The Art Of Politics – May: This Darkness Pass Soon

by Richard Bruton

The Art Of Politics – Comicon’s monthly look at the best in political cartooning, still one of the surest ways of dealing with the nightmarish politics of the world…

This month – well, there’s War, there’s scandal, there’s politicians being as venal and hypocritical as always. But more than anything else, the news from the USA has been nightmarish, with a seismic shift in US politics and law and more mass killings, which is why we’ll start this month in the USA…

Your Body – Their Choice?

This month saw the Supreme Court’s draft decision to overturn Roe Vs Wade leaked to the world. Now, it’s an almost unprecedented thing to leak a draft ruling of the court, and that’s certainly been getting a lot of press in itself. But the bigger thing is the content of the ruling and what it means for women in America. Frankly, it’s sent shockwaves through the country, a decision that will strip the right to choose from women and something that could very easily see other hard-won rights be stripped away.

For those who don’t know – and frankly, you should know, Roe v. Wade was a 1973 landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court where they ruled that women in the USA have Constitutional protection in choosing to have an abortion.

It’s a dark time in America right now and getting darker…

Dave Brown – with a cartoon that just wouldn’t have been published over in the US, but hammers home the message…

Martin Rowson –

Chris Britt –

Ben Jennings –

Kevin Siers –

Dave Brown –

Dave Whamond –

Peter Brookes –

Kal –

Bill Bramall –

Mike Peters –

Ann Telnaes –

The other thing coming out in the US is that Roe V Wade and the subsequent rulings associated with it are the rulings underpinning so much of ‘progressive’ lawmaking in the US and if Roe V Wade goes, then who knows how long it will be before the conservative court comes for equality in marriage, LGBTQ+ rights, contraceptive rights, interracial marriage, voting rights, forceful sterilisations… all of those are at least partly underpinned by Roe v Wade.

Chris Britt –

Staying in America – more children die as the only country in the world where this happens wonders why this keeps happening…

Of course, we’ve also had another terrible school shooting in America this month, just another in a series of mass shooting deaths and injuries in the country.

When Sandy Hook happened, there was just a thought that things might change, after all… these were children, elementary school children. But no. Now it’s another set of teachers and children – CHILDREN – massacred in their schools, more injured, even more traumatised for life by this. These were children at an elementary school, a bloody primary school, kids aged 5-11.

JD Crowe says it all… sadly…

Seriously, America just doesn’t understand or just doesn’t care that the rest of the world looks at all this with shock and bewilderment, wondering just how the politicians and the people can accept the bloodshed. It’s unfathomable to us that the USA seems to allow this much death, including the multiple deaths of children, because of a constitutional amendment created in 1791.

Like many countries, Britain (where I was born) has crime, plenty of it. But the first time we had a multiple shooting at a school, in Dunblane in 1996 (wiki), laws were changed, handguns effectively banned (shooting clubs, shotguns, a few others were exempt – albeit it with very strict controls and licences required). The result… no more kids dead in mass shootings.

America – well the latest idea is that the schools should be turned into fortresses, the teachers should be armed. Why, it’s almost as if there’s a hugely powerful gun lobby in control of everything.

Even small changes would help – registration, background checks, bans on assault weapons that have no legitimate use outside the actual military… it wouldn’t stop the problem but it would start the process and it would save lives.

But sadly, all the latest school shooting is now just yesterday’s news, excuses are given, thoughts and prayers sent up. And we wait for the next mass shooting in America. We won’t have to wait that long.

Matt Davies –

Pia Guerra –

And the hypocrisy of all this… where the religious right, the pro-gun, the Republicans… they’re all so pro-life until the child is born and then they couldn’t seemingly care less.

After all, if the American Taliban were truly pro-life, wouldn’t they care a lot more about supporting children post-birth, improving their life chances, protecting them, cherishing them the way they claim to cherish the not yet born? But no, they care more about the gun lobby than they do the children killed by the guns.

Peter Broelman – an Australian echoing what I just said about how everywhere else in the world sees the problem…

Ann Telnaes –

Ed Hall –

Ben Jennings –

Matt Davies –

Tim Campbell –

Dave Whamond –

And another by Dave Whamond –

Kal –

And another from Kal –

The Ukraine war – on and on and on and on as the death toll rises

No end in sight for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, as the world gets used to being on alert and the media gets tired of all the horror tales coming from the country.

Meanwhile, Putin puffed out his chest and held the annual Russian victory celebration marking the end of WWII and threw out threats to surrounding countries who may dare to join NATO…

Morten Morland –

Peter Schrank –

Steve Bell –

Kal –

Meanwhile, Over Here In Not So Great Britain –

The Queen’s speech… this year delivered by Prince Charles, sat in a palace of decadence, next to a priceless bejewelled crown that had its own custom Bentley to drive it to Parliament. The subject of the Queen’s speech – how tight things are for the people right now and how we need to cut back, completely ignoring the whole cost of living crisis affecting the country.

Ben Jennings –

Martin Rowson –

Peter Brookes –

And speaking of the cost of living crisis…

The perfect story showing what dire straits not-so-Great Britain is in was the tale of Elsie, a pensioner who spent her days riding the (heated) buses using her old persons’ bus pass because she couldn’t afford to heat her home. When asked about it, our glorious leader, Boris Johnson, a man of the people in the same way Marie Antoinette was a woman of the people, came back with the boast that it was him who’d brought in the bus pass she was using.

Dave Brown –

Meanwhile, in a move quite brazenly calculated to draw attention away from the whole Partygate hypocrisy and disgusting behaviour, the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announces a raft of measures to combat the cost of living crisis and rising inflation which has seen the poorest in the country made poorer. No surprise, the measures are merely a drop in the ocean.

Martin Rowson –

And Martin Rowson again –

Ben Jennings on Partygate and the cost of living crisis…

Partygate Rumbles On…

The fines for the parties through Downing Street continue to roll out, the Sue Gray report into it all came out, the Prime Minister’s now the first serving PM to have a criminal record after being fined, and the pictures and reports coming out from Downing Street parties are hypocritically being played down whilst the public who did the right thing, the ones who couldn’t see dying loved ones in person, the ones who couldn’t attend funerals, the ones fined for breaches including walking their dogs and stopping on a bench for a rest… they all wonder why it’s one rule for them and one rule for the rest of us.

But not to worry, Boris Johnson, PM, came out and told us he was humbled, so that makes it all better – right?

Chris Riddell –

Steve Bell –

Meanwhile, investigations into the opposition leader’s own mini-Partygate continue, with Keir Starmer offering to resign if the police issue a fine…

Ben Jennings –

Martin Rowson –

Steve Bell –

And everything else going wrong…

Chris Riddell –

But hey, at least Boris has hatched a plan to give the Brexiteers something else they wanted – Imperial measures. Now this, just like the pledge of getting back blue UK passports, is another one of those ridiculous things. Just like we could always have had blue passports if the government chose to, Imperial measures are still everywhere in the UK – we drive on roads with road signs listing distances in miles, we get pints and half pints in pubs, we get bags of sweets by the quarter-pound weight.

Morten Morland –

The Brexit Disaster & The Northern Ireland Problem…

The final episode of the third series of the brilliant Channel 4 show Derry Girls did more to explain the Brexit/NI problem than a few years of obfuscating government briefings about it. But essentially, as you’d expect when it comes to Brexit and this government, they’ve managed to mess it up again.

Nicola Jennings –