The Blob has had a busy week. They were plotting against Home Secretary Suella Braverman, kiboshing plans to scrap EU laws and trying to get Boris Johnson the jail.
They’ve already taken down Dominic Raab this year. Who’s next?
Well, according to one headline in the Telegraph, it could be all of us.
“The woke Blob is about to achieve its greatest triumph: its final takeover of Britain” it read.
Another headline a day later warned us that The Blob was “gobbling Right-wing Tories like Pac-Man.”
“I didn’t really believe in The Blob till now,” one former minister told the paper.
We think The Blob first came into existence in this country at some point during 2010 when the Tories and Lib Dems formed the coalition government and Michael Gove wanted to reform England’s schools but struggled to get past the education establishment.
Though it seems to have been about during the Reagan years, in the mid-80s, when his education secretary William Bennett struggled to get his changes through because of unions and officials and academics.
📝 Sign up for Unspun – Scotland's top politics newsletter. Enjoy exclusive opinion and analysis from some of Scotland's best political writers and commentators sent directly to your inbox every weekday evening. Click here to sign up 👈
The Blob itself – the actual Blob, not the Tory Blob – is a 1958 film about a jelly-like alien that terrorises a small Pennsylvanian town, eating everything it touches, getting bigger and bigger.
But The Blob Blob, the one we’re talking about just now, has morphed from simply being a bunch of teachers and some unions, and it now seems, at the very least, to be some sort of shadowy cabal of lefty civil servants determined to foil the right of the Tory party.
The Blob has had many forms over the years. There’s been the already mentioned Woke Blob, the Green Blob, the Remainer Blob.
Liz Truss – you might remember her, she was briefly foreign secretary – even spoke about The Blob in 2018, as she had a pop at colleagues, telling them to “challenge The Blob of vested interests.”
I’m pretty sure most normal people still aren’t aware of The Blob, but those who are have probably learned about it this week, as Blobbymania took hold of the UK for the first time since the mid-90s.
When Raab resigned as deputy prime minister in April 2023 following a whole slew of civil service bullying allegations, it wasn't because he was a bit too robust with civil servants, it was because The Blob wanted him out.
“So Rishi Sunak has caved into the baying mob of Whitehall civil servants and forced the resignation of deputy PM and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab” wrote Carole Malone in the Express. “It’s a move he’ll live to regret because now just watch The Blob – which hates this Tory Government and believes IT should be determining government policy NOT our elected politicians – try to take down every minister who dares say boo to them”
When Rishi Sunak took the decision to slow down the EU retained law bill, rather than madly try and revoke or replace 4,000 laws by the end of the year, it was clear his hand had been guided by The Blob. Never mind that the task was near impossible.
“The Blob wins,” tweeted Jacob Rees Mogg.
The blob wins. https://t.co/qc1EuJykTA
— Jacob Rees-Mogg (@Jacob_Rees_Mogg) May 11, 2023
But possibly, the Blob’s greatest triumph came this week when Boris Johnson was referred to police by the Cabinet Office over new claims that he had broken his own Covid lockdown rules by having friends and family over to Chequers.
One ally of the former prime minister blamed Oliver Dowden, accusing him of being “A compliant tool of The Blob”.
Of course, it’s wrong to think of The Blob as one thing. The Blob is everywhere. Controlling everything.
How can you recognise The Blob? You can’t.
Maybe you’re being controlled by The Blob. Maybe you are, in fact, part of The Blob.
Like all the most bizarre conspiracy theories, there was, at some point, probably a kernel of truth here. There are undoubtedly civil servants, vested interests who don’t like change.
But they stopped being The Blob a long time ago. Now The Blob is...
...want to read the full article? Sign up for free to the Unspun newsletter and receive it directly to your inbox every weekday night at 7pm. Click here 👈
Why are you making commenting on HeraldScotland only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel