I am often to be found ranting about the lack of education (in the real sense), culture or plain commonsense in the connected worlds of politics, journalism and law, as well as at the steep decline in quality in those areas and generally. Thus it was with a cynical sneer that I read the statements made by Cabinet ministers (!) this past week and in other recent weeks. Take a look at this piece from The Guardian (a pro-Remain article, but leave that aside).
Extracts:
- “I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this, but if you look at the UK and if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.” [Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab];
- “My wife would say [my Lego collection is] far too large, but I find Lego therapeutic … Everybody who does any difficult or stressful job needs a way to switch off. We all have different ways. Mine is Lego.” [Culture Secretary (!), Jeremy Wright];
- “I freely admit that when I started this job, I didn’t understand some of the deep-seated and deep-rooted issues that there are in Northern Ireland. I didn’t understand things like when elections are fought, for example, in Northern Ireland, people who are nationalists don’t vote for unionist parties and vice versa.” (!)[Karen Bradley, Northern Ireland Secretary].
There are hundreds of other examples from the last 8 years of total incompetence. Iain Dunce Duncan Smith alone contributed dozens, though his metier is more in complete executive incompetence mixed with graft and outright fraud. He may never have been promoted beyond Lieutenant in the Guards, but he did manage to learn the Guards officers’ knack of sounding authoritative despite complete ignorance and despite being as thick as two short planks.
One of the more honest (perhaps— some disagree) of recent Conservative Party MPs, Johnny Mercer, not long ago called the Theresa May government-of-fools “a shitshow”! Blunt Army language, but can anyone now disagree?…
Things are really coming to a head now with this sorry excuse for a government. Either Brexit is going to be in name only, or it will happen but under conditions of chaotic incompetence, thanks to this government’s inability to do its job.
It really does say something about the Theresa May government that until his self-interested resignation recently, the “great intellectual” in it was supposed to be Boris Johnson, who has not once been able to do competently any one of the jobs given to him by reason of his privileged background. This is a man whose idea of appearing intelligent and cultured is (or was, until people generally started to laugh openly at it) quoting bits of rote-learned Latin and Greek and dog-whistling classical-history soundbites. The amazing thing is that, until very recently, Johnson’s self-publicized image as “Prime Minister in Waiting” was actually taken seriously by the msm and so the masses. Indeed, few were willing to point out that Johnson was a walking self-parody, with his classical crammer-college allusions and his pathetic am-dram reprise of Winston Churchill, right down to the gruff comments and slight stoop. He even copied Churchill’s gait sometimes!
Well, thank God for small mercies: it now seems that even Boris Johnson himself has now accepted that he will never be Conservative Party leader and so will never be PM either. Only about 20 or 30 MPs would back him and so he would not be in the top two places. About 5th-ranked, probably.
Most MPs can scarcely be called mediocre, let alone competent. That applies equally to Labour, but this Government stands or falls on its own record. Labour has every chance of being largest party in the Commons quite soon, perhaps by some date in 2019.
The situation now seems to be that the Brexit-in-name-only scenario may not pass the Commons. The Democratic Unionists [DUP] will not accept Northern Ireland being treated differently from the rest of the UK, and if forced to that will simply oppose the Government (or abstain) on all other legislation. Collapse of Government not long after.
Alternatively, if a real no-deal Brexit happens, unprepared for and resulting, in the words of Johnny Mercer MP, in “a shitshow” economically, then a situation of both economic and social turmoil might be brought about within months.
Social nationalism can only prosper from now on.
Update, 20 June 2019
Well, on rereading this for the first time since writing it, and because I noticed that it had had a few hits recently, I have to admit that I underestimated the level of stupidity of the Conservative Party MPs and membership. The exceptional (crazy) Westminster politics of the hour have brought about a crazy result (probably): Boris Johnson now looks quite likely to become Conservative leader and so, by default, Prime Minister next month.
Update, 3 December 2023
In the words of Macmillan, “Events, dear boy”… Events and “Conservative” MPs conspired to get “Boris” Johnson elected (by Con Party members) as Con Party leader, and so Prime Minister. As we now know, he then won the 2019 General Election and, on resignation in 2022, was replaced by absurd and vacant “ho”, Liz Truss, who in turn was replaced after about 6-7 weeks by Indian money-juggler Rishi Sunak.
Despite having underestimated Johnson’s chances of becoming Prime Minister, I think that the original blog post stands up quite well.
As to the others mentioned in that original post, half-Jew bully Dominic Raab is standing down as MP in 2024, after being found guilty of bullying civil servants, and after 13-14 years as MP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Raab.
Jeremy Wright was sacked (by Johnson) after only a year in post as Culture Secretary, but is still an MP and fairly likely to remain one unless the swing to Labour in 2024 is huge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Wright.
Karen Bradley was dismissed from Cabinet in 2019 but remains an MP and, like Wright, has a notionally very safe seat.
Ian Robert Millard 