Tag: Boris Johnson

Brexit Anyone?

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Another government u-turn. There have been more, I know there have, but for the love of me right now I can’t remember what they were. Perhaps they’ll come to me. I wonder what it is that leads politicians into u-turns because they’re renowned for only doing so when forced. Perhaps that is what it was. The government were forced into it. There has been one hell of a public outcry this last week so it was coming. Perhaps one of the reasons they don’t like doing it too often is that it leads to suggestions they don’t quite know what they’re doing. Surely they should be making well researched and thought out proposal, ones which have survived the scrutiny of experts. It does suggest they may be incompetent, although I’ve suggested in the past I’m cautious of giving them that excuse. But they do seem to act either on a whim or in a rather morally repellent way that looks more like an ideological whim. They are arguably a one cause government though so it’s no surprise they are incapable of doing much else. A government for crisis they are not. Saying that they don’t even seem like a government capable of fulfilling their one cause either.

Ah Brexit. Have we forgotten about Brexit as we all die of the sniffles. It does feel a little like it’s been brushed under the carpet and while that may not always be such a bad thing, when it’s something so potentially devastating and something which has a deadline, it’s probably time we started focusing on it again. The ostrich in the sand trick once again won’t work here. It is only slightly over four months away. Only four months I repeat. Renowned negotiators they are not. Shall we just prepare to crash out on World Trade Organisation terms and stumble dazed into the arms of the Americans. It does look suspiciously as if that was the plan all along and they seem to be doing little about preventing it. They have Covid-19 as an excuse for not getting a trade deal, although it’s not an excuse. They’ll also have the virus as an excuse for an economy that will be the ashes Jacob Rees Mogg’s father always dreamt of. To rebuild society in their image. Begone hard fought for rights. The twentieth century never happened. Long live Queen Victoria and the poor house. Now get back to work peasant, know your place, my lawn won’t cut itself.

The Lebanon

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This incident seems strange. It seems pretty horrific too. Ammonium nitrate left in a warehouse at the port for six years and it accidentally goes off. That is not an implausible story, let’s be honest. It is possible that fertiliser is imported into a country and it is also possible that it has been left for one reason or another and abandoned. It does happen. But ammonium nitrate is also used as an explosive. It is not implausible that it has intentionally gone off.

Usually in stories like this it’s very quickly pointed out as potentially an act of terror if not jumped on and accused of being so. Unlike other previous events it feels like it is not following the same pattern. The main focus is on the fertiliser and while it is suggested investigations are open into other possibilities, this is not seized on. I have only read the article on the BBC, this could end up being an analysis of the BBC’s reporting or a sign that I’m missing many other angles elsewhere. It just feels notably out of the ordinary in comparison to how these kind of things are usually reported on when covering the Middle East.

It is important to know context with the Lebanon in regards current social and economic issues. While I admit I don’t know in depth, the country is struggling with an arguably failed economy. I’m sure I remember reading that they were on the verge of defaulting as a country for the first time which would be a massive thing. The pandemic and subsequent global economic lockdown has only exacerbated the situation. There are currently protest although I am unsure on what scale. I don’t quite know the political structure of the country but I know Hezbollah, who were elected democratically it is often forgotten and ignored, are in power but I’m sure also the Prime Minister and his ministers are not Hezbollah, so perhaps there are two system within one. The regional political situation is that they are strong allies with Iran and that the Israelis seem to be fighting Hezbollah on and off, who are also deemed a terrorist organisation in the west, yet not fighting with Lebanon, or at least that is the narrative. With all that in mind the Israelis have had to distance themselves already, but have also offered food and humanitarian aid along with offers from Boris Johnson and Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State. It’s fair to say these are ominous gestures you would be cautious of accepting.

All of which make this feel eerily calm, almost like we’re waiting for something to happen. Maybe it also means that it genuinely was an accidental explosion of fertiliser and it has caught everyone, the Lebanese, the Western powers and the media off guard. All scrambling for an as yet unknown and too sudden line to follow. The next twenty-four hours will reveal the immediate direction it’ll take as events unfold, parts of the truth come out and the death toll becomes clear. No matter what does arise, one thing is clear, it is an horrific event either way.

Time To Put The Feet Up

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There are times I write things in this that revolve around myself and my day. I’m wary of making this whole thing just a series of pieces on me and my life, like I’m keeping a very public journal, just as I’m wary of writing about Boris Johnson and Donald Trump every day. Even Covid-19 became a subject I tired of at one point. Variety in life is what keeps us going, or at least it does me. Anyway my point is that I sometimes write about myself because I know I am human like the rest of us and maybe one person out there will read it and be able to relate to it. I assume that is reasonably common practise online but writing about ourselves believing the world revolves around us is equally common practice online. Saying that not everybody has to find something to write about every day and do so by squeezing that into a busy schedule.

Today though hasn’t been busy. I’ve really enjoyed myself. I have though spent large parts of the day procrastinating. Somehow despite having a lot of time today I’m still just squeezing this piece out with about half an hour to spare before I go to work. I have managed to spend the day writing emails and messaging people which is something I’ve struggled to get round to for weeks but even then, to take all day just feels ludicrous. How much procrastinating we do in a day is always hard to tell but considering I’ve had all day and spent large chunks of it not doing what I wanted I can only imagine I’ve allowed myself to become distracted repeatedly instead. Phones are terrible procrastinators. I’m still excited about football so I find myself distracted by what is going on on the transfer front. I’ve read a little. Eaten twice. Chatted with the people downstairs in the bakery. Done a little research on a future endeavour I’ve started working on. Actually that’s not procrastination, that is actually productive work but I don’t feel I did much thankfully. Where does the time go. I planned on doing some yoga and going for a run at one point but there’s no chance of that happening. I’m sure there are a few other things which could have been ticked off my ever increasing to-do list.

Ultimately though it is a lovely feeling to just sit back, do a few things which involved little real effort and spend the day relaxing. It hasn’t been possible for a while and despite complaining about my abilities as a master procrastinator I’m quite pleased I know how to embrace them from time to time. Nobody wants to be too efficient and active when they don’t really need to be, what a boring and sterile life it would become. That’s that then, procrastinators, you are not alone. You can embrace your natural abilities and not feel guilty about them in this puritanical world Martin Luther created and forced us to endure. Work will not set us free, idle minds do create great things. And I’ve still got another fifteen minutes before I need to work, time to put my feet up I say.

The Great Showmen

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What’s going on in the world then. A section of Trump’s infamous border wall with Mexico blew down. Apparently Hurricane Hanna got the better of it. Past wall failures include another section in California being knocked over in January following a strong breeze, smugglers taking minutes to saw, yes saw, through sections of the wall and another incident in San Diego apparently saw them doing this eighteen times in one month. Perhaps a series of the same incident would be more apt. It does suggest he has been making it on the cheap and undoubtedly this does fit in with the type of image of Trump we have. Doing things for show without any substance and grabbing everyone’s attention with another outlandish ‘project’ the moment the old one starts to fall to pieces. Why anyone thought a showman would change his stripes I just don’t know.

The plan wasn’t just to talk about Trump, it was to mention a few things going on in the world but it’s so easy to start with him and get carried away with whatever it is he’s doing now. I think the whole world knows what’s going on, although saying that having just quickly checked the BBC, even on the actual US regional page it doesn’t really mention a lot about how arguably troops, or their equivalent at least, have been deployed on domestic streets and quite violently against peaceful protesters. It’s almost more interesting to see what’s newsworthy and not being reported. The man is gearing up for an election as he tries to get everyone to forget about his handling of Covid-19, as well as the fact he’s still continuing to handle it badly, and focus instead on how good he is or would be at cleaning up the streets. The law and order campaign approach being one usually deployed by a hopeful incoming President criticising the current occupants job, how that quite works with a sitting President suggesting he’ll clean up the streets of not only a country he’s been running for four years but that he’s repeatedly said has “been made great again” is still slightly unclear. I’m sure he’ll all confuse us with his explanation.

What else has been going on then. Well he’s still orange. He’s still the slightly shittier American version of a television series that originated in Britain and revolved around Boris Johnson performing a stage version of A Clockwork Orange. We thought it could never be topped but evidently in the most brash of American ways it has been. I wonder which one will run for longer without being cancelled. I wonder too what the spin-off would be; their best mate Nigel Farage losing all his money and having to hang out with the working men he pretends he’s one of. Or the ultimate twist of fate, through a loophole in the law he gets kicked out of the UK and manages to claim refugee status in Germany with his wife and kids. Now that would be both compulsive and car crash television. Maybe Boris, Don and Nige could be the three men to Dominic Cummings as the baby; probably doing his best version of an early Stewie Griffin when he was his in murder everyone faze. They just don’t make television like they used to. They don’t really make reality what it once was either though. Maybe it’s just those blurred lines confusing us all. Which is which, we just don’t know.

Bojo The Wildling

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It appears Bojo came north of the wall today. He mingled with those pesky wildlings he ordinarily has no time for. When I say north of the wall, I mean nearly as far north as possible. He went all the way to the Orkney Islands. One suspects this wasn’t because he loves Scotland so much he wants to see as much of it as possible of course, it’s a lot easier to avoid the baying crowds when they consist of Angus and his dog than what they would be were he to brave Edinburgh, Glasgow or just about any place with a population capable of creating an angry mob.

He finally visited Scotland on the one year anniversary of his still slightly inexplicable rise to power. If that was supposed to fill us with some sense of honour that he would bless us with his presence on such an important day, all it did was remind us it’s taken him so long to come north. It took him one whole year despite the fact there was an actual election midway through the year. Perhaps his no show in that time was down to his love of the Union and the damage his presence would do to it.

Undeniably there is truth in that. The latest polls, and there’s more than one of them, puts support for independence at 54%. Nicola Sturgeon may try and take credit for this but when a country votes in droves for anyone but the man elected as leader yet has this very man foisted upon them it’s quite easy to see why opinion polls are only moving in one direction. When you see a country being dragged out of the European Union despite voting to stay in it, then expecting to be forced to endure an inevitable ‘no deal’ Brexit as the zealots in government return us to Year Zero and the ashes they hope to grow a new and glorious society out of, it’s fair to say the Scottish people want nothing to do with it.

Even the coronavirus has played it’s part. Nicola Sturgeon herself is very divisive, usually down the Independence / Unionist line in all fairness, but compared to Boris’ fumbled mumbled approach in confusing an entire nation on what’s expected of them while not actually doing anything himself, she has looked decisive and strong. She didn’t even have to really do anything, just be clear about what she meant when she did make a statement. Clearly there is something dark going on in the corridors of Whitehall and Number Ten, it’s no surprise more and more Scots are wanting out.

As Sturgeon said;

“I welcome the PM to Scotland today. One of the key arguments for independence is the ability of Scotland to take our own decisions, rather than having our future decided by politicians we didn’t vote for, taking us down a path we haven’t chosen. His presence highlights that“

It says a lot for a man that the opposition openly admit he does them more good than they do themselves. There is no way for sure to say one way or another whether Scotland becoming a free state would work in the short, medium or long term, and while it’s dangerous to suggest or believe that happiness is just waiting around the corner, let’s be honest anything has got to be better than this lot right now.

I remember the day after the independence referendum in 2014, I was in France picking grapes and I barely said a word all morning. I was infinitely disappointed that a people had rejected not the opportunity of independence because what is that really, but that they had rejected the chance to even attempt improving their lot. A people chose fear over hope. But who knows, there may just be light at the end of this tunnel of a horror show after all.

Politics In A Mad World

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Let’s be honest I’ve ballsed up again. Fresh from a lovely nap I picked up my phone and discovered the world is falling apart. The Tories have refused to take the NHS off the negotiating table in the trade deal with the US, despite categorically insisting it wasn’t for sale during the election. Current Labour leader Keir Starmer’s party have paid out a load of money to his cronies / whistleblowers who were part of the Panorama documentary that tried to further paint the anti-racist, anti-apartheid, and pro-Palestinian campaigning former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as a racist anti-semite. Machiavelli would be proud. There are even rumours Starmer is going to withdraw the Labour whip from Corbyn and kick him out of the party. This would be remarkable. It would also be the final nail in the coffin for the Labour party and any pretence of a socially conscious respectability. To think they were once the party of the people. Starmer was supported by the media and put in place with one express purpose, to be nothing like Corbyn and he’s doing a fine job, not just in the ways he thinks or hopes.

The fear is that the world is falling apart. The reality is that I really don’t know whether it has always been this bad and we’re just getting more coverage of things if we take time to read independent media. I’m just bemused at how people don’t recognise how self-serving our politicians are. Or they do but see it as part of the job. Perhaps they think most are but not the few they support. That could describe my support for Corbyn and few else of course but the evidence really does suggest otherwise. I look at Boris and wonder how anyone could think he possibly stands for them but if they stand for leaving the European Union, closer ties to America, privatisation and the eradication of the welfare state then he does stand for them. As my friend, who doesn’t like Corbyn, said at the last election, “If I didn’t give a shit about anyone other than myself and my immediate family I would vote Conservative for the benefits it would bring me economically”. I paraphrase slightly but that was the gist. It is very easy to be self-righteous and left wing but that’s simply because the other side make it so easy and hard not to be. It’s just concerning that so many people seem to follow the King Turkey when Christmas is on the agenda. I’m confused because I don’t see why people think like this, the only thing that makes sense is that people genuinely believe they can rise up a ladder and claim some of these promised benefits for themselves. They just don’t notice the big glass ceiling let alone any of the other glass ceilings in between. At least Boris has left them a big sack of fools gold on the bottom rung for them to squabble and be divided over.

An Actual Pint

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I was going to talk about the football this evening but it was such an absolute shambles of a shit show of a result I would rather not. I’ve felt a bit hungover today and the players played as if they too went to the pub last night for the first time in five months. So I went to the pub for the first time in five months last night then. I didn’t get there until about ten o’clock after I finished work and it was already a little quieter. We sat outside in the beer garden although went inside to order a pint. Had we been earlier we would probably have had to sign in and give some details but by the time we got there it was too late and all the staff appeared shit faced enough not to care. That’s probably not very reassuring lets be honest. I’ll keep an eye on any coughs that develop.

After the first pint I started really enjoying being back in that environment. At first it felt like a slight anti-climax, but thankfully that passed. I had really wanted a pint at some point probably in May but that too passed and I didn’t really give a shit. The idea was to let the idiots all go back first and if everything appeared alright after a while, to cautiously venture in. I kind of did that, probably went back a little earlier than previously planned. In truth though I do enjoy a pub, the feel of a pint of freshly poured beer somehow always tastes better than drinking a can on the sofa. I imagine I’m not the only person out there who started to find that a little tedious.

And that’s that done now. One step closer to what we normally call normality. Maybe this is the new normal the politicians like to refer to. Such a disconcertingly ominous phrase for anyone who’s ever felt slightly paranoid about the potentially sadistic desires of their government. With this mob anything is possible, thankfully an implosion seems more likely but they’ll probably still try to ride out any wave that comes their way. So the new normal it is then. Suspect it’ll just be whatever I decide as usual. At least it was nice to get a pint in me on the way. I also made a barbecue on a wheel barrow today, I enjoyed that, I do enjoy making fire.

A Power Play

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There is one thing I enjoyed about not keeping an eye of the rolling news stories and it was that I got less caught up in the party political soap opera of Parliament. We live in a sensationalised world, not just the constant need to excite through 24/7 news channels but through the algorithms on social media that feed us constant anguish and thrills. They know what makes us tick and they’ve tapped into it. It’s so easy when writing this blog just to go onto a news website or see what Facebook has to say, and find enough material in one article on politicians and face masks for example to write something suitably scathing about dithering so called leaders bumbling their way to an end result we don’t notice because we couldn’t actually understand what they were saying. You see I’ve just done it there. It’s just too easy. They’re not inept, they’re incredibly good at what they’re doing, but it’s also obvious and therefore a treasure trove of things to write about.

At what point though do we stop listening and just get on with life. I’ve touched on all this before of course, it’s impossible not to bring up certain themes over again when writing every day. But when do we ignore the theatre of democracy, accept the demos are impotent and watch the shit show go on regardless. I feel powerless, these last five years politically have been incredibly trying and demoralising. Scotland voted no to independence from Britain, England voted yes to independence from the EU and England voted no to the first leader in generations who actually seemed to want to make positive changes to society for people. Instead we overwhelmingly got Boris. As you can see I think we are being dragged down by the English but I’m also wary of putting a single egg in a nationalist basket even if it is one promising liberation over subjugation. Politics has moved to the right and while there are signs of it’s coming back to, well, the centre-right, I am not filed with confidence.

Which means I am at the point of being defeated. Or maybe I already have, maybe that happened ten years ago when I naively thought myself an environmental activists and nothing changed. Of course I’m not defeated, I wouldn’t be writing this if I was, but this is no rallying call. I’m not all of a sudden going to build some ramparts and run up them. It is an acknowledgement though that there are people out there, people much smarter and with far more determination than me fighting for and enacting change. There’s a reason we don’t have a twelve hour work day and it’s not because of keyboard warriors like me. But then again everyone at all levels is important, even those blindly repeating lies and rhetoric in the cesspit at the bottom. If I believe in a holistic approach to the health of our bodies, why not believe it for the health of our societies. We are not just a series of strata within a hierarchy of power, that is not a healthy society. That is power, that is personal self-interest and that is exactly what we are hooked on with party politics. How can society nurture it’s people when it’s leader’s focus is ultimately themselves. While it is time to take the power back, it’s probably more the time to readdress our understanding and relationship with power generally. It is just a word and a concept after all, it’s down to us what we make of it.

Day Ten

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I’m not sure if this is day ten or day eleven of my ten days without the news. For those with no idea what I’m talking about I decided to go ten days without looking at news channels or websites, I generally avoided Facebook except for emails and was left pretty confused and lost whenever anyone mentioned something going on in the world. I semi-accidentally saw a few news headlines over that period but generally avoided most things. The intention had been to avoid the sensationalised twenty-four hours a day news coverage and all the draining exhausting bullshit that goes along with that. I actually lost track of the days, I wasn’t even sure if it had been a week yet until I saw someones Facebook post about Donald Trump commuting his friend Roger Stone’s sentence and realised I really wanted to know what that was about. I haven’t actually found out because I don’t need to read an article to tell me everything that is already obvious.

It did make me want to check the amount of days without news I’ve gone though. So arguably and technically this is day ten if I wrote the piece making the challenge statement on the first of July. That also means I can’t check the news properly until tomorrow. All those little hints that something is going on with masks and shops, that Boris dug himself a hole with care homes yet again and that Jair Bolsonaro has caught coronavirus. This knowledge is all without checking the news once, it’s impossible to avoid everything. I also discovered that VAT on takeaway food is going to be reduced to five percent from twenty, which for someone who makes pizzas as one of his jobs is perhaps the best news I’ve heard all day.

I have enjoyed not knowing what’s going on in the world. It doesn’t create obvious amounts of anxiety in me but I’ve definitely noticed that I feel slightly freer without knowing whatever the latest ill facing the world is. Clearly I have to be realistic, without checking the news I’ve still been drawn to those updates above, amongst other things, which means I’ll never be able to avoid whats going on completely. I don’t see many happy people constantly glued to the world’s events. I doubt it brings out the best in us. We must find balance. The Royal We that is. This isn’t the time for grand statements about future intentions but hopefully I’ll remember this experience if I ever get myself caught up in the stupid bullshit once more. Here’s to liberty, forever more!!

A Fine Mob

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Our current version of a government in the UK are a concerning bunch. I have spent these last six months largely unsurprised by their bumbling attempt at government. While it is possible to give them some slack over the coronavirus handling, their response has been slow, inept and ultimately a failure. It is not just Covid-19 though, having taken us out of the EU they seem reasonably content to do absolutely nothing about creating a smooth departure and transition. Apparently negotiations are non-existent to obstinately deadlocked. Of course the EU bares some responsibility for this but you do get the feeling that this is exactly what the government wants and this is playing out perfectly for them. We crash out, become an international tax haven for the wealthy and sell our arse to the Yanks. In that case my accusation of bumbling is inaccurate, they are clearly doing a great job from their perspective.

What grabbed my eye today though and what led to this piece was that they announced there would be fines for parents whose children didn’t return to school in September when they reopen. This is a remarkably aggressive approach to something which should be handled with far more care and which exposes the underlying approach to governance they feel to be right. If you’re unable to persuade people with your argument then bully them into doing it. Telling parents they will be fined for acting potentially against their own health interests is nothing less than bullying and will have disproportionate ramifications for financially poorer sections of society. Headteachers have called them out on it as have elements of the media. This is one more step on their road to handling the return to school issue so terribly. Was it the first of June, or maybe earlier, that schools were supposed to return and teachers unions who were demonised by some, forced the government into a rethink. It’s not impossible to see another Marcus Rashford style u-turn even though governments hate to be seen doing so.

A government which seems incapable of persuading people their arguments are right will eventually have to try a new approach, aggression in the form of fines being the form this time. Whatever happened to us working together. They are merely slipping deeper into their bunker and adopting an ever more aggressive siege mentality. Whether you agree with them ideologically, it is without doubt not a way to run government and while it may help short term survival, if it carries on like this it won’t be another four years until the next election. The problem is by then they can and most likely will have done enough damage that it’ll take decades to reverse it. This is a long war. Perhaps even an indefinite one.