The Art Of Politics: October – And The Horrors Have Nothing To Do With Halloween

Time once more to take a little look around the world and despair, using all of the greatest cartoonists to illustrate the points way better than any news story can – this is The Art Of Politics

Unconnected to any specific political thing, but very true of the world today – Morten Morland

Now, here in Britain…

Well, Covid really isn’t going away anytime soon, as the numbers of infections and deaths continue to rise in Britain, as hospitals fill up and the NHS beings looking to winter time and the pressure mounts…

Ben Jennings summed it up perfectly. Boris Johnson’s response to Covid. Everything about this works so well, from the sitting on the hands to the coffins underfoot of the government; powerful, effective, straight to the heart of the matter…

The government, meanwhile, is looking at the ever-more upward trending figures with what can best be described as nonchalance, avoiding at all costs any idea of putting ‘Plan B’ into action…

Peter Brookes

Britain had fuel shortages, food shortages, empty shelves, a shortage of lorry drivers, and a shortage of workers in so many different fields. Why, it’s almost as though all the things that the government were warned would happen after Brexit were right.

Sure, I know there are global issues right now with shortages, but things here in the UK are a lot worse than Europe, Ireland, the rest of the world… hmmm. I wonder why?

Ben Jennings

Martin Rowson – Boris riding the burning pig of crisis

Chris Riddell

Morten Morland

Erwin Van Mol – a Dutch view of Britain’s issues…

Carlos Amato

Maddie Dai in the New Yorker (Okay, it was September 29th, but I missed it!)

 

Still, Boris wasn’t too worried obviously… after a sterling appearance at the Conservative Party Conference where his ideas seemed to consist of (again) crap jokes and no content…

Morten Morland

Brian Adcock

… and then he went off on holiday. Of course he did.

Which was fine – he’s useless whether he’s in the country or not.

Ben Jennings

Martin Rowson

Peter Brookes

Brian Adcock

Towards the end of the month, there was another shit-show coming from the government, when they eventually had to make another U-turn over allowing water companies to dump untreated, raw sewage into seas and rivers following a backlash from politicians, media, and the general public who, surprisingly enough, didn’t fancy swimming and surfing their way through the delightful brown waters of Britain’s coasts that the government seemed to think was just fine. (More – Huff Post UK)

Ben Jennings

Peter Brookes

And semi-related to that…

Martin Rowson on Rishi Sunak’s ‘age of optimism’ budget – a budget which took away from the poor, with benefit changes not helping out the unemployed, whilst simultaneously cutting the tax duty on sparkling wines…

Steve Bell

Tragically, on 15th October, David Amess, the Member of Parliament for Southend West was assassinated whilst holding a constituency meeting with the public.

The lone attacker, Ali Harbi Ali, has been arrested and will stand trial in 2022, charged with murder and preparation of terrorist acts.

Chris Riddell

In footballing news…

Newcastle United have a new owner. And it’s definitely not the Saudi Arabian ruling family who’ve bought the club. Definitely not. Similarly, there’s absolutely no issue with Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights. And the English Premier League hasn’t had to learn ever more complex methods of contortionism to allow the deal to go through. Yeah, right.

Peter Brookes

Here’s just some of David Squires‘ always brilliant cartoon on football in the Guardian – (And in case you’re wondering, poor Steve Bruce got the sack left by mutual consent 13 days after the takeover.)

And looking further afield – gas supply issues…

Vladimir Putin and Russia are absolutely not manipulating anything about gas supplies. Oh no, absolutely not. And in Britain, you’d be wrong to draw a connection between the government letting foreign agencies (particularly none too squeaky-clean ones) taking control of essential utilities…

Kal

Martin Rowson

And in the USA…

Well, the USA still lags behind Europe in the % of people vaccinated, with every day bringing us more news reports of anti-vaxxers mobilising and protesting – ‘It’s not safe!’ [It is], ‘We don’t trust the science!’ [Why the hell not? It’s science,] etc etc etc.

Dana Summers

And now there’s talk of vaccinating kids – oh, they’re up in arms about that one.

Ann Telnaes

Kal on the on-going push and pull between Republicans and Democrats that’s paralyzing the governance of the country…

The January 6th coup continues to be debated (it’s just endless isn’t it?) and nothing gets done, no action taken…

Ann Telnaes

Ex-President (and may he always stay that way) Trump has launched a social network of sorts…

Peter Brookes

Elsewhere, the rich get richer.

But hey, at least they make all those charity donations, right? Yeah, right. Keep your charity. Pay your taxes.

Maddie Dai in the New Yorker…

And then there’s the climate crisis.

Oh, the climate crisis. For starters, if the trillionaires were really interested in doing something, they could try that first. But governments around the world are being hampered by climate change deniers and the obscene amounts of money involved to simply ignore the issue.

Case in point, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who stands in the way of President Biden’s climate plan. Money. Money. Money. Money. Top recipient of campaign donations from oil/gas/coal mining industries. His son heads Enersystems, Inc., the coal business Sen. Manchin founded in 1988, from which Manchin received $492,000 last year in dividends.

Ann Telnaes

Nick Anderson

Peter Kuper on the climate in general – ‘our window to act’

Steve Breen

 

Next month, we have the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, which means good old lovable buffoon and not at all a dangerously inept leader, Boris Johnson will be in the climate change spotlight. Oh, that’s going to go so well. It’s already being described as ‘mismanaged’ and last-minute’ by those who know.

Steve Bell

And Peter Kuper again – hoping that the COP26 summit is worth it…

 



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