The rotting carcass of English conservatism (+ the certifiable lunacy of the American variety)
Marina Hyde: For this NSFW government, it’s the last days of Rome How long were the last days of Rome? By some estimates, about 200 years, so I hope you’re sitting comfortably after a week in which: a female MP was baselessly branded an exhibitionist; a male MP was accused of watching porn in the Commons chamber; it was reiterated that 56 MPs are reportedly under investigation for sexual misconduct (three of them in the cabinet); and an MP recently convicted of child sexual assault was revealed to have put in a forward-dated resignation letter, ensuring he’ll collect his full April salary.
Meanwhile, the prime minister remains under police investigation over a number of allegations that he broke his own laws to attend parties. Rome-wise, we could have another few thousand weeks of this. Don’t worry – it’ll feel longer. Still, let’s kick off with the Conservative MP accused by two of his own female colleagues of watching porn in the chamber (and also in a select committee). Tiverton’s Neil Parish has been suspended from the Tory whip, pending investigation by the Commons standards committee, so we’ll have to wait the usual unconscionably long time to discover whether what’s NSFW at your job is or isn’t SFW at his….
Jonathan Freedland: Even this government knows Brexit is a disaster
Jacob Rees-Mogg, arch-leaver and longtime loather of the EU, is now parroting lines from the remain campaign. He is admitting that implementing Brexit in full, honouring the 2016 promise to take back control of Britain’s borders, would be “an act of self-harm”. There’s plenty to attack here, starting with the nerve of hailing this move as “saving” Britons £1bn, when this was £1bn that Britons would never have had to spend at all if it hadn’t been for Brexit. Or you could share the outrage of British farmers, appalled that, thanks to Brexit, they have been left at a serious competitive disadvantage: they now face onerous and costly checks when they ship their goods across the Channel, while French, Italian or Spanish farmers face no such hassle moving their products in the other direction. Or you could join the lament of the UK Major Ports Group, whose members have spent hundreds of millions of pounds building checking facilities, which now stand unused as “bespoke white elephants”.
But put all that aside
for a moment and grasp the full meaning of Rees-Mogg’s admission. He and his
fellow Brexiters once looked forward to these border checks, seeing them not
merely as a price worth paying for leaving the EU but as a genuine benefit...
Trump mocked for fearing protesters would throw ‘dangerous’ fruit at him
“If you see someone getting ready to throw a tomato, just knock the crap out of them, would you.. It’s very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things... We were threatened... They were going to throw fruit. We were threatened. We had a threat... I wanted to have people be ready because we were put on alert that they were going to do fruit.” - Donald Trump
The Republican Party; Satan, and the Catholic Church
The Break-Up of Britain / The US today resembles the Soviet Union just
before it fell
