She has reached new levels of denial that would take most of us years of practice, like a Tibetan monk, to attain.
The UK recently had its King’s Speech. I saw it on TV. I preferred the film version, etc, etc.
The King doesn’t write it himself. If you have writers it shouldn’t end up that boring. Call me. I do scriptwriting work. I could have zinged that up a bit. I have a joke about it being like the film The King’s Speech I could offer.
There were 40 proposed bills, and with Labour’s majority there’s no reason they won’t all turn into laws. The House of Lords could slow the bills down, and one proposed bill is about abolishing hereditary peers in the House of Lords, so that one might get some pushback.
My favourite one is The Budget responsibility bill. People are calling it the “Liz Truss bill” and not in a good way. It gives powers to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to make judgements on any major taxation or spending announcements. It basically has been put in place to stop anyone from being able to “do a Liz Truss” again. That’s some legacy, where your name becomes a reference for mucking up the UK economy.
It’s like saying, “My parking was so bad I did a Brian Harvey back there.”
As soon as the King had read out his script Liz Truss tweeted (Xed) her reply saying, “The bad policies include; giving more powers to the failed OBR.”
Failed? That’s rich. The OBR lasted more than 49 days. Did you?
Liz had also complained about the way it was described in the briefing notes for the speech. It had described Liz Truss's mini-budget as "disastrous" but she said that showed political bias.
Which political side thinks what happened wasn’t a disaster? Which party is in favour of making mortgage rates shoot up? I bet some of the mortgage providers didn’t mind.
You can argue about whose fault it was but the outcome was a disaster so it earns the adjective.
Here’s what I don’t get. Liz was aiming for growth. Great. We all love growth, in a non-medical setting. That wasn’t just Liz who wanted growth, that’s a pretty standard wish.
She doesn’t like the idea of the OBR, so she didn’t run her mini-budget by it. She feared that the OBR would tell her not to do it.
So, she did it and it caused a problem with the LDIs, the liability driven investments. After the fact Liz has admitted that she “didn’t know the existence” of LDIs and if she did she may have scaled back the mini-budget.
Maybe that’s why you should have run the budget by some sort of office that had responsibility for budgetary things.
And yet we know that if she had involved the OBR, and the OBR had said, “Hang on, this might be a problem for the LDIs,” Liz would have been the first crying about how the deep state was stopping her implementing her growth plans.
“I didn’t know of the existence of…” isn’t evidence that your plan was right all along. At best your plan was ill-informed. If you didn’t know what you were doing you should have asked someone who did but anyone who knew about these matters was already written off as part of the problem.
So, to sum up, it’s unfair to call her mini-budget that was a disaster “disastrous” and her lack of information on the results of her plans somehow makes it not her fault.
If I had that level of denial about reality I’d spend ten minutes every night brushing my hair.
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It looks like most won’t be involved in politics. But the same is true for the Tories that did keep their seats.
One shocking outcome is that Jacob Rees-Mogg is to become a reality TV star. It’s not I’m A Celeb, which is for the best. That show is about making famous people squirm as they eat kangaroo’s knobs, but posh people probably have that as a terrine, so there’s no fun there.
The show will follow former Tory MP, his six children and family’s nanny in run-up to and aftermath of election. It’s a documentary on Discovery+, Meet the Rees-Moggs. It’s kind of like the one with the Osbournes but also totally the opposite of the one with the Osbournes.
It’s going to be posh watching and we Brits love a bit of that. We watch posh people being posh and we say, “Oh, look at them. Aren’t they odd?”
But in the back of our minds we think, “But they are our betters and should probably be in charge.”
We have such a strange relationship with old money types. We regard them as an oddity and yet willingly hand the keys to the country to them. “His vowels are tortured. We’d better make him a Prime Minister.”
The show will feature his six children. I’m hoping at least one of them is the rebel who is a mockney who wants to make a living as a live streamer, but I have a feeling I’ll be disappointed.
The documentary will be released this year and promises to “lift the lid on the man behind the public image” over the course of five hour-long episodes.
The show will look at the run up to the election and the result. Rees-Mogg has said: “Animals, children, an election and a film crew. What could possibly go wrong?”
I can answer that. From your point of view, a Labour landslide.
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It wasn't that long ago that grown adults were filling in colouring books to achieve mindfulness and no one thought it was a con.
Since then I have had children and find myself finishing pages of their colouring books when the kids lose interest but my obsessive compulsions can't leave anything unfinished. So much for making my mental health better.
The latest trend is silent retreats. These are places where you can go and you're not allowed to talk. If I wanted to be told to shut up I could stay at home.
For around £800-a-week you too could attend a silent retreat. Activities include yoga, which might make it the first time someone has started yoga and not gone on about it for weeks on end.
You have to turn your phone off and you're not allowed to read. Even knitting is discouraged. I know there are many habits people need to crack that use needles but I don't think knitting is one of them.
When you go for a walk you are given a badge to wear that explains that you're on a silent retreat and cannot speak. I think I'd simply risk being seen as rude rather than seen as the kind of odd-bod who'd spend money on this.
Former Tory MP Rory Stewart goes on such retreats for up to 11 days a year. He said, well, not much hopefully.
It's clearly the kind of self-obsessed and performative nonsense that bored middle-class people get up to but there might be something in it. Like London Fashion Week with people on the catwalk looking a right mess but some core themes make it to the High Street. There are some key points we could all learn from.
We don't have to spend good money to go to a place to sit in silence. There are coffee shops, libraries and some marriages where that happens for free.
We don't have to plunge ourselves into days of zero decibel existence but we could learn to shut up a bit. If you don't have anything to say you could stay silent. Trim out the small-talk.
If you are telling a story about something that happened at work, maybe get right into the detail instead of five minutes of biographical details that your partner doesn't care about.
Talking less might not directly improve your wellness, but it could help the wellness of the people around you.
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What he actually said an interview on Virgin radio was that he tries to keep that part of the week as family time. You know, family time, a traditional Conservative value. He also said he realised he'd have to work after 6, but (as ever) why let the details get in the way of a partisan rant?
It's clearly a nothing-burger. If he gets the top job he'll be kept busy, but the funny thing is what the Tories have said. They posted on social media: “You deserve better than a part-time prime minister. The only way to prevent this is to vote Conservative on Thursday.”
Yeah. That'll work. You were heading to the worst defeat your party has ever suffered but that tweet will really swing things around.
Why do they think we fear a part-time PM? Rishi said he never clocks off before 6pm, and look what a pig's teat he's made of things. Looking back, if someone could have talked Liz Truss into clocking off early some of our mortgages would be less painful.
People on social media were posting things like, “Oh great. So let’s hope Russia don’t start a nuclear war after hours on a Friday then!” I replied to some saying they shouldn't worry because Russia is on a different time-zone.
They post that as if there wouldn’t even be a phone call put in to Keir. Someone in the MoD would say, “I know the missile is on its way but we can’t call the PM. He’s put his out of office on!”
Don’t be so daft. It’s an empty way to try to score points. And the problem is it doesn't score points, it highlights weakness. If this is your attack it shows you're out of good attacks.
I thought the era of boasting that you do ridiculous hours had passed. Some people in business used to show how dedicated they were by pointing out that they don’t have anything else going on in their life. It's like the post-Yuppie version of Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch.
The same people will say, “less is more,” in a meeting to try to sound clever.
It’s a trope in politics too. Thatcher boasted that she only slept 3 hours a night. Yeah, and she got dementia. The take-home message should be, "You might wanna take a nap."
Sir Keir might not work past 6pm on Friday. A lot of Tory MPs won’t work after Thursday, and that’s a day earlier.
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This is funny. It’s like Harold Bishop going back into Neighbours. You’re know you’re in trouble when they have to get a cameo from three series ago.
It was suggested that Boris had written ‘supportive’ letters, but this is Boris Johnson we’re talking about. He will have written one letter that’s supportive and one that’s not, and he’ll pick which he feels like, because he’s a man of principles.
And if it’s anything like his Daily Mail column it might be about cheese and cost them half a million to get him to write it. Or the latest sunglasses.
Newspapers have been saying he’s “being parachuted into the disastrous Conservative election campaign” but he is not actually being parachuted because he’s on holiday till the day before the election. He also won’t remember his ID when he goes to the polling station so he’s probably not even voting in this one, let alone fighting it.
But a spokesman for Mr Johnson would not be drawn on whether the letters would mention Mr Sunak. Would it help Rishi to have the letter that will be a reminder of how he drove the knife into the back of the PM that people voted for? The kind of people who could be swayed by a letter from Boris Johnson are probably Boris Johnson fans, which means they won’t like what Rishi did.
Either way, if this doesn’t work they probably have AI Thatcher ready to go.
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The front pages have raised the spectre of a Labour ‘super-majority’ and how that could be dangerous. It was mentioned by the Defence Secretary Grant Shapps in an interview. It’s quite a defensive position but that is his job.
It comes across like he’s given up. He changed the messaging from “vote for a Tory win” to “Oh, please don’t let us lose too badly. Come on, guys. This is going to be embarrassing. We’ve all had our fun but please make us come second.”
We all love an under-dog and somehow the party with an 80 seat majority have become that.
Grant said we need a “proper system of accountability... we would argue that you don’t want to have somebody receive a super-majority.”
They didn’t mention that in 2019 when it looked like they were going to do well. There was never a “vote Tory but let’s not get carried away” poster.
Normally you try to sound positive when fighting a general election. Basically asking the electorate to please let you end up in opposition isn’t a good move but to be fair, most moves they have made in this election campaign haven’t helped either.
Mr Shapps also insisted that there was still “everything to fight for” and the “polls have been wrong before”.
But that would not only need Keir Starmer to start gaffing, he’d have to gaff at a faster rate that Rishi is gaffing to catch up and overtake.
So you’re right, still a chance.
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Mike Newby, 34, an account director – and how doesn’t want to kick an account director - who lives in Cheltenham with his girlfriend, Geo Legate (fitting name) competed in the Cotswold Olimpick Games. I don’t know if you’re meant to stress the “limp” part of the name.
It’s a sporting event that celebrates English folk sports and games, such as tug of war, hammer throwing and the main event, shin kicking, being held on May 31 2024.
It’s a shame they don’t include some Dorset Knob Tossing. We are a strange people. If you didn’t know, a knob is a type of biscuit, which makes even less sense. Who throws away a biscuit?
Just a few weeks after winning the 2023 edition of the competition, Mike hit the gym, did cardio, struck his shins with a hammer. Basically he “Miseried” himself?!
Mike said: “I felt a bit like Maximus from Gladiator.” Well, you weren’t. You were more like Colonel Rosa Klebb from From Russia With Love.
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It was in the ITV debate, during what seemed like a fingers-on-buzzers speed round. They were both asked if a relative was on a long NHS waiting list would you use private medicine?
The real question should have been if YOU were on a long waiting list…
Sir Keir Starmer leader said the health service 'was in his DNA' and cited his wife Victoria's work in occupational health. And the NHS uses tools, and his dad was a toolmaker, you know. He mentioned that a fair few times. Pointing out that your father made tools is inviting people to call you a tool. You wouldn’t leave an easy heckle hanging like that if you were a stand-up.
It’s a theoretical question, so we can’t prove him wrong. Maybe he truly believes that based on how bad the NHS is now, maybe it would still be true if it got worse.
Maybe it’s just something he’s saying because he wants to be PM, but if he wants to be the PM to save the NHS isn’t hardly a bad lie. What it is, is a pointless question that tells us nothing.
This Daily Mail article brushes over the fact that Rishi Sunak said he would, because of course he would, he’s minted. Could you imaging him asking his billionaire wife, “Could you go on the NHS because there’s an election coming up...”
They also mentioned the part of the debate when Starmer said the waiting list numbers had gone from 7.2million to 7.5million and Rishi said that was coming down. Rishi explained: 'They are coming down from when they were higher.’ And this is the guy who wants everyone to be better at maths.
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News sites have been saying things like, “Donald Trump found guilty in hush money case” and thereby showing part of the problem here. It isn’t a hush money trial. The idea of a court case based on payments to an adult actress is great. It’s the plot of a good episode of a TV drama.
It’s not what we have just had. It’s not illegal in America to pay someone hush money and so it shouldn’t be. Firstly, I have worked with a few Americans and I often wish they were being paid to hush. But you can’t criminalise hush money or you’d be blaming the victim in a blackmail case for paying up.
The case all comes down to how payments were recorded. It’s an accounting thing. And if it is so easy to make the court case look like a misdirection, done by someone who is not a Trump fan, imagine the hay Trump supporters can make with this.
If you swing for the king you’d better not miss, or at least if you find Donald Trump to be a convicted felon, you’d better make sure it’s the case that is impactful and sticks.
The timing is awkward. It’s around six months before he goes head-to-head with Joe Biden. Will this scupper his chances? Of course not. This is a man who famously said he could walk onto Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and get away with it, and accountancy isn’t seen as deadly as shooting someone. Actually, there are parts of America that love their guns more than their accountants, so I’ll take that point back.
While some swaying voters will be put off by the idea of voting for a criminal the core vote, the base as they call it with Trump, are reinforced by news like this. The victim-in-chief loves to make out that everything is unfair towards him. In round one, up against Hillary Clinton, he gave us terms like “fake news” and made the press out to be the bad guys. That was helpful because when the press raise some issue he can they avoiding addressing it by calling the press names. An ad hominem against anyone who is a qualified journalist.
So imagine how this feeds into phase two, that the deep state is going after him. It was a weak sauce case.
Do most people think he slept with Stormy? God, yes. Probably even the evangelical right. But he got them their abortion rights win, so don’t blame the sinner, right? Well, unless that sinner needs an abortion. Anyway...
Do people think he used money, through his fixer, to try to make the story go away? Yeah, I bet they do. You’d expect it. It’s the polite thing to do.
Do people think that falsifying business records is a serious crime? No, because it’s not. Normally that would be a misdemeanour. You'd be given a fine, probably for less money that you saved cooking the books and that's how justice works.
Only if you line up all of the events, tie it to the outcome of the US election and have a following wind can you make it sound like a felony. It’ll work for the people who already didn’t like Trump and it proves he’s right to claim he’s a victim to those who already think he’s somehow both the messiah AND a very naughty boy.
He was found guilty of all 34 counts he faced. Unanimity was required for any verdict. WHy didn't they just find him guilty of, say 30 of them? It would be harder for the Trump die-hards to make out it was rigged.
Trump faces a maximum sentence of four years in prison, which doesn’t prevent him from running for the presidency and being president while in jail. It could mean he has to pick Red from Shawshank Redemption as his VP.
All we know so far is that this won’t be the end of it. Trump already spoke to the press (the fake news press?) and said that he was "a very innocent man". Now we’re living in a world where there are gradations of innocence.
Let’s hope the circus that follows this case doesn’t ruin things for the subsequent cases, which are more serious that paying money to get a porn star to close her mouth, for once, and the paperwork you have to do following that.
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It was also thought he referred to trans women as men in dresses, but he was actually talking about his bishops.
The statement says pontiff apologises ‘to those who felt offended by the term reported by others’. It’s a classic non-apology there. I’m sorry for those who felt offended – not sorry for offending, and “the term reported by others” means they’re not admitting his said it.
We’re sorry you felt offended by the thing you think we said.
Pope Francis was talking admitting gay men into seminaries. And he may have pronounced it as “semenaries”. But probably not.
He said there was already too much “frociaggine” in some seminaries. In English it means “a ball or roll of seasoned chopped liver, baked or fried.” I may have looked at the wrong definition when Googling that.
Still, it’s rare to get a papal apology, especially when he’s meant to be infallible. I suppose that’s why the apology was so bad, he can’t admit being fallible without having to quit.
Soon after becoming pope, he famously said in response to a question about gay priests: ”Who am I to judge?” The Pope! And one who knows some slang terms about it.
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That’s what happened to a 70-year-old woman recently. Gillian Mears was in the news after some local wrong ‘uns damaged her garden gate. I know, this is hardly the crimes associated with The Riddler or The Joker but she’s not a full Batman herself. She said that if she got her hands on the youths she’s wring their necks and the police came round to tell her off.
It wasn’t the first time the vandals had struck, so Gillian was already annoyed. The time in question her disabled husband went out to stop them but he fell over. As Gillian went out to help him the young ones mocked them, so she was understandably angry. She called the police and mentioned that if she could she’d wring their necks.
Gillian was interviewed about the incident and said, “When they arrived they told me off for making that threat, which was not a threat it was me just venting my anger.”
It can’t be the first time the police have heard that phrase so they must know that it’s hyperbole. It’s like saying an American saying, “Why I oughta,” or comedian Mike Reid saying he’d give someone a dry slap. I don’t think he ever did.
You could also make the argument that if you’re a criminal and a disabled man and 70-year-old granny can successfully wring your neck, you shouldn’t have picked that fight. If your neck is that fragile, keep away from a granny’s gate.
It’s a sad story because it feels like the police are siding with the criminal. I understand that a wrung neck is more serious than a damaged gate, but that was never a likely outcome here.
It’s made worse when we hear all the time that police won’t attend shoplifting call outs if the goods taken aren’t worth more than £200. I know, with the cost of living crisis, three packets of butter and a steak will probably push you over that threshold but it’s not right that real crimes are ignored while things that are obviously not crimes have the police turning up.
It feels like it’s easier to tell off grannies or to caution someone who posts messages on social media. They’re less care than actual criminals.
The yobs had damaged their gate twice. They asked for three other fences to be taken into consideration.
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The bosses of a World War Two event have had to defend the re-enactors who dressed as Nazis. Or they dressed as Prince Harry, it’s hard to tell at first glance.
Organisers of the Spirit of Wartime event in Nottinghamshire said the event was designed to let people experience life in military camps of both the Allied and Axis military.
To be fair, you’re re-enacting a war, you kind of need both sides or people won’t understand why it took so many years to win it.
They even had a Swastika flag but it’s not been a popular move with everyone. A professor in Holocaust history said the flag seemed 'a bit celebratory'. Really? I’m assuming they didn’t win at the end of the re-enactment.
He also questioned the logic of people who spend money to dress up as Nazis as a hobby.
Against, that’s fair enough. Battle re-enactors are clearly doing it because they can’t stand their own family and want to be out of the house, but that’s true of both sides of the battle.
The thing that’s important is context. If you’re dressing up as a Nazi for work, that’s OK, unless your work is invading Poland. It’s the people with Nazi gear in the bottom draw that they keep secret that we need to watch out for.
There were Nazis in WWII so there’ll be in WWII re-enactments. There are Nazi in the first Captain America film. Should we ban that?
Banning any use of such flags and uniforms won’t stop actual wrong ‘un, it’ll only stop these kind of events, which will improve some people’s weekends but that’s why what we’re going for here.
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The more seats Labour gets in Scotland the less of a record-breaking swing Labour needs in the rest of the UK, and he could well do that. If Labour does well up there, it’s all thanks to the political abilities of one man, Huamza Yusuf. Keir should send a fruit basket as a thanks.
Labour could do well in Scotland as the SNP implode, like it would do well in England because of the Tories doing themselves in. This is like a fight scene in the 1981 film Condorman.
Sir Keir said he needed to win in Scotland, where Labour only held one seat in the 2019 general election, so that he feels he is ruling all of the UK.
You can see his point. If Scotland votes SNP but the leading party is Conservative they can claim they didn’t vote for the leader they got. But that’s how the system works. There are places in the South West that vote Lib Dem who will always be able to say they didn’t vote for the PM.
Scotland has a great knack of making itself the belle of the ball. And Keir is doing the flattery. He’s telling Scotland he needs them even when he doesn’t. Meanwhile Rishi is off telling miracles that he needs them, and he means it.
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