Perturbed commentators and disgruntled Labour Party MPs expressed shock and awe last night at the spectre of common sense, a quality which they believed had long disappeared from British party politics. As the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee ruled that incumbent leader Jeremy Corbyn will be allowed to stand for re-election, horror descended upon Westminster at the thought that one of the most…
As Jeremy Corbyn responded to the brick thrown through Angela Eagle’s constituency office window with a call for dignity, respect, and some modicum of calm, Eagle whimpered and declared, ‘That could have hit me! Ouch! That could have really hurt Jeremy!’. The brick passed through a ground-floor window of Eagle’s Wallasey office sometime between 5 pm on Monday and 9 am on…
As David Cameron strolled back through the door of 10 Downing Street, moments after announcing his resignation and the handover of power to Theresa May, the soon-to-be-former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom revealed an unexpected predilection for scat. ‘On Wednesday I will attend the House of Commons for Prime Minister’s Questions, and then after that I expect to go…
After events spiralled on Monday to leave Theresa May as the last Tory standing, The Shimmering Ostrich can exclusively reveal that May’s first act as Prime Minister come Wednesday will be to crack down on the work of the Nigerian highlife musician Prince Nico Mbarga. Mbarga, recording with his band Rocafil Jazz, released the song ‘Sweet Mother’ all the way back in 1976. A…
‘Take these broken wings, and learn to fly again, learn to live so free’, Angela Eagle today urged the Labour Party, singing at first in a fine unfettered voice, wispy but resoundingly clear. Yet as the song played on Eagle could no longer constrain herself, and openly she began to weep, her faltering sound swiftly becoming all but inaudible, her message…
When conscience perturbs politics, Andrea Leadsom abstains in her own particular way. Back in 2013, she was one just 7 Tory MPs who formally abstained from endorsing gay marriage, as the third reading of the bill passed in the Commons by a vote of 359 to 154. 127 Conservatives voted against. Abstaining meant walking through the No Lobby then the Aye…
Liam Fox has sensationally sentenced a gay Tory member to 50 lashes for refusing to support his bid for the leadership of the Conservative Party, and by extension the premiership of the whole United Kingdom. Fox voted against same-sex marriage back in 2013, describing the proposals – which were later passed by Parliament – as an ‘absurd’ form of ‘social engineering’. He remains best known…
First as Secretary of State for Education and now as the chief architect of Brexit, in the public consciousness Michael Gove basks in the rosy glow of a Britain long since passed. O-levels, the Commonwealth, even the Australia from which Gove would derive his points-based immigration system, all these are twentieth-century constructs, but ask any one of Gove’s closest allies and…
As she outlined her credentials and sought to shrug off claims that the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom must be he who can loudest shout ‘Brexit!’, Theresa May admitted that bitterness and strife are the way of today’s Conservative Party, pointing the finger squarely at asylum seekers and immigrants. Brushing aside questions about her rival Michael Gove – suggesting that ‘What…
