Counter coup latest

El Guarndino announces a dastardly plan to suspend Parliament for 5 weeks to avoid blocking action, an example of Unrepentant's Law of Escalating Polarisation that accompanies aggressive virtue-signalling. We had all the latter yesterday when a coalition of minorities had a public meeting with a big pledge to sign, agreeing to do everything they could to stop no-deal, mostly by 'seizing control' of the order paper. I was reminded of an old argument in social science that aggregating 6 or 7 invalid methods does not produce one valid one.

Senior sources said a privy council of senior ministers was preparing to meet the Queen at Balmoral to set the prorogation in motion. A new session of parliament would then begin with a fresh Queen’s speech packed with manifesto-friendly measures on or around 14 October....Such a move would have to be approved by the privy council. It would give MPs little chance for parliamentary manoeuvring, but could just about allow time for a vote on any reworked deal Johnson manages to strike with the EU27, before the crucial European council meeting on 17 October.

Tory justification seems to be that this would be the normal pause to permit party conferences, and to allow new domestic legislation to be prepared but Remainers are predictably outraged.

The latest GRaun update says

Prime minister Boris Johnson has now confirmed that the Queen’s Speech will be delivered on 14th October....That means parliament will be suspended at some stage ahead of that date

Meanwhile, Graun high standards are maintained in the 'culture' section :

Totally appropriate: why there should be more male nudity in costume dramas

The Graunu explains that there is no clash between commercial and literary values. How fortunate!

Of course, the naked bottoms in Sanditon are there because ITV wants you to watch the show – but there is no reason to presume that Austen herself would have raised an eyebrow.