Kakistocracy XXVIII:Operation - It's The Wacky Tory Game.

Operation - it's the wacky Tory MPs' game! Various factions of the Tory party have launched so many supposed 'operations' these last few days that it's almost as if they're trying to distract us from something. The trouble is, like the patient in the legendary MB (now Hasbro) game, it's us, the public, who are left with broken hearts, brain freeze, wrenched ankles, butterflies in stomach, and, er, bread basket*

There's Operation Red Meat, Operation Save Big Dog, and Operation Rinka and we'll come to what the difference is between them shortly but, first of all, why the need for so many operations? It's because the Conservative Party is sick. Very very sick.

There are even reports, possibly optimistic, that the patient is at death's door. The reason for this sickness is that the Tory party swallowed something they shouldn't have done and that thing was a huge plate of Boris Johnson's lies. Served with a negligence salad, a dishonest burger, and some cruel cruel fries. Washed down with a cold glass of watery bullshit.

As more and more lockdown party revelations came to light (at a speed it was almost impossible to keep up with - or even count them) it became apparent that not only were the parties in Boris Johnson's house but that he attended several of them. It's not certain if he was jumping around to the banging DJ set in the basement at 2am, if he got involved in the Secret Santa, or how much of the suitcase full of booze he consumed personally but now, beyond any doubt, we know he was there.

We always did. Passing off the parties and 'wine Fridays' as 'work events' and making mealy mouthed apologies to the Commons in which Johnson claimed that these 'work events' "could be said technically to fall within the guidance" (when they clearly did not) won't wash with most of the public now. Nor will throwing yet more advisers under the bus (as is expected soon). 

And nor will constant promises (promises? from Johnson?) to look again after Sue Gray (the name on everyone's lips this last fortnight), the Second Permanent Secretary, has completed her inquiry into the lockdown 'work events' that were probably quite unlike any work event you or I attended during those months.

Despite working far harder than the government, it seems NHS staff were not rewarded with regular booze and DJ sets. I'm not a monarchist but even I could see how bad the optics looked for Johnson when the revelations that one of the parties took place on the night before Prince Philip's funeral. A funeral the Queen, famously, attended sat alone with her mask on.

Royalty or not, it's hard not to feel for a nonagenarian grieving alone while her Prime Minister breaks not just the rules, but the laws, he set for her, for us, and for himself. The anger has led, finally - what took people so long to realise that Johnson is a vile bullshitter?, to growing calls from the opposition parties and the country for Johnson to do the decent thing and resign.

But this time, hopefully, it's different. A growing number of Tory voters, Tory party members, and even Tory MPs are calling for him to go. For a man so keen on parties he seems to make a lot of enemies. Even Brexit Ultras like Andrew Bridgen (the Member for North West Leicestershire who, highly amusingly, appeared on Newsnight last night while a man held a sign up with CROCK OF SHIT written on it behind him) have called on Johnson to go.

 

Both publicly and by the peculiar and antiquated Tory method of sending a letter to Graham Brady, the head of the 1922 Committee. Douglas Ross, the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, is another who's called on Johnson to go (bringing with him most of the other Scottish Tories) which lead to a remarkable comment by the shameless Jacob Rees-Mogg on Newsnight.

The fact Rees-Mogg was even on Newsnight shows that the cabinet know they're in the shit. They rarely deign to offer anyone up, believing of course that they are above public scrutiny. Mogg's rare appearance may be one they go on to regret as, after expressing his opinion that Johnson was both a "humble" and a "sincere" man (snort!), he went on to call Douglas Ross a "lightweight figure".

Kirsty Wark's response was telling. "Oof!". As if she'd just been punched in the gut by the haunted pencil. Ross is the leader, the fucking leader, of the entire Conservative party in Scotland. Mogg's casual indifference to him, and everyone else, threatens not just the Tory party (no bad thing) but the future of the entire union. SNP members must have been rubbing their hands with glee.

These constant claims of patriotism by the Tory party, often amounting to nothing more than having big Union Jack flags in their office and demanding the national anthem be played more often, are undermined completely by such idiotic talk. Tory patriotism never extends to supporting the things that Britain does best around the world. They don't support the NHS, they don't support the BBC, they don't support foreign aid, and they don't support any other soft powers that once made many of us feel lucky, lucky - not proud, to be born, or resident, in this country.

They don't even support the England football team (at least not until it's almost political suicide not to) and they certainly don't support the Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland teams. Essentially, they don't support the idea of fair play that the British, true or not - and in some cases it genuinely is, like to consider themselves ambassadors for and it is that that people are so angry about.

And the Tory party know it so they've launched Operation Save Big Dog. It's nothing to do with Clifford the Big Red Dog but instead the dog they're trying to save is one that is not yet house trained, a shaggy dog (with the stories to match), a sick puppy, a mangy cur who has polluted the British body politic to such a degree that an appointment with a sympathetic vet and a big syringe may be the only solution.

Yes, it's our old mate the conman formerly known as 'Boris' Johnson. Operation Save Big Dog is a plan to make loyal Downing Street staffers the fall guys for Johnson's own incompetence, negligence, and criminality. Find a bus with a false promise of sending £350,000,000 to the NHS written on the side of it and push these dupes under it. It's the Johnson way. 

Almost as if he's some 16c princeling and he employs a small army of whipping boys who can be punished on his behalf and for his transgressions. Almost as if that will sate the national desire for some kind of atonement. 

That won't be enough for some hardline Tories though. They see Johnson on the ropes and they see a chance to push him further to the right. It's an opportunity for him and those around him so we also have Operation Red Meat in which metaphoric, and distraction causing, carrion is lobbed to the vultures that are beginning to circle in the form of policies and plans that will cause them to salivate.

Migrants are never far from the mind of a right wing Tory - hurting migrants makes the right wing of the Tory party hard/wet. So a plan has been proposed that they can be 'processed' in third party countries like Rwanda and Ghana. Countries, one assumes, that have been chosen because of their presumed unpleasantness. Last time this idea was mooted it was Albania that was given the role. The only problem being that nobody told the Albanians and when the Albanians did find out about it they wanted nothing to do with it.

What chances the Rwandans and Ghanaians being in on this latest wheeze to get the known racist Boris Johnson out of a tight spot? Possibly more workable, though utterly stupid, is supposed Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and her plan to scrap the BBC license fee and, quite possibly - by extension, the BBC himself. Which will lead to us being able to enjoy the sort of high quality news footage we see in the US from Fox News and here, already, by GB News.

 

News footage more sympathetic to the government, basically. The third 'operation' being talked about is Operation Rinka. Rinka, named after the Great Dane owned by Jeremy Thorpe's former lover Norman Scott and shot dead by bungling assassin Andrew Newton - leading to Thorpe's eventual downfall, is a plan by rebel Tories to force Johnson to resign and you could almost enjoy all the infighting if the end product wasn't damaging the entire country and an entire generation's trust in politics and politicians.

These things don't tend to end well and at a point when the UK's Covid death toll has passed 150,000 (still seventh highest on the entire planet, shockingly high up the list for a country with the twenty-first largest population globally) and a rise in living costs on the horizon which Johnson has tried to play down, as he did Covid before it, they can only get worse until him, and his party, are gone.

As ever I've been doing my best not to permanently dwell on the Johnson regime so as ever I have to thank friends and some family members. I've had chats with my mum and dad on the phone and I've been out for drinks with Valia, Vicki, Ian, Mike, and Collette (not all at the same time but not all separately either, I've not been out THAT much) and I even saw my first live music for nearly twenty-two months.

I went to Bognor Regis Butlin's for the Rockaway Beach festival with Ben, Tracy, and Elaine (all great company) and saw Buzzcocks, Jarvis Cocker, a disappointing Tricky, and The House of Love. It was a boozy weekend but it was a fun one. On the way home on Monday I made a terrible mistake. Something I'm calling my 'Wetherspoons wobble'.

I'd not visited a JD Wetherspoon house since 12th December 2019 (the day of the last General Election when I popped into SE23's The Capitol) and when Tim Martin started spouting horseshit about Covid (to go with the horseshit he'd been talking about Brexit) I decided to boycott. That boycott held firm until eight days ago when I fell into The Hatter's Inn in Bognor Regis.

As a humble man I'd like to sincerely apologise for the impression my behaviour may have given. But I'd also like people to know I did not visit Wetherspoons for a party and considered the several hours I spent there to be a work event. When I realised it wasn't I left immediately - and went to another pub.

In a far more edifying escapade, last Saturday I joined with Shep, Adam, Pam, Bee, Mo, and Eamon and we started our Thames Path epic quest with a thoroughly enjoyable walk from the Thames Barrier to Tower Bridge. It was a tonic for me after a week of feeling down and I am lucky that my woes can be salved with good company, fresh air, and a nice long walk. The Tory party need far more drastic measures to stop them flatlining right now.

With NHS waiting lists for operations longer than ever in history it seems typically cruel and self-serving that the Tories themselves should be having so many 'operations'. Especially when they are anything but, to quote no less an artist than Sade, smooth operators. Maybe it would be better for everyone if we put them out of their misery as soon as possible. And in doing so start to put ourselves out of our own pain.

*never could work that one out