Friday 3 July 2020

The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party.


It seems likely now, with Sir Keir Starmer 'rightfully' at the helm of the Whigs, that the nation shall indeed sleepwalk from 'Too soon to talk about it!' and seamlessly onward into 'People just want to move on!' Nothing to see here!

And, of course, it will, in a sense, be true because the bodies will either have been buried or cremated, as faith, family, creed or preference will have dictated. Should, in due course, the true numbers ever happen to bob back to the surface, it is unlikely that they will (as a more honest reflection) be recognised as such, or that they will, perhaps, ever be universally acknowledged at all! For those who paid closer attention at the time I think that there is more than a fair chance that this part of the nation may be left reeling for years, if not decades, yet to come! Their past and that of the air-brushed nation may soon diverge to such an extent that it will appear as if they occupy entirely different planets... neither of which will be thinking in terms of the longer haul! Perhaps more statues to questionable deeds shall arise! 

Highly pertinent to the creative-accounting of those lives cut short, it has too often gone unchallenged that the figure has been swollen through Covod-19 having harvested majorly from amongst ailing and aged populations. Perhaps rather more should be being made of the vicious nature of this virus, also that of this government, additionally reaping many young and/or BAME citizens, rather more should be made of the fact that there have been thousands who were far removed from being in the last throes of life, many individuals with decades of grandparenting and/or other senior activities formerly stretched out before them! Rather more should instead be made of the pitiful failings of 'our' one-dimensional government.

Arranged in our pseudo-society like some sort of covert, yet vastly more extensive, take upon Dante's 'Circles of Hell,' it is fair to say that we are shocked! We have viewed the monster from many angles and perspectives, in numerous contexts and within many timeframes, but still we are shocked! Shocked at the depth, the sheer size of it, but also at the brazenness of the creature. We knew that our democracy was deeply flawed, but we thought, or hoped to pretend, that it was still there, perhaps disguised or otherwise obscured.

Keir Starmer's contrivance has instead thrown open the larder to reveal that the empty shelves have been repurposed as kindling and the space inside refashioned as a downstairs staff toilet!

So, and in double quick time, Sir Keir has moved to crush the former Shadow Education Secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey. What did he call her retweeting of Maxine Peake's interview in the Independent Newspaper, "... the sharing of (what was, in his opinion) an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory."?

With a great many of the UK's former journalists and neoliberal attack-dog replacements these days managing to, so often, substitute opinion pieces for genuine journalism the receding attention-span of the sheeple element, almost inevitably in the end, simply reclothed itself as cannon fodder! Several higher profile Jewish figures, in any terms other than the illusory, have done a great deal more harm to their cause! Far too many hard-working democrats have been falsely targeted, such that a whole fleet of red buses has not yet proven to be enough.

If the aforementioned Israeli/Zionist cause is to seriously address and reduce anti-Semitism, as we want it to, then certain characters and other interests really should, instead, be endeavouring to clarify the 'offence,' rather than deliberately clouding of the issue. Whereas, they appear to have opted for, and imposed, the iron fist of  'trial without jury,' absolute power! Yet, as history teaches, 'absolute power corrupts absolutely!' Margaret Hodge could likely quote the words, in her dulcet tones and her sleep, to whoever, concealing the merest trace of the irony involved. A question to those like Ms Hodge: 'If any bystander is presented with the real life image of an innocent family, looking on as their family-home is bulldozed from their land by an unaccountable oppressor, who is then instructed that they may not protest under pain of violence or death,' is that bystander then more or less likely to want to condemn the act in the most forceful of manners?'

The Labour Party's adoption of IHRA definition of anti-Semitism isn't so much the issue, but the precise wording of some of the eleven attached examples is. Observers can draw their own conclusions as to whether it was one God-almighty omission in the former Public Prosecutor's much lauded 'forensic' armoury, or else evidence of something far darker, that has 'equipped' him so woefully with his 'grasp' of genuine anti-Semitism. Likely, his 'understanding' has been fashioned ostensibly through the Labour Party's eventual capitulation to certain Israeli/Zionist lobbyists.

So, having drawn the one-and-only reasonable conclusion, we collectively feel our stomachs rising up into our chests, as the Labour Party plunges back into the depths of that familiar abyss that saw the nation obediently wagging its tail in slipstream to the US's illegal war in the Middle East! The five year awakening has been crushed... but not apparently yet quite thoroughly enough! 

Sir Keir's ride will be an easier one than was his predecessor's, but the man otherwise presents as a fool, unless he is knowingly preparing the ground for the Party to once again betray its roots, and thus the greater part of the British electorate! Is he expecting us to believe that his 'house trained puppy' will soon have free rein returned... 'Once upon a time, etc, etc... ?' Marvel at the man, look he has the Sun Newspaper, the Times and the Sunday Times (News Corp and Murdoch), the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday (Lord Viscount Rothermere), the Daily and the Sunday Telegraphs (Barclay Brothers), the Express (Richard Desmond- hasn't he featured somewhere recently?), the Evening Standard (editor George Osborne) and the 'i' newspaper eating out of his hand! The 'i' was recently bought up by the owners of the Mail; apparently the Monopolies Commission 'considered' that there was no undue concern regarding the democratic bias of the UK's Main Stream Media. Curious! Perhaps we should have been looking, instead and more closely, at the constituent parts of the Monopolies Commission?

Recent events have all too painfully demonstrated just how easily cyber-money will again and again outflank cyber-democracy. And, anyone who hasn't been in an induced coma can't fail to have noticed the funding threats that have repeatedly been levelled at any hints at more diligent reporting by the often woeful BBC political team, or Channel 4. Like any spoilt only-child, who is used to always having its own way, the Israeli/Zionist Lobby has sated itself for far too long upon the anti-Semite card to give it up now! But the world still is not so blind as they would hope it to be!  

Perhaps Rebecca Long-Bailey's concern for the welfare of the nation's children was just too much for Sir Keir? One might have hoped that his former forensic skills would have equipped him better, but no! Because, despite his words, it is unlikely that the Leader of the Opposition really possesses quite such a slender grasp of what it is that genuinely constitutes anti-Semitic thought and/or language. Far more likely he is onside with 'Boris's Back to Schools!' Hang the consequences, appease the media!

Stephen Bush of the 'Newstatesman' is inclined to toe the anti-Semite line. He professes to favour Rebecca Long-Bailey's witch-hunt and crucifixion, tenuously dependent upon the continued absence of that one final link in the chain of evidence. He maybe realises that any retrospective and later unearthings will likely, as so often, be far easier to sweep under the proverbial. Maxine Peake, certainly has a more extensive insight into the methods of the Israeli Militia than does Starmer, Stephen Bush or, for that matter, Rebecca Long-Bailey. But, what the former Shadow Education Secretary does possess, over and above the other two, is a demonstrable burning desire to confront the ongoing ethnic cleansing head on!

Without the final mislaid piece of the jigsaw Maxine Peake's since-retracted contention may be labelled as 'an error,' not 'a conspiracy.' The reasons for her retraction may be that simple. If indeed it was an error? Maxine Peake is but one of many artists to have made the effort to find out, and any link is surely but a breath away from being made. Maybe, instead then, she recognised its nearness and was lured by the weight of circumstantial evidence? Curiously, Sir Keir himself, whilst cowing to the Israeli/Zionist lobby, has failed to ignite, also, a certain weight of opinion from within the Jewish community. In citing any support he may have from one Jewish quarter he has been highly selective.

Within 'his own' party the Jewish Voice for Labour has long since come to recognise that the term 'anti-Semitism' has been weaponised, rarely more so than by some of those within its 'own community.' Maybe it is here that lies a far greater weight to any conspiracy theory than that being levelled at Maxine Peake, and by association Rebecca Long-Bailey? So, the case currently hinges upon the questionable absence of testimony, that the act of kneeling upon a neck was ever demonstrably transferred, the causal link, as a suggested method of restraint, from an Israeli to a US militia? An oversight of a single missing piece within one massive image of internationalised suppression! The contention remains highly plausible, but has yet to be established as a indisputable fact. Yet! Whilst the weight of inferred 'fact' more than heavily outweighs evidence to the contrary this is not quite enough... unless, of course, the purpose is to condemn anyone who dares to speak out of turn.

Clamouring to be heard in the British Main Stream Media, we are encouraged to believe, are characters from all political sides... but not really. Nowhere is the voice of the actual oppressed! Nowhere is the voice of Palestine! Likely another knee has intervened! But Ahmed Masoud has figuratively crawled under the razor-wire to proffer her perspective, care of Jewish Voice for Labour. Ahmed writes with the eloquence of free voice, about her state that is not permitted to be a state. She references the border control and the Israeli denial of the existence of a Palestinian airport or even a coastal port, of a denial to freedom of expression, or to travel. Ahmed perfectly manages to place the missing piece of the jigsaw in proper perspective. Likely, in the new Labour Party, she would be labelled by some an anti-Semite.

Although the 'public jury' is not being invited to discuss the circumstantial evidence, that the Israeli militia regularly deploys the use of state knee upon the oppressed neck, this much is known and well documented. Neither is the jury being required to ponder overly upon whether the US Minnesota Police has deployed the weight of state knee upon the oppressed neck- much of the seven minutes and forty-six seconds of George Floyd's killing, and the transcript of his final words, have been viewed and read by millions, by those who can bear to do so! The evidence here is incontrovertible!

Whether the practice is written into Minnesota Police Regulations is perhaps more difficult to source, although even this much is traceable (archived), '5-300 Use of Force.' The section specific to Mr Floyd's killing, '5-311, The Use of Neck Restraints and Choke Holds.' makes for chilling reading and may conjure deep emotion!

So, within the web, we find ourselves still searching for that one final gossamer thread, Amnesty International- itself frequently the target of the Israeli/Zionist lobby- has for years been knocking at the door. But when, and if, they ever do unearth the evidence those who have been paying attention will doubtlessly expect little to change. I doubt, for example, that any public display of contrition will be expected from Sir Keir. Fans of Rebecca Long-Bailey- RLB herself- will not be holding their breath for a reinstatement. The Daily Mail, the BBC, will not be using the findings to head their selective news programmes!

Thanks to the efforts of bodies like Amnesty International we can establish that thousands of US Police have received training from the Israeli Militia. At least a dozen US States have worked with the Israelis upon methods of suppressing its peoples'grievances. They have unearthed instances of unlawful killings by Israeli forces, extrajudicial executions and torture. What they have thus far failed to find is the simple statement urging attendees of Israeli seminars, to apply the knee of suppression to the neck of the suppressed. Yet!   

Jonathan Cook (British journalist), the sole foreign correspondent to have based himself within Nazareth, perhaps brushes as close as any to the truth of Maxine Peake's since-retracted contention, that Minnesota Police Officers were introduced to the concept of pressing the knee into the neck of another via the Israeli militia. Jonathan Cook cites, also, the recently leaked 860 page internal report into Labour's weaponising of its dealings with anti-Semitism. The details make for damning reading, which the British media is unlikely ever to properly analyse (in public). Sir Keir will not wish to dwell upon the issue and will, no doubt, be seeking support from certain elements of the MSM in suppressing or otherwise downplaying any findings. Cook brings the idea back to the argument that the Israeli/Zionist lobby is far more guilty of anti-Semitic action than have been many of those long since thrown under one of Boris's (now also Keir's) buses!

Cook contends that Starmer has deployed the one oft-quoted Maxine Peake line, in order to deflect from the well-documented roll that Israel has played in exporting what is referred to as 'counter-terrorism' measures, techniques that have been in evidence and that have been increasingly documented since the early 1990s. A timescale that easily predates the 2012 appended to the archived Minnesota Police document. That the technique is used by Israeli militia is known, that the Minnesota Police Force (at least 100 officers) attended an Israeli conference in restraint techniques and anti-terror tactics (Israeli consulate in Chicago) is known, the second such conference. Cook notes that the Global Militarisation Index has sat Israel at the pinnacle for thirteen consecutive years and that Haaretz newspaper refers to the Israeli state as the "go to nation," for others wishing to improve and 'perfect' their techniques. He contends (correctly) that in, at figurative gun-point, signing up to an additional spurious ten point pledge, Labour has now effectively handed over the reins of control to forces outside of the party and outside of the movement.

But he has not yet located the written, or accessed the recorded, words sourced from an Israeli, conveyed to a US militia. Yet! 

The Right Honourable Member for Islington North will now disentangle himself from his Main Stream Media crown of thorns and again don the clothes of the least racist member of The House. The real racists will heave a sigh of relief and normality will again reign!

'Leaner, meaner, greener (but not environmentally)!'

You can have that one for free, Boris, or Sir Keir.




Friday 19 June 2020

Ten Plagues Be Upon You!



The Old Testament, the Torah, perhaps also other holy texts, 'inform' us that there were Ten Plagues visited upon the Egyptian enslavers of the Israelites. The Jewish festival of Passover, celebrated every April, today marks also the Exodus, the liberation, of the aforementioned Israelites, a joyful concept (liberation) that humanity should long since have visited upon all races and all creeds.

When acknowledged as a justifiable right (liberation) it all seems so very clear, so very simple to achieve. And why not? It is so blindingly obvious. Humankind is an intelligent species, we so love to keep reminding ourselves. With our self-appointed intellect we have created laws, embedded them into numerous national constitutions, to be recognised as such, to be demanded of its citizens, in turn embraced by them, theoretically protecting the rights of the peoples and faiths that are thereby enshrouded. Therein lies a concept of collective betterment for our entire species and, by association, our entire planet! Just so long as one group's liberation does not impinge upon that of another.

Simple! Simple... ish! Doable then. Workable? Achievable? No?

Except! Instead, look at where we find ourselves! An unholy dog's dinner, right?


Repurposed Exodus.

The Jewish Faith is but one of many. And the aforementioned plagues, by and large, tend to lend themselves well to the religious text. Me, I do not really care to know quite how many faiths there currently are. I would imagine that the globe's theologians likely disagree on the point. I would imagine also that any precise definition of a 'faith' could bring about heated debate amongst many of those who would call themselves religious scholars. Theologians espousing one faith might fiercely dismiss another as a 'cult!' I wouldn't be unduly surprised to 'learn' that there will be, or will have been, more recognised faiths upon the completion of this ramble than there were at the outset. And I feel absolutely certain that whatever that number happens (or does not happen) to be that it will be disputed.

Whereas, for example, 'Falun Gong' is likely to be recognised as such by most, or many, scholars, unless it could instead be argued that it is more a branch of Buddhism, it is less likely that certain other, here unnamed and more cultish, groupings, will be so magnanimously 'embraced.' What about those of us who are edging-towards secular types? Are we also, in some minds, not also a faith? Or are we instead outside of faith? I would contest that my elected 'beliefs' are more groundable than are almost any of those others that may, at any point, require the invocation of that questionable sanctuary of 'faith,' or perhaps the act of 'having faith.' But maybe that's just my secular take on 'having faith?'

Just so long as recourse to violence is not going to result I will quite 'happily' listen to, and/or debate with, anyone of any faith, should the invite be proffered. Any impasse is only likely to occur the very instant that either party is given to retreat behind the phrase, or approximation thereof, of 'having faith.' Beyond this strategic withdrawal there is really nothing meaningful that can be added. The ground has effectively been removed from under our feet.

Could 'science,' or at least 'scientific rational,' be regarded as a form of faith? In another couple of millennia could we imagine those who have today elected to favour science over 'faith' perhaps being conveniently pigeonholed as 'a sect?' Is it possible to envisage certain groupings of the faithful as having been proven right after all? In which case what, do we suppose, will become of those holders of alternative trains of thought? With a further two thousand years in which to contemplate our species' 'superior intellect' can we imagine a relatively peaceful assimilation?



In the 1970s, when I was but a high school pupil- perhaps today's Year 8- I rather enjoyed learning about Christianity. Other than those specifically referenced in either testament, alternative faiths were barely even acknowledged. The same teacher also 'instructed' us in history. My recollection is that, wherever possible, her manner was to suitably enmesh the two subjects such that they were often almost interchangeable. The teacher in question favoured ancient history; any more contemporary subject matter was then the domain of other, less fondly remembered, teachers.

I wonder whether such an enmeshment of subject matter might once again be made feasible, at some point in the future, affording the current era also something of a Biblical flavour? Assuming our superior species chooses to leave us with any- 'a future' that is!

The aforementioned Biblical and/or Jewish Plagues to which I refer were rained down specifically upon the people of Egypt, some time in the region of 1620 BCE. So, excepting the Israelites and the Egyptians, the telegram service not then being what it later became, it is unlikely that the vast majority of humankind was even aware that any such plagues had taken place.

So, travel with me if you will, a further two thousand years onward and into the globe's questionable future. And, having reached our destination, imagine there a retelling of current times, from the perspective of any religious or more-cultish group or individual. Which specific appellation do we suppose will accommodate the refashioning of Covid-19? Maybe it will be the ultimate, the Tenth Plague, the 'Killing of the First Born Son?' Hopefully any label will have been suitably amended, perhaps, the 'Killing of various Sons and Daughters?' Certainly Covid's potential to reap its human crop seems to lend itself better to Plague number Ten. It's definitely not 'Frogs,' nor 'Boils!' Not 'Lice!' If Covid is to be written up as the Tenth Plague, will those who armed and enabled its greater power to harvest its human crop so efficiently also feature in any text or scripture; will Trump and Johnson appear by name? Will they be afforded a well-earned Herod-like distain?

There are extensive figures, compiled globally, to enable us to deduce inaccurately, vaguely how many lives have been lost to Covid-19. But, with all nations currently vying for 'respectability,' instead of cooperating on medical grounds, it is most unlikely that we will ever discover the true cost. Belgium may be the one western nation to buck the trend. Here in the UK official government misinformation puts the figure at just under 43,000, certain ONS figures place the total at at least 10,000 more! Calculating the figures with the honesty of the Belgians could see the figure in excess of 63,000! Instead, political misrepresentation is demanding that we be grateful to the Conservative Party for achieving quite possibly the globe's worst per capita death toll! Imagine the dystopian horror that would need to have played out for Boris Johnson to have owned this 'pitiful failure of civic duty!' By rights it truly does belong to him, written large into his dysfunctional legacy, unless somebody else is really pulling the strings!  

Of course, as with any pandemic, travelling internationally and at whim, the most effective means of engagement is only ever likely to be achieved through a correspondingly wide-ranging international cooperation from all nations. Whereas neoliberalism, we are forever being misinformed by our disingenuous 'leaders,' holds itself to a higher standard! The standard in question is painfully uncooperative, demonstrably illusory! In the UK our misfortune has been doubled down upon, through the insanity of the nation's blind insistence upon further distancing itself from its continental neighbours!

The UK's 'going-it-alone' 'track and trace' program has crashed so fast that Hancock was busily spinning the umpteenth government lie, whilst the lagging 'ads' were still imploring people to download the app. The farming out of Covid-positive patients to care homes- who couldn't have guessed at the outcome here?- can only have been an act of desperation, from a cabinet that has always prioritised economy over lives, desperate to pretend that the NHS was in fine fettle. 'Ramping up' something! Then, fire-fighting with their arses on fire, the cabal were driven to employ the worst of their media misinformants to insist that decimated care homes were being adequately shielded... at which point the Daliesque-liescape was barely able to shuffle the cards into a coherent enough trail of lies for the next briefing! The human cockroaches squirm, whilst the latest excreted 'scientific' decree feasts upon the previous. Even Sagely cherry-picking from amongst its more Goebbellian disciples, mitigating this debacle into a positive has to make even the least discerning of observers wince! It's no wonder that Johnson is not a fan of Britain's daily half hour with its very own interchangeable Lord Haw Haw. Weren't Churchill and Haw Haw on opposite sides? Guided, as ever, by 'the science!'    

Never was Johnson's Churchillian two fingers, one for each holiday week, going to pay dividends! Especially if the 'replacement bus service apology' fails to distinguish between the 21st century reality of The Second Plague, 'Racism,' and (it really is fiction, Dom!) Game of Thrones.

If Covid were not so busily killing our citizens, care of this and other populist governments, then another, that of 'Locusts,' the Eighth Biblical Plague might, even now, be receiving far greater publicity. Affecting eight-and-counting countries in Eastern Africa- Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda- the vast plagues of these creatures, it is estimated, could drive as many as five million Africans into famine. Neither is this plague restricted wholly to Africa; Pakistan has declared a national emergency due to locust infestation. North-west India is already affected and the swarms are fast approaching China! In Pakistan's Punjab Province children are being paid 20 rupees per kilogram, to collect the insects throughout the night when the locusts do not fly, to be repurposed for chicken feed. Hundreds of tonnes of the creatures have been gathered! Without massive international intervention mass starvation surely looms!

Australia has thus far this year escaped the swarms but, in 2008, at a time when the country was not so fortunate, it was given to battle with Biblical swarms of the insects, one ravenous cloud of which was measured at approaching four miles in length! The threat of human famine, specifically through locust infestation, is estimated to affect one tenth of the global population.



Prior to the current dominion of the Coronavirus (Plague number Ten) certain parts of the industrialised world were also fast gearing up in pursuit of their own particular versions of the Ninth Plague, although the resultant murkiness had already significantly overplayed its hand! So, maybe the culpable cities hadn't yet achieved actual 'Darkness,' instead more of a choking 'gloom,' but in terms of the plague's duration they've already far exceeded the stipulated 'three days'

Whereas Covid-19 now appears to be in the process of a covert downplaying, amongst the worst of the populists, pollution in its various guises seems to have been sitting in the G20's pending tray for several decades. Perhaps that is why Elon Musk has been so very blinkered in his plans to ferry various multi-billionaires beyond the smog, where the thinner air is clear? That the consequence of one of the Ten Plagues could so easily usurp that of another has been presented as one of the briefer and more positive consequences of lockdown. Cleaner air, clearer views and returning birdsong! But, already, we're on the grubbier road to fuller economic recovery and eventual eternal growth. Perhaps the neoliberals will be able to keep both plagues up in the air and on the go? In 2015, in the UK alone, it was considered that no fewer than 64,000 premature deaths were brought about as a direct consequence of heightened air pollution. Plastic, where it is not of a consistency fine enough to be ingested, is generally buried for another generation to worry about, or it may be sent, indirectly, to join one of several 'continental' masses that are currently slowly rotating at various locations within our mighty oceans. Another one for somebody else to deal with!

Plague Number Seven, 'Hail,' well that's surely got to be 'global warming,' something else that the G20 were forever having to sacrifice to the Gods of eternal economic growth. That's what air conditioning's for, they presumably muse at those increasingly dreaded meetings? Air conditioning and patio heaters rule! Scott Morrison was ever so briefly given due cause to consider the consequences of global warming, earlier this year, but we shouldn't hold our collective breaths! Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, demonstrably another of the globes's most culpable clowns regarding global warming, has yet to display any significant outward signs of free thought. Deaths attributable to 'global warming' will inevitably gather greater momentum the longer that the nations of the globe (G20) continue to obfuscate. Ultimately, we could achieve totality here!

Plague Number Three, 'Lice' or 'Gnats,' that's surely got to be the media? The paparazzi is one of its various guises! The infestation that's forever hatching and breeding misinformation! Plague Number Three might seem to slot in, almost incidentally behind the bigger boys,  but it's the enabler! Without majority neoliberal control of the mainstream media (Plague number Three) neither Seven, Nine, nor Ten would have been able to assume anywhere near such an 'impressive' scale or force.

There has been something of a blitzkrieg from the media and certain political forces in recent years and the record of its ability to invoke vested change speaks for itself. Deal with racism, then we can address misogyny and sexism, then we can address inequality and inherited privilege, then we can address global inequality, etc, etc. But we won't! Those who own the largest chunks of the media have their own agendas and also the wealth to circumvent democracy. Investigate society's given power flow-chart and we invariably find that those at the very top benefit from a greater number of forms of discrimination. Perhaps then, more accurately, Plague number Three, 'Lice,' may be encapsulated within the idea of 'political misrepresentation!' It's only more recently universally coming to light that we're still being encouraged to celebrate such things through our given history. It's written into our blood, or rather with the blood of others! Divide and rule! Attributing premature deaths directly to given misinformation is really a no-hoper, significantly hampered care of a highly rigged mainstream media.

'Boils,' Plague number Six? Could that be a health issue? All of those parasitising Private Finance Initiatives, feasting upon the provision of health! Certainly we could think of those who are seeking to forever monetise healthcare as festering boils. Watch Matt Hancock's face as it attempts to approximate a smile and one can almost feel the approaching eruption. Certainly underfunding, privatisation, private-profit margins, and outsourcing have all contributed to the growing death toll in the NHS. Squabbling over whether to apportion deaths to Plague number Ten, or to Plague number Six seems somehow to rather miss the point!

Plague number Five, 'Pestilence' or 'Diseased Livestock?' Cite humanity- that part steering the course- as the 'disease' and maybe the ongoing seventh mass extinction becomes the 'pestilence?' Why, it's almost like a massive jigsaw puzzle, every piece somehow reliant upon another. The death tally is beyond calculation, branching out to encompass every species upon the planet! But, that's how ecosystems work! Recent studies by groups such as the WHO and WWF have drawn a clear link between humanity's destruction of nature and the emergence of diseases such as Covid-19, thus they have also illustrated how perfectly The Plagues (Four, Five, Seven and Eight) feed off of one another. Yet, they are all too frequently misrepresented to the general public via Plague number Three. 'Disharmonising,' if you will.

'Flies' or profusion of wild animals such that they become a pest, Plague number Four! If flies are ever the problem, then it's far more likely that any such infestation is the result of something humanity's already damaged, Plague number Nine, or Plague number Five? Where have all those wonderful fly-catching birds gone! If Mother Earth can be imagined figuratively swatting at a particularly bothersome species I think we can all guess which one it might be! Is it ironic that certain factions of the human species seems so hell bent upon bringing about such a bloody and drastic reduction in different factions of the same? Surely we are enacting a case of 'survival of the least deserving!' Definitely not the Meek Inheriting the Earth (Matthew 5:5)!

Plague Number Two, 'Frogs?' I have quite a fondness for frogs. I can't imagine the creatures causing undue concern, unless it is the ecological concern that frogs, as with so many other of the UK's native species, are threatened through habitat loss? The link is a more tenuous one! Think of the image of a frog, perhaps a caricature, and you have none other than Nigel Farage! He might be one of the minnows but we all know what he represents and none of it is very attractive, friend to Trump- also a curious specimen- friend of racism! Tommy Robinson, Stephen Christopher Yaxley Lennon- and we really do not care to learn why he's snaffled more than his fair share of names- isn't by any means an attractive man, especially if we peer beyond the sneer. He currently has more friends in the government than does Farage, he's also very well practised at stirring up racism and hopping it before things turn even more ugly! Certainly racism is currently of plague proportions, one means by which one section of society mistakenly perceives itself to be superior to another, for the betterment of that one section of society, at the expense of all others.

It would be wonderful to think that the current 'Black Lives Matter' protests might bring about meaningful change, but I'm not hopeful. No more hopeful than I am that the Grenfell inquiry will properly resolve anything, or Windrush, or Hillsborough, or the 851 page leaked report into the Labour Party's hobbling of its own attempt to address the tiny number of genuine anti-semitism issues within the party.

And then, and finally, on to the very First Biblical Plague, Plague number One, 'Water Turned to Blood,' something that Enoc Powell gained more than an element of infamy for invoking in his 'Rivers of Blood' speech. Powell is regarded by many as having been something of a racist, perhaps then more pertinent to the Second Plague. With regards to 'Water, or Rivers, Turned to Blood,' the Biblical appellation is of the First Plague! Perhaps in my imagined futuristic retelling, we will need to reorder things, to sit this one at the head of all things humanly dreadful, although this human plague does feast quite heavily upon others, most notably number two 'Frogs,' or more specifically 'racism!' I really do think we'll have to rethink that particular label.

With weaponry being, more than anything else, a twenty-first century business opportunity, the flip side of 'Water Turned to Blood' so often seems to usurp all other considerations. Two days ago I listen, via BBC Radio 4, to a French border control guard voicing her frustration at the inability of so many Middle Eastern refugees to observe 'social distancing within the refugee camps.' The lady was well intentioned, eager to process the maximum number of the desperate thousands who had left absolutely everything behind in search of a more peaceful existence, another sorry fact of Western pseudo-Imperialism that our racists and much of our mainstream media seem determined to mitigate. Yet she just couldn't seem to understand why the the refugees continually acted so 'dismissively' towards the prospect of a Covid death! But really, were they? Dismissive?

Hadn't they instead simply replaced one very real and daily threat of death, on a massive scale, with another of an immeasurably smaller, entirely more abstract and less bloody threat of the same? When they'd set out to change their circumstances many of them had been part of a far larger Exodus! It was all a matter of perspective! Those who had been in the refugee camps the longest were already starting to recalibrate, but those who had recently arrived were often just grateful to be able to sleep without the ever-present fear that the next bang could be their last!

Repurposed Exodus.

The term 'Water Turned to Blood' could almost be synonymous with 'US foreign policy.' 'Rivers of Blood' is certainly something with which many of the people of Iraq, Syria and Yemen are familiar. A highly pertinent question for the twenty-first century might be, 'are the US, Israel, France and the UK giving more in humanitarian aid to these countries than they are profiting from selling arms to them?

The United Kingdom currently sells weapons, honed to a killing perfection, to 39 of the globe's 51 'non-free' countries, including 22 that feature on its own 'human rights' watch! In 2018 UK arms sales rocketed by 300%. £173 million was the tidy profit made from selling to 'human rights priority countries' alone. Is this what certain of the UK's politicians meant by Brexit business opportunities?

Taking a sizeable leaf from the US foreign policy tome, Boris Johnson has very recently 'unilaterally,' we are informed- difficult not to see at least an element of Patel's claw in here!- decided to close the government's Department for International Development, wishing to tie vital aid for countries to their political subservience and compliance to current UK government interests. He terms this requisite cowering as an act of 'diplomacy' but those paying closer attention will have instantly recognised it as 21st century, US style, colonialism. "To promote Global Britain," were the PM's cold words. See how so many of The Ten Plagues feast upon and sustain one another; here we have elements of Plague number Three and also, but more specifically, Plague Number Two! If Johnson is really so hell bent upon 'immortalising' himself, rumour has it that there's soon going to be a suitable space in the grounds of Oriel College, Oxford.

But, returning to theme, nowhere is the hypocrisy of utilising arms against those with its own borders more well documented than in the dubious State of Israel. Yet again we find the US's foreign policy having brought about a deepening of the bloody hue, within those 'Rivers of Blood' in the occupied lands of Palestine. Despite Israel's well documented implementation of an apartheid regime, an ongoing illegal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Eastern Jerusalem, ongoing since 1967, perhaps the globe's most shameful instance of systemic persecution and certainly its most universally recognised program of ethnic cleansing, the UK issued licenses for £364 million in arms and arms-related sales to the country! No, seriously! Wow!            

I give you 'a futuristic retelling of the Ten Plagues,' refashioned for the forty-first century! With the possible exception of Plague number Eight, 'Locusts,' every single one has been routinely rained down upon the human species by humanity itself. In that soft afterglow of self-proclaimed intellect, are we not then entirely a contradiction, unfit for purpose?

Humanity playing at God! Replacing the God that the species pretends to revere! Will we also be repurposing or refashioning the Ten Commandments? In raining down nine of the Ten Plagues, humanity routinely disregards, at the very least, the Second, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Commandments! It is effectively written into 'neoliberal constitution' to, One, 'Worship Profit!,' Four, 'Work Unquestioningly at the Behest of One's Employer!,' Six, 'Revere Above Life the Arms Trade!' Eight and Ten, 'Covet and Monetise All Things!' and Nine, 'Misrepresent the Truth as Required, in the Interests of Procurement!'

The Ten Commandments- whether they be those of the Torah or the Old Testament- may almost be read as a list of human frailty. In blitzing the repurposed Plagues upon both its species, also countless others, and its habitats, directly or else in consequence of something equally indefensible, humanity has then figuratively shattered the stones into which the Ten Commandments were chiselled. If either take on the pronouncement counts for anything at all, other than as a cosy fireside fable, should we not be considering that their alleged creation, three-and-a-half thousand years ago, was a mighty powerful instruction to, by any means possible, avoid ending up where we find ourselves now!

Unless Covid-19, or another yet more powerful 'flood,' has its own designs upon our less well-considered ones? A figurative Arc, what would that look like?  




Wednesday 10 June 2020

The Curdled Cream



Although Boris Johnson has surrounded himself with the least capable, the least versatile, the most tunnel-visioned, although his class and his puppeteers own the newspapers and the media generally, certainly now the figurehead of the BBC, indeed much of the physical country, although he has sought to effectively play at God with the lives of our (state-educated) children, although he has endeavoured to shackle or to otherwise censor those who might still wish to question his inabilities, those who still dare to wonder if his actions have not already cost rather too many of the nation's citizens, although he has sought to censor science itself, still his ineptitude burns out like an angry beacon in a storm of its own causing. Bluster and spittle, and money alone, cannot dull its awful lustre!

It could be said, indeed it often has been, that he is not quite as God-awful as is Trump! A low bar, indeed! It could be said that our's is not the globe's only reactionary government, that Jair Bolsonaro is yet more limited in his abilities, that Benjamin Netanyahu is yet more overtly racist and more dangerous. It could be said that he has been handed a 'mandate' to steer this vessel, that he is gifted, that he has a vision, that he is the Brexiteer visionary's 'la creme de la creme!'



If it is true, that he does have a vision, maybe he is a modern-day incarnation of Hieronymus Bosch, without any of the talent? Maybe he regards us merely as subjects in his own peculiar depiction of the third panel, to be but heeled shut, upon each and every attempt at closer scrutiny? Is that Sage's Dom we can detect, throaned in blue- has he travelled all this way with that depiction of Sajid Javid wedged in his throat, testing out those inhuman eyes, excreting doctored 'wisdoms' for the nation's consumption? If Johnson is any sort of cream then it is of a monstrously curdled strain!

Why are we not more grateful? Perhaps it is, after all, our vision which is impaired? Was the wider Panorama perchance obscured, when we so dutifully trundled to the ballot boxes like so many distracted sheeple, the barking of Murdoch's attack dogs ushering us obediently through the appointed gates?

It cannot surely be possible that Johnson still imagines himself more as Gainsborough's 'Mr Andrews, Mrs Andrews' dutifully mute, given dictator of all he surveys, to the horizons and beyond, perhaps the imagery instead Sagely tweaked to 'Mr Andrews and Concubine,' not one solitary dissenting soul to tarnish the view, lest be heard? The muted colours curdle the clouds to deadened grey. Instead, is that not Cummings's 'wise' countenance, daring us to question authority, Mary looking pale and suitably viral? Dare we instead name the smitten beagle, as Boris? "Fetch, boy!"  

The mighty Kafka himself would have been proud to have fabricated such a 'Trial.' Targets conjured from the aether, inconvenient deaths denied, kicked into the proverbial 'long grass?' Has Hancock been at it again, 'all care workers and elderly residents tested?' Or was it 'about to be tested?' Or maybe 'familiarised with the concept of being tested at some indeterminate time in the near, or not so near, future?' Does Hancock have form in the dark arts of such misinformation? I forget, is that 100,000, or 100,000 by the 32nd of the month? everybody now, or everybody once the numbers have been further whittled down as a consequence of non-specific incompetence? Will future briefings then be devoted to instructing the minions in the tricky arts of counting? Rachael Riley, she's good at counting, isn't she? But will she misinform for the cause? Or will she just get carried away, start lashing out? I've heard it said that Philip Schofield can been taught to bark on command, but surely Gordon was the actual brains, wasn't he... surely! More of a yap than a bark as such; don't suppose the likes of Kelvin McKenzie would be overly impressed. Lord Kelvin McKenzie? Nah, I doubt they'd be able to adequately soap away the working-class-blood trail!



It's not really journalism though, is it Phil? Not really reporting, but then that's not really your role, per se, is it? Admittedly, you'll be looking a bit of an empty vessel, to those who can be bothered to peel away the sticking plaster, and to peer at the festering sore beneath, but hey! Concentrate on the sheeple, leave the rest to the big boys!

John Mann, life peerage, seat in the Lords, never have too many! Baron Mann, how's that sound to you, John? Sweet! Ian Austin, on the other hand? Seems, although he did once pretend to sit with the bigger boys, that he was never able to rise to the heady heights of independent thought? Was it desperation, or just angry bleeting that saw him campaigning for the Tories in 2019- does an Austin peerage seem likely? Too desperate? Ian McNicol, another life peerage, simply for helping to hobble the anti-semitism files! Likely to feature in the leaked internal Labour Report- suppressable?- but isn't that what the Lords are there for, as a safeguard against democratic seepage? Dame Margaret Hodge, well now, she does have form! Outspoken on anti-semitism, with or without due cause, views upon the operational activities of AIPAC and Gilad Erdan's Ministery of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy are necessarily far less well documented. Dame Margaret's been worrisomely less outspoken on other forms of controversy and injustice over the years, dots that are unlikely to ever be properly joined up... filed, along with Windrush and Grenfell!

Slip another Tory behind the mighty BBC mic, why don't we? Just in case! When even the sheeple are becoming somewhat restless quite naturally the chessboard is going to need a bit of a shuffle. "Tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth?" Goebbels or Gove? See if you can't just hone that message, won't you please Mr Tim Davie.

So, now the BBC, once the envy of the world- I think I recall- now finds itself tasked with the role of specifically not joining up those dots. Just where will we hide all those formerly fine journalists? Because, if- just 'if,' you have to understand- the tests did happen to, well, 'not happen,' how could we track and trace them? If the good Mr Davie pulls all the right strings- snips a few of the wrong ones- will it really matter that much? Just so long as the job of not properly tracking and tracing tests which have, or have not, been carried out can be privately outsourced. Can we spin that one?



Will we need to roll out Cummings yet again, quite so soon? Has he 'fully' recovered from the virus that he never actually had? How long will he need to self quarantine? Is it possible to still be infectious- or is it 'toxic?'- from something that he never actually had in the first place? What's he like at cutting and pasting the past? Does he have form? What does 'the science' say? What can we tweak it to say? What happens if somebody asks, maybe on late night television, maybe on, I dunno, Newsnight? Is Mr Tim Davie, former Deputy Chairman of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative Party, a safe enough pair of hands?

If only we could 'draw a great big felt tip pen line under it all!' 'I will not mark them down!' Surely it's (a three line whip) 'time to move on,' and to concentrate upon getting back to normal, the normal of care workers and those still battling in the NHS not being essential workers any more? Surely, we've clapped (stipulated four-and-a-half minutes weekly) for long enough! We certainly don't need people enquiring, "After the clapping, what now?"



Although Boris's largess has brought about twice, thrice, the number of fatalities, that were feared at the outset (Chief Medical Officer), although the UK now has the highest Coronavirus fatality count in Europe- accelerating ahead of the competition- almost the world, although the UK's per capita toll is likely higher than any other nation, although the nation's diagnosed case count has just become the highest in Europe, although there really is nobody else to blame for the depletion of the NHS, nobody else to blame for the under provision of PPE, nobody else to blame for the woefully sluggish reaction to the early pandemic, to blame for the indefensible abandonment of scientific rationale, still his ineptitude astounds us. It burns out like an angry beacon in a storm of its own causing. Still bluster and spittle, and money alone, will not dull its awful lustre!

But, if we can just put the ongoing 'bloodbath' of the Tories making firmly behind us, 'move on' to Brexit and the environment! The climate! But probably less so the environment... the climate! If we could just move seamlessly from, 'now is not the right time to talk about it,' to 'people just want to move on from talking about it.' The NHS is open for business! Feeling confident, everyone?

Finally the reactionaries hold all six aces in the fixed deck...
... and still their own media cannot make them appear half capable.  
Don't forget to wash your mind...
... often!



Wednesday 27 May 2020

Here lies Dominic Cummings.



It seems that our woeful government has hastily brainstormed Cummings's mini-break.  They- Johnson et al- are currently given to fire-fighting those awkward 'facts' that have thus far leaked out, but they cannot yet have considered what else may still come to light. With all the currently widely-known facts steadfastly in opposition to the government, are they just desperately hoping to whittle down opposition through nothing so much as the public's lack of stamina for processing lies, boring the engaged electorate about a government inability to properly interpret its own lock-down rules? 

As I understand it, we only have Cummings's word for it, that he and the birthday girl, Mary, were showing the very mildest signs of having contracted Covid-19. Eye-testing at the wheel, with child thrust into the back seat, alongside the birthday cake, for added focus? Seriously? So, what were those discounted counter-lies, those that were rejected as even less credible, and left untidily scrawled across the Number 10 whiteboard? And, are we to believe now that Boris dared once to go rogue, and to suggest 'herd immunity' all on his tod? Cummings should consider sacking the fool! Here lies Dominic Cummings!

Either they're rattled or they're showing us all an angry middle digit. 'Time to move on?' I don't think so!

Journalists, now do your job! 

Friday 15 May 2020

Delivering at precisely the right time!



Perhaps Matt Hancock has, all the while, been alluding to the pandemic, when he drags out yet another of his 'best of British' masks and regales us with stories of daring do and intrepid excellence?  Either that, or he has positively been scraping the barrel of ready-cooked government lies. 

Under his and Boris's tenure much has been talked about and labelled as, 'the right items, to the right location, at the right time.' Sadly, none of those pseudo-journalists permitted present, at the government briefings, appears to have fully mastered the simple wristwatch, diary or calendar. If they have, then the we must consider the national situation rather more dire than has hitherto been presented! 


We (ordinary types) have pulled together, assiduously adhered to our physical distancing (most of us), generally stayed inside and clapped for approximately four-and-a-half minutes from eight in the evening, of a Thursday. The weather has not always helped with regards to the incarceration, but the situation requires certain sacrifices. If only our's and this government's idea of sacrifices were one and the same we'd seriously be 'cooking on gas!' But alas!  


Now the shackles are loosening, we have burrowed under the mountain- perhaps the word is 'mounting,' subliminally referencing fatalities?- and the pastures are looming! We tentatively search the grassy meadows, only to find that they are instead a grassy knoll. Getting back to normal! With a bang!


I possess a wristwatch, a diary and a calendar. And, yes I have! Shall we reminisce?


It must feel like it was a world away, when we could enjoy ourselves with gay abandon, when we could find the time to splash red paint upon any old crate and to create a splendid British red bus, '£350 million' or pretty much any number we fancied, sloshed across the side.


Anyway, tick-tock tick-tock!


So, to precise timings! When we learned of a new coronavirus- first recorded 17th November 2019- reaping havoc with the citizens of Wuhan, showing resistance to known vaccines, what better time to cease air travel to and from, at the very least, Hubei Provice in China? Or not? 'The right choices at the right time! For the economy!' People, certain people, instead had to wait in line! 


Boris- casual as you like- the brave British PM, was showing that no incy-wincy virus was going to dictate to 'Brexit Boris!' The Coronavirus was going to have to damn well wait in turn! Seriously, how many lives could such an innocuous thing expect to claim, during a hard-earned Prime Ministerial ten day New Year's (2020) leave of absence, to sunny Caribbean Mystique? It wasn't as if there were any early warning signs, was it? If we discounted all those early warning signs. 'The right holiday, at precisely the right time, at the right price!' Allegedly.

When we learned that the virus wasn't so good at waiting in line, perhaps a second best time to freeze those flights- at least to Lombardy, in Northern Italy, where fatalities were spiralling, now rather closer to home in Europe- was there instead another priority to be pursued? 'The right flights, at the right prices, for the right economy!' The first confirmed cases of the Coronavirus having reached Italy were on 31st January 2020.


Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation, still deemed Covid-19 to be of worrying epidemic proportions, back in January, early February 2020. 'Worrying,' but still of 'epidemic' proportions. Apparently not worrying enough for Brexit-busy-Boris. So, instead of worrying, the PM elected to circumvent five consecutive Cobra meetings. 'The right evasions, for the right reasons, at the right time!' Perhaps there were buses that still needed painting, or peopling with happy passengers? Were there perhaps fictitious figures that needed conjuring from the aether of Dominic Cummings's bastardised superforcasting unit? 'The right fiction, from the right lips, at precisely the right time.'


In early February it is alleged- government always denies these things- that the term 'herd immunity' was first broached. We can speculate that Dominic Cummings was again further skewing the already spurious findings of his superforcasters. We can also speculate that Sir Patric Vallance nodded favourably at the idea. And that David Halperm and Vallance were keen on 'putting the phrase out into the public domain.' 'Nudging the public in precisely the right direction, at precisely the right time, at precisely the least economic disruption.' 

On the 28th February- allegedly in the best of British, Gung-Ho Brexit spirits- the UK missed an EU deadline for procurement of desperately needed PPE. An Empirical (and highly idiotic) statement of "Going it alone, we're no longer in the EU," was quickly suppressed. Perhaps not quite, "Precisely the right show of nationalism, at the right time.' Although governmental claims that we'd accidentally overlooked the deadline looked decidedly weak when the UK missed a second chance, on the 15th March, then a third on the 17th March. 'The right show of Empirical strength, in the right spirit, at precisely the right time.' Churchill would have been so very proud! 

On the 11th March 2020 the WHO declared the Covid-19 spread to have ballooned into a pandemic. Thankfully the UK had an updated and improved Brexit alternative model, in the form of Sage, whereby science could be better moulded to suit the British narrative. 'Precisely the right science, for circulation to the right MSM, at precisely the right time.'  

The World Health Organisation was clear that, 'test, test, test,' was the only way forward, for the countries of the world, in order to be able to trace and to combat Covid-19. But the UK abandoned such an approach, not even because of Cummings's quickly discredited, then disowned, 'herd immunity' approach, instead because it was already known that the NHS was woefully under prepared for such an ideal. Officially 'testing' was abandoned on 12th March. 'Precisely the right deviation from WHO guidelines, at the only available time.' 

When a permitted journalist alluded to the UK's unpreparedness, referencing Exercise Cygnus- I doubt the journalist has been permitted a second chance at the mic- Matt Hancock initially feigned ignorance of such an event. 'The right evasion, in front of the right MSM, to the right audience.' Wasn't really an evasion as such... more a... a lie.

In the whole sorry saga- excepting Sunak's slight of hand, with our money, for which we (the ordinaries) will be paying- Matt Hancock's 100,000 testing-reversal has, oh-so-very-briefly, been the only ray of sunlight. 'The right commitment, for the right PPE, at precisely the right time!' was duly snuffed out on the very day of (missed) delivery, 30th April. Perhaps it was a Hermes delivery? 

We were promptly (but not really) assured that this was the manner in which Covid-testing had always been counted, by whichever member of the Sage Group had been elected to further compromise his-or-her credibility. Care of Sage, then, the British public no longer, if it ever did, fully understands which testing targets are being missed on which days. So, the testing target missed, was that the actual target, or the wish-list target? 'Precisely the correct method of counting, up until precisely the correct date, conveyed to precisely the right MSM!' Or not? "He's only gone and done it!" reported the Express. He hadn't!

On 24th April, according to the UK Government's own figures, the UK leap-frogged Italy, to become Europe's highest and the globe's second highest reaper of Covid-19 deaths. The Office of National Statistics, another government body, made so bold as to suggest that the count could be several thousand greater still. The interchangeable minister of the day dutifully smiled at the cameras and spoke of British successes, and British resilience, and grit. The permitted journalists duly mitigated. 'Precisely the right death toll, on precisely the right day, at precisely the right hour!' Except the figures were becoming somewhat elusive, more slippery by design. 

Shamefully, the BBC failed to cover itself in glory on 4th May, by tweeting that 'Italy has the highest Covid-19 death toll in the EU.' See what they did there? The UK was no longer a member of the EU... Goebbels would have been so proud! 'Precisely the right slight of hand, from precisely the right source, in the darkest hour.' I doubt the tweet made the news headlines, not without further clarification. Probably embarrassed!

When Boris instructs that we do or don't go to work, do or don't stay indoors, stay alert! we could be forgiven for wondering quite what we should be staying alert for. Stay alert for, 'Precisely the right obfuscation, at precisely the right moment, to precisely the right dizzy audience.' Certainly the spin is not helping. 

Here we are, 15th May, and the waters are muddying... as they will need to do, if the government is to present this fiasco to the general public as any sort of triumph. Fortunately for the government we now have, 'Precisely the right MSM, for precisely the right 'national' catastrophe, during precisely the right kind of Brexit!'   

As the government likes to keep reminding us, 'It is unhelpful to compare differing European nations' responses to the pandemic,' 'specifically in the light of the UK's ballooning death toll.' Government statements do not tend to dwell upon the latter. On 14th May the government's elected means of counting the dead has the figure at 33,614. Two-thousand two-hundred and forty-six greater than Italy's death toll. The minister of the day will be at pains to point out that the UK population is greater than is Italy's, that other factors will come into play. But they will be less at pains to point out that the UK was once significantly better placed than was Italy, in terms of the UK's lower numbers of Covid-positive individuals- weeks ahead! The minister of the day will tend to shy away from direct comparisons with Germany, who has a greater population than does the UK. Thankfully Sage is there to conjure, 'Precisely the right data, from precisely the right sources, on precisely whatever day!'  

Thirty-three-thousand six-hundred and fourteen official deaths! The Office of National Statistics places the figure at as much as 33% greater still! The Financial Times has recently commissioned a study, which places the figure at double the official total of 33,614 (14th May). So, it really is currently more likely to be a case of, 'Precisely the right data, from precisely the right sources, on precisely whatever day! But, with this amount of government spin, no worries, we won't be able to focus properly anyway.

In response to yet another question about the nation's affection for, especially, the NHS, but also care workers, somebody was heard to wonder, "Can wkeep the rainbow?"

Skindeep Patel has Priti much answered this, whilst we are still in the throes of the pandemic, refusing to axe, or even to cut, the NHS surcharge paid by overseas workers in the health service. I can't possibly speak on behalf of others, but it rather lightens my soul to know, when the nation all together claps for the doctors and nurses who are dying on our behalf, that they will not be reaping any further reward from our hard-evaded taxes. 'Demonstrating precisely the right sentiment, to precisely the right downtrodden populace, from exactly the right kind of human monster!'  

It seems likely that rumours of Home Secretary Patel tearing down many of those ill-considered rainbows, in the constituency of Witham, and smoking the flaked remnants, ground down with dried human blood, might indeed be true. Getting back to normal! Even before the nation has gotten back to normal...    

I think the storm clouds are looking a great deal more permanent than is any rainbow! 

Stay alert! 
                                   


Friday 17 April 2020

Flight of Wild Swans.



It has been repeatedly argued that, "We're all in this together!" that we all must, "Observe social distancing and wash our hands, often!" As far as I'm aware, those that have been 'bold,' or 'brave,' enough to question the UK government have not broadly disagreed with the veneered sentiment. More, they have sought to pick apart the underlying dogma that, like some sort of parasitic infestation, has eaten its way into the chest cavity that was formerly occupied by the heart of government.

They are right to have done so! Even in 'these times of national unity' they are right to have done so. Otherwise this UK Government remains, unaccountable. Untrustworthy, and unaccountable!

So, even as people continue to die, now is the only time to pull away the screens and to stare, into the dark moral void of government. Collectively, we are in a dark place, but look more closely, the darkness has shades. There may be black, but there is also grey, and some of the grey is actually almost vibrant. Stare discernibly enough into the lighter-greys and one may also be able to detect that some of it is far more benign. Stare into the right corners and one might even detect that perfect shade that trembles just above the horizon, prior to the most perfect dawn!

Whether it is viewed from Branson's tax-exile Necker Island, or Rees Mogg's West Harptree (Brexit hedge fund) Somerset estate, the deathly grey may almost, when viewed from the right angle, appear rather 'splendid.' Watch those wild swans slide across the predawn sky and dip below the horizon. Ne'er to be seen again! Or were they instead, and yet again, the misdirected tax breaks of the billionaires?

Whether it is Tesco's use of the emergency Coronavirus tax break, in order to line the pockets of its major shareholders, Branson's Caribbean poverty plea, or Rees Mogg's Ruffer Investment Coronavirus rake-in of £2.4 billion, the darkness has shades. Skindeep Patel (apologies to Dorothy Parker) knew of those rosier shades, whilst she was hacking up false sentiment ("... sorry if people feel there have been failings") and fantasy figures ("Through the government ongoing monitoring and testing programme, as of 9am today, there have been 300,000; 34; 974,000 tests carried out." Calculator, please? The darkness has shades, so why not also shine a light upon those shades?

During October 2016, when Jeremy Hunt (Health Secretary) was frantically running down the NHS- under instruction from Cameron, later May- Exercise Cygnus took place. The exercise was a 'National Tier 1 Pandemic Influenza Exercise.' Its purpose was to 'assess' the UK's medical standing, in the light of a potential influenza pandemic.

If we were extremely naive, perhaps stupid, we might have dismissed this exercise as somewhat alarmist. Something along the lines that Trump is currently taking with the WHO, blaming those who are trying to save us as somehow culpable- smoke and mirrors, tears and projected spittle! The World Health Organisation has been warning for years that the eventuality of such a pandemic outbreak should be considered far more along the lines of 'when,' rather than 'if.'

Indeed, such has been the suspected likelihood of pandemic outbreak, that reports on the UK's resilience were drawn up in 2007 (Winter Willow), 2011, 2012 and 2014. And yet, under Hunt's tutelage- curiously now critical of this 'same' government's handling of the Coronavirus crisis- the value of the NHS's pandemic stockpile was reduced by 40% (£325 million), even prior to the outset, creaking under the strain back in March 2019.

Exercise Cygnus found that the then better prepared- although far from properly prepared- 2016 NHS was woefully short, specifically, of Personal Protective Equipment, intensive care beds and ventilators, storage for the sheer volume of dead bodies was found to be pitifully inadequate- since when four in ten items have (effectively) been sliced away! So, when Skindeep Patel smirks that she is, "sorry (sic) if people feel there have been failings," all thinking citizens should be able to expect the UK's Main Stream Media to instantly cut the void down to size! Instead, we find that Laura Kuenssberg, Robert Peston and a nefarious selection of Express, Sun and Mail pseudo-journalists repeatedly permit various government ministers to skip around the specifics of adequate provision, playing nebulous dodgems. "Yes minister, but precisely how does that abstract sum equate to provision of life-saving equipment?" might better be ventured.

Matt Hancock- he of the free pass appearance- has now overplayed his hand- clenched buttocks, chin to the fore- entirely too often he has further chastened our mitigating MSM with his, "... delivering the right PPE, to the right hospital, at the right time!" Does nobody waiting in line have the wit to mention that the 'right time' has long since passed?

When, I think it was Alok Sharma, perhaps it was Dominic Raab, it matters not, was asked why it was that Germany was coping so very much better than was the UK, the spokesperson-of-the-day stared into the black beyond and, without the merest trace of irony or gallows humour, selected evasion 1A, "Germany and the UK are on entirely different trajectories!" No excrement minister! 

The German nation, as have other further-sighted nations, has listened to the World Health Organisation and practised "Testing, testing, testing!" tracing and locking down at source. Whereas the mighty UK, three times and counting (apparently), has failed to involve itself in the EU bid for much needed provision of PPE and ventilators. It could be surmised that this is what happens when an entire political cabinet is picked with the sole-same one narrow dogma in mind. "Which was it, minister? Three overlooked calendar dates or Brexit bravado, that has cost the nation so dear?"

Understand, with the likely exception of Skindeep Patel and IDS, it is not so much that this government wants people to die. But, as with the Grenfell Tower fire, it is more that they do not care enough! Monetary gains will instead, every time, be afforded absolute supremacy! Profit over people! Every time!

John Pilger laid it out, clear as day, in his documentary, 'The Dirty War on the National Health System.' Clear as day- alarmingly so- but curiously not televised until 10:45 at night (ITV1). Although the 106 minute broadcast was released two full weeks prior to the 2019 General Election it was suppressed until post electoral farce! At the very dawn of the predicted pandemic, still our government were slicing deep into the bone!

For those who could be bothered to look away from their phones the thankfully disbanded, Cambridge Analytica perfectly demonstrated that one only ever needs to mislead,  fool, whatever, just enough of the population. Something that Rupert Murdoch has understood and been exploiting for many decades. We may well have heard it pompously claimed all too often, "I know that my choice of daily newspaper may not be politically neutral, but blah, blah, blah..." But nothing, chances are you're a political idiot or, at the very least, funding the conversion of future cannon fodder for millionaires. Rupert Murdoch has always been one for 'profit over people,' would it really be too much to hope that this time he's bitten off more than he can chew?

Returning, finally, to the rather cryptically alluded to title of my posting, back in 2017, when the findings of Exercise Cygnus were revealed to Hunt et al, the numbers were found to be terrifying! 'Too horrifying ever to be published!' In the model the pandemic had still to reach the peak of its harvesting capacity, and still the NHS was crumbling under the strain, the bodies piling up! What to do, Jezza? Shall we just pretend the whole thing never happened, hope the evidence just goes away? As the insider trading thing did with BSkyB? Bury the findings? True to form the Conservative Government managed to find a rather worse angle, instead they simply continued to hack away at the NHS provisions, as if the whole exercise had been but a dream. A governmental dream, which has translated into a public (and global) nightmare!

We are where we are! Of course, we are, how could we not be? But where we are, we really can't know- we'll have a better idea than the private-provision US- we're barely aware of the UK's care home status. We know that certain homes- woefully under PPE'd- are fearful of receipt of too many positive cases that the over-stretched hospitals are having to discharge into their care. We know that many people, single, or else wary of troubling the NHS- are ending their days at home. But, 'we are where we are!'

We are where we are! Hancock and Johnson may well, as face dictates, like to milk the public show of affection, and woefully belated appreciation for the NHS, but we should judge this government more accurately upon how they have led the nation up to the point of pandemic invasion. They may well stand and clap for the NHS, in front of the TV camera crews; the show may present like a moment of awakening but, seriously, it really isn't! Was Phil Green joining in? Was Richard Branson there, or was it prerecorded? Wow, we really are, 'all in this together!' 

We are where we are! Yes, we are, but how did we get here? Judge Hancock and Johnson and their cabal more on how they clapped and cheered when the nurse's pay cap was retained in the House of Commons, less than a year after the findings of Exercise Cygnus (still largely classified) were being suppressed. Open-wallet Rishi- remember that it's our wallet- was there in 2017. 'Our wallet' that MPs are again dipping in to- £10,000 for working from home, extra! Not merely 80% of that extra £10,000. Maybe the £10,000 working-from-home allowance is the government's way of compensating itself, now that it can no longer max-out on travel expenses? Meanwhile children who were dependent upon free-school meals are getting vouchers for £3 a day, not extra! £3 that many parents are unable to access, via another crashed site! Watch and judge the conjurers' slight of hand!

We are where we are! But where are we going next? Lessons learned? I seriously doubt it! If the pandemic should pass, judge 'our' government also on how soon they revert to type!