466. Boris-de-Brexit Johnson wiped his arse on Britain – it’s time to clean up.

After Johnson’s claim that Putin threatened him with a nuke, it struck me that when historians look at ‘eras’ Johnson’s oven-ready Brexit deal might just be one of those markers they take note of as pre and then post- shit Britain.

The thing is, in ordinary circumstances everyone would be condemning Putin. However, the unspoken issue here – as no one really comments out loud – is that no one believes Boris Johnson. Johnson sneered at military advisers who warned him about Putin’s invasion but now attempts to perfume himself in the Ukrainian invasion whenever his credibility stinks. And that is most of the time.

That is not to say that the Tories weren’t already making a good fist of wrecking Britain prior to 2016. But far from the glorious independence we were promised IMMEDIATELY after the June 2016 referendum, we had instead immediate economic wobbles and the start of the exodus of workers and businesses and talent – those who could see the immediate/medium and long-term future of catastrophe for a Britain that had gone doolally and responded yet again to the xenophobe’s dog whistle.

But then we ushered in a new horror. The man who had been such a farce as London Mayor (remember water cannon and the garden bridge anyone?);  such a disaster as Foreign Secretary (remember Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe) was handed the UK premiership. Boris huge-lie-on-the-side-of-a-bus Johnson quickly consolidated his lead-by-not-giving-a-shit style by illegally proroguing parliament. Then with all the flourish of the con man he is he signed the December 2019  Brexit deal that everyone has been trying to fix or deny since – the infamous oven-ready Brexit deal.

Then we were hit by covid where the same human blob of need and carelessness and craven venality and uncontrolled appetite and childish dishonesty and devastating negligence failed to attend COBRA meetings because he was trying to disentangle himself from his second wife because the daughter-age gf was pregnant. Britain suffered untold unnecessary deaths while pals of the Tory party profiteered under the ministerial madness of Matt Hancock – latterly a reality TV star.

Johnson truly stamped his style on Britain. Evidence of corruption, scandal, financial irregularity plus more gongs for the grovelers and plum positions for those helping him financially were dished out. Sexual abuse by MPs seems to have become almost a requirement of the job.

We’ve just finally seen the back of Nadhim Zahawi for dishonesty and tax irregularities but the cabinet still boasts Suella Braverman – previously sacked for ministerial impropriety and since having boasted about cruelty to migrants. Dominic Raab deputy PM has been accused of bullying by so many members of staff his inquiry has just had to be extended. But then Priti Patel was found guilty of bullying under Johnson and kept on anyway – presumably on the grounds that if Johnson started getting rid of folk who were unsuitable to govern – where would he be?

Today it has been announced by the IMF that the UK is more fiscally fucked than any comparable country. The question ‘WHY’ is asked and the answer hangs in the air like a corpse’s stench. The clear unequivocal answer is Brexit. Brexit was Boris Johnson wiping his flabby Etonian arse on Britain.

Fixing Britain means cleaning out the Tories and re-joining the EU.

*

PLUS

Its another BANDCAMP Friday on February 3rd where artists get a wee bit more of the money paid for our art so do check out my audio environmental poetry epic here Casey & the Surfmen or read it for yourself  here My BOOKS or on godreads

465. The effluence of affluence in Britain.

UK Con-servatives have polluted Britain with plutocracy; the Tory legacy will be the effluence of affluence.

We have bidding wars instead of government in the latest mad ‘levelling up’ nonsense. As many have said before me – a sort of Hunger Games for struggling infrastructure.

Richard Sharp – head of the BBC was, it turns out, not just a previous Tory donor and crony of both Sunak and Johnson, he was also a money loan enabler for his old pal Boris de-Brexit Johnson immediately prior to his appointment.

Meanwhile Nadhim Zahawi – Tory party Chair (ex-chancellor and man who had to return tax monies he’d used to heat his private stables) has had chit-chats with HMRC about his not very transparent tax omissions. But he’s paid a fine now so nothing to see here! But the question is – do we want this kind of ‘mistake’ from the man who was at the time running the nation’s fiscal infrastructure.

James Cleverly (sec of state for foreign affairs) drew the short straw at the weekend and was wheeled out to defend Nadhim Zahawi. It was a full on shit show with not-so-Cleverly excusing NZ because he was a successful businessman who fled Iraq with his family as a child. Cleverly is currently part of a government that literally dreams of cruel treatments for desperate migrants  fleeing dangerous  regimes who maybe also wish one day to be British Chancellor to which one can only say - pick a lane...

Another defender of Zahawi was deputy PM Dominic Raab currently under multiple investigations for bullying. He’s the man who makes Patel look like Mother Theresa – the man who was too busy when Home Secretary – to get off his arse on holiday as the horrors of the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan unfolded.

But – back to bidding for crumbs from the millionaires’ many tables.

Last week Michael Gove – political rubber man – denied and defended the appearance that wealthier southern areas are getting more of the ridiculously named ‘levelling up’ fund than more deprived areas. When Sunak was losing his Tory leadership bid to terrible Truss (woops – there goes £50billion) he was caught out at a Tory pep talk in Tunbridge boasting that he’d take monies from deprived urban areas to hand to wealthier ones. At the same time he and Gove and previously Truss and Johnson continue to talk out of their arses about levelling-up. Levelling Up is phrase that has embedded itself into the political consciousness if not the political understanding like a tick.

Local government is no longer really that. Since Thatcher it’s just a series of decisions about services that were ‘put out to tender’ usually to be done cheaper and inadequately. Who gets the contract is the game they now play. More rich pickings for corruption and cronyism.

Also in this list of governments no longer governing would be the setting up of ‘independent bodies’. Sounds great doesn’t it. Ditto enquiries.

Very often these cabals-of-pals are used to deflect. In the case of the ubiquitous inquiry – they’re used to kick the can down the road when hopefully the public will have forgotten or at least be less angry about the government failure/disaster  like – the Iraq war inquiry or the current – still ongoing - Grenfell tower or the reports on the Windrush scandal. Of course sometimes there are multiple inquiries/reports as into racism and they are ignored only to be followed by another report/inquiry the next time one is needed as a distraction from actually doing anything.

I’ll stop here because you really get the point.

The thing is Britain is not governed any more. We beg for services – get some if we’re lucky and if we’re not lucky enough to live in a wealthy Tory borough – tough. Politicians don’t make decisions they pass things off to convenient bodies and bide their time until they can leave politics and cash-in on their status and contacts.

But we are paying politicians more than ever while they twist and turn to avoid the rules that are supposed to supress their side earnings where they are at the beck and call of lobbyists and vested interests.

After 13 years of Con-servative governments, the one thing it seems we cannot expect from our government is government…

*

do check out My BOOKS by clicking the link or on goodreads or bandcamp. thank you

464. ‘When it comes to the subject of Harry’ (a la - Calamity Jane)

When it comes to the subject of Harry

A pub ‘stallion’ who went off to marry

A girl with brown skin

Now he cannot win

And it’s Harry they’re planning to bury

 

He’s a spare just an extra just other

But much the more interesting brother

He rejected The Firm

Then made them all squirm

But I bet it would tickle his mother

 

Then we all heard about the royal todger

T'were used the horse lady to rodger

Far too much detail

From this royal male

But you’re payin he’s sayin so sod yer

 

And while Harry says like it or shove it

Kate and Wills pretend they are above it

While side-briefing the press

And channelling old Bess

It’s comeuppance in buckets, I love it

 

Charlie wants his big bling coronation

Qatar money and plebs' adulation

I wonder if ‘one’

Knows the monarchy’s done

Yield your loot to a tired struggling nation

Yield your loot to a tired struggling naaaaaatiooooon…

*

and - do check out my other scribblings here - My BOOKS

 

463. Top 20 unlikely news stories in 2023!

1.     Telegraph readers admit Brexit is a catastrophe and they were conned for the sake of xenophobia.

2.     Woman (possibly me…) walks more than 20 yards from home without stepping in dog shit.

3.     Daily Mail readers have an epiphany and see that Jeremy Clarkson is a talentless, entitled, misogynistic, desperate twat.

4.     Royal family apologise for slavery, return stolen land, property, jewels and other swag and donate properties for homeless folk to live in.

5.     Suella Braverman stops drooling over intentional cruelty to vulnerable migrants.

6.     The West astonishingly and en masse, cares more about species extinction, the climate crisis and deadly pollution than reality TV programmes (see last post).

7.     Found - an intelligent, good looking white supremacist.

8.     Monarchy is abolished. The silly, expensive, pathetic dressing-up-box pantomime coronation is swapped for an equality street party.

9.     Child of celebrity doesn’t become a model.

10.                        Elon Musk, Trump, Matt Hancock, Jair Bolsonaro, Boris Johnson, +++ are put on The Naked Emperors’ rocket to Mars.

11.                        Voters finally understand that its wealthy tax avoiders who need to be chased by HMRC not the disabled and struggling families.

12.                        Cigarettes are banned and tobacco companies pay reparations to all cancer victims – tobacco land grows food.

13.                        D list celebrity woman you forgot about, frantic for attention - wears clothes.

14.                        Morons stop buying large dangerous dogs and other morons stop cutting down urban trees and hedges. They also stop paving or decking or fake-grassing over their gardens.

15.                        Nepotism becomes deeply infra dig. Talented folk get a chance and the country improves in all ways.

16.                        Black lives really matter.

17.                        Water company bosses of privatised English water companies are forced to drink the turd water they pumped into British waterways.

18.                        ‘Commentators’ stop talking infinite shite about stuff they know nothing about in order to draw attention to themselves – UK public critical faculties improve.

19.                        British public suddenly remember the Tories have been in power for 13 years not just since Sunak became the bronze medallist PM.

20.                        Brexit turns out to have been like Bobby’s dream in Dallas. UK jingoists and xenophobes aren’t really THAT stupid or self-destructive. It was all just a nightmare.

*

  Click below to check out 

My BOOKS

462. 2023 - the year we accept that the climate crisis is personal?

 The climate crisis is literally at our front doors but it's been easy to ignore while it was mainly affecting poor people in countries ‘over there’. The notion that wealthy, heavily consumerist nations are predominantly to blame is a truth that has been wilfully ignored.

Following the hottest summer in living memory in 2022 and the decimation of important insect species / wildlife and the increase in flooding – even the hardest-hearted, most deluded must now accept that this is personal. It’s here.

The day before New Year’s Eve I walked home in cold heavy rain past the swollen Water of Leith which had burst its banks despite recent expensive and disruptive flood defences. I encountered a woman trying to ‘sweep’ road water away from her front path where it would have had easy access to her front door.

She complained to me that she’d contacted the council and they’d done nothing… Then I looked along both sides of her street.

It was an increasingly familiar and depressing sight.

Front garden after front garden was paved over or block paved or concreted or gravelled. Hedges were ripped out as per my own neighbours, losing precious urban species habitat, often for vehicle access. God-forbid any living thing should mar these sterile monstrosities.

Any chance for excess water to be absorbed naturally is blocked. Each front garden turned into an ugly water-repellent void where run-off water gushes into roads and along to drains that can’t cope.

The people responsible for her immediate minor flooding were the woman’s own neighbours.

I wonder if 2023 will be the year we finally take personal responsibility for our immediate environment if not the global one. I include the mountains of toxic dog shit and plastic litter.

Looking to move house myself, I note with increasing sadness and bemusement the number of homes Estate Agents describe as “well maintained” that are green-free horrors. Too many garden make-over programmes? Have these people succumbed to the idea that concrete is an easy maintenance option – because its not. A wild garden always looks kind of nice. Weed-broken concrete or block paving pretty soon looks like a slum.

Often these places have no trees or vegetation or hedges or even grass. More and more brick and concrete. Surely in 2023 this is the opposite of “well maintained”. Instead might we say ‘unaware or uncaring people live here’ or ‘clearly these people have children who don’t need to breathe air’ or ‘these folk have not heard of the climate crisis’ or ‘these people own a well-stocked boat’ or ‘these folk haven’t worked out that we need biodiversity’… This is a sad house.

Yes we need industry to pick up the tab on a grand scale – we need the polluters and environmental vandals of the wealthy West to pay for the global damage it has done and support the poorest countries on the planet; we need to ignore the MAD ads for cruises and cheap holidays but most of all we need to understand the very personal nature of the climate crisis.

It is literally at our front doors…

*

I recommend My BOOKS to you as always (UK/US and expanded distribution from you fave online bookstore) but, in view of the topic of the first post of 2023 I'll specifically flag up these two - 

Casey & the Surfmen  (audio version bandcamp)

Zero One Zero Two (goodreads)