Catastrophic Tory TV

Catastrophic Tory TV appearances are becoming a daily occurrence. Michael Fallon moved quickly to double-up his epic disaster-zone interview with Channel 4’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy  – with this head-bangingly stupid tête-à-tête with Robert Peston. 

Britain in early summer 2017 is a very weird place to be.

In a wonderfully British piece of absurdism M15 today begins an investigation into it’s own incompetence:

“MI5 has launched two urgent inquiries into how it missed the danger posed by the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi, amid claims his interest in being a potential terrorist killer was repeatedly reported to the authorities.”

… whilst media and political elites attempt to smear Jeremy Corbyn in a piece of theatrical misdirection away from their own epic mishandling of a) national security b) the public mood c) their own public relations car crash.

So today it looks as if some elements of reality are beginning to seep into the holodeck of UK politics as the Tory election nobody wanted unfolds like a bag of shit onto the pavement of your daily consciousness.

British politics is looking about as comfortable as a British Airways check-in.

We hear that the 75,000 people affected by the companies IT failure are being told this was NOT due to cuts and profiteering. The CEO (who will not resign) has gagged his staff from talking about the problem as passengers are handed-out yoga mats to sleep on the floor of Gatwick and Heathrow.

Perhaps these things are connected?

“Ah Mr Abedi – another trip to Libya? I see you’re listed by the Security Services, have a nice flight?”

The levels of self-delusion, black ops propaganda and ostentatiously stupid sloganeering is reaching new and dizzy heights.

Nowhere is that more true than at the sharp-end of Conservative social policy and their inability for them to face it.

On yer live telly Tory Dominic Raab stumbles into some new crisis claiming that: “Food banks are not about “poverty” but about people “with a cashflow problem”.

In an indescribably insensitive moment on “Victoria Live” the MP blundered on only to be rebuked by John Nicholson who seemed to have the Trussell Trust on speed-dial:

Each day a new Tory steps out into the tv studios to reveal some catastrophic level of ignorance about the country they live in and to know virtually nothing about you or your world before mercilessly pleading for your ongoing support.

Opposite World Politics

This is a swirling shambles.

As Zoe Williams writes (‘Never has British politics felt so wild and unpredictable’):

“A woman who changes her mind on everything, and days after she’s said something says the opposite, is running as the immovable rock in a turbulent world, while a man who hasn’t knowingly changed his mind on anything since 1983 is presenting as the pluralist, the one who can listen. All the restraints on political discourse, which force the elegant manoeuvres where you soften or pad out or re-contextualise reality so that it better fits your story, have been removed. To say the opposite of what is true is now more than acceptable: it amounts to a core strategy. Or, to put it more simply, they will just say any old bollocks. Psephologists scratch their heads about the shape of a Conservative victory – obviously they’ll win, but what will a real win look like? Is 80 seats enough to give this election a patina of purpose? What about 40? But we know full well that they’d take a victory of 15 and call it a landslide, because that’s the way politics is done in Opposite World.”

Everything is true and not true.

Kezia’s Labour may be about to collapse north of Berwick.

Corbyn’s Labour is also taking great strides forward as the Tory omni-shambles-meets-cluster**** unfolds before their eyes (‘Theresa May to relaunch Conservative election campaign amid fears Labour could take lead in opinion polls’).

The election, which was supposed to be a coronation is turning into a plebiscite.

But if the Scottish Labour Party continues to shoot itself in the foot by prioritising ‘Get SNP’ over ridding us of the Tories, and even going on air to urge voters to back the Conservatives, the other dimension to Labour’s Edgar Allan Poe moment is their internal dissent. Confused about whether they hate the Tories more than the SNP they are also confused about whether they hate their own leader more than the Conservatives. Here’s their only current MP tweeting:

If Labour speaks with spectacular incoherence on the constitution, other parties are also competing for nonsense.

If the Tories ‘Strong and Stable Leadership’ has entered the lexicon of piddle – what exactly does ‘a Strong Voice for Scotland’ actually mean? In a parliament of 650 with 59 from Scotland, what weight does that have?

In this defiantly contradictory election campaign, SNP supporters daily attack the Labour Party in any guise, whilst Nicola Sturgeon is clear that the SNP will look to be part of a progressive alliance with Labour if the general election results in a hung parliament.

Ruth Davidson manages to “simultaneously suggesting she wanted the overall number of migrants coming to Scotland reduced, increased, and also kept at about the current level.”

Marianna Taylor has noticed, writing: “All the parties indulge in the deliberate twisting of facts and figures. But Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson’s confusing, dishonest, and frankly bizarre comments on immigration at the end of last week saw an already poor campaign descend to a new low.”

Oddly enough only the Lib Dems and UKIP come out of this with any real credit.

Paul Nuttal is just going for broke with the full-on: “I’m a Psycopath Vote for Me” ticket, whilst Willie Rennie has surpassed even his Alpaca moment with a new piece from his performance art series, as he steps to of a Delorean car swirling in smoke as a thousand people online silently mouth “WTF?”

 


Only ten days to go now.

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  1. Peter Arnott says:

    It is extraordinary…outwith the influence of campaigners and newspapers…the rule book is shredding before our eyes…

  2. Alasdair Macdonald says:

    And, yet, there are still many people who will vote against their own economic and social interests and will vote Tory.

    I still recall with incomprehension and interview with a woman, who during the Thatcher years, was condemning everything the Tories had visited upon her and her community and then announced she would be voting Tory, “because they brought about this mess and they should be made to sort it!”

    The BBC, Guardian, Observer, New Statesman, Left Foot Forward, etc. are all hailing Ms Davidson as ‘the thoughtful, caring, liberal face of conservatism’, and the Scottish media do not asked her any ‘hard’ questions.

    At times like this the Calvinist pessimism of my upbringing, which I thought I had jettisoned more than 50 years ago, occasionally wells up during the night!!!

    But, I am better during the day!! ‘Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will’, as the man wrote. The responses of the people regarding Manchester were far more insightful and nuanced than the media would like.

    1. Charles L. Gallagher says:

      Hi Alisdair,

      Have no fear about your Calvinist upbringing, mine was RC and I have troubled nights as well but like you always better in the light of anew day. We just have to fight even harder over the next ten days.

      PS I’ve found a sleeping pill helps.

  3. IndiaOsaka says:

    I’ve not made my way through all the links, but the Peston/Fallon clip appears to be a text-to-speech narrated slide show, rather than a clip from the broadcast itself.

  4. Fiona Sinclair says:

    Yes, and the Daily Mail was, as far as I’m aware, the first of the mainstream press to break the story about the ACTIVE COLLUSION between the British security services (and, by extension, the British government) and known Jihadists:-

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4540822/Rebels-went-Libya-MI5-blessing-amid-Abedi-probe.html

    Strong? Stable? Secure?

    The first duty of a state is to protect its citizens. The Arab Spring was a con – the only evidence I saw of mass support for the overthrow of a government was the footage of tens of thousands taking to the streets of Cairo – and that was stopped in its tracks as soon as they realised the Muslim Brotherhood weren’t about to deliver the goods. The TV footage of Libya and Syria showed men on street corners or in pick up trucks with automatic weapons – all tightly framed. Absolutely no evidence of mass support for the overthrow of Gadaffi – but then, didn’t he want to use the Euro as a petro currency?

    Hold your noses, folks, and copy and paste the above Daily Mail article and send it right round the web.

    The UK’s security services were colluding with jihadists that were on control orders because of their links with terrorist groups. One may well ask why they were given sanctuary in our country in the first place, but the fact that they were encouraged to go to Libya to overthrow Gadaffi should be at the forefront of election debate – but is instead being quietly buried. Whilst Iraq is Labour’s legacy, Libya is the Tories’ very own Middle East adventurism and the security services acted as they did on Theresa May’s watch as Home Secretary.

    It is quite unbelievable that opposition parties are failing to run with this information.

  5. Alan says:

    Seems quite fitting that last Saturday was the 40th anniversary of the release of this.

  6. bringiton says:

    The Tories complain about the politics of grievance.
    Well,they are the ones who inflicted violence and unemployment etc on others which created these grievances in the first place.
    Their “Do unto others” philosophy is coming home to roost and maybe England’s electorate are realising this at last.

  7. Mark,Rowantree says:

    I agree with the general tone of this article, although I again detect a whiff of double standards viz. the SNP. In particular the author sets out the failings of Scottish Labour, then complains that ‘SNP members daily attack the Labour Party’ which I thought was the role of 2 different political parties, just whatmdoes Mile actually expect them to do. Particularly, given Jeremy,Corbyn’s rather ambivalent stand on Scotland?
    I have every wish to see Labour do well in England as I have absilautely no wish to see the human misery and suffering which will inevitably result from another Tory government. More as a socialist and long term member of the SNP I am extremely heartened to see a potential revival of socialism within the U.K. Labour Party as that can only be a positive factor in promoting socialism per ce.
    However, I am neither naive or foolish enough to expect a full blown rapproachement of progressive forces this side of an election. The only realistic outcome would be to hope for a motually acceptable form of modus vivendi. However, I,fear the greatest danger to this lies in the reactionary internal forces of,the Labour Party.

  8. dougie strang says:

    Loving the Willie Rennie ‘performance artist’ meme. I’m looking forward to the Fringe show!

    1. Dougie – after politics it was the obvious way to go, a true innovator

  9. Willie says:

    I learned many years ago that anything with ” British ” in its name was second hand for shit service a top class prices.

    British Airways, British Telecom, British Airports Authority, British Gas, et al.

    Need I say more, and then one wonders why they rebranded as BA, BT, BAAA and BG. Hmnn? – something smells. Time they were back in public control.

    1. Patrick says:

      Yes that’s right end of British welfare corporation! the only way you can coupe with the nightmare of Br-exist, is Universal Unconditional Basic Incomes. Maintain citizen on welfare is unmoral, because a British welfare state is Political Conditional.

  10. Alasdair says:

    Willie, don’t forget British Railways and British Leyland

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