Category: EDITORIAL

Matthew Steeples reflects on the losing campaign he supported in the 2019 General Election and what will come next; here he gives ten outtakes from the result

This morning on Adam Boulton’s All Out Politics on Sky News, Matthew Paris confirmed what all remainers already knew in stating: “We lost.” He then added: “And now we’ll be keeping a wary eye on Boris Johnson.”

 

Now, after reflecting for several days on our catastrophic defeat, I share ten outtakes from the result:

 

‘Bosie The Clown’ now OWNS BREXIT:

With a stonking majority, Boris Johnson now has nobody else to blame but himself when Brexit negotiations prove difficult. He can push through whatever he wants in parliament and he can do so unhindered. He owns Brexit and he has to take responsibility for it. When we’re still in a desperate mess in five years’ time, he and Esther McVey’s ‘Blue Collar Conservatives’ better still be claiming ownership.

 

MORE PEOPLE VOTED FOR REMAIN PARTIES:

The first past the post system again produced a result where collectively 52% of the votes cast went to pro-remain and second referendum backing parties. This “turnaround of attitude” sadly wasn’t reflected in the allocation of seats.

 

Corbyn GOT WHAT HE REALLY WANTED:

Jeremy Corbyn was not the big loser in this campaign. His decision to not commit to either supporting leave or remain reflected his thirty year dream. The Labour leader genuinely wanted Brexit and now the man who’d announced he wouldn’t move into Downing Street if he had won has finally got what he really wanted: An isolationist Britain.

 

Swinson was a DISASTER:

Jo Swinson simply didn’t get it. Her support for all women cabinets (placing gender over talent) was stupid enough, but her decision to campaign for revoke was a move too far. Many remainers even thought that too much and indeed it was. The Liberal Democrats have been wiped out and now need only a minibus to get themselves around. With Simon Jenkins even calling on them to disband, their time is sadly up.

 

Farage was SELFISH:

Nigel Farage and his business the Brexit Party Ltd. did not act in the national interest. They cost Boris Johnson another twenty seats and Farage hid himself away knowing his operation would not actually win a single seat. Farage will likely get himself a peerage and his grubby source of income will now doubt be bolstered no end.

 

Nicola Sturgeon REELED IN THE CATCH:

Wee Jimmy Krankie’s bodydouble was a true winner of the campaign. She and the Scottish National Party can no longer be locked away in a cupboard. ‘The Sturgeon Fish’ will be the true thorn in the side of ‘Bosie The Clown’s’ government.

 

The moment for MOMENTUM WILL DESTROY LABOUR:

The days on the loony left are back. Sir Keir Starmer and Tony Blair are right to call this out, but as Corbyn has flooded his party with Momentum-ites, the likelihood is that moderates will lose control of Labour.

 

Diane Abbott proved herself a DIMWIT (again):

The numerically challenged wannabe Home Secretary and shagger of Jeremy Corbyn didn’t even manage to put her shoes on properly. This time she definitely put two left feet in the proverbial.

 

May is STILL WANDERING IN THE WHEATFIELDS:

Theresa May, in an interview on Sky, denied that ‘Bosie The Clown’ had managed to deliver where she’d failed. She yet again banged on about how “Brexit means Brexit” and made a total pillock of herself. Perhaps it is time ‘Mrs MaybeNOT’ let her hubby ‘The Garden Gnome’ finally do his “boy’s job” and put her out with the rubbish.

 

BUCKETHEAD BEAT BINFACE:

Lord Buckethead got more votes than Count Binface in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Nobody ever anticipated any other outcome.

 

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The inquest into the paedophile monster Max Clifford’s death in prison reveals that even whilst locked up he lived the high-life; those that enabled him in the clink have questions to answer

For the victims of the monstrous remorseless paedophile Max Clifford (whom likely included a 12-year-old girl in Spain beyond his British victims even), his demise in 2017 finally should have brought closure.

 

Now, however, with the opening of an inquest into this vile specimen’s death from heart failure, yet more misery is being piled on these poor people. Whilst Simon Milburn, assistant coroner for Cambridgeshire, announced that Clifford’s death “could not have been prevented,” this convicted sex offender’s supporters are disgustingly trying to make a case to the contrary.

 

Max Clifford, it instead can be revealed, received “a much better standard of healthcare than anybody does on the outside.” Going further, Dr Monica Chambers, a GP at Littlehey Prison, where Clifford collapsed whilst serving a much deserved eight year sentence, added: “I believe Mr Clifford had a superb mattress, a very comfortable mattress. I don’t know how he managed to get that.”

 

Frankly, that this cretin of a creature had it cushy whilst locked up is a disgrace. We say: Shame on those that let Max Clifford live it large whilst a lag. Those that did have a lot of questions to answer.

 

Pictured top: Max Clifford with his daughter Louise Clifford, a shameless woman who continues his legacy through running a tawdry public relations company named Borne Media.

 

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Matthew Steeples analyses ‘The Telegraph’s’ decline and laments its likely future in the land of bubblegum journalism and fluff

It’s Grim Up North was a 1991 single by The JAMs. It referenced the “drab,” the “dreary” and “greyness” and even attracted homages, based upon other areas of Britain, such as 1992’s It’s Weird Out West.

 

Now, one could argue, The Telegraph – a paper so ably and intelligently edited successively by Bill Deedes, Max Hastings and Charles Moore in the period from 1974 to 2003 – has found itself stranded in the territory of grimness. This once “reliable” and “trustworthy” broadsheet – a paper that was lauded for so long as “one of the world’s great titles” and one that has the motto: “Was, is, and will be” – has lost its way and seen both revenue and circulation significantly diminish.

 

Profits at Telegraph Media Group decreased from £16.3 million in 2017 to just £900,000 last year and despite the Barclay Brothers having paid £665 million for the company in 2004, they are now allegedly considering approaches for it at around the £100 million mark. Given that sum was mentioned several months ago and no sale has yet progressed, many reckon they’ll struggle to get even that.

 

In spite of its readership (and thus thereafter resources) being down from 1.4 million daily in 1980 to just 281,025 as of December 2018, here is a paper that still until recently had the ability and courage to go after great scoops. A case in point was its brilliantly thorough investigation into the MPs expenses scandal – and rightly, for that, The Telegraph was named 2009 British Newspaper of the Year.

 

Sadly, more recently, such fine journalism has been replaced by the bland and the banal and the tawdry and the tacky. Yesterday, as an example, a prominent feature on the frankly also idiotically paywalled Telegraph site (which hardly anybody actually pays for) was titled “Meet FOBO (Fear of Better Options): the spoiled lovechild of FOMO and social-climbing.”

 

Penned by one Lisa Williams – a woman whose other recent pearls of wisdom for the paper have included “6 ways to boost your sex life this autumn,” “How to get out of a Wanderlust-style sex drought (without having sex with other people)” and “Forget the Danish and the Dutch way – here’s how to parent like a Brit” – here is a feature about “our choice-rich commitment-poor approach to socialising.” It is something that belongs not in a once distinguished newspaper founded in 1865, but instead in the advice pages of Heat or Closer.

 

Alongside an analysis of ‘FOMO’ and ‘FOBO’ since they allegedly “matter because it hurts to be the collateral to someone else’s FOBO” (whatever that may mean), Williams lists twenty “do and don’ts” for “hosting a modern dinner party.” Amongst other commands, this harridan patronisingly tells Telegraph readers – whom used to be generalised as ladies with blue rinses and ageing colonels living in the shires – is to “have a playlist of Wham! and Beyoncé ready.” She suggests “serv[ing] meat and two veg” to be wrong and to go for “individual chicken breasts” to be criminal. Amongst other gibberish that she plainly aims at millennials – who anyone with half a brain would know will instead be busy elsewhere on their Instas and Snapchats – she then looks into how “social media has thrown social-climbing and flakiness into bed.” Williams finally concludes by suggesting “don’t check social media [the day after attending a dinner].” How terribly useful.

 

I’d instead take a different view and argue that The Telegraph needs to look back to its roots; it needs to edit out the likes of Williams’ inane ramblings and return to what it described as its guiding force in its very first edition: “A high tone of independent action.”

 

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Matthew Steeples suggests Greta Thunberg to be well meaning but misguided; her approach to environmental issues and innovation is beyond over-simplistic

Sixteen year old ‘eco warrior’ and ‘school striker’ Greta Thunberg, on the surface, means well. She cares about our planet, but her oversimplification of environmental issues and the fact that her pushy parents have willingly enabled her to traverse the globe ranting and raving in a somewhat scary fashion is nothing but wrong.

 

In an interview with The Telegraph on Monday, veteran Finnish rally driver turned politician Arti Vatanen summed up the issue with this “complicated adolescent” when he stated: “Those people who are preaching at us that the sky is falling, like Greta Thunberg, say don’t build, don’t buy, don’t fly. Come on – that’s the end of humanity. We need progress. We need to go forward all the time. We cannot stop doing things. We just have to do things better. Progress needs to go on. We are like a flock of sheep – we are. We must think independently.”

 

Vatanen is spot on and as Thunberg set sail back to Europe aboard a catamaran to avoid taking a plane, the DePaul University professor of philosophy Jason D. Hill rightly also condemned her “apocalyptic world vision” as “belonging in the Dark Ages.” Both men are right: We do need people like Thunberg to speak out, but we must also be realistic and stop condemning innovation.

 

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Michael Bloomberg is the man who can beat Donald Trump and his likely entry into the race to become President is to be celebrated suggests Matthew Steeples

Michael Bloomberg KBE, 77, has money and business experience, but he has something else that Donald Trump, 73, lacks – the ability to cross the political divide.

 

Entering the race because he supposedly “fears current Democratic candidates are not equipped to defeat” the 45^th President, the billionaire businessman and ex-mayor of New York City has reportedly dispatched his aides to Alabama – the state with the earliest filing deadline for the presidential campaign.

 

Speaking on behalf of this John Hopkins University graduate and ex-Salomon Brothers partner, Howard Wolfson, described as a “longtime Bloomberg adviser” by CBS News, last night remarked:

 

“If Mike runs he would offer a new choice to Democrats built on a unique record running America’s biggest city, building a business from scratch and taking on some of America’s toughest challenges as a high-impact philanthropist. Based on his record of accomplishment, leadership and his ability to bring people together to drive change, Mike would be able to take the fight to Trump and win.”

 

Bloomberg – whose political stances can be broadly described as “socially liberal” and “fiscally conservative” – is just the man America needs right now. What a pity we don’t have someone similarly measured here in Great Britain.

 

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The Royal Court’s decision to ban theatregoers from bringing in single-use plastic bottles is utterly ludicrous suggests Matthew Steeples

The Royal Court Theatre on Sloane Square is a venerable institution.  It is a place where Alec Guinness and Laurence Olivier have performed and it has hosted productions directed by Sam Mendes and Tony Richardson.

 

Now, however, this theatre – which decided to display a ‘Stop Trump’ banner on its frontage during the 2018 visit by the 45^th President of the United States of America – has “gone too far in banning theatregoers from bringing in single-use water bottles” according to Ann Treneman of The Times.

 

Of the move, speaking to the Evening Standard, the theatre’s artistic director, Vicky Featherstone, stated: “[Single-use water bottles will] be banned and I think it’s really important that it is banned… [It’s not about] nannying people. It is really important that people have to think about how they come in to the space and what it means.”

 

Whilst all this “going net zero carbon” is all very well, the theatre’s decision to force people to “surrender” their plastic bottles “at the stalls door smacks of airport security, not a night out,” continues Treneman. I’d go further and add that this policy is utterly ludicrous. The Royal Court Theatre should keep it’s beak out of what people consume and stick to what it does best – producing the very best plays.

 

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‘The Steeple Times’s’ Matthew Steeples urges readers to join the Together for the Final Say People’s Vote March in London tomorrow

I’m not normally one for protest marches and generally find them to be annoying and the source of great inconvenience, but tomorrow I’ll be joining the Together for the Final Say People’s Vote March in London at 12 noon in Park Lane.

 

With parliament sitting also, this is an occasion that we must all rise to. The ‘Clown Bosie’ – as Boris Johnson is branded by the brilliant Artist Taxi Driver so regularly – has to be told and if Remainers manage to muster what will likely be the largest demonstration ever in Britain, the point will again be clearly communicated. It is time that our undemocratically elected Prime Minister was for once and for all told.

 

I urge readers to join tomorrow to help stop Boris’ bad deal being foisted on a country that truly does not want it.

 

#FinalSay #ExitBrexit #NoToBoris #YesToEurope

 

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As dimwitted Dawn Ward publicist for animal charity backed by the Trumps brands us “fake news” she also suggests ‘The Steeple Times’ is short of news…

George Orwell once stated: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations” and plainly in the last seventy-two hours, The Steeple Times has achieved exactly that.

 

On Friday, after we published a story about the disgrace that is the ‘charity’ Rescue Dogs Rock NYC allowing the ‘WAGS’ of the sick elephant and leopard slayers Eric and Donald Trump Jr. to host an event for them, we received the following diatribe from that organisation’s publicist, Norah Lawlor:

 

“I had an event last night i was going to respond i just read your article and  you said eric trump and the picture you have is donald jr you mixed up the two trump brothers. I would appreciate it if you can remove my name and the story as it has nothing to do with  the event or eric who has nothing to do with event. I didnt think your site was fake news. I always thought we had a mutual respect. Thank you.”

 

By email, our editor, Matthew Steeples, replied:

 

“Your response is incorrect and frankly ridiculous.”

 

“I have not “mixed up” anyone. I mention both elephant, tiger and lion slaying Trump brothers in the article and the picture is perfectly correctly captioned. Plainly you did not read what I actually wrote and your lacking in punctuation response sums up how you plainly reacted without first reading.”

 

“My publication is not “fake news” and just because I call out your client for so disgracefully associating with the cohorts of such vile people as Larysa Swtlik, you cannot call it such.”

 

“The story will not be removed or edited and it will be shared widely. The “charity” Rescue Dogs Rock NYC should be ashamed of itself and so should you. That something that calls itself an animal charity associates with individuals linked to killing beautiful creatures like elephants and lions makes it utterly reprehensible.”

 

No further comment has received from Ms. Lawlor and separately, on Saturday, another ludicrous WAG, footballer’s wife Dawn Ward, tweeted in response to an article we had published in August.

 

In her missive, the “Sinitta slapper” Ward commented: “You must be short of news hey? To be so disgusting only tells me you’re obviously very unhappy in life quite sad” before encouraging her ‘fans’ to troll us with utter drivel.

 

Dawn and Norah’s missives prove one thing alone and that is that we’re doing something right – Pissing off the pointless and the pathetic.

 

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That Warner Brothers decided to use a song by the incarcerated paedophile Gary Glitter in their new film ‘Joker’ is utterly disgraceful suggests Matthew Steeples

“Public hate figure” Gary Glitter is a monster. There’s no doubt about that and given he was jailed in 1999 for downloading thousands of items of child porn, deported from Cambodia and jailed in Vietnam for obscene acts with minors in 2002 and 2006 and jailed for amongst other things having sex with a girl under the age of 13 in 2015, no right-minded person would want anything to do with him.

 

Now, with the release of the film Joker, which Vanity Fair has already described as “[too] sympathetic to white men who commit heinous crimes” – Glitter is again back in the news given one of his songs, ‘Rock and Roll Part 2,’ was shockingly used in a lengthy scene.

 

Outrage has rightly followed and of it, one Twitter user rightly remarked: “They’re literally paying a paedophile to use his music in a movie about the consequences of child abuse.”

 

Shame on Warner Brothers for helping make the jailed paedophile Gary Glitter even richer. An executive of that firm is responsible for the decision to include his song and on that basis we urge readers to boycott this irresponsibly orchestrated movie.

 

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The Duchess of Sussex’s decision to sue the Mail on Sunday is the wrong course of action; she ought to instead make peace with her family suggests Matthew Steeples

In deciding to sue the Mail on Sunday the Duchess of Sussex has again got it wrong. Yes, this woman has a right to be angry that her private letters have got into the public eye – especially as the copyright of such remain the property of their author – but perhaps she ought to instead ask herself a more important question and that is: “Why?”

 

‘MeGain’s’ decision to sue over a letter that was given to the paper by her very own father is as ridiculous as her decision not to invite him to her wedding. It comes in the wake of Prince Harry not even bothering to visit Thomas Markle to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage, her bleating about how she wants privacy yet is happy to take millions from the public purse to pay for the renovation of her new home and her ludicrously self-absorbed and laughable guest editorship of Vogue.

 

Instead of attacking the very press that she frankly will have to work with for the rest of her life if she remains in the royal family, the Duchess of Sussex should do something else. This misguided woman and her frankly somewhat pussy-whipped husband should fire their plainly incompetent PR advisors. This couple must step back and simply do one sensible thing: Bring her wayward family into the tent. Perhaps then, the ‘Modern Day Mrs Simpson’ might actually finally get what she supposedly so craves: A little less criticism and a more peaceful life.

 

Pictured top: Meghan Markle causes yet another PR calamity by arriving at an event at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa in one of a fleet of Range Rovers shipped in from the United Kingdom for use during her and her husband’s visit. So much for this out-of-touch couple’s green credentials.

 

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