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Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew are about to be exposed in court papers along with around 200 other people connected to one Jeffrey Epstein. LMFAO.

A US court decided in December that these papers - which have been kept hush-hush - will finally be unveiled because essentially: New York district judge Loretta Preska said, "No more secrets," and so the names are starting to drop TONIGHT.


Even though the ex-US president and the Duke of York have already been tied to Epstein, this batch of hundreds of files might spill some new details. Because the documents mainly consist of legal arguments from a 2015 defamation case by Virginia Giuffre, Epstein's main accuser, against his former lover Ghislaine Maxwell.


But the files were sealed or heavily edited to protect the identities of alleged victims, people not accused of anything shady, and absent third parties who might have gotten caught up in the mess. 

But let's dig into the deets...


So, Virginia Giuffre filed a lawsuit in 2015, claiming she was one of Epstein's main victims of underage sex-trafficking. She sued Ghislaine Maxwell for defamation after Maxwell's spokesperson called Giuffre's allegations "obvious lies." Maxwell tried to ditch the case, but the judge ruled that Giuffre was a victim of continuous underage abuse between 1999 and 2002.


So that ruling opened the floodgates for Giuffre to go after others, including Prince Andrew, who she accused of "sexual assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress." This case reportedly got settled for a shit tonne of cash in Feb 2022. The Duke always denied the claims.


But the ruling played a role in the criminal case against Maxwell, who got nailed for grooming four girls for Epstein to abuse. So she's now serving 20 years in a US prison, trying to appeal.


The papers are all from the 2015 lawsuit by Giuffre. It's eight years ago now but they got sealed or redacted to keep un-connected parties' privacy intact, sort of thing. 

They could be folks accused of wrongdoing, sure. But they could also be a pilot or a cleaner or security. So the evidence may include people who worked for Epstein, flew on his planes, visited his homes, it could include potential victims and witnesses;


The Miami Herald pushed to get these documents unsealed in 2018, citing public interest but for privacy and court process reasons it's taken until now.

If and when they're unveiled, these documents will be the eighth tranche to come out. 

If you doubt their significance: the day after the first batch came out (2019), Epstein was found dead in his prison cell.


So, there's ~170 names in the file, and Clinton is mentioned in more than 50 of the logs. Reportedly he's labeled as "Doe 36."  There's no indication of wrongdoing, but he was buddy-buddy with Epstein. There's rumours, there's pictures, - and Clinton's team hasn't appealed his naming in the ABC reports-of-late. What does that mean? Only time can tell.

If it turns out that Clinton has flatly denied - for years - setting foot on that island, and then it turns out there's flight logs showing he was there, at precisely the same time as Giuffre's unblemished record of civil cases attests - Bill Clinton could find himself in a sticky situation.

But equally, Donald Trump was very friendly with Epstein. He was getting sued for (then) raping a 13 year-old with Epstein, who reportedly only withdrew from the legal process for fear of what might happen to her if she pursued it.




According to ABC News, the redacted files will include evidence from "Jane Doe 162," who is Johanna Sjoberg. She claimed Prince Andrew touched her breast at Epstein's place in 2001.

The Duke still denies it, and Buckingham Palace calls it "categorically untrue." 

But Judge Preska is cool with releasing names like hers since she's already been spilling the beans in media interviews. Which effectively means nothing new is coming out that hasn't already been broadcast.

So that's fine for the court - legally speaking - but embarrassing for the Duke, for Buckingham Palace, because it corrobattes the story they already wish wasn't out htere.

Anyway, that's it from me. 

Make sure you check out Punk Politix on YouTube or check out the Alternative Paper Reviews.

Happy Easter, it’s a time of rebirth, a time of new life. I wonder if we might see a resurrection of sanity any time soon? Anyone remember that?

I turn on the TV and flick to the news. Oh great, Eric Trump has shared some faked AI images of his Dad marching down a street in New York, tailed by tens of thousands of supporters. Ugh.

Maybe our collective common sense might re-emerge once Trump is dead or in jail? 

When Trump does eventually snuff it, guaranteed there’s a thing in his will to request he’s stuffed and put on display in his fake Oval Office at Mar-o-Lago; a phone will be secured in his formaldehyde'd fingers and a plastic McDonalds will sit on the desk; twice a day his sons will walk in, see him stare blankly at them until they turn around and leave…

And then they can be like:
“It’s JUST like he’s still here!!”

There’s something so tragicomic about the Trump Boys, isn’t there? I mean, here we have Eric posting an image like this in pursuit of the love of a man who is clearly unable to give it. Like, Eric, the guy is a narcissistic sociopath for God’s sake! He’d have you put to sleep if he needed one of your kidneys.

Domestically, perhaps sanity might rear its head again when Labour are in power?

I switch news and see Starmer, again, refusing to even consider the Single Market, even though we know (with reasonable certainty) it would solve the labour shortage and foster the growth everyone (including Labour) endlessly bang on about. 

“We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union.”

“But you say you want growth? How are you going to get growth then!?”

“Look over there! Rishi’s having a pint in the #FreeThePedos!”

Truly, Labour’s determination to achieve growth while dismissing the ways we could get there is like eavesdropping on someone’s Grandad, in the latter stages of cognitive decline, who insists on a holiday in the Algarve, but who refuses to get on the boat while his exhausted kids shrug that he’s also too scared to fly.

Anyway, the quest for sanity continues... 

I turn over again and get to a thing about Voter ID in the UK. That’s a thing now? I mean, fine, okay, I sort of get it. If we’re talking complex problems, I accept we’re going to have to consider bold-but-necessary solutions. 

Because honestly: what could be a more complex problem than attempting to solve an issue that doesn’t f*cking exist?  How do you solve Voter Fraud when it’s not taken place in any material way, whatsoever? That is a pickle. That’s going to take some thinking outside the box, guys.

I’m not messing about: out of a population of ~67 million, Voter Fraud was reported six times at the last General Election. The one before (2017) yielded one prosecution for voter impersonation. Literally one person. 

If you want an idea of how ridiculous legislating to prevent that is/was, you’re statistically more likely to be arrested for voter impersonation by someone impersonating a police officer - than you are likely to be guilty of the offence itself.

But no matter, the Tories railroaded the legislation regardless, to make it essential that you bring identification with you to the booth - lest you lose your chance to cast your vote and have your say. The law applies to everyone equally. Although some of us are more equal than others, you understand. 

An over-60s Oyster card is accepted. The over-18s one is not.

An older person’s Bus Pass is fine. And a blue, disabled parking badge is fine.

But for a younger person who is less likely to be disabled and who won’t have a Bus Pass? 

Well, they have to apply for a super special, young person’s Voter ID Certificate, you see. And I know that sounds bad, but honestly, hold onto that ire, for a moment…

Because yes it looks like Voter Suppression, disenfranchisement; yes, it stinks to high heaven and we should all be kicking off about it, but glass is half full guys: it’s a very-specific initiative rolled by the Tories, exclusively for the young. We should celebrate that this is the Conservative Party connecting with the youth in a way that doesn't require the Crown Prosecution Service.

Everywhere I look there is this overriding stampede of corruption or a colossal lack of logic that leaves me scratching my head worse than my 2 year-old daughter on her recent foray as an unstoppable nit factory. Why aren’t we rioting? Why is everyone so fucking blasé about this?

Why are we just bending over and accepting King Charles’ £8m portraits when there’s foodbank queues round the block? Why do we accept the Conservative line that his Coronation is part of our cultural identity, and we’re all British so it’s only fair that we all play our part (/tax money) meanwhile the NHS, which is also part of our who we are and also requires that we all play our part is seen as some socialist affront we shouldn't be forced to pay into?

I mean, it is obvious what’s happening in all of these things. Labour know they should re-join the EU, for both economic and geopolitical reasons. But they can’t risk irking the Red Wall constituencies who abandoned them for Brexit. The Parliamentary battle lines were re-drawn in 2016 and neither the Tories nor Labour have ever fully accepted that. Instead they pivot and obfuscate and distort their positions, in a way that shows their goal is to mitigate seat losses, rather than embrace economics/security.

“Rejoin the EU? Oh we’d LOVE to, but then we’d lose Burnley again” you can imagine them privately fretting.

“Why did we introduce Voter-ID? Because it makes it harder for younger people to vote and those younger people tend to vote for Left-leaning parties, so f*ck ‘em.” the country’s last honest Tory might say.

“Why have I faked an image of my Dad with thousands of supporters? Because there weren’t really any there but maybe this is the most natural escalation from lying about the Inauguration crowd. Next step: Deep Fakes of Hunter Biden leaving #Pizzagate.”

“Why do we demonise public healthcare as communism while asking everyone to pay-up for the Coronation? Because we’re all in bed with BUPA and we love good ol’ traditional Classism. Besides it’s you lot that’s paying for it, none of us even pay tax.”

“Why are we demonising Smallboats? No, it’s not about national security, we don’t actually believe they’re Economic Migrants, we know they’re mostly genuine asylum seekers, but by pandering to the lowest common denominator, we might be able to claw back a few votes from literally the worst in our society. It comes down to this: why bother chasing the approval of foreigners in dinghies who can’t vote when you could get a tick in the box from racists who can?”

At some point we will regain our sanity. 

But rebirth and new dawns be damned, that day is not today.

The Resurrection Of Sanity Is Still A Way Off

Are you a different person online to off? How about on-text compared to in actual conversation? Matt Hancock was different. So was Tucker Carlson. No wonder Right-wingers hate Snowden and Assange. Turns out once you pull the curtain up, beneath their cuddly, friendly veneers - they’re actually duplicitous, self-serving arseholes!? Who knew?

Is WhatsApp a sort of weird, fucked up conservative truth serum? Can we just communicate with MPs and TV rant-artists through instant messenger services from now on, please? They seem infinitely more transparent there. It's just on camera and on radio they come out with bullshit. Maybe we should always have access to their exchanges? I'm not one to pry. But if it's prying over murderous insurrections and sending riddled-with-Covid grandmas out to carehomes like respiratory viruses are a new category on Deliveroo, I'll probably take a peak.

That’s not to say *I’d* necessarily be comfortable with you reading all of my personal, private WhatsApps. I mean, I spend enough time apologising for the shit I say out loud. God knows what sort of fucked up apology tour I’d have to do if you saw the stuff I pollute my friends’ chats with.

Kidding. I'm 42 with two children. I have no friends.

But still.. there’s something insultingly hypocritical and yet simultaneously reaffirming about finding out how dishonest, how careerist, these people actually are, isn’t there?

It’s the Great Angry Arguing Paradox: you start off angry about the thing, then you're angry that your mate believes the other thing, then you angrily try to prove to your mate that he's wrong about the other thing, then it turns out you were right all along, the thing really was all bullshit - and yet somehow, even though you've been proven right, it all just makes you angrier.

Angry that we’ve been lied to (carehomes, testing targets). Angry that others believed them (US Voter Fraud). Angry that people mocked us when we told them they were being lied to. Angry that people in public office on high salaries are running the country like a fucking Conservative Party piggy-bank. Incredulous no one went to jail when the green shoots of this corruption first started.

I mean, here in the UK, Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson were using encrypted Signal messaging in 2020, to coordinate official Govt business, away from the prying eyes of the opposition, Ethics advisors and journalists. Are we supposed to believe that was all about their favourite brands of wine and cheese?

"Thanks for moving onto Signal, Boris, it's just much better if we can speak 100% privately with encryption where messages automatically delete after seven days."
"Sure, Dom, but what was so sensitive that you needed to talk to me about on here?"
"Which did you like better: US or UK 'The Office'?"

The Prorogation of Parliament was also strongly rumoured to have been organised through unofficial channels. I wonder if those private messages might include true motivations behind that (to ram Brexit through), how they all really felt about lying to the Queen;

There’s a tendency in the US/UK to personalise our political scandals. Take the story but give people a face to associate with it. A human element. A hero. A baddie. The conversation around Govt surveillance became tabloid fodder about Snowden on-the-run.

The Global Financial Crash of 2008 was a complex tale of corporate greed and shit regulation, but in Britain it largely became "Grrrr Sir Fred Goodwin!".

Despite Isabel Oakeshott’s well-voiced aspirations, her recent scoops about Govt overreach mostly topped out at “Matt Hancock’s Murderous Lies”. 

Even this week coverage that should’ve started and stopped at how disgusting and impractical the Illegal Migration Bill is, has morphed into "Your Calls!" and Comment about Gary Lineker's fucking contract.

(Incidentally if the Tories don’t like it when he compares them to 1930s Germany they’re going to lose their shit when I call them second-rate, Third Reich psychopaths)

But in wrapping a face around a story, we’re sort of led to believe that these things are one-offs, aren’t we? A few bad apples. Not institutional. Even when there's evidence whatever the issue is, is widespread, that it's almost cultural - and it's all around us.

I mean, here we are talking about Hancock saying one thing publicly and another thing in private. But who was he talking to? To how many? And how many times have Conservative MPs been asked to hand over their mobiles and refused, or accidentally broken them the day after the request, or dropped them in the sea, or refused to deny they might occasionally use burner phones?

Meanwhile over in the U.S., rumours of Fox treating its viewers with utter contempt have been around for ages. The question I always raise in my content: “Are they really this stupid or are they just hoping you are?” appears finally answered.  Murdoch admitted in court (last week) that he allows demonstrable falsehoods to go out unchallenged, and therefore as fact, and therefore as lies - because that is what he and his producers think the audience want.

“If we tell them the truth, and it doesn’t perfectly decorate the weird, tribalistic hole they’ve dug themself into - they’ll switch over to Brietbart” - is NOT what he said, but it’s not far off.

Murdoch’s biggest star of the Fox News binfire, Tucker Carlson, could be found on air supporting the ridiculous notion that Jan 6th was peaceful (six people died), he’s pro Trump; But OFF-air he was telling his colleagues how he hates Trump “passionately” and yearned for the end of the guy's political career. He said privately to his colleague that it’s best for Fox News if they call the election early (which they did w/ Arizona). Then ON air he lambasted "unelected journalists" for calling things too hastily, presumably so he wouldn’t upset the cry-baby sensibilities of the insufferable MAGA crowd. 

It seems to me that in the quest for ratings (and by-proxy on the hunt for ad revenue) Fox will put out whatever keeps people watching, no matter the cost and mother-fuck their “news” or journalistic responsibilities. But they remain the most watched 'news' source in the United States of America. On that basis, America can no longer claim to be informed. They can certainly no longer claim the title of the world’s greatest democracy. Those descriptions are outdated. America now exists in a post-Capitalist, Oligarchical parody of democracy - where truth is too costly and lies are lucrative.

You might think the British State is different. It’s a public body. An institution. It doesn’t need to chase advertising dollars and so there’s not really a parallel to be drawn. But for the last decade the British state has operated almost exclusively with a view to put as much money (/profit) into the hands of donors as possible. Get money in (from taxpayers) and funnel it out to  shareholders. In that sense they're very much the same. And if saying one thing in public and one thing in private is the mechanism by which they can continue to do that, so be it.

The question is - how do we fix this? Greater Govt transparency? Penalties for dishonesty? Wikileaks? More nationalised news services? I honestly don't know.  And frankly don’t ask me. It's a complex question. 

Don’t make me the face of it.

The modern Conservative party are absolutely fucked. Poll-wise, existentially, they have no vision, no leadership, their future prospects are abysmal and frankly it’s difficult to watch.

I mean, it’s difficult to watch anything when it’s literally bringing you to orgasm. Most of us close our eyes in those moments. Or at least most of my sexual partners did. Possibly to focus on the physical intensity of said moment, but probably so they didn’t have to witness my own facial expressions, at the height of such intensity.

Anyway, *on* failing partnerships, yes, the Conservatives are doomed. 

By now I’m sure you’re aware of how they propelled their best and brightest from the books in 2019. Moderates like Theresa May… which sounds utterly ridiculous, I know. The fact a cold-hearted, immigrant-bashing mascot of “GO HOME!” and “the nasty party” like Theresa May can now - retrospectively - be seen as a moderate should tell you everything you need to know about how far we’ve sunk. But still: Moderates like May… Dominic Grieve, Anna Soubry, Ken Clarke… were replaced with (or neutered by) a new ilk: your Scott Bentons, your Ben Bradleys, your Lee Andersons;

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: the sort of candidate you’re going to get in a (former) Labour stronghold, with a perceived defeat on the cards, is NOT going to be a particularly impressive individual. It’s a testing ground, to see how you perform. It’s rough diamonds, slim pickings, ten-to-two’s;

Step forward Betfair Benton, Ben “they’ll only spend it on crack” Bradley, Lee “30p” Anderson, Jonathan “Johnathan Gullis” Gullis…

These are people who stood as the Tory candidate either in the absence of serious candidates who would never agree to taking six weeks off their proper job to campaign for a seat they were unlikely to win - OR - they were the preferred candidate (over more serious options) but the Best & Brightest skill they brought to the table was “I LiKe BoRrIs!”

And now we’re through the other side of it.

Indeed now we have Rishi Sunak as PM, supposedly a moderate, who’s going to have to reason with this lot and win them over. 

A group of people who rallied behind Johnson when he said May’s deal was shit. Who then voted for that deal which effectively was May’s deal in all but name. Who then rejected the need to scrutinise it, so certain were they that they loved this deal they previously said they hated - but who now say the deal they said they loved that they previously said they hated, they now hate again. Have I got that right?

These are the great minds of the Conservative Party that Sunak has to appease. A morally bankrupt fun-bus of flag-fuckers who can always be relied upon to demand we abandon our logic if it so much as *momentarily* troubles their British Exceptionalism. 

And if he fails? A 100-strong mutiny over tweaks to the Brexit deal is rumoured be erupting. 

Christ, imagine having to reason with people like Gullis. Or Desmond Swayne. REASONING WITH DESMOND SWAYNE, F**K ME IN THE VATICAN, a man so ferociously stupid he could come away the junior partner in post-coital pillow talk with a sex doll.

Indeed, in the midst of this week’s well-documented Tomato-drought, Swayne stood up, in the House of Commons, so certain was he that he had something of substance to say, some way of fixing things, of reassuring the public - many of whom must be bewildered that the Sunlit Uplands they were promised have been Rail Replacement Bus Service’d for Shit In The Rivers and a flare-up of Scurvy. 

“If only we’d been told before voting for Brexit that it would cause frost in Morocco…”. 

I guess we can’t be too cynical here. The Govt’s case against Shamima Begum was essentially that - regardless of having been groomed and trafficked across international borders to become someone’s child bride - the fact was, she may have been exposed to (and de-sensitised by) extreme violence. So through her possible proximity to violence, she might be violent. She might have caught violence, guys.

If it’s possible to catch violence, maybe stupidity’s airborne?

Swayne’s charge is that idiot Remainers were blaming the absence of vegetables on Brexit, but that this was all down to weather. Which is sort of true, but it’s an attitude that champions precisely the sort simplistic, devoid-of-nuance approach to politics that you’d expect from him. The weather has frustrated crop production, but had we still been in the European Union, we would have our shelves full as a priority, before anything was shipped and sold outside of it. That’s why supermarkets in Dublin, Athens, Paris and Northern Ireland remain full.

Is he wilfully ignoring the 3rd-Country aspects of our fruit n veg supply chain? Is he not aware of it? Has he not been briefed? Or is he pretending to be stupid? Is he hoping that you are?

Between the (political arm of the) Real ERG, the DUP, the 1922 Committee, the Treasury’s advisors and what must be an exhaustingly-tedious Boris Johnson buzzing about,causing him problems - Rishi Sunak is as much a prisoner as every other recent Prime Minister. He needs to achieve growth, but he can’t do that without the Single Market. And he can’t be seen to be admitting that. He can’t join the Single Market because the ERG would launch a Vote of No Confidence. He could radically lower tax and hope the economy balloons but Truss tried that and it opened a £30bn vortex that Hunt’s still trying to climb out of. He could let immigrants in to plug the labour shortage and service the ageing population, but the other faction (the careerist sociopaths, your Suellas, Patels, not to mention satellite Tories like Farage and Tice) would eat him alive. 

Every which way he turns to look for support or another option, he’s doomed. 25-degrees to the right. Nope. Another 25 degrees, nope again. Another 25 degrees, still no. Until he’s come full circle. Fucked².  And all of this against the backdrop of an NHS, Mortgages, Cost of Living and Housing Crisis that’s probably about 8 weeks from civil unrest.

Sunak is at a crossroads, the one you get to when you’re dead.

Sunak's At A Crossroads. The One You Arrive At When You’re Dead.

While we were all frothing about Harry and Meghan, the strikes and the cold snap - the Bank of England quietly raised interest rates for the ninth consecutive time. Ninth. The base rate for borrowing is now 3.5% which means there’s a strong likelihood that by the time you next re-mortgage - your payments will have increased by 100%. 

That’s the slightly misleading thing about Interest Rates, isn’t it? You say “up by 1%” and it doesn’t quite yield the same oooomph as: 

“Merry Christmas, your mortgage just doubled”. 

I mean, 3.5%? 1%? 0.5% All these numbers sound paltry? It’s only once you’ve put them through whatever slick, cartoony mortgage-calc YOU’VE found online, you realise how hilariously misleading they are.

“Oh, they’ve increased the mortgage rates by 0.5%, luv”

“Pffff… 0.5%? I mean, why did you even bother mentioning it?”

“Because that’s another three hundred quid we have to find every month now”

If I told you the price of Pain au Chocolates was being increased by 0.5%, you probably wouldn’t bat an eye, right? Probably because you don’t have to buy Pain au Chocolates, you fat shit. But also because when you do, 0.5% of £1.30 ain’t shit, as they say. In fact even 0.5% of your weekly trip to Tesco is, err, shit all. 

But a 0.5% increase on a fuckin’ HOUSE? An overpriced £390,000 HOUSE!? Well, then I’m afraid then it *is* shit. Then it’s Shit Actually.

As I’ve said before, it’s still a bit of mystery to me why they keep hiking rates? I mean, it *IS* something that is typically done at a time of inflation. But ours is not a typical inflation.

For context: traditionally, when people have too much disposable income and the economy becomes overheated, inflation soars; And so the idea is that if the BoE make Mortgages and Rents a bit more expensive, people will have less money to spend on everything else, they're incentivised to save... and so the broad cost-of-living (& inflation) comes down. That’s… the theory. 

But that only works in the scenario where the root of your inflation is something traditional (or domestic) too. I’m no Economist, but I’d imagine a strong native currency (which would make it cheaper to buy petrol/gas/foreign products and would leave more money in your pocket which - in-turn - would put greater demand on products/services and thus prices would increase) OR maybe a boom in housebuilding which - if significant - might bring down house prices (& rents) and thus leave us all with more disposable income, en-masse etc etc; BOTH of these i could see spawning traditional inflation.

But this is not some domestic, Britain-specific bout of it. Yet the Bank of England are reacting as though it is. 

Our currency isn’t turbo charged any more than our housebuilding has boomed. Both are quite the inverse of that, in fact. THIS inflation has been come almost directly from the international gas market. Fix that, you fix inflation. Don’t fix that (and instead focus on raising interest rates) not only do you fail to fix inflation but you also make life miserable for millions of people who lose their homes.

“Yo, Hunt, did you manage to get prices down for everyone?”

“No, but I did manage to rescue ten million people from the wrath of Financial Stability.”

As I say, I’m not an Economist. And in my lesser moments, I've assumed there must be some smart person reason why they’re doing this the way they are? A driver for it. The obvious fiscal motivation that might sit outside the expertise of an internet shit-talker.  I mean, these people went to Oxbridge, they’ve studied geopolitics and financialisation, and the newspapers don’t seem too worried? lol. They must know what they're doing!?

Let's assume there is a half-credible reason for the Chancellor and BoE to continue reacting this way, that it will ultimately settle the British economy. In that frame of mind, it’s natural to look forward and wonder what’s likely to happen if the events of today - their decisions, their policies - run into tomorrow, and into next month... 


So, if interest rates get to 6-7%. If millions are unable to re-mortgage and are forced to sell at the same time, what will happen?

“Well, it'll be amazing!” commenters comment. “It’s about time the cost of a house came back down to 3x the average salary!”

As far as I can see, three things will happen in the next 12 months:

First, families (like my own) will be forced to sell at lowered prices. Some will escape negative equity. A huge number won’t. Both groups of people will be propelled into an already overheated private rental sector and that rental sector is currently so fucked (in the South East at least) that Estate Agents routinely report having rented properties at OVER THE ASKING PRICE and sometimes without even having been viewed. 

There is no real Social Housing to speak of so the market rate for private rentals will soar. And it will be aggravated by the BoE, whose interest rates will also impact Buy-To-Let landlords, who will pass on the cost of their mortgages to their tenants.

A £1,200/month 1-bed will cost £2,400. And that’s before the other 20 prospective tenants start trying to out-bid each other with over-asking figures, which could push it from £2.5k to £2.7k - just for regular people to find somewhere to live.

Substandard housing will begin to spring up. Breezeblocks with a tin roof. Rented sheds. People living in cars or tents.

Second, billionaires will get richer. Investors with liquid capital will foresee this chain of events and begin to buy-up domestic properties. In fact they already have done. Goldman Sachs, Lloyds.. have both sought to become everyday landlords.

Third, no, you won’t get a cheap house. 

In the 2008 crash, the cost of an average UK home dropped by 20%. Did that erase twenty years of shit-all housebuilding, supply-and-demand and peoples’ desperation to get on the ladder pushing up prices? No. It tempered the market for a couple of years, sure. But a 20% drop in value on a 3-bed house in Buckinghamshire is still going to leave it at about £380,000. And with hiked up interest rates, even if it dropped another 10%, you still wouldn't be able to afford the monthly repayments. You're omni-fucked. Fiscal cuntery².  Anyone dreaming that we’re going back to the days where a postman’s salary, his single income, could support a family of four, a roof over their heads, on a twenty year mortgage - while the mother of his children stayed home with the baby, is doing precisely that: dreaming.  Realistically? All this next crash will achieve, in terms of cheaper housing?

...is a wholesale discount for the billionaire class. 

For similarly uplifting content, maybe check out my podcast: Aid Thompsin and Other Disappointments.

Strip Them Of Their Titles? They're Gonna Strip You Of Your Home.

Saturday night and I’m at home alone with the kids. The missus has gone out for her annual Christmas (/late-Nov) catch up with the girls and I’m trying to decide how best to make use of the time. It’s a Saturday night not spent stroking her feet while watching a True Crime murdertainment box set. Feels like time that should be spent positively. If only for the novelty.

“It’s nice to relax on the weekend, isn’t it love?”
“Shhhhh! Or we’ll miss hearing about how somebody somewhere had a very, very bad time with a crowbar.”

*stuffs popcorn in mouth to the rhythm of the blunt-force trauma*

Do I prank call GB News? Do I spend the next four hours trying to make this website more engaging? I don’t know. What do you think? Are you even still here to ask? Or did you lose interest in the first couple of lines because there aren’t any animated gifs or cookie notices or flashing colours?
 

I can’t decide. My heads all over the place. It’s been a weird week. One where I’ve inexplicably found myself telling my friends “don’t lose faith in England just yet, lads!” mere hours before we witnessed Matt Hancock make it into the final four on I'm A Celebrity. It’s almost as if the second you dare to believe we *might* be capable of something resembling unity - ten million idiots are right there, on cue, to reset your expectations. Like coming up on Ecstasy while watching someone vandalise your car.

You hope and you pray there might be consequences for someone like Hancock, don’t you? For his incompetence and flagrant corruption (Google "Lobbying Randox Paterson" and fake-Hancock-weep). I mean, this is a guy who spoon-fed his pub landlord a lucrative PPE contract (despite never having produced PPE) and who sent infectious pensioners out to care-homes like Covid had started a fucking Uber Eats partnership; You’d hope that someone like that might be blackballed, wouldn't you? Maybe?

Honestly, for all the tit-shitting we do about Cancel Culture, I challenge the Alt-Right Grifteratti to explain this: if you're all so terrified of being cancelled over using the wrong pronouns, if Right-wingers are so under threat of being silenced - how do you explain Matt "Oops I Killed 20,000" Hancock out there living his best life? Christ if all it took to ruin Alastair Williams' comedy career was the fact that he supported Brexit - you'd think maaaaaaybe a mass murderer might at least be on time-out?

I digress. Anyway, as I was saying, you’d hope there'd be repercussions. And if not immediate and direct, then at least by proxy. You'd hope that the morality of TV bookers might step in where the personal ethics of politicians (lol) had failed. But no. There are to be no repercussions for Matt Hancock. Just as there are unlikely to be any for Whitehalls *other* Burtons model: Dominic Raab.

Raab, who has seen his career descend into a binfire (or perhaps a 'Raabecue') this last week is Justice Minister. And as such I'd like to think that a Secretary of State for Justice wouldn’t, I DON'T KNOW, have a history of seeking to illegally prorogue parliament or wrapping NDAs around women. I'd HOPE he’d be put on administrative leave after the second or third accusation of bullying had landed. 

But hope in the context of Politics now feels like faith in the case of Religion.

We hope for repercussions... we truly do hope for them...

...but whether the idea of “repercussions” can ever be resurrected, whether accountability will ever have a Second Coming is truly a matter for who waits around the longest. And I simply do not have the patience.

Still, they do a good job of pretending there’s repercussions, don't they? Which is almost as good. Not *quite* justice but a passable counterfeit. Like frowning at the KFC refurbishment and instead getting your dinner from a place called Legally Fried Chicken. 

They want you to think that what you're witnessing is consequence. A clapback for their conduct. The Find Out to their Fuck Around. And so they choose from a suite of options designed to make you *think* they take, say, bullying (or illegal lobbying or dodgy donations or tax avoidance) very seriously indeed. But none of these options bear any relation to real accountability. They all remain employed. No one goes to jail.

But as i say, the counterfeit is passable. They're still there on the morning rounds, saying things like "We take a zero tolerance approach" and "The Conservative Party take accusations of bullying VERY seriously..." 

So seriously they "considered the matter closed" and rallied round the Prittster. So seriously that Raab himself dismissed an outrageous attack (the Savile line) as just part of the Cut & Thrust of Parliamentary life. So seriously that Sunak still had confidence in Gavin Williamson after he’d told a senior civil servant to slit her own throat.

But they present their failure in a way that pretends to be success. For Williamson, he resigned (previously), but was re-hired within months. For Braverman it was a week. Raab has been dogged by allegations of bullying, should almost certainly resign but has outsourced his response... to a Parliamentary investigation. And so presumably now no one in Govt can respond to questions while the inquiry is ongoing. Incidentally, reader: don't get excited. For all the talk of referring himself to the committee for a thorough investigation, it is reportedly NOT an independent review; in fact it only gets to investigate what PM Sunak says it can investigate. So again, failure pretending to be success. Corruption dressed as accountability. 

So that's Raab, Braverman, Williamson, Patel; Finally, back to Matt Hancock, who can ostensibly kill a few thousand, funnel money to his mate and break his own rules - and be forced to resign - and yet here we are a few months later and he's probably Mortgage-Free, charting in Waterstones and guesting on Graham Norton before you can say Jungle-washing.

God, I hate it here. I'm going back to True Crime, where there are at least there's consequences for the criminals.

Repercussions Are Dead. Long-Live Fake Repercussions.

The World Cup is about to begin (20th November) and Britain could not be more ready. Name a better time! I mean, some say it’s best to have this sort of tournament in the Summer, when punters can pack out the pubs and spill out onto the streets; but no - for me, personally, the idea of having something fun to watch in the crosshairs of the NHS winter crisis, the Cost of Living Crisis, the Housing Crisis, the Climate Crisis, the War in Ukraine, Recession, Covid, and our Mortgages exploding - it's… 

Well, it's a welcome distraction.  Feels like getting a blow-job while sitting on the conveyor-belt of an abattoir.

Last time (Euro 2020) the England Team did unexpectedly well! Goals, wins, impressive draws, LGBTQ armbands; For a football-cynic like me it was honestly that rare moment of beauty. Not only did I get to enjoy the visage of a group of young men with the right (progressive) attitudes looking fantastic on the international stage - but I got to see performative twunt puppies like Priti Patel and Lee Anderson squirm after having mocked the team only a week before.

“Not. My. England.” their disciples tweeted.

“The national team’s gone WOKE!” others duly frothed.

Anderson was a particular favourite. He boycotted EVERY England game over the team’s “taking the knee” gesture. It was as pathetic as it was hilarious. Where "shit" and "comedy" meet (outside of James Corden obvs). The gesture is a mark against racism. It’s a simple, harmless manoeuvre that’s akin to saying “I know there’s people out there suffering. And I’m up here. But please know that I’m still with you.”. A sort of… way of bringing attention back to racism, of saying it’s still a thing. Anderson taking issue with it not only promoted his own ignorance but spectacularly proved their point.

“We’d like to make a gesture to show we’re adamantly, unshakeably anti-racist.”
“Fine, but I fundamentally disagree with your right to take a stand against oppression”.
“Right. I mean, you’re in a position of power and influence and you’re seeking to trivialise someone else's struggle. So that in and of itself is oppressive.”
<Anderson spits his crayons out>
“Not. My. England.”

Fans of this genre of crettiny would do well to look-out for similar blowhards waxing lyrical about how they "don't do gestures" mere *days* after crucifying half of TV-world for not wearing a poppy. Keep your eyes peeled. For these dignified, reserved types will no doubt wish to remain quiet throughout the tournament but if you really try you might just spot one...
 

I digress. Anyway, so the optics of a grey-haired, rich, white guy telling people-of-colour to “pipe down!” aside… the 2020 comp was something of a uniter. It really felt like the first time in ages that the Brexit divide had taken a holiday.  Brexiter mates with Remainer drinking buds. Tories watching games with Union tub-thumpers. For the first time in years, it felt like a coming together might be possible after all? I mean... you still have to be realistic, right? Some things are fundamentally not fixable. Ben Affleck and J-Lo got back together. Fine. But Oasis reuniting? Probably not.

But this felt different. Like it might've been the first greenshoots of a calming in the Culture War.

Unfortunately the May Govt of the time (egged on by the Mail) saw the Euros as a hiatus rather than a fresh start and - within a couple of days of the Final - were back to bashing the EU for not capitulating to the Tory Right’s demands to set fire to Northern Ireland. Global Britain, take a bow.

Whatever happens with this England Team, with this tournament, let’s try and keep the unity going this time. People love to say Keep The Politics Out Of Sport but these moments are that rarest of opportunities to try and build bridges. In increasingly divided times. It starts with having a beer and cheering on the team. It can end with us having re-humanised remoaners to the Brexity headbangers. Let's celebrate the countries of the world and the coming together and the positivity that can bring...

God knows with Trump back on Twitter, the War raging-on and the impending climate meltdown, a bit of international unity might be just what we need.

The World Cup Could Be An Opportunity For Us All

Well another week, another interest rate hike. I make that the seventeenth time this quarter. Though I confess I’ve never been one for numbers. I always imagined that might preclude me from a career in Economics but it turns out I may well be qualified to work as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Base rate is now 3%. That's the biggest single increase in thirty years. At least there's growth somewhere, right? High Street Banks are fluctuating between four and six. That means for some families the next year or two will be catastrophic. Years of saving to get on the ladder swept away in a tide of financial fuckery and Trussian delusion they did nothing to deserve.

When I told my neighbour we may have to sell our house the other day, he tried to reassure me, offering: 

“Well, the thing is, we’ve been through all this before! Back in the day we had ten percent interest! It’ll all settle down in the end. I know it’s scary but we’ve all been through it...”

“Yes, but I bet your mortgage wasn’t fifteen times the average salary back then, was it, you dopey prick?”

In fact that’s precisely what I said.

Though admittedly, to myself, about twenty minutes later, as I angrily drank alone in my kitchen.

[ may as well enjoy my liberty in drinking alone now before I have to face the judgement of our housemates or fellow hostel dwellers. Although technically, I suppose "being eyeballed by another human being while i slug my brandy" sort of negates the "alone" bit, so problem solved 👍🏻 ]

Mortgages themselves are going to be so expensive you’ll soon need a mortgage to pay your mortgage. What is that going to do to YOUR street? How many will still be there in eighteen months? Where will they go? I mean, I know we fetishize all things America here: Pimp My Ride remakes, the anti vax movement, saying "#sorryNotSorry"... but I was kinda hoping Tent Cities wouldn't make it across? That the very concept might get lost in translation, sort of thing? A bit like "speaking quietly" does in the opposite direction. Anyway, if you ARE lucky enough to be on an agreement already, you must be shitting your tits at the thought *re-* mortgaging. I know I am. 

For this year’s Halloween I went as next year’s renewal.

“Thing is, Mr Thompsin, you had a 2 year fixed for 2.99%. And that was £700-a-month. But under the new Great British Crazy Kwasi rates, you’d need to be paying £1,200-a-month - and that’s clearly too much for you.”
“I see. So.. should I sell up?”
“Well here’s the funny part.”
“Funny?”
“Yes, because market-wide no one can afford to keep their homes, they’re all selling them at the same time! So, house prices are down - and we estimate your home is worth 15% less NOW than when you bought it.”
“I’m sorry, HOW is that funny?”
“Well you see… you can’t afford your house cuz it’s too expensive but you simultaneously can’t sell it cuz it’s too cheap.”
“I see. Yep. Hilarious.”

I’m told they hike rates to “get inflation under control”. Standard tingz. “This is how it works, Aid”. To my mind that'd jive when inflation is the result of a domestic economy booming too quickly, if everyone’s got too much money, if heaps of products are being re-priced and hiked out of control..

In that situation? Sure, by all means, because that’ll make everyone’s rents and mortgages expensive, they won’t be able to afford an extra £500 for the food shop or £9 for a pint of beer, and UK suppliers - broadly - will be forced to reduce their products to remain in the market. Costs come down.

But I’m not sure how you apply that logic to the Cost of Living Crisis. I mean, this all started from international Energy markets that don't give a Kings Cross fuck about little Britain's domestic problems. Natural Gas began soaring in February. Globally. People don’t have too much money, in fact it’s the opposite. This is inflation spawned almost directly from a global Natural Gas shortage. Now, because the Govt didn’t want a meaningful price-cap or to part-nationalise the energy corps, inflation took hold, and - quite predictably - every business from Barbers to Recruitment Consultants to Tesco to Costa to Renault Showrooms and back were forced to increase their prices and so we are where we are.

So, back to rates: I’m not sure I understand how carpet-bombing the country with Rent and Repayment increases is going to fix this? If it’s from one specific source? If it’s driven by international factors?

Perhaps that’s why now, still, on the 34th round of interest rate adjustments (again, NOT a numbers guy), inflation doesn’t seem to give a shit. Inflation is untroubled. I mean, do the Bank of England seriously think BP or Shell are going to reduce the price of Fossil Fuels if London rents go up a bit? Do we think ExxonMobil are going to shout some Black Friday deals if my mortgage doubles? 

Or do we think they’ll actually *definitely* shrug, and go “Shame about the UK economy. ANYWAY, fortunately there’s ONLY another two THOUSAND countries that will happily buy that stock at the same price, so…”

Do they need to reduce the cost of their product to re-attract British customers? No, they can just sell it to a country that’s not a total fucking basket-case. Is British exceptionalism really this bad? That we expect international corporations to sell to us because, what, we’re the bestest? Or because “times are hard, do us a favour?”?

It’s like expecting your Coke dealer to drop a gram to £15 because 
a) you really need it for a party but 
b) you had a tough month. 

And he’s like:

“Yeah, but I dont NEED to discount it to £15 when there’s a pub full of other people who’ll buy it for £50 AND BESIDES.. what kind of Father buys cocaine to self-medicate through his son’s 6th birthday party? ‘The fuck is wrong with you?” 

Still, sometimes in lieu of solutions, it’s nice to know there's someone’s listening, isn’t it? We don’t always need solutions, just someone to lend an ear. A bit of compassion. So Reader, it was warming to read our newest (unelected) Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, offering these words of comfort on the front page of Saturday’s Times:

“The State can’t fix all your problems”

The State (which is ostensibly the Conservative Party) can’t fix ALL your problems. 

Like, Jesus, give them a break? DON'T BE SUCH A DIVA. They must be exhausted from fixing all the other problems! The NHS, the Teacher shortage, the Housing Crisis, making a success of Brexit, handling the Pandemic well, addressing the labour shortage, fixing the Judiciary, Prisons, the Probation Service, improving trust in politicians, eliminating foodbanks, improving industrial relations, reducing crime and overseeing wage growth.. Exhausted! But they can’t fix EVERYTHING!?! Throw that stage-rider in the bin. Save your wish-lists for Santa. Who do you think you are? Mariah Carey? BE REASONABLE.

Sarcasm aside.. what are they on? I know Sunak doesn’t drink. But does he do Fentanyl? Because this is the same party that - a month ago - slipped on a banana skin and blew a £50bn hole in the economy. And now, as people ask to be protected from the consequences of their financial fuckery, they're like 

“Ugh, do you want me to wipe your arse for you too?”.
"But this is due to YOUR fuck-up"
"Yes, but make no mistake: these are very much YOUR problems. And this is called Self Responsibility."

Responsibility. Lol. Ladies and Gentlemen: the Natural Party of Govt. 

God knows in these days of a tanked political discourse and decimated trust in politicians, my expectations of any of them fixing my problems are through the fucking floor, but I can’t be alone in wanting to scream through the gates of Downing Street:

“We don’t expect you to solve EVERY-THING - that ship has long since sailed. We just want you to stop serving up more problems, every four weeks, like some sort of fucked up subscription service we can’t get out of”

"Hello?"
“Yeah, hi Mate, I’ve got your Hello Fresh, your Beer-52, and your latest gift from the party of Fiscal Responsibility.”
“Is it the 28th already? Well, Sept they fucked my pension, October I lost my home - I wonder what surprise November’s going to bring me!”

“The State can’t fix ALL your problems...”

Christ. Is it just me? Or is Sunak sounding like a deadbeat Dad; whose kids are feral, wandering around in soiled nappies; neglected and living in filth. And as he’s been laying there on the sofa drinking 3-litre bottles of White Lightening and watching football and eating shit for fifteen hours straight, his wife's patience has gradually worn thinner and thinner. Finally, she approaches him at two strokes to midnight and politely asks if *maybe* he could find it in his heart to MAYBE put his plate and pint glass in the sink…

“Ughhhh GOD do I have to do everything round here?”

Not everything. Just something. Or in some cases nothing. Because here's a jarring thought to leave you on: 

Between Brexit devaluing the pound, Covid's £50bn wasted, the Cost of Living Crisis' £50bn blackhole, my diluted pension, this spiralling mortgage nightmare, I'm almost positive I would've been mathmatically* better-off had the Tories done precisely nothing since 2016.

Raising Interest Rates Again? What's the Definition of Insanity?

Saturday night and there's a very faint whiff of hope in the air. It feels as though Johnson may have failed to get the numbers, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief - probably - for now.

Anyway, Johnson done. Maybe. Let's see. I'm trying to temper my joy, for now, obviously. Partly because it's not confirmed and I dont want to write an immediately out-of-date blog that hangs around for a week with 100s of you wrinkly, haggard-AF, racked-by-booze jokers quote-tweeting me, like "THIS AGED WELL, LOL". 

But mostly out of chickens-hatched, Referendum-trauma: assuming something is totes fiiiiiiiiiine before having it snatched away, last-minute, and then having to deal with the consequences for years afterwards. A trauma that it has to be said, feels all too closely connected to Boris Johnson.

I mean, you'd have to have some sort of condition to not find this funny, to NOT see the comedic collateral here. 

Let's break it down: Johnson has been called every 'lazy' and 'workshy' adjective going (I personally prefer four-letter nouns but whatever) . Whether it was his (allegedly) made-up nonsense he passed off as car reviews for GQ, or (again, allegedly) not reading his brief in the Foreign Office, or the eyewatering number of holidays he took while in No. 10 - this is a man who is known for enjoying his downtime. So seeing him cut short one of his beloved holidays, to fly home and run a doomed leadership bid, only to be forced to endorse the guy that stabbed him in the back in July? Sweet Jesus, that's a *special* kind of high. The kind of high that would make Suella sad. Which in-turn would probably get me high again. Fuck, this shit should be regulated.

It's too perfect. The failure to get support. The fact he's interrupted his holiday to allow this humiliation to happen. Then having to stand there and concede to the guy that served as the catalyst for his original ejection from power. We've gone from Bad Timeline Biff to "I thought I told you two coats of wax, not just one" in a day.

What do we think his concession will be like? I mean, how will he play this? Will he adopt a jovial, faux-gracious sort of demeanour? Will he throw in some of his God-awful gags?

"While it is certainly an honour to have OVER A HUNDRED OF YOU back me, I'm afraid I must leave the clean-up of these particular messes for somebody else. Indeed, think of my boosterism as the Party, my enthusiasm as the Wine & Cheese; but yes, now, friends, comes the time, when you disgusting, peasant cleaners must clean up the Cava piss and Malbec vomit. This is very much your hangover to deal with. That's it. And go fuck yourselves."

(bonus points if you're imagining - as I did - Johnson adopting a Churchillian 'V' pose but with the two fingers turned round)

Personally, I think there's a strong chance he'll go balls-to-the-wall, troll AF. Picture him coming out with a newly-practiced, earnest tone, saying that he is not, in fact, going to pursue the leadership because now, these days, he feels it more important to spend time with his family. 

"Family is my FIRST priority.." he would say.

And all the while his un-acknoweldged, illegitimate son (or daughter? anyone know?) screams from the sidelines:

"Dad! DAD! I just want to talk!"
"I've told you NOT to call me that!" spits Boris, "and can't you see that I'm working?!"

Indeed, irony be damned, it's always felt funny to me how Boris Johnson-types never miss an opportunity to take issue with pronouns. "HE/HIM?! WHAT ON EARTH!" and "WOMEN ARE WOMEN!" etc etc. 

While defining the gender of one of his children remains so unresolvedly off-limits. 

I digress...

Lets move on, so a bunch of OGs have abandoned Johnson this weekend. And it really brings it home. I mean, how fastis the news cycle now? How quickly do things change? Dominic Raab, David Davis, The Daily fucking Mail, The Telegraph's Charles Moore; everyone's desserting him. Friday it felt like every low-rent sack of shit with a Twitter account was posting "#imBackingBoris" jpegs. By Sunday morning we expect him roaming around Whitehall, shot in the arse, shouting "King Kong Ain't Got Shit On Me".

Assuming he does stand aside and Sunak goes on to win this, Lil Rishi's in-tray will, of course, be terrifying. Honestly FUCK that. It'd be like finding out the chick you've just started going steady with is Maxine Carr. 

Like "Man, i thought this was something I was super into!? I felt like I was the luckiest guy in the world! But actually, in hindsight, I now realise this is actually... 

...fucking awful."


Still, if you ever needed anybody to clean up a mess? Reasonable to think Carr could make a solid contribution. 

Back to Sunak.. I'm not exaggerating with his in-tray. He (or Mourdant) is going to have the mother of all probation periods. They're going to have to grapple with the endless downsides of Brexit (while pretending they don't exist). The collapsing NHS. The Housing Crisis. Russia and Ukraine. The Cost of Living. Mortgages. The UK being downgradedto "Outlook: Negative". The breadth and scale of our challenges dwarf any optimism now. It's tragic really. We used to be a geopolitical partner of choice. We used to have our shit together. We were reliable. But now, broadly, on a ratio of Bad to Good? We are firmly in what the kids might call "hot mess" territory.

And you can't escape the feeling that - like other hot messes we've all encountered - they'll pursue and conquer it, and as soon as they've done so, roll over and with that post-coital return of the senses, ask: 
Why Did I Do That? Did I Ever Even Really Want <This> ?

It's a weird job to want, right? In this contest, there are no winners. 

Just privately-educated, power-hungry sociopaths who want the power for the sake of it. They don't appear to be interested in the Public Service aspect. They want the podium and the cameras. They don't use their legislative agenda to improve anyone's situation. It's just there to adhere to the whims of the last round of donors. They aren't trying to solve housing, they just want their Grace & Favour. They don't want accountability. They like being on the news rounds. They don't even want *this* job. They just like the security of their *second* job maturing into a post-Parliamentary career. 

Indeed you could find yourself wondering if "Privately Educated" & "Public Service" should ever inhabit the same résumé?

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