Dan Dan the magic man*

"To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires."
Aleister Crowley

Apparently, Daniel Hannan, founder member of the secretive hard Brexit lobby group that's currently holding the UK government hostage, isn't just a master of the Dark Arts in a merely figurative sense:

Hannan, now a right-wing commentator and MEP, has been described as “the man who brought you Brexit” and is, by all accounts, a remarkable character. According to a fellow student at Oriel college, Oxford, his obsession with leaving the EU was matched only by his interest in magic, and in the occultist Aleister Crowley. One evening, we are told, he was convinced that he would win the election for president of the Conservative club, as he had cast all of the right spells. He returned to his room that night, baffled at having lost, only to discover that a key candle had gone out.

Of course, Dan was much younger then, little more than a boy wizard. But it's hard to escape the impression that Brexit is still best understood in terms of magical incantation and propitiatory sacrifice ("a belief that you must leave a customs union with your overwhelmingly biggest trading partner so you can seek inferior trade agreements with other more distant countries", presumably because the sacrifice is pleasing to Aiwass, the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat, or something like that).

Given the advanced magic it would take to bewitch the UK's vastly more powerful negotiating partner into allowing the UK to leave the EU club with a bespoke deal that's just as good as membership, I guess DExEU's been stocking up on long-life black candles. If that doesn't work, they'll probably move on to drawing a pentagram on the floor in cat's blood.

If I were Larry, the 10 Downing Street cat, I'd keep my head down...




* Not to be confused with the children's entertainer and balloon modeller of the same name.

Two thirds of the way there

For once, Jacob Rees-Mogg is moving in the right direction, but he doesn't quite get there:

Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the influential European Research Group of backbench Tory Eurosceptics, also told the Prime Minister “the leader is important, the party is more important”.

Oi, Jake, you missed a bit!

And that bit is "the country is more important still."

There, fixed it for you.

You wouldn't think you'd need to point this out to a self-described patriot.

False flag operation

On Wednesday, several British newspapers lamented that Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, had "decreed" that the British flag should no longer be flown over some public buildings to mark royal events, as if this:

a. mattered 

and

b. was true.

Horrified hacks at the Telegraph described how Nicola Sturgeon had "hauled down the Union flag",* while the folk in charge of the Express's clickbait bucket tried to raise the blood pressure of its more easily-triggered readers by describing the move as a "snub to the Queen".

It turns out that the story was nonsense from beginning to end (which isn't that surprising) and that one of the papers responsible for the disinformation, the Scottish edition of the Daily Mail, has actually apologised and published a correction, (which is):

"We are happy to clarify that the decision to change the policy on flag flying was taken and implemented by former First Minister Alex Salmond in 2010.

"The Protocol and Honours Team updated operational guidance in December 2017.

"We accept that the policy did not change under Nicola Sturgeon and that she had no involvement in the Protocol and Honours Team updating the operational guidance on flag flying for 2018."

*It is, by the way, great fun to troll the sort of people who ostentatiously call it the "Union flag" because it's "incorrect" to call it the "Union Jack",except when it's being flown on a vessel, because:

a. anyone who gives a monkey's is just asking to be wound up

and

b. they're wrong.

It is often stated that the Union Flag should only be described as the Union Jack when flown in the bows of a warship, but this is a relatively recent idea. From early in its life the Admiralty itself frequently referred to the flag as the Union Jack, whatever its use, and in 1902 an Admiralty Circular announced that Their Lordships had decided that either name could be used officially. Such use was given Parliamentary approval in 1908 when it was stated that “the Union Jack should be regarded as the National flag”. 

 Commander Bruce Nicolls OBE RN (Retired)

Mueller mulls monkey business

Google News - improving your news headlines with the best images since 2002:

"Thursday briefing: Trump 'looking forward' to telling Russia story", it says here. If the relaxed body language doesn't scream "innocent of all charges", then I'm a monkey's uncle...

Orange is the new puce

Ukip's current leadership difficulties may be hogging the headlines but there are far bigger skeletons in the Kipper cupboard than "Dull middle-aged man seeks hot young racist for mid-life crisis", or "Farage in career re-launch bid." The story of Boring Henry only tells us that the Purple Army provides safe spaces for oddballs and bigots, which shouldn't surprise anybody who can read a newspaper headline.

Bubbling away in the background is the far more interesting story of Posh George, which shines a light onto the obscure alliance of interests behind Ukip (and the wider Leave movement) and where their money came from:

George Cottrell was the most prominent “Leave” campaign money man, firmly ensconced within the Farage/Banks inner circle he was privy to all financial dealings and arrangements. As [co-]head of fundraising for UKIP Cottrell was responsible to [sic] amass the millions needed to win the EU referendum.

Of course Ukip has had a few wealthy, well-connected donors and fundraisers, but George Cottrell stands out from the other money men in one interesting respect. Born in October 1993, he wasn't yet 23 at the time of the EU Referendum. Startlingly young to be one of the two chief fundraisers for a national political party.

Just compare some of the other Ukip money men: Paul Sykes (born 1943), John Stuart Wheeler (born 1935), or Robin Birley (born 1958). Even comparative youngster Arron Banks, who some wag described as looking like an ugly toddler dressed up for a wedding, had reached 50 by Referendum Day.

George is even more youthful than the headline-grabbing Jo Marney. But where Ms Marney is known for being photographed in skimpy costumes, George Cottrell's most significant photoshoot involved him sporting a slightly less revealing outfit in orange:

At 10 a.m. on Monday, December 19th 2016, George Cottrell handcuffed and shackled, dressed in a prison-issue orange jumpsuit walked into the courtroom of United States District Judge Diane Humetewa.

This short appearance in Phoenix, Arizona formally ended a three-year Internal Revenue Service investigation. In return for Cottrell’s guilty plea to one count of wire fraud the remaining 20 counts would be dismissed by motion of the United States.

So who is young George?

Known as “Posh George” by Farage and his entourage, Cottrell is the nephew of Lord Hesketh, a former Conservative party treasurer who later defected to the more radical right-wing UKIP. His mother, Fiona Cottrell, was reportedly a former girlfriend of Prince Charles.

For an anti-establishment insurgency, the Leave bunch sure have some fancy connections. So, apart from having been born with a whole canteen of silver cutlery in his mouth, what qualified Baby George for the role of Ukip's joint chief fundraiser?

[Nigel Farage's] closest aide on the trip [to see Donald Trump accept the Republican Party’s presidential nomination] was an offshore investment expert who had boasted on the dark web about his ability to launder money illegally in and out of the United States.

The aide, George Cottrell, was busted at Chicago’s O’Hare airport on his way home to London on July 22, 2016. He would later plead guilty to participating in a scheme “to advertise money laundering services on a TOR network black-market website.”

...As well as Cottrell’s advertised ability to transmit money across borders without detection, he was well versed in the world of offshore and cross-border banking. Despite having no political experience, this was the man—aged just 22 at the time—Farage chose to run his office at the height of the battle for Brexit.

Was it George's interesting financial skill set that impressed the Ukip high command, or just his air of well-bred insouciance (in a Telegraph interview, George quipped that "Had I not been to boarding school, prison would have been infinitely harder")? Cynics might suggest the former:

Cottrell, who was already under active investigation by the Department of Treasury, was well placed to find the much-needed money with an address book littered with European royalty, British aristocrats, Russian billionaires and Asian organized crime figures.

How and where Cottrell funneled money will be extremely difficult to identify. As an offshore private banker and criminal financier it was Cottrell’s job to hide the nature, control, source and ownership of money. Even special agents acknowledged in court that they were impressed by Cottrell’s knowledge of finance, US government procedures, and anti-money-laundering laws.

However, it appears that Cottrell’s testimony and cooperation with US & UK investigations are already resulting in action; less than two weeks ago Cottrell was interviewed under caution by detectives from HMRC and the National Crime Agency.

It is known that Cottrell personally arranged for two separate donations (both exceeding the reporting threshold of £7,500) originating from Russia to be remitted to a UKIP “accounting unit” which were not declared – the sum total was in turn donated to the central party. Both transactions, brokered by Nigel Sussman, originated from Russian bank accounts in the name of Russian individuals.

Cottrell – who was not a permitted participant – also incurred sizeable EU Referendum expenditure personally which went undeclared. Receipts and invoices submitted to investigators, seen by this blog, routinely show that UKIP & Leave.EU associated venue hire, merchandise, staffing costs and travel reimbursements not to mention excessive food and alcohol bills were paid for using cash by Cottrell.

Nigel Sussman, who brokered the donations from those Russian accounts, was, coincidentally, a member of the Westminster Russia Forum (WRF):

The Forum, formerly known as Conservative Friends of Russia, was launched in August 2012. Leaked e-mails from Russian officials soon appeared, saying they had been urged to use the organisation to campaign against the Magnitsky Act in Westminster. CFoR tweeted photographs of the anti-Kremlin head of the Parliamentary Committee on Russia, Chris Bryant, in his underpants. The Russian diplomat liaising with the group was Sergey Nalobin, first secretary in the embassy’s political section (his father was a senior figure in the KGB and FSB). They were accused by the Guardian, World Affairs and Private Eye of being a lobby group for the Kremlin.

Whether or not the Kremlin saw the disruption of the UK as a juicy opportunity, young George Cottrell, certainly did:

...when Sunderland voted for leave by a bigger than expected margin, Cottrell sensed a betting opportunity. ‘At 10pm, I couldn’t believe I was still getting 9/1 [for a majority leave vote],’ he says. ‘We were in our campaign office and I was tracking all the major stock indices, the dollar and pound currency markets. When it got to 3am, I was getting my managers out of bed to get me another 50 grand on here, another 50 grand there, to short sterling. I just couldn’t help myself.’

Mind you, what's 50 grand here, 50 grand there, to a baby-faced high roller like George?

Cottrell won a six-figure sum that night but promptly ‘lost most of it the next day, on some horse running called Exit Europe or something like that. I was a compulsive, habitual, addicted gambler.’ Generous but self-effacing, with a sharp memory, Cottrell relates the events of that day and night with the self-assurance that the English public-school system produces – a chauffeur brought him to lunch, and only later did I realise he had bodyguards in attendance.

All in all, it would be a shame if we forgot about baby-faced George and his exploits amid all the Marney-mania and Farage-fed Ukip 2.0 hype. It would be even more of a shame if the Electoral Commission, or Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs were to forget about George's short, but remarkable, career. I'm sure he's got more interesting tales to tell than most young men of his age, and the relevant authorities should be all ears.

WTF, PFI?

When Carillon collapsed with a mighty clang, it prompted some people to have second thoughts about the wisdom of Private Finance Initiative contracts. Look at the original thinking behind PFI and you start to wonder why anybody ever had first thoughts about this way of doing things:

...why did we ever enter PFI contracts in the first place? The answer is provided on page 11 of the NAO report: PFI is off-balance sheet for national accounts purposes, which means it “results in lower recorded levels of government debt and public spending in the short term”.

The problem was that Serious People believed public spending and government debt in the UK were dangerously, unsustainably high.* They lay awake at night worrying about the terrible debts future generations would inherit, if we frittered their birthright away on fripperies like schools, roads and hospitals. What did they do about this alleged existential, intergenerational threat?

No worries - they had a cunning plan. Hide the up-front costs, so it looked as if they weren't spending the money they really were spending, then saddle future generations with the cost of running and maintaining this off-balance-sheet infrastructure, as well as handing over a massive wodge of public money in rent to a bunch of private companies who'll be billing our kids and their kids, long after the Serious People have moved on, their reputation for prudent management of the public finances intact.

So Serious People solved the perceived problem of handing whopping debts on to the next generation by making current spending seem to disappear, through the magic of creative accounting, then ... er ... handing whopping debts on to the next generation.

That's so mental, it's almost impressive.




*Plenty of people have argued convincingly that the idea of runaway public spending was wasn't true when the notion of PFI was first dreamed up and still isn't true.

"We're going to win so much, WE'RE going to be sick and tired of winning"

Trump didn't want to win the election:

"Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary."

Johnson didn't want to win the EU Referendum:

"Once he lost, Johnson would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Project Fear."

In Trump's case, we have to rely on the word of Michael Wolff and his sources, when they say that team Trump reacted to victory with shock and disbelief. In Johnson's case, we've actually seen the terrified "What have I done?" expression on his face, as he reacted to his victory like a man who's suddenly and unexpectedly been asked to deliver a funeral oration.

Having come first in a competition he never wanted to win, it now looks obvious that he views the prospect of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory with relief, not disappointment:

The foreign secretary has reportedly told friends that he would rather stay in the EU than accept a soft Brexit.

According to The Sun, Boris Johnson told allies that any Brexit result which left Britain outside of the EU, but still closely aligned to it, would be a "total waste of time," adding that "I’d rather us stay in than leave like that."

A separate report by Politico on Monday confirms this, stating that Johnson told allies that calls for Britain to remain closely aligned to EU rules and regulations after Brexit were "mad," adding that: "You’d be better off staying in."

He reportedly told friends that he believes Theresa May would be "worn down" by civil servants and persuaded to accept a bad Brexit deal that would leave Britain in a similar relationship to the EU as Norway.

Friends of Johnson have previously told Business Insider that the foreign secretary never had any intention of leaving the EU, but joined the Leave campaign purely out of his ambition to win the Conservative leadership. 

If you believe the Eurosceptic UK press, the chief enemies of Brexit are the treacherous "Remoaners" who voted and campaigned against leaving the EU. I'm not so sure.

With a few honourable exceptions (like the dogged and courageous Gina Miller), I think the Remain side have been pretty ineffective (such is the prevailing Brexit orthodoxy that even the most pro-Remain MPs routinely preface their criticisms with a feeble "Of course, nobody's trying to block Brexit", before coming up with some half-baked waffle about "a Brexit that works for everybody", whatever such a fantastic beast might look like).

But maybe, just maybe, the true enemies of Brexit come from inside the Brexit camp, from self-identified Brexiteers like Johnson and 'ol frog-face, who publicly claim to be with the program, but are secretly hoping it will go away, so they can forget about the complexity, hard work and harder choices that delivering Brexit would actually entail, and get back to their comfort zone of cheerfully fact-free scapegoating, while playing the victim from a position of cosseted privilege.

The seigneur of sark

I just wrote a slightly sarky post about Ukip's current leadership difficulties, but I'm just an amateur, only in it for the LOLs, and to let off steam. Matthew Norman, though, gets paid for writing this stuff and it shows in the superior quality of his sarcasm. Watch and learn as he fillets those Kippers like a Michelin-starred chef:

"The never-ending saga of the Ukip leadership continues with 'anti-far right' Henry Bolton in a pickle after his girlfriend turned out to be a bit racist

...In the most shocking political development since the last time Theresa May insisted she has been “very clear” about some piece of incomprehensibly opaque drivel, Ukip is on the verge of needing a new leader.

Certainly, the incumbent has earned a rest after a marathon stint. It’s almost three and a half months since Henry Bolton, a blazer-clad ex-copper, assumed the mantle...

...If and when Bolton departs to create another vacancy, he can leave feeling satisfied about a job well done. Running as a virtual unknown, he won by highlighting his enmity to all forms of extremism, but especially the “infiltration” of Ukip by the far right.

Since exposing racism under deep cover was his goal, here’s one political career that will not end in failure. Thanks to Bolton, a Ukip member has been suspended for racism of sufficient blatancy to earn an invitation to serve at the pleasure of the US President.

If there is a down side to his triumph, it feels almost too trivial to mention. But the suspended member is Bolton’s girlfriend, Jo Marney. Or his “mistress” as the Mail on Sunday quaintly prefers it when splashing today with her trenchant thoughts on Meghan Markle and matters of race.

For the record, the 54-year-old Bolton left his wife Tatiana for Marney, estimates of whose age vary from 25 to 29, just before Christmas. While that is a particularly cruel time for the mother of two tiny children to learn of her replacement by a much younger woman, at least Bolton broke the news with the chivalrous sensitivity expected of the holder of his office. He ended the marriage by text.

...After [Marney] launched a recent Facebook exchange with “I wouldn’t with a negro”, her correspondent’s “What’s wrong with black people?” allowed her to illustrate a gift for brevity. “Ugly,” she wrote, before segueing into a staccato riff on the approaching nuptials. “Harry’s marrying. God! Wet as a scrubber. Awful. A royal yank. Yuk.”

She then assuaged fears that her objections lay in Markle’s nationality, though not without raising fresh concerns about her understanding of reproductive biology. Markle’s “seed”, she wrote, will “taint our royal family … Tiny brain. She’s black. A dumb little ‘actress’ that no one has heard of.”

There may be the germ of an irony in that last remark. Marney describes herself as an “actress”, but without apparently having starred in seven seasons of Suits, or in fact having a credited in any production at all. Among the other careers she lists on Twitter are “music journalist”, “presenter” and “model”. The evidence available supports solely the latter, and only then in the sub-category of modelling prefixed by “glamour”.


Anyway, as the Socratic dialogue drew to its close on Facebook, Marney maintained her pithy form with: “Just don’t like her. She’s a black American … Next will be a Muslim PM. And a black king.”

...It is quite possible, after all, that Bolton, who was elected after warning that the wrong leader risked Ukip becoming the “UK Nazi party”, knew nothing of her opinions until today’s papers...

...While wishing him well in his next endeavour, it is probably too early to speculate about which of Ukip’s countless other anti-racism warriors will inherit the crown. One assumes Farage will be driven by near-poverty and that minor addiction to the spotlight to launch another positively final comeback tour...

...In the meantime, the thoughts turn to David Cameron. It was to neutralise the terrible menace of Ukip that he called his kamikaze referendum on EU membership. How he must surge with pride whenever he beholds the awesome might of the enemy he was prepared to sacrifice his country to defeat."

Savour the whole thing in its sarcastic magnificence here.

Henry and Wallis

Henry Whatsisname's leadership of Ukip continues to go from strength to strength. After a strong start, when Henry built his reputation as a very stable genius on that impressive boast that he could strangle a badger with his bare hands, Henry went on to demonstrate his family-friendly credentials by cheating on his wife and kids with a foxy Ukip groupie 25 years his junior.

As any fule kno, there's nothing the public love more than a celebrity romance (just look at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle), so I'm sure that by showing his human side, Henry has astutely burnished the glamour of his führerschaft to an even more impressive sheen. I confidently expect bunting and street parties to follow the announcement that Henry and Jo Marney are now an item.

The happy couple

Already Henry's new companion and soulmate is helping the great leader in his stated mission of leading the party towards definitely-not-racist respectability:

UKIP has suspended the girlfriend of party leader Henry Bolton after she apparently made racist remarks about Prince Harry's fiancee Meghan Markle.

The Mail on Sunday has published a series of messages sent by Jo Marney.

In them, the 25-year-old model said Ms Markle would "taint" the Royal Family, that she had a "tiny brain" and that black people were ugly.

Ms Marney apologised and said her messages had been taken out of context.

Henry didn't want to comment. What will Henry do, if forced to choose between his duty and the woman he loves? It's all very Edward and Mrs Simpson.

"fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists", as somebody once said...

Although, to be fair to Henry's Wallis, she may be a contemptible racist, but she isn't any more racist than the current President of the United States, or the UK's Foreign Secretary. Interesting times.





*Update and afterthought - Ms Marney contends that her remarks have been taken "out of context." Other than as a satirical parody of the sort of things you might hear a racist muppet say - which I assume wasn't her intention - can anybody explain what sort of context might excuse such remarks? Help me out, I'm struggling here.

The special relationship

Racist pillock who called Africans "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles" supports racist pillock who called African countries "shitholes."

The USA and the UK. Two countries divided by a common outrage.

Corbyn: "I'm king of the world!" (spoiler: iceberg ahead)

Imagine that it's close to midnight on 14 April 1912 and we're on the bridge of the RMS Titanic. Watchers in the crows' nest have just spotted an iceberg ahead. What should we do?

There are two schools of thought.* Mister Barlow thinks that our top priority is to do everything possible to change course and speed, during our short remaining window of time, so that the ship can either avoid the berg, or try to hit slowly, at a speed and angle which gives us some chance of not sinking.

Mister Jones objects that while everybody's obsessing about the iceberg, conditions aboard the Titanic are unacceptable; the working poor are crammed into cramped, airless quarters in steerage, while the rich and powerful lounge about in their sumptuous staterooms, being waited on hand and foot, when not stuffing their faces with turtle soup and lobster at the Captain's table. Mister Jones is a fan of First Mate Corbyn's vision of something better, a Titanic that works for everyone.

Now I don't think Mister Jones is wrong. The massive levels of unfairness and inequality are wrong, bad and need fixing. But - forgive me if I'm being be a single-issue iceberg bore here - the iceberg is dead ahead, the time left for avoiding action is short, and if we hit and sink, who do you think will be first in the queue for the limited number of lifeboats (hint; it's probably not going to be the poor devils in steerage)? For the moment, I think that the pressing problem of iceberg avoidance deserves to occupy the top left quadrant of the Eisenhower decision grid.

That was my take on the "What - if anything - should progressives do about Brexit" debate, as argued by Owen Jones and Nick Barlow.

Credit to Boris Johnson for first suggesting the Titanic analogy.

*Of course, there are other courses of action, although the one being urged on Captain May by her senior officers ("Shut your eyes, full steam ahead and just keep on saying that we're definitely going to win the Blue Riband"), doesn't really involve enough neurological activity to qualify as a school of thought.

Everything now LÖUDER than everything else

Meet Alex. Alex is quite big in America. I don't know what he's talking about, but Alex is very loud indeed:


Maybe you're thinking "Only in America." If so, you'd be wrong. In the UK, fans of weird outbursts of RANDOM SHOUTING can just turn to whatever the headline writers in the Express are having a self-induced brain aneurysm about today:

Left-wing activist STUMPED in fiery BBC clash when she FAILS to answer simple question 

'It's political suicide!' Lord claims Brexit WILL be reversed but is SHUT DOWN by BBC host

'MILITANT trade unions' responsible for rail misery, blasts Transport Sec in radio row 

Davis and Hammond UNITE to warn EU against UNNECESSARY Brexit trade barriers 

'It hasn't stopped!' Lorry drivers are ATTACKED by Calais migrants EVERY DAY, haulage boss 

'EU will get hurt FAR MORE!' Farage warns Barnier's EU 'religion' could come CRASHING DOWN 

Toby Young RESIGNS from universities regulator: 'Forced out by TWITTER MOB' 

Now ban DRINKING STRAWS: Conservation group calls for crackdown on plastic 

'We're eating through YOUR airtime!' Tory MP completely LOSES IT with Sky News host in row 

French flu WARNING: Already battered by Aussie strain – now NHS faces new DEADLY virus

Which reminds me of everybody's favourite heavy metal quote "..could we have everything louder than everything else?.." A few years ago, we were told that comedy was the new rock n' roll. These days, it looks as if frothing outrage is the new heavy metal.

I guess that Ian Gillan actually had a sense of the ridiculous when he made his remark and intended it to be a funny comment about rock excess (such is the self-parodic nature of the genre that Spinal Tap could only ever have been an affectionate send-up). It's this self-awareness that seems to separate ridiculously loud rock bands from ridiculously loud opinionators like Alex Jones* and the Express headline writers.

I suspect that Alex and the tabloid shouty brigade would really struggle to get their heads round the idea that making everything louder than everything else is an inherently funny concept. I don't think they'd appreciate the element of paradox and logical impossibility. Or, for that matter, stop to think that if you shout everything at the top of your voice, eventually nothing seems especially loud or important.

I, for one, miss the playful self-awareness and sense of the ridiculous of Gillan's quip. For example, if only we'd held on to such a keen sense of the absurd, Michael Gove's malign career would have ended the moment he said, with a straight face, that all schools must be above average. Politics these days isn't just show business for ugly people; it's heavy metal for the thoughtless.





*Or maybe, as per Poe's Law, he's a very skilled parodist, in which case, fair cop, you got me, Alex.

He flatly refused to comment

Thailand's prime minister has taken a novel approach to avoiding questions at a news conference, by leaving a cardboard cutout to do the job.

Prayuth Chan-ocha briefly spoke to an audience outside Government House in Bangkok, before the life-sized replica was brought out.

"If you want to ask any questions on politics or conflict, ask this guy," Mr Prayuth said, then walked away waving.

BBC

A two dimensional political placeholder whose main function is to communicate no useful information whatsoever? Insert your own Theresa May joke here.

Important (?)

Trying to correct disinformation is futile, because corrections don't change minds, they simply increase the salience of the original lies. This "boomerang effect", according to current received wisdom, is why people who know what they're talking about are unable to stop lies and the lying liars who tell them.

Interestingly depressing, if true. But how robust is the evidence for the boomerang effect? Not very, according to Daniel Engber. If so, the boomerang effect theory may be, at best, demoralising people with good information into silence. At worst, it may be making them comfortably complicit with the bullshitters and liars:

"Today’s proclamations about the end of facts could reflect some wishful thinking, too. They let us off the hook for failing to arrive at common ground and say it’s not our fault when people think there really is a war on Christmas or a plague of voter fraud. In this twisted pipe-dream vision of democracy, we needn’t bother with the hard and heavy work of changing people’s minds, since disagreement is a product of our very nature or an unpleasant but irresolvable feature of our age."

I don't know whether Engber's right, but it does seem plausible that facts might be more robust and powerful than proponents of the boomerang effect suggest. After all, if people were as fact-proof as the theory suggests, why did Big Tobacco and Big Sugar spend so much of their time and money trying to suppress facts, or undermine them with fear, uncertainty and doubt?

Henry hits the headlines

Since becoming party leader last September, Henry Whatsisname has notably failed to give Ukip the sort of dynamic, charismatic, Faragist führerschaft that hard-core Kippers crave. He managed a few headlines when he said something bonkers about strangling badgers, but apart from that, low-energy Henry's profile has been lower than a snake's belly, leaving ex-leader, Nigel Farage as the de facto face of the Ukip brand.

But not any more. With the new year comes a new burst of energy. Henry is finally reaching out to the youth. Specifically, he's reaching out to a blonde glamour model 25 years his junior. According to Henry, his Russian* wife, and mother of his two children, is "fully aware" of his latest youth outreach activities.

"Is that a 2.5m hose and tool kit in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

Usually, I'd say "so what?" and move on. People, and their relationships, are complicated, even people in the public eye have the right to a private life and, in any case, it's his politics, not his domestic arrangements, that matter. But then the Mirror published a photo of Henry's new squeeze flipping the bird while posing in front of a Confederate flag and I thought, "You know what, normalising this sort of garbage is political."

Of course, in itself the photo doesn't, in itself, prove that Jo Marney is some sort of fascist. Maybe she has an unaccountable fondness for The Dukes of Hazzard, although she looks too young (both for Henry, and to be into some cheesy 1980s TV show about good 'ol boys). Maybe she's just too stupid or ignorant to know what America's equivalent of the swastika stands for (although being a fascist and being an ignorant dumbass are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories).

But as she's gone onto social media, venting rubbish that's too unpleasant even for the S*n,** I'm disinclined to give her the benefit of the doubt:

"THE topless model lover of married UKIP leader Henry Bolton branded Grenfell Tower a 'nest of illegal immigrants' in a vile social media rant.

Jo Marney, 29, labelled the decision to offer permanent residency to survivors of the tragedy "disgusting" on Facebook."

I know she's a quarter century younger than Henry, but 29 is way too old have the excuse of being a hormonal teen who doesn't know any better. And as for Henry, and the party he represents, they're clearly the same bunch of two-faced Nazi-lovers who came up with the infamous Goebbels-style "breaking point" propaganda campaign back in 2016. The personal, in this case, looks very political and the political looks very nasty. As Ukip is a small, fringe party with a failing leadership, this shouldn't matter much. But now that the UK's political class (with a few, too timid, exceptions) has tied itself to realising Ukip's insane project, it does.






*What is it with Ukip and the Russians? Try as I might to keep Hanlon's Razor sharp, there's Henry's Russian presumably-soon-to-be-ex Missus, Arron Banks's Russian wife,  Farage's links with RT (formerly Russia Today) and his open hero-worship of Vladimir Putin - even Henry's leadership rival, flying aircraft carrier and interstellar colony ship enthusiast Aidan Powlesland, promised that "in a symbolic gesture of friendship he would also make it easier for Russian tourists to travel to the UK." The idea of collusion still looks too conspiracy theory-ish, but if there's nothing illicit going on with the Kippers, then they're either trolling us, or disturbingly obsessed with a chillingly authoritarian regime.

**Not something I'd normally link to, but when something's too vile even for the S*n, citation's needed.

Post-geography, or just Poe?

Apparently, somebody didn't get an atlas for Christmas. I genuinely can't decide whether this is as stupid as it looks, or whether we're being trolled, maybe in order to generate headlines about anything except the actually existing mess this project's in.

Whatever you're up to, Liam, you just gave a whole new meaning to the familiar phrase "Fox geography howler."

While we're on the topic of Poe's Law, here's something to contemplate the next time somebody accuses Lefties of being humourless, politically-correct killjoys. It's the definition of Poe's Law, according to those whacky funsters at Conservapedia:

"Poe’s Law is an Internet adage that inappropriately compares God's mighty handiwork during the Creation to an insipid genre of satire."*

I guess that if you want to believe in things like trickle down, austerity and Fox News headlines, and still keep a straight face, a total sense of humour bypass must be pretty much your only option.




*No link from me - if you really want to rot your brain, you know where to go and you can dive in at your own risk.