Category Archives: UK 150

Shake Them Off (Tactically)

Posted on by
Reply

Shake Them Off (Tactically)

To the tune of Taylor Swift’s ‘Shake it Off’—
Swift’s Eras Tour wowed the UK in the run-up to the 2024 General Election

Verse 1
They stayed up too late
We called it Partygate
Broke every single rule, mm-mm
Took us all for fools, mm-mm
VIP Lane for their mates (ha, ha!)
Had our taxes on a plate
Let the little people pay, mm-mm
So the fat cats get to play, mm-mm

Pre-chorus
But they keep cruising
Can’t stop, won’t stop bruising;
I find I’ve got these foodbanks on my mind
Worried things ain’t gonna be alright

Chorus
‘Cause rich Rishi’s gonna play, play, play, play, play
And Suella’s gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, we’ve just gotta shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake them off, shake them off (hoo-hoo-hoo)

Farage is on the make, make, make, make, make
And Shapps is gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake
Baby, we’ve just gotta shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake them off, shake them off (hoo-hoo-hoo)

Verse 2
Got sewage on the beach
Who’d wanna nurse or teach?
And that’s what they don’t see, mm-mm
As they spread austerity, mm-mm
No one makes it on their own (makes it on their own)
Who’s gonna mend your broken bones (mend your broken bones)?
And that’s what they don’t know, mm-mm
Too busy betting on their own, mm-mm

Pre-chorus
But they keep cruising
Can’t stop, won’t stop bruising;
I find I’ve got these foodbanks on my mind
Worried things ain’t gonna be alright

Chorus
‘Cause rich Rishi’s gonna play, play, play, play, play
And Suella’s gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate
Baby, we’ve just gotta shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake them off, shake them off (hoo-hoo-hoo)

Farage is on the make, make, make, make, make
And Shapps is gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake
Baby, we’ve just gotta shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake them off, shake them off (hoo-hoo-hoo)

Post-chorus
Shake them off, shake them off
Let’s, let’s, let’s shake them off, shake them off
High time to shake them off, shake them off
Let’s, let’s, let’s shake them off, shake them off

Interlude
Hey, hey, hey
Just think, instead of getting down and out about the liars
And the dirty, dirty cheats of this world
You could head over to stopthetories.vote
And vote tac–tic–ly!

Bridge
My best friend lives in Weston-Super-Mare
She’s like, “Oh my God! We’re a target seat
So I’ll lend my vote to Labour
As a teensy little favour
Won’t you do the same, baby?
We can make, make, make… (electoral history, yeah)”

Final rousing chorus
‘Cause rich Rishi’s gonna play, play, play, play, play
And Suella’s gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate (haters gonna hate)
And we’re just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake them off, shake them off (hoo-hoo-hoo)

Farage is on the make, make, make, make, make
And Shapps is gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake (so much faking)
Baby, we’re just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake
Shake them off, shake them off (ha!)

We’ll shake them off, shake them off
We’re going to shake them off, shake them off
High time to shake them off, shake them off
We’ll, we’ll, we’ll shake them off, shake them off (yeah!)

Update. Here’s how it went!!!

This is my final UK150 post. Thanks so much for reading! It’s been brilliant. There’s more about the UK150 project here, which ran between 2020 and 2024.

Comeback Kid!

Posted on by
Reply

I know what you’re thinking: ‘Old Etonian Elevated to House of Lords as Foreign Sec Sweetener by Desperate Winchester College PM’. 

But I ask you, what else could Rishi do? Not one of his 350 wingnut MPs is competent enough for the job. And if making me a lifelong peer is the price he’ll pay for some centrist, international gravitas, who am I to say no?

That scream you can hear from the Cotswolds? Probably Nadine.

Yes, voters will be delighted to see me back. They’ll have forgotten that my arrogant misjudgement gifted us Brexit and trashed the economy. But best not to mention that awkward Greensill Capital scandal and my chummy pints with President Xi.

All kidding aside, there’s a limit to how long you can chillax in a £25,000 “shepherd’s hut” painted in Farrow & Ball shades of Clunch, Old White and Mouse’s Back.

Even if it means rejoining this ship of Tory fools.

I’ll believe until the day I die

Posted on by
Reply

I’ll believe until the day I die that I was right to attend No. 10 leaving dos

I’ll believe until the day I die that I was right to attend No. 10 leaving dos that repeatedly broke Covid rules

I’ll believe until the day I die that I was right to attend No. 10 leaving dos that repeatedly broke the Covid rules that I as Prime Minister set

I’ll believe until the day I die that I was right to attend No. 10 leaving dos, as departing staff clearly couldn’t be thanked by letter or email or phone

I’ll believe until the day I die that No. 10 leaving dos with 20+ people were “absolutely essential”, even though only 7 people were allowed at your own gran’s funeral

I’ll believe until the day I die that I can do no wrong

I’ll believe until the day I die that I can do no wrong, but when I do it’s someone else’s fault 

I’ll believe until the day I die that I can stand before the House of Commons and lie “in good faith”

I’ll believe until the day I die that this is a kangaroo court, unless you find in my favour

I’ll believe until the day I die that I’m above the law

Update: Boris Johnson resigned as an MP on 9 June 2023 after learning that the Privileges Committee had found him guilty of repeatedly misleading [lying to] Parliament about parties that had been held at Number 10 during Covid. In a wearily predictable fashion, he accused the Committee of being a ‘kangaroo court’, and took no responsibility whatsoever for his own behaviour and actions.

‘Stop all the Boats’

Posted on by
Reply

 

Stop all the boats, cut off the RNLI’s phone
Toss the rabid Right a juicy little bone.
Silence the Libtards and with thumping drum
Bring out the Daily Mail, let Rishi’s Gammons come.

Let Suella’s Rwandan planes circle merrily overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘Your Asylum Claim is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of British doves
Let our humanitarian standing wear black cotton gloves.

“From the North, the South, the East and West
Fleeing conflict and war, we sought safety and rest.
You were our hope, our harbour, our Dover, our song
We thought you’d give us refuge. We were wrong.”

The EU’s stars are not wanted now: put out every one
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away all compassion as we enter these woods
For this Tory government can never come to any good.

(H/T W.H. Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’, 1938)

Trickle

Posted on by
2

It got her in the end, as she knew it would – sneaking past her defences in the third year. She wakes in the night, chilled to the bone, shivering uncontrollably no matter how deeply she burrows under the covers. For a second or two, she knows what it is to be old and permanently cold, scared witless by the winter ahead. She sees the true wickedness of ‘trickle-down economics’, the bad faith twined around its pitch-black heart.

Riddle me this: how is the bloated wealth of hedge fund manager Crispin ‘Odious’ Odey supposed to reach a pensioner subsisting on £134.25 per week? What path could it possibly take so that Elsie, 82, is able to both eat and heat this winter? When exactly would it reach her purse, given that trickle-down economics only ever trickles?

Sh*tty Shanty

Posted on by
Reply

Lustily, to the tune of ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’

 Our sewage pours into the ocean
Our turds bob around in the sea
Brown effluent laps at our ankles
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me

Bring back, bring back
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me, to me
Bring back, bring back [deep breath]
the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive to me

The fat cats get £25 million
while shit clogs our rivers and seas
Their profits nudge £2.8 billion
Yeah money sure grows on those trees

Bring back, bring back
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me, to me
Clear up, clear up
Oh clear up this strange rash for me

The Tories all think it’s appalling
and clutch at their pearls in dismay,
But back when they actually voted,
let shit-pumpers have their own way

Bring back, bring back
Oh bring back my Blue Flag to me, to me
Dish up, dish up
some great British seafood to me…

On second thoughts, I’ll just have a bag of chips.

Surfers Against Sewage
https://www.sas.org.uk/

The Rivers Trust
https://theriverstrust.org/key-issues/sewage-in-rivers

‘UK government’s sewage spills strategy is ‘cruel joke’, say critics’ (The Guardian, Friday 26 August)

Cosplay

Posted on by
Reply

Tory leadership debate, 15 July 2022

So you’re a journo? Sure, I’ve got five minutes if you make it worth my while. Jeff Harris, 56. Been running Cosplay Capers for around eight years.

Well, she was in on Friday sorting out her costume for the telly. We’re just round the corner from the F.O. and I’ve always got loads of Maggie gear – goes down well with the dominatrix crowd. So we had a rifle through and found that lovely pussy-bow blouse: Mags circa 1979, rocking her iron-fist-in-velvet-glove look. Pair it with a dark jacket, I says to Liz, and you’ll be the spitting image.

Yeah, I watched the debate. More Robot Lady than Iron Lady, if you ask me.

To tell you the truth, I don’t want any of ’em to win. Millionaires playing at politics, all Instagram and hot air. Bring on the general election.

Update: Liz Truss went on to win the Conservative Party leadership race (decided by Tory Party members only) and became Prime Minister on 6 September 2022.

Following the delivery of a frankly unhinged mini-budget on 23 September 2022, the global financial markets reacted negatively, sending the pound into freefall and critically endangering a number of UK pension funds. The Bank of England was forced to take emergency action, buying up UK government bonds to steady the markets. Truss ended up sacking Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng and reversing the majority of the mini-budget’s uncosted plans.

Liz Truss resigned as Prime Minister on 25 October 2022. She had been in office for 49 days and was famously outlasted by the Daily Mirror‘s lettuce. The estimated cost of the disastrous Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget to the UK is £30 billion. Yes, 30 BILLION POUNDS.

She was succeeded by Rishi Sunak, who had come second in the Tory Party leadership race (decided by Tory Party members only).

Toast!

Posted on by
Reply

Following yesterday’s No Confidence Vote, we unleashed our prototype BullshitTranslatorTM on a selection of Tory statements. Gratifyingly, our results were 99.9% accurate.

Test 1. MP JAMES CLEVERLY: ‘It was a comfortable win. It was a clear win. […] Everyone should respect democracy and get on with it. The party needs to pull together, support the government, support the PM, support the country.’

Translation: ‘A catastrophic result. An almighty disaster […] Everyone should politely ignore it and let us get on with dismantling democracy. The party needs to pull together, support the PM, support the PM, support the PM’

Test 2. MP PETER BONE: ‘A massive majority.’

Translation: ‘The worst result a sitting PM has ever had in a confidence vote, but if I say “massive majority” enough then they won’t twig’.

Test 3. PM BORIS JOHNSON: ‘I think it’s a convincing result, a decisive result and what it means is that, as a government, we can move on and focus on the stuff that I think really matters to people.’

Translation: ‘Everyone hates me. I’m toast.’

Following an exodus of more than 50 government officials, Johnson (sort of) resigned on Friday 8 July 2022.

50 words for Boris & Co.

Posted on by
Reply

Inspired by Kate Bush & Stephen Fry’s ’50 Words for Snow’
You are invited to click randomly on 5 words
(reputable websites)

1. unprincipled
2. ruthless
3. undemocratic
4. unscrupulous
5. mendacious
6. perfidious
7. prevaricating
8. promise-breaking

Come on man, you’ve got 42 to go…
Come on man, you’ve got 42 to gooooooo…

9. deceitful
10. brazen
11. pugnacious
12. brutish
13. cake-ambushing
14. money-grabbing
15. vote-stealing
16. shit-stirring
17. lily-livered
18. pitiless
19. callous

Come on Joe, you’ve got 31 to go…
Come on now, just 31 to goooo-ooo-o-o…

20. flint-hearted
21. stone-hearted
22. Machiavellian
23. shameless
24. shameful
25. chummy
26. ignoble
27. nefarious
28. malevolent
29. cruel
30. out-of-touch
31. vexatious
32. life-taking
33. palm-greasing
34. crooked
35. partying
36. on-the-fiddle

Come on now, you’ve got 14 words to go…
14 words for Boris J. & Co…

37. bullying
38. pork-barrelling
39. preening
40. lulu-lytle-ing
41. economy-wreaking
42. non-dom-scamming
43. pervy
44. security-breaching
45. contemptuous
46. fraudulent
47. felonious
48. fridge-lurking
49. eye-sight-testing
50. criminal

The Gospel According to Mogg

Posted on by
Reply

“For I was hungry and you gave me food sent me to a foodbank, I was thirsty and you gave me a drink cut Universal Credit as prices soared, I was a stranger and you welcomed me put me on a plane to Rwanda, I was naked and you clothed me got yourself a flash new suit from Savile Row, I was sick and you visited me partied on, I was in prison need of a lawyer and you came to me cut Legal Aid.” Then the Righteous One will answer Him, “Lord, we can’t just give handouts to any Tom, Dick or Jesus, especially when he’s a brown-skinned refugee.”

And the King will answer him, “Truly I say to you: you are a hypocritical, unchristian git.” Matthew 25:35-40

17 April 2022 (Easter Sunday): ‘Rwanda asylum plan is “almost Easter story of redemption” says Rees-Mogg’: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/apr/17/uk-asylum-seekers-plan-rwanda-jacob-rees-mogg