I mean, where is it? How big is it - the gigantic rug
Boris Johnson has swept the dirt of reality under?
All we’ve heard since Brexit is closures, closures, closures and
companies moving abroad. From manufacturers to financial institutions, they’ve
bled away. Then there were the raft of companies that realised, in the aftermath
of Johnson’s Brexit “done” declaration (just as he went AWOL to sort out
his latest divorce to smooth the way for the pregnant daughter-age GF – thus leaving the
country to its own devices at the start of the pandemic!) they would at least
have to move their headquarters to the EU to avoid the mountain of business-destroying
bureaucracy created by the man who said we needed out of the EU to counter Brussels
‘red tape’.
Then there were the further failures of
businesses during covid and the economic damage exacerbated by Johnson’s
terrible handling of the pandemic (see multiple previous posts) and until
recently the government line was, as it has always is – nothing to see here.
I don’t know a lot of people and I am not on any
social media so I don’t even have the sort of echo chamber group links that
pass for social connections these days, but even I know of a significant number
of people who have lost jobs. Some in their 50s and 60s three of whom have never
previously been unemployed. Plus I know one young person who recently lost a job in insurance sales - something that traditionally does well during good times - the replacement job she was able to land is in debt recovery...
But where is all this in media or government
gush?
Day after day after day – especially on the TBC (Tory
Broadcasting Company) we get throw-away twaddle about percentage growth. There
is no context so no explanation that this is often growth – compared to last year
when literally nothing happened.
Slavishly, the majority of mainstream media outlets
focus on vaccines and whether the brutish (see Luton Airport last week)
British traveller will return to cheap climate-decimating flights to ‘boost the
economy’. Again – no explanation as to what is meant by THE ECONOMY. On this
blog I’ve outlined two types of economy that are both toxic and prevalent and
barely sustainable. The TAT Economy
(post 202) and The Cannibal Economy Underlying both is that they are not real or
sustainable.
But we’ve moved on so far from not real we are now in Johnson Land where grubby con artists and
tricksters – manage an alt universe. Somehow Johnson and his government (I use
the term loosely) are keeping the balls in the air and the plates
spinning. The carnival has not lost its thin lustre but the cogs of the
dilapidated machinery are grinding alarmingly and soon, very soon, there will
be a reckoning. If I had to take a guess I’d say this winter, after the Brexit
can which has been kicked so far down the road so many times finally comes to a
full-stop.
Then the economic sleights of hand, all done with
the connivance of a public willing to be diverted by bollocks top stories about dog detectives (both The Guardian and The Independent - I shit you not!) will suddenly come into sharp focus.
Because the dirty lumps under the rug (yes, you know I mix my metaphors) are
becoming so huge that even those deliberately averting their gaze will
eventually stumble over them.
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