If there is one thing the Flatulent Leader likes, it is spending other peoples money. It’s just a shame he isn’t better at it. The amount he has wasted is staggering: it includes water canon that could not be used, a garden bridge that was never built, the London bikes that he assured us would be costless, but at the last count had run up a public bill of around £250m…

Now he wants to spend even more on a “celebration” of Brexit. This to include flooding Downing Street with red, white and blue lights, and to proclaim the “unity of our great four nations,” – which remain, for the moment, united for the simple reason that Johnson has not got the guts to allow the Scots a second independence vote, thereby making their secession more likely in the long term.

Lord Michael Heseltine has responded that this “festival” of Brexit is unseemly and, speaking as Remainer, serves only to “rub our noses in it.” That may be true, but it is hardly the point: which is that Johnson’s lies have lead to what pretty much all intelligent independent observers believe to be a catastrophic decision, one that has been estimated to have already reduced the economy by £130bn, a figures expected to rise to £200bn by the end of this year.

“The darkest hour comes just before the dawn,” as the saying goes. Well, I don’t know how much darker it can get than it is now: the Flatulent Leader holds office with a majority of 80, and the country is staring down the very barrel of a no-deal exit from the EU; Labour once again is tied up in its own convulsions and the Greens, LibDems and SNP are nowhere to be seen.

Even worse, the best hope Labour have got, Keir Starmer, now says that as far as he is concerned the Brexit decision has been taken and his goal is to try and find a workable “solution.”

It is hard to believe that the majority of voters do not want Brexit at all, and that millions marched against it as visibly as you like. All to no effect, apparently.

Hot air emitted from the Flatulent Leader? Who’d believe it?

Well, I would for one. And his latest blast rather proves my point. For years politicians have been straining to find a suitable means of updating – amending, electing, abolishing; call it what you will – the House of Lords. And the current tenant of Number 10 has now issued his proposal: leave it alone and it will come home… all the way to the far-flung land of “the North.” To put it another way, he wants to shift it to York.

That will have the merit of increasing the opportunity for their Lordships to file few whopping great expenses claims, because no matter where their assembly is based you can bet your bottom dollar most of them will continue to live comfortably in the London and the Home Counties. It is hard to see any other benefit from it.

Oh well, as long as he and his team of self-assessed weirdos come up with nothing worse than that we might just survive the lord of misrule.

With Johnson in the ascendancy there is a crying need for a leader of the Opposition who can match him. That requires purpose, plan and stature. there is only one amongst the candidates for Labour leader who has them: Keir Starmer, but although he is currently ahead, he is going to have to fight for it.

And that is no bad thing. Recent history of both left and right shows that a leader bloodied in battle is likely to provide a tougher adversary that one has simply been anointed.

But being appointed is likely to prove the least of his worries: how to combine the bigoted xenophobia of the north with the spritzer socialists of the home counties will be a challenge and until that has been achieved the Tories will remain untroubled.

This blog is the successor to TheyMustThinkWereStupid which expired in a tidal wave of bigotry, stupidity and xenophobia just before Christmas 2020. In a nutshell, they did, and we were.

Like its predecessor this blog to promote common sense, decency and perhaps even a modicum of honesty in our politicians. There’s doubt, it’s going to be a long haul.

A new blog means a new start, new ideas and a new design. I hope you like it – I am still coming to terms with some of the quirks of my new template, so please bear with me. Before long it will be up and running as smooth as ever.