The Mail on Sunday will print any old shit, especially if that shit demeans women and especially if that shit demeans people of the left, so it's not really a surprise that they should carry a story - from unnamed Conservative sources naturally, that the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Angela Rayner was wearing short skirts in the Commons and crossing and uncrossing her legs, like Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct except - one presumes - with knickers on, so as to distract Boris Johnson from his job.
It's an interesting one. It's not like you can't see enough cunts in the House of Commons as it is and though the story was patently untrue, and Rayner can wear whatever she likes to work, it reflects far worse on the Prime Minister than it does on Rayner. If he can't concentrate on the job every time he catches a glimpse of leg or thigh then he's clearly not up to the job.
Which, to be fair, was never in doubt in the first place - and has since been further underlined by his assistance that people working from home return to the office lest, like him, they are distracted by coffee and cheese. Ambushed by cake, distracted by cheese, unable to do his job because there's a skirt he fancies looking up. Is there anything that does not divert him from the job in hand?
I suppose at least Johnson was only having a lech. The Tory MP for Tiverton and Honiton Neil Parish stepped down after being reported for watching pornography on his phone in the House of Commons. But only after he'd done an interview in which he was asked about the then unnamed MP who'd done this and didn't admit it was him and only after he'd claimed he was trying to watch a video about tractors but accidentally ended up watching online grot.
I've always thought this lot of Tories were a complete bunch of wankers but I didn't realise just how literally true that actually is. When they're not wanking the working day away they're going on chat shows to do weird impressions of Harry Enfield's scousers as Michael Gove did recently in a cringe inducing series of interviews which included the catchphrase "calm down, calm down".
Something Gove himself was seemingly unable to do as for some reason, and your guess is as good as mine, he seemed as bright eyed and bushy tailed as he did that time he was spotted raving in an Aberdeen night club on his own wearing a suit.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, at least, has been hard at work of late. Hard at work attempting to scrap the Northern Ireland protocol that her own government agreed, signed off, and won an election on the back of. The 'oven ready' protocol as Johnson called it even though he would have known at the time he had no intention whatsoever of honouring it.
Johnson, of course, is backing her and while he's receiving some plaudits for his position on Putin's war in Ukraine he's also been unable to resist putting his foot in it there. When he indelicately announced that Ukrainian soliders were being trained in Poland, the former Polish Army Chief General Waldemar Skrzypcza accused Johnson of "tempting evil" by exposing information to the Russians.
Of course, Johnson simply wanted to boast. That, and lying, are what he does best and he often combines the two. This Tory party have no real policies and they have no real agenda other than staying in power and in that respect Boris Johnson is their perfect leader as he has no policies and no agenda other than keeping himself in power. The entire country, at the moment, is being run towards one end.
Keeping Boris Johnson in power as long as possible. Unsurprisingly, many in the country don't like that. I live in a Labour stronghold so it was hardly a surprise when the Borough of Lewisham saw its fifty-four council seats all go to Labour as well as returning a Labour mayor in Damien Egan. But, elsewhere in the country, the Tories lost 485 seats.
Labour gained 224, the Liberal Democrats 157, and the Greens 87. That's promising but really the Tories should have lost a lot more considering the terrible mess they've made of every single thing they've touched. Johnson and the Tories are milking the fact that Keir Starmer had a beer and a curry at work (incomparable to the huge number of parties at Downing Street) to try and make Partygate go away and the war in Ukraine, and people just getting bored, makes it look like Johnson, as ever, will walk away from this mess intact, let others carry the can, and lead the country into its next disaster.
Which, with the cost of living crisis now on us - and due to get a lot worse, is very worrying. I've been making the most of having the money to go out while I've still got it. I went for a curry with my mate Simon, caught up with my old PRS buddy Richard Sanderson for the first time in years for a pint, went to see Groove Armada (!) at Brixton Academy with Ben, Tracy, Mark, and Jane, and attended a London Skeptics in the Pub talk (with Vicki) by Ariane Sherine who was talking about how to live to one hundred.
Is that even desirable? I've chatted on the phone to my parents and my friend Jason who is back in Gloucester (from Vietnam) for a while. There have been online Skeptics events about media controversies in science (with Fiona Fox) and another about the spread of bullshit with Tom Curry and Cecil Cicirello and I've been to exhibitions by Jake Chapman, Celia Paul, and Titus Kaphar as well as one on album covers at The Photographers' Gallery and Surrealism Beyond Borders at Tate Modern.
There's been a very boozy, but mostly fun, weekend down in Hastings for Ian and Chris's belated 50th birthdays (far too many old friends there to mention them individually), a brilliant play - Straight Line Crazy at the Bridge Theatre, a brilliant gig - Spiritualized at the Roundhouse, and, probably best of all - as ever, two great walks. The London by Foot gang took a stroll around Thamesmead, Abbey Wood, and Woolwich and TADS wandered the Thames from Pangbourne to Reading ten day ago.
I've been a bit up and down mentally but I've done some fun and interesting things. I'm worried about my own future (my contract comes to an end in two months time and I'm not getting any younger) but, equally, I'm worried about the future of the world and, specifically, this country. A country which is ruled by the most dishonest, and dishonourable, government in modern British history.
My basic instinct doesn't involve Sharon Stone, or Angela Rayner, uncrossing her legs. My basic instinct is that everyone in the country would be served better if the lying bastard Boris Johnson, and the creeps and cronies that back up his every word, was not constantly rewarded for his lies. Not only does it make for a terrible near future. It suggests to a generation of children growing up that the best way to get forward in life is to lie, lie, and lie some more. Maybe I am naive but I still believe the truth is important.
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