Not only does it appear that the prime minister is securely in place for the time being (it’s been a while since I could say that with a degree of confidence), it also looks like the home secretary isn’t going anywhere any time soon, given that the offence for which she resigned in disgrace only three weeks ago appears now to have been re-designated “no big deal“.
Something else for which it doesn’t seem that Leaky Sue will suffer unduly is the revelation that she appears to have deliberately engineered a crisis at the Manston refugee processing centre by refusing to move residents on into slightly less temporary accommodation, thus cramming 4,000 souls into a space built to accommodate 1,000.
While this isn’t the first time in recent years we’ve been forced to endure the wretched spectacle of a home secretary whose parents were migrants furiously trying to out-bigot the bigots in a desperate attempt to win the hearts and minds of a political party whose membership will never love her whatever she does (ask the PM), there’s a particularly noxious combination of nastiness and incompetence currently taking root at the Home Office. It’s a bit like watching Oswald Mosley addressing a Blackshirt rally with his flies undone.
I did ponder, a couple of weeks ago, that the fact the Conservatives refuse to call a general election despite all of their policies having been very publicly discredited, suggests they think they can turn things around in the next two years, and that (in my opinion) the only option they would have left would be to go in hard on culture war issues; devote whole policy platforms to “owning the libs” and cause as much performative cruelty to minorities as possible. I hate being right all the time.
It remains to be seen whether this current campaign of demonisation directed at immigrants will have the desired effect; if it doesn’t, one imagines Braverman will have to find someone else to order her long-suffering minions to persecute. With that in mind here are some more minorities Suella Braverman can pick on if the whole migrant scare doesn’t work out…
VEGANS
This should be a relatively easy sell; who among the carnivorous majority hasn’t at some point felt at least a twinge of fury and resentment at the sheer smugness of the hardcore vegan elite? Look at them, floating around on a cloud of effortless moral superiority just because they genuinely are living a more ethical life than the rest of us… It’s about time somebody yanked them right out of their PVC boots and hauled them off to Beef Camp.
(Not your average common or garden variety vegetarians, though; for them a simple court order should suffice)
GINGERS
I mean come on, they are LITERALLY mutants. We’d be doing the human race a favour. No more will they go around freaking people out with their blonde eyelashes or keeling over in direct sunlight. Round ’em up! Round ’em up, I say, and leave them in a sunny meadow so we can hear them sizzle! And yes, I know this was the plot of an episode of South Park, but you try writing these things at a time when there’s literally nothing funny happening!
THE ROYAL FAMILY
Okay, a bit of a stretch, this one, I’ll grant you, given the proclivities of the party faithful, but hear me out:
There is always a degree of tension between the crown and parliament; it’s a necessary dynamic in the British way of life. Moreover, the royals are at something of a turning point right now, what with one thing or another. And given that, for example, “Sir” Gavin Williamson apparently threw a (ironically enough) massive queeny fit at not being invited to her late Majesty’s funeral, there’s evidently some friction there which could be exploited and exacerbated. It shouldn’t be too hard to turn the royals into tabloid hate figures; after all, unlike asylum seekers, they really ARE living it large on the public purse.
Besides, I’m sure the government couldn’t help but remember the last time parliament had a massive falling out with a King Charles, it was very much the non-royal side who won…
PEOPLE WHO USE THE WORD “YOUR” AS A CONTRACTED FORM OF “YOU ARE” WHEN WHAT THEY MEAN IS “YOU’RE”
Actually I’d be perfectly in favour of persecuting these people.
POEM OF THE WEEK
Matt Hancock’s in the jungle
On prime-time ITV
He’ll eat kangaroos’ arseholes
To reclaim some dignity.
Matt Hancock says he didn’t
Mean any offence
Though he didn’t bother telling
His constituents.
Matt Hancock’s in the jungle
And there can be no doubt
That it’s purely a coincidence
That his book is coming out.
Is his career now over?
Does anybody care?
Matt Hancock’s in the jungle
Let’s not get him out of there.
