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Monday 25 May 2020

Blue tick meltdown as anti-Boris coup fails

To understand yesterday's extraordinary events, one needs to realise that it was not about Covid, but about Brexit. I warned last week that the period until the end of June would be the last-ditch battle of the Remainian forces; the decision that no trade deal is achievable, and that the UK must transition on Australian terms, or WTO terms, will be taken in five weeks. On the one side we have Boris, Dominic Cummings, David Frost and their close supporters and Leave voters and on the other around 40% of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, the entire establishment, the Civil Service, the press and media and the CBI wing of business, the global corporates.

It has been clear for a few weeks that a power grab attempt has been building inside the Tory party. You need to understand, as any member of the party who meets other members of the party understands, that there are essentially two kinds of Conservative. The first sees the party and political power as an opportunity to gain a personal advantage, to use contacts, curry favour, get on the inside track and make money, gain personal power and influence, make business alliances and so on. Then there are the genuinely selfless, who want to make the world, and Britain, a better place for all her citizens, who rail against corruption, injustice and authoritarianism. There is often an uncomfortable match between the two species, which came to a head in our party over Brexit. The CBI wing and their dreary leadership candidate were trounced by the altruistic populists - but they haven't given up, and in the past weeks have been spotlighting candidates to replace Boris. Sadly, their offerings to public and media exposure have also been dreary beyond measure; uninspiring mediocrities, soporific nonentities lacking even a spark of charisma.

The events of the past few days offered a perfect opportunity to mount their coup. Those for whom no trade deal with the EU is unacceptable - the CBI wing - could use the opportunity to dis Boris by targeting Cummings. And a prominent handful did so. They are supported by the dark establishment, the grey men, who have vowed never to allow a no deal Brexit that would hurt the global corporates, and the media, who are defending not just supranationalism but their capture of the State, now under dire threat from the populists.

Yesterday's blue-tick meltdown on Twitter was a joy to behold. They became completely unhinged, and exposed themselves. We now know who our enemies are in the party, and the public know, despite their previous abject denials, where the interests of the prominent media hysterics lie. Poor Boulton was re-tweeting anti-Boris bile at such a frenetic rate that he surely must have dropped a stone overnight.

The Press are in the gutter as far as public opinion goes - never have they been held in such utter contempt by the British people. And like Peston, they have no self-awareness - they simply don't realise that their opinion doesn't matter. We're not interested in their opinions. We have our own.

But more egregious by far was the unrestrained reaction from one of those who have captured the establishment. This is far more serious than anyone is letting on, and though it was deleted within 11 minutes, it will live for decades -

 Hang on tight. The next few weeks will get rough - not Covid, but Brexit.

Footnote
======
Steve Baker is the exception that proves the rule. Steve was a valuable member of ERG during May's demented bungling, but he's really not up to a ministerial job. He believes he deserves one, however, I think, and this frustration boiled over yesterday. Thus proving he really is a bit of a plank.

28 comments:

Tim Daw said...

In no way detracting from your, as always, excellent argument I believe that the Pobert Reston account is just an accurate parody account.

All the best

Raedwald said...

OOps what a bollock to drop - now removed - TX!

Span Ows said...

Damn, wish I had seen that Reston link LOL. That said, it is difficult to tell these days, like the Guy Verhostwat one. They're good.

Steve baker was used, they poked his wound knowing his and Cummings 'history. He really blew it, which is a shame.

You are right though, I don't do Twitter but the links I wa sreading yesterday were fantastic in all their head-exploding glory. The bubbles revealled even more of the Remainer lunacy...they REALLY do not get it. And it's great.

Smoking Scot said...

And there's me thinking this business of exposing your enemies is just a North Korea thing!

So who was it who gave them the whisper that Cummings may have been a naughty boy? (Rhetorical question).

James Higham said...

While there’s strong resentment among real conservatives over Cummings’s intransigence, Boris’s HS2, bridge to NI etc., the way the anti-Cummings, anti-Brexit forces went into top gear, it’s just caused all of us to close ranks. The last straw was that videoscreen error outside Cummings’s home.

Anonymous said...

Raedwald,

The problem with your argument is that Boris looked foolish and weak; at least to the floating voter. What he should have done, politically, was to sack Cummings without a flinch, and move on, with a plan for Covid and confirmation that he's fully behind Mr. Frost.
As it is now, he's just left fresh meat on the pavement and the rats are coming back for another meal!

DeeDee99 said...

Well what a surprise. Boris has finally mnade the right decision on something. Cummings is essential if there is to be any semblance of swamp-draining from this, so far, massively disappointing Government.

I think you're wrong about Steve Baker. He managed the ERG very effectively under Treason May and he is a man with integrity. Or perhaps Johnson/Cummings value Ministers whose organisation skills are dire and whose integrity is highly suspect.... like Hancock and Jenrick, to think of just two.

DiscoveredJoys said...

@ Annonymous 08:29

What you should never do is give in to terrorists. Now 'terrorists' might be a bit of an overstatement - perhaps 'bullies' would be closer to the mark. Bullies, brave enough in a gang, who try to impose their views upon others.

Had Boris 'given in' to the bullies and their unjustified demands, then the next target would have been getting a transition extension, or targeting individual negotiators.

COVID 19 is hopefully reducing, but Brexit Derangement Syndrome is still going strong.

Don Cox said...

The last time we tried to leave Europe, the process started in the early 16th century and wasn't finalised until the late eighteenth century. Even now, I don't think Rome has completely given up -- they recently sanctified the arch-remainer Cardinal Newman.

Brexit will be a long haul.

Don Cox

Span Ows said...

DiscoveredJoys 08:38 re Annonymous 08:29

Excatly right! In fact exactly the opposite of what anon writes would have happened: Priti Patel (again) or another ally or Boris himself would have been the next target.

Val said...

So obviously about Brexit - these visits to Durham were in the first two weeks of April, 6 weeks ago, why are they now being brought to our attention? They have obviously been sitting on this waiting for a suitable opportunity. Being in the last few months of transition with no deal in sight it was obvious the pro EU fanatics would be plotting even more furiously. Boris is the one who needs to be alert. And Robin Lees must be pretty pleased with himself, even going to the lengths of checking the number plate of his car - the Stasi would have been proud of him.

Jeremy Poynton said...

"On the one side we have Boris, Dominic Cummings, David Frost and their close supporters and Leave voters and on the other around 40% of the Parliamentary Conservative Party, the entire establishment, the Civil Service, the press and media and the CBI wing of business, the global corporates."

You missed the public sector in that list, Radders...

Jeremy Poynton said...

Blogger Tim Daw said...
In no way detracting from your, as always, excellent argument I believe that the Pobert Reston account is just an accurate parody account.

All the best

25 May 2020 at 06:20
========================================================

And an unnecessary account. Peston is a parody on his own. And my old man always said - don't trust blokes with floppy hair (so that's Grayling canned as well)

Anonymous said...

The urgency by which the media are pushing this goes way beyond the usual slow news/bank holiday weekend excuse. Look at their eyes, that unblinking stare during interviews. Today's Daily Mail, a supposedly right-of-centre paper had the most hysterical headline. The BBC spent half of its broadcast news output yesterday on this one subject. Why? The world is awash with news yet we get a story of a man, desperate to keep his small family safe, hemmed in by a pack of jackals. Quite rightly Cummings eschews the media for the despicable way it strong arms the narrative. Where is the balance? Turn on the news and watch the jackals circle their prey.

We can only hope they go hungry this time.

Steve

Dr Evil said...

What an excellent post. It hits the nail firmly on the head. I was expecting the squealing of the stuck pig for the run up to June and then for the rest of that month but the level of public stupidity surprises me.

DeeDee99 said...

This is from a pro-EU Jeremy Warner article in the DT on 12 May:

"Few will have noticed it amid the destruction of the Covid-19 pandemic, but a third round of trade talks with the European Union began this week, and all the early signs are that Brexit’s irresistible force is again running slap bang into the EU’s immovable object."

"On the detail as well as the principle, the two are still miles apart. Each side assumes the other will cave at the last moment, but in neither camp is there any evidence to support this view."

"As things stand, we are heading for a train crash and the re-emergence of our old friend – the “no-deal” or “cliff edge” Brexit."

"A cynical view is that this is no longer of any real importance since the economic damage from the Covid-19 crisis is already so great that any further destruction from Brexit will be barely noticed."

"Covid allows a clean-break Brexit to be snuck through under cover of the wider nuclear bomb blast. By the time the dust settles, it will be impossible to distinguish the wounds of Brexit from the multitude of other economic injuries inflicted by the virus."

"A deal to extend the transition in light of the crisis had been all but agreed at official level. The EU was to have spared the UK’s blushes by proposing it, rather than the other way around. This would have allowed the UK government to present the concession as a favour to the EU, rather than a climbdown. But then Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s chief adviser, returned and the plan, concocted by underlings while he and Boris Johnson were laid out on their sick beds, was scuppered."

And that's precisely why Establishment knives are out for Cummings and Boris MUST NOT give them their prey.

okjoe58 said...

Yep, that's right up there with 'there is no money'

jim said...

Was this mere stupidity or a cunning plan to loosen our attitude to lockdown? Dominic could have done this deliberately, loosen the stonework, undermine the lockdown. Trouble is the meeja was not primed to be on side, so looks more like stupidity.

The scientists are going to be very cautious. No brownie points for being otherwise. But the people and the money men are getting twitchy. What is a few hundred coffins here or there compared with £Billions. With useful deniability the hoi polloi can walk freely into Covid.

We are already well behind on coming out of Covid, to the point of embarrassment. Then we are unlikely to be cut much slack by Europe. What is the betting Petulant Priti's isolation plan will be dropped by mid June?

Dave_G said...


I suppose Boris is stuck between standing up for Cummings or calling the whole Covid 'crisis' for the BS it is/was.

Let's face it, the whole scheme is now backfiring on the Government as they struggle to convince people to get back to work/school.

Anonymous said...

What the Left and the Centre need to realise is, that not only are the mob who are in power at the moment in the moral abyss, but so are their voters. Yes there are millions of the low life. You only have to look at those on right wing web sites to get that.

They care nothing for double standards or for any other reprehensible conduct by those to whom they grovel - far from it, if it enrages those whom they hate and of whom they are covetous.

So the media frenzy over Cummings being a bit silly - like Ferguson - is a waste of time, energy and is counter-productive.

Meanwhile deaths from CV in France, in Italy, and in Spain fall to a few tens per day.

Span Ows said...

anon 07:29, "So the media frenzy over Cummings being a bit silly - like Ferguson - is a waste of time, energy and is counter-productive."

Like the old joke that stopped clock is right twice a day, you are right once a month.

Mark said...

The troll is projecting so far it's come back and hit him on the back of the head!

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said on 26 May @ 07:29

'What the Left and the Centre need to realise is, that not only are the mob who are in power at the moment in the moral abyss, but so are their voters. Yes there are millions of the low life. You only have to look at those on right wing web sites to get that.'

And what you need to realise is several million former Labour voters voted Conservative in the General Election. Folk like me for instance. Labour abandoned the traditional working class (whitey to you) decades ago and it does take time for that realisation to take hold. Now it has - and incidentally you can expect no return to Labour if little English girls continue being raped by men with South Asian origins. We are looking at a generational shift in political affiliation and I'm one of many who saw through it after three generations voting Labour: my Grandfather was a Labour activist in the 1920's when the movement really did work for the betterment of my class. Sadly it was taken over by ideologues and the rest is history.

Steve

Anonymous said...

Save your powder for the real battle ahead ... Stay Elite!

Anonymous said...

@Raedwald

Simple question. How can you remain when you've left?

Greg T said...

NOT EVEN WRONG
Actually a coup has already occurred inside what was once the Conservative Party.
They are no longer Unionist & they have morphed into a shell of theor former selves.
Inhabiting that shell are some very unpleasant pieces of work, of whom Scummings & Patel are merely the obvious signs.
It's full-on Trumpism now:
"We've got away with it, what are you going to do about it, little people?"
And it's beginning to look like its working, especially with the backing of the Murdoch press & the Barclays & other fascist bastards.
I'm NOT saying it was a deliberate test ... but seems to be what has happened to this incident.

Oh yes, on Brexit
If it's SO BLOODYT GOOD - why isn't Readwald HERE, making sure that it works, rather than bein in EU AUstria, with zero intention of leaving?
Do I smell a rat?
Especially the We've got away with it, what are you going to do about it, little people? part of it ...
BoZo & his minders & the other extreme Brexiteers have realised that this is an opprtunity, actually.
I note a junior minister has resigned ... big deal.
I predict a SECOND purge of the tories coming along soon.
After sensible civilised & old-fashioned ( i.e. grandees ) were kicked out by BoZO [ People like Ken Clarke & Nicholas Soames & Hammond, etc .... ]
Now those who were prepared to go along with BoZo for the time being are now going to be pushed out, or completely marginalised. As happened to the "left" ( *cough* ) wing of the US Repubs.
Eventually, only the grovellers, system-servers & out-&-out fascists ( I'm lookimng at you, Patel ) will be left - & they will have until December 2024 to wreck & re-mould the country, as DT & his cronies have done in the USA.
Shudder

Ed P said...

Tingey, your points might be interesting, but when couched in a discombobulated rant, as above, are unreadable.

Mark said...

And Rene Barnier is demanding that Euro-trollers get unrestricted access to our sovereign waters!

He'd better get his hands on the painting of the fallen Ursula mit de big boobies soon. Or general von merkelhoffen will have him shot!

"Out and out fascists". Is that something subtle and witty from officer trolltree or is it just a monkey, a keyboard and enough time?