Priti Patel - Delusion, Meet Megalomania

The thought, it seems, has not yet entered with some of those vying to succeed Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as leader of the Tory party and therefore Prime Minister: just because Bozo did not take his responsibilities seriously does not mean the post is some kind of effort-free sinecure. Indeed, now that the country is well and truly in the mire, some serious intellectual heft may come in useful. Or, in the case of one late entrant, maybe not.

Because the name which had not passed before my inspection at the weekend was that of Benidorm Holiday Rep Priti Patel, still labouring under the delusion that she is capable of running the Home Office, a delusion further compounded by her apparent belief that this can be accomplished not by any kind of intellectual process, but by shouting and bullying.

That delusion has been fed by fawning coverage from the right leaning part of our free and fearless press, with the Murdoch Times telling readers she would run as the “only authentic Brexiteer who could win”. The less subtle Sun added “PRITI Patel is making a last-ditch appeal to win over Tory Brexiteers as she prepares to announce she is standing for leader within hours.”

There was more. “The Home Secretary is expected to announce TONIGHT she will join the race to be the next PM if the Brexit backing European Research Group of Tory MPs back her … Holed up in a room in a corner of Parliament, Ms Patel told the powerful European Research Group that only she can be trusted to deliver on Brexit”. How very megalomaniac.

She was full of Holiday Rep Speak: “quite frankly we are in one hell of a hole … no one in the party has gripped it … When it comes to the fashionable line of cutting tax….we are all Conservatives and believe in cutting taxes [eh?] … Any reform around taxation, we will have to make sure it touches people by next election … We need to stand firm in terms of negotiations and dialogue”.

Sadly, the amateurish command of the English Language also, it seems, extended to smearing opponents, as the Guardian noted: "On Monday, an ally of the home secretary, Priti Patel, was forced to admit he had shared a memo sent round Tory WhatsApp groups attacking Sunak’s record on the economy. Patrick Robertson denied being the author of the document when confronted by the Times but admitted he had shared it”. Brilliant. Not.

And, it appears, not everyone in the Tory party is as enamoured of Ms Patel as her supporters in the right-wing press, and it was left to the Mirror, and its political editor Pippa Crerar, to bring her and her pals the bad news.

“Ms Patel's expected decision prompted hand-wringing on the Tory right amid fears she could derail the contest … One Tory MP told the Mirror: ‘Priti is determined to stand and thinks everybody should rally to her. It's such a lack of self-awareness'”. And remember, “only she can be trusted to deliver on Brexit”. Only I Can Tame This Unruly Nation. Real tinpot dictator stuff.

But sadly, the momentum is with the likes of Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, to which must be added God Help Us. One treats it all like a big glossy PR stunt, and the other is frighteningly vacant between the ears. Also, whisper it quietly, Labour must be rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of an opponent who makes Keir Starmer actually sound interesting.

So is Priti Patel daft enough to run? She’ll have to secure the support of several more MPs by later today. She would not be up to the job, but then, she’s not up to being Home Secretary. Also her press pals feeding her ego could get the better of her, and adding in the potential for dirty tricks, could turn the race out on the right into a real nasty fur fight.

Which would produce excellent spectator sport while tearing the Tory party apart at the same time. So bring on the Priti Patel campaign!

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Uber - How Illegal Became Acceptable

The Guardian, and to its partial credit the BBC, have brought us some worrying news about driver and rider matching service Uber - as in, even more worrying than what we already knew, which was bad enough. We already knew the operation in London was illegal (see HERE) and that Uber had appealed over the top of TfL to the Government to sort matters.

Now we know just what was behind the move into markets like that in London, where the city’s then very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, having told the city’s black cab drivers that he was their pal, promptly ushered Uber through a very open door and screwed up the livelihoods of many of them. It seems Bozo had been leaned on.

Some of what the Guardian has reported bears repetition: “A leaked trove of confidential files has revealed the inside story of how the tech giant Uber flouted laws, duped police, exploited violence against drivers and secretly lobbied governments during its aggressive global expansion” for starters.

There was more. “Leaked messages suggest Uber executives were at the same time under no illusions about the company’s law-breaking, with one executive joking they had become ‘pirates’ and another conceding: ‘We’re just fucking illegal.’” And behind this culture stood one individual

Uber’s first CEO Travis Kalanick, the modern day equivalent of Cornelius Vanderbilt, a robber baron for the 21st Century. No need to buy ships, port facilities, railroads and all that rolling stock: all that had been replaced by an app. Only by this much had the game changed since the days when Vanderbilt was engaged in his struggle with the Erie Gang.

The Guardian tells us just what Kalanick thought of the little people. “In one exchange, Kalanick dismissed concerns from other executives that sending Uber drivers to a protest in France put them at risk of violence from angry opponents in the taxi industry. ‘I think it’s worth it,’ he shot back. ‘Violence guarantee[s] success.’” So long as someone else got hurt, eh?

What the report also tells us is that Kalanick had a direct line to France’s then economy minister - and now Président - Emanuel Macron. He ridiculed the then Mayor of Hamburg, and now Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for demanding Uber comply with minimum wage requirements. And he lobbied George Osborne, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, to let Uber into the UK. Not that the BBC is telling you - they managed to omit that detail from their report.

And it is pretty clear that Bozo did nothing to stop them, and what came with them, the appalling driving standards, driver fatigue from having to work long hours to make ends meet, the lawbreaking, the record of driver misbehaviour which included sexual assaults on passengers and worse.

On top of that, the Guardian report confirms what many observers had already concluded - that those long hours and Uber shipping billions of US Dollars over time meant the business model was bust: “From Moscow to Johannesburg, bankrolled with unprecedented venture capital funding, Uber heavily subsidised journeys, seducing drivers and passengers on to the app with incentives and pricing models that would not be sustainable”.

But even so, “Uber undercut established taxi and cab markets and put pressure on governments to rewrite laws to help pave the way for an app-based, gig-economy model of work that has since proliferated across the world”. Union busting, exploitative, imposing poverty pay via the back door with only the prospect of those long hours to make a little more money.

And that is confirmation of what we thought all along. It’s also why right-wingers love Uber: indeed, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog were in Uber’s corner from the word Go. It’s why the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press is largely ignoring this story. Just in case you still needed convincing that they couldn’t give a flying foxtrot about all those hard-working ordinary people they like to talk about.

The Tories screwed over the cab trade. Bozo was a willing accomplice. Bears shit in woods. And the right shits on ordinary workers. No change there, then.

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Tory Leader Hopefuls - Bad News

They’re off! And so begins the race to succeed Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as the next Tory leader, but not unelected Prime Minister, because that only applied to Gordon Brown. And the news is not good: rarely has a national crisis brought forward such a piss-poor field of candidates. Here’s the Zelo Street guide to the runners, or for most of them very soon, maybe not.

Jeremy Hunt Come on now, all together, and I’m looking especially at you, Andrew Marr, HUNT CULTURE HUNT CULTURE HUNT CULTURE. Hunt has the advantage of not being tainted by sitting at the Bozo cabinet table. He has significant experience. But he just shot his own campaign dead by declaring that his deputy PM would be the seriously unpleasant Esther McVey.

Kemi Badenoch Says “I want to set us free by telling people the truth”. That’s the same Kemi Badenoch who hounded journalist Nadine White for asking a straightforward question of her. Which matters. We can’t have a PM who loses their shit when confronted with journalists’ questions. No.

Grant Shapps This is a campaign with a keyword, and that keyword is SPIV. Who speaks when he opens his North and South? Shapps himself? Michael Green? Sebastian Fox? Was delusional enough to think he could succeed Young Dave in 2016. Also, one look at how his Twitter following was caused to become enhanced, and the denials, tell you what he’s like. We need a complete break from dishonesty, not a more constructive use of it.

Liz Truss How shall I put this? Imagine Liz Truss in 10 Downing Street. Then imagine all those world leaders, business leaders, media magnates and other interest groups trying not to laugh themselves into a premature heart attack imagining Liz Truss in 10 Downing Street. But she is a patriot and a democrat, and managed to think up both terms herself. Another no.

Rishi Sunak Ah, Brand Rishi, the early front runner. If only being PM were all one long PR exercise, all image and no substance. But sadly, we know it isn’t, as Young Dave proved and Bozo proved again. Talking the talk is all very well, but when push comes to shove, which it is bound to do in Number 10 (that’s what the PM is there for, remember), walking the walk is needed too.

Tom Tugendhat Tom Who? But he does have one big plus point: he has served in the military and done tours of Iraq and Afghanistan. One other plus for him is chairing the Commons Committee that blew the whistle on Russian money laundering via the UK. Which may not please everyone in the Tory party, because that party may have benefited therefrom. Outside chance.

Suella Braverman What would be an appropriate and catchy campaign slogan for her? How about “Too stupid to be Prime Minister - stupid enough to try”? Meanwhile, read Steve Peers’ point-by-point demolition of Ms Braverman’s credibility (HERE) and be relieved that she is most unlikely to win. The woman who said calling out Russian money in her party was racist.

Said Javid Did you know his Dad was a bus driver? You soon will. I worry about Saj because of his past tendency to being a bit Randian, but today on BBC Sunday Morning he came over as positively Keynesian, urging tax cuts as a first step to boosting economic growth (which he rightly prioritises). He has served with Bozo, but has been prepared to break with Johnson, and, indeed, knife the SOB when it needed doing. Could go all the way.

Penny Mordaunt Has been harbouring leadership ambitions since May 2019 - the date that pm4pm dot com was registered. Ms Mordaunt has the confidence and the presence, but whether she is as formidable a figure as she believes is another thing entirely. She comes across as sensible, but the problem is that much of her party is now infested with the batshit crazy.

Nadhim Zahawi Mr Expenses To Heat Stables threw his hat in the ring, only for the news to break that his tax affairs were under investigation. That smells of a dirty trick, and possibly not unadjacent to Bozo and his circle. The problem he has is that the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press may have more, and be prepared to use it. Don’t think he’ll make it.

But above all, remember as they all try and distance themselves from the nastiest Tory policies of the recent past, like deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda or that mildly inconvenient breaking of international law, or the more pointless ones like selling off Channel 4, they all voted for them. Including HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT HUNT. All of them complicit.

So we’re being offered what Neil Young once called “A kinder, gentler machine gun hand”. Which might play well with the target electorate: Tory MPs and then the party’s members. Also, the chance any of those candidates will reverse the screwing-up of the UK that Bozo managed is between minimal and remote.So the decline will continue. It’ll be the same piss in a differently labelled bottle. But there may be less lying and lawbreaking.

That’s a rather low bar to set. Because that’s how screwed we are right now.

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Rewriting The History Of Bozo

Now that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is - supposedly - on his way out of Downing Street, but not just yet, the right leaning part of our free and fearless press has decided to immediately go into turd-polishing overdrive and tell their readers just what a loss Bozo will be to, well, something, even if it isn’t good governance, a subject about which he cared not a jot.

This is premature in the extreme, given Bozo’s determination to hang around Number 10 like the most rank of bad smells, a permanently present wet eggy fart, perhaps followed by Carrie brandishing a can of air freshener. Why the press is so anxious to cover for this gut-dropping Pen And Ink can be put directly: they need to get their gaslighting of the electorate in first.

In pursuit of this shameless rewriting of history, the Mail has today continued the pretence that Bozo was at any time a barely competent politician, instead of an amateur human being, whining “Day Tories lost their marbles … With a consoling hug from Carrie and Wilf, Boris is cast out by a party in the grip of collective hysteria. Keir Starmer is cock-a-hoop”. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If Starmer is “cock-a-hoop”, to use the Mail’s happy phrase, it is because he has been cleared of wrongdoing over the so-called “Beergate” gathering, over which the Mail had already declared him guilty - several times. But do go on. “Corks will be popping in Brussels - and Moscow”. Bullshit. Nobody will bat an eyelid in “Brussels”, and “Moscow” may not be so happy.

Not given the potential kompromat which may exist, following Bozo’s attendance at more than one of the Lebedevs’ Bunga Bunga parties. But the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker aren’t finished. “And the Tories don’t have a clue who should replace him … WHAT THE HELL HAVE THEY DONE? Tory MPs were warned last night they would ‘rue the day’ they forced Boris Johnson out”. But enough. We know why the Mail is in mourning.

Bozo was one of their own: not only was he a journalist - for some value of journalist - he looked after the press. Covid payments, or, for the more cynically minded, bungs, were showered over the Fourth Estate. The press would be exempt from sanctions proposed in the Online Harms Bill, which with any luck will now fall, along with the rest of Bozo’s worthless legacy.

The gaslighting also includes the idea that Brexit was somehow something of benefit to the UK, with the Murdoch Sun telling readers “thanks for Brexit, Boris”. Tell that to the people whose living standards are already in steep decline, those facing steepling energy bills, and higher food costs.

Worse, as the press carries on in this way, it shows that it is not interested in the news part of it all. It’s just propaganda, which the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, has been that much more honest about, telling its remaining readership “THANK YOU BORIS … YOU GAVE BRITAIN BACK ITS FREEDOM”. Hollow laughter will be following right behind that one.

What freedom is that, then? Freedom to watch everyone else pass more rapidly through Málaga, Alicante and Palma airports? Freedom to pay mobile roaming charges again? Freedom to suffer worsening public services because all those EU migrants went back home? Freedom to get stuck waiting for baggage reclaim at UK airports? Freedom my arse.

Those papers also include the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, where unashamedly batshit Allison Pearson assures Bozo “your legacy is secure”. If his legacy really is secure, then the UK is totally screwed and its status as a nation in decline is also secure. Not a good look.

The right-leaning part of our free and fearless press has been so heavily invested in building up Bozo that it cannot possibly let go of the idea of him as some kind of great and irreplaceable leader. The dishonesty, sexual incontinence, lack of standards, wasting of other peoples’ money (including, yes, taxpayer funds), narcissism, ineptitude and sociopathy are all ignored.

Well, have I got news for them. The press is going to have to find itself a better excuse: when the electorate realises they’ve been played for suckers while the rich and uncaring of the Fourth Estate have held them in contempt, they won’t just distrust them. The people will turn increasingly hostile.

The press could just ‘fess up, of course. But that would mean admitting they got it wrong. And being part of the press means never admitting wrongdoing.

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Bozo No More - MAYBE

We knew all along that he would not resign of his own accord, and so it has proved. Alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is still clinging on with his fingertips as resignations rain in on him. Those that remain loyal do so, in most part, because no-one else would have them around the cabinet table. It’s over. Bozo is a dead man walking.

But he still walked into PMQs, and there, he was greeted by less than full Government benches, an absent Michael “Oiky” Gove, and several of his own side using their questions to demand his resignation. He took no notice. He lied about Chris Pincher. He lied fluently on other subjects. There was a chorus of “Bye bye Boris” as he left the chamber. He ignored it all.

Gove had told him he had to go. Instead, it was Gove who went as Bozo, by now lashing out uncontrollably, sacked him. Nadhim Zahawi, only the day previously appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer to replace the departed Rishi Sunak, also resigned. Even Priti Patel, the Benidorm holiday rep Home Secretary, told Bozo to go; possibly she is delusional enough to believe the next PM will keep her in post. Yet still Bozo remained in Downing Street.

We knew he would not go willingly: former mistress Petronella Wyatt had spelled it out. “Boris will never resign. He thinks he has a God given right to rule in perpetuity. This is going to be long, drawn out and very bad for the Tory Party and the country. There will be no government, as every minute of the day will be devoted to saving Boris”. These were to prove prophetic words.

Last night, someone not unadjacent to Bozo, meaning most likely Himself or third wife Carrie, briefed the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press that he would hold on, that he had a mandate from the British people - although recent by-election results suggest putting that one to the test would be unwise - and the Mail proclaimed “BORIS STARES DOWN THE MUTINY”.

The Murdoch Sun, where the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a real journalist, had also been suitably briefed, told readers “You’’ll have to dip your hands in blood to get rid of me”. But in the new light of day, as the resignations continued, Bozo “reflected” on his conversation with Graham Brady, leader of the 1922 Committee.

Brady, perhaps mindful of the likelihood that a big swing against the Tories would see him lose his seat, seems to have prevailed upon Bozo, who, having reflected, decided the game was indeed up, to the great relief of all those who wished he had either gone earlier, or never been PM at all.

So that was that, was it? Sadly, no it wasn’t: Bozo would not go until the autumn. Then came the realisation that the all-important resignation letter, signed by himself and not by “M Mouse”, “O B Laden”, or indeed “Leasowe Van Hire”, had not appeared. Then came news of major policy announcements to come later in the day. He was still clinging on.

Maybe he and Carrie thought that if they just stick around and keep a low profile, everyone would forget they were still in Downing Street. Perhaps he could wangle another visit to Ukraine and force the Tories to support him anyway. So he began a cabinet reshuffle, which would be an interesting thing to see, given the lack of suitable, and indeed, willing candidates.

He had delivered Schrödinger’s Resignation; it was valid and not valid at the same time. This did not impress Her Majesty’s loyal opposition, as Pippa Crerar of the Mirror observed: “Labour leader Keir Starmer threatens to table a confidence motion in Boris Johnson if he ‘clings on’ in No 10 after he has resigned as Tory leader”. Starmer then left his foot in the tackle.

“It should have happened long ago. He was always unfit for office. He has been responsible for lies, scandal and fraud on an industrial scale. And all those who have been complicit should be utterly ashamed”. Then Bozo appeared before his adoring public (Jacob and Nadine Rees-Bonkers) to inform them that he’d done nothing wrong and wasn’t actually going.

Former chief Downing Street polecat Dominic Cummings had seen it all before, and had a warning: “I know that guy & I'm telling you - he doesn't think it's over, he's thinking 'there's a war, weird shit happens in a war, play for time play for time, I can still get out of this, I got a mandate, members love me, get to September…' If MPs leave him in situ there'll be CARNAGE”.

So he’s going to go. Maybe. It’s all someone else’s fault. He did nothing wrong. He got all the big calls right. He Got Brexit Done. He’s still big. It’s the politics that got small. And he’s squatting in 10 Downing Street, daring his opponents to come and get him. Which they need to do. And very soon.

Meanwhile, don’t forget all those who enabled him. Shame on them all.

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Don’t. It’s The Lie That Gets You

Thus the warning from Gordon Brown to Damian McBride not to cross the line into actual, and potentially provable, dishonesty: once one lie gets told, the possibility that a lot more lies will have to follow as part of the cover-up becomes stronger. This is now proving true with the Chris Pincher saga, and the behaviour of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

What makes the Pincher fallout that much more spectacular is not only that Bozo lied about it, but that under his less than benign leadership, Downing Street staff followed his line and lied about it, perhaps unwittingly at first. Then came a procession of variously senior ministers who also followed the given line, and who therefore also lied. Now the house is falling in.

The situation is so bad that, looking at the grim countenance of some around the cabinet table this morning, the prospect is now being faced: Bozo’s departure may come sooner rather than later, and with it their own demotion to the back benches. That departure may be forced by the Pincher lies: those cabinet colleagues fed up of being sent out to lie for their leader.

Beginning yesterday, the stench of decay became not merely rank, but overwhelming: Adam Bienkov of Byline Times summed up the ever-changing definition of reality. “Downing Street first said the Prime Minister wasn't aware of ‘any allegation’ against Chris Pincher, then said he wasn't aware of any ‘specific allegation’ against him. Now we're told the PM wasn't aware of any ‘serious specific allegation’”. And all the while there was that policy vacuum.

Which was noted by Peter Geoghegan of Open Democracy: “Friday it was 50 year mortgages. Yesterday it was taxing [the] childless. Today it's a consultation on increasing how many kids a child minder can look after at once … Increasingly it feels like UK government isn't even pretending to have actual policies, just endless blether balloons”. Something to brief to the right-leaning press. Just to give the impression that something is happening.

And with this morning’s media round came further humiliation of all those prepared to go out and cover up Bozo’s lying, some of whom may have had enough. The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff caught up with one of those thus humiliated: “Dominic Raab moving in the space of 5 mins from ‘that’s not accurate’ to ‘that’s news to me’ (on claims PM was directly told of a formal complaint against Chris Pincher in 2019) to admitting that he didn’t directly ask the PM if he was told about this”. But that merely begs another question.

Did he just keep schtum when Pincher was made deputy chief whip? Did he look the other way in order to keep himself in the style to which he had, perhaps undeservingly, become accustomed? It got worse for Raab when he was skewered by co-host Susanna Reid on ITV Good Morning Britain. By contrast, her co-host, former Labour MP “Auguste” Balls, did not need to intervene. Raab may not be winking at Angela Rayner tomorrow.

And then it got a lot worse, potentially terminally worse, as Pippa Crerar of the Mirror told “Simon McDonald - who had a glittering four-decade career in government - publishes bombshell letter to Parliamentary Standards Commissioner saying No 10’s claims about Chris Pincher aren’t true”.

Whoops! Once more, Adam Bienkov had the detail. “Boris Johnson's spokesman said yesterday that there was no formal complaint against Chris Pincher upheld against him prior to the Prime Minister appointing him. The former head of the diplomatic service, has now written to the Standards Commissioner to confirm this is false”. And there was more.

“So far we have been told the PM was: Not aware of ‘any allegations’ against Pincher - Not aware of any ‘specific allegations’ - Not aware of any ‘serious specific allegations’ - Not aware of any allegations that were substantiated … All of these claims now appear to be false”. He may not be too surprised by the news, knowing Bozo from his days as occasional Mayor of London.

And then it got even worse, as Matthew Harris of LBC observed “a serving senior civil servant rings in to say our democracy is in danger due to lies coming from No.10 Press operation. Says he was felt a duty to ring in after watching Dominic Raab call into question Simon McDonald’s account in his letter”. The caller also called on Simon Case to resign.

Like Pincher, the Tories knew what Bozo was like before they made him leader. It was “priced in”. Now his continued presence may price them out - of power. And the Tory party knows how to hang on to power by disposing of leaders who have outlived their usefulness. The end approaches.

The only question now is who will wield the knife. Decisions, decisions.

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Julia Hartley Dooda Bullying WRONG

With the Covid-19 pandemic still not completely over, and hospitalisation numbers climbing by the day, it is not OK to trivialise the virus and its potential effects on those unfortunate enough to become infected by it. But that thought has not been allowed to enter at Murdoch loss-maker and noise floor occupant TalkTV, and self-promoting host Julia Hartley Brewer.

Still waffling her way through her no-sense breakfast show each weekday morning, when she is not jetting off long haul to somewhere very exclusive and very expensive for the benefit and self-promotion of herself personally now, Ms Hartley Dooda has decided that, as a real proper journalist, she knows more about Covid-19 than an experienced immunologist.

As any fule kno, clever people like her who talk loudly in restaurants automatically trump mere expertise, and to demonstrate this concept in action, she decided to target Deepti Gurdasani, who you can tell as she’s a doctor, and also a clinical epidemiologist, who arranges for her daughter to come home at lunchtime, rather than eat at school.

Dr Gurdasani had told “I pick up my daughter from school for lunch every day, so she doesn’t have to take off her mask in a lunch hall with 100 other children - some of whom will have active infection and not even know it because of current [Government] policies”. Mention of Government, along with the knowledge based argument, affronted Ms Hartley Dooda deeply.

So, as she knew more about this situation than anyone else, off she went. “These people need help. In particular, this woman's poor daughter. She's at no risk from Covid but is forced to leave school every day to be with her hysterical mother who BTW is a clinical epidemiologist who should be equipped to make more rational judgements”. It WAS a rational judgment.

That is because Dr Gurdasani, as Professor Christina Pagel has explained, “is clinically vulnerable (as she has explained)”, adding “She also knows the very real risk of long covid in children & adults. Wanting to keep covid out of the family is sensible”. And, indeed, rational, as well as not being hysterical, which any competent journalist would have found out before sounding off.

Dr Gurdasani has summarised her condition: “I have ulcerative colitis - an auto-immune disease. I had a flare >2 yrs ago which only settled a few months ago. This means I have chronic fatigue which is very gradually improving”. She is also in demand for her expertise, adding “Was on [Sky News] just now speaking about the need to for UK govt and public health agencies to get out of COVID-19 denial, and develop a long term strategy for COVID. We can't go on like this”. Which Ms Hartley Dooda will not like.

After all, that could mean her facing restrictions like wearing a face covering, about which she has long been in denial, moaning that they don’t work, or rather, that she has found a study somewhere that claims they don’t work. She might also face restrictions on those reassuringly expensive long haul holidays. But her Tweet is still up, and of course there is no apology.

Because being so important means you never have to say sorry (see also under her advocacy for Brexit, for which she also won’t say sorry, despite the whole thing being exposed as an act of national self-harm that will hobble the economy for decades to come). Prof Pagel has added of Dr Gurdasani “She has been right far more often than most unlike JHB who is just a bully”.

A bully who can’t be bothered with facts or research. Ideal Murdoch material.

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Bozo, Tories And A Mexican Standoff

We should not be surprised: what we had previously been told about now former Tory deputy chief whip Chris Pincher was only the tip of the iceberg, and this morning the papers are full of more lurid allegations of drunkenness and what That Tory Spreadsheet might have called Inappropriate Behaviour.

As the BBC has reported, “Six new claims of inappropriate behaviour by former Conservative deputy chief whip Chris Pincher have emerged, days after he was suspended from the party for allegedly groping two men … The allegations stretch back more than a decade”. There is more.

“The allegations reported in the Independent, the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Times include three cases where it is alleged Mr Pincher made unwanted advances to male MPs, including in a bar in parliament, and in his own parliamentary office … It is reported that one of the MPs contacted Downing Street in February with details of what he said had happened to him and voiced his concerns that Mr Pincher might be made a party whip, in charge of the discipline and welfare of other MPs”.

Which brings us closer to being able to answer the frequently-asked question of why the Tories have still not thrown alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson overboard, given the damage he is causing to the Tories’ reputation, and, more to the point, the party’s poll ratings.

After all, Bozo was another of those names on That Tory Spreadsheet, although what is said about him will not be repeated here. He cannot give a straight answer to the question “how many children do you have?” He has redefined dishonesty. He is obscenely corrupt. His appeal to voters is diminishing all too rapidly. The Bozo joke ceased to be funny long ago.

But then, it wasn’t only Chris Pincher who was also on That Tory Spreadsheet. Pincher’s former boss Chris Heaton Harris also features. So do a number of Bozo loyalists, like oh I dunno, Conor Burns. Who has now changed what he saw when he found Bozo and Carrie in the former’s office - from oral sex to the more mundane “having a glass of wine”.

Loyalists like John Whittingdale, whose relationship with a sex worker was spun as “he met her on Match dot Com” - by Carrie Symonds, as she then was. We know the press has plenty on Whitto - some of it came out after the sex worker story, or rather why that same press wasn’t running that story, was exposed. It looks more and more like a Mexican Standoff.

As we’ve seen with the Murdoch press going after Prince Charles in the aftermath of his passing adverse comment on the Government’s cynical and nasty idea of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, Team Bozo only has to give the word, the safe full of incriminating material is unlocked, and the target is attacked. Mere MPs will steer well clear of going there if their own personal cupboards have even a trace of skeletons present.

Bozo loyalists are rewarded by unquestioning press adulation, the latest being a shameless puff piece in the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph on Suella “Cultural Marxism” Braverman, who is alleged to be bravely fighting “Remainer civil servants”. How do they know what side those working for her chose in the 2016 EU referendum? Has there been an impromptu vetting? Or is this, more likely, just another malicious pack of lies?

And so the Mexican Standoff continues: Bozo, or those close to him, must know that they can frighten the payroll vote into staying loyal, with so many likely to be sacked or demoted by any other Tory leader. The Rothermere press may now be wavering, but if Team Bozo can keep the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker onside, they have a means of getting their attacks out there, and the strong possibility that press herd instinct will do the rest.

What That Tory Spreadsheet said about Chris Pincher was, it seems, just the tip of the iceberg. Which may be true of others. That’s a lot of dirt Bozo may have on his opponents - maybe rather more than they have on him, or more than the press is prepared to put out there right now. Remember the Times pulling the Bozo and Carrie story? If they won’t publish, voters won’t know.

Getting rid of Bozo may not be so easy. Not while that Standoff persists.

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Tory Sleaze Never Went Away

Standards in public life, we are told, have improved immeasurably since the days when Peter Morrison, then MP for the City of Chester, would cruise the Sussex Gardens area looking for young men and casual sex. After his career ended in the Gents toilets on Platform 12 of Crewe station, things were going to be different. The Tories would clean up their act. Honestly.

Chris Pincher. Still a Tory MP

Sadly, they didn’t, and if That Spreadsheet, along with a steady stream of allegations of sexual misconduct, was not sufficient, along with the knowledge that three Tory MPs had attended gatherings of the now-defunct Young Britons’ Foundation with the objective of scoring more of that casual sex, well, those standards were not going to be raised any time soon.

And so it came to pass that the Murdoch Sun blew (I say, is that the right word? - Ed.) the whistle on deputy chief whip Chris Pincher, who then resigned his position after he “embarrassed himself”. There’s a quote doing some seriously heavy lifting, as the BBC has explained. “Tory deputy chief whip Chris Pincher has resigned from the government, as a newspaper alleged he groped two men at a private members' club”.

There was more. “Witnesses told the BBC he was seen ‘extremely drunk’ at the Carlton Club, the Conservative Party members' club in London on Wednesday night … he is said to have assaulted two other male guests … Several concerned Tory MPs contacted the Conservative whips' office to complain about Mr Pincher's behaviour”. And it gets worse. A lot worse.

One of those allegedly groped was another Tory MP. It’s been claimed that they both were. Then it was noted that Pincher should not have managed to work himself into a state of advanced alcoholic derangement because he had been assigned a “minder”. Why would that be? Ah well. It takes very little research to discover that Pincher has significant previous.

Because his name appears on That Tory Spreadsheet, along with the warning “Inappropriate with male researchers and heavy drinker”. And it gets worse still: he had done it before. In November 2017, the HuffPost reported that “Conservative MP Chris Pincher has referred himself to the police following accusations he made an unwanted sexual advance at former Olympic rower and Tory activist Alex Story. Downing Street said on Sunday evening that Pincher had also ‘voluntarily stood down’ from the Whips’ Office”.

THEY KNEW WHAT HE WAS LIKE. But alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson still appointed him deputy chief whip at the last reshuffle. That’s the same Boris Johnson who proposed that Carrie Symonds, as she then was, be given a £100,000 a year job as his chief of staff at the Foreign Office - a move that was swiftly nixed after she was discovered by a fellow MP giving him a blowjob in his Parliamentary office.

Labour should be putting everything into somehow persuading the Tories in Tamworth to tell their MP that he should go. Because, despite the almost 20,000 majority, Pincher first won the seat in 2010 by just 6,000 votes - and it had been held by Labour from 1997 until then, albeit on older boundaries.

If Keir Starmer’s new-look, inoffensive, centrist, no-strikes-please Labour Party is serious about forming the next Government, it needs to retake Tamworth. The signs are hopeful: while Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham has observed “We are witnessing a total collapse of standards in government”, the party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has gone further.

“There can be no question of the Conservatives sweeping a potential sexual assault under the carpet. Boris Johnson must now answer how Chris Pincher can remain a Conservative MP at all. Standards in public life have been utterly degraded on this PM’s watch”. Pincher has previous. He was such a risk he had to have a minder. Labour shouldn’t back off until the SOB resigns.

Then they have to show they, like the Lib Dems, can overturn a 20,000 Tory majority. Tony Blair’s version of Labour took the seat three times. So when is Labour going to turn up the volume and push for a by-election?

The Tories have a sleaze problem. Labour’s problem is taking advantage.

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Bozo And Kangaroo Client Journalism

Alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson faces an inquiry into his conduct by the House of Commons Privileges Committee. That inquiry begins today, and to confirm that Bozo is scared shitless that it is going to conclude that he knowingly misled Parliament - otherwise known as lying - a smear story about the Committee has surfaced this morning.

The Guardian has helpfully given some of the background: “Yesterday the Commons privileges committee held its first meeting to plan its inquiry into claims that Johnson lied to MPs and - in what could be a highly significant move - it decided to effectively invite No 10 staff to give evidence anonymously”. Why would that be significant? Ah well. There is more.

“If, as reports suggest, some junior Downing Street officials are aggrieved about the way they were treated during Partygate, and if they can provide evidence that Johnson knew much more about parties taking place or rules being broken than he told the Commons, then this whistleblower provision could prove fatal to the prime minister”. Fatal enough to pull the smear.

And so it came to pass that the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph produced a superbly crafted pile of steaming bullpucky headlined “No 10 fears PM faces ‘kangaroo court’”. The lead name on the by-line, to no surprise at all, is Christopher “No” Hope, and Lee Donaghy correctly identified the nature of the article: “Client journalism. Trashing good people doing important work”. Adam Bienkov of Byline Times had another reminder.

“Four out of the seven members of the Privileges Committee are Conservative MPs”. Is Bozo having his own back benchers leaned on? Is he that scared? Or is someone else within Downing Street briefing Hope, or causing him to be briefed? It got worse as Chris Bryant, who has resigned his chairmanship of the Committee to avoid any accusation of bias, chipped in.

“This is nonsense and a sign they’re scared of being caught out. The committee members are thorough, fair and meticulous. They’re advised by the former head of the tribunal service. But this is what Johnson always does, throw over the rules or the body that adjudicates on them”, later adding “It is at least arguable that calling the Committee of Privileges a ‘kangaroo court’ is itself a contempt of parliament”. Which is most revealing.

That suggests not only that Hope and his co-writer were merely, in the words of Peter Oborne,”just shovelling it on”, failing to interrogate their source or bothering to do the most basic of research, but also that whoever briefed the Tel did not know their way around the concept of Contempt of Parliament. Which, in turn, feeds back into the idea that the briefing may not have come from one of Bozo’s press people. It also smacks of bad faith.

For instance, the Tel’s report talks of “hearsay evidence”, but the Committee will not be accepting hearsay evidence. What they will accept, though, providing the evidence giver can be identified to them, is anonymised evidence. So no-one outside the Committee will know who give the evidence and - by complete coincidence, you understand - the evidence giver cannot be leant on, or smeared, by Bozo and his enforcers.. So who’s the briefer?

OK, there seem to have been at least one MP prepared to be quoted, but then, around 200 of them backed Bozo in the recent confidence vote. Were I a betting man, I would have a few quid on Carrie Johnson being not unadjacent to the briefing given to Hope as an “exclusive” - as in it being such a steaming pile of bovine by-product that no-one else would run it.

Given that this inquiry finding that Bozo did knowingly mislead the Commons - in other words, lying and knowing he lied - would probably precipitate his removal from Downing Street, even if it does mean dragging the SOB out kicking and screaming, she has motive enough to be behind it.

Who's calling the Tel?

So that’s where my Occam’s Razor is pointing right now. This is an especially nasty anonymous smear of a Committee which has a Tory majority, with, apparently, the sole objective of warning them off saying Bozo Done It. It also says much about the level to which the Tel has sunk that its hacks are prepared to even listen to whoever briefed the smear.

It could, of course, be someone else behind the briefing. Bozo himself, or his other friend, for instance. But one thing is certain: it won’t work.

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