[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... sers-polls

Marina Hyde on the Covid report. Angry and rightly so.

So do please spare us the old “benefit of hindsight” line, wheeled out by cabinet third wheel Stephen Barclay on the broadcast round this morning. Please also spare us the knackered line deployed once more today by a government spokesperson that “we avoided NHS services becoming overwhelmed”. This is nonsense. By any meaningful yardstick, the NHS was overwhelmed. Aside from the obvious fact that there is now a hospital treatment backlog in England of more than 5 million people, many hospitals ran catastrophically out of PPE; some were forced to ration treatment and deny intensive care to those deemed less worthy of it; and “do not resuscitate” orders were issued inappropriately for people with learning disabilities. These horrendous stories are the stuff of darker periods of history than the one we care to think we live in.

[RedSparrows]

'You can't expect better of us, waaaaa' cry the party of 'personal responsibility'.

[Bones McCoy]

Boris was trying his best...

[Watchman]

That seems to be a common line "he was trying his best".........its not the fucking egg and spoon race at primary school!

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... am-climate

Marina Hyde on the royals and climate.

The trouble is, even when politicians do manage to get climate action on the statute book, there will always be some people who think these sorts of rules don’t apply to them. Or to put it another way: is this the same Queen whose lawyers very recently lobbied the Scottish government in secret to change a draft law to exempt her private estates from a major carbon-cutting initiative ? Yes. Yes, it is the same Queen. As a result of this, the sovereign is the only landowner in the whole of Scotland who doesn’t have to facilitate renewable energy pipelines on her various estates in the country. Which feels, hand on heart, “really irritating”.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... nce-racism

Perhaps understandably, Marina Hyde looks away from Westminster and focuses on the career of Mel Gibson.

[The Weeping Angel]

Not strictly a Guardian commentator but this is a very funny article.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/ ... eposterous

And indeed of Gillespie himself, a man “out there on the perimeter, on the edge of consciousness, the dark, unknown regions of soul dread and psychic derangement where the straights are too scared to go,”

[Cyclist]

Marina Hyde turns her attention to social media

Finally, Facebook can say it’s not the most toxic social network

Donald Trump’s plans to launch a platform are good news for Mark Zuckerberg, who’ll be busy prebutting the next damning exposé of his company


...Attempts by Trump to make up for his various social media bans have thus far tended toward the lo-fi. There is an email list people can sign up to, and for less than a month there was a blog-style outlet called “From the Desk of Donald J Trump”, which came across very much as a fax machine operating from the floor next to his toilet.

But now – or at least soon – he is launching his own network, TRUTH Social, a name which feels par for the course from arguably Earth’s most committed liar. As he put it this week: “We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced … This is unacceptable. I am excited to send out my first TRUTH on TRUTH Social very soon… Everyone asks me why doesn’t someone stand up to Big Tech? Well, we will be soon!”

Anyway, there we are. Really the only entity for whom this is long-term good news is Facebook, which – against all odds – now has at least the promise of a more toxic social network than its own...

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... zuckerberg

[Andy McDandy]

John Crace is on good form these days. Here's him on last week's PMQ:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... sm-returns

Boris was now reaching his breaking point and started to treat collegiality as a competition. “I want to be collegiate too,” he said desperately. But he didn’t. He can’t stand the idea that someone might know better or disagree with him and just wanted to point-score and inject his trademark mindless Bertie Booster optimism into proceedings. To make it sound as if he was getting the best of an argument everyone could see he had lost. It was a desperate misreading of the mood of the house as he merely further exposed his inability to see anything as other than a game to be played out for his personal advancement.

On vaccines nonentity Maggie Throup:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nformation

Throup looked hurt and declared she didn’t like Ashworth’s tone. Why couldn’t he accept that the right thing to do was carry on with the same plan even when it was clear the original plan wasn’t working? So until he spoke nicely to her, she wasn’t going to answer any of his questions.

The chair of the health select committee, Jeremy Hunt, suggested it might be better if the government allowed people to receive their booster jabs sooner than six months and one week after their second vaccination: he was apparently unaware that some GP practices have already factored in the Department of Health’s tendency to cock things up and have already started doing just this.

He also wondered whether it might be better if Throup were to attend cabinet as Nadhim Zahawi, the previous vaccines minister, had done. The Throupster didn’t think this was at all a good idea. She had plenty of contact with Boris Johnson through watching him on the nightly news programmes and if she were to see him more often in real life there was more chance of her getting things wrong.

[Andy McDandy]

Marina Hyde talks shit. In a good way:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... conference

In many ways, sewers are his natural territory. Students of Johnsonlore will know his prime ministerial origin story is akin to one of those urban alligator myths. In the immediate aftermath of the 2016 referendum, Johnson was flushed down a toilet by Michael Gove. But instead of ridding us of an unwanted pet, this allowed Johnson to bide his time in the sewers. Thence emerged a vast mutant Johnson, which now stalks our politics, devouring all before it.

[Youngian]

This sewer scandal is providing an endless flow of amusing metaphors to be pumped. Most will be puerile and obvious without the need for a high level of comedic talent. Which is Johnson’s trade mark. He must be fuming that he can’t use any of these gags because they’re being poured over his head by the bucket load.

[Boiler]

John Crace on today's latest decline.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... reputation

All he was asking for was that another committee might be formed that would come to a different conclusion and let Owen off.

One that would make allowances for particularly thick MPs who were seemingly unable to grasp the consequences of their actions.

[Andy McDandy]

Marinatime!

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... mmissioner

Let’s play out with how the British prime minister spent the eve of this shameful vote. Boris Johnson had left his own climate conference on a private jet, incidentally, to have dinner at the Garrick Club with the longtime climate denialist Charles Moore. Also incidentally, Moore used to be Johnson’s editor when he published his various fabrications about the EU. Incidentally – again – Johnson fairly recently sought to install Moore as chairman of the BBC. (Moore has, incidentally, previously been a licence-fee refusenik). Still incidentally, Moore is a real friend of Owen Paterson’s, and has been a significant advocate for his foolhardy defence …

We sadly have no space for any more of the incidentals, incestuous connections, hypocrisies and potential stitch-up attempts in this single meeting between two chaps in a men-only club. But then, all that really needs to be said is that this is Boris Johnson’s Britain. We just live in it.

And ain't that the truth?

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... parliament

Being a sad centrist melt who probably knocks one out over pictures of her, I proudly present Marina Hyde's latest offering:

In the absence of Johnson, you might have ordinarily expected Monday’s debate to be opened by leader of the house Jacob Rees-Mogg. As one of the architects of the catastrophic Paterson amendment, however, Rees-Mogg was evidently deemed too much of an oratorical liability. He and his fellow blunderer, chief whip Mark Spencer, could instead be found sitting boot-faced and silent on the frontbench like Crabbe and Goyle – a pair of not-very-hench men who knew their blond ringleader wasn’t going to show up.

At the dispatch box, honours were instead done by Cabinet Office minister Steve Barclay, a political entity I find it very difficult to have an opinion about one way or the other. Ever since he was appointed from the ether as Brexit secretary in 2018, Barclay has somehow always seemed a placeholder minister, who materialises only as a temporary proxy – the human equivalent of the apologetic parenthesis [sorry this bit to follow later].

But look: Steve didn’t exactly have great material to work with – and it should obviously never even have been his script. The bottler who should have done it had instead spent the morning at a hospital in Northumberland, floundering to the cameras that he couldn’t get back in time. Boris Johnson is the most extraordinarily bad liar, which is really embarrassing for him considering how long he’s spent practising. I heard if you spent 10,000 hours doing something you were supposed to be an expert in it. In which case, Johnson should be able to compete intergalactically in this particularly discipline. He should be good enough to be Earth’s tribune in the Bullshit Games.

Instead, we found the PM skulking in a radiology department, trying to change the subject to Covid. That in itself tells you quite how bad things are. Changing the subject to talk about something he’s handled as badly as Covid has the ring of “Can we talk instead about how I can’t live on £160,000 and two free houses?”, or “Can we talk instead about how my wife’s five years older than my daughter?” I suppose you have to concede the quality of the white goods he’s hiding in has improved. He’s graduated from a fridge to a CT scan machine.

Kathryn Stone, now requires increased security after threats against her. What a moment for pause. It was barely two weeks ago that some in the Commons were calling for “David’s Law”, in memory of the brutally murdered MP David Amess, explaining that sky-rocketing abuse of members was fuelled by the internet. And yet, what is abuse of the previously pretty anonymous standards commissioner fuelled by, if not some hugely unnecessary and disgracefully targeted attacks on her led by some MPs themselves? If only they’d spend a little less time on the second jobs, and a little more considering the duties and honour of the first.

In the meantime, Johnson has reminded his MPs he’s a weak man masquerading as a strong one, which is why serving ministers are now giving quotes to the Times like: “We put up with him as long as he’s popular. As soon as he’s not, we should get rid.” Oof.

[Watchman]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... SApp_Other

This is how you do it Dickie

[Cyclist]

Rafael Behr isn't impressed with the prime minister.

The problem with loyalty to Boris Johnson: he betrays everyone in the end

There is something almost sadistic in the way Boris Johnson sends ministers to be tormented on television in defence of the indefensible. There is nothing new in politicians squirming through interviews, and prime ministers have always performed U-turns, humiliating MPs who had reluctantly stood by the abandoned policy. But with Johnson the practice is so common it looks like a system. He tests the limits of shamelessness, using the dignity of his cabinet as a probe.

The past week has seen a parade of secretaries of state making excuses for Downing Street, allowances for sleaze and fools of themselves all at the same time. Some actually believe the wretched drivel, others abase themselves in hope of future favour. But Johnson expects loyalty the way a capricious emperor demands tribute. It must be rendered without conditions or camaraderie. If it suits the prime minister to cut his most loyal servants loose, he will do it in a flash.

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ster-party

[Cyclist]

Why is John Crace always so horrible to jolly old Boris?

...For the last week or so, Bertie Booster has been uncharacteristically quiet.

It soon became clear why. Because Johnson was about to rewrite history to suit himself. Even for such an accomplished liar, this was quite something. A deception on the grandest of scales. A self-deception on the most tawdry of scales. Here was Johnson, a man incapable of honesty and bereft of self-esteem, pulling out all the stops to distance himself from the scene of the crime. This is his special talent. Because he doesn’t just always betray his family, friends and colleagues. He also always betrays himself. The self-loathing must be intense.

Boris began by saying that any MP who had been found to have broken the rules must be punished. Er … yes. Only he appeared to have totally forgotten that Owen Paterson had been found guilty of multiple egregious cases of paid advocacy. And that Johnson had imposed a three-line whip on his own MPs to get his suspension put on hold until the case had been re-examined by a new committee with a majority of well-disposed Tory members, who would now come to the right conclusion. It was about as sleazy as it gets...

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... john-crace
.

[Youngian]

Does he have a Jeeves? Unlikely, just dimwits, hacks and sycophants.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... is-johnson

Marina Hyde on sleaze, COP26, and related issues.

Eighty-two grand basic is great money for serving as a combination of robotic lobby fodder and what you might call a glorified social worker for one’s constituents. Or rather, you MIGHT call it that, were social workers not typically far more dedicated to their jobs than too many backbenchers, for far less pay, and far more vanishingly unlikely to have any kind of second gig at all. When would they have the time? Political parties make a lot of wanting independent-minded and experienced people, but what they really seem to value are people who do exactly what they’re told. Seems unfathomable that a system like that has left us at five minutes to midnight, climate-wise.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... acre-ofcom

Oh, this is very very good indeed:

Dowden’s other brilliant idea was to “level up Britain’s screens” – what? – with the current plan to sell off Channel 4. No matter that selling off an advertiser-funded public asset that built an entire independent production sector is a move that could cost that same sector well over £2bn a year. Just chalk up yet another commerce-killing piece of idiocy to The Party Of Business.

In the end, though, none of this is really is about Dacre, who is just another bitter and restless faded star with an excess of boiled piss. He is merely a symptom. The disease is a government yet again attempting to game the system to suit itself – or rather, the man who leads it. For never mind his enemies. Perhaps the most unique characteristic of Boris Johnson as a politician is that you couldn’t even find a single one of his friends who would claim he got into politics because he cared about public service. The question for Conservative MPs, as he grinds on regardless, is how many things this prime minister will be allowed to break, pervert or permanently distort in a spree motivated solely by his own self-interest. Many of them are worth saving; for some it might already be too late.