Politics

Nelson's Column: If Boris Johnson keeps playing this game we're all doomed


The new video game Doom Eternal will be unveiled at the UK’s biggest games fair in London’s ExCel centre next month.

Must be about Brexit.

The makers boast: “You blow apart new and classic demons with powerful weapons in unbelievable and never-before-seen worlds.”

Yup, that sums up the current state of Brexit Britain right now.

Unbelievable. Never-before-seen. A nation set to be condemned to eternal doom if classic demons Boris Johnson and lounge lizard Jacob Rees-Mogg remain at the controls.

Lizard: lounging

They like long words so I’ve raided the online thesaurus for a few to describe them. Contemptible. Despicable. Disgraceful. Disgusting.

Noxious. Offensive. Repugnant. Repulsive. Revolting.

You can play this game yourself. Just tap in “vile”. Rachel Johnson found another for her brother and came up with “reprehensible”.

Rachel and Boris: happier times

The Mogg accuses the Supreme Court of launching a “constitutional coup” in ruling Parliament’s suspension unlawful when all that 11 top judges did was uphold the law.

That’s like calling a burglary redistribution of wealth.

Johnson uses language calculated to inflame. And MPs, whose lives it puts at risk, are right to be outraged.

Tory rebel Caroline Nokes objected to words such as treachery because it provoked a constituent to tell her she was a traitor who deserved to be shot.

Caroline: objected

Labour’s Jess Phillips had 600 rape threats in one night. Her office was attacked on Thursday.

A police close protection officer tells me that it’s not the lonely saddos issuing death threats over Twitter who pose a danger.

He worries more about the silent ones who don’t tweet but get fired up by those who do.

A law breaking prime minister who throws invective around like an incendiary bomb will only make them even more rabid.

Our nation is now a tinderbox. It takes only one flash to make it flare up and before we know it our land will be an inferno.

Yet Johnson is sparking away like a smoker trying to light up in a storm. That is dereliction of his first duty as PM which is to keep Britain safe.

Johnson: storm

Only immediate resignation will deliver absolute redemption, though in the short time he has left the PM could still atone for some sins.

Curb the language, prime minister. No more warlike talk of “surrender act” for a law to prevent no-deal.

And agree to obey that law. No more talk of refusing to ask for an extension if a deal is not forthcoming.

Parliament: weapon

Both the PM and Rees-Mogg are being blown apart by a powerful weapon called Parliament.

Only by respecting it, and those who fill it on our behalf, will avert doom.

Nothing weak about a shorter week

McDonnell: four day week

John McDonnell’s plan for a 32 hour, four day working week on the same pay went down better with employees than bosses.

But I’m told this idea started life as a three day weekend.

Slogans considered included: “Labour abolishes that Monday morning feeling.”

Or: “Every Monday is a bank holiday with Labour.”

The shadow Chancellor rightly thought this too frivolous.

Better to shorten the week than lengthen the weekend.

It beats the French 35 hours – and a North Korean labour camp’s 112 hours by some margin.

A woman sentenced to a North Korean labour camp
North Korea: hard labour

Four day weeks have just been trialled in New Zealand with impressive results.

There was no fall in productivity, stress levels went down, and life satisfaction went up.

Similar findings came from a six hour workday pilot in Sweden.

Bosses should give this some thought.

Indications are this will boost their recruitment and retention.

New staff will be queuing up to join their companies, and happier and healthier workers won’t want to leave.

Farage’s number will soon be up

Farage: company man

I’ve got Nigel Farage’s number. It’s 11694875 should you wish to make a note.

Not his phone number, or his winning lottery ticket or, to disappoint Remainers, even a prison number.

It’s his registration at Companies House for the Brexit Party Ltd.

That’s right.

What Nige is building is not so much a political movement as a not-for-profit enterprise.

It makes him chief executive, chairman and owner rolled into one.

Or two if you add sidekick and co-director Richard Tice.

The Brexit Party doesn’t have members but customers, who become “registered supporters” when they hand over £25.

This means Nigel cannot be toppled in a leadership challenge, the tiresome burden Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn have to bear.

The downside of turning a political party into a product is that it will also have a use-by date.

And Jeremy and Boris are hoping it comes before the General Election.

Angela beats my conference tally

Baroness Smith
Angela: conference veteran

First party conference for Labour Lords leader Baroness Smith was 55 years ago.

How come?

Last week was my 34th and Angela is younger.

She explained: “I was five at the time.”

Corbyn thinks outside the box

Corbyn: universal credit to him

 

A slightly menacing sign at Labour’s conference hotel declared: “By entering you agree to grant Labour the right to use, publish and copyright names, identities, likenesses, distinctive appearances, images, voices, gestures, mannerisms in videos or photos for use throughout the universe in perpetuity.”

Wow! Outer space for eternity. Corbyn IS thinking big.

Corbyn to cool cats

Jeremy Corbyn will have his work…ahem…cat out if his black and white moggie El Gato (Spanish for “the cat”) moves into Downing Street.

Larry: protective

He tells me El Gato is possessive over their Islington, north London back garden while grumpy No10 cat Larry is equally protective over his territory.

Corbyn & me: cat chat

Jeremy added: “I shall use my socialist values to bring peace and concord.”

That’s one speech I’d really like to see.





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