My belated condolences. I always enjoyed reading his posts and will miss his insight and wide ranging views. May hew…
It’s time to run the prat of the year 2019 contest.
Here we go once again. All you boys and girls and all you other 65 genders, otherwise known as people coping with a mental disorder, it’s time to run the prat of the year contest. We’re going to democratically pick out the best prat in the year of our Lord 2019. Il pratto di tutti pratti – the prat of all prats. It sounds so much better in Italian, especially if you use their gesture for a superlative, namely holding your hand up in front of you with your thumb pressed against the tips of the first and second fingers. Moving it backwards and forwards by about two inches adds an extra classy emphasis.
For those of you new to the competition, it’s exact origins are lost in the fog of the climate wars but it was originally conceived as the climate skeptic’s response to all the climate maniacs showering each other with hundreds of awards that came with a very nice wedge of cash attached, thank you very much. It was firmly grounded in the skeptic, if not contrarian, tradition in that it was us awarding them them a prize, and that came with absolutely no cash at all. Despite the modest prize, I think there was always a certain smug but naughty pleasure for the winner though, a bit like the local vicar being unexpectedly voted hunk of the year by the porn starlet’s association.
But all things change, as bank tellers are wont to say, and with the climate wars alert status dropping down to DEFCON 4, and all the climate Cassandras piping down and creeping like church mice into the quietness of a Maunder minimum, it was decided to slightly broaden the scope of who was eligible to compete for the prize. Basically, anyone in the world can now become a contender, not just climate prats. We’ve had years where the pickings were poor and years like this, where the choice is quite simply bewildering.
Before getting into the rules & regs, I better explain what a prat is. It’s such a useful word and it’s almost tragic that its common use seems to be confined to the British Isles part of the English speaking world. I had a go at describing what a prat is in an article prior to the first prat competition, and it’s still accurate but not in any OED sense. It’s an elusive word that has a subtle but precise shade of meaning that doesn’t have an exact synonym.
Back in the day when accurate artillery fire was a contradiction in terms, they used a technique called triangulation to try and land a shell somewhere in the vicinity of a specific target. Basically you used a bit of map reading, a rough bearing, trigonometry and an intuitive guess that went under various names like Kentucky windage on the first shot (wherever it went, duck everyone in the vicinity) and when it missed, your spotter told you to correct by so much, either for distance or laterally. The theory was that after three shots, you had it triangulated and could drop a shell straight into the pickle barrel. If you’ve ever been under what’s termed the danger close of that sort of friendly artillery fire, scrunge down into mother Earth and hope for the best.
Adopting a similar triangulation approach to defining what a prat is I suppose the first cut is they’re a dick. True, they are, but although a dick behaves in a similar fashion, it’s obvious they have no empathy for anybody else and are pretty obviously looking out for number one, and only number one. Prats tend to be nailing themselves to some cross over someone else’s problems.
A fool is definitely in the zone, but prats do tend to be clever people, in the uniquely English sense of that word as an insult. Perhaps overly educated idiots. If you’ve ever tried to introduce an over-educated idiot to some of life’s realities, you’ll know it’s an uphill task since as they already know you’re wrong about whatever, they simply don’t listen to you.
The third shot is they think they’re the messiah, when after all, they’re just a very naughty boy according to their mother. That’s definitely in the zone but they’re always humble enough to reassure you they’re not, they’re just a regular guy or gal who wanted to get on with their everyday boring life until some planet threatening crisis came along, which meant they had to abandon their simple existence, albeit reluctantly, to don the cape, spandex oversuit and start wearing their jockey underpants over their trousers to save the world or something.
Go figure.
The procedure for this year will be the same procedure as last year, if not every year. To quote from 2018 –
1) It’s the usual political two-step. You go through a nominations stage, which is like the primaries, followed by an actual voting stage. The prats you’re nominating can be female, male, or whatever they self-identify as, but it has to be some sort of hominid, preferably of the species Homo Sapien.
2) You get one week to complete your nominations. You can do a maximum of five nominations by simply adding their names in one or more comments underneath this piece. As usual, your nominations must be a person, not an organisation, and as always, organisations will inevitably be nominated and duly ignored. Has anyone else noticed how reading comprehension has dropped off a cliff in the last decade or two?
3) I’ll keep a running track of the number of nominations using the back of an envelope and a high-tech pencil I sharpen with a Swiss army knife that itself I sharpen with a miniature and therefore portable sharpening stone – a great piece of kit – that has served me well over the years, and at the end of the week, announce the top five you’ve winnowed it down to and are now the hardy survivours in the running for the grand prize. I’ll update the running totals of nominations daily in the nominations box at the top of the RHS.
4) Now we’ve got our fabulous five, further nominations cease to be valid, though I’m sure further nominations will continue to be made as usual and as usual ignored. I’ll once again figure out how the Poll Daddy widget works, stick the top five nominations up on the RHS in a voting box, and you get to vote for your fave candidate to be prat of the year 2018.
Again, and as usual, I resolved at the start of this year to note down any passing candidates who looked good for elevation to prat of the year 2019, and as usual, soon lost interest in keeping the list up, and promptly mislaid it anyway. In the light of that labour saving, I’ll fall back on my failing memory and a quick scan of people blogged on or mentioned.
America seems to have had a bumper crop of prats this year. Mueller of the lost patrol investigation has got to be in the running, though I do think he’s a bit dull. He was always a suit on wheels rolled out of the swamp to do a knife job on Trump who ran him into the ground. That said, he did manage to uncover massive treasonous acts at both the FBI and DoJ before the CIA closed him down because he was getting just too bloody close to them.
His successor as the witchfinder general of Washington is variously named Adam Schiff, Shifty Schiff or that bulgy-eyed bastard by the Washington bourbon-soused elite in the shape of those drinking companions Hillary and Nancy. As usual, he’s fucking it up with the latest retro McCarthyite hearings on unamerican activities, otherwise known as saving the Bidens’ balls being roasted over Ukranian-fuelled fires. Personally, I find something repulsive about the man, which isn’t my usual reaction to prats.
Even the traditional Democrats are beginning to self-identify in secret as Republicans, and who could blame them after the scree of revelations about their own members of congress and their hangers on all packed onto Epstein’s flights on the Lolita express to Pleasure Island. It sorta cuts across the division though, every party has some perverts, just ask a few insiders about a RINO like Mitt Romney. People like that are criminals, rather than prats, but you’re the voter in the chair as always.
The situation in Britain is nearly as bad, if not worse. We’re knee-deep in prats. Theresa May is gone, thank God, but she wasn’t even a prat to my mind, just a compromise candidate who couldn’t even do a decent job of selling out her own country to the unelected minions of the United States of Europe. She was a disgrace both as a PM and a supposed representative of a gender egalitarian country. Maggie the Hat would have bitten her head off and had it mounted upon a spike outside Highgate prison. She finally got the push this year, so I think she’s not worth one of those special five bullets you have.
The obvious candidate in the Westminster scene is shadow PM Jeremy Corbyn. Typical socialist, brought up in a very nice five bedroom mansion in the bucolic countryside, privately and expensively educated, never had a real job in his life, parliamentary career consisting of representing the chic Left in North London and shagging his way through bits of rough like Diane Abbot who let’s face it, needs all the help she can get scaling that steep ladder of career advancement. For many years, she actually thought the London Underground was affiliated to the Bader-Meinhof group. Ulrike and Andreas are spinning in their graves as we speak.
In passing though, she might not be a bad candidate for a prattie, as shown by these various clips of her showing a mastery of arithmetic as well as an ability to recover from a disastrous blunder that was equally disastrous. It’s like watching a 3-4 year old having their first go at lying. How anyone could dare show their face in public the next day beggars belief, but that’s politicians I suppose. Absolutely no decency or shame.
The demographics of the readership of this blog have been remarkably consistent over the years. Seventy-five percent are in English speaking countries and that broadly and always equally divided three ways comes out as Britain, the Americas and Australia/NZ. I haven’t been keeping an eye on the latter region this year, since the departure of the henna haired bitch from office, Canberra has gone back to its usual swampy but quiet ways. I’m sure the always reliable Ockers born under the Southern Cross are more than ready to punt a few drongos into play.
That final quarter of the readership are mainly based in Europe with a few from points well south or eastwards towards the Bering Straits. That’s a large area to cover, but it does contain the EU which is busy destroying itself with the unwashed masses who have this uncanny ability to know when they’re being legged over, despite the wall of noise from the mainstream media assuring them otherwise. Again, a very target rich zone, so have at them you refusniks to a United states of Europe.
In the end, you can nominate whoever you like. Just go for it and if perhaps your nominations reflect some deeply-felt, vehement hatred towards the person, I’ll understand. But, the pratties was always intended to be a light adventure in the run up to Christmas, and I’ve not seen too many real prats this year in the lighter sense of my understanding of that appellation. It’s all been a bit too much sharpened entrenching tools and trench warfare hacking each other to death in the blackness, which is a bit grim. Did my time in places like that, got out of there and I ended up hating that sort of stuff. It’s necessary, you can do it, but afterwards you feel a bit soiled.
At the heart of every prat is a genuine, guileless belief that they’re trying to do something decent, and their particular tragedy is that all the sincerity and belief being poured out, is totally out of tune with the times and the everyday reality all the rest of us bozos walk through. That’s why it’s the prat’s award, not the disgusting shitty example of a miserable human being award.
Anyway, nominate some world class prats we can all agree upon and have a chuckle, if not a laugh, about their antics. Have at them good Sir or Madam, and may the best prat win.
Updated – All nominations so far up to Thursday 21st November :-
St. Greta (9),
Adam “shithead” Schiff (9),
David “national treasure” Attenborough (6),
John “objectionable bastard” Bercow (7),
AO “never let your chopper near those teeth of a horse” C (4),
Boris “Putin’s puppet” Johnson (3)
Meghan Markle (3),
Malc Turnbull (3),
Andrew “traitor” Vindman (2),
Alexander Downer (2),
Jacinda “habib” Ardern (2),
Squeaker Pelosi (2),
Daniel “Dopey Dan of Victoria” Andrews (2).
Hillary “always a bridesmaid, never the bride” Clinton (2),
“Gestapo” Mueller (1),
Prince Andrew (1)
Markle’s appendage Prince Harry “down with the monarchy”(1)
Prince Charlie “ears” Windsor (1),
Victoria Nuland (1) new
Kristina Kennealy for services rendered to the already unelectable (1),
Carrie Lam (1),
Matthew “Mr Combover” Cheung (1)
Justin “from Cuba” Trudeau (4),
Antonio Guterres (1),
Jeremy “Yosser Hughes” Corbyn (1),
John “Trotsky” McDonnell (1)
Prince “Which one is he? The heir or the spare?” Andrew (1)
Dan Andrews (1),
Nigel Farage (1),
Arnold “steroids” Schwarzenegger (1),
Jean-Claude “gissa drink” Juncker (1),
Rashida Tlaib (1),
Joe Biden (1)
Hunter “Son of Joe” Biden (1),
John Kerry (1),
Chrystia Freeland (1),
Beto O’Rourke. (1),
Mike “I’ll float a balloon” Bloomberg (1),
Francois Legault (1)
©Pointman
Related articles by Pointman:
Description of a climate prat.
Prat of 2018 – We have a winnah – Theresa May!
Prat of 2017 – We have a winnah – Hillary Clinton!
Climate Prat of 2016 – We have a winnah – Justin Trudeau!
Climate Prat of 2015 – We have a winnah – Barack Obama!
Climate Prat of 2014 – We have a winnah – Chris Turney!
Climate Prat of 2013 – we have a winnah – Dana Nucitelli!
Pointman's 
Greetings
Do the rules permit a second gong? If so, Hillary Clinton must be eligible given this:
“As I say, never, never, never say never,” Clinton, who won the popular vote in the 2016 race, but ultimately lost to President Donald Trump, told BBC Radio 5 Live on Tuesday. “I will certainly tell you I’m under enormous pressure from many, many, many people to think about it. But as of this moment, sitting here in this studio talking to you, that is absolutely not in my plans.”
In the alternative, and at the risk of extreme parochialism, how good is this for prat-hood:
https://www.9news.com.au/national/domestic-violence-australia-sherele-moody-bushfire-emergency-nsw-qld/e4f7a3f0-d98c-461a-bec9-3e1b60c32dad
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Beto O’Rourke.
Being a dick for a cause – check!
Expensively educated fool – check!
Messiah complex (more in sadness than anger..) – check!
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Schiff wins hand down.
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Gotta be St Greta.
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Great (not Greta) minds think alike!
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Despite a target-rich environment, St Greta is an outlier and a clear winner. Lock it in, close the gate, the horse has bolted.
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Truthseeker:
How dare you?
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Graeme No3 – I do not have to dare what is self-evident …
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Although she crossed my mind, in the end Greta is more a prop than a prat; Hillary will fit the bill given Steven Sasse’s argument. Boris is a prat, seeing the chaos he is often leaving behind, but not the prat of the year given his short term in prat street nr 10.
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Yes, Greta’s just like the little sibling, that’s bribed/coerced to go & ask your parents for something. If you went, you’d get a slap, she’ll just get a “Bless”.
A pure puppet, a human marionette, learns her lines well.
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The prat award started as a climate rebuttal. Check.
Messiah. Check. (My prat has actually been named by the church as Jesus successor)
Genuine Guiless Belief. Check.
Nailing themselves to some cross over someone else’s problems. Check.
Greta Thunberg.
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She was my first thought, but I think Greta is too dangerous to be a prat. The true prats surrounding her, in the english sense of the word as I understand it, are the political prats and celebrity prats who listened to her garbage with such rapt attention. I felt embarrassed for them all.
For me, deciding who to nominate this year is going to need a lot of deep thought!
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Perhaps St Greta’s parents as the Blessed One has not yet attained her majority. If however, the rules allow the nomination of a minor on the spectrum, then yes, an absolutely shoe in
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Considering that Greta was fully expected to get, but alas failed, the Nobel peace prize, I think she’s an excellent winner of the prat award. She can get that as a consolation prize to put among all the other prizes she’s got.
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Peoples! Please think again about nominating Greta. The enormous psychological shock of becoming Prat of the Year might jolt here back to reality, unlikely I would agree. Wouldn’t it be better to nominate her manipulative parents?
As a further forlorn hope I nominate Daniel Andrews, the Premier of Victoria, known in some quarters as Dopey Dan. His achievements have been many and disastrous. Becoming Premier he cancelled a contract for a road link across Melbourne, as he sais he would do. He also said it wouldn’t cost anything; so far the damages are estimated at $A1,300 million. He also forced one of the 3 brown coal generators out of business with the resulting rolling blackouts getting the public annoyed, but not as annoyed as they will be after this summer (emergency talks are underway in Canberra about how to avoid major blackouts).
Having doubled the cost of electricity, in the name of fighting climate change, the resulting loss of manufacturing jobs was covered by increasing the size of the inflated public service. That has led to problems (big deficits) in public finance.
But his efforts in forest management are the major reason for his nomination. Starting with an attempt to bring local volunteer fire fighting teams under Union control, which lead to a shortage of volunteers, and less protection for those in rural areas. He then forced timber mills under Union control, with the result that they shut down and forests were no longer cleared as access roads weren’t needed, and everything was now “decided” by the bureaucracy (in other words nothing happens). On top of this people are banned from collecting undergrowth from forests, clearing bush from around houses etc. This in the State where the Black Saturday fires claimed 75 lives.
Truly but for lack of publicity a worthy PRAT.
Since he has little chance, being a local disaster, I fall back on (Sir) David Attenborough. His recent mouth sounds must make him a contender. The fiasco of the bungy jumping walruses alone should see him past the post. For those who pay little attention to the BBC script reader, the overcrowding of walruses (caused by ClimateChange) led to the UNPRECEDENTED appearance of the filmed mob on land (unprecedented only that this had only been recorded no earlier than 1895, and filmed in 1996) and the tragic death of some falling down a cliff. This was NOT due to the filmmakers drone overhead, and NOT due to polar bears herding the animals to their deaths, because there were NO polar bears seen nearby. This in a subsequent version became polar bears driving walruses because the polar bears were starving (caused by ClimateChange). No mention of filmmakers drones this time, just the same aerial pictures.
That is far too long for any more.
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The Canadian voter for voting Justin Trudeau back in as Canadian Prime Minister
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Pointman,
Sheisskopf (shit-for-brains) Schiff has to be the primary contender in this (or any other year). In addition to all his other hedonistic and degenerate proclivities … he’s a Vegan!!!
Does it strike anyone else as ironic that the official definition of the word ‘oath’ is twofold … a) ‘a solemn promise, often invoking a divine witness, regarding one’s future action or behaviour.’ … and b) ‘a profane or offensive expression used to express anger or other strong emotions.’ ?
When Scheisskopf Schiff, his Congressional acolytes and star Kangaroo Court witnesses took their solemn Oath of Office to … “defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same …”, I don’t recall any proviso that excludes such enemies who happen to be a shagging buddy, a family member, a blackmailer, a colleague, a boss, a foreign honey-pot lure, or people who pay bribes into offshore accounts or even themselves, for that matter. It seems Shithead’s oath was of the more “offensive and profane” variety.
It’s impossible to pick up a turd by the clean end – ask anyone from San Francisco or Los Angeles – therefore Schiff has Zero redeeming features.
A true Prat … of the Malevolent kind.
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PS – Perhaps it’s time they added the West Point Military Academy Honour Code to that Oath of Office ….“A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do”.
What a shame it only seems to apply to ‘cadets’. It should apply to every person in the direct employ the the American taxpayer.
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IMHO, the only thing lacking in St. Greta’s qualifications for Prat of the Year lie in her incomplete education. I would guess that she had a lot of inexpensive home schooling from her actor and singer parents. She has a page on IMDB, you know.
But I do consider her a worthy candidate.
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Sorry! I know it’s been said before, by others better qualified than I (plus he’s already raised the trophy), but this award seems custom built for JUSTIN TRUDEAU. Kind regards, Ian
PS. Thanks for your many years of fine, heroic service, Pointman – they have not gone unnoticed in this little corner of Canada. (BTW, I have no more problem with Trudeau than the rest of the pathetic ruck).
Sent from my iPhone
>
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It’s Schiff for me, without hesitation!
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Well, having bored people with a long rambling diatribe about a local PRAT (and one for a beloved if now quite ga-ga BBC script reader) I feel I should add my other 3 choices (if that is the right word).
3. Justin Trudeau (for “services” to the Union of Canada – just watch).
4. Speaker Bercow (for claiming that he was entitled to be so partizan because his office was supposed not to be).
5. whatisname Schiff (really a fifth rate nonentity).
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Doesn’t time fly.
I’d like to add former Speaker of The House of Commons, John Simon Bercow and with a surname like that seems a natural to take out the award for the grandest prat of them all.
And not nominating the organization but the so called British House of Commons should be sued for false naming under some consumer protection law. Same with Ireland and the so called EU.
Jean-Claude Juncker is a worthy contender.
In America I propose Rashida Tlaib with too many prat incidents to count and Hunter and Jo Biden. Highly impressive and I’m nominating them individually not as a duo.
Two other Americans (?) I nominate are John Kerry and a new kid on the block Andrew Vindman.
New Zealand also has a worthy contender this year, with a Tony Blair connection, in PM Jacinda Kate Laurell Ardern.
I will second Graham No. 3’s nomination of ‘Belt & Road’ Dodgy Dopy Dan Andrews.
The above Canadian nomination deserves the placing but I’d like to nominate The Canadian Minister for International Trade, Chrystia Freeland.
Tough choices but I’m confident the ‘pointers’ of The Pointman will find the biggest prat of them all!
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Just in relation to Greta Thunberg.
I couldn’t nominate nor vote for her because it is a sadness for me to watch and read how she is used like millions of kids.
What is truly despicable to me is to watch someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger do the hands on shoulders protective stance behind Greta.
I nominate Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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My second nomination has to be Boris (“I’d rather be dead in a ditch”) Johnson.
After scrubbing the do-or-die October 31st Exit date, not only has he signed up for Theresa May’s traitorous Withdrawal Agreement with no discernible differences, even including the tens of Billions of Exit Pounds he swore would never be paid to the Brussels Bandits, he’s offered up Military and Intelligence assets to be controlled by foreign commanders and paid-for by Brits in perpetuity, thus putting his Five Eyes Agreement at risk. After all, the other Four ‘partners’ haven’t agreed to their Intelligence assets being seized by Berlin.
Adding insult to the serious injuries already inflicted on UK fishing fleets by Brussels, Boris is leaving British fisheries subject to EU quotas and sharing their sovereign waters with insatiable foreign trawlers.
Brussels gets to decide what taxation Brits will pay, what Immigration quotas must be filled (and paid for), and as I understand it, all Brits will still answer to the EU Court of Justice and Human Rights Tribunals etc.
Not only that, he’s convinced Farage to withdraw 317 Brexit Party contenders from standing for election in safe Tory seats.
That makes Nigel Farage my third nominee. What a Prat … and an utter Poltroon! Instead of taking it to the People as he has continually promised, he leaves disenchanted Tory voters with no alternative nominee, citing splitting-the-vote as his excuse for betrayal. Bollocks! He’s been described as “the better man” for having stood down his hardworking and highly organised Brexit candidates … Bollocks to that too!
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/how-could-farage-do-this-to-me-and-316-other-willing-candidates/
Farage “regrets their disappointment”. That patronising line won’t deflect your Prattish own-goal Nigel.
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Dan Andrews is a fine Australian contender but what about Malcolm (turncoat) Turnbull. As an example of a sore loser he really takes the cake!
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From the Antipodes, my 4th nominee would have to be Alexander Downer, that hopeless, hapless 007-wannabe “Australian diplomat” up to his neck in the Trump take-down.
While he masquerades as a ‘conservative’, he’s nothing of the sort. He’s a Clinton/Soros shill and always has been. In his tenure as Foreign Minister ( = Sec of State) in a conservative Liberal Govt, he sold off Australian uranium to Russian Rosatom three years before Hillary did, and started the ball rolling on siphoning $130 million Australian taxpayer dollars directly into the Clinton Foundation by signing an MoU with the disgraced and disbarred Bill Clinton who had zero authority to do so in 2006.
When the UN appointed Downer as ‘special envoy’ to Cyprus, his disastrous inept meddling prompted this local 2010 observation … “Alexander Downer shall pass, just as the offending air from a bad fart passes on, eventually, no matter how foul.” He’s publicly admitted to stashing a lot of his money in Cyprus banks, the money-laundering capital of the Med.
Downer is also a great pal of the Chinese, sitting on the Board of Huawei for several years and was accused by a Chinese diplomat and defector of closely collaborating with the Chinese Embassy in Canberra, even to the extent of “giving suggestions to the Chinese Government on how to handle difficult political cases.” I’m sure the Chinese were appropriately “grateful” to him. If they could give the useless Biden kid and his cronies $1.5 Billion, we can only wonder what an Australian Foreign Minister was worth to them.
And finally … NZ’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, cut from the same Marxist/Fabian/Socialist cloth as so many other Pretenders to Western Leadership. Not only did she work in PM Tony Blair’s office as a “political adviser”, as President of the International Union of Socialist Youth she spent time in Jordan, Israel, Algeria and … China.
Her lame attempt to disarm Kiwis after draping herself in a hijab and embarking on a hug-a-thon around the country cut no ice with NZ’s huntin’-shootin’-’n’-fishin’ fraternity and we don’t hear too much of her these days, but her Pratty behaviour gets her a nod anyway.
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Blackswan
You surpass me.
Downer the stinking traitorous despicable net stocking wearing scum.
And his mate from South Australia, our very own Schiffty piece of filth that sucked up to the French to buy 12 underwater coffins over the next 40 years at a cost that is still being calculated but North of AUD$ 50billion and the first is supposedly to be delivered in 2030!!!!
Hopefully I will live long enough to see Turnbull hang from Sydney Harbour Bridge.
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Downer’s mate The Mincing Poodle? Yep, he’s certainly a piece of work. When you think of the advances of technology in the last 50 years, it’s beyond imagining that our grandkids would pay so handsomely for obsolete subs towards the end of the 21st century. That would be akin to us paying billions for you-beaut Spitfires to defend our skies … or using Tiger Moths in the Battle of Britain.
As for Turnbull hanging from the Harbour Bridge …. no way! The views are too nice from up there – he’d be able to see his $40 million dollar waterside mansion and his trademark gloating smirk would be plastered all over his face.
Maybe it would be a good idea if all his illgotten assets had been seized, the mansion had been turned into a mosque complete with minarets and the last thing he hears across the waters was the Imam’s call to prayer as the grateful bearded ones all wave him goodbye, brandishing their AK47s. Yep, that works for me.
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Notwithstanding Australian deference to the English Royal Family I have to say that Bonnie Prince Charlie has thrown to his idiot self in Harry the Badger whom married possibly one of the greatest prats in the history of pratdom, Meghan Markle.
I’ll bet the Americans are glad and I see it reported that Dame Hillary of the C’s winged her way to England to share a cup of tea!
What next? Arkancide in England?
King Harry and Queen Merkle?
How jolly!
Meghan Markle is the ‘tip’.
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I would like to nominate David Attenborough. Got himself firmly established as a national treasure. Then completely peed on his chips by saying that we should just let famine victims starve to death and becoming a leading mouthpiece for the BBC’s endless climate doom propaganda.
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Attenborough for his promotion of eugenics and the BBC, Prince Andrew…well…for being a self important prat. St Greta is obviously suffering from child abuse so is not a prat, just a used child to be discarded as she ages.
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Gotta be over 21, age of experience. Greta don’t qualify. Ple-en-ty to choose from, alack!
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This year I’d propose John Bercow (ex-Speaker of the House of Commons) as the biggest prat. At times taking up to 10 minutes to tell people to be brief and keep their speeches down to 5 minutes. He also re-interpreted old conventions in order to block Brexit one way or another, and rather than remaining neutral was distinctly partisan. The mark of a prat is that he thinks his opinion is far more important than the results of the largest referendum in UK history.
Boris Johnson comes fairly close, and though I don’t doubt his intelligence it seems to be bent towards saying what he thinks his current audience wants to hear, but without any intention of actually doing what he promises unless that accidentally happens. He seems to spend more effort in reading his thesaurus than considering whether his proposals are workable. His “Garden Bridge” project finally got the kibosh after wasting a lot of money on the planning for something that wasn’t needed, wasn’t useful, and cost far too much anyway. I’d thought his plans for a bridge from Scotland to Ireland was fake news, since I thought no-one could propose something that crazy except as a joke, but it’s actually true. I suppose this nomination also implies that the rest of the Conservative party must be prats, too, since they chose him as leader. Possibly, though, it was the least-worst choice in the circumstances, which reflects badly on politics in the UK.
I’m sure Jeremy Corbyn would be a good neighbour and a decent person to know, but even a little bit of learning history would tell you that his political policies would be disastrous if they were actually implemented. He’s promising lots of free stuff, and missing the point that everything has to be paid for at some point, and if you borrow money to pay for something then you will be paying more for it. Unless you can make more profit (your rate of production of wealth exceeds the interest payments) by borrowing the money, then you will be worse off than you would have been. Or your kids will, anyway. Despite a lot of push, Corbyn has remained firmly on the fence on Brexit despite having personally agitated for it for a long time.
Then there’s John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor. He’s proposing public ownership of the railways, the Post Office, British Telecom and various other utilities. That worked so well before with the railways, after all…. He’s also proposing free broadband internet (fibre) for everyone in the country. After all, the best way to be at the bleeding edge of technology is to use central control run by bureaucrats who can’t be fired for doing a lousy job and where the buck can be passed to someone higher up, and where a technology that’s been standard for decades will become the limit for the next 30 years rather than using the newest technology as soon as it’s profitable. He intends to heavily tax the people who are making a profit. A lot of people think that taxing companies like Amazon will be painless, and don’t realise that those taxes will be added to the Amazon prices so in the end they will be paying those taxes. Google will need to raise the costs of their advertising rates, too, so that will be added to the products they advertise. TANSTAAAFL….
Saint Greta isn’t really a prat, since she’s not old enough or competent enough to expect her to know the consequences, but I’ll add to the nominations here anyway. She’s been given bad information, and hasn’t learned enough to go find the original data sources and see if the information was correct. Maybe also if your parents keep telling you something is true, it’s hard to go against that. She needs to leave home and spend time on research, and when she finds out how she’s been fooled she may well head to the dark side of the Force and start contributing to WUWT. Maybe a perusal of just how many predictions of The End Of The World As We Know It have been made, and didn’t come true, would be a useful start. Even Wikipedia has a list of those, while conforming to the current zeitgeist of “this time it’s for real!”. Greta is not the Messiah, but a very naughty girl….
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Please take my nomination as a patriotic irritation against the undeserved oblivion from the precedent proposals of the Secretary Genarla of the UNO, Antonio Guterres.
From his numerous qualifications, some can be relevant for being accepted as a candidate: he has a higher education (engineering; civil, if memory serves), has some difficulty with elementary arithmetic mental calculus (as could be seen on tv some years ago, when he was the prime minister of my country), a good christian (of the catholic brand) deeply convinced that he should, must and can save the world (with his personal contribution, example and ability to endear audiences). Notwithstanding his broad cultural background and past commitments where he has deployed his organisational abilities and leadership, he seems to have recently succumbed to the charms of St Greta and the rest of the environment fighters to the point of making himself photographed feet in water without even rolling up his trousers for the cover of Time magazine, apparently to illustrate the so-called acceleration of sea leavel rising (a few year ago, the metrics was the ankle of the naked leg of an indigenous female activist; change illustration his affirmative action towards gender equality? MeToo effect?). At the same time, he is refocusing his agenda, beefing it more and more with “climate catastrophe”, something that was almost completely absent (as it is absent from the worries and concerns of the a very large majority of the world population) of his program as candidate to his current UN post: extra climate conferences, a kindergarten meeting in the UN premises with a few dozen skipping-school brats, etc.
IMHO this can be a promising candidate.
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Well as a Canadian there is only 1 Prat for me Justin Trudeau and yes I HATE Him as I’m Live in Alberta .
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The Ayes Have It that John Bercow is my number one candidate with David Attenborough as runner-up.
My little corner of Asia has candidates who deserve a mention on the racecard though with no prospect of making it out of the starting gate. “Tis pity that organisations don’t qualify because Hong Kong has two classics; first the HK Administration (they like to call themselves a government) for being, as a body, totally incompetent. But taking pride of place as non-starters has to be the HK police force, once self-described as Asia’s Finest, who have, in a very short space of time, transformed themselves into Asia”s Finest Terrorists.
Qualifying, however, as genuine candidates, are the two leading (and I use the word ironically) members of the city’s administration. Carrie Lam, despite being paid 1,700 pounds a day plus benefits, has by dint of burying her head ostrich-like, transformed the top job as Chief Executive (read mayor) into Chief Executive in Name Only. Her failings were apparent even before she was “elected”. Having resigned from her government post to run as CE, living in a serviced apartment she ran out of toilet paper. Not knowing how or where to buy the same she took a taxi to her former official residence and stole from the taxpayer. It is her non-performance over the last 5 months though that has amply shown what a prat she is. Not even able to emulate Nero who at least could fiddle, she hides as the city burns.
Her number 2 (oh, how appropriate) as Chief Secretary, Matthew “Mr Combover” Cheung qualifies on many counts. One example is sufficient; after 5 months of increasing violent protests he addressed the city’s Legislative Council saying “I don’t understand why people are so angry”.
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The Bercow has all the attributes and is my number one pick.
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Oh dear, my nominations seem to have been disappeared. Just in case they are merely hidden in the undergrowth, I add a fifth nomination: HRH Prince Andrew, Duke of York.
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There seems to be a bunch of disappeared posts between November 17, 2019 at 4:01 pm and November 18, 2019 at 10:23 am
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As usual, a very large field from which to choose. However, get on with it, Annie!
1. Bercow…don’t ask me why or I’ll be here all day and probably moderated out of the comments.
2. Dopey Dan…the communist man of Victoria, for accelerating its descent into Victoriastanidom.
3. Kristina Kennealy…for services rendering the Australian Labor party unnelectable.
4. AOC…for complete prat behaviour demonstration. She backtracked from her GND when it was laughed at but then the stupid notion was adopted…WUWT?
5. Attenborough…silly old man but with far too much influence on the unthinking…national ‘treasure’?! Fool’s gold more like.
As far as I can see, these people are not only utter prats, they are very dangerous with it.
Difficult choice though…still thinking of HRH, Jacinda, Corbyn, various Hollywood air-heads…
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After much consideration – so many worthy candidates for the prestigious award,
I nominate “existing, not living” Princess Sparkle herself – Meghan Markle, and her husband, climate change hyprocrite and Greta worshipper “I’m so overwhelmed by the world’s problems that I sometimes struggle to get out of bed”, Prince Harry. Poor bloke, done for by his wife like his Great Great Uncle before him…
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I think we’re all struggling with who to nominate this year, because on the one hand there’s a real shortage of prats, but we’re absolutely knee deep in assorted bastards and bitches, all of whom seem to make peoples’ blood boil. There’s nothing funny or likable about any of the trailer trash, but anyway, these are my 5 nominations.
1) ex-Speaker of Parliament John Bercow for services rendered to the Westminster swamp.
2) Adam Schitt for similar services rendered to the Washington swamp.
3) St. Greta of Thunberg for being a self-obsessed pratessette.
4) Very defo AOC. How she ever made it into congress I’ll never understand.
5) David “national treasure” Attenborough for turning out to be just another preachy population controller and doomsday merchant.
Pointy
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I can’t support Greta, child abuse rears it’s ugly head, and she absolutely can’t understand.
Adam Schitt is pure prat, very deserving! My pick, from here in USA.
I can’t express my gratitude for your work, except to say “thank you”. American blogs are
less than , well you know.
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I also support Adam Schiffty Schiff; with such prattiest eyes and the consistency in creating faked realities he must be a winnuh.
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Bercow it has to be then. I can’t vote for Attenborough – he is too old for a prat, just an old fool!
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I think any of those top five nominations could make it. @Everyone, amazingly good job of picking them out of a mountain of objectionable mountain of prats BTW.
St. Greta because she looks like a spoilt brat, Shithead for running a kangaroo court like a prissy little queen bitch, Bercow for turning the office of Speaker into a parliamentary joke, “National Treasure” just to give the BBC luvvies a right good kick up the arse and AOC for being such a bloody phony on a world class ego trip.
Pointy
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One more for ‘the yanks’ has to be Squeaker Pelosi who’s own father set up the model for degeneracy of Leftist Controlled cities like Baltimore where he reigned and she has transferred that to San Francisco.
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…. and whose son, Paul Pelosi Jnr, ended up on the Board of another Ukraine energy company just like Biden’s offspring … but we rarely hear of that.
Funny how that happens … even funnier Why?
They don’t speak the language, don’t live there, have no experience in the energy field.
Seems it’s the spawn of corruption who really inherit the earth.
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I nominate AOC, schitthead, vindman, pelosi and mueller.
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Mike “I’ll float a balloon” Bloomberg.
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Has to be AOC and Schiff fr me.
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John Bercow… has all the necessary qualifications age-wise, old enough to know what he’s doing, position of parliamentary responsibility and doesn’t give a fig. Personally I favour beheading. 🙂
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A last moment nomination – Secretary of State John Kerry.
Don’t you just “love” how American elitists cling to their titles after long since finishing their ‘Gig’.
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NFA, you’ve had slightly more than 5 nominations, but a nice try anyway LOL.
Pointy
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LOL…
Sorry Pointman.
Wasn’t trying to be a Labour/Labor/Democrat gamer of ‘The System’.
It is just that there are so many to nominate!
I’ll stick with the berkow whom is far more schifty than that American bloke.
Cheers
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I nominate Canadian Province of Quebec Premier Francois Legault. He should win for loudly and condescendingly opposing pipelines from oil producing province Alberta and then asking for Federal Emergency Assistance when their stock of propane runs out due to a train strike.
https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/kenney-has-message-for-quebec-amid-propane-shortage-theyre-called-pipelines/wcm/91952781-7d4e-47f3-b491-c58ac8895b25
Karma is a b*&$h.
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Greta Thunbergs father for allowing the abuse of his daughter .Wrong in so many ways.
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A prat is a bit like a wanker, but much more pretentious. Closely related to an f-wit, but without the brains.
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Well, that is a suitable selection of prats to vote on depite my main nominee not making the list. Perhaps next year after Victoria crashes into recession and blackouts.
Unfortunately I can’t enthuse over 2 of the finalists, namely St. Greta and AOC. One is the victim of child exploitation and the other is merely stupid. More importantly if they were to win then when the list of past Prats comes up in future most people will say “WHO?” Both will sink rapidly into obscurity – Greta possibly sooner if that catamaran doesn’t make it through the rough weather.
Possibly Bercow will also loose any lustre when he retires to his Tuscan villa, although his malignantly will still be remembered in the House of Commons for generations. Much the same could be said of Schiff once his usefulness has gone, and/or Pelosi no longer protects him. In both cases they are both of more (temporary) prominence locally.
No, for me the choice must be Lord Ga-Ga Attenborough of the BBC.
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It has to be Bercow for me, for the immense damage his vastly inflated ego has wreaked on the British Parliamentary system. It’s not that I don’t think their are others who are hugely deserving of the Prat of the year award.
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There…oh dear!
BTW Pointy, the only way to see the progress of the finalists would be to cheat and vote again! Tempting as that is, I believe in one vote per person only is the moral stance!
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I’m a bit conflicted on that one Annie. I like a game of chess but it becomes boring after a while because there’s not much room for being a scallywag. On the other hand, a game of cards does introduce an element of bluff and God forbid cheating. Spotting it in the Pratties is part of the fun.
Pointy
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Where is the Vote button please? It’s hiding from me in Firefox 70.0.1, Windows 8.1
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Try this backdoor link. https://poll.fm/10466298
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Thanks, that worked.
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Hi Pointman
Testing, as I don’t get anything linking to the voting
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Another Ian – see immediately above Pointman’s reply to my comment
“Try this backdoor link. https://poll.fm/10466298“
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David
Thanks for that
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1) Adam Shiff : pencilnecked prat
2) AOC: thick prat
3) Comrade Jacinda: toothy prat
4) Bernie Saunders: commie prat
5)Linda Sasour: peaceful prat
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Prat of the Year has got to be Jeremy Corbyn after his train-crash of an interview with Andrew Neil on BBC One. Corbyn is not only a complete prat, he’s also an accomplished liar. He’s so thick he’s frightening!
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Pointy,
I am am so upset with your supporters Boris Johnson in the list. I am seriously thinking of canceling my subscription!
In the 2004, 2008 and 2012 presidential elections I voted for Boris Johnson. At least he was born in the USA.
While he fell short in those presidential races he finally got the recognition he deserves (the thinking man’s idiot) when y’all made him Prime Minister.
Re-elect him on December 12 with such a majority that nobody can kill BREXIT. If he fails to get it done in short order set the hounds on him.
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None of the nominees seem worthy to receive recognition as “Prat of the Year”. Like the Democrat presidential candidates they all seem more worthy of our pity than our scorn.
That said, AOC is the most mean spirited ignoramus I can imagine so she gets my vote.
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It’s still early days, but it looks like Shithead is pulling away from St. Greta.
Pointy
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