Election 2017: The media’s invention of May’s political vision

Throughout the first week after the announcement of the general election the current prime minister Theresa May was mostly absent.  There were some odd clumsy attempts to pretend to be out in the streets meeting the public and a few stage-managed appearances at businesses that were receiving publicity as a ‘thank you’ for a donation to the Tory party.  The enthusiasm for these manufactured events is clear in the variety of looks of despair among May’s audience here

Theresa May speaks to factory workers during the election campaign

May’s deficiencies

May is very poor debater.  She cannot think quickly enough to engage usefully with a political opponent or with a member of the public.  She has no intellectual capacity to analyse a discussion in real-time and to consider a response.  She is a drone, capable only of delivering prepared (by others) soundbites and platitudes, almost all of which are blatant lies and misdirection.  

This anti-human persona of May is preferred by those who fund her party because they have a prime minister who is never distracted by truth, circumspection, consistency, self-analysis, doubt or humanity.  May’s stupidity is more than an asset, it is a necessity; see May’s stupidity.  

A robotic PR person is effective in controlled environments.  But, the encounters during an election campaign are varied and less predictable.  Tory campaign manipulator Lynton Crosby is experienced enough to recognise the huge limitations in May’s ability to communicate.  Thus, he devised a strategy of invisibility.  The invisibility of May restricts her awkward public encounters and has the extra benefit of keeping media focus on criticism of the other parties’ respective plans.  Invisibility works for May and for other equally dim Tory drones, particularly Jeremy Hunt and Liam Fox, but the Tory election campaign cannot be defined entirely by the absence of senior cabinet ministers.  Fortunately, the compliant media is always happy to help.

Media creates May’s vision and personality

The right-wing media alternates between lies about the policies and intent of Labour, Liberal Democrats and SNP and lies about the record of the Tories.  This is normal.   The only criticism that the Tories receive is when a newspaper gives the Tories a little kick to ensure that there is no slacking in the government’s support for the financial elite.  

Alongside such lies are faux analyses of May’s ‘political vision.’  The Tories exist to fleece the British people for the benefit of a small financial elite; everything else is PR.  Their objective is clear and their methodology is simplistic.  Any analysis by the media that feigns to discuss a ‘vision,’ or even to place May on the political spectrum, is an invention.  It is tripe.  For example, May and her fellow drones have no idea how to progress with Brexit; all they are interested in is how will leaving the EU make it easier for them to change the law so that workers can be exploited more and so that human rights, access to justice and free speech can be restricted.  Fictional essays on May’s plans for Brexit abound in the media as do bizarre descriptions of where on the political spectrum May stands and these invented analyses go beyond the usual Westminster bubble navel-gazing.  

Such inventions are not restricted to the right-wing media.  The liberal media is also keen to falsely present May as a politician with a vision and with clarity – their disdain for socialist tendencies outguns any concerns they have about Tories’ exploitation.

Case Study

Irregular contributor to the hapless Guardian Matthew d’Ancona provided a typical example of extremely dishonest liberal media waffle about Theresa May in yesterday’s Can May finally win over the working class? 

“Is there such a thing as Mayism, or is she simply a grey, autocratic pragmatist?” asks d’Ancona.  

He is aware that the answer is neither.  May is just an obedient drone of financial gangsters.

“In two distinct senses, May is a postmodern politician. First, she wants to move beyond – though not to renounce – the Tory decontamination strategy pursued by the party’s modernisers. As the Conservatives’ first female chair, she argued, when it was still audacious to do so, that they had to present a more likeable and compassionate face to the voters. Her warning to her fellow Tories at the 2002 conference that they were perceived as the nasty party was immensely unpopular with the rank and file precisely because it was true, and it probably put her out of contention as a candidate in the 2005 leadership contest. Fifteen years on, she has not ditched this perspective: I expect Conservative campaign headquarters to deploy its newly centralised selection powers to try to ensure that the party has more than 70 female and 17 black and minority ethnic representatives in the new Commons.”

Yes, a Guardian hack wrote the above with a straight face.  Incompetent, soulless, stupid drone Theresa May is, apparently, a moderniser for the Tories.   Is d’Ancona taking the mickey?  Is his analysis meant to be comical?  Sadly, no.

“The second sense in which May is postmodern relates to the eclecticism of her ideas, her refusal to be caged by ideology, and her authentically Tory sense that history has no linear direction. In this she differs from both Jeremy Corbyn and the gleaming-eyed Brexiteers, who share a belief in a route-map to the promised land.”

In short, she’s as thick as two planks of wood and a thoughtless drone of corporate elite.

“At the Home Office, she was as exercised by modern slavery and FGM as she was by immigration.”

Any ‘concerns’ May had about modern slavery were just an excuse to harass immigrants; any ‘concerns’ she claimed to have about FGM were just an excuse to harass Muslims.  At the Home Office Theresa May was inept, she constantly tried to bypass the law and she promoted racism.

“There is a populist pledge to cut energy bills by £100 a year for 17 million families, and the promise of new employment rights.”

A couple of blatant random lies by May are treated seriously by d’Ancona.

“The Tory task in this campaign is to translate that sentiment into a plausible programme for government. It is a formidable challenge, a Disraelian project for the era of globalisation. But – even more than a successful Brexit – it is May’s most profound ambition.”

Again, surely, the writer is joking.  He has to be.  Theresa May has no concept whatever about anything ‘profound’.

Theresa May is a Tory bastard who is destroying the NHS, destroying education, destroying all public services and starving people to death, particularly people with disabilities.  She is a mindless drone working for the interests of tax-dodging financial gangsters.  Dishonest centrist hacks like d’Ancona are happy to help her with rambling hot takes.  This assistance by these journalists reveals how much the so-called centre of British politics fears socialist tendency.  Humanising May and imbuing her persona with intelligence and vision is ridiculous and is a sad indictment of the lack of ethics in the media.

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Election 2017: The Sadness Of The Lonely Centrist Media

Since Jeremy Corbyn’s first successful Labour leadership election the media that occupies the assumed centre has focussed on undermining his leadership.  The relentless and baseless attacks on him and his colleagues from The Guardian, New Statesman and Independent have been assisted by the Progress mob in the parliamentary Labour party.  But, that assistance to the media in their anti-Corbyn diatribes has diminished due to said MPs’ focus on the upcoming election.  Despite their objections to Corbyn’s politics, the majority of the Progress MPs want to retain their own seats in parliament and, thus, will reign in their criticism of him during the election campaign.  Some have departed and – for the benefit of the Labour party and of the country – it would have been better if they all had gone and allowed genuine candidates to stand: Progress mob should go, but most have stayed and are now concentrating on trying to win at the general election even if that is only to maintain their own respective careers.

The media hacks have been cast adrift, for now, by their “sources” and co-complainers in the parliamentary Labour party.  The former’s creative analyses of Corbyn stand alone unsupported by a ready supply of destructive quotes and leaks from private meetings.  How are these guardians (no pun intended) of the imaginary centre of British politics handling their isolation?  Let’s have a look at a few samples written in the last few days.

George Eaton, Polly Toynbee, Stephen Bush and Jonathan Freedland

New Statesman’s George Eaton eschewed facts entirely.  A (right-of-centre) candidate for leadership of UNITE union, Gerard Coyne, was suspended by the union when voting in the union’s leadership election had ended; the suspension was the result of Coyne’s alleged breaches of rules (and law) related to the use of databases of Labour members to assist his leadership challenge.  In Eaton on Coyne Eaton discussed the suspension but, oddly, made no mention whatsoever of the mis-use of databases despite constant public discussion recently among UNITE members and Labour members about Coyne’s access to contact details that he should not have had.  Eaton’s omission of these allegations was deliberate.  He claimed that Coyne may have won the election, a claim that had no basis in fact or intelligent deduction.  (The result of the election – announced after Eaton’s article – was a victory for Len McCluskey.)  The article was designed solely to smear McCluskey, a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn. 

In Eaton’s sauces he claimed an unnamed Tory MP was worried that complacency among voters could mean that the Tory majority would not be as huge as the party is expecting at the election.  Eaton’s motivation for this claim, and for his comment that “for most in Westminster, the only question is how large the Conservatives’ majority will be,” was to express his disdain for Corbyn as dismissively as he could.  Citing a Labour source, Eaton asserted that “[Labour election] leaflets will be free of references to Corbyn and national policy.”  This is untrue, and, as Eaton knows, any signs of division within Labour will harm its electoral chances.  Eaton did not cite a factual statement, he made a suggestion that he hopes will lessen Labour’s chance of success.

In a rambling piece that pretended to assess the logic behind Theresa May’s decision to call an election – Eaton rambles – there was a paragraph dedicated to random put-downs of Labour: “Labour MPs have long feared that their party will perform still worse than the polls suggest” and “Labour MPs will struggle to make a credible case for him to be prime minister” were followed by a childish twisting of a quote from Corbyn in order to suggest that Corbyn fears a big loss in the election.  

Eaton has no analysis to offer.  He is a confused child yelling “you smell.”

The title of Polly Toynbee‘s Guardian article is a clear demonstration of her political stance.  Corbyn is rushing to embrace Labour’s annihilation was a scrambled list of all the usual creations and misdirection that are thrown at left-leaning politicians by the defenders of liberal politics.  Toynbee is angry that Labour agreed to the election; does she prefer cowardice and evasion?  She welcomed Tory victory: “Never mind if the cure – [Tory government] – is worse than the illness – [Corbyn’s leadership]” she declared recklessly.  Toynbee despises socialist tendency so much that she would prefer the Tories to continue destroying the livelihoods and lives of millions of people rather than have a left-of-centre government.  Her hatred of socialism is not just ideological: Toynbee objects to the marginalisation of woolly centrist liberal nonsense within which she sits, uselessly.  In her article Toynbee said “Labour’s fate will be well and truly sealed if other non-Corbynites jump ship: Their duty is to stand and fight” but, as she is well aware, Labour’s chances would be enhanced if all the Progress mob formed their own party and allowed genuine Labour candidates to take their places.  That is, Toynbee stated the exact opposite of the truth.  She expressed her fear that Tory election manipulator Lynton Crosby’s grotesque attacks on Corbyn will affect the election result and, thus, she revealed her contempt for the intelligence and moral fortitude of the British public; that is a very typical stance of the liberal elite.

Like Eaton, Toynbee is a small child, and she has just dropped her ice-cream.

In Bush on polls Stephen Bush asked if the polls underestimate Labour’s support and then answered his own question with a ‘no’ via a half-assed analysis.  He concluded with “a poor performance from [Corbyn in TV debates] – or a strong one from Caroline Lucas or Tim Farron – could spell further disaster.”  But, as Bush knows, Corbyn is a very good debater and the addition of the spurious qualifier “further” is dishonest.

In Four Bush thoughts Bush declared the criminal investigations into the Tory fraud at the 2015 election to be dead – (it is news to discover that Stephen Bush is a qualified judge) – and he suggested that Tim Farron could be a success in the televised debates.  That is the same Tim Farron who, recently, could not decide if gay sex is a “sin” or not.  

Yvette Cooper is the subject of Bush coopers.  “Just because there isn’t a vacancy, doesn’t mean there isn’t a [Labour leadership] contest” opined Bush.  If and when there is another Labour leadership contest there will be a left-wing candidate on the ballot and that candidate will win easily due to the majority of Labour members being Corbyn supporters.  Bush ignored this by failing to mention the upcoming change to the process of nominating a candidate that will reduce the minimum percentage of parliamentary members needed for each nominee.  Instead he merely discussed support within the parliamentary party for potential candidates.  This approach by Bush was deliberately dishonest and was designed to be deceitful.

One of worst, though thankfully short, political articles I have read is Bush’s Corbyn’s strategy in which he claimed that Corbyn presented “an address in which he riffed off the ‘big argument’ contained within his Easter policy blitz: that Labour will do something for everyone funded by those with the most.”  What Corbyn presented was a socialist argument within a democratic structure.  Straightforward, sensible, honest politics that attempt to tackle the criminal capitalist exploitation that the Tories feed at the expense of the vast majority.  An opposition to a government of financial gangsters’ gimps.  Bush invented quotes from Corbyn’s colleagues as a tool to describe Corbyn’s strategy as simplistic as the Vote Leave strategy.  Clearly, Bush perceives a genuine challenge to the gangster economy as incomprehensible and weird.  The article is horrible and stinks of useless liberal elitism which, oddly, is referred to in the article.

Bush is the small child who can’t work out how any of the toys work so he eats them.

In May’s gamble Jonathan Freedland took a break from libelling Jeremy Corbyn and declared his admiration for the odious Lynton Crosby.  (Crosby is managing the Tories’ election campaign; a synopsis of his tactics here: Lynton Crosby.)  Gleefully, Freedland praised the underhand and disgusting Crosby methodology:

“Conservative strategists all but slaver at the juiciness of the prey they will now hunt. I’ve heard Tories speak with delight at the prospect of reminding voters that, for example, Corbyn was prepared to see a marriage break up rather than sanction his child going to a selective school. They think such titbits mark Corbyn out as a ‘weirdo’, utterly out of step with mainstream, aspirational Britons.”  

If that is all Crosby has then Corbyn needn’t be alarmed.  The fact that Freedland thinks that is significant is a demonstration of Freedland’s tenuous relationship with ethics and morality.

Freedland is the small child who laughs at how the other children play.

Be gone

These useless hacks are detached from any popular political support base.  They feel estranged by the Brexit vote and have fought relentlessly against Corbyn.  

The industry of centrist liberal media is floating aimlessly but kept on life support by the circle-jerk nature of broadcasting wherein liberal voices are presented, erroneously, as alternatives to conservative voices.

Fake liberal opposition leaches onto any passing opportunity.  Cast adrift, it withers and dies.

General Election 2017: May’s strategy of invisibility

Theresa May called a general election and stated she would not participate in leaders’ debates.  It is very likely she will be seen in public only at choreographed tightly controlled staged events accompanied by fully paid Tory activists.  She will be selective with choices of media interviews to avoid being questioned usefully.  

This aloof behaviour is a key part of her campaign, directed by experienced conman “Sir” Lynton Crosby.  His advice to conservative politicians has been consistent for many years and is driven by utter contempt for the public.  (Brief analysis of his strategy here: Lynton Crosby.)  

One reason that Crosby thinks May’s campaign should be restricted to stage-managed and easy events is the fact that she is not bright.  Her stupidity is a necessity for her to obediently carry out the destruction of British society for the benefit of financial gangsters, (explained here: May’s stupidity), but this abject lack of intelligence and wit is problematic if she is debating against Corbyn or Sturgeon or being quizzed effectively by a knowledgeable journalist with integrity and professionalism.  

A second reason for May’s limited visibility is to encourage the media attention to be on the policies and intents of the other parties.  Crosby wants the election discussion to be dominated by critical analysis of Corbyn’s manifesto, of Sturgeon’s independence intent and of Farron’s concerns about Brexit.  If the focus is on Labour, SNP and Liberal Democrats then the Tories are excused from defending their record in government.  Tory destruction of the country, their fleecing of the public to finance the exploitative minority and the utter annihilation of civilised society is then ignored and not investigated at all.  Crosby knows that a compliant media are happy to fall into line and present the public with a decision about whether or not to support the other parties and, if not, then to support the Tories by default, with no equal exhaustive analysis of Tory intent or recent acts.

 

Election 2017: The Progress mob have got to go

The anti-socialist Progress MPs and their supporters have attacked the Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn constantly since he was first elected in 2015.  It is clear that they do not belong in the same party as Corbyn or the hundreds of thousands of new Labour members who joined the party as a result of Corbyn’s leadership. The obstructers’ relentless undermining of the leadership and the Labour shadow cabinet has damaged the party’s popularity: The public see the disunity in the parliamentary party and in the constituency parties.

But, the Progress mob have not had the courage to form a new party.  If they had any political principles, any coherent manifesto or any genuine opposition to the Tories’ support for exploitation then Progress would have formed a new party, possibly aligned with the Liberal Democrats, and presented their ideas to the public as distinct from both Jeremy Corbyn and the Tories.  Instead, they have just been focussed on simplistic attacks and libel that often deteriorated into abuse.  

General Election 2017

There is to be a general election in Britain in June.  Theresa May has called the election because she and her colleagues are confident of increasing the Tory majority in parliament.  This confidence stems partly from observing divisions within the Labour party.  

The election could be a key moment for Progress.  Its MPs, councillors and supporters could act as they speak and contest the election with a distinct manifesto.  They could appeal to the voters to support what Progress claims to stand for.  Or, they could continue to deliberately harm the electoral possibilities of the Labour party.  

It is decision time for Eagle, Bradshaw, Smeeth, Smith, Jarvis, Austin, Streeting, Coyle, Phillips, Flint, etc.  They have a choice of two options:

OPTION 1

• Leave Labour
• Form a new “centrist” party
• Present a coherent manifesto to the electorate.

OPTION 2

• Stay in Labour
• Occupy the candidates’ positions for the parliamentary seats to stop left-wing Labour candidates being selected
• Continue to criticise and undermine Corbyn 

If Progress has integrity then it will choose Option 1.  
If there is any substance or coherence to any political viewpoint in Progress then it will choose Option 1.  
If Progress believes that it has a plan that would appeal to the public then it will choose Option 1.

If the centrist “ideology” of Progress is entirely hollow and a confidence trick then it will choose Option 2.
If the members of Progress are cowards and con artists then it will choose Option 2.
If Progress exists solely to stop Labour being a successful left-wing party then it will choose Option 2.

Labour without or with Progress?

A Labour party without Progress would mean that the members and the leadership could select candidates for the election who would offer a genuine alternative to capitalist exploitation.  The electorate would know that they could vote for a party that would be united behind a clear manifesto and clear political stance of Jeremy Corbyn.

A Labour party with Progress would mean that many – possibly a majority – of the Labour candidates in the election would be opposed to Corbyn.  The electorate could not be sure what they were voting for if they chose to vote Labour.

In opposition, there is an argument for a pretence of unity.  But, in an election, there must be both clarity of where a party stands and clarity of its differences from other parties.  For Labour to succeed the Progress mob need to go.  They can form their own party.  The people of Britain need an alternative to conservative capitalist exploitation and destruction but the purpose of Progress is to stop Labour from being an alternative.

If the Progress members that infest Labour choose to stay rather than form a new party then it is clear that their aim is not to win an election but to prevent a left-leaning Labour party from winning one.

If the Progress members that infest Labour choose to stay rather than form a new party then it is clear that they know their pretence of an appeal to centrism is hollow and fraudulent.

Do one!

For Labour to have any success in the upcoming election the Progress mob need to go now.  No delay.  Out the door now.  If they won’t go, they’ll need some unambiguous encouragement.  It is not the time for “gentler, friendlier” politics.  Just sod off!  Do one!

Get out and get out now!  

 

Syria Airstrikes: Trump Struts And Liberals Fawn

TV entertainer Donald Trump sought to boost his ratings yesterday morning with missile strikes on an airfield in Syria.  His stated reason for ordering the strikes was a response to the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against civilians in Idlib.  Trump deliberately acted before proof was certain and without the support of the United Nations.  His motivation was a combination of

• Dumb posturing
• Assisting the profits of the arms manufacturers
• Ratings
• Trying to convince US investigators that he is not Putin’s puppet

The missile strikes did not destroy the runways at the airfield and did not destroy all of the aircraft stationed there.  Trump claimed that warehouses at the airfield that may have stored chemical weapons were destroyed but if they had contained chemical weapons, which they didn’t, then the explosions might have spread the chemicals around the surrounding civilian area.  For the thousands of civilians living near the airfield the combination of Trump’s dishonesty and stupidity meant they were not suffocated to death by chemical agents.  The airfield was operational again within hours of the missile strikes.

For any US president, aiding the transfer of taxes to the arms industry pit is a top priority.  Trump recognises that priority just like all his predecessors.  However, he adds unpredictability and a need to be popular to his desire for military action.

Given Trump’s behaviour and actions during his presidency, and before, and the consequential forthright criticisms of such from Democrats in the US and liberals there and elsewhere, it would be reasonable to assume that his clumsy, flashy show of force in Syria would receive similar denouncement from those allegedly not on the right.  Apparently not.  On the contrary, the missile strikes have been applauded with onanistic glee by the so-called centrists in the US and elsewhere, particularly in the UK.  “I never thought I’d say this but ‘well done Trump'” is a popular cry from self-appointed political experts who claim to be liberal.   Why have these anti-Trump voices of the centre shrieked support for him so suddenly following a failed military operation?

Liberal Con

Liberal politics is a confidence trick.  It is a pretence at opposition to conservatism and has been so since John Stuart Mill wrote the guidebook; see On Lieberty.  Liberalism is a subset of conservatism.  The main objection the self-described centre have to Trump is that he is a bit of an oaf.  They, like many conservatives, are also perturbed by the fact that Trump’s unbridled voice reveals many of the con tricks of capitalist government.  He is a bit embarrassing, and he has surrounded himself with strange unblinking far-right characters who don’t quite abide by the establishment rules.  During his campaign for the presidency Trump claimed he wanted to withdraw the US military from Syria and elsewhere.  That claim was false, much to the relief of politicians from the right to the centre; the benevolent fund for the arms industry will not be short of cash. 

All conservatives, including the liberal subset thereof, are wedded to support for the arms industry and to the associated perspective of Western moral superiority over the rest of the world.  They can’t help themselves.  The concept of an otherness of culture is ingrained within them.  Liberals declare themselves opposed to conservatives in order to stifle genuine opposition.  The two cheeks of the same arse indulge in a pretence of rivalry.  But, when spurious Western authority, financial or moral, is challenged the liberals scurry to stand beside their conservative colleagues.  One (ineffective) military operation is all it took for a derided and ridiculed politician like Trump to become a hero for the liberals.  Their fraud was revealed so easily.

Theresa May’s stupidity is a necessity

Tory party leader (and un-elected prime minister) Theresa May attained her position without a challenge from her fellow Tories.  Her rise to the top was relatively easy and happened despite May having very limited intelligence and despite her ineptitude as Home Secretary.  May’s vacuous, evasive and childish behavior in the House of Commons, in speeches and in media interviews is not just a public persona, it is all she has in any political scenario.  There is an absence of depth to her intellect, she has no concept of wit and has no inclination to attempt to understand any issue.  But, for a conservative politician in a decaying capitalist environment, these deficiencies are not a hindrance but an advantage.

The role of a Tory cabinet is public relations for an increasingly exploitative and greedy capitalist machine.  Policies introduced by the Tories to feed this machine have devastating consequences.  The immoral agenda is vicious and inhumane.  The public face of this agenda, the PR for mass heartless criminality, requires very different skills to those used to present intelligent useful government.  The skills that Theresa May and her most visible colleagues must possess include

• Relentless and repeated lies
• Relentless evasion and obfuscation when asked to elucidate policy and its consequences
• Constant mocking of any considered argument against Tory policies
• Ludicrous distractions

The skills listed above are in opposition to nurtured intelligence.  To lie, evade and distract constantly without ever wavering, whilst knowing that everything you say is contradicted by what you are actually doing, is wholly unnatural.  Any whiff of intelligence fights against such behavior.  The skills above are robotic skills.  

Thus, the skills needed by May and her Tory colleagues require them to be ignorant and stupid.  The necessary ignorance and stupidity is, for May, a key component in her rise to the top of the Tory party and is an assistance to her when she interacts with the media and with other politicians.  MPs in the House of Commons and journalists know that questioning her is like talking to simply programmed AI.  No question is answered, no point is explained, there is no reflection or consideration and criticism is met with laughter and derision.  To behave so robotically all the time requires a disconnect from general human intelligence; stupidity is essential.

April Fools: Stupidity Triumphs

The start of April this year was a busy period for the Tory government.  

• Further life-threatening benefit cuts began on April 1st, targetted at people with disabilities
• The cluelessness of the government’s lack of thought and logic regarding the UK’s departure from the EU was quickly exposed and ridiculed
• Theresa May visited the brutal dictatorship of Saudi Arabia to enable further arms sales and military assistance for the carpet-bombing of Yemeni civilians
• Secretary of State for International Trade Liam Fox happily described “shared values” he has with mass murderer Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte.

For politicians with any intelligence, knowledge or familiarity with reason, it would be difficult and clumsy to explain the sense of a plan in any of the above acts.  What is needed in this scenario are politicians unencumbered by human intellect’s characteristics of thought, didactics and empathy.  The Tory cabinet is full of such fools.

Thus, Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green stated glibly that benefit cuts, that will make essential medications unaffordable and cause more homelessness, are an incentive for people with disabilities to find work.  As reason, facts and humanity screamed at him, his stupidity kept him cosy.

Politicians at the EU and a variety of economists and business leaders point to clear and massive problems with the UK’s departure from the EU but Theresa May, David Davis and Boris Johnson are immune to technical details.  For them, leaving the EU is an opportunity to launch an assault on human rights, particularly workers’ rights, and to enhance the possibilities for exploitation.  Negotiations with the EU will lack any cohesive thought or understanding; the stupidity of the Tory government allows it to eschew worry and to plough on senselessly to attain the single goal of enabling greater exploitation post EU-membership.

The Saudi air force is targetting civilians, schools, hospitals and the entire social structure in Yemen.  Mass starvation, aided by a military blockade of Yemeni ports preventing food supplies (and medical supplies), is an intended consequence of Saudi Arabia’s actions.  The UK’s participation in this state terrorism includes arms sales, military expertise and assistance with the ports blockade.  May’s visit to Saudi Arabia is designed as PR for the Saudi government alongside her acting as a salesperson for arms manufacturers.  The fact that the UK government’s assistance to Saudi Arabia sits outside of any alleged commitment to human rights is not a fact that May can comprehend.  Blissful ignorance of consequences and of logic help her to justify her support.

Duterte instructed the police and military in the Philippines to slaughter anyone suspected of being involved in crime.  There is no legal, moral, ethical or logical justification for his order.  But, the Philippines is, strategically, of military importance for many other governments.  Liam Fox is the latest in a long line government ministers from various countries to visit or host Duterte.  Most such ministers offered some woolly criticisms of his murderous campaign in between trying to be his best friend, but Fox, unfettered by intellectual circumspection, dived straight in with a “shared values” comment.  The intrinsic shamelessness of stupidity allowed Fox to one-up other governments’ ministers’ obsequiousness toward Duterte.

Distractions are an important tool for a government that engages in indefensible actions.  Stupidity assists the Tories to create useful distractions by removing any thoughtful analysis.  There is never a moment wasted worrying that a choice of distraction is too absurd.  So, during the week when benefits are being slashed, EU strategy is flailing and Tory ministers are visiting state terrorists, the media were handed stories about non-Easter Easter eggs from Cadbury’s, ex-Prime Minister Michael Howard declaring war on Spain and something about May not wearing a headscarf while in Saudi Arabia.  The Easter egg story was not only a lie but also created by a rival chocolate egg manufacturer, Howard’s nostalgia for the Falklands war was a performance piece wherein he played all the main characters in Dr. Strangelove and May’s self-depiction as a feminist rebel was as authentic as Gordon Ramsey’s new face.  A lack of intelligence produced such gormless distractions but they served their purpose aided by compliant media.

The image of May laughing in the House of Commons as Jeremy Corbyn described the consequences of destructive Tory policy on people’s lives is a demonstration of her stupidity as much as it is of her immorality.  Those who benefit from Tory policy need their gimps to be thick.  Narrowness of mind is essential.