Today’s Bristol Post website features an article with an absolute howler, as reproduced in the screenshot below.
The section of Cheltenham Road involved is a few hundred metres of the main A38 road, running between Bodmin in Cornwall and Mansfield in Nottinghamshire.
Following some ridicule in the comments below the piece, the headline has now been corrected.
Good news was received by your ‘umble scribe late yesterday evening: disgraced former party-time alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was withdrawing his candidacy for the Tory party leadership and this his bid to regain the premiership just three months after he had been ousted from 10 Downing Street in the wake of a mass resignation by no fewer than sixty government ministers.
Since resigning as prime minister, Johnson has spent very little time doing the job he should be doing, i.e. representing the interests of his long-suffering constituents in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, speaking in debates and filing through the division lobbies to vote on legislation, preferring instead to take 3 holidays, whilst managing to fit in a lucrative public speaking engagement in the USA. On the return flight from his last holiday in the Dominican Republic, Johnson was reportedly booed by fellow passengers.
Given his preferences, any sensible person would question what Johnson’s priorities actually are.
AS per usual, Johnson’s priority is – as always – Johnson, as is apparent from his withdrawal statement, which was faithfully reported by this morning’s Grauniad and reproduced below.
In the last few days I have been overwhelmed by the number of people who suggested that I should once again contest the Conservative party leadership, both among the public and among friends and colleagues in parliament.
I have been attracted because I led our party into a massive election victory less than three years ago – and I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now.
A general election would be a further disastrous distraction just when the government must focus on the economic pressures faced by families across the country.
I believe I am well placed to deliver a Conservative victory in 2024 – and tonight I can confirm that I have cleared the very high hurdle of 102 nominations, including a proposer and a seconder, and I could put my nomination in tomorrow.
There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday.
But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.
And though I have reached out to both Rishi [Sunak] and Penny [Mordaunt] – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.
Therefore I am afraid the best thing is that I do not allow my nomination to go forward and commit my support to whoever succeeds.
I believe I have much to offer but I am afraid that this is simply not the right time.
There are a number of comments one could make on Johnson’s statement.
Firstly there’s the assertion at the very end ‘that this is simply not the right time‘. Indeed it isn’t. Johnson is under investigation for misleading the House of Commons, specifically for lying in the Commons chamber about the Partygate scandal. If found guilty, Johnson could faced suspension from the Commons (not a good look for a serving PM. Ed.) and if suspended would more than likely face a recall by-election, which polls suggest he would lose.
Then there’s ‘I believe I am therefore uniquely placed to avert a general election now‘. Modest aren’t we sir? Johnson re-emerging as PM after having done more in living memory to disgrace the office (think of being the first serving premier to be sanctioned by the police whilst in office – and for breaking his own government’s regulations too – never mind lying to the queen to prorogue parliament, an action subsequently ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court.Ed.) would be indicative not only of his but his party’s lack of integrity, morals and standards.
Turning to the rifts in the Conservative party, Johnson remarks: ‘ I have reached out to both Rishi [Sunak] and Penny [Mordaunt] – because I hoped that we could come together in the national interest – we have sadly not been able to work out a way of doing this.‘ This is a well-aimed swipe at the 2 other leadership contenders, implying it’s their fault that the rifts in the Tory Party can’t be healed.
Your ‘umble scribe doubts very much that with which Johnson tried reaching out to Sunak and Mordaunt was not an olive branch, but to ask them to withdraw and leave the field clear for him. When they refused Johnson issued the statement above,
Finally, there is the widely reported claim – repeated above – that Johnson had the backing of 102 MPs. As a list of those 102 supporters has never been disclosed, this also must be regarded as more of Johnson’s dishonesty.
PS: Never trust a man who combs his hair with a balloon.
Q: When is a staff shortage not a staff shortage?
A: When the organisation involved is facing ‘workforce challenges‘. 😀
What’s wrong with plain speaking nowadays?
Answers in the comments if you have any please!
Clun in the far south-west of Shropshire is quite a sleepy place with romantic castle ruins, some fine real ale pubs, a wonderful youth hostel in a former water mill and the Offa’s Dyke Path within staggering distance.
It is a world away from Telford, the largest urban area within the ceremonial county with a population of 185,600.
Nevertheless, Friday’s Shropshire Star reported that due to dodgy website tagging and editing, Clun has moved 50km (that’s 30 miles in old money. Ed.) and has now been absorbed into the unitary authority of Telford & Wrekin, as shown by the following screenshot.
The reaction of the good burghers of Clun to the news of the town’s eastward migration has not yet been reported. 😀
However, the fact that the article’s tagging bears no relationship to the copy hints that the tags are edited by a different person to the one writing the actual report.
However, Larry the Downing Street cat (aka Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. Ed.) has been dealing with a red menace of his own in the shape of Reynard the Fox.
Any connection of Larry’s interloper with Keir Starmer’s Labour Party should be dismissed. The fox’s colouration far too dubious to be allowed into his nominally red party. 😀
To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that Tories are averse to taxation and using said the monies thus raised to fund public services for the benefit of all.
Today’s Nation Cymru reports that Wales will become a land of ‘betting shops, tanning salons and tumbleweeds [sic]’ if a proposed visitor levy (aka a tourism tax. Ed.) currently being consulted upon by the Welsh government in a hysterical outburst from one Andrew RT Davies, alleged leader of the Conservative group in the Senedd.
Writing in yesterday’s Daily Brexit (which some still call the Express. Ed.), Davies laid into the traditional class enemy, stating ‘Labour sit, like a lead foot, pressed down on the windpipe of Welsh business‘, adding that the proposed visitor levy would risk ‘livelihoods in our communities‘ as one in seven Welsh jobs is reliant on tourism. Davies is voicing the severe criticism of the proposed tourism levy from business organisations the length and breadth of Wales. Davies himself wrote that if the levy were introduced, ‘Wales would be nothing but betting shops, tanning salons and tumbleweeds‘.
Many countries – and the constituent local public authorities of nation states – around the world already apply a tourism levy. After all, why should local taxpayers pick up the tab for the pressures tourists put on the public purse in popular visitor destinations?
Speaking from experience, on his last visit to the Greek island of Crete, your ‘umble scribe noticed a distinct lack of betting shops, tanning salons and – most importantly – tumbleweeds despite paying a 5% tourism levy everywhere he stayed overnight. 😀
At the time of writing, Hurricane Ian, the ninth named hurricane of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season, is off the coast of North and South Carolina on the eastern seaboard of the United States. Any remnant of said hurricane, downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it starts crossing the Atlantic, is not expected to dump any of its remaining rain on the shores of Great Britain for many days yet.
The exact location of Hurricane Ian comes courtesy of the USA’s National Hurricane Center, as shown below.
However, this has not stopped both Wales Online and the Daily Post (aka North Wales Live. Ed.), the 2 Reach plc regional news titles covering North and South Wales respectively, from coming up with similar misleading stories (fairy tales surely? Ed.) on today’s pages of their respective ‘news‘ websites. The Daily Post story can be seen here and the Wales Online story here. Note also the use of ‘amid‘ in the Wales Online headline (posts passim).
If the fourth estate cannot even get the names and locations of extreme weather events correct, what else should they not be trusted about?
Q: when is a land reclamation scheme not a land reclamation scheme?
A: When it’s actually an open-cast coal mine covering four square kilometres of south Wales.
Which transports us Merthyr Tydfil and its inappropriately-named Ffos-y-fran Land Reclamation Scheme, which Wikipedia describes as a ‘major opencast coaling operation‘ to the town’s north-east.
The scheme’s operators have this week filed an application to keep mining coal there for a further nine months until June 2023, according to Wales Online, with landscaping of the site completed by December 2024.
As revealed by the Wales Online article, the main aim of the scheme is the mining of 10 million tonnes of coal.
In your ‘umble scribe’s opinion, this is not reclamation in either of its definitions, i.e.:
It is the pure and simple plundering of highly polluting fossil fuels for profit at a time when a climate crisis is occurring due to the past profligacy of homo sapiens – a misnomer if ever there was one – with fossil fuels, to which there is still no end in sight, especially under the less than benign apology for a government of one Mary Elizabeth Truss, which seems committed to continue fossil fuel extraction and shale gas in particular.
The screenshot below is the full extent of an article* which has appeared this morning on on the Shropshire Star website.
Given the modern journalistic tendency of trying squeeze the whole story into the headline, perhaps there was no need to write much more than a tokenistic byline, concerning which your ‘umble scribe would be most grateful if any readers knowing what the gfgfgfg byline signifies could offer their thoughts in the comments below. Thanks! 😀
* = The article has since been removed.
The rise of the Thatcher fangirl, one Mary Elizabeth Truss, to the office of prime minister of the English Empire cannot be regarded as universally welcomed. Indeed her candidacy for the leadership of her party was supported by fewer than were seduced into putting an X against the name of her predecessor, one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (Truss garnered 57% of the vote for leader by party members, cf. 66% for the lying scarecrow).
In her incarnation as Johnson’s Foreign Secretary over the last couple of years in Johnson’s cabinet of sycophants and Brexit zealots and during the party leadership campaign, Truss has hardly shone, managing top lose friends and alienate people, particularly important ones with whom the government wishes to negotiate trade deals, in particular the United States (a trade deal with the USA is regarded as the Holy Grail by those politicians who worship at the altar of Brexit. Ed.), by picking fights with those beastly foreigners on the other side of the so-called English Channel over the Northern Ireland Protocol, which she threatened to tear up, thereby trashing this country’s reputation as a firm believer in upholding international law.
Nor have those beastly foreigners turned a blind eye to Truss’ roundabout route to arrive at the black-painted door of Number 10. They are only too aware that Truss started out as a member of the Liberal Democrats who is on record as supporting the abolition of the monarchy.
During the Brexit referendum campaign, Truss still supported the country’s remaining in the European Union, only to do a 180 degree about turn before being elevated to high political office by the blonde scarecrow.
In her climb up the Tory political ladder, Truss has made no secret of her admiration for the dreadful Margaret Hilda Thatcher, aka the Iron Lady, whose manner of dress and publicity stunts Truss has shameless emulated.
Putting her changing political views and her imitation of Thatcher together, the French media have this week been referring to the English Empire’s fifth Tory prime minister since 2010 as the ‘Girouette de fer‘, i.e. the Iron Weathercock, as per the following typical example.
