The Art Of Politics: April – A Complete Shower Of War, Greed, Hypocrisy, Corruption And Lies
by Richard Bruton
With politics the old adage of a picture paints a thousand words has never been more true. And the greatest political cartoonists can get right to the heart of the matter, which is why we celebrate their work each month in The Art Of Politics…
The war in Ukraine continues and continues and continues…
Again, no real need for words or explanations here, just the art decrying the events…
Meanwhile, the war at home… Boris versus everyone…
After the Partygate reports of Boris and the British government shamelessly breaking the Covid rules over the last couple of years with lockdown and all those bloody parties came the fines, meaning that Boris Johnson is now the first serving Prime Minister to get a criminal conviction in office.
Although Boris is in increasing hot water and there are calls for him to be punished, step down, resign, or be sacked, he seems to just keep on getting away with it. Also, absolutely no surprise to see that them in power are using the excuse of the war in Ukraine to avoid taking responsibility… red herring anyone?
And Martin Rowson again, summing the whole privilege thing up nicely…
And then the war on refugees… the Rwanda solution…
In a stunning move, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, decided that she just hadn’t taken things far enough when it came to being as inhumane and evil to refugees as she could be so came up with the wheeze of deciding to send them thousands of miles away to Rwanda, a country the UK had, as recently as last year, condemned for its human rights record.
Despite broad condemnation, including the Archbishop of Canterbury taking a pop, calling it ‘opposite the nature of God’ in his Easter speech, Patel is insisting it goes ahead.
A cost of living crisis and a fuel crisis hits the UK
With inflation hitting hard across the world, the UK seems to have things far worse compared to its neighbours in Europe, particularly when it comes to the energy crisis and the rising costs of fuel. The fuel cap that limits what fuel providers are allowed to charge has been reevaluated and suddenly we have millions of families plunged into fuel poverty and the shocking reality for so many of choosing whether to eat or to heat. Of course, the government’s response… tone deaf…
Martin Rowson – a cold day in hell…
And of course, as the economy bites hard, those in power are their usual sympathetic, millionaire best – with the millionaire Chancellor and his lying Prime Minister mate seemingly unable to understand…
And more Ben Jennings –
And of course, because of the way the budget works here in the UK, plans announced a while back are coming into effect now, right in the middle of the worst economic downturn for decades. And that includes the rise in National Insurance, the contribution we all make to keeping the state running. Problem is, the rise impacts hardest on guess who… yep, the worst off in society. Perfect timing.
Boris Johnson’s plan for sorting out the fuel problems; loads of money spent on new nuclear power plants…
Steve Bell on that –
The one rule for us and one rule for the millionaires thing continues…
More on the Chancellor of the Exchequer here in the UK, Rishi Sunak, whose just one of the members of parliament who treat the idea of paying tax as something they should and can get out of.
Now, of course they’re not breaking the law with their tax avoidance rather than illegal tax evasion. But that’s not really the point. If you’re ethical, if you’re someone in power in the country shouldn’t you see paying taxes as something that’s to be done to benefit the country.
Anyway, millionaire Rishi Sunak and his even richer wife got into a little trouble when it came out that she was classed as a ‘Non-Dom’ for tax purposes. Not illegal at all, but something that just doesn’t sit right with normal people – not that those in power can understand that. And then there’s the little issue of the man in charge of the country’s finances having a US green card whilst in office… again, not illegal but just something people recognise as fundamentally wrong.
Anyway, after a lot of back and forth, things changed… see this BBC news story for the full details.
France rejects (but only just) the far Right…
France had a general election that led to a face-off between Emmanuel Macron, who won with 58.8% and his opponent, the far-right Marine Le Pen, who garnered 41.2% of the vote. (Reuters)
Over in the USA –
Yet again the political cartooning in the USA tends to look more inward, reflecting the issues of the world but drawing them into USA-centric issues, perfectly shown with the first topic here, how the Ukraine war is presented in America…
Ukraine hypocrisy and shocking gun death stats…
Looking at it as someone not from the USA, the gun thing is just incomprehensible to me. The desire to have guns, the tying it all to freedoms, the refusal to see the damage they do.
There was a report recently that guns became the number one cause of death amongst young Americans aged between 0-19 in 2020, taking over the #1 position from car crashes. Over 4,300 young Americans died of firearm-related injuries in 2020. The figures included suicides, but homicides were the majority of the gun-related deaths. It’s as tragic as it is shocking. And it’s absolutely not going to change any time soon, not with the way the US has gone. (BBC)
Kal –
Steve Brodner with a similar message, pointing out that the focus on the awful genocide in Ukraine in the US media shouldn’t disguise the problems in the USA.
America unmasks…
America’s been unmasked for quite a while now but the final unmasking, that of the transportation mask mandate removal, came in a typically chaotic fashion. A Florida Judge, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle (NPR for a bio), heard a case brought by a couple of women and the Health Freedom Defense Fund, a Wyoming nonprofit group that’s already challenged Covid vaccine and mask mandates in other states. The lawsuit was upheld, the mask ban lifted immediately, meaning chaos in traveling with airlines announcing the mask mandate lifting mid-flight.
Now, for those outside the US it’s another strange thing seeing how the masks issue has become such a polarising and political thing. Sure, Europe, the UK, and countries around the world had their dissenters and those countries have embraced maskless life again slowly. But in the USA it really has come down to Republican’s anti-mask and anti-vaxx, crying out over the overreach of the government and choosing to be very selective over the science. It’s a dangerous and deadly way to be.
Oh Florida…
Yes, of all the wrongheadedness we see from the States, all the worrying issues of controlling women’s bodies and women’s rights, rolling back advances made the rights afforded to and the tolerance for the LGBTQ+ community, the outcry over critical race theory (which this month saw the state remove maths books – yes, maths books – from curriculum material), and the general sense of disdain for education, intelligence, empathy and anything that makes people good.
Right now, so much of the insanity that comes from America starts here and then spreads. And you can bet that state Governor Ron DeSantis is just eyeing a presidential run.
We even had the state stripping on Disney of it special tax status in Florida, seemingly in response to its (late) opposition to the whole ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, something that won’t actually penalise Disney but could severely impact Floridans. (Guardian)
Ann Telnaes – on more book banning, including Everywhere Babies, one of the sweetest and least controversial books out there (see this Washington Post article for more)…
And finally – welcome to the Supremes…
In other legal news, we had the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, a wonderful moment in the country’s history.
And to show you what a big deal it is… Benjamin Slyngstad
But, as Clay Jones points out, it doesn’t change all that much with the makeup of the Supremes or the underlying racism in America.
