Tag: Britain

19 Covid’s Of Hell For PM BJ Bojo Johnson

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Big news today, our glorious leader has gone and got a dose…of coronavirus silly, what did you think I was talking about. In a vain effort to be a man of the people, British Prime Minister Boris ‘Bojo’ Johnson has caught a cold. All is well though because he’s still running the country from Downing Street but now in his underpants via video link. The Prime Minister, or BJ as he’s known to his friends, is said to be in a fine mood as he believes this will finally convince the voters he’s willing to suffer with them no matter what and that his private chef has even begun cooking traditional peoples food like mushy peas and Fray Bentos pies just to lend an air of authenticity to proceedings. He is said to be really looking forward to microwave curry Wednesdays after his old friend Tim Martin donated leftover food to the coronavirus cause. He has drawn the line though at the bottle of Jacob’s Creek on offer even if it is part of a meal deal. He is said to be disappointed that his Supreme Overlord Dominic Cummings doesn’t have DNA capable of catching human virus’ as they could have had a “jolly good sleepover together”. His loyal and trusted colleague Micheal Gove has taken over media duties and promised to do all in his power to protect BJ’s legacy in the meantime.

So that’s the news, wow what a day. Is it time to start preparing for the military to take over once the politicians start dropping? Apparently Dominic Raab is supposed to be the one putting on the dour serious face if BJ becomes incapacitated. We’ll call him the interim Prime Minister before General Stickup His-Arse steps in to maintain public order. Apparently the sports stadiums are empty at the moment which should be handy. Let’s see how many people need their daily dog walk then. We won’t even need to report on our neighbours for that second run they took either. Isn’t it Great being British, such a wonderful people. Spirit of the Blitz don’t you know. We’ll show those Europeans how we deal with virus’, won’t be any red tape on our procedures, can’t break the law if there aren’t any. Thank god for the NHS though. These nurses putting their lives at risk is the kind of dedication that will easily add a few hundred million extra quid when we’re sitting around the negotiation table with the Americans. If there are any left though, they seem to be out Briting the Brits with their virus response. Always bigger and brasher than everyone else. Pricks.

Relax…All Will Be Fine

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As someone who has spent time abroad and socialised with people who do not either serve food or run hotels, it has long been brought to my attention that the British people have somewhat of a reputation for consuming large quantities of alcohol. While I don’t deny others countries do drink large amounts too, or at least the fun ones do, we, along with the Irish come to think of it, are renowned for being the drunks of Europe. This then seems to have been confirmed with the latest news relating to the lockdown we’re facing in the UK.

There has been much debate about what exactly should be classed as an essential service and it’s one of those issues that nearly every wannabe expert has an opinion on. Construction sites for example have been a highly controversial issue because while they can’t ban construction that relates to potential virus related work, the guy building the patio next door could probably not be classed as essential and immediately necessary. It would be nice to sit out in the sun with a nice gin and tonic while isolating though come to think of it, so that’s a toughie. We have though taken it to a level that only the comics writing this black comedy could have dreamt of. As the country battles a world wide pandemic; Off Licences of all things have been deemed as being of the utmost importance and essential to the smooth running of the country. For those from countries that use other names an off licence is what we call our bottle shops / liquor shops / alcohol shops. Yes they serve but one purpose.

It is important in times like this to be honest and admit there is something absurd about this that makes me proud. Cultures need something that sets them apart from each other; the Italians talk incessantly, the Greeks argue for pleasure and the French are arseholes, but that is there thing, that is their national identity they take it out into the world. As the south of Spain can attest we export drunks and even in times of crisis we are sticking to this national identity. It makes me proud we’re being true to ourselves. How are we supposed to suffer through at least three weeks of isolation? Stuck inside homes with partners we hate and kids we have to love? So much energy has been put into avoiding our families and we find ourselves forced into their company. Without the ability to keep a steady level of intoxication it may be worth going out in public and catching the virus just to get some space. The British people can not be told to do something, the inner child comes out and they insist on the opposite even if they don’t really want it. All those poor soles who were forced to leave the cities and endure serene villages and countryside over the weekend simply because they had been told to stay indoors. At least give to poor bastards alcohol. Just imagine the damage a sober populace could do, I’m so relieved they saw sense.

With Crisis Comes Change

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And just like that the attacks have begun. The government has been accused of all things recently, ‘inept‘ being an unfortunately common one when it refers to their response to a pandemic. Generous certainly isn’t one despite their attempts at passing off a £330 billion pledge to businesses and small businesses as some kind of benevolent offering to their subjects. The fact people are going to have to pay it back, and at a higher rate in line with inflation, suggests they vary considerably to the charitable offering made when the banks were bailed out during the last recession. We’re all in this together apparently but don’t forget nothing is for free, unless you’re part of the international banking cartel or have friends in high places.

But back to the attacks which I managed to digress from almost immediately after raising their existence. There has been a lot of talk about governments using current events to push through legislation they would have previously been unable to. Milton Friedman, the father of Neoliberal free-market economics, and the man therefore responsible for this shit show of a world economy, suggested it was. “Only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”. It appears some of these ideas that have been waiting around are being given their moment to be pushed through. In the US Trump has been suggesting payroll tax cuts which will destroy social security. In Israel proposals have been pushed through to monitor peoples phone much more easily using legislation usually reserved for post terrorist attack hysteria.

And now in the UK the government are attempting to push through the Civil Contingencies bill which will give police and immigration officers more powers to detain suspected carriers of the virus “to take them to a suitable place to enable screening and assessment” for an as yet unspecified amount of time. If someone is clearly ill and a danger to those around then it is fair for them to be taken somewhere they can get help and prevent them from harming others but this bill is dangerously ambiguous. Throw in the rather alarming length of two years that it will be in law, considering very worst case scenarios for this virus stand at eighteen months, and considering it could simply be put up for renewal each month as it’s required and the cocking of your head starts to feel justified.

This bill like everything currently in Parliament is being pushed through without debate and without being voted on. In times of crisis we need to strengthen democracy not weaken it, and certainly not use it as an opportunity to empower and enrich those already holding a disproportionate amount of power and wealth. It may be worth keeping an eye on what isn’t reported or perhaps what is whispered between the hysterical shouting. You may just start to spot a few new ideas that look as if they’ve suspiciously had a layer of dust blown off them. There’s nothing like a little crisis for some change after all.

A Trojan Of A Virus

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History will tell us any event of a large enough scale will have an effect capable of making changes of if not a permanent basis then ones which last for a considerable length of time. The First World War for example set in motion a series of events that led to our present day societies, that was a huge moment but one which can show the long term effects of something we can never go back on. In more modern times the attacks in New York on the eleventh of September have led to an entire region of this planet being completely destroyed and changed, in many ways it is a before and after event.

When you have such moments there are inevitably changes within your own society and in the immediate aftermath of this the Americans allowed their government to push through a series of draconian spying laws. These were justified on the basis that they would offer protection against another attack. How they are now in reality I don’t know but I doubt they have disappeared, more likely it’s just an example of shifting baseline syndrome. We in the UK had similar and this was amplified after we had a few bombings, the government introduced the Snoopers Charter as it was known by everyone except those trying to push it.

On a less invasive level, in China during the SARS outbreak; one Chinese businessman recognised the necessity of a new approach to online shopping which revolutionised how the Chinese interacted with shopping online. With this Coronavirus the Chinese have relaxed laws around online pharmacies so that not only can you get medicine but you can chat to doctors online and get prescriptions too. This is proving to be incredibly popular and successful, and while it is unclear yet how this online industry will operate once Covid-19 passes, it is highly unlikely they will return to how it was prior to the outbreak.

While I may no be sure of the veracity of the Coronavirus, it is undeniable that it is becoming a worldwide phenomena if it isn’t one already. I’m not denying it’s potential seriousness but I don’t doubt it will pass. What though will the long term results of it be. Italy is currently in lockdown, it is almost inevitable Britain will be in quarantine at one point. We have no idea what it will do to the local economies let alone the world economy. What affect will it have on the supply chain. Will people reevaluate how they store food and supplies. Will we view governments with any credibility when they try to convince us they’re capable of upholding their end of the social contract. Are we just witnessing a New World Order Trojan Horse moment as I saw on a meme today. I have no idea to any of these, but if it continues at it’s present pace there is no doubting there will be some permanent changes we can only recognise in retrospect. These don’t have to be sinister, they could be innocuous, innocent and boring but it will be interesting, assuming I survive, to be able to look back in ten years and observe the changes. I doubt we’re witnessing a before and after moment but certainly there will be something that exists after the event that wasn’t here before.

Corona Krueger

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So we’re all going to die from the flu. Well not quite but this appears to be the latest exciting thing for people to get themselves into. I woke up this morning feeling a bit ill and I had a sore throat, perhaps something happened in my dreams. I thought I may have been infected with the Coronavirus. I suspect there’s a good chance I haven’t but it’s interesting to see how hysterical fear has managed to grip even the most disbelieving and disinterested of us. I am not saying it isn’t real, I am not saying it isn’t dangerous. I have seen the points made about how more people have died this year from the flu than Corona and I have also seen stories saying how those figures don’t reveal the whole story. Seemingly only older people are at serious risk but then also there seems to have been plenty of younger ones dying from it. I don’t really worry about catching it myself but I do worry about my parents and that last part is a real fear not just paranoia.

There are plenty of conspiracy theories out there about it being an accidental release from China’s only biological chemical disease laboratory which just happens to be in Wuhan where it originated. It is very tempting to find some credibility in this slightly coincidental event, just as it was coincidental that Britain’s only laboratory of similar ilk that happened to produce Novichok just happened to be very close to Salisbury where the Russians supposedly used it on their traitorous spies. There was once a time when I got excited and caught up with these kinds of things but I don’t now. Although let’s be honest there is something totally suspect about what happened on 9/11 or 11/9 as we call it here. Many believe these things to be true and if you’re inclined to there will always be plenty of evidence to back it up but also there will be plenty of evidence the other way if you’re not. It doesn’t really matter to me and it’s pointless getting excited about theories like this as you will simply never know and it doesn’t change anything anyway. People will live and die regardless. They did a good piece on the radio this morning about the conspiracy theorists pushing claims and it was the kind of dismissal that people would laugh along with if they didn’t believe conspiracies and if they did would be able to use as part of the propaganda cover up.

There was also quite an amusing piece on the same radio program in which they had loads of people talking about hygiene and what they are now doing. It was a wonderful opportunity for people to confess to the usual lunacy of their hygienic hypochondria because they had finally found a safe space to come out in. They all seemingly felt the need to stress they’re not crazies suffering from bacteria phobia even though they usually carry around hand sanitiser and never touch banisters or escalators without it, god forbid a lock in a toilet. A long list of potential bacteria filled opportunities was bowled out with not a single one ever thinking there may be no point to their behaviour because clearly it’s impossible to escape germs. I’m not sure if any of them have ever heard of an immune system.

Clearly I think this is all hysterical and am liable to have a laissez faire attitude to events. I also believe it is very real and people are liable to catch it and suffer, die even, so my aim is not to belittle something deadly. Scotland has just had it’s first patient with the papers rubbing their metaphorical hands in gleeful delight at what’s to come. I know I won’t be happy when I get stuck in lockdown somewhere and try to ignore the little monster at the back of my mind saying it’s all just a rehearsal for when they announce martial law and the death camps. It’s so easy to be distrusting of power especially when it has only ever represented reactionary morality in the past. Apparently they’re trying to calm everyone for the sake of the stock markets, isn’t it wonderful when priorities are exposed by emergencies.

It’s times like this that I’m reminded of a lovely childhood rhyme that was once culturally relevant –


One, two Corona’s coming for you,
Three, four you better lock your door,
Five, six grab a crucifix…

God will save the day, she always does.

Fucking Fascists

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I wrote a piece earlier about Greece and the current situation with the refugees crossing from Turkey and attacks on them by the fascists. Fascist is a term thrown around far too easily, I should know I’ve been one of those people calling everyone fascist for years, but in Greece it is genuinely a word you can use to describe people. Greece has actual fascists, everywhere does don’t get me wrong, but in Greece they are numerous, hold varying positions of power and the police are absolutely riddled with them like a disease. The piece I wrote earlier though turned into a rant because these fucking morons are arseholes and they piss my off. I’ve met them, not too often but enough to know how they think. Also Greeks in general can be quite volatile, the possibilities of what could happen in Greece worry me. They’re also just human and I love them for this, they’re genuine in their own way. I am really struggling to stop this turning into a rant again…oh fuck it I’ll just paste the first one below…

Greece appears to be fucked at the moment. Fucked doesn’t appear to be a strong enough word but I’ll use it anyway. Turkey has opened the gates to Europe using people for political gain and power, while Greece is attempting to shut them also for political gain and power. The Turks are exaggerating the numbers they’ve let through and the Greeks deny they’ve let through many at all. There have been videos online of all sorts of actions against refugees this last week. The Greek coastguard firing live rounds into the water near a boat they had previously tried to sink with a stick and turn over by ramming. When you have about seventy people on a boat designed for fifteen and only just above the waterline it is remarkable that didn’t happen. It is a shocking video and had it not been for political point scoring by the Turkish coastguard who are guilty of the same and worse, it would never have been shown. These things have been going on for the last few years in that narrow strip of water between Greece and Turkey but just away from the cameras. You then have refugees, NGOs and foreign volunteers being attacked on the beaches by roving bands of fascists, as the police look on doing nothing. The police themselves in Greece have an horrendous reputation for being indiscriminate racist morons who will only make the situation worse. New Democracy, the right-wing government in power since last summer doing all they can to attack left-wing squats, attack refugees and turn the islands into prison camps. Greece has a rich history of right-wing military dictatorships in the last hundred years and one thing they loved doing was throwing communists on prison islands to die, history repeats itself yet again. Moria camp on Lesvos has a capacity of three thousand but contains something like twelve thousand at present. I don’t blame the locals on the island for being pissed off at the national government for wanting to build more and larger (prison) camps on Lesvos, Chios, Samos and Kos but as per usual they’re going after the wrong people. The reality in Greece is that the fascists are real and they’re very much at the front of an angry populace. It is not hyperbole. Once there was Golden Dawn the far-right party but to win power New Democracy just appealed to the lighter elements of their message and then gave them free reign once they came to power. I remember when I was living there it was pretty clear that it wouldn’t take much for Greece to descend into another bloody civil war and with the right-wing violence of this last week just feels like another step in that direction. An incredibly polarised country in which they hate each other. Tourists always say about how nice and welcoming the Greeks are and it’s true, they are great at looking after guests, as well as their own families but outside of this they can be total arseholes to each other. Give them a divisive issue when they’re already struggling with no work or money and a country that is falling apart and doesn’t give a shit about them and the violence is inevitable. Who gets hurts, the innocent people once again. As the EU commends Greece for shutting the gates to Europe it ignores the abuse of innocents, of children being tear gassed, women being clubbed and boats being rammed. The Greek government has said they will stop taking asylum requests, I may be corrected here but surely there must be some kind of international law they’re breaking with that. But commend them our governments will. Commend the fascist thugs terrorising with impunity they will. Commend the brutalising of an already beaten populace they will. This has been a little bit of a unthought rant and I’m wary of doing so. But I also know people who have been threatened and attacked. This is a rant because it’s an emotive issue and it scares me and I worry about people I know in Greece. As I said a few days ago about the fascists in Spain, in Greece they have been and continue to be just as real. The Nazis were never short of collaborators, neither were the British and Americans backing the right wing in the civil war of the late forties. So nothing has changed in seventy years, it’s the same old bullshit as our governments feed the monster before distancing themselves once the job is done and letting everyone else pick up the pieces. Fuck them, that makes the Brits collaborators, the EU, everyones a collaborator. We’re all collaborating with right wing extremism because they’re doing in our name. How much do we love the EU now? Perhaps they’re not that perfect after all. Blood on everyones hands.

Wild Eyed Crazy Bernie

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It’s good to see Bernie is doing well in the Democratic primaries. He came second to Buttigeig in Iowa by less than a thousand votes but has won the next two in New Hampshire and Nevada. Today sees South Carolina before Super Tuesday on well Tuesday of next week. I don’t care what people people say, for anyone familiar with Sky Sports’ sensationalising of football, Super Tuesday sounds ridiculous and merely highlights through which prism we view the world now. I think I understand how their voting system works although I will admit there is probably bits I miss out on. They get votes in each state which leads to getting delegates and super delegates based on their share of the vote to represent them at the Democratic national convention or whatever it’s called, the one with the most wins will get the pleasure of going up against the big bad wolf Trump. I wonder how may Supers they can fit in that contest especially if it ends up being crazy Bernie the wild eyed Socialist running.

Having recent experience of elections and what turned out to be the inevitable disappointment of losing, Bernie going up against Trump makes me nervous. It is impossible to deny the parallels with British politics of recent times. The populist Socialist Corbyn against the populist right winger Johnson. Despite the fact anyone with any sense could see the folly of voting for Johnson and only three months down the line it’s already seemingly falling to pieces, although the same was said about Trump, the establishment and their media did anything and everything they could to keep Corbyn from coming to power. Better the devil you know who does your bidding than the devil you don’t who wants you to pay some tax. For this reason I am nervous then. Even publications like the Economist who I am finding myself starting to trust are focusing a little too much on unelectable Bernie. I have seen the power of the media in the UK and don’t doubt for a second that despite the partisan nature of American politics they would do anything in their power to prevent Bernie from coming to power, even if that means another four years of Trump and four years of him knowing he doesn’t need to worry about being re-elected. You can even see the parallels within the American Democratic and British Labour parties as those who hold the power try frantically to repeat their success of last time when they got Hillary Clinton in with the self-defeating behaviour of many within Labour who would rather their own party were not elected than one led by Jeremy Corbyn.

Politics and power is dirty. I am not American but their politics affects so much of the world and is covered so much in our own media that it is impossible not to take an interest. I hope I am proved wrong because I would love to see Bernie in The White House and Trump back in the penthouse of one of his failing towers, but we’ve already had a trial run for this exact situation and it didn’t end well. If you repeat enough times how unelectable someone is he may just end up being so. We had turkeys voting for Christmas, will they be voting for Thanksgiving this time around?

Historical Revisionism

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Revisionism in history is nothing new. From the dawn of record keeping people have been telling the stories of the past and re-telling them with their own unique take. From the days of the oral tradition with the traveling bards to the father of western historians Herodotus, we have simply had to take what was recording. In modern times we are able to revise this history, and this is not to say that history was never changed in the past, but with the development of technology in the last few hundred years the stories of the past have been recorded with an increased frequency. Prior to this events could be recorded and the re-recorded depending on the necessities of whoever the new status quo was within society. In modern times exactly the same happens but with the advent of first the printing press and then it’s contemporary equivalent the internet, the ability to hide events from the populace has grown increasingly difficult. The existence of a compliant media propaganda machine and an education system selective in it’s teachings still do much of the work of creating an ignorant populace but with technology evolving at ever faster rates it will be interesting to see what course establishment counter measures take.

China is an example of one way of dealing with the spread of information with certain sites blocked, disruptive opinions deleted and a general hardline approach to the spread of information. In the west we have the alternative approach, allow people access to information but discredit it as crackpot, hide it away from search engines and ultimately take a more distracting approach. It is hard to imagine which one will turn out the more successful. History has shown us you can’t keep people oppressed indefinitely but also they’ll eventually stop being distracted by the magic trick. Do they both then add certain aspect of each others approach, well only time will tell.

The point of this though was not to get into a piece on internet freedoms, but instead write about the manipulation and revisionism of certain characters within our own history. I previously wrote a piece on the myth of the barefoot doctor Li Shizhen, an example of China’s revisionism, and we have done the same with figures from our own past like Winston Churchill; responsible for leading the country against the Nazi’s on one hand and directly responsible for the death of three million people in the Bengal famine with the other. Can you guess which part of his life we are taught in school?

Today I listened to a very interesting podcast on Emmeline Pankhurst. It is undeniable that she was responsible for one of the greatest social changes in this country since the industrial revolution. Through her direct action, determination and network of followers women received the vote, some of the things they pulled off during the struggle were incredible and I’m in awe. However what is not always taught is that she was a classist. Throughout this struggle she wasn’t actually fighting for universal suffrage as is taught about her in modern times. Her intentions were never to get working class women the vote as she believed they were better being led by those above them in society. Arguably she was only ever fighting to get the vote for women of her social standing and above. She actively fought against the spread of communism which was in those days more about the emancipation of the workers than the spread of Soviet authoritarianism. When she moved to Canada in later life she then fought against ‘non-white immigration’ before returning to Britain, joining the Conservative Party and standing for them as an MP much to the horror of her daughters.

That is not to say her achievements are unworthy and she did some great things which should be recorded and educated but it is important not to ignore the less savoury, or the parts which don’t fit the idealised narrative. With technology and the spread of information, as well as misinformation only increasing, it may just be time to redevelop a little trust back between society and those directing it. If not we can only envisage the inevitable suffragette style movement to follow. People are fallible, get over it.

Take Down Thy Fence

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Goodbye my lover…sung an annoying whiny man once. Today marks the end of a relationship nobody knew they cared about until after the Brexit referendum two years ago, or was it three, it might have been three. It all feels like a complete blur politics wise these last few years. Actually as I say that it might have been 2016, which would be four years ago because Trump was 2016 and certainly there were parallels of fear over the two. Social commentators the world over spent hours refusing to admit they had zero understanding of how society thought outside of their own narrow little universes.

We have spent the last three and a half years, let’s settle on that; arguing, hating, blowing up bridges, digging deeper trenches, building barriers and getting nowhere, and we’re in a much worse position than had we just stopped hating each other for five minutes and worked together. Tomorrow our relationship with the EU will be exactly the same as it is today, it’s just we won’t be able to influence decisions. Despite officially leaving it won’t be until the end of the year that we either sign a rushed and half-cooked trade deal or we just crash out with no deal at all. Boris was going to Get Brexit Done but it’s become clearer that nobody except the puppet master Dominic Cummings really has any clue what that actually means.

We leave one trading block to gain the liberty the Americans and Chinese are very quickly going to take away before turning us into the meat within their squabbling sandwich. The only power on the world stage we have is The City of London, the financial centre which will very soon become the epicentre of British efforts at becoming a cold, wet and windy version of the Cayman Islands. There is already talk that the fishing rights to our waters will be sacrificed to allow the financial sector access to European markets. It may have been one of the major issues that was used to sell this power play but it looks delusional in hindsight that unelected bureaucrats like Cummings would stand up for a few fishermen when his mates in the City demanded a return on their investment.

The EU is not perfect and they have feasted on the carcass of countries which were never going to be able to match up to the requirements of membership. It was a great model; get them in and when they can’t keep up, call in the debts and sell them off. The Greeks for example may have brought it upon themselves but they were sold an illusion that would benefit only the minority at the top. Are those in power in the UK taking us out because they want to protect us from that? Or are they in fact the minority at the top who have simply seen an opportunity of even more personal riches in dollars and yuan than the euro can offer?

It doesn’t matter anymore though because tonight at eleven o’clock, or midnight Brussels time ironically, we will be leaving the EU. We have five more years at least of Boris and when the Labour Party lurches back to the centre; an opposition in name only. What comes next is anyone’s guess but before anything happens we all need to accept that the fight to stay is over for now. It is only in this acceptance that people will be able to make any genuine productive moves in the future. We also need to accept that this is not a black and white argument, that there are actual genuine benefits from leaving the EU. There may not be many but until we can see that they do exist we’ll never manage to reconnect with the leave voters. Too many barriers to cooperation have developed over these last few years. You may disagree with your neighbour but while that fence gets bigger the only person to benefit is the one selling you new planks of wood, incidentally he’s also the one leaving you both notes about the indiscretions of the other.

An Ignorant Act of War

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What is it that goes through peoples minds when they act in a way which will inevitably have a detrimental affect upon other people. I ask this because all over the news today is the assassination of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by the United States. In the UK the coverage is generally subtly supportive or cautious but without ever condemning, which is predictable given the geopolitical framework in which this incident exists. The caution comes from the clear retributive dangers of inevitable actions by the Iranian government. There have been calls from across the world wide spectrum of governance about the dangers of this and calls for the deescalation of further violence. Were this to have happened in reverse the US would have already dropped the bombs in retaliation. This is an act of war and by those same rules the Iranians can justifiably fight back. The question then is that given the consequences whether this is exactly what this current US administration want, and judging by their behaviour since coming to power the answer seems pretty obvious. The Iranians have vowed revenge of equal measure, which would mean killing America’s most powerful General, or Israel’s.

Which leads to Israel. It seems the current US administration have been doing all they can since coming to power to support Israel – recognising the capital as Jerusalem, recognising the illegal settlements in Palestine as legitimate, Trump kissing some holy wall and then licking the soles of Netanyahu’s feet. The Israelis have been desperate to take on Iran for years and successive US governments have always held back from doing so. They’ve finally got what they want. If I was a betting man, the attack from Iran will not be directed at any Americans but straight at the heart of Israel. I just hope that whatever happens civilians are not caught up in it because the only constant of war is that innocent people suffer. If they take out a few Israeli generals well then so be it, they signed up for it and already have the blood of innocents on their own hands.

It is scary though. But is it scary for those making the decisions. And when they make the decisions what do they feel. It is very easy to look through the polarised lenses of good and bad, unfortunately this seems to be all that current rhetoric is made up of. The Iranians are the bad guys, they should die. The Americans and Brits the good guys, they should be applauded for their heroism in defending freedom. I’m making assumptions but I suspect those making these decisions to pull triggers do not think that what they are doing is wrong in any sense of the word. We view these people as evil in some ways but they’re not, they are just trying to make the world, or maybe more precisely their own world, a better place. I think it is important to remember that ultimately in everything people do they just want to be happy. Nobody acts in ways counter to that, not consciously at least, and he might be a cunt, but Trump just wants to be happy. The problem is though that he is going about it in such an immoral and mistaken way that there is no happiness coming for anyone out of this, least of all the innocent civilians who will inevitably bear the brunt of such monumental ignorance.