it’s darkly funny that every other country in europe with a brutal and inhumane asylum system is completely changing their tune on ukrainian refugees because They’re White This Time but the UK is like lol. lmao. sorry guys you’re still on racism 1? we’re on racism 2. our refugee policy is still operating on HP-lovecraft-the-welsh-aren’t-white rules. oh you’re white and christian? cool story come back when your name is Bellingsworth Imperialism-Terfcroft and your ancestors caused a south asian colonial famine

the funniest part is that all the right-wing columnists who’ve spent the last 22 consecutive years scaremongering about the dangers of e.g. syrian refugees are now all shocked and appalled that the nightmarish system they lovingly campaigned for is working exactly as intended

The UK is so Galaxy Brain on xenophobia and racism that we’ve got an entire Tory of cabinet full of Brown politicians—most of them the children of refugees and immigrants—being like “All Hail the Glorious Empire! My hobbies include stock trading, fox hunting, and deporting Latvian cleaning ladies. Keep Britain for the British, and God Bless Margaret Thatcher! #IHeartBrexit” without like… the slightest hint of irony or awareness.

It’s as if there’s some Faustian bargain you can strike where bigotry will never personally hold you back, so long as you agree to be as xenophobic as possible towards anybody else on this Great Isle who has ever once considered seasoning their food.

Boris ending all covid restrictions like we've beaten COVID when even the Queen herself has it is brilliant comedic timing to me

LET’S GET YOU IN THE MOOD, KIDS, IT’S A WILD ONE!!! Background music for your enjoyment. If you’re on mobile, here’s a Spotify option. Want to really set the scene? Grab some snacks! Snacks such as, for example, popcorn, like this popcorn given out to passers-by by Butterkist today in front of Downing Street.

OKAY so. Last update we had just learned that Will Wragg MP was accusing the Tory party of blackmail! News that came just as I was writing the damn update even. So, let’s pick up from there!

Well, naturally, as the rats are running from the sinking ship, Boris Johnson is cutting an increasingly lonely figure. But hey, you can always count on your true friends to defend you! Up until now, that’s been the job of Nadine Dorres (the galaxy-brained genius behind Operation Red Meat, more on that in a moment) and Jacob Rees-Mogg (a time travelling Victorian dandy too stupid to spot he’s landed 150 years in the future); but now, Tumblrs, in steps your new favourite clown character in this saga: Michael Fabricant.

Now Michael Fabricant is a terrible man who last year described Palestinian activists as “primitives” who are “trying to bring to London what they do in the Middle East”, which is frankly the mere tip of the iceberg, if an iceburg were made of frozen liquid shit and melted slugs. He is also, and I swear to god I am not shitting you Tumblrs, I swear this is genuine, he is a real man who has made these real choices - he is a man who appears to very literally be cosplaying Boris Johnson. Look at this:

SAME CLOWN WIG!!!!

He’s also spotted his sycophantic chance to worm his way into the mouldering and collapsing bodily cavity where Big Dog once had a heart, so he stepped up to the plate when he heard this TERRIBLE accusation of blackmail. Oh yes! The hour came and Fabricant was not found wanting! Let’s see his defence!

Keep reading

Okay no one on Tumblr that I've seen has been talking about the wine and cheese thing, but that means no one is reflecting on the absolute weapons-grade hilarity of Boris Johnson trying to inchworm his way out of trouble by claiming that he didn't know about it

Like... that wine and cheese party was the Downing Street works Christmas do. Not just any old social, the Christmas social. There were invitations. There was music. Every single worker in Downing Street was invited, even Debbie from accounts. People who didn't work there but were important to the government got invited.

And Boris is therefore claiming that all his mates got together and had a party and DIDN'T INVITE HIM.

Not only that, but they deliberately kept it a secret from him, because no one wanted him there to ruin the party because no one likes him, and I just...

The key difference between Johnson and Trump always came down to this: Johnson wants to be liked. He genuinely does. Trump wanted to be respected and feared and obeyed, he wanted to be seen as powerful and suave and cool. But he didn't care about how liked he was. Johnson, though, really fucking does. He's a deeply pathetic little twat, and he wants people to like him.

So, his choices currently are

1. Tell everyone in the country that his own friends and coworkers actually cannot stand him, to the point that they arranged an entire Christmas party without him
2. Admit that he was there and immediately be hated by literally every single human being in the country, including his own voters (hello North Shropshire), because while the rest of us spent Christmas 2020 in a lockdown and unable to see each other and in many cases literally alone, him and his mates held an illegal Christmas party that the police are refusing to investigate

His popularity is now nosediving in the polls, and it really cannot be stated how much that will be burning him.

Also, pro-Brexit Tories are even pissed off with him now. Which is a bit like someone buying a cake called a pus cake with pictures of pus all over the box and a warning sign that says This Cake Contains Pus and Other Bodily Fluids, and then crying because when they tried to eat the pus cake they found it was filled with pus. But also really funny.

Anyway, I'm placing the bet now: we will see a vote of no confidence, OR he'll jump before he has to experience that (because it would kill him), and our next PM will be Rishi Sunak

And don't forget

THEY HAD THIS PARTY IN THE HOUSE HE LIVES IN!

He's trying to claim that all his friends and colleagues hosted a party IN THE HOUSE HE LIVES IN while he was upstairs apparently totally oblivious!

He really thinks we're that stupid to believe that a party could be happening literally TWO FLOORS BELOW him and he not know?

Omg omg I forgot that part and you are so right

They had a secret Christmas party that was so big that they were sending out invites to non government members which they didn't want him at, so they... what, had his mistress drug him with hefty amounts of antihistamines? He went out for the evening (also illegal at the time) and they partied hard on cheese and wine for precisely two hours and 46 minutes, then everyone went silent and snuck out when he came back?

A whole team of cleaners had to tiptoe about for four hours so they wouldn't wake up the clown upstairs.

What a cover story.

Okay well this story has... Wow.

So, let's update for those who don't know. Bear with me, I may get a couple of dates slightly wrong. First, shout out to the incredible investigative journalism and absolutely chessmaster-level shrewdness of Pippa Crerar for both digging up this story and for picking precisely the right moments to release it, morsel by morsel, to bring down Boris Johnson and possibly the whole damn government.

So after Johnson claimed he didn't know about it, then the Mirror published photos showing he was there and hosted a quiz. So, undeniable, Boris was at the Christmas party.

The Metropolitan Police declare that, even though they are investigating and fining people up to £12,000 a pop for lockdown parties, and doing so is literally their job, they will not investigate the government because "there isn't enough evidence". ACAB etc

Then, the Guardian reveals photos of Boris Johnson, his mistress, and Dominic Cummings eating cheese and drinking wine in the sun (with others around them) in the Downing Street garden, not allowed at the time (we were literally not allowed to leave home at the time). That day, Matt Hancock urges people not to have cheese and wine parties in their own gardens in spite of the nice May weather.

Then the Mirror reveals that there was actually another whole ass party - in May 2020, where 30 gathered in the garden of Downing Street (at the time we were not allowed more than 2 households meeting outside). Boris denies that it was a party, and claims it was merely a weirdly well catered work event that included his gin-drinking mistress and baby for some reason.

Then, the invites to the party were leaked by ITV. Turns out, 100 people were invited "to make the most of the lovely weather." It also told attendees to "bring their own booze."

Then an inquiry begins, carried out by Sue Gray. She is in fact a member of Number 10 staff, but no idea how independent she'll actually be one way or the other. Either way, the police are still literally refusing to investigate so lmao that's what we've got. She did get Damien Green fired for that porn thing, though, so that's encouraging.

Then this week, Johnson goes on Prime Minister's Questions. He sort of apologises, and claims that he was only there for 25 minutes but implies he then left because it felt more like an illegal social than the work event he was expecting, which is interesting, since his mistress was necking gin next to him the whole time. He should have just asked her, like. She could have clarified.

Then the Times reveals a source at the party who says that no, Boris stayed WAAAYYYY longer and spent his time wandering around and 'gladhanding' people (side note, posh people have weird words).

Then yesterday, even though we now have evidence and a confession of criminality, the Met Police announce that they will not investigate unless/until the Gray Inquiry finds evidence of criminality, which is just...an astonishingly open display of corruption, really. A real quiet-part-loud moment.

THEN, within hours, it's revealed that there were ANOTHER TWO PARTIES, except... Okay you're going to want to sit down, because shit hit the fan yesterday.

These two parties happened on the day of Prince Philip's funeral last year, aka Put Philip In The Floor Day. At the time, restrictions meant just 30 people could attend that funeral.

Which means, the Telegraph ran this headline and image:

I know we all hate the royals on Tumblr, but you have to understand just how hard that headline, and that image, and that message, hits British society. The Queen, beloved monarch, "forced to grieve alone" while the government danced and drank the night away. You cannot imagine how much power that image holds. You cannot begin to imagine the social power of it.

Boris Johnson can. He was polling only one point above Theresa May's all time low within the hour. That is a devastating popularity drop for the man who needs to be loved, who came to power on a cult of personality.

So, he went on PMQs again, to apologise to Lizzie Two. It's a really funny apology because he kind of can't apologise without admitting it and there's an enquiry going on so it's real vague, but he does cop to the parties on Put Philip In The Floor Day. Keir Starmer, in a rare display of actually providing some opposition, put the boot in quite nicely:

Well, there we have it. After months of deceit and deception, the pathetic spectacle of a man who's run out of road.

His defence, that he didn't realise he was at a party, is so ridiculous that it's actually offensive to the British public. 

He's finally been forced to admit what everyone knew that when the whole country was locked down, he was hosting boozy parties in Downing Street. 

Is he now going to do but decent thing and resign?

Which brings us to today! How is the Prime Minister coping with the situation?

Well, according to a leak from the Independent, he literally spent today working out which senior officials he can force to resign and take the blame in order to save himself in a move that he, a grown man who has fathered six or possibly seven children who is Prime Minister of the country, is without irony calling, and I am not making this up...

Operation Save Big Dog.

Big Dog is him. He is Big Dog. He has called himself Big Dog. He chose to call himself Big Dog.

Except, the Independent leaked it, as I say, so now he looks EVEN WORSE.

And Then

The Mirror's front page for tomorrow is revealed.

They have a photo of a wine fridge (capable of holding up to 34 bottles of wine) being delivered to Number 10.

Because, they reveal, these parties were not special events only.

Downing Street has been holding what they called Wine Time Fridays every week during the pandemic. They used to hold them before as well; but apparently, they've been particularly popular during lockdown.

Current polling as of 14th January 2022:

Labour 41%

Tories 27%

Those figures would translate to the Tories losing over 126 seats. Labour's largest lead since Tony Blair.

Side note to finish off for now:

Interesting how we now know a good 100 people who was at those parties, complete with photos, and yet Rishi Sunak is not in any of them. One might almost call it suspicious. And wonder at who the main source is.

NEW The Duke of York has been stripped of his military titles and royal patronages by the Queen and will not return to official duties. #PrinceAndrew will no longer use his HRH styling in any capacity. Royal sources say the decisions were discussed among the royal family

Royal sources confirm that none of #PrinceAndrew’s titles or royal patronages will be returned to him. They have been handed back to the Queen immediately and will be redistributed among other members of the royal family

by reabsorbing Andrew’s royal mana* the Queen hopes to extend her flagging life force

—————————

* I am using the word in the video-game sense, not the Māori sense of reputation and prestige; this man clearly has none

she extended her absorption gullet, stored them in her sac to vomit them to the other ones remaining. It’s quite a sight.

it would be funny if they just never bring the Queen out again and never acknowledge her death.

ooh all the stuff that legally but purely as a formality needs her approval or involvement could just mysteriously get it without anyone seeing anything, like snacks you leave out for Santa

new Prime Ministers having to like

come out of the palace making a sincere show of having asked for and received her approval after spending a plausible amount of time in the empty room they were escorted to

over time this rite of passage becomes seen as a meditative practice of sorts

some say they ‘received her consent’ winkingly, like we’re all in on the joke, others with the bugnuts sincerity of an atheistic Church of England cleric; God is Love or whatever, and the Queen’s approval is a metaphor for the conviction that you’re doing the right thing for the country. it’s really your own approval you were seeking, Prime Minister

the longer it goes on, the funnier it is to pretend to foreigners that we all genuinely believe she’s still alive, and this becomes a national ‘bit’ similar to dropbears and hunting wild haggis

The only way to save the monarchy, really

funniest possible way to word a statement about somebody in the process of dying

It sounds like she’s woven herself a cocoon

tory power stance is still the funniest thing to come out of uk party politics in a long time

CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER

I feel like I need to talk about the random shit I know about this pose. As they paid a guy a lot of money to come up with a pose that’d make the important tories look POWERFUL and IMPOSING. And they guy came up with this, but it was only meant for photos of the torso up and none of them realised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory_power_stance

funny, funny article. “ The stance is believed to be intended to be a display of power and confidence. “

how could you leave out the best part of that wiki entry

David Cameron literally did it in person at some soldiers once

Okay, but @bemusedlybespectacled, have you seen the rest of that scene?

this is a mess and i’m here for it