The Art Of Politics: November 2023
by Richard Bruton
Another month of bad things happening all over… another month of the best political cartoonists managing to perfectly sum up everything that’s wrong with the world… it’s the Art of Politics…
THE ISRAEL-HAMAS CONFLICT…
As with last month, a hell of a lot of the political cartooning from all over covered the conflict between Israel and Hamas. And as with last month, there’s no easy solution, no black-and-white answer. It’s a horrific situation where no one wins and far too many die…
Kal nails it…
Nicola Jennings on hopes for a truce…
Martin Rowson on hopes for peace as the ceasefires begin…
Ben Jennings on the same…
Ella Baron on the social media response…
THE USA…
Trump, Trump, Trump, court cases and Presidential runs…
Tim Campbell on campaigning in court…
And Chris Britt on another side of Trump’s courtroom behaviour…
Mike Luckovich on the civil trial over Trump’s creative valuations…
Biden & the 2024 Election…
Kal on the subject of Biden’s age…
Matt Davies on a choice for the voters in 2024…
And Matt Davies again on the thing that might, just might, prevent Trump 2024…
Ann Telnaes on the Biden blame game…
And Matt Wuerker on the disparity between media and truth at times…
The worrying nature of the separation of Church and State…
PX Molina on the hypocrisy of Mike Johnson, worryingly right-wing Christian who doesn’t see the separation of Church and State like most folks, putting his weight behind Trump…
Supremes code of ethics – absolutely nothing wrong here, right?
With the Supreme Court rather stacked to the right seemingly increasingly passing laws that go against the will of the people and in the light of quite a few questionable decisions where it comes to propriety… they announced a new code of ethics. But there was a little problem…
Henry Kissinger died…
OVER IN BRITAIN…
Farewell Cruella Braverman…
From the very start, Suella Braverman was out to make her mark as Home Secretary. Unfortunately, that seemed to entail attempting to be crueller in every way than her predecessor.
At the start of the month, she was attacking the homeless, telling her frothing at the mouth with hate supporters that homelessness was a lifestyle. But that was merely an appetizer for the days before the Remembrance Sunday. She accused the police of having a leftist bias and sent out a dog whistle for right-wing violence by claiming the Pro-Palestinian march on the weekend would be targeting the Remembrance parade in London. Of course, she knew it wasn’t, but that didn’t stop her saying it and didn’t stop groups of right-wing protestors clashing with the police during the weekend.
Thankfully, even Rishi Sunak had to realise enough was enough and she was sacked. Good riddance obviously, but things will only get worse as Sunak starts parroting her policies and she makes her own leadership attempt in time…
Ben Jennings on the homeless as a lifestyle choice…
Ella Baron on the Met Police resisting political pressure to ban the pro-Palestine march…
Dan Francis on Braverman’s next move…
And hello to … oh, you’re bloody kidding… David Cameron?
That’s Lord Cameron to you, pleasant. Dave “screwed up Britain through Brexit and then runs away” Cameron was the surprise choice for new Foreign Secretary in Sunak’s reshuffle of cabinet after Braverman’s sacking. Surprising not least because Cameron wasn’t an MP anymore. But a quick peerage and appointment to the House of Lords soon sorted that.
New Home Secretary… keeping up the batting average of awfulness…
New Home Secretary promptly started as he meant to be continue, deep in the same vein of cruelty as Patel and Braverman.
Nicola Jennings on his comments that he called Stockton, Teeside, a ‘shit hole’…
Supreme Court rulings… the government has a plan to get around those…
Instigated by Priti Patel and taken up by Suella Braverman, two Home Secretaries bringing new meaning to the words government-sanctioned cruelty, the Rwanda asylum plan finally got the boot from the Supreme Court, who declared it illegal.
Rishi Sunak promptly announced that the government would bring in policy to do it anyway.
Morten Morland – subtle and clever cartooning
Ben Jennings – bringing Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick in… Jenrick was the one who cruelly ordered the cartoon murals at a children’s immigration centre painted over.
The King’s Speech… wherein the green monarch delivers a Conservative party manifesto all about the oil and appealing/bribing the electorate…
Down in the polls… perfect time to cut taxes…
In a move that surprised no one, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced
The Covid Inquiry…
We also had the it would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic series of Covid inquiries, bringing in key players of government, civil service, and scientific authorities to answer questions from the Parliamentary team. Frankly, quite a few of the questions could be boiled down to this – ‘I’m sorry, you did WHAT?’
