There is so much to unpick here...

[Soph0571]

@Coldwar_Steve

Rats in a drowning High Street! Genius.
Just a shame it does not have Cain and Cummings swimming away from the shit show they have created.

[Mike 03]

1. Just catching up on the events this week in the UK...

Brexit Hard-Liners Lose Battle as Aide to U.K’s Johnson Quits

A Downing Street feud could indicate the prime minister is ready to make the compromises needed to strike a deal with the European Union.

LONDON — An abrasive, plain-speaking former tabloid reporter, Lee Cain was part of a tight-knit team of Brexit campaigners who tied their fortunes to Boris Johnson and were rewarded with plum jobs in Downing Street when he became prime minister last year.

On Wednesday, though, Mr. Cain’s luck ran out after he lost a power struggle, quit as communications chief and left behind him a much broader question: As the Brexit trade negotiations enter the final stages, is Mr. Johnson turning against the hard-line Brexit faction that helped him to power?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/12/world/europe/lee-cain-quits.html


Darn, I really wanted to pay attention this week but got sidetracked by the Orange Clown.

Somebody predicted this would happen: that Johnson would turn against the hardliners.

I'm so pissed that I forgot to watch Parliament this week! I resent how much of my life has been consumed by Trump. I used to watch Parliament TV on a regular basis (and send them fan mail). Missed all the excitement.

[Soph0571]

2. This pretty much sums up the last week:

[Denzil_DC]

3. I'm unconvinced Johnson has enough backbone to turn against any hardliners,

but Biden's win - which seems to have come as a complete surprise to Johnson, Cummings and his team of "superforecasters" - has serious ramifications for the trajectory of Brexit, the government's barely keeping its head above water in terms of COVID, and the graft involved in the doling out of high-cost under-delivering contracts to Tory associates and donors is finally becoming too much of an embarrassment, so something has to change.

It's more that Cummings and his cronies have gone out of their way to alienate the civil service and rank-and-file Tories in parliament, and are quickly running out of road after failing to deliver at many levels. If you've followed Cummings' track record in government during his earlier teaming up with Gove, that should come as no great surprise.

It's probably too late to avoid a truly harmful hard Brexit, but it may just be possible to avoid the ultimate disaster of no deal at all.

[T_i_B]

4. While the government is arsing about with infighting...

... We still have a global pandemic to deal with.

Cummings should have been fired months ago, but Johnson was much too weak to do the right thing. Do doubt there will be plenty of jockeying to be the power behind the throne

[marble falls]

5. Where's the Rowan Atkinson character?

[abqtommy]

6. Here's a joke phrased in the Britspeak I learned from a Brit friend:

Down at the seaside you observe Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings drowning. Who do you throw the first anchor to?

The joke can be rephrased to represent any politicians in any country.

disclaimer: I have blood relatives in Sussex.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Not so much rats as a Ship of Fools:

Hieronymus Bosch