Tag: boris

Boris

Yet more outrage in the UK as our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, apologises for attending a party but not realising it was a party. We seem to get all kinds of linguistic gymnastics with the excuses the Tory party come up with. ‘We followed all the rules but didn’t do any wrong’, ‘It was just a work meeting’. They are treating us all for fools.

There is some sort of thinking at the higher levels that the rules dont apply to them, that because they are working for the country they can do what they want. The apologies show this – we are sorry for the perception is a typical line. However it isnt the rule breaking as such that annoys – it is the lack of understanding and lack of empathy for everyone else. Trying to get out of the responsibility on a technicality is a weasel way out of admitting your guilt. Saying that you were technically correct within a correct interpretation is insulting to the nation, and goes against the ‘We are all in this together’ line that I recall being made on numerous occasions.

We are being led by a group of over promoted public school boys, people who have never had to worry about the rules as their money will get them out of any issues. Speeding ticket – pay your fine. Trash a restaurant – pay off the owner. Bored of your wife – pay her off and no one need know about your children ever again. It is a sickening thought that we have ‘leaders’ with so little moral fibre, and for whom the whole parliament process is a game. Sniggering when asked questions, not bothering to turn up to important meetings or even turning up to face the heat.

I doubt that the current crop of MPs will go willingly if they are in the wrong, unless they are a junior minister, and so we need a concerted effort from the voting public. If only people paid as much attention as they do when X Factor or Im A Celebrity are taking votes, then we would have the leaders we need, not the leaders we have.

Boris will now hide behind an investigation, pressuring the civil servant conducting it to give him the result he wants no doubt, and this is wrong. The whole affair smacks of dictatorship, and we have walked into it willingly.

One of my favourite authors growing up was George Orwell, and while I dont like the constant references to living in Orwellian times (usually made by people when talking about CCTV or vaccines, and not having read 1984), I cant help but think about Animal Farm – ‘The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again, but already it was impossible to say which was which’

A little bit political

I struggle in the world we now live in, to comprehend how the people who ‘lead’ us manage to get into the positions of power. A little like the proverbial turtle on a post, they appear, get voted for and then show a very scant amount of authority.

The UK is led by Boris Johnson, a man who when he became Mayor of London, seemed like a fun figure, but who then got less and less done. He campaigned to be PM following Mays tenure, and has shown very little aptitude for the role. As people cleverer than me have said, he wanted to become PM, and wanted to have been PM, but just didn’t want to have to do the actual being PM part. Even more shameful is his apparent use of un-elected advisors (the infamous Dominic Cummings) which has led to a country divided. We are in the midst of the worst pandemic in over a lifetime, heading towards the cliff of a no deal Brexit (despite having an ‘oven ready’ deal ready to go), and yet the biggest concern surrounds the nickname his partner receives from these overgrown school boys. He exists in a world of jobs for the boys, stiff upper lips, and throw backs to Latin lessons at Eton – impressing people with big words and convoluted sentences, which under examination have little substance.

In the US, we are hopefully seeing the end of the tyranny of the Donald being president – another divisive figure to say the least. In his four years we have seen families separated, walls built, Muslims banned from entering the country, support for the right wing, Russian interference, Black Lives Matter protests, and countless other events. The story is so nonsensical you would struggle to write it. And these cancers have spread around the world, bigots emboldened by the leader of the free world and his lapdog in the UK calling Muslim women post boxes, and deriding the fear black men have of police, while keeping the racists and conspiracy nuts fuelled through their own crackpot ideas. Think Covid is a hoax – Trump will support that. Think Brexit will make the UK a superpower – Boris will support that. Think our fishing is more important than the creative industries – Rees Mogg the haunted Victorian pencil will support that.

All of these men have massive followings. They brought out the thoughts that people kept hidden, the hate they kept down. Humans are not as tolerant as we like to think, and by exploiting this (anti foreigners, isolationism, just them funny brown people) Boris and Trump have found massive support. And this can not now be put back in the box, the genie is out. I dont get political very often, but I believe this is unforgivable, and they should be held to account for it. The people in the country I see as leaders dont have grand ambitions to have power over the general population, they lead by showing the way. Marcus Rashford has led on ensuring children are fed, an amazing thing to do at his age. During lockdown other heroes for me have been Tim Burgess of the Charlatans, organising listening sessions on Twitter, and on a local level the shop and cafe owners banding together to help self isolating neighbours. They have all led better than Boris has ever done – not caring about their approval rating, or the latest three word slogan brainstormed by a marketing executive who has never seen a real job.

But we have had some light this week. Biden has been declared the winner in the US, Cummings has walked out of Number 10, and we may have a vaccine for Covid-19. What has been a really tough year, may be coming around at the end.