26th June 2020
Johnson’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic blunders on, lurching from one disaster to another. My comments in my last blog about the great unwashed thinking lockdown was over was proven correct yesterday with scenes of hordes of people filling Bournemouth and its beach – with absolutely no regard to social distancing! What a shower of idiots! The same irresponsible behaviour was seen in Liverpool with mass crowds on the beach in Formby and outside Liverpool FC’s stadium following their seizure (on a temporary basis only) of Manchester City’s Premiership title. Seriously, whilst I applaud Liverpool’s success on the football pitch, they were beyond doubt the best team all season, celebrating as they did was a mistake and I hope it doesn’t turn round to bite them with a second wave of the virus.
The prospect of a second wave is very real, made more so by Johnson caving in to the pressures he’s under from his backers to get the economy back up and running – which really means them getting their profits going – and I’d refer you back to earlier blogs of mine which promised this response from the Tories sooner or later. They don’t care about us, normal people, who struggle to get by on a daily basis, protected as they are by fat wage packets, massive pensions and the promise of lucrative directorships – Tories are just pigs looking for a deeper trough to stick their snouts in. The fact that a second wave is inevitable – as expressed loud and often by Professor Chris Whitty – has now been made even more likely by A DELIBERATE POLITICAL ACT to turn the economy back on, regardless of the impact and regardless of the science. The recent, stupid acts of mass migration to the nearest beaches show that the supposed ‘common sense’ of the English public is a fantasy and no amount of chest beating rhetoric by Matt Hancock, insisting he can close beaches if he wants to, will put the genie they let out of the bottle back in to the bottle. Not to put too fine a point on it, they’ve f###ed things up once too often now and I dread to see what happens next, but if it reflects what’s happening in the USA and elsewhere in the world – where there is evidence of a resurgence in infections and inevitably deaths – all of which I must remind you are as a direct result of Johnson and his mob.
The deliberate political was taken despite the public being offered no evidence of the virus waning; the R level remains stubbornly at 0.7 – 0.9, infections remain at over 1,000 a day and people are still dying at an alarming rate. Daily updates have been cancelled (something Karen thought would happen weeks ago) so we don’t get to see even the doctored levels of infections and deaths that the Government offered. They hide behind obfuscation, smoke screens and outright lies and the British media and press, in the main, and even the Speaker of the House of Commons allow them to get away with it. Bring back Bercow I say – Hoyle isn’t up to it but that’s another discussion.
As I type this there’s the ominous rumbling of thunder in the distance and a repeat of last nights massive storm is promised for 17:00 hours. When we have storms here we have to unplug all electrical appliances and disconnect the phone line unless we want to risk losing stuff. The people we bought the house off once regaled us with tales of coming over for the summer to find the dishwasher blown across the kitchen after being zapped by lightning! We’ve lost a wi-fi router after a hit on the phone line so we take every precaution, which is why Karen was up twice in the night unplugging stuff. Me – I slept through it all – take a bit more than a thunderstorm to upset my circadian rhythms!
Again comments in my last blog have seen the light of day elsewhere with Owen Jones quoting me (almost) in his article in todays Guardian. Keep up Owen, I made this point three weeks ago LOL! Seriously though, the lad writes a good article and this is another that’s well worth reading.
What we really need to be aware of and calling out every time we see an example of is when Johnson and his mob of lickspittle a##e wipes try to shift the blame or responsibility. The most recent is their saying that local councils are responsible for maintaining public order following the Bournemouth fiasco – itself a direct consequence of Johnson’s political decision to start easing lockdown restrictions. Have a look at Tuesday’s comments in this article by John Crace here to see what I mean. Johnson was led by science for as long as it suited him but he’s given up on it now. Johnathan Van Tam hasn’t been seen on TV since he made it clear what he felt about Cumming’s trip up north and Messrs Whitty and Vallance wont survive Cumming’s cull either when the time comes.
Sometime ago I asked where the anger was – and the question needs asking again and again – Johnson and co are treating us all like idiots whilst people continue to die as a direct result of their incompetence – and there’s more to come as we begin to see the consequences of Covid-19 on NHS ‘business as usual’ operations. How many people will die because they missed a cancer diagnosis and so didn’t get potentially life-saving treatment? I could go on but I’m sure you understand what I’m alluding to. And then there’s the other elephant in the room – a ‘no deal’ Brexit is creeping up on us while we are being blindsided by Covid-19 and the economic impact of that added to the chaos the virus is causing economically will send the UK tumbling into a second austerity abyss – because rest assured it wont be business and the banks who pay the price – it’ll be Joe Public the tax-payer – again!
I’ll start winding up now on a more upbeat note although directly related to Covid-19. I wrote some time ago about my brother-in-law Peter who is a Merseyside and Cheshire Blood Bike volunteer and he has been almost full-time with them since he was furloughed. We were talking the other day and he told me of a job he’d had to run a donor organ to Manchester Royal Infirmary a couple of weeks ago and after dropping off the box he went to the petrol station at the Apollo roundabout in Ardwick (I used to live a few hundred metres from there once upon a long time ago). As he walked to the bike after paying for his fuel (actually the fuel was free as BP have given them fuel cards) he was confronted by a big bear of a bloke who threw his arms around him in a big hug. ‘I f###king love you guys – see that little girl in the back of that car – your the reason she’s still here!’ and with that he gave Pete a bottle of Lucozade, another big hug and a kiss. In the midst of all the deaths and despair there are still those odd moments where people recognise those doing what they can to help where they can. Keep that thought in mind.
Stay home and stay safe,
Love to you all
Jem