The Art Of Politics: It’s January, Anyone Got $83.3m Spare?
by Richard Bruton
Another month in politics, another month of excellent political cartooning proving the old adage of a picture painting a thousand words…
We’ll start not with a political cartoonist but a comic artist perfectly summing up one ex-President, as Will Simpson gives us this…
More on Trump later. But we’ll start proper with the conflict in Gaza…
ISRAEL – GAZA
25,000+ people dead. 25,000 men, women, and children dead. No sign of it ending. Yeah, Happy New Year.
Martin Rowson on the International Court of Justice ordering Israel to ‘take all measures’ to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
USA
Election USA Part 1 – Republican (pointless) primary season…
Republicans gathered in Iowa and New Hampshire for their caucus and primary – basically a race to be second, as Trump has the nomination all sewn up, despite, or maybe because, of everything mounting up against him.
In typical sociopathic fashion, Trump encouraged voters to get out in Iowa, despite the -30 degree weather, saying this:
If you’re sick as a dog, you say, ‘darling, even if you vote and then pass away, it’s worth it.’
Tim Campbell on what the election year may bring…
Mike Peters does bring us the good news from the primaries so far though…
Trump marches to victory…
A lot of the cartoonists this month were going with visions of the future with Trump – whether that was as President or convict, or perhaps both?
Anyone spare a dime for Trump?
$83.3 million. That’s how much a New York jury found Trump to be liable for in a defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll this month. This all came out of a rape claim in Carrol’s book in 2019, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal. Trump answered this claim – that he sexually assaulted her in a high-end department store dressing room around early 1996 – by saying she was a dishonest political operative. Because the statute of limitations barred her from suing over the assault, Carroll sued for defamation – where a jury found Trump had sexually abused and defamed Carroll – awarding $5 million in damages.
But when a 2022 New York law allowed accusers a one-year window to sue abusers for incidents outside the civil statute of limitations, Carroll started another civil action – both for the assault and Trump’s defamatory statements about her post-presidency. As that first jury had found him guilty of sexual abuse and defamation already, the Judge ruled that they would be accepted as fact and the second trial was merely about damages – $83.3 million worth of them – the sum mostly consisting of a figure adjudged to be high enough to stop him opening his mouth and defaming Carroll again.
BRITAIN
Electioneering…
It’s election season in both Britain and the USA, as both countries will be having elections this year. At least the USA knows exactly when the election’s going to be though, here in the UK we have the waiting game as it’s up to the Conservative government to decide on the date.
And in the run up to that, we have them deciding just when it’s best to ruin the country further by cutting back essential services even more to fund tax cut bribes to the electorate.
Rebecca Hendin – 14 years of Conservative leadership…
Nicola Jennings – no time looks like the right time for Rishi…
Ella Baron on the storms that hit the UK and on Labour Leader Keir Starmer…
And as the electioneering goes on, the services get worse… here’s Ben Jennings on an NHS chief warning that NHS trusts in England are ‘stretched to the limit.’
Ben Jennings on the rise of knife crime in Britain after government cuts to youth services and a resulting lack of opportunities for young people.
Asylum
Martin Rowson – Ministers faced questions about just how they can label 10,000 unresolved ‘lagacy’ asylum cases as being cleared…
Ben Jennings – Rishi’s no Churchill
The Post Office Scandal…
After years of news reports and articles, the Post Office scandal finally got the attention of the public and politicians after a major drama aired over Christmas.
For those of you who don’t know, more than 900 sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were prosecuted for stealing money – all down to faulty information and figures caused by Fujitsu’s newly installed Post Office computer system called Horizon – introduced in 1999. Many went to prison for false accounting and theft, many were financially ruined by the debacle.
In 2019, 555 affected sub-postmasters won £58 million in legal action against the Post Office – most of which was wiped out by legal fees. Campaigners won their right to have their cases reconsidered but as of January 2024, only 95 convictions had been overturned.
According to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), this was:
“the most widespread miscarriage of justice the CCRC has ever seen, and represents the biggest single series of wrongful convictions in British legal history.”
So January saw politicians falling over themselves in going public with how terrible this scandal was…
Martin Rowson said it best… crocodile tears
And then there’s the ultimate election gambit… have a war? (Well, it worked for Maggie Thatcher with the Falklands.)
The US & UK launched airstrikes against Houthi forces in Yemen forcing many ships to re-route from the Red Sea to around the Cape of Good Hope. Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, say they are acting in support of Palestine during Israel’s actions in Gaza – although they’ve been attacking ships with no connection to Israel.
And Dave Brown again…
