Day 85. Weird scenes from inside the goldmine (26/3/19)

I'm actually quite reticent about writing this. Not in general, just specifically right at this moment. We're at this weird point now where anything could happen while I'm writing this and my entire worldview could flip on its head.

There was a vote last night. Theresa May lost by 27 votes. She no longer has the power to control Brexit, the house does. But she's going to ignore anything they decide so they don't really have any power. But nor does she. Parliament is basically crippled and there's no way out of it.

And I didn't even notice it happening.

I think I may have become bored of the madness. I think I may now have reached the point where I accept that no matter how stupid things are there's always the potential for the genuine 'elite' (those with more money and power than us, those fighting over who can have the most influence on their own ability to make money) to manage something even more stupid than their previous record.

We have the wonderfully dense Kate Hoey declaring that 'no deal is actually just a different type of deal' thereby showing that not only does she not grasp the full folly of the situation but that she's also fairly uncertain on how the English language works.

Rees-Mogg, Johnson and their Nazi enclave have decided now is the time to start calling themselves 'Grand Wizards'. There's every possibility that they're doing this simply for the amusement found in watching their facilitators in the national media do their damnedest to claim the term has absolutely nothing to do with the Ku Klux Klan. Whatsoever. Honest. But there's also the possibility that their boarding school upbringings makes them think that it's just a really cool thing to be known as.

Or there's always the possibility that they're just really bad racists. Just putting that one out there like.

See? See what I mean? 12 minutes ago it's announced that Theresa May will address the 1922 committee tomorrow at 5pm. Probably to give the date of her resignation.

So, one Tory MP loses a referendum that he didn't expect to and plunges us into chaos then buggers off to his various holiday getaways, then his replacement (promoted beyond her ability to an absolutely tragicomic level) breaks the country with her determination to show that she would carry out the will of the people to a level that the people never imagined and then buggers off to live off the earnings her husband accidentally made through deals that were sorted when she was home secretary.

Today is, apparently, about indicative votes. A multi-choice of how would you like to move forward including the most obvious 'sod this for a game of soldiers' gambit. But Matt Hancock (Health Secretary apparently, who can really keep up with this stuff?) says the government will probably simply disregard the outcome.

Which leaves us all in some new kind of limbo/hell interface with literally nobody taking responsibility for what happens next.

And leaves me, today, in the very weird position of agreeing with Michael Heseltine.

I hated Heseltine in the eighties. Arch-Tory. Though the fact he fell out with Thatcher is permanent credit to him and I had to develop a grudging respect for his work with Liverpool. The fact was, he genuinely seemed to be arsed about us for a while there.

Recently though? Recently I've started to view him as a man of principle, honour, intellect and political understanding.

His piece in today's Guardian is magnificent. He basically calls out his party as being willing to dismantle the very fabric of modern society for no reason whatsoever.

He describes May as a leader in name only, corrects all in the Tory party invoking Churchill (the hideous old racist that he was) as being willing to stand alone at all times as to what he actually said and meant, points out that the war was actually a bad thing and describes the current situation as a national humiliation.

(You should read it: here it is: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/25/theresa-may-leader-name-only-britain-brexit )

I'm agreeing with Michael Heseltine. We're living in weird times.

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