Frankie Boyle - ‘Theresa May is our second Prime Minister with the outer carapace of a human female’
Frankie Boyle Describes Theresa May’s Cabinet As ‘The Most Right Wing In Modern History’
‘Theresa May is our second Prime Minister with the outer carapace of a human female’
Frankie Boyle has trained his sights on Prime Minister Theresa May’s new cabinet in a column for the Guardian… which you can’t actually read in the Guardian.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Boyle said the column had been pulled at the last minute because of a single word, on the grounds of taste.
Publishing it in full on his page, the comedian’s observations of May so far are that she is a “vehemently pro-corporate Tory who is probably well to the right of her own traditional right-wing, and this is possibly the most right wing cabinet in modern history.”
DAVE J HOGAN VIA GETTY IMAGES
However, the famously dour Scot did allow one small chink of light through the gloom as he signed off.
“And yet, paradoxically, I think we are about to enter a time when we will put our petty divisions aside, when we will learn to co-operate fully, when we will raise our consciousness from the mundane.
“We will have to do this in order to survive, and we will, in the Re-education camps. I’ll see you there.”
It’s not the first time Boyle has had a run-in with the Guardian, in which he publishes a regular column. Back in January, it removed parts of a piece which described media mogul Rupert Murdoch as “struggling to sire another generation… by squeezing out his sperm like stale toothpaste.”
An indignant Boyle reacted by re-publishing the offending paragraph and then launching the hashtag #JeSuisFrankie, musing: “I think that the Guardian should at least have enough of a sense of irony not to censor a column about media bias.”
This time around Boyle seems to have responded with a literal shrug, and simply self-published the piece.
MAD TING. SAD TING.
******
Theresa May claims to want compassionate Conservatism, and for the party to be greener. So fingers crossed her next ‘go home immigrants’ poster vans are all going to be hybrids. It’s great for girls to see a female leader, say people who live under the longest reigning female monarch and an equal pay structure worse than Namibia. May is currently meeting a few world leaders so that they can get to know the real woman behind their citizens’ cavity searches and illegal detentions. It does feel a bit awkward turning up in France right now wanting to talk about Brexit, like we're a neighbour rocking up at a funeral asking if we can have our Tupperware back. Angela Merkel was quick to pay her respects. May is very popular in Germany where she’s a character from a childhood cautionary tale about not cutting your nails.
Of course it’s lazy sexism to compare May to Merkel, Thatcher, or to any female leader. We should instead compare her to people with similar qualities, like Judge Dredd or a sort of crocodile man that once ate me in a nightmare. Any idea that she was going to show a gentler side in her new role disappeared when she stood up in Parliament, looking like she’s solely made from the bones they left out of Boris Johnson, and announced that she’s prepared to push the nuclear button with the suppressed grin of a serial killer on a conjugal visit.
The Tories are currently brain-storming how to cherry pick the absolute worst parts of EU membership while jettisoning all that stuff about human rights and environmental standards. For the left-wing Brexit voter,this is going to be like sending your Christmas list up the chimney and finding the only wish you’re granted is the wheezing old stranger watching you sleep. And let's pause for a moment to imagine how badly Johnson, Davis and Fox are going to play with Europe's technocratic negotiators. Soon a UK citizen’s best chance of getting an EU passport will be showing Islamic State’s forgery department a full HGV license.
I was sure we’d never need Trident to stop other states from attacking us. But then Boris was made Foreign Secretary and I thought, ‘could be time for a rethink’. One thing we can be sure of, his translator’s going to be getting a fair few smacks in the mouth. It’s easy to underestimate his achievements, without Boris I doubt there’d be that ‘do not consume while pregnant’ warning on bottles of Pimm's. He’s undeniably a product of the public school system, the sort of kid whose parents’ evenings consisted of apologetic appearances by the butler. And it might be just as well: if he’d gone to a comprehensive he’d have been wedgied clean in two.
Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Labour Party is trying to replace Jeremy Corbyn after ten months, showing all the patience of Prince waiting for his paracetamol to kick in. We’re told Corbyn is useless, then he manages to put together a more competent cabinet out of his billiards partner, an ex-girlfriend, mirrors, and some masking tape than May did with the entire back catalogue of fee-paying education’s finest. It's weird to see the media cast him as a bully, and it might just be a simple case of projection. At the moment he’s re-enacting a Spanish bullfight. He’s a beige bull staggering around an allotment with a couple of dozen swords sticking out of him, heroically whispering, ‘Who wants a courgette, I’ve got a glut’.
Corbyn hasn't formed a strong opposition, say a parliamentary party who voted for renewing Trident, bombing Syria, and cutting benefits. Really what Labour MPs are selling is a sort of nihilism. They have grown up in a party where their core vote had no option but to vote for them, and where until recently members had little power. So they're going to go into a leadership election asking their members to, essentially, abandon hope. The only time most Labour MP’s are going to try and inspire the working class these days is if they need a new kitchen fitted for a short-notice dinner party.You have to wonder how they'd fare under the same media scrutiny as Corbyn, particularly after a week where the Syrian bombing they voted to get involved in killed 85 civilians and one of the rebel groups it was supposed to support beheaded a child.
In a way Labour are the only party reflecting the mood of the country, by loathing each other. Angela Eagle withdrew from the leadership race. There was nothing about her that suggested leadership – she looks like she’d shriek every time Putin entered a room and has the voice of a Collie locked in a hot car. Owen Smith was head of policy for Pfizer, but despite his best efforts there still aren't enough drugs in the world to make his election seem like a good idea. Smith looks like his most radical policy will be not wearing a tie to the park.
There are a lot of people in Britain who need radical ideas, because the status quo for them is simply not survivable. Even with the full weight of the media behind them, it's going to be very difficult for Labour to persuade such people that things can go on as they are, that there's a non-radical solution. Theresa May might find she has a similar problem managing the expectations of those who voted for Brexit. What we can be sure of is that all this is going to demand a lot of distraction and scapegoating, and personally speaking I can't wait to see which religion, race, class, country, gender, sexuality, human right or raft of drowning children our political class decides to blame next.
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