Independence Day.

So it's summer again and Nigel has plans to go on holiday.  When is someone going to tell him it isn't necessary to resign every time he fancies an couple of weeks in Magaluf? His mates are waiting for him http://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2015/05/22/18/Magaluf-11.jpg and have sent a picture.  Last year he got a fantastic deal a bit earlier in the year and so he resigned in May.  This year the Referendum put a bit of a spoke in the works and he had to book high season.

The thing is Nigel, under the Working Time Directive you are entitled to four weeks paid annual leave, so you don't need to resign. Once we finally do break away from all that red tape you can't stand, then it may very well be the case that you will no longer be entitled to it, but at that point you will be unemployed and hopefully claiming JSA.  If that is the case you will be entitled to two weeks holiday per year, but only in the UK. Still having got it back, why should you want to leave?

What a shoddy shower of spineless gits we have seen this past week.  Firstly the grand architect of our confusion, the Albert Speer of Brexit, the man who promised the referendum in the first place, the great Bullingdon pig-poker himself David Cameron decided it was a bit of a mess so he buggered of with unseemly haste. Somebody must have tipped him of that the Bulldogs were on their way and in true Bullingdon fashion he slipped a monkey to the Sergeant-at-Arms and left the building.  I bet he left someone else to clear away the pig too.

This act of anti-courage left the way clear for Boris Alexander, who took one look at the pile of ordure and produced £500 of his own and followed his mate Dave down the street. Then today, chief weasel Farrage announced that he was taking a well earned break.  They are like the builders from hell.  They quote for a job, you accept their quote, even though it's clearly a bit optimistic, they come in and knock down the back wall of your house, and then they bugger off and you never see them again.

Just heard that Chris Evans has resigned as well. Maybe Farrage could front Top Gear. Many people said Clarkson was an arsehole, Chris Evans proved to only be an arsehole-lite, but I'm pretty certain Farrage could out-arsehole all comers.  Maybe he could do it as a double act with Boris Alexander.  I might even watch.

All this 'getting lives back' and not wanting to be Prime Minister has left the unedifying spectacle on not one, but two, Thatcher lookalikes standing for the post.  The original was awful, now the prospect of two more slugging it out in the shires is unbelievably depressing. And what's the alternative?  Deeply christian homophobe, Crabb, Liam bloody Fox and the Gove, blinking in the sunlight wondering where all his mates have gone (you stabbed them all Mikey) and waiting to be told what his next move should be by the odious and mysterious Sarah Vine, perhaps the most frightening character in the whole sorry story.  She seem to be channelling Mandelson in an even more right wing sort of way. 

One of these charming specimens is going to be our next Prime Minister.  It was always going to be a rough few years.  Rougher now, I'd suggest.

What we need is a strong opposition.  Oh sorry, that was in bad taste. What I meant to say was 'What we need is an opposition'.  I really would like to bang a few heads together, and I am by no means a violent man.  The Lib Dems are still reeling from the kicking they received at the election, so it's no good expecting them to do anything.  The SNP are strong but really only relevant in Scotland. And the majority of Labour MPs have decided that now would be a good time to do a Jonestown and commit mass suicide. 

There is circumstantial evidence to suggest that the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn's leadership are part of an orchestrated campaign to unseat him.  I am not a fan of conspiracy theories so when I found an article in the New Statesman which seemed to rubbish the idea, I read it with interest. The conspiracy in question centres around Portland Communications who have links to the Blairite wing of the party and who are apparently orchestrating this campaign.  The New Statesman, or rather David Singleton rubbishes the whole idea by pointing out that many PR companies employ Blairites, so it can't possibly be true.  I expected more from him. The reason that Portland was even mentioned seems to stem from the identity of heckler who confronted Corbyn at the London Gay Pride march.  That he was heckled at all; that the heckler Thomas Mauchline was a senior account manager at Portland; that the smartphone footage he recorded appeared so quickly on the BBC are all questions which Mr Singleton fails to address.  I wonder if anybody thought to find out who the Polish friend, apparently reduced to tears by Corbyn's actions actually was. It was certainly a very strange thing to accuse Corbyn of on a London march, that he hadn't mobilised the North, the Midlands and Wales.  Why would he chose to act like that on a march which was designed to celebrate the LGBT community?  I can't believe his dislike of Corbyn had developed in the space of two days. It had to be much more deep seated than that.  I am still not convinced either way, but with Chilcot arriving on Wednesday I am not the only person to think the two might not be unconnected. Dennis Skinner and Alex Salmond both think they are, and they have more political experience than me.

Corbyn today called for unity in his party.  Despite all that has been thrown at him he knows he cannot do anything alone and is attempting to continue with his different type of politics. Angie the Eagle meanwhile has said that if he doesn't go soon she will definitely stand against him, but not just yet, eh, Angela? She seems to have been 'going to stand' almost as long as I have been 'going to lose some weight' and that's beyond living memory.  It's looking increasingly likely that the Labour Party as we know it may split.  Could we be seeing he start of a broad coalition on the left which embraces the Lib Dems, the Greens, the SNP while Scotland remains part of the UK, along with whatever emerges from the Labour Party.  I am not totally averse to the idea.  It would at least allow those of us who aspire to a more socialist future the chance to vote for a party whose policies chime with our own rather than having to make do with centrist New Labour.

I had hoped to talk about electoral reform again today, but I seem to have been overtaken by events.  We do live in interesting times.

Love Tim xx