What are they playing at?

Two things happened last Wednesday which perfectly encapsulate the sorry state of British politics.

At 10.30am, the Supreme Court of five judges unanimously ruled that the Government’s plan to pack immigrants off to Rwanda is illegal, which should have finally put paid to this cynical exercise.

But faced with a judgement by the highest court in the land and barely two hours after Downing St had released a statement saying it respected the decision, Rishi Sunak showed that the opposite was true.

What do you do when the law doesn’t go your way? Well, if you’re the PM you decide to change the law, which is the political equivalent of saying you’re not playing anymore and want your ball back.

What’s next – I bet my dad could fight all five of your dads?

And considering that the numbers involved would barely be a splash in the ocean of the 140,000 plus outstanding applications for asylum here, this is nothing but a performance for political gain, a face-saving exercise using the vulnerable as pawns.

Presented with an open goal, the leader of the opposition, rather than taking advantage of the Government’s immigrarion embarrassment, instead decided to turn a pointless vote into a test of his own authority.

Whichever way the house was going to vote on calls for a ceasefire or a humanitarian pause in Gaza it would make absolutely no difference to the carnage going on in the Middle East.

Even with talk of a possible ceasefire deal on the table to exchange hostages, that would require both sides to cease hostilities and having already treated the entire population of Gaza as martyrs to their cause, Hamas is hardly likely to do that.

Meanwhile neither Israel nor Hamas will be holding their breath to see what MPs in Westminster think about what they are doing so Smarmer turning what was basically a show vote, which should have left members free to vote with their conscience into a party policy issue where standing against his position would automatically mean they had effictively resigned, is a classic case of biting off your nose to spite your face.

He has weakened his position with 59 Labour MPs going against his motion for a humanitarian pause and robbed himself of the services of Jess Phillips in his shadow cabinet over nothing but ego, which has been the Labour way since at least 1993.

But Richy is guilty of exactly the same thing. The only point in persisting with the Rwanda plan is to say told you so, even if that means abusing human rights.

That landslide next year is by no means certain for Labour and the worst thing we could be faced with is a hung Parliament, even if at the moment I would happily hang most of them from both sides of the House myself.

……………………………….

Why did news outlets insist on referring to Cruella’s three-page rant to Rishi as a resignation letter?

She didn’t resign, she was sacked.

……………………………….

To give my ears a bit of a rest from mixing songs for the soundtrack of a video recorded by the prog band I play with, I thought I would dip back into LBC after about five years of pretty much avoiding all radio.

I see it’s still overrun with callers who like sponge because they’re obviously not allowed anything sharp.

……………………………….

That Sam manchild on I’m In The Jungle Give Me The Money is a bit huggy, isn’t he?

Boundaries mate, boundaries.

Stupid TV quiz answer of the week

Tipping Point:

Q: Which veteran newsreader shares his name with a character from Game of Thrones?

A: Trevor McDonald?

The Chase:

Q: In 1877 who was proclaimed empress of India?

A: Queen Elizabeth II