Tag Archives: clip

Home Office ‘migrants’ clip: “It’s like Dad’s Army but WE’RE the fascists”

Priti Patel: I was going to paint a Hitler-style moustache on her upper lip but let’s be honest – there’s no need.

[Note: The Home Office has taken down the offending tweet. However, that’s no reason not to know what was in it. Let’s discuss:]

Priti Patel’s Home Office has taken a (goose) step too far with it’s latest anti-migrant video.

It says – well, see for yourself:

Wow.

The graphic really is like the opening titles of Dad’s Army, but the message is perverse.

Behind graphics reminiscent of the old TV sit-com, that represented the UK’s older (and younger) citizens fending off the Nazi hordes, the Home Office comes across as having been taken over by the Nazis,

“We are working to remove” – take note of that language, remove. It means the Home Office is sending people back to the home countries they fled to seek asylum in the United Kingdom – “migrants with no right to remain in the UK”. Migrants like Mercy Baguma who, rather than being removed, was starved to death in her Glasgow home after the Home Office removed her right to remain but then did nothing, leaving her in limbo without any way of feeding herself?

“But current return regulations” to which the UK signed up “are rigid and open to abuse…” If they’re “rigid”, then it shouldn’t be possible to abuse them; they’d mean one thing only. Is it not more likely that the current regulations simply don’t allow the Home Office (as run by Priti Patel) to just kick people out willy-nilly?

“… Allowing activist lawyers” – activist? Activist? Apparently an “activist” is a person who campaigns to bring about political and social change. The use of the word suggests that this is a bad thing. But if the current regime is keen to expel innocent people to an uncertain future – on the basis of questionable information (what are the facts on which the Home Office seeks to deport these people, anyway?) then it seems to me that political and social change is not only desirable but demanded.

“… to delay and disrupt returns…” Good for them!

Then it starts to get really sinister: “Soon we will no longer be bound by EU laws and can negotiate our own return arrangements.” Doesn’t this suggest that the Tory-run Home Office, overseen by Priti Patel, is looking forward to the freedom to treat Johnny Foreigner with extreme prejudice? To treating migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers as people with no rights at all?

I fear for the future of anyone falling into the clutches of such a regime. Fascism comes very strongly to mind.

Of course, we are British – and the clip is already getting the treatment it deserves:

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While Johnson blathers about schools being safe, a pupil is caught saying what we all think

Speak no evil: but it was while Boris Johnson was speaking that a pupil at a Leicestershire school voiced what we all think of him.

Congratulations to the ITV microphone-jockey who picked up this little gem.

Much has been made of Boris Johnson’s visit to Castle Rock School in Leicestershire – strangely a week before term started; I wonder how the kids were enticed in. If they were hand-picked, then I expect one choice is being regretted now.

This is because – as Johnson waffled his usual piffle about schools being perfectly safe, one child was picked up by an ITV microphone describing him in exactly the same terms many of us would use:

Considering the fact that there is no evidence to support Johnson’s wild claim – he’s only saying schools are safe to get parents back to work making money for his fatcat big business friends – I can only side with the kid.

And this *rsehole’s demands could cause a lot more trouble after term starts properly.

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VIDEO – Johnson’s greatest flops: it’s been a bad week to be a Tory

Hand over mouth: It’s the only way he can stop himself putting his foot in it.

The first full week of the general election campaign could not have gone worse for Boris Johnson.

It was like a re-run of the Conservative government’s greatest flops since it came into office in 2010, starting with Boris Johnson’s disgusting failure to respond to the flooding crisis in the north, and ending with the Bolton blaze, accelerated by cladding – two years after dozens were killed in Grenfell Tower.

The opinion polls might have said the opposite, but he started out in a terrible situation – caused by his own government’s misbehaviour over a period of years:

Mr Johnson tried to undertake a tour of the UK, but few members of the public seemed to want to talk to him…

… and many of the appearances seemed to have been arranged as if in secret.

His television appearances were a similar disaster, with the prime minister coming across as a stumbling zombie:

https://twitter.com/hardcastIe/status/1195267953610149888

It seems he’s hopeless if he hasn’t got a script. This radio interview is even worse:

So, after the first full week of campaigning, this is the verdict:

There are many more clips I could have used in this piece; there will be many more to come. I’m looking forward to seeing Mr Johnson cock up his response to the Bolton blaze, for example.

For voters everywhere, there can be only one conclusion: This man and his party must be removed from office on December 12.

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BBC digs out Remembrance Day clip from 2016 to avoid showing up Boris Johnson. What happened to impartiality?

Now you see it: An image from yesterday’s commemoration service, at which Boris Johnson showed contempt for our Armed Forces by laying his wreath face-down.

Now you don’t: An image from the BBC’s coverage today, showing Mr Johnson laying a wreath in 2016.

Remember a few years ago, when Jeremy Corbyn laid a wreath at his first Remembrance Day as leader of the Labour Party? The BBC revelled in criticism of his behaviour (which was in fact impeccable) and his manner of dress.

Fast-forward to this year, and we all saw Boris Johnson looking scruffy and disshevelled, stepping out of line at the wrong time and laying the wreath upside-down.

That’s unless we watched BBC coverage of the event after it happened, of course.

Because the BBC decided to look for images of Mr Johnson at a previous Remembrance Day event – in 2016 – and use them instead, in what is a clear breach of reporting rules and election impartiality; this was an attempt to hide information that – properly – makes Mr Johnson look bad.

Why on Earth did anybody at the BBC think they would get away with it?

The substitution has sparked a wave of outrage which began with this tweet:

Here’s the actual footage used, from 2016, courtesy of another Twitter user:

Suggestions that there was an innocent explanation were batted aside…

… as was the BBC’s ridiculous claim that this was a “production error”:

Let’s have a few other comments. Here‘s Matt Bailey: “A production mistake… Where you mixed up yesterday’s VT with one from 2016 that you had to search for in the archives? Yes, that’s very plausible. Thank you for making it clear…..”

Author and scriptwriter Stephen Gallagher offered this: “Editorial policy of ‘Since what actually happened doesn’t make him look good, we’ll substitute something that didn’t but does’.”

And ex-BBC/Sky/Reuters/PA journo Julian Shea weighed in with: “‘Footage from less than 24 hours ago? Where am I expected to find that? What’s that you say, three years ago? Easy, it’s saved on my desktop.'”

The BBC’s claim to have made an innocent mistake is risible. As Evolve Politics notes:

“The BBC would have needed to search through their archives to find the 2016 footage – making the excuse that it was simply a “mistake” highly implausible.

“In addition to BBC Editors ‘mistakenly’ searching through their archives to use footage from 2016, they also appear to have overlooked the fact that the video also showed numerous politicians in attendance who have long since left their positions:

  • Theresa May – who is no longer PM
  • Angus Robertson – who is no longer the SNP Westminster leader
  • Tim Farron – who is no longer the Lib Dem leader
  • David Gauke – no longer a Cabinet Minister
  • Michael Fallon – no longer a Cabinet Minister
  • Amber Rudd – no longer a Cabinet Minister
  • Liam Fox – no longer a Cabinet Minister
  • Chris Grayling – no longer a Cabinet Minister

“Clearly an easy ‘mistake’ to make.”

It seems likely the BBC will be deluged with complaints like this:

The written complaint, sent to https://www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint/#/Complaint states: “I cannot accept that this was a ‘production mistake’ not least because it is clear in the 2016 footage that Theresa May and not Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister. Additionally, it surely takes some ‘skill’ to mix up footage from yesterday with footage from three years ago. I, and I know many others, can only conclude that your intention was to present the PM as more statesmanlike, more respectful, than yesterday’s performance showed him to be.

“Bias.”

As this is a clear breach of impartiality, I hope the same people complaining to the BBC are sending their complaints to Ofcom, which is still (as far as I know) conducting an inquiry into whether the BBC has breached its own rules on this.

This Writer missed the BBC Breakfast coverage. So I watched Politics Live in the hope of seeing an apology and explanation.

Did anybody else see one? I didn’t.

So I sent a tweet to the show’s editor, Rob Burley:

No response so far…

There is only one conclusion to be drawn here:

The BBC has outed itself as a propaganda arm of the Conservative Party. Its election coverage – and other news output – should therefore be avoided on the basis of prejudice, and should be reported to Ofcom.

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The report on Damian Hinds’ first year in Education isn’t good

Damian: A bad omen for the Department for Education.

This is a terrific effort from Labour:

But you know what? People are going to find fault with it.

They’ll say, “Where’s the evidence to back up what’s said here?”

And they’re right to do so.

Anyone coming out with criticism – especially of a political rival – needs to be able to back up what they say.

It needn’t take much effort. Obviously – if the information in the video is accurate – somebody has already researched this topic and has all the relevant web links.

So why not tweet them out along with the video clip?

It would prevent a lot of headaches.

And it would sort out the liars from the leaders.

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Listen and watch as two British comedy greats skewer Theresa May and Brexit


Legends of British comedy have lined up to deal staggering blows to Theresa May and her plan for the UK to leave the European Union, as MPs prepare to vote on it.

Mike Harding used to be all over TV and the radio when I was younger, but seemed to have taken a step back from broadcasting in recent years.

That changed when a letter he wrote to prime minister Theresa May, in response to her missive to the nation demanding our support, went viral.

It’s a powerful piece – listen to the author reading it, if you don’t believe me – he recorded it for LBC’s James O’Brien. I’ll copy the text below.

The other comedy legend who slammed Brexit this weekend is Stephen Fry.

He shared an 11-minute animated video on YouTube and Twitter, detailing “the story of how a mythical EU dragon was conjured up” and outlining the “myths” that were spread by the campaign to leave the EU.

Here it is:

These attacks on Mrs May and Brexit – both of which have gone viral, gaining huge popularity with the general public – are critically important at this time.

Today (December 3), Parliament will find out whether Mrs May can be bothered to honour a binding vote by MPs, demanding in the name of the Queen that she make available all legal advice given to her on her Brexit plan.

Failure to provide the information will trigger proceedings against Mrs May and her government for contempt of Parliament, which used to be a serious matter but may now be worth very little.

More importantly: If she refuses, we will take this as tacit admission that the advice suggests her plan is not only bad, but disastrous.

That may be vital in swaying MPs to vote against it in the “meaningful vote” on the Brexit plan, to take place next week (December 11? 12? Thereabouts).

The information provided here by Messrs Harding and Fry could be instrumental in helping swing MPs against Mrs May’s plan – if you, as constituents, send it to your MPs in support of your own call for them to vote it down (assuming that this is what you want. If you support the plan, you’ll have to find your own supporting information. Good luck with that).

If the plan is voted down – and some commentators are suggesting that Mrs May could lose by a margin of as many as 400 votes – then Labour will demand a vote of “no confidence” in the government.

It seems the Conservative government is exerting pressure on its local party memberships to demand that MPs support the plan:

Ultimately, it may be a matter of reminding all our Parliamentarians that their behaviour will be a matter for discussion by future historians. The names of all those who take part in these crucial votes will be recorded – and may be vilified if the decision they take proves to be as disastrous as Messrs Harding and Fry suggest.

Does any MP – even the most spineless of the party faithful – want to be remembered as a toady who brought ruin down on the country?

I suppose we’ll find out in the very near future. We’ll have the names of all such representatives – if that’s the right word for them – before Christmas.

I don’t think there will be many, though. I think the arguments against the plan are persuasive, and that MPs will accept the need for a change of government rather than risking everything for the weakest and worst prime minister in living memory.

It would be ironic if a couple of comedians were responsible for swaying such a serious matter – but it would also be quintessentially British. Let’s make it so.

Here’s the text of Mr Harding’s letter – from the LBC website:

“Dear Mrs May,

“I am in France having a break having come here on the train all the way from Settle. I just read your letter to me and the rest of Britain wanting us all to unite behind the damp squib you call a deal. Unite? I laughed so much the mouthful of frogs legs I was eating ended up dancing all over the bald head of the bloke on the opposite table.

“Your party’s little civil war has divided this country irreparably. The last time this happened Cromwell discontinued the custom of kings wearing their heads on their shoulders.

“I had a mother who was of Irish descent, an English father who lies in a Dutch graveyard in the village where his Lancaster bomber fell in flames. I had a Polish stepfather who drove a tank for us in WW2 and I have two half Polish sisters and a half Polish brother who is married to a girl from Donegal.

“My two uncles of Irish descent fought for Britain in N Africa and in Burma.

“So far you have called us Citizens Of Nowhere and Queue Jumpers. You have now taken away our children and grandchildren’s freedom to travel, settle, live and work in mainland Europe.

“You have made this country a vicious and much diminished place. You as Home Sec sent a van round telling foreigners to go home. You said “ illegal” but that was bollocks as the legally here people of the Windrush generation soon discovered.

“Your party has sold off our railways, water, electricity, gas, telecoms, Royal Mail etc until all we have left is the NHS and that is lined up for the US to have as soon as Hannon and Hunt can arrange it.

“You have lied to the people of this country. You voted Remain yet changed your tune when the chance to grab the job of PM came. You should have sacked those lying bastards Gove and Bojo but daren’t because you haven’t the actual power.

“You have no answer to the British border on the island of Ireland nor do you know how the Gib border with Spain will work once we are out.

“Mrs May you have helped to divide this country to such an extent that families and friends are now no longer talking to each other, you have managed to negotiate a deal far worse than the one we had and all to keep together a party of millionaires, Eton Bullingdon boys, spivs and WI harridans. Your party conserves nothing. It has sold everything off in the name of the free market.

“You could have kept our industries going with investment and development – Germany managed it. But no – The Free Market won so Sunderland, Barnsley, Hamilton etc could all go to the devil.

“So Mrs May my answer to your plea for unity is firstly that it is ridiculous.

“48% of us will never forgive you for Brexit and secondly, of the 52% that voted for it many will not forgive you for not giving them what your lying comrades like Rees Mogg and Fox promised them.

“There are no unicorns, there is no £350 million extra for the NHS. The economy will tank and there will be less taxes to help out the poor. We have 350,000 homeless (not rough sleepers – homeless) in one of the richest countries on Earth and you are about to increase that number with your damn fool Brexit.

“The bald man has wiped the frogs legs of his head, I’ve bought him a glass of wine to say sorry; I’m typing this with one finger on my phone in France and I’m tired now and want to stop before my finger gets too tired to join the other one in a sailors salute to you and your squalid Brexit, your shabby xenophobia and Little Englander mentality.

“Two fingers to you and your unity from this proud citizen of nowhere. I and roughly half the country will never forgive you or your party.

“Yours,

“Mike Harding.”

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This charity chief broke the Tory gagging order on the effect of Universal Credit. Her words are heartbreaking – and infuriating

The lady in the video below is Ellie Waugh, chief executive of the charity Humanity Torbay, which aims to help the vulnerable secure homes, jobs and training.

Part of that mission has involved working with the Conservative government – but this has come with strings attached, including a demand not to criticise Tory policies such as Universal Credit on pain of losing grant aid.

Ms Waugh has chosen to speak out despite these threats because she thinks the public needs to know how bad the situation is.

Her statement is clear: “It is absolutely awful out there.”

Anyone who is not heartbroken by her message and infuriated at the Conservative government for making it necessary, and for creating the situation that made it necessary, should seriously consider trying to find their own humanity.

Please share the clip. People need to see it.

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The satirists go to (town on) the Conservative Party Conference

Where’s the need for satire when shots like this show the shockingly-low attendance at this year’s Tory shindig?

We’re only two days into the Conservative Party Conference and the toffs have already given humorists enough material to last at least until Christmas.

What follows is only a little video entertainment I managed to pick up from Twitter, but I guarantee it’ll give you a giggle.

Let’s start with the speech by Michael Gove. He thought it would be a laugh to have a go at Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but I think you’ll agree that the laugh’s on him after you’ve seen this…

… and this:

https://twitter.com/sketchaganda/status/1046820974728007681

Then again, maybe you’ll prefer Brexit secretary Dominic Raab’s discussion of the potential short-term disruption of Brexit.

Funny – that looked like the Walking Dead behind him, but Theresa May isn’t due to speak until Wednesday, is she?

Those of you who remember the work of comedy that was the Leaderene’s speech last year will spot a little nostalgia in the following snippet from Jeremy Hunt’s speech:

The above examples are all well and good – we all like a laugh now and then. But Philip Hammond brought us all back to Earth with his determination to cling on to austerity, no matter what (harm it does to the economy of the UK).

The satirical content here comes not from anything added in by a joker, but from the Conservatives’ own idiocy in sticking to a system that has not helped the UK’s economy but has actually made matters much, much worse. And they can’t say they haven’t been told. Even Tory-supporting Andrew Marr gave Mr Hammond a heads-up on live TV:

https://twitter.com/Corbynator2/status/1046721782839939073

I suppose it was up to Jeremy Corbyn – the man Michael Gove was trying to mock in the video at the top of this article – to point out the plain and simple facts of this matter. Be warned: If you’ve been affected by Tory austerity (and there aren’t many who haven’t) then there is nothing funny about what follows.

So that is the Conservative conference so far – a meeting which, to be honest, the people responsible for these videos could have left alone in the knowledge that all those concerned would satirise themselves.

But here’s a word of caution: If you’re thinking this bodes well for Mrs May’s speech, think again.

She made such a cock-up of it last year that her party will be pulling out all the stops to make it run smoothly now.

In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if, in line with all the jokes about her since she became PM, they actually replace her with a robot.

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