BORIS JOHNSON'S: CIRCUS CLOWNS

  CABINET RESHUFFLE SEPTEMBER 2021

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Prime Minister - Boris Johnson became prime minister in December 2019 and immediately faced the UK's looming exit from the EU and the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The health crisis has been described as perhaps the biggest challenge the country has faced since World War Two. Mr Johnson’s election win secured him the largest Tory majority in Parliament since 1987. He succeeded Theresa May as prime minister. His only previous cabinet post was foreign secretary, which he quit over differences with Mrs May over Brexit. Since being at 10 Downing Street, he married his fiancee Carrie Symonds and has become a father again.

It is no fault of Boris, that Australia, China, India, Russia and USA have refused to cease using coal in the near future (2030- 2040), but they did sign the Glasgow Climate Pact. Those countries with fossil policies are too entrenched in carcinogenic fuels to save around two hundred and forty 240,000,000 million lives from 2030 to 2050. This figure is based on current death statistics from lung cancer and related respiratory diseases, that are likely to rise as earth's temperature increases. This does not include projected deaths from heat stroke, starvation, thirst and displacement. 

Apart from the rather misguided denials from China, USA, India, Russia and Australia, COP26 did give us reductions on forest felling, and at least the mention of fossil fuels in the approved text.

Accordingly, the countries assume commitments to build up efforts for reduction of energy consumption based on unabated coal and abandonment of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

Nearly 200 countries have made an unprecedented and historic pledge to speed up the end of fossil fuel subsidies and coal at the COP26 climate summit, where India pushed through an 11th hour intervention to weaken the language on coal.

Countries that thumb their noses at climate change, such as to increase harmful pollution, might have to face criminal prosecution via the International Criminal Court, and the tenets of the Rome Statute of 1998. Whereby it is a criminal offence to cause hurt to another human, from your actions or failure to act to prevent harm.

Crucially, despite almost a fortnight’s negotiations that ran more than 24 hours late, the 196 countries meeting in Glasgow committed to issuing stronger 2030 climate plans next year in a bid to avert dangerous global warming.

Pledges at COP26 are expected to see Earth warm 2.4°C this century, better than the predicted 2.7°C predicted before the summit but still a rise that would bring extreme climate impacts and see countries overshoot their shared goals of 1.5°C and “well below” 2°C.

The promise to “revisit and strengthen” new plans by the end of 2022 means the UK government hosting the summit can credibly claim to have delivered its aim of “keeping alive” the 1.5°C target. “It is a big moment,” says Chris Stark of the Climate Change Committee, an independent group that advises the UK government.

Fresh plans submitted next year for curbing emissions in 2030 must be aligned with the 1.5°C goal, an important new requirement that means those governments who fall short will have to justify why to their citizens. Australia, Brazil and Indonesia are among many countries whose existing plans are inadequate and will need to be strengthened.

Until today, coal and fossil fuel subsidies have never been explicitly mentioned in 26 years of treaties and decisions at UN climate talks, despite coal being one of the key drivers of global warming and $5.9 trillion of subsidies being given annually to coal, oil and gas.

The language in COP26’s final decision text, now known as the Glasgow Climate Pact, sees countries agree to “accelerating efforts” on the phase-out of “inefficient” subsidies. In a dramatic last-minute intervention, minutes before the outcome was adopted, India proposed a watered-down version of the language on coal, changing “phasing down” of coal rather than “phasing out.”

Older politicians do not seem to be able to get their head around renewables, and energy that is both clean and sustainable, so stuck in the mud they are on: Coal, Gas or Oil profiteering. Geriatric policies abound, like technophobia, the fear of trying something new. They don't understand how to effect change, so they reject it, taking the safe ground, rather than deal with climate deniers, and finding alternatives to being bribed. Maybe, even safeguarding their own shareholdings. The ones they forgot to declare, or have put in other names.

THE DIRTIEST DOZEN G20 - COAL, GAS & OIL GUZZLERS - COP OUTS.

G20 abusers will say they had no choice. They needed to keep burning coal, gas and oil for their economies - just like the camp guards at the many concentration camps in WWII, they were forced into business as usual. In the case of the camp guards, they argued they were just following orders. But that is not true. We all have choices. There are clean alternatives, such as solar and wind power. There is no need to keep building coal fired electricity generating stations, and no need to drive carcinogenic petrol or diesel vehicles that contribute to between 7-8 million deaths a year from lung cancer. We have hydrogen fuel cells, electrolyzers and zero emission electric vehicles.

If you are going to increase electricity capacity, it makes sense to invest in renewable energy, unless it is that the fossil fuel giants are lubricating the works with party donations. If that is the case, we say that such contributions should be transparently declared, that the public is informed as to what is guiding policy decisions.

ZELO STREET BLOGSPOT 

SLEAZE 14 NOVEMBER 2021 - A TORY DOESN'T SPEAK

Susan Hall is a Tory member of the London Assembly. She is loyal and highly partisan. Her Twitter feed features a photo of her with London’s formerly very occasional Mayor, and now our alleged Prime Minister, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. She has been slagging off both Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner this morning, as well as the obligatory Remembrance Day stuff and a Retweet of the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine.

But - something that you will see many Tories doing, but not many in the Labour Party - she is saying nothing about the S-Word. Nothing about Sleaze. And of course her observations on Remembrance Day do not mention that Bozo only looked less shambolic than usual at the Cenotaph because he had been persuaded to wear an overcoat, which covered his increasingly unkempt and unhealthy frame.

She praises London’s black cab drivers, managing to miss that it was Bozo who let Uber into the capital. She Retweets Chesham and Amersham Tories, seemingly unaware that her party lost the constituency in a recent by-election. She Retweets Tom Harwood, formerly teaboy to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, now at off-the-scale wacko GB News. But no admission that the Tories are in trouble.

This is not an isolated occurrence. The Blue Team is well versed with doing its dirty washing behind the scenes, keeping the public in the dark. The member for times long past Jacob Rees Mogg may have been plastered across the pages of the Mail on Sunday today over the £6 million of cheap loans he managed not to declare, but obedient, loyal and fervent Tories aren’t going there. And then we get to Grant “Spiv” Shapps.

The minister also known as Michael Green (or Sebastian Fox, if you prefer) appears to have been lobbying against the Government of which he is a member, which really does put him in one of those Very Difficult Positions. Shapps, it seems, isn’t at all keen on cutting back on his passion for flying. Not a good look during COP26.

Ultimately we get to the latest revelations about Bozo, featuring the return of Jennifer Arcuri, who, so it is rumoured, said of her physical relationship with the then Mayor that it was, shall we say, a less than earth moving experience. But he had power, and the ability to move a significant amount of the folding stuff in her general direction.

But devoted Tory Party Bozo fans won’t be dwelling on him allegedly telling Ms Arcuri “How can I be the thrust - the throttle - your mere footstep as you make your career? Tell me: how I can help you?” and certainly not “I can barely control myself whenever I see you. You make me too excited. Baby I couldn’t wait. All year I have been waiting for you. All year. You drove me nuts. I have thought about no woman as I have thought of you”.

Which is quite the compliment, considering the number of other women that our alleged Prime Minister has seduced, or attempted to seduce, over the years. Or perhaps he uses the same chat-up line on them all. Whatever: good Tory activists, Councillors, AMs and yes, MPs, will continue to keep schtum, while the Labour Party, often very publicly, will continue with left and centre beating up on each other in no style at all.

You might have thought Susan Hall had nothing to teach the left. You thought wrong.

COMMENT

Pendragon said...

Now that Owen Paterson is no longer a MP will he still be employed by Randox? Or will they quietly get rid of him in a few months when the "sleaze" row has blown over?

14 NOVEMBER 2021 AT 19:05

ADOLF HITLER'S CABINET - Der Führer poses with members of his first cabinet in the chancellery, Germany. Standing (from left to right): Walther Funk, Hans Heinrich Lammers, Walther Darre, unidentified, unidentified, Wilhelm Frick, unidentified, unidentified. Sitting (left to right): Hermann Goering, Adolf Hitler, and Fritz von Papen.

23 JULY 2019 - BOZO THE CLOWN, A POINTLESS POLITICIAN

After going through the motions of a contest, the Tory leadership election - open only to a small and select electorate of party members - has come to a close, and as expected, Jeremy Hunt (the former Culture Secretary) has put up a valiant fight, but has been beaten by London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, for whom the line between truth and fiction is merely another of life’s minor inconveniences.

With the question of Britain’s departure from the European Union still unresolved, Bozza’s inability to apply himself to the real world matters, and matters as never before. He cannot just lie his way out of a tight spot, as he did so often when Mayor of London. Nor can he respond to his more persuasive friends by throwing a few tens of millions of taxpayers’ cash at them, as he did with Jo Lumley and the Garden Bridge.

There can be no grand and stylish gesture, as there was with the New Bus For London, which is most definitely not a Routemaster. This white elephant cost more than comparable vehicles, it was too heavy to carry its maximum design load, the objective of combating fare evasion was not met, and the inadequacy of the buses’ air cooling system did not endear them to passengers. It was a colossal waste of money.

There were other colossal wastes of money: the Arcelor Mittal Orbit, the water cannon, the lamentably poor deal which gave West Ham United the use of the London Stadium as their new ground, the Thames Cable Car which now has no regular users, the study for a Thames estuary airport that was never going to be, all are symptomatic of a politician easily distracted by the bright and shiny, the grand gesture.

Sadly for Bozza, Britain does not need distraction right now. Sterling is on its way down the pan, Brexit is driving jobs out of the country even before the event, economic uncertainty means investment decisions are being put off, and even he must know that the reality of all his bluster about what he can get the EU to agree will turn to dust as soon as he sets foot in Brussels. He’ll get no change out of Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, either.

So the question has to be asked, as Bozza is declared the winner of the Tory leadership election by a margin of two to one, is this: what is the point of his being there? What is he going to achieve that Theresa May could not? He can’t sort Brexit by splashing out on a new bridge or a new bus. He can’t unite his party by brandishing a brick, or a kipper, in front of Conference. He can’t unite the country by lying through his teeth.

Bozo The Clown - and that moniker is too flattering by half - has the backing of around 0.2% of the electorate - the Tories who voted for him. Even if MPs, pundits, and the wider public are prepared to overlook the serial lying, the serial philandering, the inability to apply himself to inconvenient things like work, the serial ineptitude - see under Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe - and the obscene selfishness, the sad fact is that he is not up to the job.

July 23, 2019 is a date that, for the UK, will go down in infamy, a date when the party of Government put a clown in Downing Street, someone who has no more political gravitas than the late Ken Dodd. What a day, missus! What a day!

But look on the bright side. After Bozo fouls up the country, the only way is up.

COMMENT 

Anonymous said...

It doesn't really matter which of them "won". They're tories, which means they differ only slightly in the intensity of their hypocrisy, lies and "presentation".

Meanwhile, how prescient was Ken Bigley's brother when he advised Johnson to his face to "Get out of public life." Those with reliable memories will recall this was shortly before Bozo was run out of Liverpool while clutching his arse.

23 JULY 2019 AT 13:39

Jonathan said...

According to sources of Popbitch, the zip wire stunt that left Bozza stranded was preplanned and not the fault of the operators. Who told Popbitch that if that happened to genuine customers they would have lost the
their licence to operate from the local authority.

23 JULY 2019 AT 18:22

Nemo Erewhon said...

Anon at 12:57 says "Send in the clowns!"
They started before you and re-appointed Roger Scrotum.
Then, Dom 'contempt of Parliament' Cummings becomes an aide.
Soon, Scaramouche dePiffle will do the Fandango whilst Britain burns.

24 JULY 2019 AT 12:47

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2021/11/sleaze-tory-doesnt-speak.html
https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/07/bozo-clown-pointless-politican.html
http://www.climatecriminals.co.uk/

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2021/11/sleaze-tory-doesnt-speak.html
https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/07/bozo-clown-pointless-politican.html
http://www.climatecriminals.co.uk/

The make-up of the cabinet has also changed with all the comings and goings. There are two more women then there had been before the reshuffle, but the proportion has stayed about the same because the overall number of people attending cabinet has also increased slightly.

As for the education of those now in cabinet, about 63% of them went to private schools, down slightly when compared to Mr Johnson's previous reshuffle last year - but still a stark contrast to his predecessor's. Just 30% of Theresa May's first cabinet in 2016 attended independent schools, which was fewer than both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's original cabinets.

According to the Sutton Trust social mobility charity, every prime minister since 1937 who attended university was educated at Oxford - except for Mr Brown. At 43%, Mr Johnson's new cabinet has slightly fewer members who were educated at Oxford or Cambridge compared to his last reshuffle - but it's still more than double what is was in Tony Blair's first cabinet in 1997.

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