And what a week it was!
A week in which Trotskyists seized control of the Labour Party, Owen Smith asked Jeremy Corbyn for help overthrowing Jeremy Corbyn, and Theresa May realised that you can bribe people with money.
But what else happened?
Let’s look back and see:
The Sun accidentally leaks its future Corbyn smears
by John Shafthauer
The Sun has been left embarrassed today (or at least it would be if it had any shame) after one of its top journa…
Journa…
Journalis…
No – I literally can’t even type it.
Essentially, one of the people it employs to generate puns accidentally left a USB stick containing all of their upcoming Jeremy Corbyn smears on a bus. Off The Perch’s extensive links in the bus driving community mean we’ve been able to get our hands on the stick without the usual squalid bidding war.
If you’re trying to avoid spoilers about what you will be led to believe about Jeremy Corbyn in the upcoming months, you should probably stop reading now.
The list of over 10,000 potential smears includes the following:
- Corbyn once described Russell Brand as the thinking man’s Trotsky.
- Safe words used by Corbyn during kinky sex have included ‘nationalisation’, ‘1980s’, and ‘knitwear’.
- Corbyn thinks that Liam Gallagher has really hit his stride since leaving Oasis.
- Corbyn still thinks that the bulge in David Bowie’s trousers in Labyrinth may have actually just been a banana.
- Inside Corbyn are a series of progressively smaller Corbyns – like a communist nesting doll.
- Corbyn failed his MOT because he has no mirrors on the right-wing of his plough.
- Corbyn’s hair is such a mess because he cuts it himself with a sickle.
Pitfalls of English – knowing your sh*t and knowing you’re sh*t
by Alex McNamara
1. Hear, hear! (not ‘Here, here!’)
Comes from the tradition in the House of Commons of showing approval for a speaker. It was basically saying ‘hear him, hear him’, and today is used as a similar demonstration of approval/agreement. (Not an instruction to move to a specific location, as ‘here’ would imply.)
2. The right to bear arms (not ‘bare arms’)
I once heard a comedian joke there’d been some confusion and misunderstanding of this Second Amendment to the United States Constitution because, at the time, ‘bear arms’ were actually a delicacy, and there were never enough to go round. On the other hand, they weren’t much good in a duel.
But the phrase is definitely not a demand of the people to wear vests, or any other sleeveless item of clothing for that matter. Nothing to do with ‘bare arms’.
First recorded in England in the 14th century, the phrase refers to the right to ‘bear’ (have/hold) instruments of bodily harm. (So today, that might include things like a James Blunt album.)
3. Piqued my interest (not ‘peaked’)
In fairness, this is another one that kind of makes sense in its incorrect format. To think it means something has ascended to the ‘peak’ of your interest (like the peak of a mountain) is not outlandish. The word ‘peek’, to subversively look, makes no sense at all. But the actual verb used in this phrase is ‘pique’ – to stimulate or arouse. (But this being English, of course, ‘pique’ means something completely different when it’s a noun – a state of irritation.)
REVEALED: The tweets Owen Smith doesn’t want you to see [IMAGES]
by Kerry-Anne Mendoza
A series of since deleted tweets by Labour leadership challenger Owen Smith has been uncovered which shows a side of the Welsh MP that might have been best kept hidden, for the sake of his campaign.
The tweets were posted by Smith in the aftermath of the killing of Harambe, a gorilla shot and killed by workers at Cincinnati zoo after a child found his way into the enclosure.
While the public grieved for the loss of Harambe, Smith felt differently.
Shocking. It is absolutely outrageous that an MP in the house of-
OTP Editor: Wait. That didn’t happen.
OTP Writer: What really? But…it’s ON THE INTERNET!
OTP Editor: You need to be wary. There are lots of fake accounts being set up on social media to fire bullsh*t from all sides.
£13,000 fracking contracts definitely ‘not about preventing future law suits’, claims Theresa May
by John Shafthauer
When Theresa May told home owners that they could be paid £13,000 for allowing fracking in their area, most right-headed people thought:
£13,000!? And all that I have to put up with is potential water contamination, possible earthquakes, a small chance of my tap water catching fire, heavy industry, an unnecessary blight on the surrounding area, and the likelihood that my house’s value will crash like a bowling ball through a wedding cake?
That’s great – assuming of course that the pound will be worth something by then – but why wouldn’t it be!?
Fracktastic!
However, it’s now been suggested that the government is dishing out these bribes primarily to put the public in a position of having to sign contracts. The benefit to the government would be that these contracts would potentially negate the option for people to sue for damages in future – especially for the sort of damages which fracking is widely suspected of producing.
We spoke to the Conservatives’ newly appointed Secretary of Cementing Over the Environment to find out what they have planned:
Labour “is being infiltrated by the Levellers”, warns Watson
by John Ranson
In a clarion call to Labour members, Tom Watson has warned that the party is under threat from followers of obscure radical fringe movements. Even people you might have thought would now be far too old to still be alive are apparently sneaking into CLP meetings, #JezWeCan rallies and Momentum raves. Ditching their normal attire of donkey jackets and in some cases very tall hats, they’re donning the tight jeans and hopeful expressions of the Corbynista youth and spreading subversive notions such as equality and democracy.
The worst culprits, apparently, are the Levellers, a freedom-loving group from the days of the English Civil War, some of whose members later moved to Brighton and formed a crustie band which seems to have been going forever. Using seventeenth century torture methods such as ‘arm-twisting’, these ideologues from back in the day have been convincing youngsters to question the divine right of the Parliamentary Labour Party to govern. They also oppose zero-hour contracts and the right of lords to use dung from the commons to fertilise their own crops.
The BBC spends our licence fee reliving Gary Barlow’s ‘fantasy’ – that he’s in fact still relevant [VIDEO]
by Alex McNamara
Sir Gary Barlow has crossed a line.
(He’s not officially been awarded a knighthood by the way but I believe it’s how he likes to be addressed.)
There I was happily eating my dinner, when I witnessed a BBC advert so odious, I nearly gagged on my Singapore noodles.
A grand piano is set up in the middle of a crowded shopping centre, alongside a microphone. The area is cordoned off by men in dark suits with ear-pieces, who whisper with such gravitas that you’d think President Barack Obama was maybe about to make an unscheduled stop at JD Sports.
No, nothing at all to see here. How curious that passers-by should gather round to see what the fuss is about.
Enter a man wearing a cheap cardboard cut-out mask of Gary Barlow.
He appears to be a young man, judging from a hairdo influenced by the Kevin and Perry movie – only a slight bald-spot gives away the absence of adolescence. He strides straight up to the Men in Black, and nonchalantly asks (loudly) whether he can “have a go” on the expensive grand piano that’s clearly been set up for a concert appearance. The same piano none of the peasants were allowed to touch. But how strange… MI5 seem ok with it!
What happens next is so disturbing, it’ll haunt me to my dying day.
Tom Watson warns of Trotskyists pushing hard-left ideology outside schools
by John Shafthauer
Speaking in The Guardian, Tom Watson has been warning us all about THE EVER-PRESENT THREAT OF TROTSKYITES!
This is what Tom had to say:
We had a problem with Trots in the 1980s, but we managed to scare them out of the party by creating a fire-wall around us – a fire-wall which we set going by burning all our bridges with the mining unions.
The thing about your average Trot is that they can lay dormant for years at a time – much like the common flea. They awaken from these periods of hibernation when they sense the pulsing swell of a new social movement, and then they crawl out from under the floorboards where they’ve been hiding to find fresh victims.
To reinforce how dangerous this dated rhetoric is, the Labour Party has created the following posters to bludgeon their point home.
Owen Smith commissions a private poll on the Labour leadership election, here are the results
by Kerry-Anne Mendoza
Off the Perch has been required, under a new government wheeze, to employ at least one right-wing writer. So here’s Frank Lee-Bull, again. He still loves Margaret Thatcher, and casual racism.
Owen Smith has apparently commissioned a private poll to assess his chances of becoming the next leader of the Labour Party – and it’s the only poll that suggests he has a hope in hell. Probably because it’s not run by the kind of peacenik hippies at YouGov!
News of the poll emerged via one of my dearest friends in the commentariat, the New Statesman’s political editor George Eaton – the man, and the legend.
Owen Smith source says private polling shows Corbyn on less than 50% for the first time with "a lot of don't knows".
— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) August 10, 2016
But I decided to do a little more digging. I know how conspiratorial these Corbyinsta types can get. If you can’t show them every damn scrap of evidence you’ve used to form an opinion, you’re working for ‘The Man’. Anyway, I spoke to my contacts – one of whom provided me with a copy of Owen Smith’s original poll research. The raw data showed something truly shocking.
Breaking: Tom Watson rewrites Labour’s Clause 4 to read ‘sit down and shut up’
by Kerry-Anne Mendoza
The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party has announced today that Clause 4 of the party’s constitution will be changed to read simply: ‘sit down and shut up’.
In 1918, the original Clause 4 committed the party to supporting workers’ rights and public ownership of key institutions, stating:
To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.
On becoming leader in the 1990s, Tony Blair convinced the party to amend this clause. The move was viewed as New Labour’s capitulation to Thatchernomics. The new text read:
A dynamic economy, serving the public interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and co-operation to produce the wealth the nation needs.
And we all know how that went. (*cough… Global Financial Crisis)
‘Trotskyite’ tops Google search list as Labour MP Tom Watson’s infiltration conspiracy theory spreads
by Kerry-Anne Mendoza
The top term searched for by Google users in the UK this week is ‘Trotskyite’, after the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party spread a conspiracy theory that the party is being infiltrated by them. Incidentally, the second highest ranked search was ‘who on earth is Tom Watson?’
According to Watson, the 600,000 members of the Labour Party are some sort of rapidly multiplying herd of ‘Trotskyite’ militants. While the fringe left parties he claims they come from couldn’t fill a cruise ship, Watson argues they somehow managed to rope in 597,000 sympathisers to join the Labour party with the express aim of – as one Telegraph pundit put it – “trashing the place”. How was this takeover executed? By the use of deploying ‘arm-twisting’ techniques on young people.
Sadly, this is not the satirical element of this story. That sh*t really happened. He even sent a dossier full of myth and mendacity to Corbyn on the matter. Given the involvement of PR company Portland Communications (which claims former New Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell as a senior advisor) in the coup, one would think ‘dodgy dossiers’ would be avoided altogether.
Donald Trump tries new wigs to broaden his appeal
by John Shafthauer
Donald Trump has seen numerous setbacks over the last few weeks. The problems began when the idiot pollsters began “not doing polls good”, and started claiming that the Donald was actually falling behind in the race. Obviously this was more than likely the result of a Hillary-led conspiracy, and so he encouraged his supporters to protect their hair-piece hero by second amendment-ing the conniving shill to death with their freedom shooters.
Unfortunately, his followers failed to understand that when he said he didn’t want them to kill her, that actually he definitely did – more than likely because he’s usually so honest and straight-talking that they didn’t expect his words to operate on anything other than the most shallow of levels.
To attempt to turn his fortunes around, team Trump has been suggesting that he try a series of interchangeable wigs. The idea is that the various new looks would either appeal to specific subsets of voters, or simply confuse them so much that they don’t listen to the awful, awful things that he’s saying.
The following is an artist’s impression of what those wigs may look like:
PRINCESS TRUMPER
DONNY TRUMPHOUSE
What percentage Trotskyist are you? [QUIZ]
To try and weed out these Trots, Tom Watson has got together with Owen Smith’s private polling people and they’ve devised a fool-proof way of determining who is and isn’t a Trot. You can be assured that the following quiz works too, as if there’s one thing these people understand intimately, it’s the mindset of a fool:
[os-widget path=”/johnshafthauer/what-percentage-trotskyist-are-you” of=”johnshafthauer” comments=”false”]
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