360. If Black Lives Matter should we, in Scotland, paint our faces blue?

Plus, do those who say they want Scottish independence need to get with the programme?

Why would a mixed-race granny who moved to Scotland as recently as 2014 have been dreaming of Scottish Independence now for 6 years?

As a black woman, very politically ‘woke’ and conscious of my slave ancestry - sometimes smarting sometimes just weary of racism (the stuff that affects me personally) and still able to be horrified with the bigoted mess ‘out there’, why would I see any kind of positive in what is, on paper at least, a nationalistic goal? I do not have a nationalist bone in my body or any political or emotional affiliation with nationalism. Generally, when I think of nationalism, I think of moronic flag waving.

What I do know is that throughout the madness of this pandemic – the one Johnson keeps being excused for handling so badly on the basis that it could not have been foreseen – but which was foreseen and handled much better by other countries (some with fewer resources) – the idea of independence for this small piece of land north of the border has taken on epic proportions.

Being a writer and poet I strongly suspect it is because of what it represents – the rejection of the privilege and intolerance that now seem to go hand in hand in the English populist politics -  as much as the tantalising idea of having a grown up in charge.

As I mentioned last week – apart from having the morals of a stray dog – Johnson is lazily grinding through the Trump playbook. He got where he is because of enablers in the same way as Trump and in one of the worst crises of modern times he has been found not just wanting but uncaring and dangerously out of his depth and  despite his only-money-can-buy education, just basically stupid.

It is old news that during the Scottish referendum, Scotland was assaulted from Tory, Labour and Liberals with scare stories about financial obliteration if it left the UK union. Well, we have financial ruin now, massively exacerbated by the way the pandemic was mishandled and the vulnerable were let down. Fiscal annihilation is about to be completed by Brexit.

Up here it was clearly stated in 2014, that in order to stay in the EU Scotland had to remain in the UK. Another con. At that point we hadn’t had the big red bus of lies that indicated a whole new sewer level of politicking and gross dishonesty.

Another awful theme of the last few months has been the exposing of inequalities to such a raw level it would make an African dictator weep. The higher death rates among Black and Asian front-line workers, speaks to silent sacrifice in the face of the horrors of recent Brexit racism. The simmering prejudice and intolerance encouraged by Farage with no effective comeback from any of the major parties at the time, is a stain on Britain forever. And that is what paved the way for Johnson – the only Tory who could out-Farage Farage.

The Windrush scandal and – again – the blaming of black / brown people and foreigners, reeks of pre-1930s Germany. Britain and all civilised countries should, by now, be well rid of that shit. But, I argue strongly – this is all about English nationalism and not Scottish or Irish (don’t ask me to explain the Welsh) and it is why every person of colour north of the border, should think about painting their faces blue and voting for independence and fighting for the right to have that vote as hard as they can. If Black Lives Matter then this may be the one chance any country in the union has to show that as a real truth. Ditch Westminster and the old white-right by showing them the door and a real end to the colonialist fantasies they so fetishize.

I rarely march any more. I did my stints with the Miners’ strike and I saw from the anti-war demo – one of the largest ever in the UK against the invasion of Iraq - that they rarely work unless there is an after plan. I did, however, attend an independence march last year here in Edinburgh and saw – amid the thousands – ONE other brown face. I wonder if those genuinely interested in Independence think they can win without all those who have a stake in this, turning out to vote. Despite the tourist image of Scotland there are enough people now, like me, to make our vote matter. If the independence movement ignore us, they may as well keep painting their faces blue, singing Flower of Scotland and nursing their own nationalist fantasies and plan to do that same every year forever.

Ordinarily a commentator talking about a political decision being a matter of life and death would be ridiculed and called out for extreme hyperbole (if that’s not a tautology!) but at this moment in time and for the new world of pandemics, climate disaster and financial insecurity, to have an adult in charge and be properly connected to our best trading / economic / security / health and science partners in the EU, really is a matter of life and death.

359. Kamala Harris points to a new 'Land of Hope & Glory' while Johnson works his way through the dirty dog-eared Trump playbook.

 

From Gavin Williamson (crap secretary of Defence and useless Education Secretary) to Dominic Raab (shite Brexit Secretary pathetic Foreign Secretary), Pritti Patel (Home secretary who was forced to resign under the previous administration due to corrupt meetings while visiting Israel) to Dominic Cummings (current Johnson Svengali), the path to becoming part of this British government is to fail your way to the top. If, en-route, you manage some low grade corruption, a track record of blatant dishonesty and a lack of scruples, some barely disguised racism, peppered with excruciating arrogance and stupidity then Boris Johnson will welcome you at the top table. He has all these qualities so no wonder.

As the UK press pontificates about the choice of Kamala Harris as Papa Joe’s running mate I am struck by a couple of  things.

Joe Biden has – even before (hopefully) his election- made one of the most radical choices in modern US history. Our own party of the centre left has yet to elect a female leader and passed on the chance to elect a non-white male when the leadership of the Scottish Labour Party was recently up for grabs under the disastrous Corbyn.

The Tories have had two female leaders who became Prime Ministers, the first intent on smashing the working class and selling off Britain’s family silver and the second who gave us the hideous ‘go home’ vans when Home Secretary and seeded the Windrush scandal during the same tenure.

Our current PM is a racist misogynist with the morals of a stray dog, known for being a professional liar who failed his way to the top. Britain is, now, fully entrenched in a dystopia where the qualifications for power are to be a privileged white man or a professional arse licker of one.

Let’s look at our own deputy leader. He once described feminists as “obnoxious bigots”, admitted – when Brexit secretary – that he did not understand the importance of the Dover to Calais trade route and thought ‘taking the knee’ was something that came from Game of Thrones… I’ll stop there. His incompetence already makes him a legend in his own wardrobe.

I consider myself a progressive and an egalitarian who – under different circumstances (ie – no Trump) – might not have been praying for the election of a Joe Biden. However, from this moment in time in this country under this abomination of a government rife with incompetence; with a Prime Minister working through the dirty dog-eared pages of the failed Trump playbook, our troubled historical friends across the Atlantic begin to look like a country that could emerge, after November 3^rd, as the real Land of Hope and Glory while Britain is, increasingly, the Wasteland of hopeless Tories…

 

 

An old doodle -

358. Western whining!

 

In conversation with a dying friend yesterday, I was forcefully struck by the real weirdness of Boris Johnson’s lack of care and idiotic priorities as we stagger haphazardly into the 8^th month of the year and the 6^th month of a failed approach to an inevitable pandemic in a supposedly developed country. We still have no fully functioning, overarching track and trace programme – never mind a coherent policy on any kind of protective measures - measures that frankly are 6 months too late anyhow.

The question posed, with a raw level of incredulity by the friend in question, who is trying to approach his last few days with dignity during this mess – was “Why are people being encouraged to take risks for a pint in a pub?”

Is there a better question?

We realise that unless society is going to stay in lockdown long-term, and that would be to the long-term detriment of the many, especially the young, we have to open up. But some things are more worth taking the risk for than others. Two things that fall into that category would be mental health (I know of more people under 40 who have committed suicide than have died of covid-19) and education. Neither has been at the top of the government agenda. Flying to Spain and drinking in pubs however, have taken up much political blether and media air time. It is pathetic.

The second conversation which informed this week’s post took place at the weekend.

I was fortunate enough to be with family at the weekend but unfortunate enough to therefore to be in the vicinity of a TV and thus more exposed to the trite mainstream media and popular rubbish that passes for news in Britain and the god-awful drone of privileged people whining about the privations of their comfortable lives. I then spoke to a neighbour who has worked in parts of the world where every day, parents are forced to give their healthy children water that they know may kill them. The contrast of the bleating over cancelled holidays and not being able to eat out or go to the pub made me feel truly sick – and ashamed.

Now the West has had a very small taste of insecurity – would it be a good time to care about those whose lives are like that ALL THE TIME?

Now that the UK has had a taste of what it’s like to face a deadly disease with no cure – might we find (finally) some compassion for countries that face this annually? Could we even perhaps think of making consistent efforts to help those in poor countries who die daily of diseases for which there IS a simple cure and or prevention but who suffer needless deaths every year – often in the very young – simply because there is no adequate healthcare or those countries are so broken by paying back corrupt loans to wealthy countries like the UK that they are unable to spend on education and health.

 

Now that some in the UK (not Dominic Cummings of course) have experienced the restriction of lockdown – albeit in homes with indoor sanitation, TV, internet and more food in the fridge than some see in a month – might we have some compassion for those living weeks, months, sometimes years in squalid, unsanitary, unsafe refugee camps; sometimes living and dying there never having known freedom.

Might we for once – think about those whose experience of life is a little like our experience of covid but much worse and all the time?

 

NB – for the bizarre members of the public who the BBC somehow manage to find (under a bush somewhere – or in a cupboard in a studio where they’ve been deprived of sunlight for over 48 hours) who claim to think Boris Johnson has done a good job –

According to the government’s own Office of National Statistics – which reported at the end of last month – between the end of February and the middle of June the excess mortality rate for England was higher than for ANY OTHER EU COUNTRY. ‘Excess mortality rate’ is the only truly reliable comparative figure.

357. Confused by Britain’s disastrous covid response? Re-read Mantel.

I finished re-reading Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel yesterday. I’m finding it difficult to concentrate on anything new under the shadow of the UK government’s internationally derided criminal incompetence.

Immediately after closing the book, I got to thinking just how similar is the dynamic between King Henry and Thomas Cromwell and pseudo-king Johnson and Dominic Cummings. You don’t even have to go as far as the discarded wives.

Boris Johnson is not the physically impressive figure Henry VIII was and Cummings is not, despite his own fantasies, the adept, ingenious manipulator Cromwell was but if we think Cummings is the ultimate puppet master, we underestimate the strain being put on the strings.

Commentators, including me, have imagined we see Cummings running things for Boris Johnson but Johnson is the ultimate player and it may be Cummings who loses his head as Johnson sails ever on untouched in his gigantic, un-anchored cruise ship of privilege.

When the next set of after-the-horse-has-bolted covid rules that make no sense are landed on the UK public from nowhere with no notice or proper reasoning or logic  – instead of searching for a rational explanation just imagine the whim of a mad – self-obsessed- spoiled-brat, misogynist, jingoistic king and it will make a horrible kind of sense…