Our electric oven is not ready. It’s not working. Rather
like the British government: not ready for anything. Pandemic wave two. EU
trade deal. Test and trace. Anything more taxing than a three-word slogan: cook
my dinner!
Oven and Out
Last week, our kitchen oven stopped working. Or, to be more
precise, it stopped working properly. Our dinner was cooking nicely in a hot
oven: 200 degrees. The only trouble was it didn’t stop at 200 degrees: it kept
on getting hotter and hotter. By the time we had noticed, our meal was burnt.
Black. Charcoal. Not at all the way we like it.
It’s getting fixed tomorrow: new circuit board: 200 quid.
Cheaper than a new oven, we think. Anyway, the oven-as-charcoal-burner reminded
me of something.
Oven At ‘Em
Those of you with attention spans longer than our Prime
Minister (which is nearly everyone) will remember a phrase from the election
campaign last year. “Oven ready”. Following the election, Johnson quickly caved
in to the EU’s concerns about preserving the integrity of the Single Market by
agreeing to customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This was
quickly pushed through Parliament following the election and voted on by
Johnson’s New Model Army of compliant MPs. It seems that neither Johnson nor
those MPs had really understood what they were voting for. Certainly we know
Johnson doesn’t bother himself with detail: how many of his MPs, I wonder, knew
they were helping to set things up for a no deal crash out of the EU?
Now, eight months later, the CCJ (see last blog post) is bringing before Parliament legislation which breaks international law: Minister Bandon Lewis admitted as much today in the Commons. A senior government lawyer has quit his post because of this. And a senior diplomat compared the UK government to a “rogue state”. Even Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May condemned the move as leading to other countries not trusting the UK in any future trade negotiations.
We Just Don’t Kerr
Oh, and a bit more about the “senior diplomat” mentioned
above. He is none other than John
Kerr, now a member of the House of Lords. He is a former British Ambassador
to the USA and a former member of the European Convention which drafted Article
50, the procedure agreed by all 28 EU states at the time (including UK) for any
member wishing to leave the EU. So not just any old “senior diplomat”, then.
You Have to Laugh
… even when crying, screaming and kicking the dog (no
offence) might come more naturally.
It’s the following morning when I’m finishing this piece
off. The oven repair engineer hasn’t shown up yet. So here we are: England,
September 2020. The country you will never trust again. Break international treaties
by all means, but don’t gather in groups of 7. Unless you’re at school. Or a
premier league footballer. Or you’ve bred like a rabbit and got loads of kids –
one for the Rees-Moggs there, I feel. Simples.
I’d like to end with some good news. I’d like to, but there
isn’t any. So instead, here’s a few things that made me smile in today’s Guardian:
“Frosty the No Man”: thanks Marina Hyde, good value as ever,
describing the UK’s chief negotiator with the EU.
And a few extracts from letters from readers, witty as ever:
“our PM would have us waive the rules as well as rule the waves”, “perfidious
Albion is living up to its name” and “Johnson’s ‘oven-ready’ deal was a turkey”.
Thank you all.
Back in the heady pre-EU referendum days of early 2016, I
wrote a blog post which I entitled Sliding
Into Fascism. Reading it again now, I was struck by how much has
changed since then. The issues and concerns about which I wrote seem to have
taken place so long ago. Some of the names are the same as now, but all in
different jobs. I made reference to Education Secretary Nicky Morgan – remember
her? – and her predecessor Michael Gove, then at the Ministry of Justice. George
“austerity” Osborne was, of course, Chancellor of the Exchequer and, in a
comment in reply to the post, even a junior minister in the Cabinet Office, “Matthew”
Hancock, gets a mention.
Some of the themes in the post still ring familiar. The Education Secretary was making threatening-sounding statements to the teaching unions. Opaquely-funded so-called “think tanks” were allowed to continue their right-wing propaganda and fake news whilst charities’ freedoms to speak out were being curtailed. The House of Lords was being stuffed full of extra cronies of the Prime Minister.
Other measures reported in the post seemed all to point in one direction: namely, changes designed, bit by bit, to consolidate the Tories’ stranglehold on the electorate to perpetuate a de facto one-party rule. Since the, matters have taken a turn for a whole lot worse.
Under a Bus
The fact that the vast majority of the press are Tory
supporters, often advocating policies and actions even more extreme that the
government itself, doesn’t seem enough for the CJJ. Cummings’ power grab for
political advisers effectively reporting to his command and the widespread
sacking of senior civil servants is all part of the so-called “hard rain”
falling on the Civil Service. Mark Sedwill from the Cabinet Office, Jonathan
Slater from Education, Sally Collier from Ofqual are just three senior heads to
roll in recent days. Veteran journalist John Humphreys weighs into the debate
in an article for YouGov here.
(His article also served as a reminder of a resignation early in 2020 following
bullying by Home Secretary Priti Patel.)
The head of the FDA (the senior civil servants’ “trade union”) put it this way: “This administration will throw civil service leaders under a bus without a moment’s hesitation to shield ministers from any kind of accountability”. History shows that power without accountability always leads to greater and greater abuse of that power.
Taking the Central Line
Centre of Power
The United Kingdom as a state has always been centralised
compared with many of its counterparts. The freedom given to the government of
the day by our unwritten “constitution” fails to provide the checks and
balances which act as a safeguard elsewhere. But the centralisation of power
into Westminster has proceeded more rapidly since the days when Thatcher was
PM. Local government has been reduced almost to a cipher whose job is to do the
bidding of, and beg for discretionary funding from, central government.
The pandemic has thrown the results of all this
centralisation into stark relief – but it has also shown how ineffective it is,
compared to more successful countries (i.e. nearly all of them) in managing the
effects of coronavirus. Early on, repeated failures in supply of PPE followed a
centralisation of procurement in the NHS. Confusing and unsafe repeated changes
of policy on wearing PPE were undoubtedly driven by rationing shortages rather
than any public health “science” claimed by ministers.
Centralised Test and Trace has been the opposite of Johnson
and Hancock’s “world beating” claim. The number of times this and similar
phrases are used by those in positions of power show just how insecure they
feel inside about the alleged “Greatness” of Britain. Puerile hysteria about
blue passports and the offensive jingoistic lyrics of some “traditional” songs
are further evidence of this insecurity.
Without a Trace
Where?
The main reason that Track and Trace has been such a
disaster – failing to meet its targets nine weeks in a row – is the dogmatic
obsession with running everything from Whitehall and subcontracting (and
sub-subcontracting) everything to the government’s mates in the private sector.
The announced U-turn on handing more work and power to local Directors of
Public Health with the necessary local government spending is happening only
painfully slowly. Hancock is acting like a drowning man, not wanting to let go
of any scrap of centralised power for reasons of pure dogma and an
authoritarian instinct. The true black hole into which power is being sucked
goes by the name of the man whose eyesight needed testing on the road to Barnard
Castle.
Oh, in case you missed it, here’s a couple of things about Dido “Dodo” Harding, head of Track and Trace and the bits of Public Health England that the government hasn’t forgotten about, you may find interesting. As CEO of TalkTalk, Marketing magazine described her in these terms: “TalkTalk boss Dido Harding’s utter ignorance is a lesson to us all.” So that puts her on a par with every member of the Cabinet. And the second thing is her horsey connections as a board member of Cheltenham Racecourse. Matt Hancock is MP for Newmarket. Health experts have reckoned that at least 20,000 lives could have been saved if the UK had locked down a week earlier. And what happened during that, literally, fatal week? Why, the Cheltenham Festival, of course. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Judge Dread
One other key plank in the “abolish all dissent” plans of
the CJJ concerns judicial review. Gina Miller tweeted today: “Sneaky Govt! On 31 July
they announce Independent Review of Administrative Law via a press notice.
Tonight they quietly put on http://Parliament.uk the scope & who’ll decide if to act on recommendations.
I’ve highlighted & abbreviated.” (Gina
Miller is the lawyer who won two court cases between the 2016 referendum and
the 2019 general election. The first ruled that the government must seek a Parliamentary
vote of approval before signing the withdrawal agreement: this led to the
notorious Daily Mail “Enemies of the People” front page. The second ruled Johnson’s
2019 proroguing of parliament illegal. Between them, they reinforced the
principle that ministers are not above the law.)
Government announcement
Johnson has found a sympathetic chair
in Edward Faulks QC. Now, the next bit you simply couldn’t make up. Faulks’s
middle names are “Peter Lawless”. Yes, Lawless. His wife Catherine is a Tory
councillor. Lord Chancellor Robert Buckland and Cabinet Office Minister Michael
Gove have taken upon themselves the role of deciding what the government will
do following the Review. The intention is already clear. Johnson wants to put
himself and his government above the law. These are the actions of a dictator
and not those of Head of Government in a supposedly democratic state.
Wise Words
I’d like to end with some wise
words. The first come from the leader writer in today’s Guardian, who writes of the Cummings-Johnson Junta as “an administration that refuses to delegate
but fails to govern”. To those who find this all a bit boring, the second words
come from no less a figure than Plato: “The price of apathy towards public affairs
is to be ruled by evil men”.
That just about sums it up. You were warned.
Or, How to Stay Cheerful, in spite of the evidence…
Anyway, some bad news first.
The most reliable way of comparing countries in the
coronavirus pandemic is to measure excess deaths. (It’s the least dodgy of all
the various statistics.)
Top of the Charts
The PM refers to the UK government’s handling of the
pandemic in England as a “massive
success”. That’s only true if you count “success” as the height of the pile
of dead bodies. Here’s a chart showing the excess deaths for several European
countries, measured as a percentage of the total deaths expected at the time of
year. Cumulative figures since the start of 2020 show England top of the charts
with 7.5% excess deaths:
The Mountain Top
The charts below look like a series of mountains and show excess
deaths for the four worst-hit European countries week by week. Although the
other “top 3” (for deaths) show sharper peaks, it’s clear it’s taken England
and Wales longer to control the outbreak: note the two smaller peaks in later
weeks for England and Wales: no such pattern exists for the other countries
shown.
Mountains
A much fuller analysis, using official government figures,
can be found at the ONS website here.
There are those who argue that there is a balance to be
struck between saving lives during the pandemic and saving jobs. Not so. The Johnson
government has failed on both. The Guardian,
perhaps unsurprisingly today (as I write) runs the story UK
to Plunge into Deepest Slump on Record with worst fall in GDP among G7. For
political “balance”, compare and contrast that with, also today, the Telegraph headline “UK Poised to Suffer
the Biggest Covid Blow of Any Major Economy”.
Still, not to worry. If you live in the fantasy universe of
Johnson and his gang, it’s good news all the way. This was faithfully reported
in that fantasy-filled rag, the Daily
Express, a couple of days ago:
Propaganda rag
As I saw commented on Twitter that day, this front page
would be what one might only expect to see in the most repressive dictatorships
imaginable. It’s a disgrace to the sort of journalism that we should expect in
a supposedly democratic country. (I was bemused to see, incidentally, that Express copywriters haven’t cottoned on
to the fact that the UK has been measuring temperatures in degrees Celsius
since 1963, only 57 years ago. Still, I suppose it fits with the paper’s target
readership: those whose brains ceased to function at least half a century ago).
The Brex Street Kids
Even more good news: we don’t even have to wait until the end of the year to suffer from the entirely self-inflicted damage at the end of the EU Exit transition period. Today’s Observer cheerfully reports the exodus of the brightest and best in a piece entitled Br*xit Fuels Brain Drain as Skilled Britons Head to the EU. The “brain drain” started soon after the 2016 referendum result, the paper reports.
And yet, the Brex Street Kids running the country remain cheerful, it seems. As long as companies making Tory Party donations continue to win government contracts without due process of competitive tendering, all seems right their world. If ever there was doubt before, the “it’s one rule for us and another rule for the rest of you” attitude of those in power is plain for all to see. Blatant rule-breaking, rampant misogyny, cronyism (here’s a view from abroad) and corruption all get the blind-eye treatment by Johnson and his gang. OK, I admit that the last link on corruption takes you to a rather partisan source. But this story has been running, in various forms, in mainstream media (including the FT) on various dates since at least May. Just put “PPE contracts Tory donors” into your favourite search engine to see for yourself.
Give Us a (Second) Wave
Sea air?
Feeling the heat after all this doom and gloom? Then why not
head off to Bournemouth beach? I’m sure you will find yourself in good company:
that total stranger might shuffle up a bit to give you room to sit down. Give
them a wave: after a second one of those, you may be feeling the heat a little
more.
Whilst you’re there, why not bury your head in the sand? Don’t worry, that good old English
Exceptionalism will see us through! And with the Brex Street Kids in charge,
what could go wrong?
It’s well known that Peter Green, guitarist extraordinaire,
lived a troubled life. Drug induced mental health issues seem to have kept him
out of the public eye for decades after his initial success with Fleetwood Mac.
Which is a shame: he had a unique talent and his guitar playing style is easily
recognisable. For me, his soulful playing seems both melancholy and soothing,
all at the same time. If I had to choose just one word to describe it, I would
say “haunting”.
Albatross
Fleetwood Mac’s most famous instrumental hit during Green’s
time with the band is undoubtedly Albatross.
I’m sure those of us of a certain age associate that song with certain events
from our younger days. Picture the scene. It’s late in the evening at some
party or another. The room is almost in darkness. Fuelled by a certain amount
of alcohol, couples will be slowly shuffling around each other, “smooching” to
the lilting chords from Green’s guitar. Ah, happy days…
And absolutely nothing like this:
Albatross!
Back to Man of the World: Green also sings: “I guess I’ve got everything I need, I wouldn’t ask for more”. It seems that the commercial success of Fleetwood Mac, and the wealth it brought, did not sit easily with him. It was disputes with other band members over his discomfort with all their money that led to Green leaving the band. Perhaps all the fame and fortune became a kind of albatross around his neck and led to the health problems. Peter Green did not fit the stereotype of the extrovert, flashy guitar man. He came across as someone altogether more modest and self-effacing.
Return and Revival
Around ten or fifteen years ago, Peter Green had some
measure of a revival and this was the only time I saw him live. My wife and I
went to gig which John Mayall was headlining, with Green making a brief
supporting appearance. By this time, his appearance was more like this:
Peter Green in later years
And it was Green and not Mayall I remember from that evening.
John Mayall came across as arrogant and cold. We were “treated” to a
masterclass of Mayall’s famous virtuosity on a range of instruments. There was
no warmth or engagement with the audience. Rather, it was an exhibition of “look
how clever I am”. I was sorely disappointed.
But Peter Green was a bit shambolic and more than a little
self-effacing. He seemed genuinely delighted, and a bit overawed, to be back in
the spotlight. I found the whole thing rather endearing and it was undoubtedly
the best part of the evening for me. So, a happy memory.
The Supernatural
I would like to conclude this tribute to Peter Green by including a lesser-known, early clip from Green’s days with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, pre Fleetwood Mac. This early performance shows all the characteristics of Green’s playing style and was a foretaste of what was to come. Take 3 minutes of your time to enjoy – and perhaps discover for the first time:
Has the UK entered the final death spiral of some ironic
self-referential spin into a black hole of incompetence? Quite possibly. I had
never thought it logically possible to include the words “intelligence” and “Chris
Grayling” in the same sentence. But the gods of surrealism have now made it
possible.
There’s stupid. And then there’s Chris Grayling. There’s
incompetent. And then there’s Chris Grayling. There’s failing. And then… you
know the rest.
Failing Grayling
The media is awash with lists of the man’s failures. The Daily Mirror found eighteen. Perhaps the most notorious are:
The disastrous part-privatisation of the
probation service, now recently reversed;
The contract with the ferry company with no
ferries;
The unlawful ban on prisoners receiving books
from their visitors;
The nightmarish new timetable for Thameslink and
Northern Rail.
You can read the full list at the link above.
In 1967, the Hollies released a single “King Midas in Reverse”.
Could’ve been written for Grayling.
Taking the Piss
The report into alleged Russian government interference in UK politics was presented to the Intelligence and Security Subcommittee last autumn. Its publication was delayed on the pretext of the upcoming election. Johnson then delayed the Tory nominations to the Committee for over six months. And then, in an act of breathtaking surrealism, the government has nominated as Chair one Chris Grayling, serial failure.
To which there is really only one response. You’re totally
taking the piss, Prime Minister.
Cherry on the Cake
Little Miss Bilious
Another Tory nomination to the Committee runs Grayling a
close second in uselessness and incompetence: Theresa Villiers. Quite posh too, it
seems.
Here’s a few highlights of her incompetence:
When Northern Ireland Secretary, talking
bollocks over the impact of the UK leaving the UK in its effect on the
border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic
It’s hard to keep going in shielding “lockdown” without
going bananas to some degree. Here are my thoughts on some recent (and one very
old) news items, loosely connected to the theme of bananas.
Straight Bananas
This one’s a bit of a classic – but worth repeating here.
Bunch
We start today with the famous Euromyth about straight bananas. Undoubtedly just one of many lies written by Boris Johnson to fend off boredom when he was Brussels correspondent at the Daily Telegraph. The Wikipedia link in the sentence above contains several other myths. My memory is long enough to remember an actual Daily Express headline from before we joined the “Common Market” in 1973. It was warning the Great British public that joining the EEC would lead to the banning of the traditional British kipper. Well, we can all work out for ourselves that that prediction turned out to be decidedly fishy.
Beach Bananas
Cause ===> Effect
And so from fish to the seaside.
A great many people, me included, were horrified at the
sight of the crowds on Bournemouth beach last week, with no respect at all for
proper physical distancing. Local council workers collected 50 tonnes of
rubbish from the beach on just one day: the average for a June weekday is about
5 tonnes apparently. It seems that there is a section of the British population
who, as temperatures climb towards 30 degrees, “go bananas”. They find it essential
to travel in their thousands to beaches and beauty spots, even in the middle of
a once-in-a-century pandemic.
I am sure that a major contributory factor was the rule
breaking by Dominic Cummings and the lamentable speech by Johnson in his
support when the truth was revealed by the Guardian
and Daily Mirror. If ever it was a
case of “one rule for us, another for the rich and their friends”, this was it.
This was a watershed moment: the day the UK government lost control of the
public health message.
Johnson has compounded this major error of judgement with his announcements on easing lockdown restrictions in recent days. Johnson’s whole tone and body language result in a strong message that everything is being relaxed; the message of caution is sotto voce at best.
I for one expect to see coronavirus cases and deaths start
to rise again soon. The USA is a warning to us all about what happens when a
country is badly led.
Without a Trace
One of these has disappeared without a trace
Finally, I turn to three examples all illustrating Britain’s
descent into the status of a banana republic. They all stem from the gross
incompetence and hubris of the “Leave EU” mind set running (ruining?) the
country.
In early May, we were promised a “world beating” app after rejecting the Google / Apple version adopted successfully in other countries. This was “global Britain’s” very own version of a Track and Trace app, now sadly abandoned adding months of delay.
Here’s a technical account of what went wrong. An article for more general reading can be found here on the Metro website. What a pitiful shambles of a country this makes us appear to the rest of the world. But it gets worse: read on.
Taking a Pounding
Our currency, the pound sterling, is another factor moving
the UK towards the status of a banana republic. A Financial
Times article from a few days ago uses the term “emerging market currency”
because of the erratic behaviour of the pound’s exchange rate on currency
markets.
This may all seem like esoteric stuff, only of interest to finance people and exchange rate obsessives. There is a very basic real world effect, which anyone travelling abroad from the UK will shortly find out. That is in the so-called “spread” of exchange rates: the difference between the buying and selling rates. Broadly speaking, the higher the reputation of a country’s economy, the narrower is the spread between buying and selling rates. The “official” exchange rate – the one usually quoted in the media – is the mid-point in the range between these two.
So the rate that holidaymakers get at an exchange bureau, the number of euros or dollars that they actually get when they exchange pounds, will be further below this middle figure if the spread is wider. In short, people will feel even more ripped off than usual. And the blame lies with the country’s plummeting reputation caused by the government’s incompetence.
Where on Earth?
And just when you thought it couldn’t get more stupid, here’s
another
tale of Br*xit hubris and idiocy by our government.
Remember Galileo? No, not the famous scientist of old – no,
Galileo, the EU’s joint project to have a GPS system that was not dependent on
the US military. (Sometimes, the US military turns off GPS, usually when they’re
up to no good somewhere in the Middle East. Then all the satnavs in cars and
smartphones stop working until GPS is turned on again.) The UK has spent £1.2
billion as its share of Galileo but is walking away from the project to devise
our own system, as part of the government’s stance on EU negotiations. The estimated
cost to the UK of this decision is somewhere between £3 and 5 billion.
Our plans for yet another “world leading” go-it-alone
project looks like it will be as big a fiasco as all the other deluded dreams. The
government has invested in a 20% stake in a company called OneWeb. They are
designing a completely different network of satellites designed to serve a
completely different purpose from Global Positioning. All the developed GPS
systems use satellites in orbit 20,000km above the Earth. The OneWeb system
uses satellites only 1200km up, designed to provide internet access, not GPS.
How long will we have to wait until – just like Track and Trace – it’s back to the drawing board, following months of wasted effort?
The “Lollipop” Plane
The “Lollipop” Plane
Still, we can console ourselves that our Prime Minister now
has a vanity jet aircraft repainted from camouflage grey with £900,000 quids’
worth of red, white and blue paint. Critics
say it looks like a lollipop; it’s more conspicuous appearance will handicap
its previous use for fighter jet refuelling when not needed by the PM. An easy
target in hostile airspace!
It’s hard to imagine anything more designed to place the UK
in utter contempt with other world leaders – apart, of course, from the world’s
autocratic rulers who revel in such tat.
Banana, anyone?
I’m confused. And I feel a bit less safe than I did a week
and a half ago. I know I’m not the only one.
Cracks in the Shield
I have mentioned before that I am one of the people to have
been classified as “extremely vulnerable” to coronavirus and so I’m one of the
so-called “shielding” group. The initial guidance letter on 23rd
March advised us to stay at home at all times for a minimum of 12 weeks: not
even to leave the house for exercise or for getting food or medicines. (There
were 2 copies in quick succession, from my GP and my current “overseeing”
hospital.) The original guidance even recommended packing a hospital bag, just
in case, including contact details for next of kin: a bit scary to receive this
at the time!
For most of the next 10 weeks, there was nothing at all from
gov.uk or the “NHS Coronavirus Service”: we were left just to get on with it ourselves.
Many in more challenging circumstances than I felt even more abandoned: a
recent edition of Woman’s Hour has
some actual case studies. (The relevant
audio starts around 16 minutes into this audio clip on BBC
Sounds.) Over this period, I first convinced myself that our (sheltered) garden
was as safe as the house – subsequently confirmed by my hospital consultant. Then, I felt safe doing short (30 minute) walks
from home for exercise: I see very few people in our rural area and those I do
see all keep apart well over the 2m distancing rules.
Then, unexpectedly, on 19th May, a third letter arrived from another
hospital where I had treatment in 2018, carrying roughly the same words but extending the lockdown period by 15
days to 30th June. Just four or five days later, even more
unexpectedly, Johnson announced a relaxation of the lockdown rules for us
shielders along with relaxations for the wider public.
Frankly, I’m deeply, deeply suspicious about this change of
government guidance. The relaxations of the lockdown rules (in England),
coupled with widespread flouting of them on beaches and at beauty spots in last
weekend’s sunshine, potentially makes the “world out there” a less safe place.
So I’m ignoring what Johnson said and I’m relying on more trusted sources (e.g.
Independent SAGE and selected “experts” via trusted media) and carrying on much
as before.
Cracks in the Lockdown
Johnson and his gang of zealots and idiots (a.k.a. HM Government) were beginning to lose their tenuous grip even before the “Cummings Lockdown Tour” of Durham and Barnard Castle was made public by the Guardian and Daily Mirror.
Several events have now occurred to undermine the government’s position – and our trust – even further.
Cummings’ Rose Garden press conference was a
load of self-interested preposterous bullshit which revealed even more actions
in which he had broken the rules.
The pathetic, craven, orchestrated defences of
Cummings’ position by about 50% of the Cabinet simply destroyed any vestige of
respect for the individuals concerned.
Johnson’s ill-judged defence of Cummings exposed
him to a wider audience as weak, lacking judgement and, together with the
previous point, strongly reinforced the message: “one law for us and another
for everyone else”.
The many tales of raw emotion from those willing
to tell their stories of self-sacrifice for the common good added a potent
emotional impact to the narrative of hypocrisy and elitism.
The previously announced change from the clear “stay at home”
to the vaguer “stay alert” message started the rot and provoked much derision
at the time. It’s been downhill for government credibility ever since.
Acting Suspiciously
So, we’ve just had a torrid couple of weeks when the government
has totally lost whatever trust I had in them. I treat every single policy
change with suspicion. Any so-called facts and figures from government sources
I now double-check from other reliable sources of information. The daily (or
now, weekdaily) government briefings have been reduced to propaganda exercises,
with fiddled figures and disappearing graphs of international comparisons when
they no longer served Johnson’s propaganda purposes.
A whole raft of announcements following the 25th
May rose garden fiasco were made in the next few days, each one intended to
provide “good news” in a desperate attempt to move the news agenda away from
Cummings’ misdeeds:
Johnson’s bungled “return to work but not by
public transport tomorrow or maybe Wednesday” announcement
The reopening of schools to years R, 1 and 6,
which came as a surprise to those working in education and leaving too little
time to prepare. The rationale for choosing reception and year 1 children as
well as (the expected) year 6 has never been satisfactorily explained by the
government.
Exactly the same pattern has been repeated in
the announcement about the return of dentistry on Monday next. Dentists are
complaining that they have had insufficient
time to prepare. And what else? Sound familiar? Problems for dentists with
getting sufficient PPE (Personal Protective Equipment).
Relaxations on socialising (meetings of up to 6
people in gardens as well as parks) are basically unenforceable, making it much
easier to disobey them. A recipe for increasing the virus spread, I would say.
The much-publicised “track and trace” was “launched”
last Thursday. Everybody except government knows this was a sham and the scheme
will be up and running properly somewhere between the end of June and October,
depending on your optimism. It’s the same old centralised-run scheme using
private contractors such as Capita who in turn use unskilled staff with too
little training. The promised NHS app, fanfared at the start of its trial on
the Isle of Wight, has vanished out of sight for now. Rumours have it that it’s
not working properly.
And for us shielding folk? The relaxations of
the rules came as a complete surprise to NHS staff and to charities supporting
people with the relevant pre-existing conditions. There has been no medical evidence
whatsoever to justify the change. We’re meant to take it on trust. Which leaves
us feeling confused and more vulnerable.
The new rules for England, unlike Wales and Scotland, do not
specify a maximum distance people are allowed to travel – hence the crowded
scenes at the weekend on our beaches and beauty spots.
Scientists and government advisers are increasingly
distancing themselves from government policy announcements. Do you believe that
R (the reproduction rate) will stay below 1.0? I’m far from convinced.
I simply don’t trust anyone in Johnson’s rabble. It seems to
me to be a basic requirement for a functioning democracy that citizens trust
their government in times of crisis. Johnson and company fail on all counts.
World Beating
So I find everything the government says and does
delusional. If I hear another Government Minister say the words “world beating”
I shall scream! Here’s one thing we’re world beating at. On Wednesday, deaths
from coronavirus in the UK (359) were greater than for all of the EU27 countries
combined (311). Here’s the graph:
Covid 19 Deaths 3 on 3rd June 2020
Full story here.
And besides, why would we even want
to beat the rest of the world on anything to do with the pandemic? Surely, if
ever there was a time for global cooperation, for example in developing a
vaccine, it’s now.
An Old, Old Enemy
So what underlies all this? I think it’s another
manifestation of our old enemy, English Exceptionalism. To the rest of the
world, with our plans to leave the EU, the chimera of “Global Britain” and so
much more, we’re even more of a laughing stock. People in other countries pity
us. Here are just a few examples:
And, lastly, a recent viewpoint from that august
organ, the Financial
Times.
Countless further examples are out there on the internet of
the degree of contempt in which the UK is held around the world. It’s
demeaning, it’s embarrassing – and it has to stop.
The message gets clearer all the time. If you don’t care
whether your granny dies prematurely, carry on voting Conservative. Keep your
illusions. It’s just that they’re getting more lethal by the minute.
Or… The case for a Government of National Unity, with Keir
Starmer in a key role, gets stronger by the minute. Then there would be at
least one grownup in charge.
Sha la la la la la
la la
Sha la la la la la la la
Sha la la la la la la la
When the day is
dawnin’
On a Durham Sunday mornin’
How I long to be there
With Mary who’s not drivin’ me there
We drove from the City to be near my dad
Ain’t it just a pity down there things are bad?
Is this the way to
Barnard Castle?
My eyes are poor and I’m such an arsehole
Foggy dreams of Barnard Castle
And I can’t see what waits for me.
Show me the way to Barnard Castle
I made my name bein’ such a rascal
Dyin’ to see Barnard Castle
And I can’t see what waits for me.
Sha la la la la la
la la
Sha la la la la la la la
Sha la la la la la la la
And I can’t see what waits for me.
Rules are just for
peasants
And today it’s opening presents
For the sweet Mary here
As for me, I can hardly see her!
So let’s hit the highway
Mind that open drain!
Always do it my way
Time and time again…
Is this the way to Barnard
Castle?
It’s Mary’s treat: I forgot her parcel
It’s thirty miles to Barnard Castle
And I can’t see what waits for me.
Show me the way to Barnard Castle
The rest of you can kiss my arsehole
Lyin’ over Barnard Castle
And I can’t see what waits for me
Sha la la la la la
la la
Sha la la la la la la la
Sha la la la la la la la
And I can’t see what waits for me.
Sha la la la la la
la la
Sha la la la la la la la
Sha la la la la la la la
And I can’t see what waits for me.
Sha la la la la la
la la
Sha la la la la la la la
Sha la la la la la la la
And I can’t see what waits for me.
75 years after the end of World War II in Europe, the
Johnson government is inviting the people of Britain to “celebrate” the Allies’
victory over Nazi Germany. So, what kind of “victory” has that turned out to
be?
I quote just one statistic at this point, coronavirus deaths
(as of yesterday): Germany 7277; UK 30,076. For comparison, population sizes
are Germany 80 million, UK 66 million. So, per capita, the death rate differences
are even larger. And Germany’s pandemic started a couple of weeks earlier than
the UK’s.
So, if our Government had managed the outbreak as well as
the Germans’, pro rata, we would have
24,000 fewer deaths. So, who is to blame? I will argue below, the answer is
Tories, Tories and Tories.
Three Waves
Spanish Flu 1918-19
The Spanish Flu pandemic (which, incidentally, wasn’t
Spanish) occurred in three distinct waves with the second worse than the first.
The graph above clearly illustrates this point. (NB: the figures along the lower axis are dates: shown, rather confusingly, in US “semi arse about face”
month/day format.) It is mainly because Wave 2 was biggest, reinforced by
current epidemiologists’ modelling, that the Government is being cautious about
lifting the current lockdown restrictions.
I argue below that, similarly, our present predicament comes
about as a result of Tory Governments’ mismanagement and bad policy making,
also in three distinct waves. As a result, the country was far less prepared
than it could – or should, in my view – have been.
Wave One: 1980s and Thatcher
My wife has just delivered a load of face masks and
headbands she has sewn for use by frontline staff in the fight against the
pandemic. This is all too reminiscent of the pre-Industrial Revolution period
in the late 18th and early 19th century. People spinning
and weaving cloth in their own cottages. So, what accounts for our apparent regression?
Wave One and the first betrayal were started forty years ago by Margaret Thatcher. She may be remembered for a number of things. For now, I will concentrate on three: monetarism, anti-Trade Union legislation and the City Big Bang deregulation.
The graph below shows the trend during the 18 years of
Thatcher and Major Government. The steep drop in the period 1979 to 1982 is
mainly associated with the Tories’ flirtation with monetarism. For a period,
this was treated almost like a religious belief within Tory ranks and was
responsible for the needless destruction of many jobs, particularly in
manufacturing. The second steep drop around 1990-91 was at the time Thatcher
was ousted and replaced by John Major. Although the primary causes of this recession were
global, civil unrest and rioting occurred in such diverse places as Birmingham,
Oxford, Tyneside, Cardiff and Bristol.
Manufacturing jobs decline
The second factor was the anti-Trade Union legislation
passed during the Thatcher period. A fairly neutral account is found here.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that this started a long period of
change from relatively secure and well-paid manufacturing jobs to the insecure
zero hours and sham self-employment we see today. The people in this insecure
workforce are really at the sharp end of current lockdown policies. The “treat
them like shit” attitude, too prevalent in today’s employment practices, was an
inevitable result of weakening the countervailing power of the Trade Unions.
The third factor was the so-called Big Bang. In the
prevailing orthodoxy of the time – still largely present in today’s Johnson cabal
of True Believers – the financial centre in the City was “liberated” from the
old-fashioned practices of yore. As a result, financial services grew in
parasitic fashion into the monster we see today, with its abuse of power and
prevailing attitude of personal greed. I covered this topic in more detail in
my 2015 post The
City: Paragon or Parasite?Its general thesis is that what’s good for
the City is generally bad for the rest of us.
“The rest of us” includes those trying to make a living from manufacturing.
The upshot of all this is our over-reliance on imported
goods (such as panic-bought substandard PPE flown in from Turkey by the RAF). A
weakened manufacturing base has left us dangerously vulnerable in times of need
on items such as ventilators, PPE, testing kits: all the things that the
government is still playing catch-up on, 2 to 3 months after they should have
been aware of the seriousness of the threat from coronavirus.
This constitutes the Tories’ first betrayal of the people of
Britain: the 40-year weakening of our capacity to make the things we need in
times of crisis. (A possibly similar argument could be made about the food we
eat, but that’s another story.)
Wave Two: Decade of Austerity 2010-2020
Wave Two and the second betrayal cover the last 10 years of
Tory-led government and the Osborne-led religion of austerity. A nation was
persuaded to believe that the New Labour government was responsible for the
2008 global recession and the solution was austerity. Translated this means
punishing the weakest and poorest in society whilst letting those responsible –
organised finance – to escape scot free. Despite some eye-watering spending
announcements by Rishi Sunak, many of the tenets of austerity are still in
place in the mind set of Johnson and his gang.
What concerns us here is the cumulative effect of austerity
over the last 10 cruel years: the graph below shows the trend. The overall
figures disguise the fact that local government has been squeezed even harder
(by 40%) than public spending overall. And, of course, apart from the last few
desperate weeks, NHS spending was frozen (in real terms) for much of the
decade.
Decline in public sector
In the 2010s, the government split Public Health from the
NHS and then (as I said above) squeezed local government very hard. Casualties
would be care homes, public health resources and support services for
vulnerable and disabled people. Cuts in benefits, including for those with
disabilities, have weakened our collective resilience further.
A new and shocking example has emerged with the past 24
hours. During the years of austerity, Channel
4 News has revealed that 45% ofPPE stock was allowed to get out-of-date. This
includes 80% of respirators. In 2009, following an outbreak of swine flu, £500m
was spent building up a national pandemic stockpile. Channel 4 “has also
obtained evidence suggesting the stockpile had shrunk significantly over the
last ten years, while the UK’s population continued to grow.” In short, we were
less prepared for pandemic than at the end of the last Labour government.
To make matters worse, the government was forewarned. In
2016, Exercise Cygnus
simulated an influenza-type pandemic and predicted that the health service
would collapse through a lack of resources. The Daily Telegraph reported
one government source as saying that the results of the simulation were
“too terrifying” to be revealed. Eventually, the Guardian leaked the findings (redacted to exclude sensitive
personal information) on 7 May this year.
In summary, Tory led government policy decisions weakened
the UK’s preparedness for a corona-type pandemic systematically and repeatedly
over the last 10 years under the cover of austerity. Income and health
inequality widened over the same period, leaving the most vulnerable even more
so.
This is the Tories second betrayal of its people.
Wave Three: Johnsonian Dogma 2020
And so we turn to the recent past with Johnson as Prime
Minister. The story doesn’t get any better.
All but the most stupid and the most ideologically zealous
supporters of Government policy – the two groups are not mutually exclusive –
have noticed by now that the government was asleep at the wheel in the weeks
before the pandemic took off. World
Health Organisation warnings as early as January were ignored. WHO advice
to do “testing, testing, testing” was similarly dismissed by a government that
was riding on a wave of hubris following the UK’s “departure” from the EU on 31st
January.
Despite Ministers’ untruthful denials, it was UK Government policy right up to 20:00 on 23rd March that “herd immunity” was the best approach, making the UK an outlier in Governments’ approach to the pandemic around the world. Then we had the “screeching U-turn” and lockdown. By this time, of course, it was too late. It has been a game of catch-up ever since. Oh, and repeated instances of over-promise and under-deliver: on PPE, testing, contact tracing, whatever.
Conservative dogma had led to an over-reliance on the private sector and the bypassing of expertise in local government and other local arms of the public sector. A good, i.e. bad, example was last Thursday when Health Secretary Matt Hancock crowed that his “100,000 tests” target had been met. This was only achieved if you count test kits posted out (but clearly not yet used) on that day. Also the army was called in to set up “mobile testing centres”. In one instance for which I have an impeccable source, the local authority had not been forewarned of the army’s arrival and “caused chaos”. It seems that at one point, random people were approached in the street and offered at test. And all to meet a politically motivated target. Following the science, my arse! And, as we well know, in the days since, on at least 5 occasions, the number of actual daily tests have fallen well below 100,000.
Other countries have done better, and more consistently,
than the UK. And another thing. Local GPs and Public Health officials around
the country have NOT been given geographically-based test results numbers,
essential for the next phase of tracking clusters and tracing contacts. Perhaps
this is because the government handed the contract for manging testing to Deloittes
– yes, that Deloittes, one of the accountancy and consultancy big four who have
repeatedly failed, big time, to spot companies on the brink of going bust. The
system for getting feedback from Deloittes to key local expertise doesn’t exist
yet.
This illustrates a continuing weakness in the Government’s approach:
too much is attempted to be run from the centre and/or by private companies with
no relevant experience, rather than use expertise in local authorities. So,
even as I write, the Government continues to screw things up, avoidably.
The third wave of government betrayal continues,
unquestioned by a loyal and sycophantic press (with the honourable exception of
the Guardian).
Celebrate?
And so to today’s bread and circuses. We are invited by
those who govern us to celebrate an event which happened before 99% of us were
born. By inference, even to applaud our government’s “success” as Johnson
called it on Monday. Try telling that to the grieving families of the 24,000
individuals, disproportionately black, brown and poor, who have died too soon
thanks to Conservative government failures over the past half a century.
Day 33 of shielding. Here’s a collection of pandemic-related
thoughts.
Good Deeds, Bad Deeds
Politically speaking, Boris Johnson has only ever committed
one good deed. That was to catch a moderately severe case of coronavirus, and
recover. When Johnson is fit to return to work – and he is fully entitled to a
period of recuperation in line with medical advice – perhaps, just perhaps, we
may all benefit from his experience. We can only hope that he has learnt to be
a little less cavalier with the nation’s health, having been close-ish* to
death himself. The idea of Johnson being a voice for caution is truly bizarre,
but then stranger things have happened in these past few weeks. (* We may not know for a long time just
how close he was. The idea that anything that may emerge from Number Ten’s
spokesperson bears any resemblance to the truth is just plain fanciful.)
In all other respects, Johnson has been a disaster in all phases
of his adult life.
As a journalist, Johnson’s utter indifference to the difference between truth and lies has caused real and lasting harm. His spell as the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent in the 1990s is an obvious case in point. Almost single-handedly, he invented a whole series of myths (lies, in plain speaking) about the EU and its workings. This laid the foundation for the disaster of the 2016 referendum result. Under his editorship of The Spectator, a thousand far-right poisonous columns were encouraged, further polluting the political discourse in the UK.
As London mayor, he first took the glory for all the hard work done by his predecessor, Ken Livingstone, in the 2012 London Olympics. As mayor, he was lazy, never on top of the detail and despised by the majority of GLA staff – information from a former GLA staffer. His tenure was all photo-opportunities (see, for example, Turd On the Wire), no substance (except for a legacy of failed vanity projects: Boris Island, Garden Bridge, etc.).
So is it any surprise, then, that these same deep personality traits have been repeated during his months as Prime Minister? Missing five Cobra meetings is unprecedented – to use a much-overworked word in these times. So add “holidays” to “photo-opportunities” to the previous paragraph.
So, no. I can’t think of a single thing to add to the “good”
pile apart from falling ill.
Clowns and Pygmies
And don’t get me started on the sick, sick, joke laughingly
called the UK’s Cabinet.
I have to keep pinching myself to remember that the de facto
acting Prime Minister is one Dominic Raab. Raab: a man so far out of his depth
that even the Mariana Trench doesn’t cut it as a metaphor. Raab: a man so
useless he didn’t make it into the last round of voting for Tory leader last
year. And the rest of the Cabinet, too rubbish to be worth remembering their
names, are just a ragbag of zealots and yes-men (and a smattering of women).
We should never forget that Johnson chose his team on the
basis of loyalty to the cause of Br*xit: courtiers and sycophants at the Court
of the Man Who Would Be World King. Not one single member of the Cabinet was
chosen on the basis of their knowledge, skills or even basic competence to do
the job.
One Grownup in the Chamber
Which brings us to the one grownup in the room. Or at least
in the chamber of the House of Commons. I cannot begin to describe my relief
that, at long last, we have an effective, intelligent and capable Leader of the
Opposition. By all accounts Kier Starmer wiped the floor with Raab at PMQs in
the Commons last week. He struck just the right tone and balance between
supporting the Government’s efforts to combat the pandemic and forensic
examination of their many errors. It’s reasonable to expect those who govern us
to be held to account, not least because (with honourable exceptions) the media
are doing such a piss poor job of it.
To be fair to the BBC, critical and intelligent analysis
does get airtime, even in the BBC’s news bulletins and high marks to Emily
Maitlis and Newsnight for some sharp
reporting. I look forward as various members of the Shadow Cabinet – not least
David Lammy, of whom I’m a big fan – get more fully to grips with their briefs.
Good decision making and competent governance depend upon good Opposition.
(Non-) Testing Times
The woeful lack of Government preparedness and lack of
attention to warnings in the January to early March period is now becoming
clearer. The lies, cover-ups and attempts to shift goalposts and rewrite history
undermine our trust in those in whom we must perforce place it. Ten years of
austerity has left the public realm in a weakened state – but some of the catching
up has been quite impressive. The problem is that it is the heroic efforts of
thousands, possibly millions of ordinary workers – many low paid – which are
putting right the policy failures of years of Tory rule.
The worst fears of ventilator shortages and hospital ICUs
becoming overwhelmed seem to have passed – for now. But the continuing struggle
for PPE remains a national disgrace and an international laughing stock. Ministers
and senior officials have given at least four versions of the reasons behind
the UK failing to participate in joint EU purchasing schemes. So we know that
at least three of them are lies. A recurrent theme of over-promising and
under-delivering is wearing thin the nation’s patience.
As a member of the “shielding” fraternity, I await evidence
of any Government thinking on an exit strategy. Do I really have to stay at
home until there’s a vaccine or effective treatment?
Worshippers at the Shrine of Science
The UK Government’s repeated mantra of “following The
Science” obfuscates the glaring fact of the UK repeatedly not following WHO
advice. Rules for the wearing of PPE change depending on the level of supply
shortages, so, in this aspect at least, “following The Science” is a lie. The
secrecy surrounding the membership of the Scientific Advisory Group for
Emergencies (SAGE) committee and the revelation that the mad zealot SPAD
Cummings has made several appearances further undermines the Government mantra.
And as anyone with any insight into things scientific knows, “The Science” is
always uncertain, tentative, confusing and sometimes contradictory.
So WHOSE science Ministers are influenced by is of utmost
importance. The screeching U-turn on 23rd March when “herd immunity”
was dropped in favour of lockdown is the most obvious example so far. This was
the day when one lot of scientists were so alarmed at government policy that
they actually shouted loud enough to be heard over the siren songs of the
behavioural scientists who had hitherto held the Prime Minister’s
(short-spanned) attention.
Public Health Announcement
Finally, talk of short attention spans brings me inevitably
to the one country which is making a bigger mess of this than the UK: the
United States of America. So, in the best traditions of Public Health
Announcements, here’s my contribution.
Want to cure yourself of the coronavirus? Just follow these
easy steps.
(a) Procure yourself a sun-bed or (b) travel to
one of your own resorts or golf courses in a hot, sunny part of your country.
If (b), find a lounger in a sunny spot.
Pour yourself a long, cool glass of bleach or
household disinfectant. (As you are American, try not to put too many ice cubes
in your glass, as this will dilute the beneficial effects.)
Ask a minion to get you a powerful light source:
an industrial strength laser is ideal.
Settle comfortably on the sunbed or lounger.
Shine the light source directly onto your
oversized abdomen (ignore any burning smells).
Drink the contents of the glass in one go.
Lie back and relax, contented with how much joy
you have just brought to the world.
Health warning:
do NOT attempt this at home, unless your name is Donald Trump.
