#standard tory incompetence

[lost-carcosa]

[ayeforscotland]

If tories said they detest SNP there would be hell on…..double standards again in Scotland…Scotland is institutionally dived and that’s thanks to chief mammy and her cult

The Tories detest not just the SNP but the whole of Scotland. They hate the devolved nations. They treat us with nothing but utter contempt. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the First Minister to say she detests the Tories. The Tories have killed over 300,000 people due to their incompetence, they introduced the rape clause which forces women to prove they were raped if they want access to additional child support, they refuse to have any responsibility for asylum seekers and want to deport them to places where they'd be in danger, their decisions in the past few weeks brought a wrecking ball to an already ruined economy, they have exacerbated inequality and made the Cost of Living crisis worse, and they are asset-stripping the NHS - all while making themselves and their friends as rich as possible. I've had enough of Tory pearl-clutching about the word 'detest' when you have a Scottish Tory leader who's answer to an innocent "What would you do if you were Prime Minister for a day?" question was: "Tougher enforcement against g*psy travellers" Scotland isn't institutionally divided - It's the UK is fracturing and you have people who have a positive progressive vision for Scotland on one side, and the Tories (and Labour/LibDem) on the other.

[beeseverywhen]

Another week, another phantom menace for Rishi Sunak. The people he is talking about, regarding his benefit reforms, do not exist. The 1.35 million people who could work but just don’t want to, who have a label of depression or anxiety but are just a little bit sad, who could have their benefits replaced by vouchers and find that incentivising: these people do not exist.

People are not signed off work because we are all a little bit more comfortable talking about our moods. People are not on disability benefits because Prince Harry did a podcast. We don’t have a “sicknote culture” because it’s too easy to get a sicknote. The pressure on GPs will not be lifted by parcelling out sicknotes to private contractors. Those with depression and anxiety severe enough to claim a personal independence payment (Pip) are catastrophically unwell. If numbers have surged over the past 14 years, which they have, it is because Conservative governments make you catastrophically unwell.

Pushback on this new narrative of cruelty has so far been pathetic: at the most, you might hear a minister challenged on the scarcity of NHS mental health provision. All that is true: child and adolescent mental health services in particular are now so poor as to be almost nonexistent. There are areas of the country where a child can wait so long for help that by the time it arrives, four years later, they are no longer a child. In a grim, idiotic irony that is the trademark of a government that marries callousness to incompetence, the more severe your illness, the more labyrinthine and inaccessible the treatment: hospital trusts might meet the referral targets for psychotic episodes, but most then fail to meet the standard for providing treatment. Waiting times for severe mental illness besides psychosis aren’t recorded and people describe it as endless limbo.

But the problem starts further up the pipeline: our mental health is worse because our general health is worse. “Britain is objectively sicker than it was a decade ago,” the epidemiologist Michael Marmot wrote in January. Poverty is driving down life expectancy and driving up infant mortality – and, along the way, it’s destroying people’s sanity. Being chronically hungry – as the UN rapporteur noted in November, with some horror, that many people are in Britain – harms your state of mind, as does not being able to feed your children.

Debt, precarious housing, low wages, punitive benefit sanctions – any one of these factors might reasonably cause a person to fear for their existence. Successive Conservative governments have driven a large number of people to despair and now they want to engage us in a conversation about snowflakes. We shouldn’t dignify it.

If the premise is built on an untruth, it is not surprising that no single point is true, either. Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, is calling these ideas the “biggest welfare reforms in a generation”, but 14 years is much less than a generation and, in this time, welfare has been reformed significantly. Universal credit, introduced 11 years ago, was never benchmarked to a meaningful assessment of need, with the result that 90% of households claiming it, as of last summer, are unable to afford the essentials.

If that was the intention – to move low-income families on to the breadline – that is hands down the most successful reform the Tories have enacted. Pip, the benefit these reforms are coming for, was itself a reform of the disability living allowance. It is known for assessment criteria so harsh and nonsensical that, if anxiety isn’t one of your symptoms at the start of it, it generally is by the end.

The whole wheeze is underpinned by the fact that Sunak doesn’t have time to make meaningful changes to anything. Maybe he thinks he is laying a trap for Labour. Maybe he thinks the injection of fresh cruelty will boost his support in the local elections. If there is anything more disgusting than the sight of a half-billionaire rolling up his sleeves for a “benefits crackdown” in the middle of a cost of living crisis, the realities of which he wouldn’t be able to imagine even if it occurred to him to try, I can’t think of it.

[thelandofbritain]

Smoke and mirrors... so many lies, damn lies and statistics that distort the truth.

How does the average voter decide what's true?

The main thing, however, is to GET THE TORIES OUT for good. Their lies, corruption and incompetence must end now, after FOURTEEN YEARS of chaos. The country is on its knees financially after austerity, Brexit, and the arrogant idiocy of Cameron, Johnson, Truss and Sunak.

Our public services are cut to the bone, our waters are polluted because of privatisation, the standards of healthcare and social care for the elderly have fallen well below what's needed, and we can't even get affordable dentistry.

Nobody can afford to buy or rent their first home any more, or save for the future, or pay their energy bills, or afford decent childcare so that both parents can work to pay the bills. THESE ARE BASIC ESSENTIALS IN A CIVILISED SOCIETY, not 'luxuries'.

Instead, the Tories make it easy for their wealthy cronies and donors to AVOID TAX, stash money away in tax havens and pay low wages to their employees.

Britain is broken, and the lying, self-serving Tory government is to blame.

[stephensmithuk]

A Scandal in Bohemia

This is the first of the short stories to be published in The Strand. The character was of course clearly established by this point in A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, which were both serialised in other magazines.

Holmes as aroace - we've got some pretty clear textual implications here. Baring-Gould's belief Holmes and Adler became lovers is rather unfounded, IMHO.

Trincomalee is a port city in what is now Sri Lanka. That would have been a rather long trip for Holmes!

A "slavey" is a maidservant. Watson's wife has let her go for incompetence.

Egria seems to be a mis-rendition of Eger, now the Czech border town of Cheb. Albrecht von Wallenstein was a mercenary commander on the Catholic side in the Thirty Years' War, considered one of the most successful mercs of all time - until he got caught plotting against the Holy Roman Emperor (seemingly trying to negotiate a peace deal behind his back) and was assassinated by his own commanders.

Carlsbad is now Karlovy Vary in Czechia. The German name is used by no less than three American cities.

There was a King of Bohemia, but it was one of the titles held by the Austro-Hungarian Emperor by this point. Franz Joseph I did have a long-standing platonic relationship with an Austrian actress, but was otherwise pretty restrained by the standards of European monarchs.

One popularly cited inspiration for Adler is Lillie Langtry, an American actress who was one of the then Prince of Wales' many mistresses and had a very interesting life, including being the first celebrity "endorser".

A brougham is a four-wheeled carriage with an enclosed compartment for four passengers and an open seat at the front for a driver plus footman. Named after a politician called Lord Brougham.

"Adventress" is a euphemism for courtesan. The king is implying Irene Adler is a high-class prostitute.

The Victorians themselves frequently viewed ladies acting is not that far removed from prostitution and certainly quite a lot of actresses at least dabbled in that.

A prima donna is the leading female performer in an opera company. They had a reputation of being well, prima donnas, hence the term becoming common.

A "cabinet" is roughly equivalent to a 4"x6" photo in size. Not hugely easy to conceal.

A grand in upfront expenses? No wonder Holmes could afford to stage an entire street fight!

A landau is a convertible carriage - the roof can be lowered. They're commonly used for ceremonial occasions, such as royal weddings.

The Inner Temple is one of the four Inns of Court - a professional body for barristers and judges: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_Temple

An ostler was someone who looked after the horses of someone staying at an inn.

"Nonconformist" is a term, falling into disuse now, for Protestants who do not belong to the Church of England, such as the United Reform Church. They were discriminated against, although to a lesser degree than Catholics and nearly all the legal restrictions had gone by 1888. They became a major voting bloc for the Liberal Party and later Labour, with the Church of England historically being "the Tory Party at prayer", although the latter has moved a good deal to the left economically under recent Archbishops.

Women playing male parts - especially young male parts - became a thing in the Restoration period i.e. the reign of Charles II when women were finally allowed on the stage and became rather popular due to the fact these ladies were wearing tights or trousers... so, yeah.

By the late Victorian period, it was still pretty common in burlesque (not that sort!) and pantomime; the tradition of the 'principal boy', a male panto lead character, like Aladdin or Dick Whittington, played by a young woman has gotten rare, but is still a thing. Oh, yes it is, just ask Bonnie Langford.

1880s evening dress was modest by modern standards, it seems.

[it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined]

Genuinely losing my shit that Suella Braverman is re-appointed Home Secretary SIX DAYS after she was forced to resign from that exact role after breaching ministerial standards and sending confidential documents to her personal email, so she could forward to her far right backbench mentor who wasn't supposed to have access to them - AND TO HIS WIFE. Except she accidentally sent it to yet another MP's assistant rather than the wife, and that MP reported her for it.

So she's so incompetent and privileged she either didn't know or didn't care enough to cover her tracks, and is now blatantly lying about it. The woman was ATTORNEY GENERAL before this - y'know, the government's own lawyer????

I really cannot believe Rishi Sunak had the gall to give a speech about "integrity, professionalism and accountability" knowing full well he'd immediately handed all this ammunition to his critics by appointing her AGAIN to one of the key government posts she'd literally just fucked up with zero consequences.

(actually why am I even surprised by the continuing antics of the Tory Clown Club BUT STILL THE INABILITY TO PERFORM BASIC TASKS OF GOVERNANCE WITHOUT PUBLICALLY LYING OR BREAKING THE RULES????)

But she's back!! All ready to carry on pushing through some frankly Russia-level legislation to criminalise peaceful protest. Honestly. The fuck.

[mariacallous]

Britain exists in an imaginary state of crisis about immigration. Nothing soothes this anxiety – not facts, not real numbers of arrivals, not the distinction between migrants in general and asylum seekers in particular. In the past week alone, reports have emerged of illegally detained migrants at overcrowded centres falling ill, of underage sexual assault, and of others being dropped off in the middle of cities and promptly forgotten about. These appalling failures have occurred not because there are too many migrants, but because the government has broken its own asylum system.

This is a crisis by design, not of arrivals. The government is keen to stress the recent increase in Channel crossings, yet asylum applications are half what they were 20 years ago. The real and only cause of the debacle at Manston and other failing centres is this: the number of asylum applications processed within six months has fallen from almost 90% to about 4%. It’s not that more people are arriving than ever before, it’s that more of them aren’t being processed, and so are stuck in the asylum system for years. Efficiency has been dropping sharply since 2014, one year after Theresa May established the “hostile environment” and in the middle of George Osborne’s austerity programme. The intersection of those two forces created an underfunded, cruel Home Office, and with it Britain’s immigration “crisis”.

And it is a crisis that the government has every interest in maintaining, or at least no pressing interest in resolving. The Tories have finessed a narrative in which the country is under a migrant siege that the government is trying valiantly to rebuff, but is frustrated in its efforts by a string of culprits – “activist” lawyers, human rights law, tofu eaters, the Labour opposition. It is that tired fallback of failing rightwing government: plead helplessness in the face of a ubiquitous fifth column, an abstract leftwing blob that only last week the Sunday Telegraph editor, Allister Heath, promoted to the status of wielding “near total intellectual hegemony”.

This pretence is most fruitful with immigration. The government’s failure to maintain living standards and public infrastructure, from health to housing, can be disguised – with the help of the rightwing press – by presenting migrants as a constant drain on those resources. As a bonus, the fear of more of these imaginary parasites pushes voters to the only party that seems appropriately appalled by the threat. Immigrants provide such a valuable alibi for political dereliction that it makes no sense for the Conservative government to fix its broken immigration system. And so the state of emergency must be fostered and, if need be, escalated. In this country, there has never been an immigration crisis and there has always been an immigration crisis.

The illusion of deluge is more easily maintained at certain times than others, giving the false migrant crisis a rhythm that feels genuine as it ebbs and flows in and out of the political and media agenda. But that pulse hasn’t correlated with arrivals – indeed, concerns about immigration waned for a period after Brexit, even as the number of arrivals rose.

Sometimes it is a reflection of shifting patterns of migration. Covid made travel by road – in which migrants are less visible – more challenging, thereby increasing travel by sea. A landing on a shore is much more evocative of the “invasion” of a vast, impossible-to-police border than an unseen stowaway on a truck. At other times, all it takes is a particularly volatile or incompetent person at the top. The framework is so rickety that a loose cannon like Suella Braverman need make only one bad decision, such as failing to find alternative accommodation for those in overcrowded detention centres, for the entire structure to collapse.

But the other reason these landings are high on the government agenda, first under Priti Patel and now under the clumsier Braverman is, well, everything else. Brexit is spent, the economy is in shreds, the Tory party has imploded and there’s no one to blame. The government could never deliver the transformative Brexit it had promised, but what it could do was pretend it was being blocked from delivering it. With the end of EU free movement and the “taking back” of our borders, the Conservatives are exposed. They got what they wanted, and are now in the position of the dog who has caught the car. What use is all this new “control” if it means the government now has to take full responsibility for immigration? Enter Dover, a vast vulnerability.

Asylum seekers have become the government’s own refuge. In them, there is an evergreen problem for which a Tory crusade is the only solution. This is a valuable asset for a government that has run out of road, but can play on everything from fears of terrorism, sexual assault, economic drag and cultural overwhelm to extend its relevance. Like Donald Trump’s wall, or the windmill in Animal Farm, our borders will always be vulnerable and sabotaged by enemies, while our government fights like hell to build them back up.

The only way for progressives to dispel this mythology is to create a competing one. If Britain’s attitudes towards migration could be summoned in a word cloud, the phrases that loom largest would be negative – “hostile environment”, “invasion”, “swarm”, “legitimate concerns”, “illegal migrants”. Not to forgive xenophobia, but when you are constantly barraged by this sort of rhetoric from most of the press and the government, it’s unrealistic to expect any other outcome. The panic strengthens and recedes in line with public messaging and perceptions of how compromised our borders are.

These concerns are not logical. They are based not on the premise that numbers are too large but on the hysteria that when we have no control, no numbers are small enough. So Labour can try to win the immigration argument from the right and stick “Controls on Immigration” on crockery again, but unless the party is willing to crack down and go full-on fascist in its language and policies, the Tories will always be seen as the stronger party on a border that they have successfully painted as weak and porous. In this regard, as well as on patriotism and British identity, Labour has taken a defensive position and simply borrowed from the right rather than created its own distinct, ambitious imagining of a better country, a different border – its own word cloud.

British patriotism and values are not restricted to the flag, the anthem, the royal family, the military and abstract notions of hard work and fairness. They can be about compassion – about a place that we never hear about, one that is welcoming – not full up, but punching above its weight as a refuge and safe harbour. This country isn’t even an aspiration: it is already here, sketched out, waiting for the colours and details to be filled in. It is the same country that, when politicians and the press were cowed by circumstance and withheld their poison, turned up for people from Ukraine, Afghanistan and Hong Kong, whose numbers dwarf arrivals on the southern coast. Kindness has been so stigmatised, rebranded as “virtue signalling”, that people forget it’s out there.

Yes, the risks of openly challenging the immigration crisis myth are high in a political and media culture so utterly hooked on the lie’s benefits. But the result could be the disarming of the right’s most powerful, and, perhaps soon only, political weapon. With a payoff so huge and a lead in the polls, is it not worth a shot?

[hjohn3]

Not If, But When…

As Labour Close In On Power, Is Keir Starmer Ready For The Country He Will Inherit?

By Honest John

MAKE NO MISTAKE, as the dust settled on the local election battlegrounds last Friday and the sheer scale of the Conservative defeat in England became clear, this was the moment that the end of Tory rule at some point next year changed from being theoretical, speculative or hopeful, into certainty. We really should not be surprised. The sweeping out of Conservative councillors (1,061 of them) and the tumbling of Tory controlled local authorities (48 of them) across the length and breadth of what was, as recently as this month, described by commentators as an instinctively Tory nation, is at one with what opinion polls, by elections and local elections have been predicting for nearly eighteen months now. The collapse of Tory support at a scale and pace completely unforeseen in December 2019, has been happening in real time in front of our horrified eyes as Boris Johnson descended into his final disgrace, Liz Truss’ ludicrous premiership imploded in a disaster that would have been funny if it hadn’t been so damaging, and the hapless Rishi Sunak presides over scandal, incompetence, racism and non delivery, even of his unambitious and disingenuous “five promises”. But what makes this Tory rout more devastating than previous defeats this Parliament was not just its scale, but where the damage was inflicted and what it said about an electorate, almost gimlet eyed in its determination to inflict as much damage as it could on the Conservatives. Not only did Labour surge back into contention in the red wall and Leave voting areas that giddy right wing commentators had declared had permanently realigned to Johnsonian Conservatism just three and a half years ago, but the Liberal Democrats swept aside Tory dominance of southern councils that had been blue for over fifty years. All this spoke of tactical voting on an earth shifting scale - a movement of political tectonic plates that will propel Keir Starmer into Downing Street in 2024, ready or not. The Sunak mix of calm government and raw populism that had the right wing press cooing its admiration and trumpeting the “narrowing of the polls” has been revealed as a chimera. Even before last Thursday the national average Labour poll lead had been restored to nearly 17 points and Britain Elects’ latest General Election modelling put Labour on 371 seats, the Tories on 194, the SNP on 37 and the Liberal Democrats on 24: a Labour majority of 92 seats. It is no longer if, but when.

However, the electoral mountain the Tory win of 2019 erected remains a huge challenge for Labour: the Conservatives hold 162 more seats than Starmer’s party - a larger seat discrepancy than that faced by any Opposition since William Hague’s Tories following Tony Blair’s landslide in 1997. The possibility of a hung Parliament, although increasingly unlikely, remains a strong possibility, but this is thin comfort for the Conservatives. With the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cmyru and the Greens all on the political left, the notion that a Labour minority government, probably with at least 120 seats more than the Tories in 2024, being unable to agree a King’s Speech of national repair and reform is fanciful. If those on left of centre are at last beginning to believe an end of what will be 14 years of ruinous and complacent Tory rule may be in sight, the question must be asked: what will Keir Starmer do with the power that is unstoppably heading his way?

The country that Starmer will inherit is deeply troubled, divided and pessimistic. Ten years of austerity economics has sucked growth out of the economy, depressed living standards and impoverished public services; the entirely self destructive process of leaving the EU has left a toxic populist legacy, a diminished economy and a set of unmet promises and deceptions; the casual corruption of the lazy, incompetent and cynical Boris Johnson has debased politics and fed public disaffection towards the country’s leaders, and the catastrophe of Liz Truss’ experiment in tax cutting fundamentalism has caused lasting damage to Britain’s credit worthiness and mortgage markets. This final collapse of the market driven ideology of neoliberalism has left Britain with the lowest growth of the G7; an NHS that can barely provide the most basic level of service in a timely way; a criminal justice system that can no longer cope with crime; sewage pumped into our waterways by under- regulated privatised companies and an asylum and immigration policy as ineffective as it is cruel. Faced with a level of inflation Brexit Britain was utterly unprepared for, this exhausted soap opera of a government have no answers and the British public will require transformative action of the Labour administration that they will eventually put in its place.

In the run up to this year’s local elections however, Starmer exhibited the very worst of his over-cautious, timid and duplicitous political persona. Seemingly unable to trust the electorate or to articulate any form of political vision, the Labour leader again let it be known he was opposed to Proportional Representation (apparently a “long standing” opposition) despite during the 2020 Labour leadership campaign, he implied the precise opposite. The following week he confirmed Labour had “moved beyond” the Party’s commitment to the abolition of University tuition fees (another pledge to Party members in 2020), citing the changed economic circumstances caused by the Ukraine war and the after effects of the Truss/Kwarteng mini-budget - an argument very similar to that used by Jeremy Hunt in his justification for what is effectively Austerity 2.0. This follows on from similar dropping of promises to renationalise the utilities and to support trade unions in their campaigns for better pay and conditions. All politicians make judgements about how to secure wide support in order to win an election. Labour politicians have to do this more than most owing to the structural disadvantages Britain’s institutional, media and electoral systems present to any party of the left. However what is worrying about Starmer’s reduction of Labour’s commitments to what feels like minimalist tinkering, is not simply its political dishonesty - it implies a failure to appreciate just how fundamentally the last thirteen years of reckless and incompetent Conservative rule have damaged not just the British economy but the very fabric of the country itself. Both Harold Wilson and Tony Blair were fortunate: Wilson inherited a broadly uncontested mixed economy which the liberal Tory governments of Eden and Macmillan had managed reasonably well; Blair inherited a growing economy from John Major. Starmer will inherit a shrinking economy, a crisis of growth and productivity, failing public services and, post Brexit, a complete absence of any coherent trade or industrial strategy. What will be required is not minor tweaks here and there but complete reform of Britain’s approach to economic management, its constitution, its relationship with the EU, the sustainability of its public services, particularly health and social care, and its national cohesion. The task awaiting Starmer is more akin to that faced by Clem Attlee in 1945 than his more immediate predecessors. Instead of articulating the size of the task ahead or even giving the impression he recognises that there is one, Starmer implies that he simply wants the voters’ support to introduce a government of improved, and more efficient, political management.

The Conservatives are likely now to collapse into a cauldron of infighting and redefinition. With Brexit’s palpable failure, the ERG is reforming itself into the sinisterly entitled “National Conservatives” in an attempt to mainstream the English nationalism and anti migrant racism that was the bedrock of the Leave campaign and what they believe was fundamental to the Tory 2019 electoral success, into the Conservative Party as a whole. If that sounds like proto fascism, that’s probably because it is, and it is as inimical to historic Toryism as Militant was to Labour’s traditions of gradualist socialism. This movement will be challenged by Liz Truss’ supporters’ adherence to exaggerated Thatcherism, organised within the “Conservative Growth Group” convinced liberal wokery rather than the terrified bond markets, destroyed her premiership. There may even be an attempt by One Nation Toryism to make a comeback given the running out of road of its upstart rivals. Perhaps the Tories will finally break apart and the Right will remain fatally split between nationalist, liberal and free trade wings, but that is unlikely. It will be back and it will again worm its way into power, from which it will, if history is anything to go by, take decades to remove. What could prevent this is a Labour led settlement that not only repairs the damage of the Tory years but sets a path for long term growth and social justice; economic dynamism within a planned economy and constitutional reform, including PR, for the whole of the United Kingdom. Such a settlement could keep the Tories out for a generation and Keir Starmer will have this possible future in his hands. He will, therefore, now come under increased scrutiny from the media but he will also become the recipient of expectations from a cautiously hopeful electorate. The days of dropping policy and ruling things out are suddenly and emphatically over. It is time for Starmer to start telling the country what he will do, rather than what he won’t.

The British public have spoken, and it is time for Keir Starmer to do the same.

8th May 2023

[probablyasocialecologist]

Nobody does class solidarity like the rich. In May 2020, Baroness Dido Harding, a Conservative peer and wife of Conservative MP John Penrose, was appointed to lead the UK’s privatised Coronavirus Test and Trace system, a programme later described by doctors as ‘an utter shambles’. Four months later, she was made interim chief of the National Institute for Health Protection, a body designed by management consulting firm McKinsey to replace Public Health England. The National Institute for Health Protection is overseen by a board including executives from the likes of Waitrose, Jaguar and TalkTalk – the latter of which Harding was previously chief executive, overseeing a period in which over 150,000 customers found their personal data stolen in a data breach.

Harding had never been through a standard recruitment process when she was appointed by the government. Nor had Topshop boss Sir Philip Green when he was selected as David Cameron’s efficiency tsar in 2010, or venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft when he was commissioned in 2012 to provide a review of employment law, in which he suggested that workers might like to trade in their rights for business shares. Nor, for that matter, had Matthew Taylor (CBE) of the Taylor Review. Property developer Richard Desmond also faced no such inconvenience in 2020 when he was allegedly able to influence planning decisions by being rich enough to make a £12,000 donation to the Tory party. No amount of incompetence or negligence is a match for solidarity within the upper echelons of power. Money and influence speak louder than science, evidence, compassion or common sense.

Eve Livingston, Make Bosses Pay: Why We Need Unions

[beyond-far-horizons]

I try to rarely talk politics these days but I just want to say after four years of lies and dragging the UK’s name through the mud, Johnson has finally gotten what he allegedly wanted - the UK is out of Europe. 

No freedom of movement for me and millions of others, increase in racism, UK significantly poorer and meaner than in 2016 all to serve some a**hole Tories and their cronies need for aggrandisement and to evade EU standards.

There’s so much that went into this - Russian and Right-wing deception, the Billionaire press gaslighting us - Brexit was a test for T*ump - that’s been confirmed by key journalists as well as some people on the other side too. 

We were lied to again and again, we were never allowed a second vote despite Vote Leave being fined millions for breaking the law and election rules - they were referred to the police who did nothing ‘for political reasons’. We never had a Mueller style investigation despite confirmed reports of Russian meddling. Most of the UK still don’t know about this because our Press is either controlled by the government or by billionaires like Rupert Murdoch (also owner of Fox News) who hate the EU. The same men lauded as ‘men of the people’ like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are privately educated and wealthy. Jacob Rees Mogg is a tophat and monocle-wearing Dickensian villain who a few days ago (despite apparently being a devout Christian) accused UNICEF of ‘playing politics’ when he was told they are now having to feed children in the UK for the first time because of the greedy, disastrous policies of his despicable government. 

All of these characters have continued their reign of incompetence and greed through the pandemic - their mistakes causing the UK to have one of the world’s highest death tolls whilst they have used the crisis to literally steal from us, siphoning billions in un-tendered contracts to firms run by their mates often with no or little experience in the field.

I could go on, there’s so many levels of sh*t to this but what I will say is that I pray one day that these a**holes get what they deserve, that they pay the full weight of karma for their lies, incompetence and greed and everyone sees them for what they truly are.

The EU may not be perfect but we were a part of it, we helped found it and the other member states are our allies, not these made-up enemies!

I will always be European in my heart and though I see myself a world citizen above all, I still want to show people that most of the people of the UK are against this and we are not all ignorant racist sh*ts and Johnson and co do not represent us. 

[tori-mamoru]

Kakairu game translations

The following is an attempt to translate:

Forgive me for the mistakes or if it doesn’t make sense bc honestly idk

The video was originally put together by ‘pon’ on nico nico douga and reuploaded to youtube. If anyone notices mistakes, please feel free to let me know as I am still learning Japanese, so I have made many guesses on what is being said! *The setting for the first and second scenes basically seem to take place after the mission where they encountered Zabuza and Haku. The final scene is from a different game and seems to be a story arc for Kakashi of some sort. In between - where gameplay is shown from various games - the editor of the video used music from a duet by Inoue Kazuhiko and Seki Toshihiko. Enjoy! 💖

Scene 1   0:00 – 0:43

Iruka: Right, I guess that’s taken care of. How are Naruto and that lot? Is he getting along with his comrades?

Kakashi: Well, he’s getting there…  As you know Uchiha Sasuke is a member too, so there’s a great sense of rivalry but it keeps him on his toes. He’s growing rapidly in hopes of catching up to the one he respects most, you.

Iruka: Is that so?!

Scene 2  0:43-4:00

Naruto: Damn it… If only it was speed-eating ramen, I would definitely win! Huh? Iruka-sensei’s voice?

Iruka: -don’t you understand that this kind of thinking destroys a lot of talent before they’ve become fully qualified?

Kakashi: You think naïvely/optimistically, but you are living as a blind ninja. Ninja are constantly facing death.

Naruto: A-AH… Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei are arguing. Why?!

Iruka: I heard about your mission in the Land of the Waves earlier. [referring to Zabuza and Haku mission]. Wasn’t that incredibly dangerous? If you knew it was more dangerous than a B rank mission, why didn’t you suspend it?

Kakashi: Perhaps you don’t understand as someone who is in the village everyday with the company of children - there are kids who are smaller than Naruto and stronger than me. So I concluded if they couldn’t defeat that level of an opponent there would be no future(?).

Iruka: But if it was an emergency…!

Kakashi: Ninja are even on missions to die. It’s pointless explaining this to you because you’re not on the battlefield.

Iruka: So just how many students’ dreams have you destroyed?

Kakashi: What?

Iruka: I heard from Sandaime. Amongst the students that you have been in charge of, Naruto’s group have been the first you’ve passed, right?

Kakashi: So what’s your point? From the moment they graduate from the academy, they are no longer your students. They’re my subordinates. I have the authority to give them any kind of evaluation.

Iruka: So you completely cut down the kids who don’t measure up to your standards? You do so suddenly without assessing their strengths and weaknesses.

Kakashi: I am just questioning the obvious things as a ninja. Why are there many children who can’t even answer these questions honestly? What on earth are the learning at the academy…?

Iruka: A-are you suggesting that my teaching is bad?

Kakashi: It is us human beings who are in the position to allow incompetent children to graduate and flaunt their deaths. I want you to think about that for a little!

Iruka: N-No matter how much of a jounin you are, there are things you should and shouldn’t say...

Kakashi: Hooo... so what?

Iruka: Even though you’re a jounin…I won’t forgive this!

Naruto: W-Wait a minute. Why are Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei fighting?!

Iruka: Naruto… this is mine and Kakashi’s problem. Step back.

Kakashi: Naruto, after this I’ll show you real ninja battles.

 Last Scene 5:59

Iruka: Kakashi-sensei… so you were here?

Kakashi: [to the memorial] Forgive me…

Iruka: Kakashi-sensei…?

Kakashi: When I come here, I want it to become a warning forever of the fool that I was.

Iruka: My parents are resting here too… The will of fire… the will that protects this village is a strong one. The will of the heroes resting here will surely be passed down to our kids. Anyway, Naruto and the others are waiting for you.

   *First & second scene from Shinobi no Sato no Jintori Kassen; Last scene taken from Naruto: Ultimate Ninja; Song used Furigana Rubi from Warera Konsen Gasshoudan featuring the VAs of Kakashi and Iruka.

Translator’s thoughts: The Kakashi portrayed in the first game seems much harsher than I think he really is which makes this scene very dramatic and angsty imo!

-         translation by @tori-mamoru

[lost-carcosa]

Smells like bullshit, although that's a given considering he's a columnist for the Express.

Oh look, the EU - or more precisely our departure from the EU - had a big impact:

[trevorbarre]

‘Disintegration Tapes’ / Disintegrating Times

I’m pleased to say that my book on the London Musicians’ Collective (LMC) is now at it’s formatting phase, and I quietly hope to “have it in the shops” next month (November). By “shops”, I mean The Wire Bookshop, my website and, hope against hope, even Waterstones, if I can navigate the latter’s byzantine publishing requirements. We shall see.

I spent the early months of the first lockdown (March-May) completing the LMC project, and barely read anything else at all. Instead, I gorged on Netflix and YouTube, as, I suspect, did much of the UK. I lost my reading mojo for a time, but have now rediscovered it, and have consumed three ‘party political’ tomes, an area into which I seldom venture. These consist of one ‘right wing’ and two ‘left wing’ publications, all of which have left me feeling that this country is on it’s own disintegrative ’loop’, the obvious accompanying soundtrack to which must surely be William Basinski’s celebrated Disintegration Loops, his massive, digital tape-decaying, ambient minimalist masterpiece, wherein you can feel and experience lapse and loss in real time. If there was ever a true ‘hauntological’ work, then this is it. Reading these three books, which variously describe the UK political scene of the last Tory-heavy decade, left me feeling that they all contributed to a literary correlative of Basinski’s six- part opus. From the Conservative side, we have Sasha Swire’s Diary of an MPs Wife: Inside and Outsider Power, and in the left hand corner, we have Owen Jones’ This Land: the Story of a Movement, and Left Out: the Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn by Gabriel Posgrund and Patrick Maguire. I would heartily recommend all three.

Like Basinski’s composition, the past decade seems to me to be a narrative of declining and decelerating standards, presentation and meaning, resulting in an overall sense of sadness and  lamentation (Lamentations is the title of Basinski’s most recent release, by the way.) Swire’s ‘ex-MP husband’ is the lightweight Hugo Swire, whose existence I had been unaware of till his wife’s book, and whose main achievement appears to consist of being a close chum of ‘Dave’ Cameron and his spouse ‘Sam-Cam’. Her book is an entertaining piece of gossip-lit (although she clearly thinks that she is politically smart, which she definitely isn’t.) What sadly comes across is a massively entitled, spoilt smartass (as you would expect, given the territory), who clearly has the hots for Cameron and ‘Boy George’ Osborne. What effectively sums Swire up is her statement that ‘“history will judge Dave kindly”, a notion which is surely borderline delusional. 

History, unfortunately, will probably not judge Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour Party kindly either, going on the two books which describe his time as leader. Toxic factionalism stalk the pages of these books, and demonstrates how ultimately unsuitable the party was for government/ ‘high office’, with JC coming across as weak, conflict-avoidant, rigid and faintly arrogant, behind the bumbling bonhomie. And these were written by Corbyn sympathisers! The sheer inescapable fact that they were crushed by probably the worst, most corrupt administration in my lifetime sums up the whole dysfunctional mess, the right ‘Blairite’ wing of the Labour Party appearing particularly nasty and personal in their behaviour and actions, with the ‘Corbynistas mostly seeming merely inexperienced, incompetent and chaotic. There was never any chance of this party, in its then-form, winning any election, with the 2017 iteration merely providing Labour with premature false hope, what with Theresa May’s anti-charisma and her lack of social media savvy. Corbyn’s Glastonbury ‘rock star’ moment retrospectively looks like a ghastly moment of over-confidence and hubris. Jeremy, like his nemesis Boris, liked the lazy limelight of the converted.

Our  nation’s current situation, with a government bent on denying poor children school meals, ffs, shows how decayed we have become over the past decade, our moral, ethical and intellectual compass disintegrated by a party that appears bent on becoming as amoral as the repellent modern Republican Party. ‘Vote Biden!’ seems the only rallying call that can offer some hope for us at the present time, and one that might give Boris Johnson and his cabinet of all-the-no-talents some pause for thought if Sleepy Joe (hopefully as in ‘Sleepy’ John Estes?) wins this most significant of modern elections. Maybe “there is no alternative” of “The End of History” might prove to be somewhat premature?

William Basinski’s Disintegration Tapes 1-6 are required listening, and are available on YouTube, with suitable accompanying visual imagery.

[uk-news-talking-politics]

The failure of Cummings' British culture war

By Chaminda Jayanetti

They were meant to be good at this. That was the whole point of them. Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings didn't have much to commend them, but having their finger on the pulse of the public was meant to be their one special skill.

Instead Tory MPs are being deluged with furious letters and emails from voters - often Tory voters, Leave voters - furious that the prime minister's henchman was allowed to swan across the country when people were locked in their homes and their loved ones died alone.

How have they got it so wrong?

The category error made by this government's advisers, supporters and indeed its critics was to mistake Britain for America.

Yes, there is a values divide in British (not just English) society - particularly on immigration and sovereignty, and to a lesser degree on law and order and political correctness.

Cummings and Johnson exploited these divisions to win the EU referendum and then channelled that support towards hard Brexit, pitching a 'them and us' narrative which saw some of the richest people in the country deride others as the elite.

This worked for two reasons. First, it told a lot of instinctively eurosceptic, anti-immigration voters that they could have what they wanted. Second, it created caricatures of Remainers that these voters not only could not identify with, but actively identified against: Guardian-reading liberals in expensive Islington townhouses (the sort Cummings lives in), politically correct student activists who'd find all your jokes offensive, and the whispered smearing of London as a city that is not truly English - meaning, bluntly, not truly white.

What none of it involved was God.

There are three pillars to America's culture wars: 'freedom', racism, and religion. America's mad mutation of personal freedom into a 'Live Free or Die' creed of gun rights and hating 'the state' goes well beyond Britain's understanding of civil liberties. Racism, while ever-present here, does not run as wide nor as deep as it does in the States.

But the role of religion is the biggest contrast. The tens of millions of Americans who believe that abortion is murder, homosexuality is evil and sinners will burn in hell are wedded to such stances in a way unimaginable in contemporary Britain's secular politics.

Factor in the enormously influential Fox News, whose commitment to fake news makes the Sun look like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and it is easy to see why such voters turn out each election to back a Republican party that promises to uphold Biblical bigotry and bog standard racism no matter what - even if the candidate is a serial philanderer like Donald Trump, and even when that party's other policies threaten their homes and health.

White religious conservatives are bound to the Republicans by God. That creates a bond of trust that is similarly fervent on any issue - be it on guns, tax, the media, anything. Give them a man who'll endorse their every last prejudice, and they will believe whatever he says and forgive whatever he does.

No such dynamic exists in Britain. Nothing even comes close.

That is why coronavirus became a culture war in America but not the UK. In the US, Fox News, the Republican right and the demented end of the internet combined to cast the pandemic, lockdown and vaccines as vast conspiracies to a cult like audience.

But in Britain, older voters - Boris' base - were the most supportive of lockdown before Johnson backed it. The anti-lockdown movement promoted by conspiracists, Spectator columnists and Nigel Farage was a pathetic embarrassment. Opposition to lockdown never rose much beyond ten per cent of the public.

More recently, the relative national unity behind the government collapsed even before the Cummings scandal broke, as its blatant mishandling of the pandemic cost it the support of Labour voters. Again, this was not a culture war or values divide. It was about trust. Yes, Leave voters voted Tory because they trusted Johnson to deliver Brexit. He was their guy - they gave him more leeway, more benefit of the doubt. But the trust they placed in him over the pandemic was not about the Brexit divide, because the pandemic is not about the Brexit divide.

That bond of trust is now fraying rapidly, hacked by the twin blades of a catastrophic death toll and an adviser and prime minister who are treating the public like fools.

Cummings' defence was the display of someone who as a child might have scribbled out the word 'truth' from his first dictionary. Even if his trip to Durham were morally excusable, his subsequent jolly to Barnard Castle patently was not. It was blatant and unnecessary flouting of the rules, even accepting his implausible stated reason.

He was able to state that reason in a time and manner of his choosing, with the full backing of the prime minister, in front of the nation. Those brusquely arrested and charged by police for infringing the lockdown rules over the last two months enjoyed rather less leeway. It is just another inequality in a crisis defined by inequalities.

For all the lies and bad faith on show, some will be persuaded by it - primarily those who want to be. Others will feel it's time to move on. After all, if Johnson wants him to stay then what else can be done? He's given his side, what use is there in dragging this out? Let the government focus on dealing with the pandemic.

But the Cummings episode is not an aberration. It is not some deviation from the Tories' norm. It is the Tories' norm.

Secrecy, incompetence, dishonesty and detachment from reality have marked the government’s entire, shambolic, world-trailing handling of the pandemic. They rarely publish the scientific advice they claim to base their decisions on. They whip out targets to draw attention from their failings, then fail to meet those targets, then lie about the failures. They created a catastrophe in care homes and then simply denied it to our faces.

The Tories, in one guise or another, have spent a decade in government without knowing or understanding what it is they are governing, dismissing swathes of lower-profile public services as 'bureaucrats' or 'public sector waste'. Thus their response to the pandemic paid little attention to public health infrastructure, cut council leaders out of discussions, and treated care homes as a dumping ground to clear NHS beds for new covid inpatients - as we now see, with catastrophic results.

And why would a government led by a pampered faux-aristocrat advised by an angry cosplaying philosopher king with a family castle have any idea that care workers inhabit a world where they can't afford to take time off sick?

The government will attempt to move on and get back to the job in hand. There is no reason to believe that will make things better. A faulty engine will go on sputtering. A malfunctioning printer will keep chewing up paper. Cummings is one of the many malfunctions in Britain's government, and a key one at that. When he operates, things go wrong. That is the norm we would return to.

And what millions of people will continue to see - with no need for a half hour drive - is a government lying in order to retrospectively move the goalposts to protect an unelected adviser. A government that does not care about the truth, does not care about fairness, and does not care that setting fire to its own guidance risks undermining key public health messages that are meant to save lives.

Johnson will throw everything, including the country's safety, under the bus to save his key strategist. Because his only strategy is to bang a culture war drum pitting the masses against a nebulous 'elite' that somehow comprises anyone who disagrees with him.

But in shielding Cummings, he is showing millions of his own voters that he and his adviser are the elite, for whom the rules are purely advisory.

It is the rest of us, with no private woodland or family castles, who are all in it together.

[mobscene-london]

BASIC INFORMATION:

NAME: Revati Sharma. AGE: 33. PLACE OF BIRTH: Birmingham, United Kingdom. AFFILIATION: Neutral. The Rutherford Family (former)  OCCUPATION: Bar Owner. Assassin (former)   FACE CLAIM: Deepika Padukone. AVAILABILITY: TAKEN.

      BIOGRAPHY:

Revati had grown up in an area of Birmingham of which ‘rough’ was far too kind a word for. Those she called friends were only company due to a lack of other options, not because they cared about her. Most were the kind of people that it was safer to appease than disappoint, and so the easily influenced teenager often did what they asked without question. It was better to have even them than be alone.

Killing a man was different, though.

They’d all been a bunch of half-arsed gangsters—they thought they had to be to survive—but committing murder seemed a stretch, even by their standards. Especially when they were expecting her to do it for them…

Even when she was young, she had the kind of personality that drew people to her; the smile that could light up a room, her most famous trait of all. In a neighbourhood that was notoriously unkind, she was the exception, and nobody could quite figure out why. That was why they used her the way they did. Revati distracted shopkeepers who thought she was far too kind and innocent to do anything wrong, whilst her friends lined their pockets with whatever they could get their hands on. She was the only one that could sweet talk parents into thinking they were behaving, and so they made her. She was also the only one who could get close to creeps, and slip God only knows what into their drinks.

“He likes young girls,” they told her, and she believed them. “So, let him take you home, and then make sure this goes in his vodka.”

And that was what separated her from the rest of the people who shared her chosen ‘profession’.

Revati couldn’t just murder for the sake of it; although given her previous financial position, she didn’t really have much choice in passing up the kind of money people offered as her reputation grew. She would only take a life if she knew the person had done wrong. Hurt innocent people in some way. It made it easy. Like she was helping, even if deep down she knew that she was going about it in the wrong way. Whilst it often clashed with the ideals of those who sought to employ her, she didn’t care, because as far as she was concerned, they could always find someone else. She did not work for anyone’s ego.

Accidental overdose was her MO, and the people that she was tasked to dispose of were usually so shady, it wasn’t suspicious. But, when it was, no one would have ever suspected her. That was the beauty of it all. Revati was as meticulous with her clean-up as she was the least likely personality to be involved with such crimes.

Naturally, it didn’t take long for people to take notice of the services she’d been offering. And when the Rutherfords heard about the charming young lady who could lure just about any man to his death, their operation in Birmingham scooped her up, pushed her onto a plane, and offered her the opportunity of a lifetime. Porto Velho. America.

Working under Adrian had proved to be as much a pleasure as it was a relief, but it didn’t dismiss the frank reality that The Rutherfords were analogous to the very people she would have ordinarily agreed to assassinate—cozying up to them seemed hypocritical enough to warrant a second thought. She had never known money; especially not the kind she’d been exposed to in their presence. Even when she had taken cash for her services back home in England, it was only ever small amounts.

In PV they’d tried to tempt her away from her one golden rule: bad people only.

She refused to be bought.

Whilst working for Adrian had been a huge part of her role in PV, it was absolutely not the only thing she’d focused on.

Bartending, gaining business experience, building a resume; making herself look better on paper. It had mattered. Though her Rutherford associates would joke about her being part-time, it was clear to Revati that she didn’t want to commit murder for the rest of her life. It was through a pursuit of normality, working an ordinary job, that she found hope in a future beyond that which she had always been—a criminal. Her time at The Empire would eternally be significant to her despite how poorly her years in America came to an end.

Her parents weren’t wrong in calling their beta a fool. Having feelings for a best friend was testy, but it was another form of idiocy to have them for Lara Rutherford’s man. Despite years of attempting to move on from her fondness—including a genuine try after his engagement—when the wedding of the century became a public failure, and the blow too heavy to bear for her best friend, Revati embarrassed even herself. When Amir escaped the pain in America for England, she followed. She reasoned that it was a long time coming; that she didn’t want to become the ‘French killer’ Adrian had trained her to be. That her partner would understand. That her time as an assassin was over. That money was too corrupting.

Fair excuses but excuses all the same.

In the naivety freedom, she returned to her home country having said little-to-no goodbyes. Ignorant of very real information against her person that exists, Revati’s homecoming was immediately tamed by her family’s remarks on her pride. Despite her role as a consoling best friend, she instantly started working on her own business; an achievement that couldn’t be taken away from her. Pursuing that which she knew, grateful to have insanely wealthy acquaintances since her time in PV, she opened a bar in prime London real estate.

Ironic to her personal views, The Spin Room, is for the politically inclined. It’s a common stop for politicians in London, obliging the long time criminal to converse with MPs on the daily. As a Brummie, especially as a once-poor British-Indian one, she can’t refute that her opinion on the government has always been negative. Her keen position on taking their money, versus the publics, continues to waver though as she interacts with them more often.

Supporting them silently might be her only hope as her nightmare has reappeared—the Rutherfords. With the criminal underworld back in London, Revati is appallingly aware that her history will do her no favors as her city is consumed by a shadow of corruption and death. She worries about the people most important to her, and herself, because she knows that she’ll jump back into the fray if it means keeping them safe.

At the end of the day, she understands, there really is no escaping the mob scene.   

    SOCIAL CONNECTIONS:

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Amir Dawar (boyfriend) Dev Daryani (ex-boyfriend) FAMILY: Neel, Saffi, Mitali Ghale (cousins), Leela Sharma (mother, unplayable), Ajay Sharma (father, unplayable) CONNECTIONS:

Delphine St. Clair: Lambeth Commandant. One would be an utter moron to miff a literal St. Clair, so it’s more than fair to say Revati isn’t looking to bother, but Lambeth was her home. It was no secret that the constituency is riddled with crime, but she isn’t keen on seeing it worsen with the French touch.

Tory MPs Silas Agreste, Cassandra Acton, and Spencer Berkeley: Patrons. Considering Revati could choke the Birmingham Labour MPs for their incompetence in her hometown, she’s inclined to think the Tories have backbone. Like the invisible hand of the government, feeding their quality of life as citizens, she might find it in herself to give them things to ‘drink’ on.

Adrian Castillo: Former boss. In spite of being a chilling member of the Rutherford Family faction, time with Adrian had been a gift. What regrets she has about not communicating her leave with him are gone with the wind over the stress of having him and his assassins in the city. She doesn’t want Adrian as an enemy, but he might be after everything that has happened. 

[sexydeathparty]

Tory MP Christian Wakeford Defects To Labour Amid Partygate Mutiny

A Conservative MP has defected to the Labour Party amid fury over Boris Johnson’s partygate scandal.

Christian Wakeford - a “red wall” MP elected in 2019 - crossed the floor to join Keir Starmer’s party just minutes before prime minister’s questions. 

Labour MPs cheered and whooped as Wakeford took a seat on the opposition benches in a Union Jack face mask.

It comes after the MP for Bury South branded the partygate scandal “embarrassing” in a series of damning comments last week.

Wakeford is thought to be among at least ten Tories elected in 2019 who have submitted letters of no confidence in Johnson’s leadership.

The outspoken MP, who has a majority of 402, hit the headlines during the so-called “sleaze scandal” when he called the Tory MP at the epicentre of the crisis Owen Paterson a “c***”.

And in a candid letter today, Wakeford told Johnson: “My decision is about much more than your leadership and the disgraceful way you have conducted yourself in recent weeks.”

Wakeford wrote: “From today I will be sitting as the Labour MP for Bury South because I have reached the conclusion that the best interests of my constituents are served by the programme put forward by Keir Starmer and his party.

My decision is about much more than your leadership and the disgraceful way you have conducted yourself in recent weeks.Christian Wakeford's letter to Boris Johnson

“I care passionately about the people of Bury South and I have concluded that the policies of the Conservative government that you lead are doing nothing to help the people of my constituency and indeed are only making the struggles they face on a daily basis worse.”

Wakeford went on to say the country needed a government focused on tackling the cost of living crisis and a path out of the pandemic.

And in another barb aimed at the prime minister, the MP added: “It needs a government that upholds the highest standards of integrity and probity in public life and sadly both you and the Conservative Party as a whole have shown themselves incapable of offering the leadership and government this country deserves.”

Wakeford said he had “wrestled” with his conscience for “many months” but had decided: “I can no longer support a government that has shown itself consistently out of touch with the hard working people of Bury South and the country as a whole.”

Leader of the Labour Party Starmer was noticeably buoyed as he kicked off today’s PMQs. 

A very warm welcome to Christian Wakeford MP! The new Labour MP for Bury South. 🌹 pic.twitter.com/kfpbob6VC9

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) January 19, 2022

“I would like to welcome Christian Wakeford to the Labour Party. He has always put the people of Bury South first,” Starmer said in a statement.

“As Christian said, the policies of the Conservative government are doing nothing to help the people of Bury South and indeed are only making the struggles they face on a daily basis worse.

“People across Britain faces a cost of living crisis but this incompetent Tory government is asleep at the wheel, distracted by a chaos of its own making. 

I would like to welcome Christian Wakeford to the Labour Party.Keir Starmer

“Meanwhile families, businesses and pensioners are suffering from the Conservative failure to tackle rising food, fuel and energy prices.

“Labour are the only ones who have put forward a plan to help people through the Tory cost of living crisis.

“I’m determined to build a new Britain which guarantees security, prosperity and respect for all and I’m delighted that Christian has decided to join us in this endeavour.”

We will win again in Bury South.Boris Johnson

Johnson hit back at Starmer, telling him: “The Conservative Party won Bury South for the first time in a generation under this prime minister on an agenda of uniting and levelling up and delivering for the people of Bury South. We will win again in Bury South.”

Meanwhile, culture secretary Nadine Dorries said Wakeford “has yet to realise that the Union Jack mask he is wearing to cross the floor to Labour, is not welcome on that side of the house”.

MPs from the 2019 intake were said to have met yesterday to discuss Johnson’s future in a gathering dubbed the “pork pie plot” because of the alleged involvement of Melton Mowbray’s MP Alicia Kearns.

How do you defend the indefensible? You can’t! It’s embarrassing and what’s worse is it further erodes trust in politics when it’s already low. We need openness, trust and honesty in our politics now more than ever and that starts from the top!

— Christian Wakeford MP (@Christian4BuryS) January 12, 2022

The group appear to have lost faith in the PM, after he admitted attending a “bring your own booze” event in the Downing Street garden during England’s first coronavirus lockdown.

Johnson made another grovelling apology yesterday in which he repeatedly claimed he thought the garden party at Downing Street was a “work event” and suggested “nobody told me” it broke lockdown rules.

However, Johnson’s bid to placate party and public appeared to only ramp up fury from his own benches.  

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. Follow HuffPost UK on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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