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[daveuprite]

I am sure that JMR’s role is too make the rest of the Tory party look slightly less like the bunch of stuck up gormless twats they really are.

Good theory. Maybe. In previous administrations it would have been crazy to put up someone like him as a prominent spokesperson with regular TV coverage. More media savvy governments (e.g. Blair and Cameron/Cleggs') wouldn't have exposed themselves to the ridicule and 'out-of-touch' -ness that an eccentric aristo like Mogg presents. This current populist gov simply doesn't seem to care about all that. Once you've lied so extensively and brazenly to get elected, and you've got your majority, the job is done and you don't really care how you're perceived from then on. Plus you have this long-standing british willingness to be led by toffs. Millions threw themselves into no-mans land machine gun fire at the instruction of ex-Harrow/Eton generals. Millions more put up with appalling working conditions, lack of a vote, poverty and despair, and then doffed their caps when the local Lord walked past. So there's plenty of precedence for the deference you still see today, and even for working class people to vote tory.

[Hugh]

Greetings,

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Hugh.

[Tonibe63]

I am sure that JMR’s role is too make the rest of the Tory party look slightly less like the bunch of stuck up gormless twats they really are.

Good theory. Maybe. In previous administrations it would have been crazy to put up someone like him as a prominent spokesperson with regular TV coverage. More media savvy governments (e.g. Blair and Cameron/Cleggs') wouldn't have exposed themselves to the ridicule and 'out-of-touch' -ness that an eccentric aristo like Mogg presents. This current populist gov simply doesn't seem to care about all that. Once you've lied so extensively and brazenly to get elected, and you've got your majority, the job is done and you don't really care how you're perceived from then on. Plus you have this long-standing british willingness to be led by toffs. Millions threw themselves into no-mans land machine gun fire at the instruction of ex-Harrow/Eton generals. Millions more put up with appalling working conditions, lack of a vote, poverty and despair, and then doffed their caps when the local Lord walked past. So there's plenty of precedence for the deference you still see today, and even for working class people to vote tory.

Real despair comes from knowing that Boris and the gang were considered the best choice at the General Election which shows how inept the other parties were. Jeremy Corbin and the Labour party top brass should hang their heads in shame.

[daveuprite]

Real despair comes from knowing that Boris and the gang were considered the best choice at the General Election which shows how inept the other parties were. Jeremy Corbin and the Labour party top brass should hang their heads in shame.

I understand exactly what you're saying, Toni. For many a Labour vote back in December was unpalatable. I know that. But that was due in no small part to months of aggressive disinformation about Corbyn in the mainstream media. Those who bothered to read the Labour manifesto, and who looked at what he actually proposed to do, would have found an agenda quite similar to Atlee's government in 1945 -which brought us the basis of the welfare state that people rely upon and value to this day. None of it was particularly extreme, but if you listened to the Murdoch Press, to Sky News and even to an extent the BBC you would not have formed that impression.

That's kind of beside the point though. Even when we don't have available a party with our preferred policies that does not excuse voting for a fairly hard-right wing libertarian populist bunch of inexperienced chancers. Anyone can spoil their ballot paper, refuse to vote at all, or use a protest vote. The current crop of extremist tories are harnessing anti-immigration rhetoric, xenophobia and the old blame game to divert attention from a horrible kind of politics reminiscent of Germany in about 1932. The cabinet members you see today were selected purely because of their loyalty during the parliamentary brexit crisis and are therefore unequipped and unable to manage and govern a country, all of which has been graphically exposed now that the Covid situation requires professional, level-headed organisational skills which they totally lack.

To illustrate this, take someone like me. I would much prefer a progressive left of centre agenda which pushed for redistribution of wealth at a time of extreme disparity, together with rapid progress on tackling global warming, and a big dose of social justice. But such is the right-wing crisis we are in, I would be fairly content right now with a rather dull but professional management of our affairs by the likes of John Major, Nicola Sturgeon and even Tony Blair. That's how bad things have got, that someone like me with far more ambition for the UK's future would reluctantly accept a boring management-style period of consensus, which would at at least allow some prospect of slowly digging the UK out of a hole, repairing its international reputation and getting it back on an even keel.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

You could say loyalty to Boris/Brexit was a sort of stupidity test which ambitious Tory MPs had to pass.

Monty Python's Upper Class Twit of the Year made flesh.

[simonw]

<snip> Once you've lied so extensively and brazenly to get elected, and you've got your majority, the job is done and you don't really care how you're perceived from then on. <snip>

Dave, Dave, Dave. <sigh>. You're so living in the past - this is a brave new world now. None of that truth stuff matters any more. It's old hat. Yesterday's news. The past. After all:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 44611.html

David Davis said: “What is important is not what is said. It’s whether it’s challenged, in the first instance, and then the British public can make a judgment."

[johnnyboxer]

I watched Johnson at the Committee yesterday. It was cringingly embarrassing. If a CEO gave a performance like that at a board meeting they would be out the door like a shot.

This keeps happening. Just at the moment of greatest crises, we have the leaders least fit for purpose. Of course he was what the majority wanted back in December last year, despite his terrible track record of leadership and flawed personality, so you can only say the country got what it deserved. But to see it actually play out in reality, with the pandemic exposing every weakness of this awful government, is so depressing.

As you say, Jak, it's been a kind of competition in incompetence between Johnson and Trump, with Trump well in the lead IMO. But maybe that will change in November. Trump was badly advised yesterday to appear on a TV format that was not stage managed by Fox news. He took questions from the public, and he stumbled through it with a mixture of bare-faced lies, mistakes, incoherence and genuine anger at being properly confronted by real people. You could actually see him breaking down and losing it, massively out of his depth. At least the U.S. voters have a chance in a few weeks to unravel some of the mess they're in. If they don't take that opportunity, well, you just despair and have to conclude that humanity is irreparably masochistic.

Agree 100%

[garyboy]

" ..and brazenly to get elected, and you've got your majority, the job is done and ..2. you don't really care how you're perceived from then on. Plus you have this long-standing british willingness to be led by toffs. Millions threw themselves into no-mans land machine gun fire at the instruction of ex-Harrow/Eton generals. Millions more put up with appalling working conditions, lack of a vote, poverty and despair, and then.. 1. doffed their caps when the local Lord walked past. So there's plenty of precedence for the deference you still see today, and even for working class people to vote tory.

2. I agree .. but don't forget that that deference is not only born of ignorance .. but from necessity (economic/social) .. and more importantly, from the lessons and results of history .. where the suffering working class were physically put down, when in rebellion for justice, by the agents of the governments (their soldiers with the latest rifles etc).

but this comes second to the Propaganda machines launched and maintained by all governments throughout history ....... eg .. you must `join up` to the forces (and travel to a foreign land) to defend your family and loved ones from the attacking enemy (who live in another far distant country and minding their own business).

so the `doffing of the cap` is a very interesting thing to think about imo, .. people do it for varying reasons .. general genuineness and respect for authority, inbuilt to the human group psyche .. fear .. dependence .. conformity .. brainwashing .. propaganda etc etc etc.

I notice recently there is a lot of talk about Slavery.
The Viking built their wealth on human trafficking, as did the British Empire, Romans, Greeks, Hittites, Egyptians, etc .. and the Indians have their Cast System etc etc etc .. i just wonder how much of our in bred deference comes from this? .. or is it just social conditioning and human nature?

1. .. must admit that the blatancy of this government shocks even me

[Hugh]

Greetings,

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Hugh.

[Hugh]

Greetings,

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Hugh.