOCU. It was recorded, it was heard. I am left wondering whether DOCU and BOJO are pathological liars, suffering from an early onset of dementia or just playing games that would be fun in the local playgroup. I never said that Miss, after being heard to say it. What waste paper bin, there's no waste paper bin (said while staring at the waste paper bin.). Oh Joyce Grenfell what fun you would have had with these idiots. Don't do that Boris. Now we don't call people names do we Geoffrey? Shouting doesn't help anyone does it Boris and could you get your parents to comb your hair before you go out. Anyway neither man is fit to hold office in government or to advise any person who holds office in government. After writing this I did check up to see if my remarks about DOCU were a bit too close to the mark, knowing nothing about him as a person only having seen his picture. I am delighted to find out he is only 47, I thought he looked over 60, so I can leave in my comment about early dementia. I also discovered that DOCU and MIGO never had an affair, first I heard of it anyway. Does anyone remember Richard Stilgoe and his anagrams. He was most astute with them. DOCU and MIGO, um, let me think, ah yes, I cum good. If any one complains, I didn't write it even if you can see it. Don't do that George.