Staying Alert

You really couldn't invent this current Government if you tried....

So, it’s been just over a week since almost 27 million of us tuned in for Boris Johnson’s most recent state of the nation address. Unsurprisingly, rather than offering leadership for the way forward, information about the actual extent of infection or contrition for the abysmal mishandling of the pandemic by him and his coterie of clowns, this pre-recorded piffle was exactly the kind of platitudinous horseshit, delivered in a shambolic fashion, that we’ve come to associate with the blustering, devious, feckless charlatan who occasionally finds himself in charge of the country. His “roadmap” out of lockdown consisted of a whole quarter of an hour of contradictory messages couched in the kind of syntactic butchery that recalled the best work of the late, great Professor Stanley Unwin, appearing at one point to suggest it was now possible to spend time outside for the purpose of increasing mental wellbeing, but not if you were feeling down in the dumps.

Not content with sending a whole nation to bed on Sunday night in a state of baffled anger, the meaningless “stay alert” mantra was then rendered even more mendacious and obfuscatory when imbeciles like Hancock, Raab and that shithouse whose name escapes me, notably only for taking a day trip to Shrewsbury under lockdown, were thrust blinking and bullshitting in front of the cameras for the daily COVID-19 lie fest that is laughably known as the media briefing.  Frankly, after the huge swathe of retirements at the last election, it becomes ever more abundantly clear that we are at the mercy of a ruling party that is simply not fit for purpose, comprising as it does, the most inexperienced, incompetent shower of clockwork cretins ever assembled. I don’t buy the theory that Johnson is actually some kind of Machiavellian master tactician, manipulating events for the benefit of some, as yet unidentified, global masterplan; it seems ever more obvious that this blundering, indolent, sociopathic shitbag is merely a glove puppet for that evil, shady demagogue Dominic Cummings. It is gratifying to see Keir Starmer wiping the floor with BoJo every PMQ, by the simple expedient of forensic analysis of the lies spewed out by the Tories, though it does throw into even sharper relief the 5 wasted years under the stewardship of someone who would have been better served flogging dog eared back issues of Socialist Challenge from a trestle table at the Islington CLP monthly jumble sale.

Of course, the real message Johnson wanted to deliver, but failed miserably to articulate, was that the needs of capitalism required the probable deaths in service of numerous workers, specifically those who toiled in low paid, high risk jobs. Not only that but, as you could probably guess, the middle and upper classes would not be required to endure such privations. Like a gratuitously offensive rewrite of the famous sketch involving John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett from TW3, Boris and the boys had sorted things so that the upper classes could take things easy and roam freely down country roads in their enormous motor cars, while the gently squeezed middle could send a few emails early doors from the breakfast table before meeting up with their nominated community chum for a round of golf, and the horny handed sons of toil could die, alone and in agony, but with the satisfaction of knowing their efforts had kept the wheels of industry sufficiently lubricated and rolling nicely along.

Just to put the tin hat on this desperate state of affairs,  Raab gleefully confirmed, none of us will be getting a holiday this Summer either; just as well Boris had that fortnight in the Caribbean at the start of the year then. Despite the surprising continuation of the furlough scheme that has already been denigrated by the Chancellor Rishi Sunak as, in less two months, somehow creating a whole new social stratum of lazy, feckless scroungers, who’ve had the Protestant work ethic erased from their DNA, as they are now prepared to subsist on 80% wages ad infinitum, let’s not delude ourselves about the real reason why the knives are out for all sections of the working class, especially those who are unionised. Rather like the cannon fodder who were sent over the top to their certain deaths during World War I, workers, in care, construction and (imminently) education, though not in the private sector of course, are being sent back to toil in unsafe environments to serve the needs of the profit motive.  Not only that, they’re being “advised” not to use public transport, despite the fact some of the lowest paid industries are being reanimated. Still, this will be an enormously popular move among the rank and file of the Tory Party, who will fondly remember Norman Tebbit’s facile entreaty that the unemployed should get on their bike and look for work.  The great news is that, during the week that observed the infinitely more moral World Conscientious Objectors’ Day rather than the previous Friday’s VE Day, unions stood up to the Government and, despite the nauseating lies of the Daily Mail, flexed their muscles, said no and saw some backtracking by the shamefaced vermin in the Cabinet. However, there’s a big battle still to be waged in education. Wait, watch and learn.

Of course, your average Tory probably thinks their policies regarding a mass return to work are an effective way of ironing out social inequality, by solving the problem of inadequate housing for the working class and attendant problems with social distancing, by sending the labouring multitudes back to work with, at best, a 50:50 chance of avoiding the virus. Even more crucially, reopening the schools will provide free day care, such is the value Tories put on state education, for the children of returning workers. Having spent 30 years in education, I know that teachers moan like shithouse doors in a gale at any given opportunity but, without exception, they know what is best for children rather than parents who largely treat schools as dumping grounds for their maladjusted crotch fruit. Again, in this instance teachers are correct; opening schools means potentially hundreds of thousands of pupils and staff are at risk of contracting COVID-19 and, needless to say, dying a wholly preventable and unnecessary death, simply because capitalism requires profits and human rights are irrelevant in a world where human beings are viewed by the ruling elite as expendable cannon fodder. The Tory Party does not have a conscience; any deaths will be blamed on those who finally cracked and couldn’t abide this Police State style lockdown we’ve all been forced into.

I’ve observed the fascistic strictures of the lockdown since it was introduced, though I remain convinced it has done any real good, but I’m getting pretty fucking sick of it and, while I’m not likely to put myself or other people in danger by ignoring it, I can understand why some people are at breaking point. We are social beings and being stuck in a predetermined space, without any choice of who you share that with, can lead to meltdown, never mind lockdown. For example, being restricted to 1 hour outside a day has meant my psoriasis has gone crazy because I’m denied sufficient Vitamin D from exposure to sunlight. Life is about taking calculated risks; otherwise none of us would ever emerge from our homes, but this disorganised and reactive piecemeal relaxation of the rules offers nothing tangible to build on in preparation for the full introduction of a new normal into society. Other than reopening garden centres I suppose. While most of the anti-lockdown protestors are tinfoil hat wearing geeks from the outer fringes of the New Age movement, replete with crystals, balms and incantations, as well as a scarcely comprehensible hatred of 5G technology, there is also the dangerous shadow of  ultra-right wing goons like Jayda Fransen, ready to pounce on any dissent. As about 50 people rocked up at Hyde Park for the showpiece protest, I’d suggest they have a long way to go before they’re taken seriously. The one fact that will keep Jayda Fransen’s natural constituency of barely literate, bald, middle-aged white men in chunky Italian knitwear on the straight and narrow, is their bizarre respect for authority in the shape of Johnson and his squad, if not the Filth.

With news that the R number is creeping perilously close to 1 again, we must look to the advice from Edinburgh and Cardiff; stay home, protect the NHS, save lives. Oh, and fuck the Tories as well.