Russ Jones has done it again. Expect updates!
1. Our new PM, Margarine Thatcher, said she was “absolutely committed” to cutting tax for the rich
2. Then she cancelled tax cuts the rich
3. Truss boasted she was prepared to make unpopular decisions
4. But her decisions were unpopular, so she cancelled them
5. Truss was asked “How many people voted for your plan”, and replied…
6.
7.
8. [ profound silence ]
9.
10.
11. … “What do you mean by that?”
12. Thatcher famously said “The lady’s not for turning”
13. Truss has done 8 U-turns since she began her leadership campaign
14. She rotates so often, she’d be more useful if you painted “MOT” on one side, “TEST” on the other, and stuck her on the pavement outside Kwik Fit
15. Her abandoned 10-day experiment with tax cuts has cost us £65bn
16. If you can't imagine what £65bn looks like, just think of a thermonuclear moron relentlessly burning £3,600 per hour, every single hour since the birth of Christ
17. While 3 million Britons need foodbanks
18. But think of the real victims: Kwasi Kwarteng said the meltdown had “really ruined my sleep”
19. A Kwarteng ally the problem was that Kwasi is TOO clever
20. Kwarteng is the smartest man in the room, as long as the room only contains Gavin Williamson and cheese mould
21. To demonstrate this point, Hedge-funders at the champagne party to celebrate the budget describe him “a useful idiot”
22. But Kwarteng said he was only at the party for 15 minutes, and somebody else organised it, which is a defence that worked a treat for Boris Johnson
23. Tory chair Jake Berry was also at the party, and defended it – and I use the word "defended" quite wrongly – by saying the bankers who profited from the Tory Party's sinking economy “should be lauded” for making political donations to – yep – the Tory Party
25. Berry went on to say people who can’t pay bills as a result of his party’s policies should “get higher salaries or higher wages and go out there and get that new job”
26. Only last month Tories were telling us not to ask for higher wages cos it would cause inflation
27. In her leadership campaign Truss promised to “hit the ground”, and this weekend she apologised for not “laying the ground”
28. She's like a wife-beater, but for mud
29. British Gas had to take out a full-page advert to correct the PM’s misinformation about energy bills
30. Truss was warned too. Insiders told her, “Don’t do this, no one will like it” and she responded “I don’t care”
31. She cares now
32. Senior officials inside Downing St describe her as “completely mad”
33. Another Number 10 insider said the government is “f*cking insane”
34. Tory MPs are unhappy. They preferred it when Truss disguised her incompetence more competently
35. The Times reported they could not find a single Tory backbencher who supported what we still have to call "the mini-budget".
36. Certainly not Michael Gove, the Tory Party’s emotional support turbot, who said “I don’t believe the budget is right”
37. Meanwhile top Scottish Tory Douglas Ross – not a hard position to reach, since there are only 6 competitors – urged Holyrood to “match these bold plans”
38. Now he’s going to have to urge Holyrood to NOT match these bold plans, cos they boldly abandoned them in today's sweaty lunge at the Tory policy tombola
39. Truss claims she didn’t make the decision on tax, it was Kwarteng
40. Kwarteng says it was all Chris Philp’s idea
41. And Chris Philp said he “wasn’t the prime mover in this”
42. Police are on the lookout for the Big Boy who did it, and then ran away
43. Anyway, my advice to the entire govt is to is invest heavily in Marmalade Futures, cos they’re toast
44. Enter Simon Clarke, who is so devoid of personality that his official portrait is the curtains behind him
45. Clarke said “if I was to describe one word for Liz, it is purposeful” just as she abandoned her purpose
46. Clarke defended bungs for the rich while promising the govt would slash our “very large welfare state”
47. Two points: he’s the f*cking levelling-up minister; and our benefits are the least generous in Europe, lower than 36 comparable economies, and half the OECD average
48. Chris Philp, a shaved Afghan hound who has accidentally got a job in the treasury, continued our deep-dive into insanity by saying “no business under 500 people will be subject to business regulations”
49. Presumably this means your local chippy can now serve you anthrax 👍🏽
50. Philp promised to change the regulations so more companies can be described as “small business”
51. I'll save him the effort: if his shambolic party remains in office, half the FTSE will be a small business by Christmas
52. Anyway: after a month in the job Truss's approval is lower than Boris Johnson’s was in the final poll before he was forced from office
53. Speaking of which, constitutionally slack-brained Boris Johnson irrumator (don't Google that word) Nadine Dorries is back on Twitter
54. Dorries loyally celebrated her return by loyally criticising Truss for “throwing the Chancellor under a bus”, and claiming one of Boris Johnson’s faults was that he was TOO loyal
55. This will come as stunning news to all of of Boris's ex-wives and mistresses
56. Over 70 per cent of voters think the Truss has “lost control of the economy” after only 26 days in office, 3 of which she spent out of the country, and another 14 mourning the last monarch
57. Then Truss continued her winning-streak by falling out with the new monarch
58. She told the King, a life-long climate campaigner, to stay away from the COP27 climate summit, so she can water down our climate commitments without him intervening
59. Climate is the remit of Jacob Rees-Mogg, the waxy corpse of an exhumed Regency orphanage-worrier
60. Rees-Mogg claimed the collapse in the pound was because we didn’t do any fracking 2 years ago
61. He said fracking would go now ahead, with the approval of local communities
62. He then said areas may be “encouraged to frack” by bribing them with “GP surgeries and schools”
63. “Vote for your town to be rattled by earthquakes. pollution and environmental damage while we destroy the climate for a quick profit, or we won't provide you with healthcare or education for your kids” is a very on-brand message for this govt
64. Rees-Mogg was booed as he arrived at the Tory conference, but said “They’re shouting but it’s perfectly peaceful. And the right to peaceful expression of your view is fundamental to our constitution.”
65. JRM voted for the Tory bill that outlaws noisy protest
66. While we were all distracted by a budget fiasco that we didn't vote for, Truss quietly appointed Rees-Mogg’s business partner (and Tory donor) to be a trade minister that we didn't vote for – he's not an MP so she sent him to the House of Lords for life. Because democracy
67. Democracy part 2: days after Number 10 said it would stop the highly questionable practice of allowing the PM’s chief of staff to be paid by a private lobbying group, 2 more senior advisors to Truss were found to be doing exactly the same thing
68. Irradiated gerbil Suella Braverman said the UK has “too many migrant workers” and “they’re not contributing to growing our economy”
69. On the same day, her smooth-brained boss Liz Truss said we must “increase the number of migrant workers”, to help “grow the economy”
70. And now, off to Birmingham for the Tory Party’s annual gobshite jamboree
71. Half the hall was empty
72. The chair of the Young Conservative Network got things off to a great start by describing Birmingham as "a dump”
73. He apologised for the misunderstanding, saying “I’ve always enjoyed my visits to your city”
74. In the last year he's tweeted “Birmingham is firmly the worst city in the UK” and “Birmingham is the worst city in the UK”, so I can see how we might have misunderstood him
75. And he's also tweeted “Birmingham has one of the highest Muslim population in Britain, you can draw conclusions from that”
76. Oh, I’m drawing conclusions, Daniel Grainger. I’m drawing them HARD
77. It's only Monday
I am contractually obliged to mention my forthcoming book, but please give money to a foodbank rather than to me. This is the donation page for the Trussell Trust:
https://www.trusselltrust.org/
Thank you: hungry people will eat because of your generosity
Originally tweeted by Russ Jones (@RussInCheshire) on 03/10/2022.
