The Communists Come for Sewerella

 

A Short note & Reply

[No Introductory address]

This will be the shortest email you get today, Anthony. Your inbox is crowded enough, and I don’t want to waste your time.

The truth is when the Tories outspend us in general elections, Labour loses. They’ll do anything to win, and we have to narrow the fundraising gap if we want to compete with their resources and win.

Please give anything you can today. The next Labour government and Great British Energy, a publicly owned company that will save you money on your energy bills, depend on it!

You can use my donate link here, so I’ll know how much support the policy has.

Thanks.

 - Ed Miliband

Dear Ed Miliband,

You underestimate the brevity of my other correspondents.

Yours sincerely 

Anthony Miller 

The Bigly Verdict

And so the verdict came.  Not unexpectedly.  This is the ultimate consequence of his main modus operandi - lying about everything. Lying the election was stolen. Lying the judiciary is corrupt. Lying the case is election interference when it started while he was still president. Lying to his supporters on January 6th. Lying the gag order prevented him testifying. Lying to his wife. Lying in business records. Mr Alternative Facts finally meets his apotheosis. The courtroom where lies are tested. Every time Trump meets a jury he loses. One time might be unfortunate but look at the number of them. The Judge should lock him up and throw away the key. He is a dangerous man who's aim is to corrupt and undermine all the checks, balances, institutions and constitutional backstops that hold a democracy together. He even tried to murder his own VP and still the GOP bow and scrape to him. The emperor has no clothes. 

The idea this is "lawfare" is so ridiculous. In fact the establishment has gone out of its way to shield Trump from accountability. This is the only one of 4 trials that they couldn't find a legal argument to delay anymore because the events took place before he became President so he cannot claim immunity and it's dragged on so long it couldn't be appealed beyond the election.

The missing documents trial is being delayed for no reason by Judge Canon who will not set a trial date despite Trump's side suggesting August. The Jan 6th / election interference cases is waiting on the Supreme Court. The Georgia case is waiting on fatuous appeals.

The Bigly Deliberation

As the jury retire Donald Trump seems to be preparing his supporters for a guilty verdict by telling people Mother Theresa couldn't get off.  One can almost hear Arthur Daley saying it's "A diabolical liberty, Terry...". But is that certain?

The nub of the case I have now deduced (although it's not crystal clear) is that Trump's pay off of Stormy Daniels was a "hidden campaign contribution" which took him above his personal campaign limit (which for individuals is very low).

The falsified business records designed to conceal this payment are therefore treated as some form of money laundering.  The Judge said it is illegal to make a false tax statement even if the tax authorities do not lose revenue as a result

...

Trump's possible best defence is that he had some other motivation than winning the election for paying the huge sum to Stormy... Such as he loved his wife.... Although Cohen said that Trump said "How long do you think I would be on the shelf for [if she left me]".  That's the Melania who's never been to court let alone testified.  I don't care, do you?

Given Cohen has already done porridge for the payments I think it unlikely the Jury will return a Not Guilty ... But it may well hang ...which could be interesting.

Now it is in the hands of 12 New Yorkers there are no more runes to read...
 

Donuts donuts donuts donuts donuts

When I was a child sometimes I would be sent up the end of the road to the Spa shop for a dognut or an iced bun.  Jam donuts were the best.  These would be individually wrapped in paper.  But you can't get them that way anymore.  You can only buy them from Mr Sainsbury's who will only sell them in packs of 5.  No one person can plausibly eat 5 jam donuts... not even over several days as they don't keep beyond 48 hours.  So I have to put a load in the bin to buy one.  It really is the worst of capitalism.  There is no variety and things are produced simply to sell more irrespective of whether anyone needs them.  What used to be fun is now wasteful, guilt inducing and a bit of a bore...

Johnny Mercer complains "the wife" looks miserable....

 ...as she dutifully follows he around.  "I'm listening to you" she protests but he continues to just talk over her.  She seems to be carrying a lot of liquids.  Presumably because the piss is being taken out of them constantly.  Meanwhile Jonny echoes Gordon Brown's "No time for a novice" pitch from 2010 and clings onto incumbency pull to try and protect himself.  Despite a huge majority he's still projected to loose...

We’re out and about in Plymouth. Now and every day until the election, speaking to as many wonderful people as we can about why I need you to go and vote for me on 4th July.

This one will be tough. If you want me to carry on - I need you.

The wife will cheer up eventually. 🫣 pic.twitter.com/IJIxCGrXZY

— Rt Hon Johnny Mercer (@JohnnyMercerUK) May 24, 2024

Paula Vennels explains her use of crocodiles

Paula Vennels was cross examined today at the inquiry into the Post Office scandal about whether the tears she had shed yesterday were actually from a crocodile.

"Although you appeared yesterday to instantly break down when told about the fact that you clearly tried to sweep so much dirt under the carpet when you gave evidence to Parliament that you wore your metaphorical broom out, it's now clear to this inquiry that actually those tears you appeared to shed yesterday were not, in fact, yours.  It appears in reality that you seem to have supplied those tears from a small pet crocodile that you keep in your crocodile skin handbag for just such a contingency, is that not so?" asked Mr Jonah Slightlycross for the Inquiry.

"Just because I take a small crocodile with me everywhere I go does not mean I am incapable of crying," replied Ms Vennels.  "I frequently cry when faced with any need to take accountability for the vast criminal conspiracy that surrounded me.  It's only when other people tell me their problems that I have to sometimes fall back on the help of my pet crocodile for tears, besides which although there is a sign saying dogs are banned from the inquiry, I am unaware of any prohibition on crocodiles giving evidence - just as I was totally unaware of the vast criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice at which I was near the epicenter for at least 5 years despite people repeatedly trying to bring the matter to my attention.  Just because I was repeatedly doorstepped by journalists doesn't mean that I had any clue what was going on.  Although I would like to take the blame, I am afraid I have only just recently washed my hands and retired on a humongous Final Salary Pension."

Witness for the Bigly Prosecution

 

And so with Michael Cohen the prosecution's case will close by a lot.  It appears that Trump told Cohen that if his wife found out about Stormy Daniels he "wouldn't be on the market for very long" which kills off part of Donald's defense that the hush money payments were not about influencing the election but just a husband trying to prevent himself from the ire of an angry wife - who continues to seem conspicuous by her absence.  Meanwhile Story Daniels assured prosecutors that her affair with Trump like the sex in her videos was "very much real".  The prosecution is getting ready to rest their case having cut down the number of witnesses as it already feels it has proven enough... soon it will be closing arguments and then....?  I saw on Newsnight they interviewed Mike Davis from the GOP who said that the gag order prevented Trump from making his case as he has to follow procedures and the gag order and shut up.  This is not quite true though... if Trump wants to make his case he easily can by taking the stand.  But he prefers to get his mates to coagulate outside the court house saying the things he would like to say but is prevented from by the gag order.  Davis (standing in front of the background for the the Article 3 Project with its sinister slogan "A3P brings brass knuckles to fight leftist lawfare" see here) appeared to run rings around the Kirsty Wark promoting such whoppers as "you don't gag criminal defendants in America" when it's standard practice in cases of intimidation...  Perhaps the presenters don't feel the need to challenge the statements of the interviewees on the basis of truth in the post truth world?  Novel.

‍"A3P was willing to fight when no other conservative organization had the backbone to challenge a left-wing nominee simply because she was black and female."

And This Year's Wogan Award for engagement with Eurovision beyond the call of common sense...

 ...goes to Andrew Neil who forced himself to sit through the whole of Eurovision just to vote for Eden Golan (the Israeli entrant mysteriously named after an occupied territory in Syria who had to have her lyrics toned down to make them non political).  Apparently political comments aren't allowed at Eurovision which may be why it's so dull.  To prevent the Israeli contestant being booed off stage by political activists apparently an anti-boo machine was invented.  I'm rather jealous this technology was not available when I used to compere Pear Shaped in Fitzrovia.  I'm not sure why Neil sat through the whole of Eurovision when he was going to vote for Golan (or Syria/Israel) anyway no matter what the songs were like but I enjoyed his cheek of complaining that the songs were rubbish after voting politically in a contest in which superficially no politics or commentary on politics/war is allowed... Except for Waterloo? Golan was defeated.  Nemo won the war for Switzerland - a "neutral country" that doesn't do wars.  Nemo of course means nobody (which is why Jules Verne chose it for the Captain).  So perhaps it could ironically be said that no one won this year?  According to Golan "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" - the motto of cannon fodder throughout the ages.  To be fair there's an element of truth in it if you disregard shrapnel and Parkinson's I suppose...

My first and last Eurovision Song Contest. Never again! A cacophony of drivel and preening pixies with big egos and little talent. But interesting window on the Americanisation of European popular culture.
American-style presenters with weak scripts, fake bonhomie/enthusiasm and…

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) May 12, 2024

The House of Privacy...

The other day I switched over to BBC Parliament to see what goes on down the House of Lords.  They were discussing the highly important burning issue of election candidates addresses appearing on ballot papers.  This is the default situation if the candidates haven't opted out of the Public Version on the electoral register.  

If you have a postal vote like me and the forms physically lying about for a week or so you can use the addresses and Google images to check up on how the other half lives.  But unfortunately this fun pass time is now to be curtailed in the interests of national security and replaced with an opt-in rather than an opt-out system.  Shame.

I particularly enjoyed members of the Lords protesting that they should not have their Castles googled like they ever appear on a ballot paper. 

Oh well, more fun legislated away by the self serving system....

The Wellgetaroundtuit Ombudsman

 Dear Sarah Jones

I took my Vauxhall Corsa in to W J King for a service.

They discovered oil and coolant mixing due to a driving chain gasket failure.

The car has a 100,000 mile warranty which covers all engine parts.

Vauxhall refused to pay out citing that the gasket is not covered by a warranty

but how can a gasket not be covered by a warranty - it is not a moving part.

By definition they are stationary parts of the engine.

Anyway, I have to pay the bill £1500 or they can put a lien on the car.

So I thought I would take them to court later.

However, apparently we're supposed to try alternative dispute resolution (ADR) first.

So I put in a complaint with the Motor Ombudsman.

However, the Motor Ombudsman say it will be 6 months before they can START

to look at the case because they are understaffed.

It will then take them 3 months to process the claim.

I asked them if they had any timelines or queuing system - they said NO

and they could make no prediction at all re timelines.

So I asked them if it would take them over a year.

They said they have cases running over a year.

But surely the whole point of an Ombudsman is it should be faster than going to court?

I could take them to small claims and it might be done and dusted in that time.

However, I'm not allowed to take them to court and remain in ADR with them.

If I give up on ADR then the clock for small claims has to start from 0.

So every day I don't go to court I'm pushing the final payout date back.

I have a suspicion that the real purpose of the Motor Ombudsman is

to delay court cases being brought against the Motor Manufactureres who fund them

rather than to actually resolve complaints.

How long do you think it is reasonable to expect to engage with ADR before giving up on it?

Do I really have to wait 6 months? I don't mind losing a case but I don't want to have this

dragging on for up to 2 years while the Motor Ombudsman deliberately drag their feet?

They say they don't have enough staff - why should that become my problem?

Do you know the law around the requirement to use ADR?

If it gets to 6 months and they've done nothing I'm going to have to bail on the process

so I'm letting you know so that if it goes to court I can produce evidence that I tried ADR.

Further Questions.

This is not a government body - it seems to be funded by the motor industry - so it's not

subject to FOI.... so I can't even put in an FOI request to find out what their rate

of case resolution and clear up is?

Who monitors them?  

I found an Ombudsman Association that seems to regulate them in theroy

Are they a government organisation?

What is the legislation that these Ombudsmen have to abide by?

Are there minimum service requirements they have to adhere to?

If not what's the point in them?

Thank you

Anthony Miller

The Bigly Stormy Testimony

Donald's hush money trial rumbles on.  Yesterday It was Stormy Daniels Testimony.  It seems to me that Donald's best defence is still to question the mens rae.   That is argue that "Yes I did make the payments but to spare Melania's feelings rather than to help my election prospects" so Stormy's testimony that he & Melania didn't actually sleep together is the most devastating thing here.  There's one person who's conspicuously absent at this trial and that is Melania.  Whether or not Trump actually slept with Daniels it's pretty obvious there was some kind of emotional affair going on.  

We have campaign finance laws in the UK but they're usually about how many leaflets have been printed, I still find this argument that paying to hide damaging information about yourself is a campaign finance violation odd because it's arguably not proactively about directly influencing voters.  Unfortunately Trump's defence team seem to have abandoned that defence in arguing that "there's nothing wrong with trying to influence an election".  As Edmund Blackadder once said shouldn't people fight elections "on issues not personalities"?  The highly personalised nature of US Presidential campaigns seems a bit odd here ... You vote for one person to head the whole government?  Perhaps there's a point in King Big Ears after all?  Many other countries have Presidents but although elected they are often largely or semi-ceremonial positions.  Contrastingly the US President wields real and enormous power. 

 Perhaps they should change their system so it doesn't vest so much power in one person?  Not that it's my business but here where we vote for MPs who then select the PM the system is more about parties... Voting for a single person to be head of state is a different dynamic... I better stop here before I turn into English Bob in Unforgiven.

Never-the-less my mind keeps coming back to the question... if Trump had paid her out of his own pocket would that be okay?  The problem seems to be he paid her off through a company which seems like a technicality.  All of this mess looks to me as if it was created by Trump trying to get out of paying Cohen... He tried to stiff one creditor too many...

I do understand the prosecution's position but the fact it takes me about a minute to explain it to someone else is a problem.

Sewerella on Manoeuvres

 

Switched on the telly today to find Sewerella was on manoeuvres on the BBC being interviewed by Laura Kuensscyborg about how Rishi is not popular but she isn't going to oust him.  Not bitter cus he sacked you then?  Oh well Enoch's dead...

I turned over to GB News which promised Michael Portillo but for budgetary reasons he'd been replaced by Arlene Foster talking with a talking head professor about how Trump had reached a transactional relationship with the evangelical lobby of "Dixieites".  It was actually mildly interesting...

... As were the advertisement s... A mixture of fat loss plastic and liposuction surgeons, buy-your-watch porn brokers, log fire manufacturers (who will reduce your CO2 emissions - how?) and retirement products which I'm depressingly interested in now I've turned 50.

Eventually Darren Grimes smeared himself over my screen like a Dickensian charicature and I had to switch the telly off and give it a clean...

Bigly Adultery

Donald Trump's hush money trial rumbles on.  There's one small glimmer of hope for a bigly innocent verdict and it's that Donald's lawyers can convince the jury that his motivation for having Cohen pay off his playmates was to reduce his embarrassment on the Melania front.  That is that his primary motivation was to hide his shenanigans from his wife rather than from the public.  

It's taken me a while to get my head around the prosecution's case and it seems to be that Donald's payment via Cohen to Daniels & Co represented a campaign overspend because it was in furtherance of his campaign aims and therefore he hid this by falsifying business records - a misdemeanour which becomes a felony because it was committed in pursuance of another crime.  

Therefore if Donald can convince the jury that his primary motivation was to hide his affair from his wife and hiding it from the public was just a consequential secondary benefit then he might get off.  This theory was, according to the Guardian (see here) given some credence by Donald's former communications director Hope Hicks.  

On the down side for Trump she confirmed that he was aware of the payments and it is rather a lot of money to fork out just to keep something from your wife... then again the cash would've been small change to Donald... it seems though from other testimony that like all great misers the cash had to be extracted slowly from him by Cohen.

Much of the rest of the evidence this week is quite boring because much of it was already in the public domain ... I must say I feel somewhat conflicted in that while there is a case here it doesn't exactly feel like a hill of beans ... but with Trump's other cases being kicked down the road by the Supreme Court it's all that's likely to happen before the election .... unless, of course, Trump carries on committing blatant criminal contempt in which case the Judge may be forced to give him a short prison term for his continued attacks on witnesses and jurors...

The question has also been raised of how would the state practically imprison him due to the security implications with answers as weird as build him his own prison (like the Master in the Sea Devils) or perhaps the Island of Elba is available for our modern Napoleon ...or maybe Guantanamo Bay?

According to Janet Daley over at the Telegraph Western Democracy is broken...

H

...but it isn't.  There's no crisis in democracy.  The Tories lost the local elections because no one wants them.  Brexit protectionism which is anti free market hasn't worked.  Neither has hating on migrants nor doubling down on it when the majority of voters are against the poisonous Rwanda scheme which the party seems wedded too in the teeth of political gravity.  On top of that the party trashed it's reputation for economic competence by installing Liz Truss.  And lost its moral reputation through Boris Johnson.  It continues to pursue ideological policies that are deeply unpopular like banning strikes and taking the rights of GPs to sign people off sick.  I remember the dying days of John Major but it was not like this... The party seems determined to literally do as much spiteful damage as it can before leaving office almost just for the sake of it...

Case Closed

I failed the Civil Service verbal test doing better than only 20% of test takers.  So I did it again and related all the questions down to the simultaneous equations the verbal queries relate to.  This reduced my score to only 8% of test takers.  So I did it again entering purely random information and got down to 1% of test takers.

So I complained that the answers were indecipherable to a level that the only way to pass the test is to reverse engineer it.

I received a reply saying the case was closed but still open:

Case Number: 01981757.

Case Name: Civil Service Verbal Test

We have now taken the required actions, and this email query will now be closed.

Your case may still be ongoing awaiting further information, or pending reply, or forwarded to the appropriate team for further investigation.

You will be contacted in due course as any further updates become available separately.

Kind Regards

So the case is both closed but isn't.  They then wrote suggesting I work with someone they employ to help neuro diverse people.

I don't think my brain is the problem here.  Unlike real exams there are no past papers for these tests and no mechanism for challenging if the tests are wrong since it is illegal to reproduce the questions.  So they could in fact regress into complete nonsense and no one would ever know.

I have today resigned my membership of the Garrick Club

To quell public speculation on the subject I wish it to be know that I have today resigned my membership of the Garrick Club.  

As a sometime entertainer (if not a thespian) I was drawn to join the club by my wish to seek the company of other gentlemen in field of entertainment who each displayed excellence in their particular fields.  

Also, I need a place to stay when I am in town as it is tedious to continually have to return home to Croydon on the night train from Victoria.  

However, I have to say that whilst the food, furnishings, architecture, library and available mental stimulation are all excellent the club heavily falls down (as I observed to John Simpson and Stephen Fry the other day) on the fact that there are no birds.

“Look,” I said to Stephen the other day, “it’s okay for you, you’re gay … all your needs are catered for here ... but as a heterosexual gentleman although I am in a relationship I have to say that this place is remarkably thin on birds.”

“Well, I did propose Bill Oddie,” chipped in John Simpson.

“Is he a bird?” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” ejaculated Benedict Cumberbatch.  “He was blackballed by the Committee.”

“Mon dieu,” said David Suchet.

“I have to say you have a point,” said Paul Dacre.  “Whilst neither of us are on the pull, as the editor of a family newspaper it does disturb me that round this place there’s a distinct lack of totty.”

“Ah, Totty!” exclaimed Rowley Birkin QC.  I couldn’t decipher the rest of his verbal peregrinations.

“Do you lot mind keeping it down,” interrupted King Charles.  “One has only just had one’s radiotherapy.

"Sorry," said Rowley.

“May I kiss your ring, your Majesty?” said Stephen Fry.

“No,” said the King.

“I still think there aren’t enough birds,” I said.

“Perhaps you should leave then?” sneered Michael Gove.

“It might be wise,” added Jacob Ress-Mogg.

"Yes," said Dacre.

So I did.

 

Panorama this week was a car crash

Panorama really struggles sometimes ... The format hit a brick wall particularly hard this week when Richard Bilton told us smart motorways are horrifically dangerous, many people have died on them, they're a money saving swizz and it's like playing Russian Roulette driving on one ... 

The problem is not that any of these things are untrue, it's that they obviously are to the point of being almost unarguable propositions.  Therefore there's nowhere to go except more pictures of people who've died in crashes and X-rays of broken backs ...

Chris Ames (late of the Iraq Inquiry Digest and now editor of Highway magazine) turned up to churn out more grim statistics but a series of funerals does not a narrative arc make.  Perhaps it shouldn't be this way but it is so.  To be fair not everyone died, some were left disabled for life but there's still not much you can say except...

It's odd how in towns everyone's supposed to drive at 20 in an attempt to reduce the number of deaths as safety is viewed as more important than speed..... Whilst on the motorway it seems the reverse is true ... In an obsession with making more people move faster safety has been thrown under the bus by abolishing the hard shoulder even though that's an idea that's obviously dumb...

How that work?

The Monarchy is part of our tradition

See below the traditional Audience Chair the Prime Minister has to sit on once a week whilst Charlie grills him about his upcoming legislative plans.