the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

political minnows indeed.

Breaking: the reshuffle's big shock - Jeremy Hunt refused a move to BEIS to insist he stay on as Health Sec with a beefed up brief of social care too. https://t.co/9zrScUDg19

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) January 8, 2018

The reshuffle is now in serious trouble. Hunt was supposed to emerge from No10 as the new Business Secretary. Appears Greg Clark has refused to budge.

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) January 8, 2018

i breathlessly await the third tweet, which will contradict the first two

Jeremy Hunt to Real Madrid for an undisclosed fee

Down with the guy who immediately responded to the Sky News Jeremy Hunt tweet with 'GIVE IT GIGGSY FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON'

heh

well played

I wonder which lucky person gets Sec of State for Work and Pensions. Repping for Universal Credit probably isn't much fun, but cheer up you won't last more than 6 months.

[some punchline about PIP assessments]

never seen someone more obviously relieved and delighted to undergo lung surgery than james brokenshire

it sounds like it is Justine Greening who has knocked back DWP this morning, and she still isn't budging.

can't believe there are no real Tory MPs out there ready to step up to the plate and kill a few more poor people

Now that we are above Romania in the child food scarcity league, we need someone to build on this momentum.

child food insecurity, i should have said

John Redwood is still an MP ffs, surely he'd love a shot at this

Greening has just quit.

why didn't i buy popcorn on the way home tonight?

Ouch pic.twitter.com/orBKDPrgZe

— Alex Wickham (@WikiGuido) January 8, 2018

Just seen a consignment of Very Strong Kool Aid delivered to no 10, the other batch has stopped working.

I wonder why no fucker wants to have their name associated with grinding poverty and a mountain of disabled deaths, what kind of Tories are these lily-livered Liberals in disguise?

Just saw Dennis Wise trending, he could do a job.

Probably a little too right wing even for this lot.

Esther McVey, yep she's hideous enough and probably a true believer.

She was deputy to IDS, lest we forget.

I wonder if Philippa Forrester ever takes a break from rescuing wild otters to take an envious look at her former co-presenter? Doubt it somehow.

She's in a Tory safe seat, so being the public face of UC + PIP will probably increase her majority.

lol! that CBBC presenter history of McVey is new to me, I was just slightly too old for that era. I'd like to think Josie Jump is made out of better stuff than her though.

She was friends with a former colleague who invited us both to a very pissed and stoned barbecue in Mildmay Park c. early/mid ‘90s.

Any of signs of the creature she has become, back then?

She was a bit Karen Millen sale in terms of style, but not an overt Tory (or even political). OTOH friend who invited her was from deepest milltown Lancashire and very Old Labour, so I doubt they remain friends now.

Newsnight just ridiculously irrelevant these days

― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 13 December 2017 22:44 (three weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

qft. just WOW at this stage.

programme was 90% Malta, Oprah and BBC pay on the day of the catastrophic cabinet reshuffle.

🐦[Breaking: the reshuffle’s big shock - Jeremy Hunt refused a move to BEIS to insist he stay on as Health Sec with a beefed up brief of social care too. https://t.co/9zrScUDg19🕸
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) January 8, 2018🕸]🐦

RIP Toby Young, poor one out

The real big story on Today is the proposed banning of antique ivory on the antiques roadshow #frontlinenews

Didn't expect Young to resign so quickly - how nice! Makes Johnson, May and other apologists look thicker than ever.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/The_Sun_%28Gotcha%29.png

Following his appointment to the OfS, Mr Young deleted up to 40,000 tweets posted since 2009, including references to the size of women's breasts.

i feel like having forty thousand tweets at all should in itself be enough to prevent you from holding a role in government, let alone having to delete that many objectionable ones ffs

Piers Morgan said Mr Young had been forced out by the "howling Twitter mob".

"I don't defend his more offensive tweets or columns," the Good Morning Britain presenter wrote, "but I do think he would have brought a valuable and distinctive perspective to university education."

cunt recognise cunt

don't think this is the time for easing up, let's drive him out of the country

and into the arms of the grim reaper, ideally

bingo

Obviously, all power to the elbow of those who would viciously hunt down and persecute Toby Young beyond the limits of human endurance. But it might also be useful to examine the credentials of the other people appointed to this regulator, and what their agenda is likely to be.

The future looks bleak tbh

The @toadmeister affair means any non-vanilla contrarian - @gilescoren , @TheRodLiddle - is presumed barred from public work,for life. Grim.

— Libby Purves (@lib_thinks) January 9, 2018

judging by this follow up tweet from 40 minutes later, the argument "Toby Young being forced out might also prevent Giles Coren and Rod Liddle from taking high profile roles with public bodies" wasn't as persuasive as she hoped

God, tweeple today, your're a nasty bunch of moral fascists with no belief in redemption, shades of grey, irony or forgiveness!

— Libby Purves (@lib_thinks) January 9, 2018

if making gross discriminatory public comments about people you might be expected to serve bars you from public service we really are in the end times

may we be shown weirdos + mike love?

I presume that following Toby Young's removal, that anybody who has ever wished Tories to be dead or celebrated the death of Mrs Thatcher will be barred from any public office?

— Mike Love (@therealitygap) January 9, 2018

The fact that Toby Young was manifestly unqualified for this job appears to have gone unremarked-upon by his defenders. Nope, it's all about the baying mob.

Also I hate Giles Coren but bundling him in with Young and Rod Liddle is nigh-on defamatory.

yeah he's a tesco value liddle if anything, it's an insult to rod's decades of dedicated cuntery