• Contact
  • About
  • Authors
DONATE
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
  • Login
Yorkshire Bylines
  • Home
  • News
    • All
    • Brexit
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Health
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
    Prime minister PMQ prep

    Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

    The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

    Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

    schools bill

    Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

    Emmanuel Macron

    French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    cost of living march london

    Trade union movement marches to demand better

    European Union

    After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Refugee Week

    Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

    Trending Tags

    • Johnson
    • Coronavirus
    • Labour
    • Starmer
    • NI Protocol
    • Brexit
    • Culture
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Home Affairs
    • Transport
    • World
  • Politics
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Culture
    • Dance
    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Recipes
    • Sport
    Nostell Priory, Wakefield

    Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

    Headingley Cricket Stadium

    A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

    Bettys' Fat Rascals

    Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

    'Woke' beliefs

    Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

    Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

    What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

    Red Ladder

    Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

    Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

    Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

    Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

    Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

    Queen cakes fit for a Queen

    Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

    • Food
    • Music
    • Poetry
    • Sport
  • Business
    • All
    • Economy
    • Technology
    • Trade
    Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

    International Women in Engineering Day 2022

    Rail strikes

    Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

    conservative party

    The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

    Yorkshire cows

    British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

    cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

    Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

    Money on the floor - £20 notes

    The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

    Financial problems

    Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

    An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

    Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

    Jar with money cascading out of it

    Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

    Trending Tags

      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
    • Region
    No Result
    View All Result
    • Home
    • News
      • All
      • Brexit
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
      Prime minister PMQ prep

      Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      Emmanuel Macron

      French parliamentary elections 2022: shockwaves across the Channel

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      cost of living march london

      Trade union movement marches to demand better

      European Union

      After the seismic shocks of Brexit and Covid, what next for the European Union?

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Refugee Week

      Refugee week: a chance to celebrate refugees

      Trending Tags

      • Johnson
      • Coronavirus
      • Labour
      • Starmer
      • NI Protocol
      • Brexit
      • Culture
      • Education
      • Environment
      • Home Affairs
      • Transport
      • World
    • Politics
    • Opinion
    • Lifestyle
      • All
      • Culture
      • Dance
      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Recipes
      • Sport
      Nostell Priory, Wakefield

      Glastonbury? What’s Glastonbury? When the music world came to Wakefield

      Headingley Cricket Stadium

      A view from the Roses match: is everything ‘rosey’ in English cricket?

      Bettys' Fat Rascals

      Scallywags, scoundrels and rascals abound in Yorkshire (we do like our scones)

      'Woke' beliefs

      Woke and proud: Compassion must never be allowed to go out of fashion

      Eurovision 2022 stage - photo by Michael Doherty on Wikimedia Commons licensed by CC BY-SA 4.0

      What does Ukraine’s Eurovision win tell us about the politics of solidarity?

      Red Ladder

      Climbing the Red Ladder – bringing theatre to the community

      Kaiser Chiefs in Doncaster

      Kaiser Chiefs never miss a beat in Doncaster

      Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, second from right, is joined by Keighley Creative representatives, from left, Georgina Webster, Jan Smithies and Gemma Hobbs.

      Bradford announced as City of Culture 2025

      Queen cakes fit for a Queen

      Queen Cakes fit for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

      • Food
      • Music
      • Poetry
      • Sport
    • Business
      • All
      • Economy
      • Technology
      • Trade
      Freya Osment from Northern Gas Networks

      International Women in Engineering Day 2022

      Rail strikes

      Millions affected by biggest rail strike action in 30 years

      conservative party

      The Conservative Party: fiscally irresponsible and ideologically incapable of addressing the current crises

      Yorkshire cows

      British farmers are being offered a lump sum payment to leave the industry – but at what cost to agriculture?

      cost-of-living-crisis-in-voluntary-sector

      Cost-of-living crisis looming for the voluntary sector

      Money on the floor - £20 notes

      The huge cost of Brexit is being seriously understated

      Financial problems

      Surge in bad debt and late payments indicate mounting business distress in Yorkshire

      An evening photo tour of Drax power station near Selby, North Yorkshire, with excellent light towards sunset.

      Winter blackouts and rationing for six million homes as government plans for disruption to energy supply

      Jar with money cascading out of it

      Boosterism doesn’t put food on the table

      Trending Tags

        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Region
      No Result
      View All Result
      Yorkshire Bylines
      No Result
      View All Result
      Home Opinion

      A very Tory Eton Mess

      After the click-and-collect school of government had run out of bait, it was perhaps unsurprising that the blancmange-like prime minister claimed to have been inspired by an email about bubbles from a constituent.

      HecatebyHecate
      16-06-2020 12:48
      in Opinion
      Source, Best for Britain

      Source, Best for Britain

      3
      VIEWS
      Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
      ADVERTISEMENT

      And a very blasé tiger in the tank.

      After the click-and-collect school of government had run out of bait, it was perhaps unsurprising that the blancmange-like prime minister claimed to have been inspired by an email about bubbles from a constituent. Wedded to his ear-buds and never one to ponder risk and impact assessments, he had been deaf to the scientific evidence of containing covid by testing clusters and creating social bubbles.

      Everything was spiffing, until Marcus Rashford and Keir Starmer got on his nerves about free school meals, demanding #MaketheUturn, and that was before he’d seen the New Zealand Herald’s story on the UK petition for him to declare war on New Zealand and ‘then immediately surrender’ so Jacinda Ardern could take over.

      England was fast approximating that episode of The Windsors where Charles and Camilla spun euphorically over being crowned king and queen of the US of A, before Wills had his epiphany. Saving granny’s crown jewels would be a valiant gesture. Indeed, England’s demented government might even share Will’s enthusiasm for the Tower of London, given the loud presumptuousness of the Celts.

      The PM had brazened out his e-meeting with the EU by doing a David Davis: presenting nothing but hot air and courting catastrophe by design (Finn McRedmond, Irish Times 12 June). He’d even put a tiger in the tank. But the natives were getting restless.


      More from Hecate:

      • Absinthe-induced fantasy island
      • Who gave the “bloviating beshagged puddingbowl” permission to trash the UK?
      • Dirty weekend anyone?

      Never mind, the sun was shining and Hadrian’s Wall was more or less intact and the government had slyly outsourced England’s sovereign control of its borders to Ireland and the rest of the EU. The PM’s inner sailor had been released: by not wasting land on customs controls in Blighty’s major docks, instead more boats could decant their booty on the shores of Essex and Suffolk. Humberside’s ro-ro to Zeebrugge had already given up crossing the North Sea and so far there hadn’t been a peasants’ revolt. The sons of the sea could sing ‘Bobbing up and down like this’* with the gusto of their music-hall loving ancestors in 1897.

      They had still to realise that losing their burgundy passports meant losing their EU rights. If the beastly EU rejected air-bridges, the PM wasn’t to blame. Nor will he accept blame when roaming charges hit anyone foolish enough to skip abroad instead of holidaying in Clacton or Skegness. The plebs had never appreciated the EU whereas his mates had grabbed the riches gifted by EU membership and there for the taking. In a Eureka moment, the quivering blancmange hit on relaxing covid rules to quell the tartan army, their Gaelic cheerleaders and their riverdancing chums on the island of Ireland: fiddling with re-starting the ceilidh season was long overdue. A leprechaun had told him so when he’d kissed the Blarney Stone.

      The trouble was he’d deleted Fascinating Aida’s ‘We’re so sorry Scotland’ from his playlist and the querulous first minister wanted an explanation. He fervently wished she and the red-wall pollsters at Best for Britain would ‘Stay Home’ and stop interrupting his R&R watching Celebrity Gogglebox. As for those pesky MEPs egging them on with their leaks about vetoing UK trade deals lacking safeguards, they could jump in a lake and take the Remainiacs Podcast with them:

      NEW REMAINIACS: The PM fights against his own deal. Did the Government really follow the science on COVID? And who's batting for chlorinated chicken in the cabinet?@Nndroid @pimlicat @sturdyAlex and @rosamundmtaylor discuss on this week's show.

      Listen: https://t.co/zrWPlgrz2j pic.twitter.com/CCH85ZWGnl

      — OH GOD, WHAT NOW? Formerly Remainiacs (@OhGodWhatNowPod) June 12, 2020

      If Dom’s ‘oven-ready deal’ gave Britain food poisoning, Trumpy’s pharma pals would make a killing peddling remedies. Outspoken women and scientists could simply be blanked: like Ruth May the contrary chief nurse (@CNOEngland), for refusing to chant platitudinous lies.

      Tweeters quickly disabused him. The world-class UK death toll was owned by England:

      The Celts were besting Boris yet again. The English, said @peterjukes, had the worst chance of dying from covid in the world: the PM’s death rate per million was second to none (European CDC situation update worldwide 12 June). And UK data suggested social care Covid-19 crises had led to a 37 per cent increase in elder abuse. By topping Europe’s rankings in both death tolls and economic damage, the UK had created ‘Britain’s disease’:

      We are in an age of British exceptionalism. But not for the reasons you would hope:

      The UK is leading the world in excess deaths from Covid-19 and is about to enter a deep recession.

      James Harding on how we made this “Britain’s disease”. https://t.co/KUVh9OLNDk pic.twitter.com/jp4Ob0xKza

      — Tortoise (@tortoise) June 15, 2020

      With unparalleled insouciance, the blasé blancmange strutted out to con the public into believing that covid, not his cynical policies, caused and was to blame for both the impending worst economic crash and recession in 300 years and for a winter of entirely avoidable food rationing. This time, however, Marcus Rashford was about to kick him into touch. The PM was, and is, entirely to blame for defiling our health and wellbeing, annihilating the UK’s international standing, and vandalising the economy and what remains of the Union.

      (*by Felix McGlennon)

      ADVERTISEMENT
      Previous Post

      Reopening schools: Scotland vs England

      Next Post

      Two metres or one metre: the social distancing debate

      Hecate

      Hecate

      Hecate stirs the cauldrons of political hypocrisy and deceit to shed some satirical light on the issues of the day, and revel in the imagined inner dialogues of the body politic.

      Related Posts

      labour party conference
      Opinion

      Labour’s precarious tightrope walk to the general election 

      byJohn Heywood
      22 June 2022
      Popcorn being wheeled into Labour HQ
      Opinion

      Vote of no confidence: Conservatives have put themselves between a rock and a hard place

      byMartin Brooks
      6 June 2022
      The detriments of Brexit
      Brexit

      The Detriments of Brexit

      byYorkshire Bylines
      3 June 2022
      Integrity at Westminster, by Stan
      Opinion

      Does honesty, integrity, and transparency mean anything anymore?

      byJohn Heywood
      30 May 2022
      William Gomes with Chris Nicholson at his graduation ceremony
      Education

      My road from refugee to university graduate

      byWilliam Gomes
      29 May 2022
      Next Post
      Have you seen this man? Last seen in Central London, many are now concerned as to his whereabouts? Photo credit gov.uk

      Two metres or one metre: the social distancing debate

      Want to support us?

      Can you help Yorkshire Bylines to grow and become more sustainable with a regular donation, no matter how small?  

      DONATE

      Sign up to our newsletter

      If you would like to receive the Yorkshire Bylines regular newsletter, straight talking direct to your inbox, click the button below.

      NEWSLETTER

      LATEST

      Prime minister PMQ prep

      Brexit isn’t working – something we can all agree on

      28 June 2022
      The small number of trees shows that even the high uplands of the Dales was a woodland environment. Much has been nibbled down to the ground by heavy populations of sheep. Photo by Andy Brown

      Government policies destroying upland Yorkshire farming with no regard for the land or our health

      27 June 2022
      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022

      MOST READ

      schools bill

      Johnson’s education power grab: from ‘liberation’ to dictatorship in one generation

      27 June 2022
      Conservative Party Meeting

      Hypocrisy, desperation and excuses: Conservative Party clutch at straws over by-election losses

      27 June 2022
      10/05/2022 Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street

      The country needs more than just ‘Booting Boris out of Downing Street’

      26 June 2022
      Photo credit Robert Sharp / englishpenLicensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

      The Davis Downside Dossier

      1 January 2021

      BROWSE BY TAGS

      antivaxxers Charity climate change Coronavirus Cost of living Creative industries Crime Cummings Democracy Devolution education Equality Farming Fishing hgv History Immigration Johnson Journalism Labour Local Democracy Mental Health mining money NHS NI Protocol omicron Pies pollution poverty PPE Public Health Review shortage social media Starmer tax travel Ukraine Yorkshire
      Yorkshire Bylines

      Yorkshire Bylines is a regional online newspaper that supports citizen journalism. Our aim is to publish well-written, fact-based articles and opinion pieces on subjects that are of interest to people in Yorkshire and beyond.

      Learn more about us

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Contact
      • About
      • Letters
      • Donate
      • Privacy
      • Bylines network
      • Shop

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      No Result
      View All Result
      • Home
      • News
        • Brexit
        • Education
        • Environment
        • Health
        • Home Affairs
        • Transport
        • World
      • Politics
      • Opinion
      • Lifestyle
        • Culture
        • Dance
        • Food
        • Music
        • Poetry
        • Recipes
        • Sport
      • Business
        • Economy
        • Technology
        • Trade
      • Donate
      • The Compendium of Cabinet Codebreakers
      • The Davis Downside Dossier
      • The Digby Jones Index
      • Newsletter sign up
      • Cartoons by Stan
      • Authors

      © 2022 Yorkshire Bylines. Citizen Journalism | Local & Internationalist

      Welcome Back!

      Login to your account below

      Forgotten Password?

      Retrieve your password

      Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

      Log In