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 found that he lied to the Queen concerning his reasons for the closure, the same careless lie he gave the country (it seems that we are all equal under The Lie). Mr Johnson and his hoodlum gang have of course appealed.
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 all ? The word keeps being thrown about, with so many conflicting claims on it. Today, Wednesday September 11th, when the UK Prime Minister was found in court to have lied to the Queen, Stephen Kinnock, MP, published an article in the Guardian in which he seems to imply that the 2016 EU referendum was “democratic” and the result should be “respected.” https://www.theguardian.com/…/lib-dems-revoke-article-50-un… The stanza above was written in opposition to that view-point.
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 – in this case – he dragged the nation’s Head of State, Queen Elizabeth. In doing so, he took Great Britain yet closer to the wire and far beyond disgrace. It was the act of a hoodlum, on behalf of hoodlums.
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, on Thursday, his brother Jo resigned. In the meantime, his election plan has been frustrated in Parliament and he has ended the week being told that he would be found in contempt and jailed if he now goes ahead with No Deal. During the week, Johnson made a speech in front of ranks of police cadets assembled for a Toad election propaganda backdrop. The speech did not go down well, nor did Mr Johnson’s use of the police as political prop.
The word “Blob” was apparently coined either by Michael Gove or Dominic Cummings. I suspect the latter, for what it’s worth. These two worked together in the Education department at some point. “The blob” was how they described the teachers who resisted the crushingly exam-dominated changes Gove was to introduce to schools across the country, during his tenure as Secretary for Education (Cameron later demoted him). Yesterday evening, the Tory Minister Amber Rudd announced her resignation.
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 to Johnson in the Commons afterwards : “I do think the prime minister has a tremendous skill in keeping a straight face whilst he’s being so disingenuous,” was one thing he said. “The Independent”’s Tom Peck translated those words for us as follows : “[Johnson’s] a liar, in other, carefully chosen, entirely parliamentary words.”
Last night, the UK’s new “Prime Minister” lost both his (tiny) majority and a significant vote in the House of Commons, in which a number of Tories rebelled against the hoodlum hit squad presently masquerading as the nation’s Tory government. The rebels should be honoured for that.
But Mr Toad is gaming for power, with nothing else in his view-finder and with no thought of the consequences for his nation. He’ll keep at it, as if his own life were at stake. Nothing else matters to him.
This stanza was written during the week-end preceding what seemed to be Parliament’s last and only chance to block Mr Johnson’s stated option of a “No Deal” Brexit. The Executive vs the Legislature. Mr Johnson and “The People” (or enough of them, he hoped) vs parliamentary scrutiny, or – as he might put it – the Westminster “establishment.” Johnson’s Etonian Demagoguery vs the tattered scarecrow of democracy in the UK, desperately in need of renewal, but presently in desperate need of our support.
The phrase “Shock and Awe” came into our reckoning as a description of America’s opening attack against Iraq in their war (beginning March, 2003) to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his regime. Supported by the British, the Americans went in search of Saddam Hussein’s non-existent weaponry. A short while later, Mr Bush stood alone on one of the American aircraft carriers, and spoke to the cameras to the effect that the job was now done and he had “delivered.” No weaponry had been found but, hey, who was counting ? All you need to take back control is Shock and Awe, some aircraft carriers and a camera…
