Day 45 of UK lock down: Dead cat day

32,000 people in the UK have so far died as a result of the virus – putting the country at the top of the league table of deaths in Europe. Dominic Raab predictably brought his

junior barrister’s mind into gear to point out that the positioning on the league table is just speculative and not to be taken literally. Fair enough Dom, but 32,000 deaths juxtaposed onto the UK government’s slow and inept handling of the crisis is not speculative and should be taken very seriously indeed, regardless of how we compare to Italy.

Similarly, the sensitive Matt Hancock has reportedly been left speechless by the news, smeared all over the British press, that one of the government’s top scientific advisors contravened the lockdown guidance and had a social visit from a friend. By implication, and comparison, Mr Hancock must be a man of great integrity, which makes what he has been up to when not sweating in front of the daily bulletin cameras all the more breathtaking – steadily transferring large chunks of our heroic NHS to the private sector in the midst of this crisis. That’s the same NHS that we’ve been told to save and applaud, whilst trying not to think about its woeful lack of funding.

#hypocrisy  #LedByDonkeys  #disastercapitalism

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 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

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