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As December hit Westminster everyone knew that as long as they could booze their way to Christmas without a major disaster everything would be alright. Naturally it didn’t work out that way for Rishi, who was hit with Robert Jenrick’s resignation in the first week. For all the pool clips and Star Chamber wrangling over the second reading of the “emergency” Rwanda Bill the promised rebellion never came. Guido was happy to provide a run-down of the “Five Families” of Tory would-be rebels. Let’s hope 2024 proves it was worth doing…
In last December’s review Guido wrote “Eddie Izzard’s losing streak was extended” and sees no reason to change that apart from replacing a hyperlink. This time he/she/they was trying to get the Labour selection for Brighton, and pledged to campaign “via Zoom” while playing Hamlet in New York. Suzy’s capacity to fail isn’t the only thing that December proved to be evergreen – civil servants’ political activism reared its head yet again. Guido reported that two of them were on the board of the “Young European Movement” and was highly amused to hear about one getting suspended and escorted out of the DfE building in response to the story. Happy to report on that as well…
Nigel Farage exited the jungle with higher ratings and hints of a return to the front line. One final victory for him was the government’s intervention on debanking. If anyone’s won big this year, it’s Nigel…
Loose ends are never really tied up in SW1 and December was no exception. As the Met closed its investigation into Bernard Jenkin the Commons’ Standards Commissioner opened his. Miriam Cates also fell under the spotlight. The farcically expensive and drawn out Covid Inquiry exposed its deficiencies as Boris was questioned. SpAds were told in what was meant to be a boost to morale: “We’ve got this. Look at Labour – they don’t have any long term plan on AI but we do”. Peter Bone was recalled, teeing up a new by-election for Sunak in the New Year. Andrew Bridgen announced he was leaving Laurence Fox’s Reclaim Party to stand as an independent. Movers, shakers, up, down, Westminster trudges into 2024…
Honourable Mentions:
Jeremy Vine Flagrantly Violates Traffic Laws on His Bicycle
Labour Expels Brighton Councillors For Actually Living In Leicester
Government Reaches Peak Nanny State, Tells Brits to Stock up on Candles and Radios
Headline of the Month:
Net Zero rollback? Didn’t pass muster. Conference announcements? No mustard cut here. Here’s hoping a mega Team Sunak reshuffle will do the job. Cue Braverman getting sacked while Guido was eating his weetabix and Sky News presenters going slightly insane watching David Cameron walk up to the black door. Neither Lindsay Hoyle nor the Tory right were fans of developments in the cabinet, and the public wasn’t really bothered. At least Suella had a bit of fun in her letter to Sunak. Gudio supposes he should have mentioned the month kicked off with that “saviour of humanity” AI summit, though he’s not sure anyone else remembers it…
Everyone’s favourite leftist Carol/Caroles continued to circle the dung heap of politics in November. After the Vorderman one got fired by the BBC for tweeting too venomously about the Tories (too venomously even for their standards), Guido spotted her sat in Parliament cosying up with Bridget Phillipson. Guido’s prediction: seat by 2030. The Cadwalladr one lost her very final appeal against Aaron Banks as the Supreme Court slapped down her case. Banks thanked Carole’s remainiac supporters for the “shed load of money” and Guido thanks them for financing the entertainment…
We had a swanky State Opening of Parliament and King Charles delivered Rishi’s soggy election platform while the SNP and the pro-Palestine Labour faction plotted to force a vote on a ceasefire. They got their wish and ten Labour frontbenchers were subsequently out after voting against the party line. Protests erupted against Labour MPs who didn’t vote the way of Hamas. At least the BBC was still accurately and unbiasedly reporting events in Gaza…
A fractured post-reshuffle party wasn’t the only problem Sunak had to face down – the Supreme Court got its word in as well to rule against the ill-fated Rwanda plan. At least Farage was dancing topless in the I’m A Celebrity jungle when it all happened. Tories kept waiting as Hunt briefed increasingly sound tax proposals to the papers – all before delivering a bit of a wet fish Autumn Statement. You guessed it: no poll change, Tories still recalcitrant…
Honourable Mentions:
Ben Everitt’s ‘Thirst Trap’ Photos Row Goes Nuclear
LibDem and Green Councillors Toast Use of Crematorium for Trans Film
Coutts Named “Best Bank for Diversity & Inclusion”
Headline of the Month: Guardian Writer Who Hosted “How Not To Be Racist” Apologises for Retweeting Pro-Hamas Account
Who doesn’t love party conferences? Northerners might be one answer, and it was probably more true this year than most. It was the Tories’ turn first (which felt very strange) and their Manchester soirée was pushed off the rails by godawful communications management of the already-made decision to axe HS2’s northern leg. But hey, at least Sunak banned smoking. Guido’s sure that will have helped with the by-elections…
Hunt also went ahead and promised to cut the civil service workforce, which made Guido wonder if the government’s roving crosshairs are what’s keeping that hilarious proportion of them cowering in fear at home instead of coming into the office. At least Guido managed to see them when they did come in, sneaking into the MoD’s “away day” at the Park Plaza Hotel and joining in for some of the quizzes and games while doing his best impression of an entitled public sector employee. Summoning those levels of sloth was exhausting…
Just as Ofcom was gearing up to police the free-fire idea zone of the internet, Guido revealed their “Director of Online Safety” was vociferously anti-Israel and posting about her views on her Instagram. Four hours later, she was suspended. Those other titans of impartiality, the BBC, were meanwhile refusing to call Hamas terrorists which was roundly disparaged by the political class as “disgraceful“. At least the BBC holds to its political neutrality back home. Actually, never mind. The corporation finally admitted at the end of the month to a biased attack on GB News as all the guests on a Newsnight show slagged off the channel. That’s all thanks to Guido’s co-conspirators complaining about the coverage. I can move move move any mountain…
Starmer had a high-blood pressure month as he attempted to toe the line between his party’s two sides on Israel/Palestine following Hamas terrorists’ brutal and barabaric attack on Israel on the 7th. He failed a few times – caught switching his lines depending on the day and making a one or two extra enemies. Protests and heckles at Labour conference between Israel and Palestine supporters set the tone for the rest of the month. That said, it wasn’t foreign affairs which got Starmer glitterbombed at the start of his keynote speech…
The dramatic displays weren’t limited to the public – Guido reported that Arabist and pro-Palestine grandee Crispin Blunt physically attacked Andrew Bridgen in Portcullis House after Bridgen wrote a disparaging article in the Express. Thankfully after a brief incursion there was a humanitarian pause…
Honourable Mentions:
Cummings Names SW1 “Non-Player Characters”
Labour “Taking Action” After Candidate Hangs Banner From Gravestones
Headline of the Month: Lloyds Bank Offers 30,000 Staff Paid BUPA Counselling if Triggered By Conservative Party Conference Trans Rhetoric “Fuelling Hate”
As we moved into September rumours were running apace about the suspected Chinese spy in Parliament, with speaker Lindsay Hoyle trying to keep a grip on the situation and keep information from spilling out. Suspected Chinese spy Chris Cash was named by The Times – he denied the allegations. We have yet to see the result of any investigations…
Labour kept as quiet as they could, executing an uneventful mini-reshuffle, to let the Tories get on with failing to turn the dial. Sunak did just that with the beginning of his “great reset”: the rollback of Net Zero pledges. The first time the think tanks had a nice word to say about Sunak for a while, it’s a shame the public didn’t much care…
Internal tensions in Number 10 boiled over after Guido reported Chief of Staff Liam Booth-Smith had shored up his position with some new hires and told political operatives at the weekly “SpAd school” that they should quit if they didn’t think the Tories could win. And lo, off traipsed Rishi’s Director of Communications Amber De Botton the next morning…
The explosive allegations about Russell Brand led to leftists retracting support for their former pal and some high-grade clashes on the airwaves over whether he was a pervy criminal or some kind of free speech hero. GB News took the opportunity after it had all blown over to cull some of its presenters, with Laurence Fox and Dan Wootton kicked out over an interview in which the Reclaim leader claimed that he “wouldn’t shag” JOE correspondent Ava Evans. Calvin Robinson then got suspended for defending Fox. Not that the move would stop the BBC blatantly slagging off its rival.
The sorry and farcical affair that was Birmingham Council’s slow descent into bankruptcy, smattered with stories of swanky New York holidays, ended with Gove taking over the council and sending in commissioners to run the thing. Developments in the capital, meanwhile, were more fruitful. Guido relaunched its highly influential campaign #Tories4Corbyn after it was revealed that Jezza’s entry into the running for London mayor would blow Khan out of the water and propel Susan Hall into power. A highly co-ordinated operation followed, during which Guido performed in-depth analysis of Corbyn’s support on the streets. The results? Definitive. Now all we need is for Corbyn to actually stand. Guido’s working on that…
Matt Hancock was slung into a room to answer some serious questions about his handling of the pandemic. No, it wasn’t the Covid Inquiry, that’s not yet. It was Channel 4‘s “Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins“, for which Hancock got paid £45,000 to take various kinds of beating. John Bercow was announced to be taking part in the US version of game show The Traitors, which features vainglorious has-beens jostling for attention. If the shoe fits…
Honourable Mentions:
Diane Abbott: Labour Racism Investigation Is Racist
Just Stop Oil Slams Dale Vince’s Dodgy Green Credentials
BBC Disinformation Correspondent’s CV Fakery
Headline of the Month:
August is usually that quietest of months as MPs slip away into recess and politico types pretend to be normal at picnics and parties. That doesn’t stop the determined, though, as parliamentary opposition was co-ordinated against the ongoing and venomous campaign by left-wing activists to hoodwink brands into refusing to advertise on right-of-centre platforms. That was a move by Conservative MPs that warmed both Guido’s heart and his wallet…
Tom Newton Dunn was finally confirmed to be out of the doors of the Baby Shard after a long (and fruitful for the channel) two months without him. News UK‘s pretence that he was on leave got pretty thin as the weeks dragged on. Ofcom kept up its constant campaign against GB News by launching yet more investigations into the nascent news channel – not that they cared; they were busy on a hiring spree for their American election coverage. Ofcom investigations were water off a duck’s back by this point…
Another by-election got shoved in the pipeline as Rutherglen and West Hamilton MP Margaret Ferrier was recalled for her lockdown travel antics while down south Sadiq Khan finally admitted anti-travel antics of his own cost Labour the Uxbridge by-election. With such frequent expressions of the health of parliamentary democracy it was great to see that its supposed guardian (in fact constant whinger) the Electoral Commission was doing such a great job at keeping it safe. The quango revealed it had been hit by a cyber attack which hacked every voter’s data including their names and addresses. Not the first time hacks have brought down a quango…
Nadine Dorries proved the maxim that to hold a pen is to be at war when she wrote to Rishi on her resignation. She asked what we were all thinking: “What exactly has been done or have you achieved?” She had a few answers of her own…
SNP politicians north of the border continued their psychodrama meltdown as Nicola Sturgeon insisted that her sudden resignation wasn’t anything to do with the police probe that led to her arrest. At least her successor proved himself to be compos mentis when he had a breakdown over a question about football. Guido would make a joke about the Scots, but they can’t afford it…
Honourable Mentions:
LibDems Warned New Policy Would Flood Homes with Sewage
Bryant Writes Book on Dishonesty in Politics, Still Hasn’t Corrected Record for Farage Russia Claim
Rob Roberts Boasts of “IQ in Excess of 150”, Claims He Joined Mensa Aged 7
Headline of the Month: Remainers’ Boycott of Wetherspoons Sees Profits Surge
