Hall Of Shame: Week ending 5th February 2023

 

It's time for the miscreants, mountebanks and maniacs, the irrepressible and the irredeemable. It's not totally serious, it's not totally silly, but it is this week entries into the Live & Direct Hall Of Shame!

A Dishonourable Mention to Bill Cash, Tory MP for Brexit. He's accused the BBC of lying about the reasons why we haven't seen any Brexit benefits. Instead he chose to blame Covid and the War In Ukraine as to why. Bill, when you see one of these supposed Brexit benefits, can you please point it out to the rest of us? At the moment, we're looking for flying pigs, unicorns and dragons!!!

The Bronze goes to our current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Talk TV's Piers Morgan. Sunak gave an interview to Piers, where he claimed he wasn't rich, but “Financially fortunate”. This is what happens when rich people talk about their own wealth, they don't know just how wealthy they actually are. Why is Piers Morgan on here though? Well during that interview he apparently wasn't having a good time of it, as his microphone went wrong. We could still hear him though, worse luck!!!

The Silver to Andrew Tate, who is still languishing in a Romanian jail cell after being denied his appeal to be released from detention, again. You know, I always thought that Alpha Males never whined and complained about anything, they just got on with it. Andrew on the other hand seems to do nothing but complain.

But our Fool's Gold award winner this week is former Prime Minister Liz Truss, the one who was outlasted by a lettuce. She gave an interview to the Sunday Telegraph, where she claimed that she believed she was “brought down by the left wing economic establishment”. Liz, I hate to break this to you, but the economic establishment isn't exactly left wing. It leans to the right, towards maintaining the status quo, and your mini budget wasn't maintaining the status quo, it was radical and full of things that gave the economic establishment a certifiable case of the jitters. “Left wing economic establishment”!!! Mind you, when you're that far out on the extreme right, I suppose even centre right looks like left wing!!!

Liz “left wing economic establishment” Truss, now and forever inducted into the not totally serious Live & Direct, Hall Of Shame!

Viewpoint: Politicians trying to return to centre stage

 

So Rishi Sunak has managed to survive over 100 days in office. Now by itself, that doesn't seem like anything worth talking about, but let's remember that his predecessor, Liz Truss, didn't even make it to 50 days in office.

However, the longer his tenure in number 10 goes on, the more it looks like the same kind of shenanigans that we saw during Boris Johnson's time in office, and considering that Rishi Sunak has been talking up restoring trust in British Politics, his current situation with scandals are making those sound like empty, hollow words.

The whole situation with Nadhim Zawahi's taxes shot a rather nasty hole in his rhetoric, but the current bullying accusations against Deputy PM Dominic Raab is making the whole situation worse, and with both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss looking to return to centre stage of the political theatre, it's getting harder and harder to see just how long Sunak will be able to withstand the kind of pressure that caused both Johnson and Truss to be forced from centre stage by the long hook of political Vaudeville. You know the ones. When some variety act was out on stage too long in the old Vaudeville days, an incredibly long hook would suddenly appear from off stage, hook around the performer, and they'd be pulled off stage to bring their act to an early and ignominious end.

But now we have both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, both of whom were pulled off stage by politics's own version, now trying to return to centre stage and reclaim some spotlight for themselves. At one time, if you were pulled off stage by the long hook of political theatre, you retired from centre stage gracefully, and those that avoided it saw it coming and made their own exit before they got pulled.

Now it seems the hook has a new target. Rishi Sunak, and it seems that both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss are trying to use it to force Sunak off stage, whilst at the same time making it seem like they are the best choices to replace him.

The thing is though, we're all fed up of this ongoing mess of political theatre shenanigans and would prefer a general election to be held, rather than having to watch the Tories go through yet another leadership election, and to be fair, I think there are plenty of Tories within the rank and file who would prefer a general election to the continued shambles that is the Tory party currently.

It's way past time that this political theatre production was shut down, and this current crop of hacks put out to pasture, to make way for a different production that just might be more popular than this one.

Viewpoint Special: Boris Johnson's Resignation.

 

So, this is finally it. After 59 resignations from government, leaving it in absolute tatters and unable to do it's work, after countless lies and denials, and playing the incompetence card, by claiming he forgot, or he didn't know, Boris Johnson is finally set to depart Number 10 Downing Street, probably in the autumn, once the Tory Party has spent a few months trying to find someone willing to take on the severely poisoned chalice that is governing a UK that is falling apart after Boris Johnson's tenure, and while Boris Johnson takes the wallpaper down that he had put up in the flat.

And it all started when Chris Pincher, had to resign as Deputy Chief Whip, because he had groped 2 men in a private members club, the Carlton Club, a known Tory watering hole. He then lost the party whip the next day, despite the fact that hours earlier, the party claimed it would not be removing the whip from him because he had done the right thing in stepping down. Then Johnson's spokesman, a man who gave Comical Ali a run for his money, told journalists that Johnson hadn't been aware of any specific allegations against Pincher before appointing him in February.

The Sunday papers called him out on that lie and as Sunday became Monday, it became clearer that the question wasn't did Boris Johnson know, it was more how much did he know, and when did he stop knowing it?

Tuesday saw the bomb being dropped, when Lord MacDonald, the former permanent under secretary at the Foreign Office, and the EIEIO, published a letter revealing that a complaint was made against Pincher, back when he was at the Foreign Office in 2019, and that Johnson was personally informed about it. Downing Street had to admit that Lord MacDonald's recollection of events was correct, but that Boris had actually forgotten about it when appointing Pincher in February.

Tory MPs, who had already been mutineering in large numbers due to Partygate, were now in open revolt. Letters of no-confidence began flooding in to the 1922 committee. Tuesday evening's 6 O Clock News on BBC1 had to open up with breaking news about the resignations of Savid Javid and Rishi Sunak. Almost a dozen other junior ministers, Parliamentary Private Secretaries, a trade envoy, and even the Solicitor General, resigned their posts with immediate effect. Boris Johnson was on borrowed time at this point, it was just a case of how long he was going to try and hang on.

The Night Of The Long Knives, became a Night and Day of the Long Knives, as Wednesday saw many more Tory MPs, over 30 all told, junior ministers, ministerial aides and trade envoys all quit their government posts with immediate effect. By 10 O'Clock that night, the Tory whip's office had calculated that Boris could only get support from 65 Tory MPs, out of almost 360. The maths were simply against him. Yet Boris vowed to fight on, even sacking Michael Gove in an act that was of pure desperation, as much as it was out of revenge. Michael Gove had told him earlier in the day it was time to go, and a ministerial delegation, including his new Chancellor, who he'd appointed Tuesday Night to replace Rishi Sunak, told him his time was up. And more letters of no confidence arrived at the 1922 committee.

More resignations came on Thursday, bringing the total to 59. The government couldn't even function properly. Finally, Boris came to realise what we had all known. His time in number 10 was up. 2 years and 348 days. That was the entirety of his time as Prime Minister. Theresa May had made it to 3 years and 12 days. Boris Johnson had fallen short. But, them's the breaks.

And yet, the after effects of his time in office will be felt long after he is gone. His departure is without any dignity, just desperation and delusion, clinging on to power even though his own cabinet was trying to oust him in a political coup. What brought him down was his constant lying, trying almost to out-Trump Donald Trump during his tenure as US President. His tenure in office could best be described as a Shakespearian tragedy, written by monkeys on typewriters. He piled lies, on top of lies, on top of lies, and when that failed, he pulled out the incompetence card, claiming to have forgotten, or not known, or not understood. He prefered being thought of as incompetent, rather than admitting his own mistakes.

And despite all the protestations of enough is enough and Boris had gone one step too far, Boris Johnson was a known entity when he entered 10 Downing Street, he was known to be a liar and the same people who were crying out over Boris's lies, were the ones who put him there. The Tory party elected him to replace Theresa May in the first place. Surely, they must have known what they were letting themselves in for. If they did, their protestations this past week ring incredibly hypocritical. If they didn't, then they are as incompetent as Boris is.

They sat idly by and watched him take a flamethrower to the unwritten British constitution, to standards in public life, to their own party, and just let it happen. The Tory party is unfit to govern this country, or a local council, or even a school. Trust and integrity meant nothing to them, so why are they so up in arms about it now? Could it be that they are just protecting their own behinds, because they are seeing the possibility of losing their seats at the next general election, whenever that happens to be?

Trust in politics now is the lowest its ever been and its not hard to see why. Everything from the “oven-ready” Brexit deal that even Boris had to admit was unworkable, through to his painfully slow and inept response to Covid and beyond, have eroded trust in politics as quickly as a heatwave in the Arctic would erode the polar ice cap.

Boris Johnson won a 80 seat majority at 2019's general election, and he basically rendered it moot and useless, through a mixture of hubris, ambition, lies and incompetence. The damage that Brexit has done will take many many years to undo, and that will only begin to happen when someone decides to undo it, something Sir Keir Starmer this past week indicated he wasn't going to do. Scotland is in all likelihood going to break away from the UK, and who knows when Wales will follow suit and leave because it'll be easier to take your own chances than trust in Westminster and a system of governence that has been forever broken by Boris Johnson. And then there's Cornwall and Yorkshire and other areas outside of London and the Home Counties, who have seriously gotta consider whether it's worth staying in a broken system that cannot be repaired or take your chances on the world stage on your own.

Nothing about life after Boris Johnson's premiership looks good. Even the opposition themselves don't look that good. They talked about ousting Boris Johnson as Caretaker PM through a vote of no-confidence in the House. I mean, talk about opening the stable door, after the horse has already bolted and jumped it.

There has been more chaos in Westminster over the last 6 years, than we've seen in all the previous administrations since WW2 ended, and frankly, the country is sick of it. Politics is thought of as boring, but the last 6 years have been anything but boring. We could do with at least a few years boring old politics as usual, so the country can recover from 6 years of chaos that was started by a prime minister who couldn't face what he had done, so he left. 6 years later, the mess is still there, it's getting worse, and nobody seems ready to face the prospect of cleaning it up.

Sanctioning Roman Abramovich only hurts Chelsea FC

Roman Abramovich is one of seven Russian oligarchs to be added to the list of those sanctioned by the UK Government, which compared to other governments around the world, still falls way short of what is expected of them.  

However, the sanctions against him have hit a target that really doesn't deserve to be punished as it is, and that is Chelsea Football Club.  

The club can no longer sell tickets or merchandise, and it's banned from any player transfers.  It has been granted a special licence which will allow fixtures to be played, staff to be paid, and existing ticket holders, mostly season ticket holders, will be allowed to attend matches.

These measures aren't targetting or affecting Roman Abramovich, they're punishing Chelsea for being owned by him, despite the fact that he has already handed off day to day operations of the club to the trustees, and he has committed to sell the club, for which he could well be granted a special licence to do so, on the condition that he himself doesn't benefit in any way from it.

The sad part is that because of these sanctions, the club cannot get any new money into the business, and how long can that realistically continue?  Football clubs are not run on goodwill alone.

Without ticket and merchandise sales, the club cannot continue to run long term, and unless something changes very soon, this season could end up being Chelsea Football Club's last one in existence, and all because of the necessity of punishing Vladimir Putin for a war that didn't even need to happen.

Viewpoint: A Dark Day in American Democracy

 I never expected that I would need to have to write this.

 Wednesday January 6^th 2021 will go down in history as one of the darkest days in the history of American Democracy.

A group of domestic terrorists invaded the Capitol building in Washington DC. How they got in there is almost irrelevant at this point, though it will not be irrelevant later, there will have to be an investigation into just how that happened. For now, there are more important things to be dealt with.

This is act of terrorism, and as much as I hate using that word, it is truly what it was, an act of terrorism, and it was committed by a bunch of criminals, who called themselves “Proud Boys”. They have nothing to be “proud” of. They just committed treason and sedition. They all need to be rounded up, tried for these crimes, and then locked up for the rest of their natural lives, without any hope of parole.

Those that fomented this, ranging from the Conservative commentators and media organisations that allowed these commentators to spread their traitorous comments, to the very congressmen that encouraged it, and even the “President” himself who practically ordered this sedition to happen, also need to tried for these crimes, and also locked up for the rest of their natural lives, without any chance of parole.

Even now, Conservative media commentators have been trying to put the blame elsewhere, some of them even going so far as to try to blame some mystical “Antifa” organisation, for what happened. No evidence has been presented that there were any anti-fascist infiltrators, just like there has been no evidence for any of Trump's baseless claims about the election being rigged against him. These organisations and commentators need to be deplatformed immediately. They have no business being part of public discourse on the airwaves, whether those airwaves are delivered by a satellite, a cable or a transmitter.

And what of the politicians who actively encouraged this to happen? They need to barred from politics for life. If they are sitting congressmen and women, they need to removed from congress immediately. The “President” needs to be impeached, and convicted, and removed from office. It doesn't matter that he will no longer be President come the 20^th January 2021. He has just demonstrated in the clearest terms possible, that he no longer has any business leading a school board, never mind a nation like the United States. But because the process of impeachment and conviction can take quite a long time, then the Vice President has to seriously consider using the 25^th Amendment to remove Donald John Trump from office. Whether he can do that though, will depend on just how many members of Trump's cabinet he can get to agree to it. Nonetheless, those discussions need to be happening, if they aren't already.

I already said they need to be tried and locked up for these crimes, but first we need to remove them off the political stage.

Democracy in any country, be it the United States, or indeed our own, depends not on how dark these kinds of days are, but in how we as a people respond to them. We must be willing to draw a line in the sand, and say “No, this was wrong”, and we must never allow ourselves to go back to these dark places ever again. And we must make sure that those who could take us there, are never allowed the power to do that again.

Worst Person Of The Day: "Boss Limburger" Rush Limbaugh.

Today's Worst Person Of The Day is Rush Limbaugh, who has managed to once again say something utterly stupid on his own radio show.  This one was so stupid however, that I thought Alex Jones had accidentally been substituted for him on his radio show.

He was talking about as USA Today op-ed on America's greatness myths.  Society is built upon so many myths and falacies, it's actually shocking that it functions as well as it does.  Well, apparently, Rush doesn't like that idea so he came up with an idea of his own.

"This -- none of this could be happening of its own. It couldn't -- this is not happening because a majority of the American people want this. That’s what makes this so outrageous. We are being ruled and governed here by a really small minority who are using the power of fear and intimidation and economic destruction — that is key.  Once you take people’s money away from them, you own them. Once you take people’s ability to earn a living and you become the provider, you own them. That’s the first thing they did, was shut down this nation’s economy. Now they’re trying to get it shut down again under bogus COVID-19 numbers... ...But at the end of the day, everybody needed America. Every nation on Earth’s economy needs America. But our economy has been shut down. We got 44 million people out of work. We’ve got in Chicago alone 4,400 businesses which have been shut down and are said never to reopen again. And that’s one city. In Rome and throughout Italy, they’re losing $115 million a day via tourism. There isn’t any. They miss the United States.  The world depends on it. This is another thing that is by design in all of this. You take out the United States of America and you take out the United States economy, and you have set up your precious globalism and world government because you are creating worldwide poverty and thus worldwide need. And when you, the global government or whoever you are, become the provider to those in need, guess who you own?  But none of this could be happening if it weren’t for the fact that the United States is under assault and being taken down on the basis of a pack of lies. That our great history is nothing but a bunch of lies, that our history is nothing but a bunch of myths. How in the world can anyone with any kind of intellect at all look at the United States, see its role that it played in the establishment of human liberty and freedom, and want no part of it?  Well, obviously people to whom human liberty and freedom are a problem. To communists and socialists, human liberty and freedom, free choice, that’s a problem. The state becomes the repository of all freedom. The state determines who can do what, when, where, why. The state determines who has what. The state determines who gets what.
But how in the world can this -- I ask myself how in the world can otherwise intellectually qualified people not value the concept of individual liberty and freedom? And yet people who are leading this anti-American movement are of exactly that frame of mind, that somehow individual liberty and freedom pose the threat, pose the problem to the ongoing future."

That's just a small sample of a over 10 minute rant that spews out of the consciousness that is Rush Limbaugh.  Media Matters has the entire transcript if you want to read it, and the video of the rant if you want to hear and see it.

The main thing wrong with it is that it is the very embodiment of the myths that the writer was talking about.  The idea that somehow America is better than any other country in the world.  Where as in fact it's just one of over 200 countries and territories in the world today.  It's not even the largest by population.  Both India and China are way ahead on that count.  There's nothing inherently superior about the United States, just like there's nothing inherently superior about the UK, or any other country in the world.  The conflation of the old Russian "Communist" model with socialism is quite deliberate.  Socialism isn't about controling distribution of goods.  It's about making sure those goods reach market in a condition that isn't going to kill the consumer, even accidentally.  It's about making sure the water is clean, the food isn't going to kill you, the services are at a fair price.  It's all about all that and more.  It's got nothing to do with controlling everything, despite what the right wants you to believe.

Rush Limbaugh, The Worst Person Of The Day.

Not Top Plays: 23rd July 2020

So I didn't have enough material today for a Worst Person Of The Day, so instead, we do something different, the Not Top Plays Of The Day.  I have 2 for you today, and I'm not going to rank them, cos the jury's still out on one of these.

The one the jury's not out on is Gemma Collins, who made a political play on her Radio 1 podcast, and made her Essex Girl reputation seem all the more earned.  She made a play for becoming Prime Minister.  I think you need a political party in that case, and no, that's not the kind of party where you get steadily drunker throughout the night watching the election results as you drown your sorrows.  But in her manifesto, is apparently a magic money tree. 

She claimed that everybody should have a swimming pool, yeah, good luck fitting that into my studio flat!  She also thinks that 3 day work weeks and 4 day weekends should be a thing as wellas Ice Cream for free and sunshine every day.  Like politicians could do that!  They can't even control themselves, never mind the weather!  But for added je ne sais quois, she says she'll change Number 10's famous black door for a pink one!  At a guess, it'll either be Fuschia, or DayGlo Neon Pink!!!

The one the jury's still out on is Mike Tyson, who at 54 is coming out of boxing retirement, which is about as permanent as a pro-wrestling retirement, to take on Roy Jones Jr in a special 8 round exhibition match in Los Angeles in September.  He's kept in pretty good shape during his retirement, and it's not like it's any kind of title match, so, I'm okay with it, except for one thing.  It should be against Buster Douglas, rather than Roy Jones Jr.  You remember that Buster Douglas sensationally knocked out Mike Tyson in the 10th round of their 1990 contest at the Tokyo Dome for the Undisputed Heavyweight Championship.  So, there's a nice revenge storyline there, that could be used to... oh that's right, this is boxing, not pro wrestling...

Anyway, those are my Not Top Plays Of The Day.

Worst Person Of The Day: 22nd July 2020

It's time for the miscreants, mountebanks and maniacs, the irrepressible and the irredeemable.  It's not totally serious, it's not totally silly, but it is my nominations for the Worst Person Of The Day.

The bronze medal goes to Police in Syndey, Australia, who asked a woman to remove her tampon during a strip search.  This comes from a report from Australia's Law Enforcement Conduct Commission who were investigating 5 controversial strip searches that had taken place.  They've ordered the police to apologise to the woman.  Obviously they're not pussyfooting around...

The silver goes to Housing Minister Robert Jenrick, who is apparently unrepentant about approving a housing scheme in East London, despite it being put forward by Richard Desmond, the former owner of the Star, Express and Channel 5, and also a noted donor to the Conservative Party.  He did say that he regretted sitting next to Mr Desmond, at a Tory dinner last November where they actually swapped telephone numbers.  I guess Desmond needed to Express himself to the minister...

But our winner is Kanye West, and I need to be serious here, because what is going on with Kanye right now is not funny, and it's not clever, it's just sad.   And I'm not just talking about his supposed presidential campaign, that has actually missed a bunch of deadlines to file for candidacy in several states.  No, that's just a symptom of the real problem.  BiPolar Disorder is not fun at all, not for the people around you, not even for you, and I can say truthfully, I have been there.  I have suffered BiPolar Disorder, and you do suffer it.  You can go from being on a maniac high, all the way down to a manic depressive state, in virtually no time at all, just a couple of minutes, and you can swing back again just as quickly, and you can keep doing that, multiple times an hour, never mind a day.  Yes, he posted some tweets on Monday which indicated he was looking to divorce his wife of 6 years, Kim Kardashian, and talked about how doctors wanted to 51/50 him, which means temporary involuntary psychiatric commitment of individuals who present a danger to themselves or others due to mental illness, and those tweets were later deleted, but it just shows just how volatile somebody with BiPolar Disorder can be.  So, this award comes with a proviso.  Kanye, get some psychiatric help for yourself.  I came out the other side, you can too.  And if you do, this award will be recinded.  But for now, Kanye West is the Worst Person Of The Day.

Viewpoint: Twitter takes down conspiracy theorists, finally.

So Twitter decided to ban a number of users, and limit a whole bunch more over a little something called QAnon, which is a conspiracy theory about a "deep state" within the Beltway, who it is claimed are actively working together against Donald Trump.  Apparently it kinda spun off from Pizzagate, which was another idiotic conspiracy theory. 

Conspiracy theories have actually been around a lot longer than you think, going back to the 16th century, and the whole idea the Protestant Reformation, was a deliberate conspiracy against Catholics.  But for so many years, conspiracy theories were regarded, correctly, as carackpot ideas that nobody took seriously, and they didn't spread either, because, well, instant communication wasn't a thing back then.

Perhaps the first conspiracy theory to actually get mainstream attention, so much so that a 1979 US congressional committee even ended up giving it more provenence, was the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't actually kill JFK, but a second shooter actually did.  That's just one of a bunch of conspiracy theories over JFK's assassination, but that one somehow garnered enough mainstream attention, that in 1976, The US House of Representatives, actually set up a committee to investigate both the assaninations of JFK and Martin Luther King, and controversially, said that JFK was probably assassinated as the result of a conspiracy. 

Since then, we've had absolute tons of conspiracy theories about nearly everything, from the deaths of Elvis Presley and John Lennon, to 9/11, to Sandy Hook, to even the current Covid-19 pandemic, and there have been some absolutely crazy theories put forward about that.

Anyway, back to Twitter, and this is a good first step, well, second step, after removing Alex Jones and Infowars from the platform, but honestly, they and Facebook both need to do more to take down these conspiracy theorists, who use social media to spread deliberate misinformation, and they know they're spreading deliberate misinformation, and we know why they're doing it too, they're doing it to deliberately undermine people's trust in the media, and in official sources of information and to a degree it has worked.  But the fightback is on.  And people on social media are standing up to these stupid conspiracy theories, by demanding proof.

That's how you take them down nowadays.  You can't ignore them anymore, they can spread like wildfire on social media, so you have to demand proof every time.  So I say this, Twitter, Facebook, work with us on taking down conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists. Lets make social media a safe place for the truth.

WTF Moment: Russian footballer struck by lightning

This qualifies for a WTF moment.  This Russian footballer, a goalkeeper, is in a training session, when he was struck by lightning.

He survived this and is back playing football 3 weeks later.  WTF...

Worst Person Of The Day: 21st July 2020

It's time once again for the miscreants, mountebanks and maniacs.  The irrespressible and the irredeenable.  It's not totally serious, it's not totally silly, but it is my nominations for the Worst Person Of The Day.

The bronze medal goes to Newsquest for an article that I saw on the Falmouth Packet website, called How To Unlock Supermarket Trolleys without £1, but they obviously didn't think what they were writing, because just before they shared the tip that you can use 2 20p coins instead of a pound coin, they wrote... "As the use of cash declines while contactless payments rises, shoppers who forget to bring a coin for the trolley are faced with having to cram everything into a small basket."  Yeah, I think if somebody isn't using cash any more, they're unlikely to have 2 20p coins.  By the way, a tip of my own, for less than the pound coin, you can buy trolley tokens which if you don't keep cash on you anymore, you can use those to access your trolley.  And you don't necessarily have to pay cash for them either...

The silver goes to Conservative MP for Delyn, Rob Roberts, who is reportedly facing allegations of inappropriate behaviour.  BBC Wales has seen messages sent to an intern inviting her to "fool around" with him.  He's also admitted to asking out another House Of Commons employee, who as a result ended up moving to a new post.  The party has described his actions as completely inappropriate and confirmed the matter is under investigation.  He's only been an MP since December 2019, so it's nice to see he's learned the ropes so quickly... 😒

But for our winner we're going international, to New Zealand and National Party MP for Rangitata, Andrew Falloon, well, he was a National Party MP, he's resigned from the New Zealand parliament and from politics, effective immediately.  The reason for his resignation, he'd admitted that he'd sent a pornographic image to a 19 year old woman.  Ah, this is so refreshing to see.  Apparently, according to National Party leader Judith Collins, this was so egregious that they didn't even want to wait until September's upcoming General Election in the country, they wanted rid of him now, and so he's gone. This reminds me of the dim and distant past of British Politics, when politicians resigned over things they should resign about, When was that?  Oh yeah, before Brexit!

Andrew "Bye Felicia" Falloon, the Worst Person Of The Day.

Viewpoint: The Russia Report released.

So, a day earlier than expected, The Russia Report finally gets released to the world, and whilst there's nothing that is a smoking gun, what is says is potentially more damaging to the British government, moreso to David Cameron's administration of it, than the current one, though their reluctance to actually publish this is very notable as well.

Whilst it doesn't actually say if Russia interfered in the EU Referendum, and let's be honest, we know they did, the Russians are truly the only ones to actually benefit from the UK leaving the EU, so of course they would try and interefere, it fits their style, it fits the whole KGB-esque way that Vladimir Putin has run things during his time as President, the fact that it criticises the UK government for not even trying to investigate if such a thing was happening, is way more damning. 

The report does say that Russia has been engaging in influence campaigns targetting British Politics using things like social media campaigns, wealthy individuals and other means.  Evidence of this dates back to 2014's Scottish Referendum on Independence, yet apparently, there was no attempt to discern if such behaviour was being done during the Brexit campaign.  Spoiler Alert: Yeah, there was, we saw it with our own eyes on social media.

Bias by deliberate action is one thing.  But bias by deliberate inaction is worse.  And allowing interference in internal affairs by deliberately avoiding investigating, is frankly unforgivable.  This government as a whole needs to resign, on mass.  Yes, I know, we don't want another general election, we've had so many in these last few years, but frankly, that would be a small price to pay.

Unsurprisingly, The Kremlin has dismissed all this as "Russophobia", but I would say, there was no "Russophobia" until Putin started showing he was still doing things the old KGB way.  Coincidence?  No way!

Russia interfered in Scottish Independence, they interefered in the EU referendum, they interfered in the US Presidential Election in 2016, they've interefered plenty since, and now the world is finally realising just how low and sneaky and downright dispicible Vladimir Putin has been, the fact that he has been running Cold War style campaigns of disinformation for the purposes of not just growing Russian influence and power in the world, but also to generate outcomes that will favour his country, it is going to get a lot harder for Russia to continue that kind of influence peddling.  They're already being called out for it on social media everytime they try.  And then, there's what will happen in 2024, when his second term in office comes to an end.  Plus, what is happening with the global pandemic in Russia currently.  Politics in Russia is going to be very interesting in the next few years, especially after the constitutional amendments he got voted in earlier this month, giving him the power to effectively veto candidates for the Prime Minstership, before they even stand for office, and stating that Russian law supercedes international law.  That is not going to go down well globally.

This was not closure on this issue.  We might not get any closure on this until Putin is out of political office and maybe not even then.  But the more we know about what Putin is doing, the more it makes him look like a wannabe global dictator.  We must be on the look out for more Russian influence peddling and trying to influence public opinion on social media, because that's the only way we can effectively counter what is going on.

Worst Person Of The Day: 20th July 2020

It's time to talk about the miscreants, mountebanks and maniacs.  The irrepressible and the irredeemable.  It's not totally serious, it's not totally silly, but it is my nominations for the Worst Person Of The Day.

The bronze medal goes to DUP MP for South Antrim, Paul Girvan, who made a bit of slip up in a debate today, by claiming that housewives did all the shopping.

He said the UK should aim to bring other countries up to its standard before telling the Commons: “We’ve set the bar fairly high.  But by setting the bar so high we have additional costs and it makes it more difficult for us to compete on a world stage and that is vitally important that we do address that, and we get that put in place with whatever measures we have to put in place and subsidy for our farming, and to ensure that we have a product which is still viable and still economically possible for the housewife to buy."

Now to his credit, he did apologise quickly, saying, “I’ve used the wrong term, I apologise, but those that are buying in their basket, their basket of food in the supermarket, they will definitely be able to get the best value for it.”  But, now we know who holds the purse strings in his household...

The silver medal goes to Israeli model Bar Refaeli, who has  recieved a large fine of 2.5 million shekels, that's around about £577,000, for tax evasion.  She'll also have to spend 9 months doing community service.  No doubt she'll turn that into positive PR on her Instagram posts.  Now, whilst I am all in support of taking down tax evaders, it's all too easy to go after people like models, actors and entertainers, because they tend to be either self-employed, or have small companies around them.  We should never forget that some of the biggest tax evaders right now are large corporations, who are deliberately moving money to tax havens to avoid paying tax.  The countries of the world, should be working together, to make these large multinational corporations pay their fair share of tax.  I only hope that she has found this whole situation more taxing than actually paying her taxes...

But our winner today is Conservative Brexiteer MP, Andrew Bridgen, who showed just how little he understands the Brexit situation, and the Russia report that's due to be published on Wednesday, by claiming that the release of the report was designed to sabotage Brexit and discredit the result of the referendum. 

He told the Express: “I hope that the ISC report will not be used as yet another attempt to try to discredit the referendum vote for Brexit or to smear Arron Banks again.  Too often we have seen that Remainers cannot accept defeat and have repeatedly used any means possible to attempt to undermine and discredit the result.  Yet whenever the British people have been asked to vote in a referendum or election in the last four years they have consistently and increasingly overwhelmingly backed the Leave side.”

Okay, so from the last point, no, they haven't backed Leave, they backed the Tories, unless you're suggesting that they're one and the same???  Second, it's not that Remain didn't accept the result, everybody accepted the result of the referendum, which was always only meant to be advisory, but was taken as gospel by those who won, it's more that as the evidence has mounted up to show that the result was tainted by external interference, Leave has refused to accept that, claiming some kind of conspiracy against them.  Third, Arron Banks hasn't been smeared, there were allegations made, and so far, there hasn't been enough evidence to bring him before court.

But the more important point is this.  The referendum result has already been discredited, even if Russian money wasn't involved, and it's not been disredited by Remainers.  It's been discredited by your own party, Andrew, becasue they have consistently failed to deliver what they promised in the referendum campaign.  They said that Brexit would be easy, that we were holding all the cards, that getting trade deals would be no problem.  None of those have turned out to be the case, and it's been the actions of Brexiteers like yourself that have caused all this.  Just accept that you won, and now you're having to live with the consequences of it.

And you know what the weird thing is about all this?  Once Brexit is finally done, Andrew will just go back to being just another irrelevant backbench MP, much as he was after he won his North West Leciestershire seat back in 2010, and he struggled to find releavance for a while, being critical of both David Cameron and later, Theresa May as Prime Minister.  Just you wait, Boris, he'll turn on you too!

Andrew "critical of Prime Ministers" Bridgen, the Worst Person of the Day!

Viewpoint: Texas is now a Toss-Up!?!

This sounds unbelieveable.  Texas, a state that has been firmly Republican territory for a long time, this year, could go to the Democrats?

This seemingly wild idea, actually comes from a site that is not known for it's wild, unsubstantiated ideas.  This comes from Real Clear Politics, who are usually somewhat conservative, at least in a cultural sense, when it comes to election predictions.  By comparison, Politico, NBC News, CBS News and CNN are still firmly placing it on the Republican side, although Politico, CBS News and CNN are all saying that it's only leaning Republican right now. 

The current scorecards for the race to the White House are very interesting.  All of them have Biden leading.  Real Clear Politics makes it 222-115, with both Florida's 29 Electoral College votes, and Texas' 38 Electoral College votes up for grabs.  If Biden were to win both of those states, then Trump has no way to win.

By comparison, Politico scores it 268-203, NBC News scores it 231-201, CBS News 248-188, and CNN scores it 232-205.  As of writing this, neither ABC News or FOX News currently have a scorecard for the race to the White House. 

It would be completely shocking, if the Democrats did indeed take Texas, even by just a handful of votes.  The Republican Party losing their single biggest block of Electoral College votes?  To many of us seasoned political observers, it seems to be anything from unlikely to impossible.  But Politico have noticed something.

In 2012, Mitt Romney won Texas by 16 points.  In 2016, Trump won it by just 9 points.  It's getting closer and closer.  Currently, Real Clear Politics has it listed as a tie for this year at 45% each on their polling average, but that just means that right now, it's too close to call, which considering Texas' history as a Republican and their one reliable source for a big pile of Electoral College votes, the fact that it could, just could go to the Democrats, will shake everything up if that happens.  We'll just have to wait and see.

Viewpoint: Is opinion polling broken?

This is not something that has suddenly happened this year, this has been something brewing for a number of years, and I'm really beginning to more than question the accuracy of the polls.  I'm actually beginning to think that the whole process of opinion polling may now be fatally flawed, or at best compromised badly.

Now, there have been some changes to what is prompted by the questioners, but in my view, that is not the big problem.  My feeling is that the biggest issue right now with opinion polling is the way it is conducted right now, and how they select the people they interview.

Some pollsters now use a regular group of volunteers polling them on the internet.  Then they weight the results based on demographic information.  This I feel is seriously flawed, because it is open to manipulation.  Anybody can volunteer to give their time to the polling companies, and often, I suspect that some parties might try to get their operatives to volunteer to load the system up with representatives of a particular party.  The weighting aspect of this method is also flawed, because it's based on a lot of assumptions that don't actually always play out as you think they would. 

Those that still rely on telephone calls to canvas potential voters, are also somewhat flawed.  Calls from polling companies are often cold calls, and as such are not treated well by respondents.  The idea that you can get an accurate idea of opinions from a bunch of random cold calls, is a seriously flawed idea.

The net result is reflected in the actual results of the polls themselves.  Since Boris Johnson took over as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister, he has stumbled so many times that he makes his predecessor Theresa May look actually competent.  He lost almost all of the key votes in Parliament in the short time he was in there as PM, he lost a battle in the courts over an illegal prorogation of Parliament., and he's been losing and poorly performing in TV debates already.  Yet, this week, a poll by Opinionum for The Observer, put Boris Johnson's Conservatives 19% ahead of everybody else. 

This does not add up.  Public perception of Boris Johnson is not a good one.  He's seen as an incompetent blunderer, full of bluster and Brexit, full of sound and fury signifying absolutely nothing.  Even within his own party, he's not seen as a great politician.  Yet somehow, his party has a massive lead in the polls?  How on earth do you square that circle of hell?  Nothing about that adds up at all.

Jeremy Corbyn hasn't been viewed as a competent leader of the Opposition.  This is despite him inflicting more government defeats in his time as leader of the Opposition than any previous opposition leader in the modern era.  And whilst some of his decisions have been questionable, any lack of competence he has shown pales into insignificance behind the incompetence of both Boris Johnson, and his predecessor Theresa May as PM.

To my practiced eyes and mind, something isn't adding up here, and not all of this can be blamed entirely on the media, as much as many might like to believe that to be the case.  Sure some of it can be blamed on media bias, but the Tory press is a dying medium right now, they are losing readers, they are losing money, and they just can't be the only factor.  A contributing factor yes, but not the main one.

And as Sherlock Holmes would say, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be the truth.  So, we must look to the polling methodologies themselves, and how flawed they are, and as I've already stated, they are seriously flawed, compromised beyond reasonable expectations.

Even the Exit Polls of the two previous elections in 2015 and 2017, which are done face to face, rather than over the phone or by internet, have been a bit off the mark when it came to actually predicting the result.  Granted they weren't as far off the mark as they were back in 1992, when they completely screwed up, but it's far enough for me to question their reliability.  In other countries, exit polling has been much more accurate in predicting the result.  It does leave me wondering how we on the UK aren't able to get it right when other countries pollsters can.

That's why I question the weighting that is given to polls.  It seems to be at least a bit out of sync with actual reality.

Overall, I have to believe that something is serious wrong in the world of opinion polling, and yes, it might be broken, maybe even broken beyond repair.

Viewpoint: Trump & Republicans in full self destruct.

For a while now, we've been watching the slow and painful disintegration of both Donald Trump's regime in the White House, and the Republican Party in Congress, and wondering when exactly the final cataclysmic explosion of both was going to happen.

From reports I'm seeing online, it truly looks like we are at the beginning of what we know from the James Bond films as the big final fight that leads to the final cataclysmic explosion of the villains base, and the death of the main villain, although in this case, it's the destruction of the Trump regime and the Republican Party with them.

At this point, Trump can only count on his base to support him, and his base isn't anywhere near as big as it was.  His base now only consists of extremists on the far right of the political spectrum.  Even Moderate Republicans, along with Independents, Centrists and Democrats, are now seeing Trump for who he really is, and they don't like it either.

But the Republican Party in Congress haven't caught up with this, and they're trying their damnedest to either protect him or come up with successful distraction strategies, but they seem to be failing with both.

And what makes it worse, is that we are seeing the Trump regime revive the classic Republican trope of the circular firing squad, and try to take each other out in order to avoid getting taken out themselves.  The amount of panic in the Trump regime is growing exponentially and the net result of all this is what we are currently seeing.

In the ongoing public impeachment hearings, several Trump administration officials have repeatedly given testimony pointing to Donald Trump's guilt and that's causing mass panic in the Republican camp and in the Trump regime.  Donald Trump even managed to take over Fox & Friends on Friday morning to claim that this impeachment is going great for him, and he's looking forward to his trial in the Senate, in an hour long rant that even the hosts were feeling somewhat uncomfortable about at some points.  Then Republicans in Congress began parroting this same idea, and some people actually fell for it.

However, this was all undone by the end of the day when reports came out from inside the White House via the Washington Post and the New York Times, that Trump was "miserable" in the White House and was finding the whole situation "intolerable".  It was then further undone when Trump called Republican senators to Camp David to 'persuade them' not to convict him.  If you honestly thought that the Impeachment proceedings against you were going well for you, then why would you call your buddies from the Senate to persuade them not to convict you?  The answer of course is that you wouldn't.  So, that totally destroyed the narrative that you had set up earlier in the day.

This is just adding further hard evidence against Trump.  It shows just how corrupt he is and that he thinks he can somehow subvert the whole process.  However, he fails to recognise the underlying truth about all Republican politicians in both the House and the Senate.  That truth is that when it comes to making sure they get re-elected, the President of the United States has absolutely no say in their decisions, because it isn't about protecting him, it's about protecting themselves.  If the numbers in their state or their district say that convicting him is their only course of action, they will convict him.  It's not the extremists that win elections, it's the moderates on both sides, and the Centrists and Independents.  If a Republican thinks they can win more votes by convicting him, than by not convicting him, they will do it, and the numbers generally look like that's more likely to happen than not.

Of course this leads to the next question, which is will enough voters switch to vote for a Republican if they do convict him.  This at the moment doesn't look so clear cut, and the possibility of Republicans losing what had previously been considered to be fairly safe seats is a not insignificant one.  At the moment, there doesn't seem to be enough of a swing against the Republicans to wipe them out in the House, nor enough to ensure a clean sweep of Democrat victories in the one third of Senate seats that will be up for grabs.  But that could change, and based on what is currently happening, it's a change that could hurt Republicans even more than it already is.

For instance, there is Trump's personal lawyer, Former New York Mayor and walking 9/11 meme, Rudy Giuliani.  He's already in a boat load of trouble, and it got worse this past week, as not only were House Republicans more than ready to throw him under the bus to protect Trump, but also when it was revealed in the New York Times, that the Feds has subpoenaed a Pro-Trump Super PAC in an investigation that is about 3 people.  Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman... and Rudy Giuliani.  Parnas and Fruman are associates of Rudy's, and Parnas was even born in the Ukraine, when it was still part of the Soviet Union.  Fruman was born in Belarus, so both are immigrants, which further adds another level of hypocrisy to the Republicans' anti-immigrant stance.

Now, Super PACs rarely get subpoenaed, so this is in itself, quite a big deal.  A PAC is a Political Action Committee, which is basically a group that pools campaign contributions from its members and donates them to campaigns for candidates, or ballot initiatives, or legislation.  In the wake of the Citizens United decision, a new kind of PAC was created, known as the Super PAC.  Whilst PAC have set limits on what members can donate, Super PACs do not, and they can engage in political activity independently of the campaign they are supporting.  However they are barred from making actual contributions to candidates or parties.

Now, it seems likely that these subpoenas relate to donations to that Super PAC from foreign donors, which is illegal under US Electoral Law.  Parnas and Fruman are already in some trouble for sourcing illegal foreign campaign contributions, so it's very possible that these subpoenas might relate to funneling foreign money through the Super PAC to Donald Trump, which as I've already pointed out, Super PACs are barred from making contributions.  If this is the case, then Parnas, Fruman, Giuliani and Trump are all potentially in boiling hot water.  Parnas has even said to CNN that he's willing to testify to Congress about the roles of Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, and Republican Representative Devin Nunes's roles in the whole Ukraine situation.  Not only could this throw both Giuliani and Trump under the bus, but it also opens up the possibility that Republican politicians in Washington are in this whole mess up to their eyeballs, and if that's the case, then that could lead to further revelations about othe Republican politicians in Washington and their connections and it could compromise the whole of the Washington Republican establishment, and that could really spell trouble for the Republican Party.

And that's the just the tip of the iceberg.  A grand jury in New York has the Trump Organisation firmly in its sights at the moment in relation to Trump's hush money scandals, and looks likely to indict not only Donald Trump himself, but also members of his family as well, on State charges, which Trump cannot pardon himself for.

Then there's Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo, who was just sold out by State Department officials, who were forced to turn over materials relating to the Ukraine situation to a court.  A judge had ordered these documents turned over before Midnight Friday.  But then it was revealed that Pompeo had leaked to the media that he was going to resign from the State Department to run for the US Senate in Kansas, which might be a pipe dream considering he too is up to his neck in the whole situation, and could well be arrested.

And there's probably a lot more that we don't yet know.  But this is very much what happens when a criminal conspiracy is unraveling before you.  Normally the best move would be to stick together, try and ride things out together.  But the old saying about there being no honour among thieves, is one that is proven true time and again, because individual players will start thinking about what will protect themselves, usually in a panicky state, and will often make the situation for themselves and everybody else in the conspiracy, because these panic moves usually backfire.

To seasoned observers of Washington politics, this is following predictable patterns of behaviour to their logical conclusion.  We've been witness to a party that has actually been slowly disintegrating since the days of Watergate, and now, we're seeing what could be the start of the final disintegration of the Republican Party as a political force, via the corrupt dealings of the Trump regime.  Something else will come along to replace it unquestionably.  This happened before in the 1860s, when the Republican Party itself emerged out of the ashes of the Whig Party in the US.  But this could be even more damaging than the Whig's self induced implosion, which didn't have a trigger for it on a scale anywhere near this big.  What would happen in the aftermath of this, is very much uncharted territory, and it will be interesting to watch it play out.  Right now though, it is kinda fun and kinda painful, to watch both the Trump regime and the Republican Party hit the self destruct button repeatedly and to see the whole situation blowup, just like watching the villain's base in the James Bond films get destroyed in explosion after explosion.

Viewpoint: Israel has their second election in 6 months.

This is something I'll be looking to cover on my Live & Direct radio show next Monday, but I'll use the blog here to pull together my thoughts as we go.  Also, in relation to the blog, I'll use this blog now to focus on some of the stories I may well be talking about on the show, which will give you an insight into what comes into my stream of consciousness during pre-production of the weekly show.

So, at 8pm UK time, 2200 in Israel, 1900 GMT, the polls closed and the exit polls were announced.  Now, in the UK, we get a single exit poll, that all the major broadcasters commission.  In Israel, the situation is a little different, as there as 3 different exit polls, but none of them have The Likud Party leading, and one has them behind.  It's basically too close to call right now, but the early indications point to the centrist Blue & White Party having the most seats.

Now, if the actual results bear this out, this could be the end of Benjamin Netanyahu's political career, as he is facing allegations of corruption.  Bibi was hoping that he could win this election so he could persuade potential allies on the right to back a piece of legislation that would make him immune from prosecution.  But it looks like that strategy may have backfired spectacularly.  And even if he does win, after the past 5 months of failing to garner a coalition for government, it would be unlikely to believe that a coalition could form around such a controversial idea, as making a politician immune from prosecution.

We'll see what happens in the upcoming hours and days.

Viewpoint: Bauer stations drop the Top 40, so Global sulks.

So Radio Today are reporting that Bauer stations are dropping the Vodafone Big Top 40 show at the end of the year, and Global as a result have decided to stop offering the show to the rest of the industry as a result.

I mean that in itself is slightly weird.  It doesn't have sound like Global sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the industry, so that only their clique can play with it.

But, for me, this is absolutely a good thing.  Global now have stations just about everywhere in the UK, they are the biggest radio group in the UK.  So, if they were going to stop offering the chart show to other stations at some point, maybe they were just waiting for a convenient excuse.

Many smaller stations across the country have not been taking the chart show.  The likes of Radio Plymouth, Radio Exe, The Breeze, and others have managed to work just fine without the show, and other than for just heritage reasons, there was sometimes little reason for a station to be still taking the show, such as Pirate FM has been since 2012, when Heart Cornwall replaced Atlantic FM, which had not been airing the Big Top 40, and started airing it, meaning both commercial radio stations in Cornwall were simulcasting the programme between 4pm and 7pm on a Sunday.

Bauer just provided the necessary excuse for Global, but it still sounds like they're sulking and taking their ball away from the rest of the network in response.

Viewpoint: The End of the BBC Local Radio Evening Show?

So, it seems that we've got the beginning of the end of the BBC Local Radio evening show.  BBC Radio London dropped the show some months ago, and next Monday, BBC Radio Cornwall also drops the show, with Tiffany Truscott taking on the Evening Show slot.  BBC WM are also dropping their remaining airings of the show on Mondays & Thursdays, to replace it with local evening shows on those days, whilst Tuesday, Wendesday and Friday evenings are dedicated to local sport.

Other stations that have already dropped the show, include BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, BBC Radio Humberside, BBC Radio Kent, BBC Radio Lancashire, BBC Newcastle, BBC Radio Sheffield, whilst BBC Radio Stoke have just one hour of the show on a Friday evening.  Other stations have hours of the Local Radio Evening Show substituted for sports coverage and BBC Introducing, amongst other things.

This is a very piecemeal way of dropping the show.  Individual stations are deciding when they are dropping it, rather than having a confirmed cut-off date, where the show officially ends.  Where I live, I can pick up both BBC Radio Devon and BBC Radio Cornwall, and whilst Cornwall is starting their own evening programme next week, Devon is sticking with the show, except for some Tuesday sports coverage.  Also, it seems that each individual station is now doing it's own thing in the evening slot, rather than the regional arrangements we've had before.  Some stations are including BBC Introducing shows in the evening schedule, and specialist music and content shows, others are just doing one long evening slot.  This is the first time ever, outside of sports coverage, that BBC Radio Cornwall has gone its own separate way for the evening slot.

In the Mid 80's BBC Radio Bristol supplied evening programming between 6pm and 8pm with Al Read presenting, but that disappeared shortly before Late Night Sou'West laucnhed in 1987 with Chris Langmore hosting from 10pm.  Then BBC Radio Bristol supplied the evening output with Chris Mills between 7pm and 10pm.  Later, Devon, Cornwall, Guernsey and Jersey would split away from Bristol, Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire, and have their own evening show, then later on all the stations came back together for a while where all post 7pm output, including the late night show, was shared between all those stations. then later Duncan Warren hosted an evening programme on Devon, Cornwall, Guernsey and Jersey, with somebody else hosting the late night slot.

Now, you'll have Tiffany Truscott hosting just for Cornwall, and the only shared output, will be David Shepherd's Late Show.  Very much not what I expected, I was expecting to see more regional output between 7pm and 10pm, but more local is good.  Maybe it will help remind commercial radio that they should be more local than network.  

WrestlePod: WOS Wrestling Episode 1 Review

Ian Beaumont reviews the first episode of World Of Sport Wrestling, talks Impact Wrestling Slammiversary 2018, and WWE Evolution on this episode of WrestlePod.