Day 39 of UK lock down: Smoke, Mirrors and Walpurgis Night

So far the UK government public response to Covid-19 has focused on vague concepts of Britishness, determination, wrestling, and a nice old chap who’s been walking up and down his garden. The motivation is probably two-fold, in part to deflect attention from the uncomfortable and scandalous behind-closed-doors underbelly of the real response, and partly to maintain the myth of British exceptionalism for when the headlong rush to a catastrophic hard Brexit re-emerges into the daylight from behind the pandemic.

Vagueness and lack of attention to the truth are characteristics of the politics of personality much used to prop up dominant conservative ideologies. As a conjuring trick, its success does rather depend on the charisma of the politician, which has evidentially been a problem for the charisma-free UK government during Prime Minister Johnson’s frequent absences from office. Johnson’s stooge Raab had all the conviction and charisma of a UPVC window salesperson at Prime Minister's Questions 29 April 2020, when confronted by a real grown-up politician in the form of Keir Starmer – who is one of the few silver linings in the political clouds currently sitting over Westminster.

Tonight is Walpurgis Night when pests, smoke, and useless politicians are traditionally chased away to clear the air. If only !

Read a detailed and precise account of the UK government's shameful pandemic response here

Day 38 of UK lock down: The End is Nigh

BP has gone from a $2bn profit this time last year to a $500m loss, but is still issuing a dividend to their investors, which looks like delivering a 7% yield , albeit by drawing on their capital & depleting their resources. This is clearly is not a sustainable long term strategy, but then neither was what the fossil fuel industry has been doing to the planet for the last 300 years.

Oil prices are currently at the lowest point for 160 years, although that’s not quite as dramatic as it sounds, since prices were almost as low in the 1970s and late 1990s. Nevertheless, Jeremy Cliffe, writing in the New Statesman, makes the point that, regarding the end of the Age of Oil, it’s now a matter of not if but when.

And the answer to that rather depends who prevails – short sighted investors and their populist politician puppets, or people prepared to seize the moment and change to a regenerative & circular economy.

Read analysis of oil price here

Read depressingly upbeat oil industry forecast here

Day 37 of UK lock down: psychology time

So, since the pandemic started, Trump has, in his press briefings and White House statements, taken the opportunity to praise himself 600 times, excluding his relentless tweeting. Narcissist who really really believes in himself, or fragile ego in constant need of support ?

Equivalent data for the number of times the UK government spokespeople have invoked the language of war and conflict, or has parrotted patronising and hypocritical sound bites about the NHS, is not available, but must be reaching similar numbers.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand government has got on with the job, contained the outbreak, and is now ready to lift the lock down .

Day 36 of UK lock down: Johnson's return

Johnson, B is back in Downing Street, with a note from Matron to excuse him from answering any difficult questions about Cummings cherry-picking the scientific advice, about not treating the public like adults, about lying about herd immunity strategy, or about opportunistically accelerating towards a crash-out from the EU. And he’s to stay indoors at playtime, and restrict his public statements to occasional crowd-pleasing soliloquies about pluck, heroism and other uniquely British qualities, which have already created a patriotic flutter amongst much of the UK press, especially those outlets owned by billionaires and aristocrats. Young master Hancock is also very relieved.

Analysis of today's Johnson waffle here

Day 35 of UK lock down: Too much oil

Over the last months demand for oil has collapsed, sending the price through the floor, but oil producers have continued production regardless, because closing a well is an expensive procedure which could also lead to reduced production after re-opening. As a result, global storage is nearly at full capacity and already oil tankers, and probably bathtubs and saucepans, are being called into use to hold the unwanted oil.

If demand doesn’t recover in the next few weeks many oil wells will have to close, which may also mean closing many oil-based businesses. Those governments showing signs of managing the pandemic in a rational and effective way seem very unlikely to return to “normal” any time soon, so mass oil well closure is looking increasingly probable.

Predictably, this is being characterised from within the fossil fuel industry as a looming energy crisis on an unprecedented scale. So, we are being asked to save the status quo of trashing the global ecosystem to produce polluting and climate-wrecking hydrocarbons, which also have, by the way, been the cause of many of the armed conflicts of the last 100 years, with casualty figures way beyond those of Covid-19.

As an opportunity to reboot and move rapidly to sustainable, renewable, more localised energy production this is equally unprecedented and equally massive. And we already have the technologies. If we don’t seize the day, future generations will never forgive us.

See Guardian report here

See analysis of US oil here

See analysis of disastrous oil wars here (surprisingly Conservative source alert)

Day 34 of UK lock down: distressed billionaires

The queue for financial bailouts from the lock-down is getting longer, with not only Richard Branson, Victoria Beckham, and various owners of huge grouse-slaughtering estates in Scotland seeking support from the UK government (aka UK tax payers), but also the Trump Organisation . Yes, that Trump, the sarcastic one, because seemingly his loss-making golf courses are now making even bigger losses. Not that losses from golf courses are his biggest problem just now. See NY Times analysis here

Christiana Figueres pointed out, in the recent BBC radio programme Fallout, that there are some important parallels in dealing with Corona virus and with the climate & ecological emergency. In particular, those countries which understood the science and the need to give speedy attention to areas of high probability &, high impact risk, are those which have done much better in mitigating the problems. Those countries led by idiots or sociopaths not so much.

When it comes to giving public funding to help prop up business affected by the pandemic, the choice seems very clear – we can follow the clamour from the greedy rich, and return to an unsustainable “normal” which created the environmental mayhem in the first place, or we can take the opportunity to support those businesses which help us move towards a sustainable and regenerative way of being.

Day 33 of UK lock down: Hiding in a fridge at Chequers

Having mooted injecting disinfectant, and shining really really bright lights inside Covid-19 patients, as possible cures, Trump has shone his laser-like stable genius on a medical assessment of the UK’s missing prime minister, whom he thinks is “ready to go”. Quite a lot of people in the UK have already been thinking that Johnson should go, along with his cronies, to make way for a competent government which is capable of dealing with this crisis, instead of the Dad’s Army tribute act we’re currently saddled with.

Meanwhile, back in the grown-up world, Caroline Lucas has put it very succinctly: “This global health emergency has laid bare the failings in our current system. But, if we choose to, we can lay the groundwork for a fairer, greener recovery, and rebuild a society that is more equal and more resilient, and where people and Nature thrive.”

And the Dutch government have also been putting the lock-down time to good use, producing a clear and convincing plan for a Green Recovery from the pandemic, which could serve as a model for any responsible government.

Read latest Trump bollox here

Link to Netherlands recovery plan here

Day 32 of UK lock down: Pinning the Tale on the Donkeys

In an attempt to deflect the tidal wave of blame looming over this inept and mendacious UK government, Dominic Raab boasted at PMQs yesterday: ”People said that we couldn’t build a hospital in this country at that kind of speed, and we’ve built several, with more to come.”

Unsurprisingly, he neglected to mention the 100,000 unfilled staff vacancies arising from 10 years of neglecting the NHS, which mean that there aren’t enough ICU staff for those new hospitals, and patients are being turned away (see report here). Not to mention the homicidal negligence shown by the government with regard to PPE procurement, so even if there were available staff, they’d be inadequately protected (See Philip Pullman's excellent essay on the subject here).

More proof, as if it were needed, that we can’t rely on Johnson & his cronies to lead the country anywhere other than a crashing out of the EU. (See analysis here) Except when it comes to keeping access to Europol databases, obvs (See report here)

One bit of good news is that the Labour party seem to have elected an effective leader of the opposition, capable of holding the complacent and useless bastards to account.

Day 31 of UK lock down: Earth Day

Today is Earth Day, and 50 years on from the first of these days marked out to show unified support for environmental protection across the globe. 

A telling reminder that the environment has been firmly on the international agenda for at least half a century and yet, despite some very significant advances,  GHG emissions are still rising, and we’re still devastating ecosystems in pursuit of our consumerist addictions.

What’s different this year is that Earth Day is happening in the midst of a once in a generation global upheaval that has thrown normality up in the air, giving us a real chance to make changes at the scale they need to be made. We have come to a major fork in the road, where we must choose our future, and it’s not about survival or not. Survival isn’t enough – it’s about what kind of Earth do we want.

Charles Eisenstein sets out the stark choice very clearly in this short (6 minute) video

#WeCanChange !

Day 30 of UK lock down: we don't have to be led by any kind of donkeys

Covid-19 travel restrictions and slowing down of business & industry have led to a dramatic drop in demand for oil, and an equally dramatic drop in oil price, and oil producers are now racing to reduce production. The US was too slow off the mark, and over-production there, coupled with full reserves, led to negative pricing for the first time ever, which is a revealing indication of the power of market demand over these allegedly unstoppable Molochs.

Blaming the oil companies for what they do is like blaming lions for eating antelope, which is not a solution. Move the antelope elsewhere, and the lions will go away.

We have a huge opportunity here to seize the moment and push for a swift transition to renewable energy, and for a radical review of our underlying energy demand. We can change, and this is the moment to do it.

Report on oil price response to reduced demand

Day 29 of UK lock down: Carpe Diem

Despite the catastrophic impact of the pandemic, the global governmental responses, and the environmental consequences, are highlighting a very real opportunity to make some positive changes to our existence.

 At the same time, it’s not just environmental activists (and hedge fund managers) who are seeing opportunities. Trump seems determined to turn the global catastrophe of Covid-19 into a personal campaign to consolidate electoral support from his voter base who somehow seem to believe that he is their best chance of salvation.

 In the UK, Johnson is clearly going for the sympathy vote, despite his piss-poor record in dealing with difficult situations, and his government being disastrously wrong-footed by the pandemic. Meanwhile his under-donkeys, Raab & Gove are frantically gaming the situation for maximum personal career development.

 It’s probably not a complete non-sequitur to visit the definition of the word hypocrite at this point. It’s from the Greek word hypokrites, which means “an actor” or “a stage player,” at a time when the actors wore large masks to mark which character they were playing.

Johnson's failures as a PM so far

More Trumpery

Day 28 of UK lock down: Ecology begins at home

After Munch, via Ise & Conaglen Estate

The pandemic is showing the need for all of us to be responsible custodians of our environment, and not just the pretty, cuddly or tasty bits but the whole biome.

Custodianship means guardianship – ie looking after something, nurturing it, and keeping it safe. What it doesn’t mean, in the case of land, is creating a barren wasteland, whether in pursuit of some biocidal ideal of “garden tidiness”, “sport”, or industrialised monoculture. Nor does it mean disrupting delicately balanced ecosystems for commercial gain.

If we ignore the biodiversity in our own backyards and gardens, it’s an easy step to ignoring the entire ecosystem, and to being prepared to trash it in pursuit of commodity and easy gratification. Conversely, if we engage with and respect that local diversity, so it becomes easier to apply the same perspective to the whole planet at a societal level as well as individual.

Regardless of what our title deeds say, we don’t own the land we occupy, any more than we own air, water or sunlight. We simply have a legally enshrined right of access, and what we need to move towards is an equally enshrined legal obligation to protect and regenerate.

A common dispute is between governments claiming that an action is the responsibility of individuals, and individuals claiming that the same action is the responsibility of the government, in an endless circle of us-ing and them-ing. What we should be learning from this pandemic is that there isn't a them, just an us, and the responsibility is shared by  all.

Day 27 of UK lock down: something else to clap for

To be fair, most countries were ill-prepared for the Corona pandemic. In Britain, the situation has been exacerbated by a government formed from insouciant, Brexit-fixated, exceptionalists who apparently felt that the dastardly virus would think twice before daring to arrive in the land of Horatio Nelson and Winston Churchill. And anyway, pouring vast amounts of money & effort into white elephant vanity projects like HS2 gave much more instant gratification in Downing Street than all that boring forward planning. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/17/hs2-white-elephant-coronavirus-recession-conservatives?

 Against this woeful background, something positive and important has just happened. Mercedes-AMGHPP have collaborated with mechanical engineers and clinicians from University College, London and, in less than 100 hours, developed an open-source, easily reproducible breathing aid for Corona patients.

As an example of collective and generous positive action this will be important to remember when the pandemic has passed and we are re-focussing on the technical obstacles to reducing GHG emissions as a matter of life-threatening urgency.

Day 26 of UK lock down: Food for Thought

Food accounts for over a quarter (26%) of global greenhouse gas emissions;

Half of the world’s habitable (ice- and desert-free) land is used for agriculture;

70% of global freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture;

78% of global ocean and freshwater eutrophication (the pollution of waterways with nutrient-rich pollutants) is caused by agriculture;

94% of mammal biomass (excluding humans) is livestock. This means livestock outweigh wild mammals by a factor of 15-to-1. Of the 28,000 species evaluated to be threatened with extinction on the IUCN Red List, agriculture and aquaculture is listed as a threat for 24,000 of them.

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

Yet one third of all food produced globally is lost or wasted each year, amounting to 1.3 billion tonnes.

http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/

Meanwhile, 1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, while 462 million are underweight.

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/malnutrition

Bon appetit !

Day 25 of UK lock down: preparing to race to the bottom

There are several convincing economic forecasts that suggest we could be heading for a post-pandemic global recession as bad, if not worse, than that of the 1930s. We have also recently seen how lack of cooperation with the EU has led the UK to be even further behind in procuring adequate amounts of PPE for NHS and care workers.

Nevertheless, the cabal of fuckwits in Downing Street have concluded that, somehow, Covid-19 increases the case for avoiding regulatory alignment with the EU and for hastening down the path towards a no-deal Brexit, with all the additional economic damage that will bring.

Whether this is a true reflection of what they are pursuing, or just some mad and divisive negotiating stance designed to disorientate their EU counterparts, probably won’t be clear until Hogmanay, but neither option bodes well for the future.

https://www.newstatesman.com/covid19#update-324263

Day 24 of UK lock down: truth in the time of Covid-19

According to Felipe Fernández-Armesto, the pursuit of truth is "the quest for language that can match reality." He identifies four key methods of determining the truth - what we feel, what we are told, what we figure out, and what we observe. Applying the correspondence theory of truth, favoured by Socrates, Plato & Aristotle, to those methods, if a message corresponds to the actual state of affairs, then it is true.

Yet, each new day of the pandemic brings more politicians making public statements which are either so vague that they have no tangible content, or so demonstrably disconnected to reality that it makes your head spin.  

It’s probably fair to say that waffling and lying are not new human character traits, but now we can all do our own fact checking from the saturation media coverage. When Matt Hancock denies the initial UK strategy of herd immunity, or when Trump claims to have taken the pandemic seriously since January, it’s easy to find proof that they are talking bollox. What’s more worrying is the question of why they think they can get away with it.

Day 23 of UK lock down and counting

One of the few silver linings to the clouds looming over the UK in the last few months has been that not just Corona but Brexit, the meltdown of the Labour party, and the Resistible Rise of Boris Arturo Ui Johnson, have all deflected attention from the deranged and sociopathic man-child currently occupying the White House. 

Sadly, just like the climate and ecological emergency, and our addiction to consuming global resources, the problem hasn’t gone away, and Trump is still nominally in charge of, at last count, 2,821 nuclear warheads, and a war budget of nearly $700 billion, as well as the well-being of 330 million US citizens. 

That’s the same Trump who, yesterday, lost the plot spectacularly and incoherently when confronted by some mildly critical questioning from journalists at a press briefing. Ye gods !

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/13/trump-coronavirus-meltdown-media-authority

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/13/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-governors.html

Day 21 of UK lock down: Happy Oestre

Whilst the pandemic is not a competition, it’s interesting to look at the responses from different governments. There are two clear instances of decisive action by leaders of integrity and principle (Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand, and Mette Frederiksen in Denmark) resulting in astonishingly few deaths from the virus. There are also two clear instances of indecisive action by leaders wholly devoid of integrity and principle resulting in the devastating opposite (#JohnsonTrump).

The ineptitude, fudging and lack of honesty from the UK government about PPE continues to beggar belief. Cruella Patel was pushed out into Downing Street on Good Friday to be asked if she would apologise for the inadequate provision of PPE, for the fact that some NHS staff had been forced to purchase their own protective equipment, and for the fact that staff were dying because a bin liner & pair of Marigolds was proving to be insufficient protection. The best that Ms Patel could say, grudgingly, was “I’m sorry if people feel that there have been failings, I will be very, very clear about that.”

Meanwhile Westminster MP’s each have access to an additional £10k of expenses for the added cost of working from home because, obviously, they & their assistants won’t have computers or telephones there, and, somehow, not commuting to Parliament is an additional expense, which can’t be met by their recent 3.1% pay rise.

Which brings us back to differing responses. In Bulgaria, MPs, ministers and heads of public agencies have agreed to donate their entire salaries to public health services for the duration of their confinement. Game, set & match to Bulgaria.

https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2020-04-07---bulgarian-mps-and-ministers-donate-salaries-to-public-health-.HJzD4VAYP8.html

Oh, and Johnson has risen from his hospital bed, it being Easter Sunday and all.

Day 20 of UK lock down: plucky little Britain

The brilliant Fintan O’Toole absolutely nailed the disingenuous and embarrassing myth of British exceptionalism in a piece in today’s Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/11/coronavirus-exposed-myth-british-exceptionalism.

A whiff of that particular myth has been steadily seeping under the door during the current lock down, accompanied by nostalgic radio music evoking thoughts of how Winston Churchill and Vera Lynn led the plucky Brits to victory over the foreign menace, with a subtext that our uniquely indomitable spirit will see us through the current crisis, regardless of the serial fuck-ups that have marked our response so far. 

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/03/15/health-secretary-matt-hancocks-response-to-covid-19-isnt-fooling-anyone/

Johnson is apparently on the mend but, according to his father, had his own dulce et decorum est pro patria mori moment, by almost “taking one for the team”.

Britain undoubtedly does have some admirable national characteristics in its societal DNA, but so does every other country on the bloody planet, which is hardly surprising given the boundary-crossing ebb and flow of people over the last 10,000 years. To be constantly banging on about our national greatness is more like an embarrassing show of adolescent insecurity than an adult response to an indiscriminate global crisis.

Day 19 of UK lock down: hedging their bets

Recently there have been some heart-chilling reports of how hedge funds are making massive profits out of this global crisis.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-8112273/Millionaire-hedge-fund-bosses-Sir-Paul-Marshall-Ian-Wace-make-50m-coronavirus-crash.html

https://www.9news.com.au/world/bill-ackman-hedge-fund-bet-coronavirus-economy-collapse-pershing-square-capital-management-finance-news/aa519075-202d-4bbb-a853-432240d6bcac

For those of us who normally try not to think too much about the murky world of big finance, this raises the question of what the hell is a hedge fund anyway ?

Seemingly, the hedge bit means a barrier, to prevent losses whether the market is expanding or contracting, so investors will profit either way.

And one of the most dodgy aspects of these dodgy funds is the concept of short selling. Investors look for stock whose worth is likely to drop in the short term, before bouncing back. For instance, budget airlines in a time of global immobility which, despite the hopes of anyone who gives a stuff about the environment, are likely to come back with gusto as soon as the lock downs are lifted, regardless of whether they manage to wheedle some publicly funded bailout from the governments.

So, essentially, hedge funds are a means by which the richest 10% of the global population, who already own 85% of global wealth, can get even richer by betting on the outcome of catastrophes.

Day 18 of UK lock down: the future we choose

The pandemic has put much of the world into a kind of limbo of inactivity, as we wait for the virus to run its course, or to come under our control. This stasis brings an abundance of both problems and benefits. Problems in terms of the personal, social and economic cost of lockdown which, as ever, are likely to impact most severely on the poorest in our global society. Benefits in terms of the immediately positive environmental consequences, and the timely reminder that governments are well able to instigate structural & systemic changes when they deem them necessary.

Tempting though it is to indulge in a snark-fest about the latest outrage from Westminster or the White House, and there is certainly no shortage of opportunities, a better use of our time might be to think about what happens next.

The economic cost of the lock down is massive, both in lost revenue and in the burden of loans carried forward by businesses. Whilst governments have been pouring money in to stop the system from falling apart, the longer term payback could easily cause a worldwide depression similar to that of the 1930s. Big corporations and hedge fund managers will already be working on their survival strategies. In such a context the transition to a system which is revolves around respect for the global biome, instead of around exponentially increasing consumption of resources and short term profiteering, just got harder. Harder, but not impossible, if we stay focused.

In their excellent book, The Future We Choose; Surviving The Climate Crisis, Christiana Figueres & Tom Rivett-Carnac put forward the concept of stubborn optimism. If ever there was a time for stubborn optimism, it’s now.

https://globaloptimism.com/the-future-we-choose-book/

Day 17 of UK lockdown

Covid-19 continues to cause global devastation, both by the direct impact of the illness, and by the consequential societal disruption. Johnson is still in intensive care, and Britain is effectively leaderless. As the full impact of the government’s slow response to the unfolding pandemic becomes clearer, second under-donkey Gove adroitly heaps praise on the Civil Service for the fantastic job they’ve been doing in managing this crisis. Whether that is simply praise where it is truly due or cynically strategic stepping away from prospective blame is, as yet, unclear. 

What is clear however is the inappropriateness of the language of war and battle in describing our collective and individual engagement with the situation.  And of the constant focus, particularly by the British government & press, on how we’re doing compared to other countries. This is not a competition, let alone a war. This is an opportunistic virus which has spread rapidly though our globalised networks of trade and recreation, paying no heed to GDP or political persuasion. 

If anything, this is a time to be reflecting on the value of all the people who normally keep our systems working, not measured in terms of their salaries but in terms of their vital social function. Their value, not their worth. This is a time to recognise that we’re all in this together, not only in responding to a global pandemic, but even more importantly through the unavoidable interconnectedness of our entire global community.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/08/national-defence-corona-pandemic-fighter-jets

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/07/horror-coronavirus-real-imaginary-war-britain

Day 15 of UK lock down - designated survivor

Johnson remains in hospital. Probably almost everyone in the UK is wishing him a speedy recovery.

Day 14 of UK lockdown

Johnson & his cronies continue to work to the Brexit play book of jingoistic & dishonest sound bites, with help from the Titanic School of Risk Assessment.  Today the Queen is being wheeled out to add her praise of our plucky and world-leading Britishness, maybe because the incidence graph is now outstripping Italy’s much lamented performance at an equivalent stage of the viral spread.

However, the graph simply reflects tested cases,  & hospitalised deaths from within those cases. As a result of catastrophic mismanagement, the current rate of testing has only reached 0.03% of the UK population, so these statistics are virtually meaningless.

Day 11 of UK lockdown

Known global cases of Covid-19 nearing 1 million. Recorded deaths 44,000.

Continuing saturation coverage by the news media of rising numbers of confirmed cases and fatalities, of the day’s current version of what the newly re-respected experts are saying is the best way to manage the situation, and of the latest failures in the supply of essential protective & testing equipment. After all, it’s not as if pandemics have been recorded in history since the Plague of Athens in 430 BC, or that there’s been a recent cluster of zoonotic respiratory diseases to give us all a heads-up, otherwise we‘d have to conclude that all that expensive Eton & Oxford education in the current government is worth fuck-all in the real world.

With Prime Minister Winston de Pfeffel Johnson on a sickie, the daily parrot-of-spin slot has been passed to a sequence of swivelling underdonkeys - Raab, Govey, Sharma, to spout the current waffle about how all the zig-zagging and u-turns of Britain’s War Against Corona have been part of a meticulous forward-thinking strategy, just like the long term fragmentation and underfunding of the NHS & devaluing of essential service workers.

To put the fatality statistics into context, according to the World Health Organisation, 3.8 million premature deaths annually are attributed to ambient air pollution – mainly from the burning of fossil fuels, and 6 million children die of malnutrition each year. That’s not to diminish for one moment the catastrophe and tragedies unfolding around us but merely to reflect on the viral obliviousness to what lies behind our affluence in the so-called developed world.

Where were we ?