It was the dog that didn’t bark in the night.
asserted
that → bark → night
After Sunday night’s ITV exposé of widespread racism and misogyny within Reform, you might have expected one of its MPs to have taken to the airwaves on Monday morning to defend the party’s honour.
uncertain
one → expect → honour
To try to persuade viewers that the real problem lay with the journalists who couldn’t stop themselves from investigating Reform rather than the fact that the party’s bigotry was endemic.
asserted
bigotry → try → Reform
Instead, we got nothing.
asserted
we → get → nothing
Every Reform MP was otherwise engaged.
asserted
MP → engage → ?
Maybe he realised he had crashed and burned a few days earlier by suggesting it was just one of those things.
asserted
it → realise → things
The BBC was riddled with paedophiles and Reform was awash with racists, said Honest Bob.
asserted
Bob → riddle → racists
Every organisation had its crosses to bear.
asserted
organisation → have → crosses
The only MP to take to X in the morning was Richard Tice, who was feeling decidedly grumpy having only just got married to Isabel Oakeshott.
asserted
who → take → Oakeshott
Perhaps he had a hangover.
asserted
he → have → hangover
Though his main gripe was that British Airways was yet another failing British institution because it had mislaid at least one of his bags.
asserted
it → fail → bags
Dicky’s social media post had more than a touch of the “don’t you know who I am” to it.
asserted
I → have → it
You can only imagine the baggage handler may have known exactly who Dicky was and had taken great pleasure in diverting one of the fake Louis Vuitton suitcases from Dubai to Manila.
uncertain
Dicky → imagine → Manila
The one person out and about for Reform was the one person you would have thought the party would want to keep hidden.
asserted
party → think → Reform
Step forward Matt Goodwin, the party’s failed candidate for the Gorton and Denton byelection whose own views could easily pass off as borderline racist in polite circles.
uncertain
views → step → circles
Matt is going through his own personal anti-growth agenda.
asserted
Matt → go → agenda
Almost every day, voters in Gorton and Denton thank their lucky stars for having dodged a bullet.
asserted
voters → thank → bullet
So much so that you began to wonder whether he was even conscious.
asserted
he → begin → ?
Luckily for him, he was only allowed out on Times Radio.
asserted
he → allow → Radio
To try to understand Matt is to make a category error.
asserted
try → try → error
The whole point is to not understand him.
asserted
point → understand → him
That’s the way you stay sane.
asserted
you → ’ → ?
Because what he wanted listeners to believe was that Nige was a buffer zone against racism.
asserted
Nige → want → racism
That hordes of would-be racists begged to be allowed to join Reform, only to find out that Nige was a man of peace and love.
asserted
Nige → beg → peace
The one politician who wanted nothing but good things for all immigrants.
asserted
who → want → immigrants
It got better.
asserted
It → get → ?
Because Batshit Matt also wanted us to believe that the ITV documentary had just uncovered a few bad apples in the party.
asserted
documentary → want → party
The ITV journalists had managed to uncover the only seven racists in the Reform ranks.
asserted
journalists → manage → ranks
That ITV had filmed about 10 Reform councillors and found that seven of them had views that included beheading King Charles for being a Muslim.
asserted
that → film → Charles
Some statisticians might put that down as a 70% hit rate.
uncertain
statisticians → put → rate
Over in the Commons, Wes Streeting was preparing for other threats during departmental defence questions.
asserted
Streeting → prepare → questions
You’d have thought that Wes might have wanted to schmooze the chancellor before next week’s budget.
uncertain
Wes → think → budget
To try to get the best funding settlement he could.
uncertain
he → try → settlement
Wes began by slagging off his predecessor as defence secretary for wasting money on unnecessary training exercises and then announced he was confident that Healey would reach the necessary 3% and 3.5% targets at next year’s spending review.
asserted
Healey → begin → review
So, no, Wes wouldn’t be resigning any time soon.
asserted
Wes → resign → ?
Let’s hope his confidence is well placed.
asserted
confidence → hope → ?
Instead, Wes seemed more interested in persuading himself that there was absolutely nothing unusual in Donald Trump switching the Starlink satellite system on and off at random moments, thereby allowing Russian drones to do untold damage on Ukraine.
asserted
drones → seem → Ukraine
The only way you could tell the system was working properly was if you turned it off from time to time.
uncertain
you → tell → time
Obvious when you think about.
asserted
you → think → ?
Wes was also totally chilled about Trump trying to lower US pump prices by allowing Russian imports of diesel.
asserted
Trump → try → diesel
…and 9 more, not listed.
The Aporia
