In which the pond offers a double dose of hole in the bucket man while suffering from font phobia ...

 

The thrill has gone, and the pond has begun to sound like a reptile, whining and moaning about the new layout, and with a severe case of font phobia ...

What's with all the images? Why must the pond scan the headlines, only to discover that there's nothing to be found at the top of the page about the big debate or the British elections?

As for "Politics Now", the pond is inclined to go "cartoons now" ...

It's true that the pond will be following this game plan in relation to the debate ...

... but isn't the lizard Oz supposed to be the far right ratbag newspaper of record? 

Or are the reptiles experiencing colonial angst now that their American kissing cousins backing of Ron DeSanctimonious has made them heretics in the eyes of the orange Jesus?

Never mind, the pond was inordinately proud when reading Martin Kettle's Tories blame Sunak for this implosion, but they are fooling themselves. The rot goes back decades, in particular this:

..The election belongs more to campaign consultants than to voters. In the past two decades, the Conservatives have spent millions on consultants like Lynton Crosby, Mark Textor and, today, Isaac Levido. Their stock in trade, honed in Australian elections, is to use divisive cultural issues to drive wedges into their opponents’ support, pulling the centre of gravity in campaigns to the right. They are both a symptom and a cause of the debauching of politics.

There was a link to a Levido profile:

Isaac Levido: The Australian political strategist and former protege of Lynton Crosby ran the Conservatives’ 2019 election campaign with very obvious success. This time could prove more difficult. Levido, who runs his own private consultancy, Fleetwood Strategy, has influence. He is thought to have been behind Sunak’s U-turn on net zero targets. He has been trusted to brief Conservative MPs, urging them to stop the infighting and unite. Levido reportedly warned against a July poll. It remains to be seen if Sunak should have listened to him.

It fair brought a patriotic tear to the pond's eye,  Australians fucking up politics and the planet around the world...

As for the reptile offerings for the day, there was the usual serve of our Henry, and the pond supposes it must get on with it, but really, isn't the whole 'nuking the country to save the planet' now done to death?

Trust the turgid one to arrive late, and then bore the socks and stockings off everyone, though the pond's stomach began to heave as it tried to get through the bizarre mix of serifs and sans serifs...

Remarkably there was a singular lack of references to Thucydides or other ancients in this serve, and in lieu there was a plethora of videos and snaps ...

Why on earth did the reptiles feature the onion munching "climate change is crap" man? 

Why is he interested in nuking the country? Has he forgotten that climate change is crap and there's no need to do anything about it, because we'll all end up in a heavenly seminary in the bye and bye?

The snaps were equally uninteresting, stock images rolled out according to cue ...

The pond supposes there's some grim humour to see the hole in the bucket man, in best Dame Groan style, double down and insist on the joys of a government-subsidised spending program on nuking the country ...

The pond began to yearn for the days when our Henry would smite and smote climate zealots, as he did here not so long ago, with suitable period graphic as the opener ...

That's more like it, that's the spirit, that's the style, giving greenie zealotry an exemplary pummelling. 

And the importance of costing policy initiatives, let's not forget that ... unless you happen to be wanting to nuke the country to save the planet ... or unless you begin to have doubts ...

Oh dear, and yet back in the day, berating the zealots seemed simple, right, just and proper ... and dammit, there was an entirely appropriate reverting to the seventeenth century, in classic pompous Henry style ...

Ah, the perfidious French in their true guise ...

Meanwhile, back in the present, our Henry suddenly suffered an NBN trauma ... what if they did decide to nuke the country and what if it might result in a cost overrun? Best hedge bets and lay in a little verbal camouflage ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, there's the dangers in thinking aloud and then typing it down. The pond began to have visions of a gigantic nuking of the country's budget.

That said, the pond did admire the insouciant style of our Henry, dismissing the CSIRO report, while stringently avoiding any figures of his own ...

How much simpler and easier it was back in the day when nuking climate zealots and teenagers ...

That line about implementing the demands of zealots being costly has an ironic ring to it, but the pond was impressed at the way this latter day hole in the bucket man stringently avoided any analysis of actual costs ... and instead ended with a bleat ...

That's it, that's the best he's got, that's his best shot? 

An adage, and a cry for rigorous, objective and transparent analysis?

It would seem that in this outing our Henry has definitely lost his Thucydides mojo. Let's hope that it's not permanent, because the entire point of reading the terminally pompous bore is to enjoy the pomposity of his references. If the arcane one can't work in a reference to a Richard Allestree, what's the point? Our Henry wears his learning heavily, and the stolidity he offers is a joy to behold ...

Of course hasten slowly is the entire point of the current enterprise... abandon renewables, and nuke the county in the sweet bye and bye and all will be well ... and the climate zealots will be left moaning and wailing in the wilderness ...asking What's next for the Climate Change Authority under Matt Kean's leadership?

As for the rest of the news, the pond still harbours grudges for the way that Assange played a useful idiot role in the matters of Vlad the sociopath and getting the orange Jesus elected the first time around, and with an apology for offering a double dose of our Henry - blame the format, blame the font - on the other hand, let the cartoonists have the final word, or image if you will ...