The Sunday Rumble: 16.6.19

Thank you - again - Mr. Hitchens:   There is not a better way to start a Sunday than with a dose of Hitchens!  Er, that's Peter, of course, not his late brother about whom I know very little.  Anyway, Peter's column in The Mail on Sunday is almost the equivalent of my regular glass of cold orange juice every morning, it clears the tubes, so to speak.  Today he discusses the merits and demerits of 'Boris' as a future Prime Minister and sums it up, thusly:

He is disappointingly different from the stage comedian so many think they love. As it happens, I have always quite liked him, but I wouldn’t ask him to look after my cat for a weekend, let alone put him in charge of a medium-sized nuclear power.

 

And you, too, Mr. Dan Hodges:   The other 'absolutely must read' columnist for The Mail on Sunday.  Today he confirms my own utterly uninformed opinion - call it a guess - that the Remainers and the 'Bolsheviks' (that's Labour!) will shoot down any 'no deal' plan to Brexit and, of course, as I have said many a time and oft', Brussels will not give a centimetre to aid our departure.  Boris will face exactly the same road block that the 'Maybot' faced.  There is only one way round it and that is a general election in the Autumn.

 

Let's hear it for the plucky little 'Hongers 'n' Kongers':   I refer, of course, to the people of Hong Kong who have demonstrated their courage in refusing to accept a dangerous directive from 'Xi Ping-a-ling' and his ghastly gangsters in Peking.  The 'Hongers 'n' Kongers' only represent a tiny fraction of the total Chinese population but I can't help wondering how many of the wider population are secretly - very secretly if they are wise - cheering them on?

 

Feeling cheerful?  Then don't read Jeremy Warner!   He reminds us in his Telegraph column that this Autumn two major economic posts will need to be filled.  First, a new Chancellor will be required when Philip Hammond is booted out by Boris.  This may be Boris's first and most critical decision.  Second, a new Governor of the Bank of England will have to be appointed when that mostly useless 'Canuck', Mark Carney, is sent back to Canada to change Justin Trudeau's nappies!  Good riddance to both of them but choosing their successors is going to require sound judgment - yeeeeeeeees, quite!

 

The end of the world must wait upon Rep. Elijah Cummings:   According to all those terrified 'Warmers', the end of the world is nigh and to prove it no less an authority than Rep. Elijah Cummings (Dem - natch!) summoned Ms. Judith Curry, an eminent climatologist and fierce critic of the current alarmist agitprop, to his Congressional committee.  But guess what!  Suddenly, the end of the world was put on hold because Rep. Cummings was more concerned with attempting to charge two Trump officials with contempt, or some such.  Ms. Curry sums it up this way:

If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed that I was scheduled to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Jun 12. The subject of the Hearing is Contending with Natural Disasters in the Wake of Climate Change.

Late on Jun 10, I received an email telling me that the Hearing is postponed (as yet unscheduled). Apparently the Committee finds it more urgent to have a Hearing related to holding the Attorney General and Secretary of Commerce in contempt of Congress. Interesting to ponder that Congressional procedural issues are deemed to be more important than Climate Change.

To those of you unfamiliar with Rep. Cummings it is sufficient to say that he represents nearly half of the wreckage that is the once proud, bustling city of Baltimore - or 'southern Chicago' as I think of it!

 

And now the end has come:  No, no, not me, so you can put that champagne back in the cellar!  I mean my new hero, the late, great Thomas Cromwell.  I have finally reached the end of John Schofield's excellent but tragic biography of one of the shrewdest, wisest men ever to run the government of England.  What a pity he had to do his duty under one of the stupidest, most malignant kings ever to stain our throne.  Never mind, at least he managed to set a foundation for a new, Protestant England that would eventually rid us of Popery.  Mind you, reading that book left me with a profound shame for my total ignorance on the subject.  Moral: must read more books, er, but how I will find the time I do not know.  Next up is "Arnhem: The Battle for the Bridges" by Antony Beevor and I already know how depressing that is going to be!

 

 

No more rumbles 

 

 

 

Comments

[AussieD]

I seem to have missed something along the way.

A majority voted to leave the EU so why do you need some sort of deal to leave? Why not just a simple "So long Fritz-Michelle et al we're out of here". You owe Europe sweet f.a and expended enough blood to put the debt on them.

There is a big world out there that would be happy to trade with the UK. You got along fine before joining the EU and there is no reason why you should not do so again.

[Whyaxye]

Aussie D, there are many Brits who are every bit as perplexed as you are. I suspect the answer is something to do with our political class being lying, corrupt and anti-democratic.

[Whitewall]

What 'Whyaxye' said. The Anglosphere is plagued with the same kind of political class. It may be necessary for history to repeat itself to dislodge them. Or they will use too much immigration to replace us.

[Whitewall]

Today we use the term "China" when the proper term is Communist China. They are still Communist. That descriptive is proper and carries meaning in spite of the recent glitz of Potemkin Villages.

[Loz]

Let's step through the immediate future between now and the Autumn.

Is BoJo (Girondins) going to simply call an election straightaway? If he doesn't, then what is he going to do between now and calling an election? He knows he can't get anything through parliament, as you've explained, the Marxists and Remainers (Mountain) won't let it through. Every attempt will sap his power, a la Teflon.

Could he even get a snap referendum through parliament? Imagine the interminable arguments about what would be on the ballot paper: No-deal, May's deal, Remain, renegotiate? What would be the rules for transfer voting to avoid no absolute majority for any option?

So given the Tories and Brexit Party (Girondins) would lose an election right now by splitting the right-wing vote, and any steps taken before an election would only weaken BoJo and make it worse, who on earth but a power-crazed idiot would want the top job right now?

BoJo is like a latter-day Danton, Robespierre, quite literally dancing his way cheerfully up the steps to the scaffold, waving to the crowd, the old spinsters ("Dad's Army's grannies") knitting in the front row tickled by his flipping over onto his back to watch the blade as it descends.

The ultimate winner in this Game of Thrones, Blighty's Bonaparte, will be one of the hangers-back. Keeps his hand in but let's the National Razor do it's work.

This person will have to time his metaphor ical "whiff of grapeshot" moment mighty carefully.

The wheel of revolutionary fate will move from the Girondins (Tories and BP) to the Mountain (Lib-Lab pact), and back to the Girondins, the two factions slaughtering each other as they go along, before any smart pol goes near the top job.

It's another great example of Bait and Bleed ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_and_bleed

... for the aspiring emperor who has the patience and discipline to fetter his own power urge in the moments it would be self-destructive to unleash, all will come in due course.

My money's still on Michael "The Bastard" Gove, of this Manor. A couple of years and a river of political blood down the line.

SoD

[Loz]

Oooh, look at Smack-head Stewart holding forth! ...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/16/need-reach-rory-stewart-personally-asks-nigel-farage-deal-brexit/

He wants to do a deal with Nige. Just stole a march on BoJo!

Aaah, look at his citizen assemblies running the country ...

50,000 people to be phoned to invite them to sort out Brexit, rather like citizen assemblies that dealt with the abortion issue.

He told the Andrew Marr Show earlier: "It would be like a jury selected very scientifically across the country, whittled down to be representative of the country as a whole" and then "make recommendations".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see no "citizens assemblies" "selected scientifically" in Blighty's Constitution since Magna Carta! ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom

"Citizens assemblies", no less, comrade-citizens! To quote Whiters prophetically coined sound-bite, "Tumbril Times" indeed!

So he just stole a march on Jezza too!

Or maybe the time honoured phrase: "'e's makin' it up as 'e goes along!" is more appropriate ...

https://youtu.be/7FvoXJCrBhQ

SoD

[David Duff]

I think Guido has Master Stewart summed up:

"Guido feels Rory isn’t getting much critical scrutiny. People have heard things like he was in Afghanistan – as a civil servant. That he tutored the Royal princes – for 2 weeks and admits he had to be extracted from a secure safe room at Highgrove by axe-wielding security officers after he locked himself in one night. He did PPE at Oxford – and didn’t get a first. His name is not really Rory – it is Roderick. Someone who knows him well described his defining talent as the Old Etonian ability to “sound convincing without expertise”. He is not even doing that with his flip-flopping and frankly eccentrically bonkers campaign…"

https://order-order.com/2019/06/16/rorys-bizarre-marr-interview/

[Whitewall]

It seems that the end of the world time table is malleable to those who are distracted by more pressing political matters.

[Bob]

David,

I don't call Somerset southern Wales. Because I know better. Now there's 'the south side of Chicago' or 'South Chicago', but there is no 'southern Chicago'. And your bête noire there would be Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam and, except for Donald J. Trump, demagogue without peer. And since I mentioned Wales and our president, I also know there's no Prince of Whales, which he apparently does not:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2019/06/13/president-donald-trump-prince-whales-tweet-mocked-twitter/1442601001/

Bloody foreigners.

[JK]

Bob,

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10436117/Prince-Charles-at-65-Evergreen-Prince-has-changed-the-world.html

Yes Bob, that Greenpeace. Rubber dinghys an' all.

[David Duff]

As far as I am concerned, Bob, which isn't very much, then the festering, Dem-induced wreck that is Baltimore is south of the equally shameful (for the Dems) slum that was, is and forever will be Dem-run Chicago.

[Up2L8]

Well, Bob, being somewhat expected and not totally surprised that you would resort to criticizing misspelled wording. At least he made the right pronunciation.

Corpsman, National Prayer Breakfast, Circa: Feb. 4, 2010.

[Bob]

JK, having a rubber raft doesn't give Charlie a blowhole.

David, and Somerset is what we would politely call 'bucolic'. We would never use SoD's term.

Up2L8, he probably meant what he spelled and was just lucky there was a homophone around to give him plausible deniability. I'll admit to being something of a cad, but not within light years of being as big a cad as Trump. I'm a better speller too.

[JK]

https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/01/politics/elijah-cummings-lyft/index.html

[Bob]

JK,

Puhleeze. What Cummings' daughter did was stupid and wrong, but remember when email security was the greatest threat to Western Civilization?:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/21/their-emails-seven-members-trumps-team-have-used-unofficial-communications-tools/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.7b8778850d92

And on daughters:

https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/04/ivanka-trumps-little-secret-she-avoided-criminal-indictment-in-2012/