the French goat vote

Comrades,

Well, well, well, at long last, the final definitive results are in.
President E.Macron of France has achieved a very tidy majority in the Chamber of Deputies, picking up 350 seats in the 577 seat Parliament.
It would have been even higher if not for the turn out in la 2er tour being at a record low [almost 58% of eligible voters couldn't be bothered with it] with the French being sick to death of the Miracle of Democracy after voting for seemingly months on end, which allowed all sorts of rabble-rousers and fruitcakes to come out of the woodwork.
They've got their man, and now Macron has a rubber stamp National Assembly to do with which whatever he pleases.
His principal aim of utterly destroying M.Le Pen worked a treat, with Front National coming last among the six main political groupings and getting only a minuscule eight seats [you need 15 to be officially recognised as a "party" and be eligible for extra funding].
That ol' root-rat and former Pres. F.Hollande obviously left a pox on the House of Socialism; the Pinko voters largely fled to Macron, although J-L.Mélenchon's communists managed to win 17 seats.
Here's the last map from the ever helpful French Interior Ministry...another poor fractured atlas...but it gives you an idea of the extraordinary sweep Macron has made of the countryside.
But, you have to like the tiny corner in the north near the border with Belgium where one constituency is crazed far-right, while the one next door is solid Commo.
And in Paris, one deeply Conservative patch somewhere up there in the 18th & 19th arr. is completely surrounded by rabid Reds.
How does that work?
How do they get on?
[note: click on image to enlarge]

In the lead up to the second round of the Parliamentary election, many pundits thought that punters would vote for a "donkey, goat or hippopotamus" if she/he/it/they were standing as a candidate for La République En Marche!

And so it turned out.
It is excellent to see a record number [223] of women elected to the French Parliament from all sides, many of them only in their 20's...here's the youngest...24 year old Typhanie Degois - the benjamine-elect [baby] of the Assembly - who is a fully paid up En Marche! member and will represent all the grumbling residents of Savoie there in the Alps next to Switzerland.
She's popular for the time being with the local papers, by all reports.

And Macron also had plenty of left-field candidates in the mix, including this MP-elect, "maths whizz" Cedric Villani - who at 43 is four years older than the President - and will represent the down-trodden folk of Essonne just to the south of Paris.
It's either a "what were they thinking?" moment, or that must be where all the wild & crazy dudes hang out, right?

Spooky.
Imagine him comin' at ya down the corridors of the Halls of Power?
With his get-up and credentials as a mathematician par excellence, he'd be the ideal candidate for the En Marche! party Chief Whip on the floor of the Assembly [not that Macron needs one with his majority!]
In the final paralysis, wiser heads have prevailed.
Go you good things.

world champion vote-buyers

Comrades,

I doubt there's a democracy in the world [apart from India, perhaps] where an exercise in the Miracle of Democracy takes three weeks - that's the election, not the campaign - but then you have our good friends in Papua New Guinea.
Since independence from an 'international protectorate' run by Australia in 1975, these folk have form, and plenty of it, when it comes to the vote.
In a country of nine million people [so there would have to be more than four million voters you'd think] the logistical nightmare in getting ballot boxes out to remote provinces and islands, where they'd be lucky to see anyone from the Govt. for months at a time, is a great mind-boggler.
How do they do it?
Given the stupendous terrain, for some folk it would be a walk of a day or two just to get to the nearest polling station, which surely must bring the "why bother?" factor in to play, even for people used to going everywhere by foot.
Then, getting the completed ballot papers back to wherever they are counted in a fair state of condition opens up another Pandora's Box altogether.
They have mastered the dark arts of a Westminster system that's ripe for any amount of hank-panky and jiggery-pokery.
They couldn't even agree when to start the vote, which was meant to happen on Sunday, but it was put off for a day, after complaints of ballot papers going all over the shop so some candidates were at risk of filling out their own, and then they called off voting in The Highlands on the Monday after some candidates were accused of being in collusion with electoral officials.
Never mind that many electoral officials are seen to be corrupt to the bootstraps, or the widespread gerrymandering of electorates, or the disenfranchisement of genuine voters for no apparent reason, and the puffing up of electoral rolls with "ghost" voters...it's all par for the course.
Nothing unusual.
Situation normal.
The Govt. has sent 1,000 heavily-armed troops with plenty of ammo to The Highlands just to make sure everything runs smoothly, when the polls eventually open.
It's well know that PNG politicians are perhaps the world champions of vote buying, with candidates vying with each other to see how many swine they need to deliver to a village to secure a clean sweep of the local vote.
Some don't even bother with that traditional method, and just straight-out buy votes - for good old fashioned cash money.
Tell me what's wrong with that?
Wish it happened here.
I'd be happy to sell my soul to the Devil if someone asked nicely.
So, it's comforting to know that the Melanesian Spearhead Group [MSG] has bought in former Solomon Islands Prime Minister, Sir Francis Billy Hilly, to head the team of international observers to make sure there is no vote-rigging whatsoever and that everything is all above board.
The election campaign has been variously described as "long", "lively", "rancourous", "turbulent", "bitter"...there are hundreds of candidates in the fray for the 111 seat Parliament, with most, it would seem, intent on ousting the immensely unpopular Prime Minister Peter O'Neil from power - he's seeking a second term in office - on the general platform of "vote the bastard out!".
O'Neil, you'll remember, carries an enormous amount of baggage as leader of the People's National Congress Party.
A few years back now, he was accused of siphoning off around $US30 from the public purse into his own back pocket and then slipping a few dodgy Australian dollars across to some of his best friends.
So what did he do?
In a "way ahead of his time" moment, O'Neil did a DJ Trump! and sacked the investigator - the police commissioner in charge of such investigations - along with a host of disloyal deputy police commissioners, and oddly enough, nothing has been seen or heard of it since; nothing at all.
Funny, like that.
But the whispering continues in the background as his opponents claim, by rights, that the dude should be in jail, but they can't pin the rap on him.
O'Neil also pulled off a bloodless coup back in 2011, putting troops on the streets of the capital, when the No.1 Big Man of PNG politics, Sir Michael Somare, who'd been going 'round for decades, started to call him all sorts of names and tried to usurp him as Prime Minister.
Now, that's form.
Ol' Pete certainly knows how to use strong-arm tactics, and he plays his politics dirty.
Blind Freddy can see that.
But there's still no shortage of mud-slingers out there prepared to call a spade a spade, crikey, even the 71-year-old Sir Mekere Morauta has been coaxed out of a quiet retirement to have another go in the seat of Port Morseby North West, because there is no-one else in PNG who hates O'Neil's guts more.
The Official Leader of The Opposition, Don Polye, of the Triumph Heritage Empowerment Party [an old mate of O'Neil's until there was just one too many almighty shitfights, followed by a terminal falling out] has a chance...but only if he can cobble together a rag-tag coalition of Moratu's mob, Sam Basil's Pangu Pati Party, those in favour of the People's Progress Party leader Ben Micah, and the whirlpool of myriad independent MP's with strong local followings deeply rooted in tribal factionalism and clan loyalty.
That's a lot easier said than done, in a country where political patronage is a way of life, a national sport.
It'll be a close run thing whatever happens, but things aren't expected to change that much.
Whatever the meaning of a 'free and fair election' is on the other side of the Torres Strait, it should always be taken with a grain of salt.
Still, you have to love the way Polye does his retail politics; sometimes you just can't get on the campaign trail without a helicopter:

Photo: Wanpis Ako

the consummate retail politician

Comrades,

Have you ever got a pad of 25 monogrammed shopping lists from your local MP?
I have.
Last week, the great Linda Burney, MHR for Barton sent me one.
Pearler of an idea.
Obviously, she found she still had a fair bit of the very generous "postal allowance" granted to members of Federal Parliament left over before the end of the financial year
So to her credit, she put it to good use providing something that's actually useful for the electorate, instead of the usual EOFY letter from the local member saying "Look at me! Look at me! Fark, I'm good! Just ask me!"
Instead, every time you go to the shops, there's her face and phone number on the list, just to remind you who's running the show in these parts.
And with complete assurance too, knowing that at the last Federal election, she won an already pretty heavily Pinko electorate in a land-slide, single-handedly turning Barton into one of the safest Labor seats in the country.
Go, you good thing; never mind that Linda is also the first Aboriginal woman to have ever been elected to the lower house - she is also the consumate retail politician.
During the campaign I would often see her standing outside my local railway station handing out how-to-vote cards and engaging in deep conversation with any punter who may have wanted to accost her.
She can talk the leg off a table; that's the truth.
Also appearing in my letter box was a Linda Burney monogrammed fridge magnet with a 2018 calendar on it, so the voters are able to look way forward to the future with certainty.
Every time they open their fridge door, there she is.
Who needs 'social media'?
Ahhh, the Miracle of Democracy...

point proved, mission accomplished

Comrades,

I note that Tory Tessa, having shot herself in the foot, leaves the country.
Where to, you ask?
Gay Paree, no less.
Not that wise you would have thought considering the ongoing tête-à-tête vis-à-vis following the disastrous British General Election; "while the cat's away, the mice will play", you know, that sort of thing.
To mix a metaphor, "the sharks are circling", Madame PM.
Of course E.Macron has been the complete gentleman about it all, hosting her at a 'working' dinner at the Élysée Palace to gently thrash out some moot points over a glass of thumping good claret, before popping on over to Stade de France for a footy match.
A friendly one.
The score?
Appropriately, France 3 England 2.
On matters of more import; said it before, say it again - E.Macron a political novice? What complete and utter poppycock.
He knows exactly what he is doing.
Came up with this crazy dream of an idea, now called La République en Marche, a year ago, to everyone's surprise, except himself.
E.Macron knows damn well he was born to be Président de la République, he just needed to pick the right time - so he went early, with the sole aim of destroying M.Le Pen at the ballot box.
Appealing to the French sensibility of comfortable stability, he did that with ease, and the day after he was elected as the No.1 Boss Cocky, what does he do? - goes straight back into campaigning mode for the election of the Assemblée Nationale, with the aim of further grinding Front Nationale into the dust and rubbing their faces into it, which he proceeds to do in a landslide to end all landslides.
Apart from the intractable rustbelt of the north, and the odd Commo enclave, it's pretty much a clean sweep.
Not happy, Marine?

After the 2er tour, En Marche is expected to take between 415 and 445 seats in a 577 seat parliament.
Talk about an absolute majority!
Never mind the lowest turn out at the polls since 1958; the French have got their man, and they're suffering from election fatigue.
M.Le Pen is expected to be elected to what is now a "rubber stamp" Chamber [the first time the far-right lunatic with extensive baggage has been elected to anything at all], but the fascists are tipped to wind up with no more than one to five seats...that's not even a rump party, you need 15 seats for that...that's annihilation followed by exile into total political irrelevance.
E.Macron's point proved, mission accomplished.
Now Le Kid, the "man of the people", can just get on with it, while the British Prime Minister would be well advised to keep her Tory mouth shut.

if you want a friend in Westminster, get a dog

Comrades,

Theresa May note to self:

"There is no such thing as 'friends' in Northern Ireland; if you want a friend in Westminster, get a dog".


You'll need one Tessa.
You have no 'friends' left in the Conservative party.
In one fell swoop, you've managed to destroy their guaranteed three-year majority in an entirely unnecessary election, putting party above state in a naked grab for power, which we now know backfired in an awfully spectacular fashion.
Never, ever, underestimate the electorate's ability to see straight through you.
She's managed to turn the House of Commons into an ugly unwieldy outrageous uncontrollable rabble.
If there's one thing the Tories don't do it's get angry; they get furious.
To say that Tory Tess is a "dead woman walking" - as no less than five serving Ministers of the Crown have said in private over the Queen's Birthday long weekend - is a serious understatement.
Can't remember the last British PM who stuck around for just 11 months in office, before getting it in the neck from her own kind.
That's what happens when you deliver a hung Parliament.
Minority government is not fun Ms May, you should give Julia Gillard a ring - she'll tell you.
And just who are Tessa's 'friends' in Northern Ireland, anyway?
The 'right-wing ultra-conservative' Democratic Unionist Party, that's who.
These people have form, and lots of it.
Founded back in '71 by that crazed protestant fundamentalist, the Rev. Ian Paisley; the worst, ugliest, bitterest, nastiest wackjob in British politics in living memory.
A ghastly and appalling human being, who operated under the cloak of the clergy, for gawd's sake.
By rights the DUP should be banned.
Although they won't tell you, they still have direct links with the outlawed Ulster Defence Association (UDA), also known as the Ulster Freedom Fighters, who along with the Ulster Volunteer Force, all answered to the terrorist organisation known as the Combined Loyalist Military Command during the almost quarter-century long "Troubles".
Of course, these dudes were the arch-enemies of another paramilitary gun-toting bomb-throwing terrorist organisation, known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and both sides had political wings throughout.
What a great bunch of mates the DUP will be, as the Sinn Féin MP's still to this very day refuse to sit in the House of Commons as a matter of principle.
They want no part of it.
These people, Tess, are not to be fucked with under any circumstances whatsoever, and are not that flash a crowd to be seen in the company of.
Light the blue touchpaper, and stand well clear.
To give you some idea, here's the Rev. Paisley back in the day, having changed out of his dog-collar and into his full campaigning clobber.

Enough said.
On a lighter note, as Britarse affairs of state go down the S-Bend, at least it's pleasing to see that the the Miracle of Democracy in the British Isles still allows for, nay, encourages eccentricity.
I have very fond memories of the late, great Screaming Lord Sutch, Leader of Official Monster Raving Loony Party [OMRLP] who spent his entire political career mercilessly skewering and lampooning self-important politicians, the arses of which the sun shone out of.
I think Lord Sutch still holds the world record for contesting the most number of elections without ever being elected to anything.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party [est. 1983] is, of course, not to be confused with the upstart Raving Loony Green Giant Party, a faction of the OMRLP, that splintered off from the original party in 1989, or the Rock 'n' Roll Loony Party, which also broke away from the OMRLP, following the death of Screaming Lord Sutch in 1999.
The current leader of the OMRLP is Howling Laud Hope, who at age 74 campaigning on a platform of "vote for insanity" snared 119 votes in Tory Tessa's seat of Maidenhead; a very creditable 0.2% of the vote, after a howling good campaign.
But, here's the OMRLP's candidate in Red Jerry's constituency of Islington North, Knigel Knapp, hanging about trying to get in camera shots while the vote is being counted.

I have absolutely no idea what the Independent candidate Mr Fishfinger is on about, but you would imagine that he is a major-leauge supporter of battered British haddock, or perhaps he is more in favour of the European Union line on crumbed and deep fried seafood extender.
And chips
I could be wrong.
But here is the candidate himself in the Westmoorland & Lonsdale tally room, as he anxiously awaited the results.

With this mob going 'round, anything could, and will, happen.
Bless.

Gavel, the Vice Royal Dog, an Official photo-essay

Comrades,

As the British polity goes into a whirring tail spin, I'm guessing the Poms will take comfort from the fact that the Britarse Monarchy still reigns supreme here in the Colonies.
Crikey!
It's been brought to my attention that a six month old "big goober", who disgraced himself and was kicked out of the Queensland Police Academy, has been given a regal title, for failing so miserably in the service of the State.
Gavel VRD (Vice-Royal Dog) is being kept by the Hon. Mrs Kaye de Jersey, and His Excellency The Governor of Queensland The Hon. Paul de Jersey AC, QC. for their, and their servant's and guest's amusement at the splendid Government House in Brisbane.
Here's the Goober with His Exc...

The vice-regalness of the hound, of course, deserves a Royal Salute.

And doesn't Gavel the Goober just love to go on parade, surprising people with his suitably ridiculous costume.

Unsurprisingly, Gavel has a Facebook page.
Queenie would have been the first to find out, via vice-regal cable.
As the personal keeper of a large pack of nasty in-bred Welsh corgi's, of course Her Maj would approve.
They'd pick the meat from your bones if given half a chance.
Lizzy would be aghast, however, that Britain appears to be going the same way as Australia: the most unstable democracy in the South Pacific.
The only quote of any meaning I could derive from the current tête-à-têtes post the General Election in the Mother Country is from an interview given by J.Corbyn after the game to the effect "Tory Tessa is toast", followed by a jolly good damn gloat.
Who on earth would have thought that a dyed-in-the-wool Ol' Commo could attract the Labour Party's biggest ever vote since the end of the Second Fucking World War?!
Now that's unbelievable.
Ahh...the Miracle of Democracy...it's perfectly fine for the electorate to go utterly bonkers, they've got form.
As Red Jerry would no doubt also tell you, 'the workers, united, will never be defeated!!' - it's all there, the vote, and it's all up for grabs.
At 68 years of age, he's ready to serve the people.

(Pictures supplied: Government House, Brisbane, QLD)

Red Jerry & The Bomb

Comrades,

It warmed the heart of this ol' Drinker for Disarmament to hear that Red Jerry won't pull the trigger on the The Bomb if he is elected as the UK's next Prime Minister.
The Hon J.Corbyn doesn't need the Foreign Policy Numbers just at the minute in the first instance.
The Tories were trying desperately to dredge up some dirt on the bloke, and the only thing they could come up with was uncovering the fact that Jeremy joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) as a tender yoof [16] in 1966, and has remained true to the cause for all these years, currently holding the CND's post of Vice-President.

Corbyn says he'll be implementing a "no first strike" policy if he comes to power, never mind that letting off nukes would be "disastrous for the planet".
That good old wackjob Foreign Secretary and Minister for Stark Raving Buffoons, Boris Johnson, cried out in Conservative horror that Jezza's position is "chilling" and would "void" the current £20 billion upgrade of the Trident II D-5 nuclear missile system.
Did I hear right?
£20 billion?
I knew very well that The Bomb don't come cheap, but that'd buy a shitload of schools and hospitals, not to mention boosting wages for the workers and providing much needed relief for the poor, the stricken, the dispossessed and even "re-nationalising the Royal Mail" for gawd's sake, etc.
It'd be mad of the Ol' Pinko to want or need to fire first.
Corbyn didn't need to justify himself, and didn't, but might as well have said in his defence that he doesn't see the UK appearing to be a nuclear target by France, Russia, the former Britarse Empire, the USA, Israel, and everybody trash talkin' China and whoever else has a nuke under the bed, in the foreseeable future, and he'd also be thinking the British Isles would be well out of the range of North Korea.
And what have the Poms done to upset Fatboy Kim lately, anyway?
Red Jerry would also probably scale back the Trident's stupendous waste of precious resources; in the extremely unlikely and absolutely remote chance that someone did drop the Big One on you, you'd just need a couple of nuclear-armed subs floating around out there somewhere on the Wild Blue Yonder to say "stop it!", not a whole fleet.
Of course the other way around it is to secretly dismantle Britain's entire stock of about 125 operational thermo-nuclear war-heads (plus the 130 in reserve), pretend you've still got them, keep the Red Button (or whatever colour it is), don't tell anyone, and then no-one will be any the wiser.
Skeaky diplomacy.
Imagine the savings?
Brill!
So on that policy plank alone, I can only urge my friends in the Old Dart to Vote 1 Labour on Thursday, and remember, wherever you are on polling day, in the grand Strayan tradition, vote early, vote often.

the "Coalition of Chaos"

Fellow sunseekers,

The first day of winter in the Antipodes, and it dawned on me that that must mean it's summer in the northern climes, and that's certainly a lovely time of year to give the Miracle of Democracy a whirl in the Heart of The Empire.
A week to go to that hastily-cobbled-together early UK General Election.
Note that Tessa May could have done a Rich Dude trick here by being stupidly overconfident in the will of the people.
When Brexit Tess ran it up the flagpole, the Conservatives had an unbeatable lead of 24 points in the opinion polls, but since then the "unelectable" Jeremy Corbin has narrowed the gap considerably, despite, or perhaps because of his nakedly Pinko policy platform.
While he has next to no hope of achieving a simple majority in the House of Commons, I am rather taken with the now-hyped concept of the "Coalition of Chaos", that could well upset the Tory applecart.
To get to Number 10, the hopelessly splintered [there was a failed leadership challenge just nine months ago] Labour Party would have to get a rather large unweildy rag-bag of various Scottish & Irish nationalists, the policy-vacant Lib-Dems, some unreformed-Trot tree-huggers, and the usual collection of maybe-left-leaning-don't-know-can't-decide loops and loons to rally in behind them, and tip out the latter-day Margaret Thatcher.
No easy task, no siree.

My father rarely talked about politics, but when asked who he would vote for, he would usually reply "never trust a cold water man".
Well, there's not much to see here...May is a well known piss-pot with a chronic hangover problem [she should read Tony Blair's autobiography in which he describes the burden of office driving him to drink], crikey, Tess - when asked recently in a radio interview about her proposed alcohol tax regime - could not estimate how many standards drinks she guzzles a week.
Red Jeremy - being a good working class man - likes to go the pub to indulge in some retail politics and does not mind a drink in a crisis.
But, on the basis on these two photographs from the campaign trail of the party leaders in iconic British poses, which politician would you trust?