Political crossdressing

+Attacks on merchant shipping seem to be with us all the time. It’s not a particularly modern development of course, remembering the likes of Sir Francis Drake and the glory days of state tolerated or for that matter state sponsored piracy. But these days it’s just bad ‘uns, like Putin and now the Houthis of Yemen who get up to these criminal acts. They should, it goes without saying be stopped, and anti-drone or missile weaponry should be deployed. But since it costs a lot more to shoot a drone down than it does to launch it, the tactic now is to strike at the launch sites. One wonders what the Saudis have been doing in Yemen all these years with their Western supplied armoury. Kier Starmer has naturally gone along with the new line of attack after being briefed by the PM—and this appears to be in defiance of one of his leadership pledges to consult Parliament prior to any military action. Now it seems that pledge only applied if there were going to be ‘boots on the ground.’ Another sleight of the hand from the U-turn King. But perhaps he is not yet aware that these days military action relies a lot less on ‘boots on the ground?’ Perhaps in future more use will be made of the phrase ‘special military operation.’ We’ll see how long this particular piece of string gets.
 
+I am ambivalent about the new law now coming into effect which grants UK voting rights to all expats no matter how long they have resided abroad and regardless of whether they never intend to return. Having dual citizenship myself I am conflicted since I could if I wished freely enjoy the rights afforded to a citizen of another country—in this case Canada. Perhaps the only reason I don’t is because it's thousands of miles away. It was assumed many years ago when the Tories introduced voting rights for expats that it was purely for partisan advantage, in that Tory supporting criminals living on the Costa del Crime would all take up the opportunity to vote for their fellow n’er do wells in Westminster. But post-Brexit I think the ground has shifted. Brexit has screwed up the easy going life of many expats. I wonder if more of them had voted remain we could have avoided the whole bloody disaster.
 
+I am breaking a vow, which was never to refer to the awful rightwing gobshite Lee Anderson, the MP for Ashfield in this blog. A Labour Party member up until 2018 he was appointed a Vice Chairman of the Tory Party but has now resigned that position in order to ‘toughen up’ the government’s immigration (Rwanda) Bill. Anderson is one of an increasing number of very unpleasant populists and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he doesn’t jump ship again, this time to the Reform Party. Electoral Calculus predicts he’ll lose his seat to Labour. It also suggests Reform is one per cent ahead of the Tories in his seat. Reform makes a natural home for gobshites, so it’s a fair bet he’ll be off.