As if three and a half years of putting up with the brexitshambles wasn’t enough! Seeing our once proud country descend into third-world levels of political incompetence and corruption, whilst our two main political parties are run by a coterie of politicians whom you wouldn’t trust to run a bath, never mind a country. Whoever suspected that such an old democracy as our could fall into this state so easily? But that’s complacency and being stuck in the past for you.

Today, we’ve reached peak shambles. The Supreme Court’s 11 judges have unanimously ruled that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament was unlawful. In a pitiful response, John accused the judges of trying to ‘frustrate’ Brexit – completely forgetting his own narrative that prorogation was absolutely nothing to do with Brexit in the first place. In just a couple of months in office, Johnson’s lost his first six Commons votes in a row, broken the law by suspending Parliament and misled the monarch. Even some die-hard Tories must be wondering how on earth they managed to back someone who is so clearly incompetent, but then they ignored the fact the man was a proven serial liar in the first place. To make matters worse, another scandal has broken over Johnson’s relationship with a former American model, Jennifer Arcuri, when he was Mayor of London – only this time it’s not just about illicit bedroom activities, this is about real allegations of corruption, the abuse of office and also misuse of taxpayers money. This is serious stuff.

Meanwhile, the cult of Corbyn has made a resurgence at the Labour party conference where it’s like a revival of the 1970s. Composite votes that are passed (or not passed, the result kept changing) by a simple show of hands look bizarre in the 21st century. The end result was to pass a Brexit policy that will have Remainers abandoning the Labour party in droves. It was a classic political stitch-up the hard left have practised for years. This wasn’t the longest suicide-note in history, but it was certainly written on the same paper! Anyone thinking Labour may just have been rediscovering a semblance of looking like a party fit for Government has been sadly disabused.

God only knows what our friends in Europe are thinking as they watch this shit-show unfurl. We’re beginning to make Italy look like a model of political stability. Where the hell is this going to end? I have no idea. I’m no lover of Johnson, but even I didn’t think he could be this politically inept. His predecessor, Teresa May, was the first Prime Minister to be found in contempt of Parliament. Johnson’s gone “hold my beer” and has been found to have illegally shut-down Parliament – and misled the Queen! And, he’s still saying he’ll break the law to crash us out of the EU without a deal on October 31st!

The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow has announced an immediate recall of Parliament. I suspect we’re going to see a lot of angry scenes in the chamber when it is, and I can’t imagine Johnson having anything other than a very rocky ride from all sides of the house. He won’t be able to cope. His lack of attention to detail and the fact he lies so easily (despite the consequences) will ensure that.

We’ve now gone from a fiddled referendum into the brexitshambles and now added a full-on constitutional clusterfuck to the mix – and no-one looks like they’re in any position to pick up the pieces.

Welcome to Britain in 2019.

Remember the days when Parliament used to do something useful, like scrutinise legislation, talk about important things pass legislation and stuff? No. Me neither. For the past three and a half years the place has been turned into a circus thanks to Brexit and the impossibility of delivering the lies it was based on whilst still pretending the Unicorns are real, if only we just ‘believed’ harder. Now we have paralysis in Government, where billions of pounds have been wasted trying to deliver the undeliverable and prepare for the unthinkable – a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Now the tragi-comedy has entered a new phase with the appointment of the bouffant buffoon as Prime Minister. He’s transformed the Cabinet in to a Brexiters wet-dream. It’s packed with hardliners and he’s surrounded by the ‘great minds’ of the Leave campaign. But he has one huge and insurmountable problem. He can’t make a lie true.

Brexiters never had a plan. They never expected to win, so they never thought they’d need one. They’ve spent decades dreaming about leaving the EU but never worked out a plan to make a success of doing so if they ever got the chance. Now they have, and it’s a shambles and it’s getting worse.

Brexiters always loved blaming other people to cover up for the lack of a plan. The latest wheeze was to say Brexit couldn’t be delivered because a ‘Remainer’ (Teresa May) was in charge and ‘remainers’ held cabinet posts. It was all bollocks of course, and how big a pair of cojones it was is becoming painfully obvious as Johnson flounders. His only successes have been to alienate many in his own party, start #StopTheCoup demonstrations the length and breadth of the country and make Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour front bench start to look vaguely electable. Who would have thought that we would see former Tory ‘Big Beast’ and Father of the House, Ken Clark MP thrown out of the Tory party, not to mention Winston Churchill’s grandson, Sir Nicholas Soames? Meanwhile, other moderate Tory MPs like Justine Greening have announced they’re standing down at the next election. In his overweening personal ambition, Johnson’s turned the Tory party into the Brexit party. His only ambition is to win an election before the car-crash that is a no-deal Brexit hits. Could he still do it? Possibly. The fat lady’s not yet sung and the farce continues in Parliament throughout today.

Yesterday parliament defeated Johnson and voted to take control of proceedings. Today there will be a vote to take a no-deal Brexit off the table and extend article 50 until January. Johnson wants to call an election now, but he needs a 2/3 majority of MPs to allow it. I can only pray they vote for the former and reject the latter. Let Johnson own his mess. He fell apart in Parliament last night. His normal comedy act and blithe lies don’t play well in Parliament. One of the MPs who exposed him for what he is was the former Tory Chancellor, Philip Hammond, who neatly skewered Johnson with his own lie that talks with the EU were ‘progressing’ and he’d be able to deliver a new deal. To add to the farce, as he was speaking, his Parliamentary majority in the shape of Dr Philip Lee MP got up, walked across the floor of the house and joined the Lib-Dem benches. It was a wonderful moment to watch!

There’s a sense that even some of those who backed Johnson are now starting to realise that he’s unfit for office. His performance last night was not one of a leader nor a statesman. He was woeful. He blustered, he lied and he refused to answer straight questions. It didn’t get any better, The oleaginous Jacob Rees Mogg provoked both fury (and later mirth) for the contemptuous way he draped himself across the Tory front bench. Here’s one of the wits responses on Twitter earlier today!

Sometime late this evening the next chapter of this farce will close, hopefully with a vote that will agree to take a ‘no-deal’ Brexit off the table. But that’s not the end of the story. Not by a long chalk. This shambles is going to drag on for years yet. This is just volume 1. At this rate it could compete in size with the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Even if/when we leave the EU, we have years of trying to make good the damage to our economy, our ability to trade, our world standing and our fractured country. Is it any wonder more and more people are wanting to leave? Not the EU, but the UK…

It’s been a quiet Sunday for the pair of us, although we did pop out for lunch with Dawn’s parents and Jo Cullinane, the mother of Dawn’s late sister-in-law, Joanne. We ate at 315 restaurant, just outside Huddersfield where we had an enjoyable Sunday lunch and a catch-up as we hadn’t seen Jo since the wedding.

I even indulged in something I only eat once in a blue moon, Cheese! I don’t have it at home as Dawn’s allergic to it.

In contrast, this evening’s been spent pottering around at home, whilst I’ve been pondering the coming political storm that will break next week.

Barring a miracle, it looks like serial liar Boris Johnson will be anointed the next Tory leader and Prime Minister. Before he takes office on Thursday there will be a series of Ministerial resignations, including the Chancellor, Philip Hammond. How many others is open to question. There’ll also be a series of high profile members announcing that they’re leaving the Tory Party.

Expect the pound to take a beating on the currency markets and don’t be in the least surprised if the stock market takes a hit too. This is just the start of a long decline in the country’s future, as well as the Tory party. Of course, some Brexiters will be cock-a-hoop at the idea one of theirs is now Prime Minister. But that’s where their problems start. Brexiters have long used the excuse that Brexit has never happened because there’s been a Remainer in charge. It was always a feeble excuse as May appointed Arch Brexiters David Davis and Liam Fox to her Cabinet – as well as Boris Johnson (amongst others). But with May replaced by Johnson, their excuse will have evaporated. So who are they going to blame now? Because it doesn’t matter who’s PM, they can’t make Unicorns real. The lies will remain lies. There is no Brexit alchemist who can turn lies into truth, especially that blond buffoon Johnson, who’s about to discover that you might be able to bullshit and bluster as a part-time Mayor of London but this is the big time now. To my mind, the only question is how long he can hang on to office before even the most die-hard Brexiter realises it’s not going to the (non-existent) plan, everything turns to ratshit and we end up with a general election.

Sadly for the country, there’s no dynamic Labour party waiting in the wings to stride in and right the mess the Tories are about to inflict on us as their civil war is re-ignited and taken to new levels. ‘Magic Grandad’ Jeremy Corbyn is too weak, too embroiled in anti-Semitism and too tied up in his own dogmatic refusal to oppose Brexit. We’re about to enter a shit-storm of potentially epic proportions. The journalist Jonathan Lis has summed up the situation in this excellent article.

The country is being failed by its two main political parties, neither of whom is fit to govern. meanwhile, the fascists are on the rise with their simplistic populism and list people to blame for the mess were in. Not on that list are the real culprits, themselves and the billionaires, media moguls and spivs who fund and back them. We are living in very dangerous times and next week will start to show just how dangerous it could get. meanwhile, the rest of us will suffer the consequences of a country whose economy is being ruined by dogma and whose friends abroad are looking on with growing incredulity, incomprehension and concern.

I’m afraid the old Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ has been invoked.

Remember when the Conservatives were considered a safe pair of hands on the economy and thought of as the ‘party of business’? Those day are long gone. Now they’ve become an economic death cult where you have Boris Johnson saying “fuck business” whilst the other candidate in the race for the Tory leadership and job as Prime Minister has said he’d tell people to their face that them losing their jobs and livelihoods is a price worth paying for Brexit! You couldn’t make this stuff up, but this really is is the madness that’s taken hold of politics in the UK since the Brexit referendum. Here’s today’s Hunt story in the Guardian (link).

Bizarrely, few Brexit supporters seem to have the brain cells to rub together to notice how the narrative has changed since the days before the referendum, when we were told that “we hold all the cards”. Remember these charlatans?

Nobody put “Vote Leave, if you lose your job and your home it’ll be worth it” on the side of a bloody bus, did they?

This country has gone stark, staring mad. How on earth a developed, supposedly educated and long standing democracy can get itself in this unholy mess is beyond belief – yet here we are. It’s actually happening. The Tory’s are hooked on a belief in Unicorns and are going to elect one of these two to be the next Prime Minister. my only hope is that the tory party implodes before either of these clowns can do too much damage to the country. But our problems won’t end there. There’s no credible opposition party waiting in the wings to step in and save us from this mess. Instead we have ‘Magic Grandad’ Jeremy Corbyn and his ideological bedfellows on the far left who’re also pro Brexit. It’s like being given the ‘choice’ between a slow lingering death or a lingering slow death!

Meanwhile, many of our fellow citizens are more concerned about who’s winning ‘Love Island’. Truly, we are screwed…