Night of the Blond Knives

 Yesterday I was pleased. I thought Johnson had had his arse handed to him. The man who had been booed by Royalists on the steps of St Pauls, had been told by nearly 150 conservative MPs that they had no faith in his leadership. 41% of the vote had gone against him. It was worse than Thatcher's vote of no confidence, or May's. It was a bloody nose for Boris, two lovely black eyes. Yes, 211 Tory MPs still voted for him but they're Tories - you can't expect them to behave without venal self-interest - they're Tories. Most of them are directly in his employ, so they're not going to bark at the Big Dog. The other Tory MPs are also venal and self-interested, so it's a measure of how reviled Boris Johnson is on a grassroots level, that they've chosen to distance themselves from him. These are the people who wrote on their election materiel "It's not all about that London, you know. They may be boozed up pricks, fighting, fucking and puking while your granny dies alone, but we're still here to make sure the bins are emptied and there's no dog shit in the Golf Club car park."

Still, I'm less pleased today. There doesn't seem any end to this egregious shittery. If he'd lost would he have gone? Maybe, maybe not. If he'd lost there would have been another shark-eyed sociopath in a blue suit lying and lining the pockets of his mates, and Johnson would just slide into seven two days a year board-member jobs, and be richer than ever before.    

The Sun's headline today was: "Night of the Blond Knives". There's a fair amount to unpack there. Clearly the glory days of Sun newspaper sub-editing puns are long gone. As a pun on "Night of the Long Knives", when Hitler murdered all the threats to his authority to ensure there would be only one, it clearly doesn't work, for two reasons. First "long" and "blonde" don't sound the same. I mean there's an "o" in both, but that's not really good enough, is it? Secondly, it's sort of the opposite to the "Night of the Long Knives", isn't it? It's a charismatic, popular leader being taken down by country squires, rural headmasters and former estate agents.  Also, and I shouldn't really have to say this, that's not how you spell "blonde". 

Also, this posits the notion of a "blonde knife" being a recognisible thing. Boris is blonde, where he isn't increasingly pink, so is he the knife in this situation? That would certainly tally with the idea of The Night of the Long Knives -  is the Sun saying that Boris is having the 148 refuseniks assassinated?  And is he going to do it himself? It's a bold stroke. Not even Hitler did his own killing. But Boris got Brexit done, he got the vaccine roll-out done, he got Partygate done, who's to says he can't get political murder done. What's another bit of blood on his hands, after all? 

(If a film called "The Blonde Knife" came on on Talking Pictures TV on a Saturday afternoon, I would deffo watch it.)

Possibly a better more appropriate reference would have been Julius Caesar, stabbed in the back in the senate by his friend, Brutus, and sundry others. And they could have gone with "They've all got it Infamy.", which would play well with their sentimental, Carry On loving base. 

Today Boris Johnson's cabinet meeting (it was televised? Is this normal?) started with the cabinet banging on their desks, as though he was the School Dux, or returning, spume flecked, with a blue ribbon, or a flick-knife and an STD from a school exchange trip. As if he were cool. Having won this brutalising victory, he just wants to put it all behind him and focus on what the people of Britain are really interested in, and really deliver for them. What the British people are really interested in, apparently, is ignoring Boris' misdemeanors and watching him paying lip-service to the cost of living crisis while doing nothing about it. All the DUP want him to do is watch them as they go really high on the swing. BORIS! ARE YOU WATCHING? BORIS! LOOK AT ME!

Later on a lackey delivered a soundbite about the NHS being "a Blockbuster health service in the age of Netflix". They were then forced to admit that they had no idea what those words actually mean. Here's what those words are meant to mean: "Blockbusters" is an old thing, Netflix is a current thing that seems impressive. Beyond that it has no meaning, excepting the fact that Netflix is a subscription service, and you'll be just be buying more and more services as the Tories further dismantle the National Health Service. Your National Health Service. When questioned as to whether there was more money for this fantastic new modern health service, he told reporters "No", and in fact they're looking to restructure productivity to save 4.5 billion a year. Your NHS. Let's put that on the side of a bus. 

We're fucked. I feel like I have to keep writing that. We're in the grip of idiots at every level. I despair.