Tag: Politics
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Rumpy Pumpy
The US Presidential race is gathering pace on the uphill side of pretty warm, and with that we have started to witness a corresponding stoke-up of rhetoric. But for all the criticism of Mr Trump – all the bonkers, collapsible car/squirty flower clown stuff – he made it to the White House. And that route…
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The Golden Turd
I remember a time when the favourite educational pastime was slagging off Media Studies. That has hardly aged well. Most people seem to be neither able to accurately identify fake news nor to understand the relationships between discourse and power. And no, reciting Homer at tiresome dinner parties for the entertainment of twittering hoes, who…
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Lying Low
The UK Education Secretary Gavin Williamson foreshadowed the latest Government debacle with a warning on the danger that school students might be over-promoted into jobs that are beyond their competence. I can only admire his steadfast ability to deadpan that message. That’s weapons-grade irony, right there. This is a man who probably hides a spare…
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Get Dawn on It
Dawn Butler has been in the news again, which is always a nailed-on opportunity for absurdity and a good giggle. This time it’s some stop-and-search shenanigans. If you need a good laugh, just get Dawn on it. Whatever has occurred, it will doubtless be a matter for some up-and-coming cop to unravel while maintaining his…
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Meddle Ceremony
I am a fan of etymology and the origins of words, but I have always known that they might sometimes be susceptible to the incorporation of urban legends. This false etymology, as linguists term it, sometimes takes the form of outwardly reasonable explanations that are essentially flawed or backronyms (acronyms that are contrived to provide…
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One Hundred and Eight…Eh?
There is something afoot with the number 108. The Government’s preparations for a no-deal Brexit and a contract awarded to Seaborne Freight at Dover? Worth £108m. The coronavirus contact-tracing contract awarded to Serco? Valued at £108m. The PPE contract awarded to Pestfix? Yup, £108m. Somebody even made an Freedom of Information request to the Department…
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Wide Awoke
I was watching coverage of the Black Lives Matter protests on TV and paused to reflect on the point of protests. They don’t after all directly work, because those in power generally don’t give a flying fart about your concerns. If they did, they would typically make a boatload of progress in dealing with them.…
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The New Black
So, black lives matter. Well, they do this week because there’s a big old meaty bandwagon gathering pace and every bloated, comfortable, privileged hypocrite wants to hop on for the ride. If black lives mattered – as a point of social reality – then the Back Lives Matter movement would not need to exist. Make…
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Clap-Trap
So, it’s a wrap. Or at least, we think it is. And as predicted, some bod – to whom the nation must surely be eternally grateful – has popped up to signal the end of the weekly clap. In fact, it’s the very person who had been credited with its initiation, so perhaps we’ll can…
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Phone a Friend
Another day, another distraction. This time, the Prime Minister’s principal adviser, Dominic Cummings, has been outed for allegedly breaching lockdown rules 10 weeks ago. He denies that, and no action had been taken at the time. Meanwhile, the eloquence of lawyers who had been falling over themselves on social media to create ‘reasonable excuses’ for…
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