PARLIAMENT IS PROROGUED

So, I’ve been following Marky Booth on Twitter as he patiently waited for parliament to be prorogued. I pinched this cartoon from him. Oh sorry, it’s actually a picture.

Anyway, twice in the last month, we’ve had to sit through Black Rod mumbling some antiquated nonsense, and some ermine clad ne’er do wells toffs doffing their caps, as Boris manages to once again shut down democracy with the compliance of Elizabeth Saxe Coburg Gotha.

Why they do all this dressing up in strange costumes and taking their hats off (only the men it seems) heaven only knows. Maybe there is a reason hidden in the mists of time and tradition. Maybe there isn’t and they just like dressing up is strange clothes. Who knows when it comes to the English aristocracy?

I was going to say, “who cares?” But I think I do. All these people, after all, are highly paid and/or on massive expenses and I help pay for them and their costumes which are doubtless expensive too.

And what is it all?

Why can’t the Speaker and Lords Speaker just read off a sheet that parliament is suspended until Monday by order of the queen and then everyone can go home, or wherever it is they go in London?

Well, of course,what it is for this time is so that on Monday the Toytown prime minister can have his party political broadcast read by the queen, who presumably will have had to come back from Balmoral, also at considerable expense, to read his list of promises, from her golden throne, after arriving in procession, accompanied by page boys, ladies in waiting and all manner of tra la la.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the promises that have been made over the last few weeks, and which will presumably to be included in this Clown Speech from the throne, are utterly unaffordable given the shitstorm of no deal that we are about to enter. Presumably, if she is paying attention Liz will already know that its a pack of lies, but will, nonetheless, read it out anyway.

So all the nonsense about 40 new hospitals (that on closer inspection became 6) and massive spending on infrastructure, or indeed for us Scots, all the money Johnson was guaranteeing to spend here to make up for the fact that Holyrood treats us so badly… you know, not making us pay for tertiary education or prescriptions or extra bedrooms or care for the elderly… you know the sort of thing… well, we can forget it. Tax increases and spending cuts to pay for this fool’s Brexit are going to be the order of the day.

Still, it is comforting to know that, no matter how bad things get, the Brits will always find enough money for tricorn hats and weird rituals.