Category: John Skelton
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Mr Toad Makes a Furtive Connection
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The reference here, of course, is to the announced intention of Mr Johnsons’s government to increase the number of the country’s jails, already very high and yet short staffed, so that even more people can be imprisoned and people jailed for certain crimes can serve their full sentences. This despite finding after finding that jail…
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The Toad Falls Foul of the Law
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The UK’s Supreme Court has just finished hearing the Government’s appeal against the Scottish High Court’s finding that Johnson misled the Queen as to his reasons for closing down the Parliament. It was not a matter of creating more time to prepare the Queen’s Speech. Instead it was to stop parliamentary scrutiny of his Brexit…
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The Parrot Takes Stock of the Flotsam Hulk
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When this was written, Mr Johnson had just come back from a meeting with some EU representatives, who had the unenviable task of being adult to his juvenile. Before going, he gave a jolly (though pernicious) description of himself as the “Incredible Hulk,” a character from the world of comics. And then off he greenly…
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Mr Toad Refers to the Tower
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Our chaos, outside and inside, whirls about so fast that I forget what day it was more stuff happened. Maybe it was two days ago that we heard that Prime Minister Johnson’s advice to the Queen, that parliament should be closed down for several weeks, has been deemed illegal by the Scottish High Court. They…
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The Parrot and the Clowns
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The Parrot has joined the circus, remember. He’s still there and in the stanza above, he’s reporting back from a conference of clowns he heard today. All familiar shapes are now in question. In the UK, Brexit alone has been causing a great number of them to buckle. Democracy is one. What is democracy, after…
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The Ravening Mr Toad
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This stanza was written on the morning of the day in September 2019 on which the UK parliament was shut down for several crucial weeks, at the behest of Mr Johnson and his streamlined cohorts. Johnson’s excuse for abusing the constitution in this fashion was yet another of his lazily blatant lies, into which –…
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The Parrot Watches Another Circus Act
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Events are taking place at a speed even more bewildering than “usual.” The references in this latest stanza, uploaded Sunday 8th September, already feel bit old as I write this, even though the events they refer to took place only days ago. Johnson began this last week as if starting a general election campaign. Then,…
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The Parrot Joins the Circus
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Prime Minister Johnson and his gang had lost a succession of important votes the day before this stanza was written. Several prominent and moderate Tories who had voted against the government and against the possibility of a “No Deal” Brexit, had simply been sacked. Ken Clarke was one of those and had much to say…