Warning: strong language. Ed
Because I was busy last week, this episode of The Week in Tory covers more than seven days, but not – you’ll be amazed to hear – the 700 years it would take most governments to get through this lot.
Remember, it’s OK to want to scream or take drugs during this epic.
Brace, brace…
1. The Tories lost 2 by-elections in a single night, and by record-breaking amounts.
2. A dignified response came from defeated Tory candidate Helen Hurford, who locked herself in a dance studio (the traditional fridge presumably being unavailable).
3. Inspired by Hurford expressing herself via the hidden medium of secret dance, our heroic PM Boris Johnson ran away from his own party conference.
4. One of his own MPs said his absence was “no great loss to us”.
5. Another said “he’s shown absolute contempt for colleagues”.
6. Sinister count (not a typo) Michael Howard said the PM should resign.
7. Robert Buckland said Johnson should “look in the mirror and do better”.
8. Johnson seems to have been face-down over lots of mirrors, so he skipped a queue of 500,000 patients to get his septum fixed.
9. Meanwhile Tory Chairman and adenoidal, chronically be-Tangoed culture warrior Oliver Dowden managed to cancel himself by quitting.
10. Mouth of Sauron Priti Patel had her usual grasp of reality, and said “we’ve done incredibly well” in elections they’d just massively lost.
11. Hot on Patel’s cloven-heels was Boris Johnson, who said he would “listen to voters”.
12. Voters said they wanted him to quit.
13. Johnson immediately abandoned listening to voters, said their opinion “doesn’t matter”, and the public should “expect more of the same”.
14. He then announced he wanted to remain in power until at least 2030, and tragically he didn’t mean half-past-eight.
15. To prove he was up to the epic and wildly improbably task of being in the job another decade, he organised a photo-op of himself going “jogging”.
16. He was dropped 25 feet away in a chauffeur-driven car, and then got out and pretended to finish a run.
17. Only three weeks after one third of his MPs voted against him in no-confidence vote, “several dozen” of his MPs submitted letters demanding another no-confidence vote right away.
18. His ethics advisor, Lord Geidt, resigned after being asked by Johnson to break the law.
19. And the government refused to release records of Johnson’s “negotiations” with his old chums as he was handing out massive and iffy Covid contracts to them;
20. but a Tory peer took £3000 per month (undeclared) from a company in return for “opening doors” to those cushy contracts.
21. Emails show him saying he “would not promote the company” in getting contracts from human spork Matt Hancock unless he was (unlawfully) paid for it.
22. To prove they’re in nobody’s pockets, Tories auctioned off dinner with Johnson, tottering avian monstrosity Theresa May, and glistening polyp David Cameron for £120k.
23. Johnson’s anti-corruption tsar (John Penrose, MP for Weston-super-Mare) – who also quit – said “you can’t just pretend this stuff doesn’t matter”.
24. But small business minister, flocculent walnut and master of the Freudian slip Paul Scully said it doesn’t matter because “politicians are held accountable at the bollocks box”.
25. And speaking of bollocks, Johnson buggered off to Ukraine again.
26. Analysis shows every single official call or visit to Zelensky has come within 4 hours of Johnson facing another self-caused crisis.
27. Anyway, with Johnson gone, Etch-a-Sketch thunderc*nt Dominic Raab was left in charge, and Britain immediately ground to a complete halt.
28. Grant Shapps falsely pretended it was all cos airlines had sold every seat to two passengers.
29. Criticising two people occupying one space is a bit rich from Shapps, who has more identities than Jason Bourne (who people also travel halfway round the world just to punch).
30. Airline bosses said the problems were unrelated to seats, but “completely to do with Brexit” which had been an “abject failure”.
31. Over 8000 job applications to help fix the airport problems had to be rejected because Brexit means we can’t employ them.
32. Meanwhile rail strikes began, and Shapps said it was “crazy” to suggest he wanted them to go ahead.
33. Train service operators said Grant Shapps had stepped in to rule that he would “not allow” them to negotiate with unions to avoid strikes.
34. Shapps, minister responsible for transport (but not understanding his own job), refused to join in talks cos “it is not my responsibility”.
35. During the pandemic he took back from rail companies the responsibility to negotiate terms – so it literally is his responsibility.
36. Addled Tory MP and bewitched thumb Mark Jenkinson said the strikes were “a vision of Labour’s Britain”, seemingly struggling to remember who the govt is right now.
37. Two-thirds of the public support the strikes.
38. Polls also showed the public think the govt is failing HUGELY on inflation, immigration, the economy, NHS, housing, tax, transport, benefits, crime, Brexit, the environment, education and employment.
39. So, just the minor stuff, then?
40. As a free bonus, they’ve also chosen to fail on decency: after an earthquake hit Afghanistan, Liz Truss, ITV4 made flesh, said “the UK stands ready to support them”.
41. 1600 Brits had offered homes to Afghan refugees, but in 9 months only 2 refugees have been placed.
42. A report blamed government “disorganisation and chaos”, costing £1.2 million a day.
43. So the govt cut the number of staff working to fix it by 25 per cent.
44. The PM said, “This is a very, very generous, welcoming country”, and to prove it, they’re going to electronically tag migrants.
45. The tagging plan breaks the government’s own guidance, which was published – by the Tories – in January.
46. The Times said Priti Patel was furious at UK judges who stopped her shipping desperate refugees who had broken no laws off to Rwanda, and she called the judges “racist”.
47. Given who said it, this demented claim is only extraordinary because it replaced a far more important story:
48. The Times had originally used the space to cover Johnson’s attempts to give Carrie – then his mistress – two £100k senior jobs when he was foreign secretary.
49. Johnson had then called The Times and pressured them to pull the story – and they did, despite the story being true.
50. Dying palm-tree Michael Fabricant claimed Johnson had merely asked officials if a “highly-qualified person, his wife Carrie” could be his chief of staff.
51. But she wasn’t his wife at the time – his actual wife was fighting cancer and caring for approximately 57 per cent of his acknowledged kids.
52. And I’m not sure a degree in Theatre Studies and Art History makes Carrie “highly qualified” for government either
53.But that wasn’t the whole story.
54. It turns out Carrie’s withdrawal as a candidate for the jobs was the result of Boris’s latest mistress-related gagging order about his positively barnyard breeding habits.
55. In this case the gagging order seems to have been: kneel down and gag.
56. While Johnson was “independently” promoting Carrie’s suitability for a job, a fellow MP had walked in on her giving him a blowjob at work.
57. The MP in question seems to have been Gavin Williamson, a lurching stack of inadequacy wearing teeth stolen from an exhumed donkey.
58. Rumours now claim Williamson had been given his massively undeserved knighthood in exchange for agreeing to stop informing his fellow MPs about the noshfest he’d witnessed between Johnson and Carrie, who Gavin had nicknamed “Princess Nut Nut”.
59. Everyday office life in Johnson’s government now includes oral sex, drunkenness, parties, bullying, missing vital meetings, watching tractor porn, conducting affairs, and taking drugs.
60. And on it goes: Chris Pincher, deputy Chief Whip, had to resign after getting pissed and groping two men.
61. Pincher had already resigned as whip in 2017 after making unwanted passes at a man who described him as “a pound-shop Harvey Weinstein”.
62. Despite him losing the same job TWICE for essentially the same offence, Peter Bottomley said of him “I hope Pincher is soon back in government”
63. So to summarise: Johnson got in trouble with his Johnson. Pincher got in trouble for pinching. Fabricant fabricated. Bottomley reached rock bottom. And James Cleverly … well, he remains the exception to the rule
64. Meanwhile David Warburton will face an inquiry over cocaine use, which will be hard to defend since, in his wisdom, he posed for photos next to fat lines of charlie.
65. He’s also being investigated for alleged sexual harassment and secretly accepting £150k for “advocacy”.
66. I have my doubts that his colleagues see much wrong in being paid to pull strings – Brandon Lewis said it was “right” and “absolutely fine” for Prince Charles to accept suitcases containing €1 million in cash from controversial Qatari politicians.
67. Literal mad-woman-in-the-attic Nadine Dorries was back, performing a sexually suggestive duet with Boris, based around the number “69”.
68. Then she claimed there had been 11 world wars.
69. Then described her “long-standing memory” of a sporting event that never happened.
70. Reports say at least six Tory MPs plan to defect to other parties.
71. The remaining Tories announced a new trade deal to “help British farming” that will leave UK farmers £300m worse off.
72. The government said “workers cannot expect pay rises” because it would cause inflation.
73. Then the government said we must become a “high wage economy”, seemingly without anybody getting higher wages.
74. However, pensions will rise by 10 per cent, because obviously inflation isn’t caused by the only demographic with a majority of Tory voters.
75. Oh, and MPs got a £2000 pay rise in March.
76. And then ministers said they wanted “to ease restrictions on City bosses’ pay” so they could prove the “benefits of Brexit”.
77. A study found Brexit would keep wages down by at least £470 per person per year for at least decade.
78. And we’ve just experienced the worst quarter of UK trade on record…
79. And Brexit has cut trade/GDP by another eight per cent.
80. Add those numbers to our 40-year record nine per cent inflation, and we’re talking about a 17 per cent drop in typical standards of living.
81. All of this came as a surprise to Tory minister and sheared Afghan hound Chris Philp, who claimed NHS pay has “kept up with inflation”, when it’s actually left NHS workers £6000 per person behind inflation since 2010.
82. Somehow, despite all this, when they were asked for some of the other benefits of Brexit (beyond making multimillionaires into multi-multimillionaires and a 17 per cent pay cut for everyone else) the government struggled.
83. Jacob Rees-Mogg – a cross between the memory of rickets, and Lucius Malfoy after a flash-fire – said his top Brexit benefit was centred around a plan to change what he called “funny numbers” on signs inside the Dartford Tunnel.
84. Other than fixing Dartford’s subterranean integers, JRM, minister for Brexit Opportunities, boasted Brexit meant sparkling wine could now use plastic bottles.
85. Clearly feeling he’d proved his point, he said the government won’t bother to assess whether Brexit has been a success.
86. Then he deleted data about MPs’ attendance in the House, just months after he’d stalked around leaving notes on civil servants’ desks demanding constant attendance.
87. Health update: Tory NHS privatisation since 2012 had led to a “significantly increased” number of avoidable deaths
88. Meanwhile, in an entirely unexpected turn of events, the government’s charming policy of releasing raw sewage into our drinking water hasn’t gone well, as random inspections revealed the polio virus had returned.
90. Laurence Fox, a pestilential eruption of idle xenophobia, privilege and stupidity stuffed into the waxy corpse of an exhumed Regency orphanage worrier, changed his Twitter profile pic to a swastika made of Gay Pride flags.
91. The Tory chair of London’s police and crime commission met this with a gentle tweet of “Oh Laurence” and a “chuckling” emoji.
92. Energy minister Greg Hands admitted he forgot to ask the Hinkley Point B power station to remain open a year longer to ease the energy crisis.
93. And after Tories increased rough sleeping 280 per cent in 10 years, Michael Gove secretly introduced a bill to criminalise rough sleeping.
94. More legislation news, as the government began smashing up international law and human rights in a floundering orgy of ineptitude and vandalism.
95. First, international law: in their latest attempt to Get Brexit Done, the government passed a bill to undo the all the Brexit they assured us they’d “got done” in 2019
96. Boris Johnson’s oven-ready deal has now skipped the middle-man, and gone straight into the toilet
97. How’s it going? Well, it is now 2,175 days, 3 prime ministers, 128 ministerial resignations, and eight per cent of our entire national economy since ceaselessly muddled beta-version humanoid John Redwood predicted Brexit would be “quick and easy”. That’s how it’s going.
98. Theresa May, Vogon poetry in motion, stood up in parliament and opposed the bill, saying: “As a patriot, I would not want to do anything that would diminish this country”.
99. As a patriot, she then couldn’t be arsed to vote against it.
100. Tories said smashing up the NI Protocol was what the people of NI want.
101. Only 5 per cent of people in NI want it.
102. So we’re about to break international law and endanger peace to achieve a Brexit whose only acknowledged benefits are: adjusting signposts in Dartford Tunnel
103. Straight after the “party of law and order” had voted en-masse to break the law, they moved onto human rights.
104. To set the tone, Danny Kruger asserted in parliament that women don’t have a right to autonomy over their own bodies.
105. This was just a warm-up for a proposed new Human Rights bill that says your rights can be taken away if you act in any way the government doesn’t like.
106. Immediately afterwards, a protestor was taken away by police officers for saying things the government doesn’t like.
107. The government will no longer allow “trivial human rights” cases, but it will be up to ministers to decide if it’s trivial.
108. And government is no longer obliged to “actively protect someone’s human rights” – an opt-out so Tories can simply ignore anything protecting your rights.
109. The author of the bill, box-faced, thick-necked Play-Doh action figurine Dom Raab, said “we’re focused on fighting crime”.
110. And to prove it, Boris Johnson hinted at a snap general election rather than face a parliamentary inquiry into all the crimes he’s committed.
111. And then a parliamentary committee was informed that only the PM can approve investigations into his own conduct, which is, quite honestly, the only reason this shit keeps happening. And now they’re trying to write that idea formally into law.
112. And finally, even as his ministers said he was focusing on crime, chief gibbon Boris Johnson was focused on attempting to illicitly fleece donors for £150,000 to build himself a family tree-house.
Despite it all: hope you’re OK.
My publishers would be cross if I didn’t say my book is coming soon.
https://unbound.com/books/the-decade-in-tory
I’d be cross if I didn’t say you can get it slightly cheaper on Amazon (if you’ve got Prime)
