EMPTY THREAT OF THE WEEK, PART 1
What a week for discredited populists facing the music, eh readers? By now, you’ll know how Boris Johnson’s Partygate evidence went, and also whether his chum Donald Trump has indeed, as he himself predicted last week, been indicted by New York prosecutors over the never-quite gone-away Stormy Daniels cover-up.
Trump’s dwindling but increasingly unhinged fan base reacted in predictable fashion with MAGAnuts across the social media sphere promising that if the ex-president were to be arrested, it would be “January 6 all over again”.
January 6? As in January 6 2021? As in that time you all rocked up to Washington in fancy dress, told the TV News it was a “revolution”, then crapped and ran when the shooting started before getting mopped up by the Feds because you’d obligingly live-streamed the whole thing on your personal Facebook accounts?
Yeah, I think we’d all be up for another one of those, just give us a minute to get some popcorn in.
EMPTY THREAT OF THE WEEK, PART 2
Speaking of autocrats facing legal awkwardnesses, the International Criminal Court last week issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in relation to alleged war crimes carried out on his orders in Ukraine.
It’s unlikely that anything much will come of this; the ICC isn’t about to dispatch Team America to the Kremlin to personally nick Putin as he sneakily activates his Massive Bond Villain Table’s defence mechanisms (for all that we’d pay good money to see that). It just means he MIGHT be in trouble if he ever leaves Russia again, which, if rumours about his failing health are to be believed, probably wasn’t on the cards anyway, apart from the odd lost weekend in Mariupol.
Still, if the ICC feels like having a bit of fun they could print up some Wanted posters with Putin’s mug on them and stick them in post offices around the world.
Or maybe they could try one of those scams US cops used to pull to get fugitive criminals to turn themselves in… Remember, they’d send them invitations to meet their favourite baseball players or something then bust them when they turned up…?
So, is Putin a massive fan of anyone (apart from himself)? A quick Google reveals him to be a supporter of Zenit St Petersburg FC but he can probably get hold of them whenever he likes…
Also, he’s reputed to be a big Elton John fan (which is a bit bloody rich, all things considered) and an admirer of Irish cage-fighting champion Conor McGregor…
Hmm, Conor McGregor… do we think he could be convinced and/or brainwashed into requesting an audience with Vlad himself, exchanging a few niceties then knocking him out cold with a flying knee to the chin before tossing him out of the window into the arms of the waiting extraction team?
GHOULISH PHOTO OP OF THE WEEK
Suella “de Vil” Braverman’s decision to publish posed PR photos of herself chortlingly inspecting the “really beautiful” accommodation being built on her orders in Rwanda to house deported asylum seekers was so magnificently tone deaf as to make Florence Foster Jenkins sound like a tuning fork.
Deporting desperate people – even if you GENUINELY believe it’s the right thing to do and you’re not just engaging in performative cruelty in the vain hope that the racists will somehow forget you’re the child of Kenyan and Mauritian immigrants and finally love you (perish the thought) – is at best a solemn duty, not a LARK.
We never thought we’d pine for the warmth and magnanimity of Priti Patel, but even SHE knew to (briefly) stop smirking and Do A Serious Face when posing with immigration officers as they dragged some poor soul out of bed.
UNNECESSARILY ELABORATE CALL-BACK OF THE WEEK
If, as I said in last week’s column, Brexit is the most embarrassing unforced own goal since Aston Villa keeper Peter Enckelman casually allowed a defensive throw-in into his own net at the 2002-03 Birmingham derby, then the decision by the Tory-infested BBC top brass to suspend national treasure Gary Lineker for tweeting mean things about the government before realising they’d caused a flash walkout of the entire sports broadcasting industry, panicking and reinstating Lineker without extracting any concessions from him whatsoever has to be the most embarrassing unforced own goal since Brexit.
POEM OF THE WEEK
When I face a thorny issue
That needs some serious thought
I tend to come down on the side
That Nazis don’t support
If both sides of an argument
Have valid things to say
I see which way the Nazis march
Then go the other way
No one’s always in the right
There’s room to grow and learn
But if there are Nazis on your side
That should cause some concern
Even when you think you’ve worked it out
With convictions never shaken
If actual Nazis cheer you on
You might just be mistaken
