I’ve often wondered on these pages where the anger and the outrage towards Boris Johnson and his coterie of Conservative crooks, charlatans and chancers is – be it about Brexit, their response to the Covid-19 crisis or the total disregard they have shown to Parliamentary process and the decency that British democracy is (was?) world famous for. The silence is quite stunning – not from you, my readers, but from the wider British people, TV news channels and papers. Perhaps I should rephrase that because the opposition to Johnson and company is quite voluble in Scotland and Northern Ireland (especially) and the truth is that the problem is very much an English one as it was English Conservatives, MP’s and voters, who are forcing their minority will on the rest of the UK. And let’s not forget the abject lack of an opposition from Starmer and the Labour Party.
For some reason the great unwashed of England seem to think Johnson is a bit of all right, for some totally unfathomable reason and seem to forgive him all his sins – but not me and here I’m going to ask a number of questions, namely what is or isn’t actual criminality or are behaviours which are, and or have, a criminal repercussion?
So where to start?
How about child poverty and the growth of food banks in the UK? Child poverty in the UK is a massive problem – last year 4.3 million children were living in poverty! Levels of poverty – the number of people living in poverty – must be approaching those experienced in Victorian times and that is to the shame of this Conservative government and their ‘austerity’ measures. The need for Food Banks has grown almost exponentially since 2009/2009 as this chart from the Trussell Trust figures shows – over 2.5 million people needed to use a Food Bank in 2020/2021. The House of Commons library has this to say on the subject.
Now whilst passing Government legislation that has caused this growth makes it ‘legal’ I struggle to accept that the outcome is anything other than criminal behaviour – if a parent was found starving their kids Social Services and the Police would be all over them like a rash because Child Abuse is illegal so surely the same criteria should be applied to a deliberate action that knowingly would result in hunger and deprivation. Feel free to disagree with me.
Next then, how about the UK’s Overseas Aid Budget? The UK’s Overseas Aid budget was set by Parliament – so therefore determined by law – at 0.7% of GDP. Johnson and his mob have reduced that by 0.2%, without recourse to Parliament to seek their agreement and so amend the law – thereby breaking the law. This has resulted in much debate and has been opposed by numerous ex-Prime Ministers and MP’s – including Tories – but Johnson continues to ride roughshod over Parliament and the law of the land. Now I know that there are very real problems with the transparency around by who and how this money gets spent but it is a fact that this reduction, a tiny amount of money in the grand scheme of things, especially when compared with the huge amounts passed across to Tory cronies during the Covid-19 pandemic (more on that below, surprise surprise!) helps provide vaccines against disease like polio and treatments to fight malaria and provide the very basic necessity for life – access to clean water. By their actions Johnson and his cabinet of cretins have knowingly sentenced children to death and that to me is criminal! Now that may well be OK by you but it’s criminal as far as I’m concerned and should be dealt with as such.
So, item number three, hmmm, where to go next? How about asylum seekers and the way Priti Patel, the Home Office and the Stormtroopers of the UK Border Force are dealing with things? The UK once had a well deserved reputation for being a fair-minded, decent place that offered a safe haven for those in danger of death or persecution – think of the Kindertransport before World War 2 or the plight of Ugandan Asians – which included Priti Patel’s parents by the way and who wouldn’t have qualified under her own rules now! Rather than deal with the problem of the crooks who are taking advantage of people desperate to come to the UK she has chosen to criminalise the refugees. Rather than treat those who manage to get her humanely she chooses to lock them up in decrepit old military bases and leave them to the ravages of Covid-19. Has anybody managed to find out how many of these already desperate people died of Covid-19? Consigning people to virtual death camps is an absolute disgrace, doing it deliberately is tantamount to murder – and needs calling out as such. Then we need to consider the impact on unaccompanied children when they get here – and we should be grateful that they weren’t washed ashore drowned. The Home Office can’t (or won’t) process their application for asylum – blaming delays on Covid-19 – but FFS these are children, take them in and give them the help and support they need and worry about anything else later! This, in particular, really gets me angry. In July and August 1995 I was in a place called Tuzla in Bosnia, a week or so after the fall of Srebrenica and witnessed first-hand what distraught refugees fleeing from possible death and rape looked like – predominantly elderly women and children, the men had been rounded up and shot, the young women taken away and sexually abused – who can remember the photo of that young woman who had hung herself in the forest? It shames me to be English watching the way this Government treats all asylum seekers, but children especially. Now she’s thinking of reinventing transportation – sending them off-shore somewhere so she can forget about them. Hasn’t she learnt anything? Look what that did to Australia! Seriously the current government of Australia does the same thing and has stained their reputation by doing so. So in this paragraph I think we can fairly accuse the Tories of attempted murder, maybe manslaughter and then add child abuse into the mix. Given the attitude of the Home Office to ‘foreigners’ how about racism as well! We must remember to add the Windrush scandal and the terror of the fire in Grenfell Tower as well to the litany of Conservative Party racism – you don’t think the Tory controlled Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council would have skimped recladding a block that had white and wealthy tenants on it do you? Really??
Next we come on to all the chicanery and cronyism surrounding the Covid-19 debacle.
So let’s start with Gove, Hancock and Williamson being found guilty of acting unlawfully in their responses to Covid-19. I strongly recommend you read this article from the New Statesman. I know Hancock has since resigned after being caught groping his lady-friend but really, all three of them, if they had any sense of dignity or responsibility should have resigned a long time ago.
As for how Covid-19 has been handled generally it has to be said that a natural disaster such as this would have stretched any Government to one extent or another – unless you lived in Vietnam or Taiwan or China! One bad decision after another – from watching England play rugby at Twickenham, not cancelling the Cheltenham Festival and then releasing elderly people back into their Care Homes without a Covid-19 test (as Hancock promised had been done) increased the spread of the disease, brought the NHS to its knees and, more importantly, killed tens of thousands more people than the disease would have done if we had been better prepared. Unfortunately the Government hadn’t bothered fully reading, never mind understand the full implications of Exercise Cygnus in 2016 – or maybe they did which is why, according to the article in the link they tried to bury it! The Wikipedia entry here makes for good reading. One consequence, another deadly consequence to add to the list, was the state of the nation’s PPE reserve stock – this is an interesting article but if you’ve got an hour or so to spare just try putting UK PPE Scandal into your favourite search engine, make a cup of tea, get comfortable and enjoy – or just click here – I’ve done the work for you J . Now it has to be said that the vaccine roll-out has been a great success but that’s in no way to the credit of the Tories – that’s down to an exhausted NHS pulling out more stops than it knew it had but the success of the vaccination programme has been seriously undermined by the introduction of the Indian, or more prosaically, the Delta variant. So tell me, if the UK borders were closed to Pakistan and Bangladesh to prevent the spread of Covid-19 why was the border to India not closed? Maybe something to do with Johnson wanting a jolly to India to have a chat about ‘Global Britain’ and a trade deal with India? Nice one Boris – how many more people did that kill? Now we’ve got the prospect of all restrictions being lifted on 19th July 2021 – even though Sajid Javed has accepted that infections might well rise by as many as 100,000 a day when restrictions are lifted, arguing that the vaccination programme will limit the number of hospitalisations the result from this rise. By implication that means that further deaths will be limited – which will be great – unless one of those deaths will be yours or a loved one’s. Surely a deliberate action that will knowingly harm or kill someone is ABH, GBH, manslaughter or murder, all criminal actions.
Just for the record check todays Covid-19 figures for the UK. They do not make good reading.
We’ve read enough about Johnson and his dodgy dealings whilst Mayor of London – what happened to the proposed London Garden Bridge and the money that seems to have vanished? How about that American lady who joined him on business trips?? Since becoming PM he has enjoyed a Caribbean holiday at somebody else’s expense and lives it up in a newly decorated No 11 flat, again at somebody else’s initial expense – although I’d like to see the bank statement that shows that he actually did stump up the extras. Throw Hancock’s’ shenanigans into the pot – all his PPE contracts and test, track and trace jobs for the boys and girls and then add Jenrick’s misdemeanours and it must be as plain as the nose on your face that this Tory Government is rotten to the core, treating us all as idiots and helping themselves to the public purse.
The list of dodgy dealings and downright criminal behaviour grows daily and it is time someone demanded answers – but who? Priti Patel was found guilty of bullying – in breach of Johnson’s own Ministerial Code and which would once upon a time seen a Minister resign. Not her though – the bloke who adjudged her actions. So it’s OK for someone to act in a racist manner and bully people at work is it? Not when I was a Union Rep it wasn’t! Johnson just bumbles along thinking he’s untouchable – although he might get a surprise when he isn’t the PM any longer – but why is he so untouchable?
There is hope – as dark as it seems The Good Law Project stands up to these abuses of power and deserves all the support it can get. Unfortunately their website seems to be playing up today because I’d be happy to support them by donating what I would otherwise be paying to the Labour Party. I’ll keep trying though – it might be because I’m in France so I’ll give it a go over my VPN this week and report back to you all.
Well that’s enough ranting and raving for now. I was hoping to publish this blog on Saturday night and so not have to mention last night but I got tied up and then we got beaten L. Before the competition started I told my physio – Dolf – that I’d be happy if we made the Quarters and ecstatic if we reached the Semis so getting to the Final was a bonus. When it went to penalties it was always going to be anyone’s game and it wasn’t ours on the night. There’s no blame to be attached by me – what do I really know about football (nothing) so I’m not qualified to comment. The lads did us proud – their taking of the knee before every game made me cheer and sent two fingers to Patel and others who think along those lines – and Gareth Southgate showed Johnson et al what honesty and integrity stands for. Roll on the next World Cup! Oh and who’s Dolf? Well he’s been my physio since we came here and he used to play football for Haarlem in Holland. His last season was Ruud Gullit’s first season and he says it was seeing how good Mr Gullit was when he realised how good he wasn’t!
Ta ta for now
Jem
12th July 2021