Although mathematically, the Prime Minister has appointed women to 50% of new Ministerial posts, only seven are in the Cabinet – and none of them have the major offices of State apart from her. Hardly anyone has noticed this obvious sleight of hand; the impression given is that Theresa May or may not, but whatever she does it will be made to look like fulfilment of a promise.
Less than a week into the job, Theresa Maniac is already confirming the view I formed during her election: she is an even more sociopathic manipulator of the media than Chemical Ali Campbell.
Having got the Torygraph’s exhaustive study of her Home secretarial incompetence pulled within hours last week – and arranged for Leadsom to be dropped in it by The Times – everything possible is being done this week to suggest to different (and often opposed) opinions that all is well for them. It’s a clever approach, in that it leads to a sort of feel-good confusion mix….rich soil for any dictatorial politician sewing seeds of expectation, while controlling the weeds of opposition at the same time.
Over the weekend, the new Prime Minister made a point of being extensively photographed in a Number 10 tete-à-tete with Nicola Sturgeon, pouring out balm for the Remaindeers with tosh about “no triggering of Article 50 until Scotland is on board” – rather like saying “no Waspi pension restoration until they stop moaning”. It ain’t gonna happen.
Brexiteers kicked up about the wheeze. So now, we get this planted in Brexit Central, the Daily Express:
The ‘content’ (if you can call it that) was as follows:
Ministers are preparing the ground for rapid negotiations on new agreements with around a dozen countries to meet their timetable for leaving the European bloc in the early months of 2019. Tory Cabinet minister David Davis, the newly appointed EU Exit Secretary, said: “We’re talking to large numbers of people who all want to help and we’ll get a very, very large trade area, much bigger than the European Union, probably ten times the size.”
Right. But nothing at all about “a swift exit”. Just lots of guff about talking to nations outside the EU, and a nice Brexiteer headline.
Spoilt a little, however, by this item across the page:
Well I’m glad we cleared that one up. And equally, Theresa would like people to be in no doubt that she thinks MPs should not slaughter the Holy Cow. I mean Trident, not the PM:
The great thing about the Twin Whores is that they can always be relied upon to pull stuff one day, and then pull your leg the next. Setting aside the real risk of a nuclear threat (close to zero) the article omits to point out that any upgraded Trident would still be miles behind known Russian capability when it comes to false target info being fed to the missiles. But such announcements put more pressure on the Labour Party – still all over the shop in terms of nuclear defence.
This is They Work for You’s take on Damian Green, the newly-appointed Waspi abuser (my underlining):
Oh dear, we think. But Matthew D’Ancona was soon available (having predicted Green’s appointment last week) to put the opposite view:
Matt uses the ear of May to get a scoop. May uses the mouth of Matt to suggest Green is nicer than he seems, really.
But even she the censorious one can’t have it all her own way. Newly relaunched Robert Peston notes at ITV News that ‘the £24bn takeover of ARM, the UK’s ONLY world leading hi-tech electronic company, by SoftBank of Japan is the first proper test of Theresa May’s premiership’, because ‘her sole proper policy speech since announcing she wanted to become PM – the one she gave in Birmingham just a week ago – was completely unambiguous that she opposed foreign companies buying our strategically important businesses.’
Four other nationals have picked up the piece this morning. My guess is she’ll take the shrewd view that this is a business story that will pass most of the electorate by. In the meantime, a bit of geopolitical distraction and affirmation of ‘liberal’ principles goes into this Torygraph piece about May meeting Clinton.
What I’m reporting here is nothing more than worrying symptoms: that is, the results of politicians caring far more about media comment and spin than they do about what real people think. The game plan is to keep the public confused, award May the benefit of a doubt she probably doesn’t deserve, and ensure that powerful globalists like Murdoch and the Barclay twins are reassured that her time in power will be good for them.
They’re all symptoms of constitutional, political, social and economic models that are manifestly dysfunctional. Too much of what we read is about symptom, rather than disease or cure. But as with the Vietnam War, a focus on symptomatic events merely makes the audience accepting of new normals.
I am at the moment mulling over a change of emphasis at The Slog – a shift towards starting from the ailment, and recommending the cure. This will, I hope, keep alive the awareness that – on all the levels outlined in the last paragraph – there are infinitely better ways of doing things than those currently employed.
The Slog 