The Art Of Politics: February – All The Usual Lies, Hypocrisy And Privilege, Just Now With Added War
by Richard Bruton
The Art of Politics – pulling the very best political cartooning together to prove the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. And in politics, a cartoon hits harder than anything.
Well, we’re just two months into 2022 and what’s been happening? Oh yes, there’s a war in Europe – who had that in their 2022 sweepstakes?
Meanwhile… Partygate continues to dominate Brit politics here and Prince Andrew is busy giving money to a woman he’s never met. Oh, and Wordle.
We’ve had plague for the last couple of years, here comes the next horseman…
Russia invaded Ukraine. We have a war in Europe.
There are no words that can really cover the horror of what it means to have to witness the war breaking out that’s been on the cards as long as Putin has been in charge.
Martin Rowson – on the oh so effective diplomatic moves by the UK
Steve Bell – Macron’s visit to Russia for Ukraine crisis talks with Putin
and another from David Rowe –
Kal –
Okay then… well, with Russia and Ukraine at war, the other news seems minor by now, here at the end of the month. But there was some…
24 Hour Conservative Party People
Well, after dominating the headlines all the way through January, the whole partygate thing wasn’t going away in February.
If you’ve been under a rock, a quick reminder. In 2020 & 2021, during the countrywide lockdown and strict no mixing with other households rules that we had, the people in power decided they were above all that. Well, not quite true – the Queen observed the rules when she had the funeral for her husband. But 10 Downing Street, the staff, ministers, and good old floppy-haired tosspot, our glorious Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, were busy having parties, social gatherings, drinks inside Downing Street and in the gardens.
There’s a report into the whole sorry mess from civil servant Sue Gray, or at least there should be, but after the Met Police reversed their previous position that they don’t retroactively investigate crimes (yeah, let that one sink in for a moment,) they’re now conducting an investigation into what, if any, rules were broken.
Basically – shit show, arrogance, entitlement, hypocrisy = the British government.
Kevin Crossley – not a political cartoonist, but always good when 2000 AD artists get involved…
The always spot-on Stephen Collins from The Guardian –
Look over there! Look over there! – the new UK government policy?
While everything was coming out about the parties and the blatant disregard for the rules they’d imposed on everyone else, the British Prime Minister accused the leader of the opposition, Kier Starmer, of failing in his duties back when he was the leader of the Crown Prosecution Service and nothing was done about Jimmy Saville’s crimes.
When everyone (including some of Bozza’s own staff) pointed out what a shit move this was and that Boris was just repeating various right-wing conspiracy theories, he stepped up and apologised absolutely refused to withdraw the comments. (BBC)
Steve Bell – pointing out the obvious about the Tory party and Saville. (Independent)
Oh yes, there was the Winter Olympics… and there was a bit of a Russia issue there as well…
The Winter Olympics, Beijing 2022. First of all there was the strange thing of it being a Winter Olympics where there was no natural snow, so the Chinese created a minor environmental catastrophe by having to use 49 million gallons of water to create fake snow – despite being the most water-scarce city in the world. Then of course we have the continued issues of major sporting events ignoring issues of human rights abuses – and it’s not just China here, we’ve got the 2022 World Cup in Quatar to come as well.
Chris Britt – on the way the International Olympic Committee has skated over the human rights issues…
And a fair number of cartoonists took on the Russia/Ukraine issue as well…
Morten Morland again –
And then Peter Brookes with his own Olympic coverage…
And then we had the problem of Russia and drugs. AGAIN.
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had banned the Russian Federation back in 2019 from ALL major sporting events for four years because of state sponsored systemic doping. Frankly, four years was ridiculously lenient, but that didn’t stop the Court of Arbitration for Sport buckling under pressure from Russia and reducing it to two years.
Ridiculously, part of the deal was that Russian athletes could still compete if they did so under a neutral flag and if they were referred to only as the ROC, standing for the Russian Olympic Committee. This immediately fell by the wayside – Russian athletes with the Russian flag on their kit, TV and media constantly referring to the team as Russian, it was obvious that this was a pointless, toothless act.
So… it was no bloody surprise to find out that a Russian athlete was found to be doping. But this wasn’t an ordinary athlete, this was the 15-year-old skater, Kamila Valieva, who’d tested positive in December for a banned substance. Strangely, the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (and yes, I was surprised to find out they had one as well) only got word of the positive test on 8th February – conveniently once the Olympics had already begun. From there, it was chaos. She was provisionally suspended, someone appealed, she was un-suspended, the The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and WADA launched an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport to get the provisional ban re-imposed. Like I say… chaos.
At this point, Valieva had already been part of the Russian team that took gold in figure skating. The IOC, WADA, and Christ knows who else decided they had to let her compete in the individuals.
Not surprisingly, seeing as this is a 15-year-old CHILD, she only made 4th in the individuals, something the IOC was no doubt happily relieved about, seeing as they’d decided not to award medals if she came in the first three. Seeing Valieva fall apart in her routine and then sob as she left the ice was awful.
Robin Cousins, Great Britain 1980 figure skating Olympic champion, in commentary during the event summed it up perfectly:
Someone thought having her do that was better than having her go home to her family and to wait and sort this out, knowing she could have two more Olympics ahead of her.
Essentially, the ROC, the IOC, WADA, all of them are at fault – and it’s a 15-year-old child who’s paying the price.
Ann Telnaes – following The Washington Post’s report on the Russian ice skating coach, Eteri Tutberidze, whose methods have a “reputation for running an unforgiving and risky program that critics say drives to stardom and then discards teenage skaters, who have left the sport with severe injuries and reported lasting eating disorders.”
Can Andrew Windsor get out of a court case? No sweat.
Okay, slightly different now… you know how we talk about a picture painting a thousand words and all that? Well, just sometimes a headline can just utterly skewer an issue. And yes, it can sometimes come from the least likely sources…
Yep, that says pretty much all you needed to know.
Oh, the saga of Prince Andrew, accused of sexual abuse by Virginia Giuffre in a US civil case. It’s all tied up with Andy’s pal, Jeffrey Epstein, and Ghislaine Maxwell, Andy’s former ‘friend,’ who was found guilty of recruiting and trafficking underage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein.
Giuffre says she was the victim of sex trafficking and abuse by Epstein from the age of 16 – and that included be lent out to other powerful men – including Prince Andrew, whom she accuses of sexually assaulted her on three occasions when she was under the age of 18.
Luckily for Andrew, he’s rich (although of course even that’s a bit nebulous.) And that means he can afford to pay out an undisclosed sum (but the speculation runs somewhere upwards of £7 million) to Giuffre, including a ‘substantial donation’ to Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights.’ The Queen is said to have paid £2 million to Giuffre’s charity as part of Andy’s settlement. And of course, there’s no admission of liability by Andy.
And it wasn’t all Andrew either – as there were some troublesome bit of “cash for honours” allegations for Prince Charles as well.
Meanwhile… the USA still has a problem with Trump
Well, obviously there was a hell of a lot of the Russia/Ukraine coverage from various US cartoonists, but there’s also still a hell of a lot of coverage of ex-Prez, Trump.
Ann Telnaes – on the former president repeatedly violating the Presidential Records Act by continuously shredding documents, flushing them down toilets, and removing them to Mar-a-Largo. (Vanity Fair)
Nick Anderson does a little compare and contrast –
Kal –
Masks are still causing a problem – of course they are.
The latest strange twist in the whole mask mandate thing came when eight Republican senators were urging the Justice Department to reject a request to create a no fly list for unruly passengers. It comes in the wake of an increase in abuse and violence on flights down to passengers refusing to wear masks. (The Hill & CNN)
Again, it’s the whole thing of a certain type of American equating being told to do something they don’t agree with as an attack on their freedoms. To the extent where some of them think it’s just fine to protest the mask mandate on aircraft by assaulting the staff. For people outside the USA, it’s one of those moments where we think… well, you attacked the flight crew, presumably scared your fellow travellers at the same time… if you did that in a pub or a bar, you’d be barred. So, what the hell is different here?
Anyway, here’s Jack Ohman on that…
And while we’re talking mask mandates, you get this from Tom Stiglich –
Yep, that is genuinely a thing that people think.
I could spend a few thousand words screaming into the wind about the insanity of the idea.
Alternatively… Matt Davies making the correct point about the masks in schools issue…
Maus
We’ve covered this already (here) but the cartoonists did take on the issue of the Tennessee school board voting to remove Art Spiegelman‘s acclaimed holocaust graphic novel Maus from the 8th Grade language arts curriculum.
