A real Kabuki Theatre – not to be confused with the current political production in Westminster

 

 

In case you hadn’t noticed: it was hot yesterday and today is definitely going to be the ‘killer Monday’, according to the MSM. There was also that Tory ‘wannabe PM’ show on ITV but the‘news about that were relegated to the ‘also ran’ spot. The way these ‘events’ are reported in the MSM provides us with exemplary material, illustrating that to the Westminster swamp dwellers all this is nought but a Kabuki theatre of politics for aficionados while we peasants are given a Punch-and-Judy show about fire, death and destruction.

A quick glance at this morning’s print editions (link) shows that the headline editors were out-screeching each other. From ‘Blowtorch Britain’ (Mirror) to ‘Meltdown Monday (metro), from ‘Hotter than the Sahara (Sun) to ‘Red alert – ferocious heatwave (Guardian) to ‘Heatwave Meltdown (DT), the papers did their best to scare readers. Here’s an odd thing though: the Express, the Times, ‘i’ and DM all went with ‘that’ debate. I’ll look at that event, or rather at how it’s been reported, a bit further down.

First though there’s that killer Monday Heatwave. Online, the DM has dropped politics and is into full-on fear porn, leading with an article where everything has been crammed into the headline:

 “Britain braces for the blowtorch: UK’s ‘hottest day ever’ arrives with temperatures set to soar to record-smashing 40C amid warnings to stay home, check on neighbours and avoid hospitals – but as thousands die in Europe, Raab urges: Keep cool and carry on!” (link)

‘Thousands die in Europe’? A quick glance at EU papers show that they don’t seem to care about those ‘thousands dead’. The Germans are totally preoccupied with their dire gas situation and what to do in winter. After some scrolling, there are some reports of the wildfire in ‘Le Figaro’. Surely there would have been headlines if ‘thousands’ had died? Back home, there’s a scary photo of raging wildfires in the Times whereas the DT has pushed the heatwave way down their online frontpage. The headline of that report shows how easy it is to produce fear-by-clickbait:

“Forest fires continue to rage as winds fan the flames in south-west Europe – Firefighters in France, Portugal and Spain battle ‘very active’ wildfires as heatwave causes hundreds of excess deaths among the elderly” (paywalled link)

The ‘heatwave deaths’ from the DM have already been reduced from ‘thousands’ to ‘hundreds’ – and only ‘amongst the elderly’. Also noteworthy: these wildfires have been raging for days but haven’t been an item of fear for our MSM. Not even the fact that the fires in France affected many campsites populated by tourists at this time of year seems to have been worthy of warning headlines in our travel-obsessed MSM. It’s only for today’s ‘killer Monday Meltdown heat’ that we find such reports, cheek-by-jowl with ‘omigawd – hotter than the Sahara’. All I’ll say is that this ‘wave’ will be over by mid-week, thus reducing the ‘wave’ to a handful of days. Some wave …!

And so to the other news which ought to have been ‘hot’. After all, it’s about selecting that BJ replacement, about a new PM. Looking at the reports in the MSM I can’t help feeling that even the inveterate Westminster hacks simply didn’t have the energy to make much of it. Must’ve been too hot to think and write …! I didn’t watch this thing either, but note that La Truss was clad in a red dress which made her look frumpy while Ms ‘PM4PM’ was still dressed in a ‘business managerial suit’, though without a pussy-bow blouse. Kemi wore a dress in some indefinable pastel colour. Meow. The men were suitably suited up.

As for what they said: we can take our pick. It either was an attack on Sunak by the girlies (DT, paywalled link) or an attack by Sunak on ‘socialist Truss’ (Times, link paywalled). The Mirror has the best wail:

“All five Tory leadership candidates REFUSE to give millions of Brits a 5% pay rise – The five Tory leadership candidates snubbed even a below-inflation pay rise as they tore furious strips off each other in an ITV debate – where Liz Truss accused Rishi Sunak of causing a recession” (link)

Yes, Miz Truss did say that. It’s populism at its finest – only, of course, her being a Tory she cannot possibly be a populist:

“Liz Truss warned last night that Rishi Sunak would push Britain into a recession as the Tory leadership candidates made a series of bitter personal attacks on each other. The foreign secretary, who is trying to make up ground on Penny Mordaunt in the race, said Sunak had raised taxes to “their highest level for 70 years” and was choking off economic growth. Sunak hit back, saying that Truss’s plans for more than £30 billion worth of tax cuts were socialist and suggesting that Mordaunt’s economic policies were more extreme than those of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.” (link, paywalled)

Oh dear. Meanwhile, Fraser Nelson at the Speccie wondered if Miz T has perhaps shown that she’s no good at this TV debate format and ‘is perhaps conceding defeat in the whole campaign.’ (paywalled link). Perhaps it’s this ‘TV Debate Format’ which is utterly useless because it’s nought but a mutual exercise in kabuki performances by politicos and MSM political editors. I’m refraining from using a more salacious description …

Furthermore, we ordinary plebs out here in the sticks have no say in this election, not being Tory Party members. It’s therefore inexplicable why another ‘snap poll’, of those who watched the ITV show, should matter. It’s as if the Westminster pollsters felt they needed to be in at this show, showing that they are ‘participants’. That poll saw Sunak at the top and Badenoch at the bottom. From the report in the DT I gather that the question was about ‘who performed best’ (paywalled link). That really says it all about the vapidity and uselessness of these TV debates. The Tory Party members however gave Badenoch the top spot on Sunday morning (link).  

And finally, Sir John Redwood has weighed in on the side of the Sunak critics in this morning’s diary entry. It’s quite acerbic and more to the point than the Truss accusations. I wonder if his colleagues in the HoC will take note. Moreover, the Net Zero Tsar Mr Sharma who is Cabinet minister for that evil policy has already threatened to quit if yon policy is touched (link). Will these statements affect the MPs? We’re now in the ‘whittling-down’ phase, voting taking place today, tomorrow and on Wednesday, to present the Tory Party members with the final two candidates they deem worthy of becoming Leader and PM.

As we swelter in the heat, as the political editors in the Westminster MSM also swelter, nobody seems to muster a scintilla of enthusiasm for one or the other candidate. We peasants better realise that our ‘betters’ are shuffling the playing cards according to their own interests, governed by how best to stay at the HoC trough. Not only do we have no say – the next leader will be determined by who has the better PR team and by the polling gurus who ‘predict’ who has the better chance of beating Labour. 

Policies, convictions, personality and character don’t matter. Instead, we’re given a fine political kabuki theatre, only enjoyed by those who are into that sort of thing. Let’s keep cool though – it’s too hot to become angry.

 

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