Politics | Steve Woods

The living dead

13/08/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

While the interminable Conservative Party leadership contest between the 2 tenth-rate rivals, one Mary Elizabeth Truss and rich boy Rishi Sunak, draws tediously on, with government administration seeming to have almost ceased despite drought, rampant inflation, surging energy prices (with the promise of higher prices to come. Ed.) and the outgoing party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is hardly anywhere to be seen, not even for a photo opportunity as he dives into the dressing-up box to indulge his inner Mr Benn, a new phrase has been coined – zombie government.

A still from the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead

As Wikipedia states: “A zombie (Haitian French: zombi, Haitian Creole: zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse.” The English word zombie was first recorded in 1819, in a history of Brazil by the romantic poet Robert Southey, in the form of zombi. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the word’s origin as West African and compares it to the Kongo words nzambi (god) and zumbi or nzumbi (fetish).

Comparing Conservative Party ministers to reanimated corpses is disingenuous, as the latter have far more compassion.

All the crises mentioned in the first paragraph all seem to be coming to a head and combining during what is traditionally known in Britain as the silly season, which occurs during the long parliamentary summer recess, when, having no – or very little – politics to report, the newspapers and other media resort to more frivolous and lightweight items of ‘news‘.
However, all is not yet lost.

Yesterday the Metro reported that the notoriously work-shy Johnson (remember those missed COBRA meetings at the start of the pandemic? Ed.) had actually managed to turn up for a meeting, although the outcomes of the meeting stated to accompany the headline hardly seem to have made the gathering worth the effort of organising and attending.

And to think all this will continue until after the closure of the leadership poll for the 160,000 or so Tory Party members at 5pm on Friday 2nd September…
Peel Street meets the Globe

12/08/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Oddities, Politics

A piece of artwork has appeared on the parched grass of Peel Street Green Space, which occupies the ground between Pennywell Road and Riverside Park on the far side of Peel Street Bridge over the Frome (aka the Danny in east Bristol. Ed.).

Its arrival seems to have pre-empted the Bristol Post, which today wrote:

A new public art trail reflecting on colonial histories and the impact of the slave trade is coming to Bristol.
More than 100 artist-designed globe sculptures will appear in seven cities across the UK from Saturday and will be free to view by the public until October 31.

The project, which is organised by The World Reimagined, aims to explore the UK’s relationship with the Transatlantic slave trade, its impact on society and how action can be taken to make racial justice a reality. The designs of the globes produced by the commissioned artists explore themes such as the culture of Africa before the slave trade and an ode to the Windrush generation.

The World Reimagined has sited 103 unique Globes across the 10 trails in 7 host cities across the UK – Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London and Swansea. All the trails will be connected to a digital platform that enables visitors to explore the collection and the history it reflects.

The Peel Street globe is entitled Like The Sun and was created by Felix ‘FLX’ Braun, a Bristol-based a contemporary fine artist and muralist
© OpenStreetMap contributors

The Bristol trail is handily shown on a map by The World Reimagined on which the globe installations are termed ‘Learning Globes‘.

Click on image for full-sized map
The most illiterate petrol station in North Wales

31/07/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Today’s Daily Post has a story – and accompanying video – about the efforts to make Plas Acton Garage in Wrexham the cheapest in North Wales.

Amongst the ideas implemented by the owners to keep prices down, the article states:

Regular customers can get their hands on “no strings attached” discount cards that strike a penny off every litre on the pump price indefinitely. In essence, if you topped up with roughly 50 litres of fuel you’d save 50p.

However, the owners are not offering one penny off the pump price, but ‘one pence‘, as evidenced by the voucher being held up in the video still used for the Daily Post piece.

If not the cheapest petrol station in North Wales, the wording on the voucher definitely makes it the region’s most illiterate petrol station.

The proprietors are not the first to be unaware that the singular of pence is penny. The most egregious misuse of one pence for one penny occurred at the Despatch Box in the Chamber of the House of Commons (where else? Ed.). The date was 20th March 2013, the occasion was the annual budget speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer – one George Gideon Oliver Osborne, then aged 41 and three-quarters, who was very badly (and expensively) educated at St Paul’s School and Magdalen College, Oxford 😀 (posts passim).
Two liabilities & two maniacs

29/07/2022 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

During his lifetime, white supremacist mining magnate and alleged politician Cecil Rhodes was described as a ‘liability and a maniac‘ who nevertheless endowed his alma mater, Oriel College, Oxford with so much cash – £100,000 when he died in 1902 – that it duly commemorated him.

Move on one hundred and twenty years from Rhodes’ death and another ‘liability and a maniac‘ has come forward to support the deceased rich racist in the alleged government’s never-ending culture war centred on public works of art, usually involving dead white males of dubious moral character.

Which brings us to liability number two. Step forward one Nadine Vanessa Dorries, inexplicably elevated way beyond her extremely limited abilities to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) by disgraced party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

What links Rhodes and Dorries is the latter’s decision to award Grade II listed status to the plaque commemorating the Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, as reported by The Guardian.

The Guardian goes on to report that Dorries’ decision ‘overrides an earlier judgment by Historic England determining that the plaque lacked the “richness of detail” required for listed status‘, with Historic England noting that the DCMS ‘agrees with our listing advice 99% of the time, meaning Dorries’ ruling is indeed out of the ordinary.

Dorries’ unilateral action also flies in the face of the intentions of Oriel College itself. Last year the college’s governing body published a report stating it wished to remove both the Rhodes statue and plaque: the college has since remarked it remains ‘committed to‘ removing them in spite of Dorries’ unwelcome intervention.

The statue of Rhodes has also attracted the attention of thousands of Rhodes Must Fall campaigners who have lobbied to have removed it because of Rhodes’ racist and colonialist views.

Needless to say, Dorries’ decision has not found favour with academics and campaigners. Kim Wagner, who’s a professor of imperial history at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) remarked as follows:

This is simply what one would expect from Nadine Dorries and a discredited government, which has nothing left but the pursuit of its inept culture-war project.
Cecil Rhodes has become a rallying point for imperiophiliacs, and the slogan to ‘retain and explain’ is just part of the ongoing effort to whitewash his legacy and that of the empire more generally. Luckily, most of us don’t get our history from statues or plaques.

What little history of which Dorries is aware seems likely to have been gleaned from statues and plaques.
The inevitable DCMS spokesperson has been wheeled out to defend the ministerial edict, stating:
We are committed to retaining and explaining our heritage so people can examine all parts of Britain’s history and understand our shared past.

Update 08/08/2022: In an editorial opinion piece The Guardian yesterday described Dorries’ listing decision as ‘crass‘, as well as calling her move a ‘kneejerk [sic] response to a contemporary debate‘.
Minister’s extended stay in Homophone Corner

26/07/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media

Last night saw a televised debate for the Conservative Party leadership between one Mary Elizabeth Truss and Rishi Sunak.

This encounter was described as ‘acrimonious‘ by The Guardian, whilst the BBC characterised it as the two candidates’ ‘fiercest clash yet‘.

Needless to say the cheerleaders for both contenders were out in force on social media, attempting to boost the image of their favourite candidate.

These included one Nadine Vanessa Dorries, inexplicably elevated way beyond her competence to Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport by one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who has relinquished the office of leader of the CONservative Party, but remains the party-time alleged prime minister of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.).

Anyway, at some point in the proceedings Nadine took to TWitter and posted the following.

Yes. gentle reader, you read that correctly: ‘loosing‘ instead of ‘losing‘.

Off you go to Homophone Corner for a nice long sit down until you learn the error of your ways, Nadine!

However, Nadine is not known for ever doing things by halves (ask the ostrich whose anus she ate. Ed.) and in response to being corrected (‘It’s ‘losing”. Ed.) by columnist Sarah Vine, the separated and soon to be divorced wife of Nadine’s Cabinet companion Michael Gove, responded by retweeting Ms Vine with no style at all and another howling homophone, as shown below.

An author? What has the English-speaking world done wrong to deserve such punishment?!

Nadine’s efforts to date have kindly described as ‘full of Irish clichés‘.

Your ‘umble scribe recommends that the fragrant Nadine refrains from inflicting further clichés – Irish or other – upon the reading public until she learns to write to a standard demanding a pen instead of a crayon. 😀
Counting to three

21/07/2022 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

According to Wikipedia, Tatler is a British magazine published by Condé Nast Publications which is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class and those interested in society events. The topics it covers include fashion and lifestyle, plus high society and politics.

Its coverage of politics cannot be said to be well researched if the following from its Twitter account is to be taken at face value.

Second-ever female PM, Tatler?

Try counting again; and this time engage your brain!

If the Tatler’s staff can’t even count to three, it has to be wondered how accurate the rest its coverage of politics actually is.
The tweet has since been deleted.
Dorries goes to war – again and again and…

24/06/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics, Social Media, Tech

In the beginning was World War One (1914-18), then World War 2 (1939-45).

There have been various conflicts since 1945, but none has qualified being counted as a World War (note capitalisation) and their number has remained stuck firmly on two.

Until today.

Step forward one Nadine Vanessa Dorries, inexplicably elevated way beyond her subterranean ignorance threshold to serve as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, concerning whose appointment former Tory Party chairman Chris Patten is on record as saying: “And nobody should ever see the words ‘Nadine Dorries’ and ‘culture secretary’ in the same sentence”.

Following yesterday’s humiliating by-election defeats in Tiverton & Honiton and Wakefield, Nadine fearlessly took to social media as cheerleader in chief for the Cult of the Boris, tweeting the following.

World War 11?

That’s nine more than are acknowledged by the generally accepted historical record.

Whether Nadine was tweeting under the influence of digital dyslexia, innumeracy or something psychoactive has yet to come to light, but remember that part of Nadine’s brief is matters digital and the above tweet shows she cannot even use a mobile phone app – an iPhone Twitter client – competently, which bodes ill for this country.
The tea sock

14/06/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

British politicians and their fellow travellers have over the decades had some difficulty with the Irish names for that country’s political offices.

Many years ago, Hansard, the official record of transcript of Parliamentary debates in Britain, once famously mis-recorded the office of Taoiseach or prime minister as the ‘tea shop‘.

However, the Irish prime minister’s association with hot infused beverage establishments is not confined to parliamentary scribes on this side of the Irish Sea, as this Irish Independent report shows.

Hansard has now been jointed by one Elizabeth Mary Truss, improbably promoted to Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with a new variant – the ‘tea sock in one the English Empire’s continuing efforts to break international law, as evidenced by this short video clip from Irish broadcaster RTE.

Just in case Ms Truss happens upon this post, for her benefit, here’s a brief video pronunciation lesson for the basics of Irish politics. 😀
Unemployable

09/06/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

Party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson survived a vote of confidence on Monday and is clinging to office despite 40% of his party colleagues voting against him, a higher proportion than previous no-confidence votes against former Tory premiers Margaret Thatcher (of sainted memory. Ed.) and Theresa May.

Since then Johnson and his supine cabinet have tried to appear competent with a flurry of policy announcements of the expired feline variety, including a ludicrous extension of the disastrous right to buy scheme to housing association tenants, including those on benefits.

Among those also spinning pointlessly – unlike a child’s top – is Penny Mordaunt, MP for Minister of State for Trade Policy, who tweeted a link to a piece (complete with a photograph of Rabid Dog [posts passim]. Ed.) she’d written for the Telegraph, house magazine of the Cult of the Adoration of the Boris and favoured reading matter of the Blue Team.

However, Mordaunt’s use of social media did not develop necessarily to her advantage, that of fellow members of the government of none of the talents or that of the party-time alleged prime minister, as the following exchange shows.

Yes, you read that correctly. One of the country’s leading fast food suppliers would not trust any current government minister to deliver their products, not exactly either a highly skilled or highly paid job.

Now that’s what your ‘umble scribe would call a proper vote of no confidence.
Trolling the government

05/06/2022 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics, Social Media

Whilst your ‘umble scribe has done his best to avoid the jubilee jollities, he cannot help noticing that, in addition to the usual criticism found on social media, two of the pillars of the British establishment, namely the Church of England and the monarchy itself, have been indulging in some very subtle digs at the government nominally under the supposed leadership of party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

After being booed by a flag-waving, pro-Establishment crowd on his way into a thanksgiving service for Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor, Johnson gave a bible reading. The text chosen by whoever in the Church of England devised the order of service was a master stroke as it included the text of Phillipians 4:8, which reads as follows:

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

Johnson’s lack of integrity is a matter of public record that extends back at least as far as his time as the Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, when he would regularly tells lies and fabricate stories about what horrors the European Commission was hatching, thus adding further fuel to the xenophobic fire that eventually kindled into Brexit. Johnson has twice been sacked for lying, in addition to which he’s lied to his wives, his mistresses, parliament, the public and even to Elizabeth Mountbatten-Windsor herself. One of his employers, Max Hastings, is on record as saying: “Boris is a gold medal egomaniac. I would not trust him with my wife nor – from painful experience – my wallet.”

There is nothing pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy about the moral vacuum that resides beneath the superannuated blonde toddler haircut.

However, Johnson was not the only cabinet minister to be subjected to derision and ridicule.

Step forward please Priti Patel, a woman unfit to clean a public toilet inexplicably promoted way beyond her competence to the post of Home Secretary.

Patel’s choice of Barbie pink outfit to attend the jubilee thanksgiving service drew plenty of unpleasant comparisons on social media with Dolores Umbridge, a fictional character from the Harry Potter canon, who is described as “a fat, toad-like woman, with a wide, slack mouth, and a large bow usually in her hair and “one of the most hated, as well as the most compelling, villains in the series“.

Any resemblance to a cruel, inhuman and racist cabinet minister is purely coincidental.

Nevertheless, it was not only wags on Twitter who mocked the alleged home secretary. Buckingham Palace also joined in the fun.

Although the queen did not attend yesterday evening’s jubilee concert in person, she did appear in a specially commissioned video, as shown below. Here Paddington Bear who hails from ‘darkest Peru‘, arrived in this country wearing around his neck a label stating ‘Please look after this bear. Thank you.‘, and is perhaps this country’s best known fictional refugee (classified by the home secretary and her department as an illegal migrant. Ed.) is shown having tea at Buck House.

Patel would no doubt have the ursine migrant on one of her much-vaunted deportation flights to Rwanda.

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