438. Boris Johnson inches towards total FRUITCAKE!

So, the War in Ukraine slips inevitably down the list of things the media can focus on in this world of trivia and tiny attention spans.

More people in the UK sink into poverty and longevity in certain of the poorest parts reduces, NHS waiting lists grow, the obesity epidemic balloons, the health of children is compromised from all angles and access to dentistry is a matter of luck.

The mess the Brexit bastards have made in Ireland continues to cause devastating political problems that were entirely predicted by those with common sense back in 2016.

Vile and extraordinarily wealthy people continue to whine about the fecklessness of the poor. Among others there is the eye-wateringly tone-deaf MP Richard Drax who owns 2% of Dorset and whose historic wealth comes in part from Slavery. He was in Parliament last week complaining about the chancellor helping poor people (not that the poor have noticed as food and energy bills rise, amidst the cost of living crisis and energy companies continue to make staggering profits). But this dumb arse, whose ancestors were brutal economic parasites on my ancestors, reckons his lot (those who deserve to be wealthy!) should not see the country’s resources used to save people from cold, poverty, health degradation and hunger. Yeah – right…

The Sue Gray report into the government’s breaching of its own rules during covid was undermined before it was published by leaks of a meeting between the author of the report and the most prominent subject (the PM) of the supposedly independent investigation.

The full horrors of the Brexit trade catastrophe are due to hit us in the autumn as are the fuels price hikes and the cost of living crisis. 

Boris Johnson has decided that the answer to it all is to reintroduce imperial measurements. The fact that many imperial measurements never went away is entirely beside the point.

Yup. Measuring the  withered potatoes or rotting carrots or weeks-old meat shipped from Australia in pounds rather than kilos and putting a tape measure around an obese four-year-old’s waste that measures in inches rather than centimetres is the answer. Sure.

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As always thanks for reading and do check out my adult novels, children’s books and poetry anthologies. My BOOKS

437. Jubilee celebrations are in the worst possible taste.

I remember our street having a party for the queen’s silver jubilee in 1977. I even have the coin we were all given – I think you can buy them for about £4 on ebay now.

But then I was a child. It was a party, there was food. It was fun. A little earlier than this I also received a letter from her maj (or one of her ladies in waiting at the time) in response to one I’d written. And – I am – as any regular readers will know – a prolific letter writer with my missives published in most of the main UK papers, Scottish papers – and even a couple times in New York and Jamaica – like this one George Floyd couldn't breathe - Prince Andrew can't sweat

But the thing is I am a sentient adult now. I realise that while celebrating unearned wealth and privilege is a bit mad at the best of times, at time when increasing numbers of her majesty’s ‘subjects' cannot afford to eat or pay bills, there is something so unbelievable vulgar about the whole thing it almost defies description. So that is why I shall not waste words but simply post a recent letter of mine published last week in The Herald -

 

Dear Editor,

AS we mindlessly blunder into the Jubilee ‘celebrations’, as we seem to mindlessly blunder into a lot of things these days, has anyone stopped to ask if it is appropriate?

There is an horrific war on Europe’s borders. You know, the one the Prime Minister keeps using as a smokescreen for everything he doesn’t want to deal with.

There is a cost-of-living crisis, and a crisis in Ireland. People cannot afford to heat their homes or to eat. The NHS is on its knees. Families are daily sinking into poverty and debt.

The full impact of Brexit is not yet upon us – as the “overgrown prefect” pointed out, we are still in the pre-horror period of full impact.

Is this really the time for the nation to be gloating over unearned wealth and privilege? Because it seems like the worst possible taste to me.

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as always - do check out My BOOKS Thanks.

436. The Rich are so CHEAP.

The Johnson’s wanted £850 per roll gold wallpaper in the Downing St flat having sneered at the John Lewis stuff left by Theresa May. However, the idea that they should pay for it – as per the rules – seemed to appal them. Boris Johnson tried to get a Tory donor to foot the bill (and wanted – apparently – someone to fork out for childcare for the latest addition to his un-numbered spawn).

‘Sir’ Philip Green clearly felt he was entitled to a bigger yacht and asset stripped BHS including wiping out the pensions of long-suffering staff – some of whom had worked for BHS for decades. See my post Does Sir Philip Green kick disabled kittens? 'Sir' Phil was not stripped of his title despite complaints - and one can only assume its becasue the wealthy/powerful find this behaviour entirely acceptable.

Jimmy Carr who famously was caught out tax dodging – despite being a wealthy man from a privileged background with a successful career, nevertheless recently threw victims of The Holocaust under the bus in order – it seems – to draw more attention to himself and his Netflix show. More attention = more money. And while – as they all do – he gloated about being ‘cancelled’ in fact he predicted it with a relish that revealed a deliberate ruse to gain attention as cheaply as possible – and I use the term CHEAP here in all its meanings.

Last week, Naomi Long, the leader of the NI Alliance Party pointed out that the DUP, currently holding Ireland to ransom over the NI protocol, are refusing to take their seats in Stormont. They are refusing to start working on the long list of social problems facing ordinary Irish people. They did, however, rock up long enough to sign for and collect their salaries. No one is suggesting that an MPs salary on its own would make someone wealthy but compared to many of their struggling constituents they are doing well from the public purse – while paralysing the country.

Tory MP Lee Anderson while celebrating foodbanks (!) claimed that the real problem is lack of cooking skills. He deliberately ignores the massive rise in the prevalence and use of foodbanks since the Tories came to power and the rise in numbers forced into poverty and the disaster of Universal Credit etc.  And, while taking the Dickensian approach blaming the ‘undeserving poor’ this guy claims – on top of his MP’s salary – hundreds of thousands of pounds in expenses. Check out my post – Bad memories of political bullying

Rishi Sunak – who has been a previous subject on this blog – is presiding over benefit cuts and a rise in poverty and destitution and a cost of living crisis while enjoying extreme family wealth. Nevertheless, the Sunaks went to some lengths to ensure that none of that money ended up - via the legal tax system -  anywhere near silly projects like the NHS or schools.

And don’t get me started on all the nonsense surrounding the Jubilee. Put aside the racism and the clear royal preference for Prince paeodo over a strong black woman (Monitoring the skin tone of Megan's baby ) – some of those employed by one of the wealthiest women in the world earn just below or barely above the Living Wage. You think folk would be freer with money they hadn’t actually earned themselves. But no. The well-off are cheap and the rich are cheaper. 

There is more than enough to go around at least there would be if a handful of entitled, privileged, greedy, corrupt, people didn’t hoard excessive amounts of money and resources and then feel entitled to even more.. .

They rich are so CHEAP.

The richer they are the cheaper they seem to be and that is the real sickener in a world where the struggle just to survive is getting harder and the wealth gap is now a chasm.

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I said a couple posts back that I’d post a clip if I managed to get some footage from my short set at the comedy club in Dundee and I have little bit. And Mr Carr gets a mention after an interesting mix up by one of the club’s organisers!!! Click the lik to have a look. Aspirational Bathroom

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To check out my books go to previous post.

435. UK Elections, fake equivalence & the DUP recklessly holding Ireland to ransom.

 So, the UK election results were what anyone paying attention predicted. Roughly. Normal folk were – broadly - revolted into ousting a lot of Conservative councillors.

Ditto – in NI where many were disgusted by the way the DUP, bribed by Theresa May with a £billion to support her failures and representing a country that, like Scotland, voted to remain in the EU, have not enjoyed being played by the Tories. Having supported the party that birthed the NI Ireland Protocol, the DUP are now recklessly holding the whole of Ireland to ransom, refusing to join the power-sharing administration, because they want rid of the very piece of legislation, the NI Protocol, that Johnson used to push his abysmal Brexit deal through.

Up here in Scotland similar shifts happened with the added nuance that the misogynist sex-pest Alex Salmond – (yes – written about years ago in more politically positive terms on this blog before these things were publically known) - and his new party (Alba) idiots and at least one outed racist – got wiped. So, some really good news.

So far so reasonable.

But there is still the massive problem of the rancid media diet-of-dumb being served up on a daily/hourly basis.

We can only speculate who has harried the Durham police to investigate Labour's leader Starmer having a beer during a campaign meeting but clearly it is meant to join a line in public perception between that and the endless parties attended by liar-in-chief, serial philanderer and amateur racist – the man who was too busy at the start of covid disentangling from his cancer-in-remission wife because young Carrie was pregnant – to attend Cobra meetings.

The faux equivalence is the tool of choice in Royal circles too. So, the announcement that the dodgy Duke of York will not be on the royal balcony is firmly conjoined with the news that neither will Meghan and Harry. So, being into sex-trafficked vulnerable young women – costing your old ma £6million to pay off your latest hideous behaviour and fleeing the country because of institutional racism, palace bullying, the vileness and jealousy of your in-laws and lack of support is – er - the same!!!

And – while no one would call the election results anything other than middling – it’s not quite the Tories did badly but so did Labour – painted by parts of the media.

Labour have not just been fighting the vile Corbyn legacy (and for those of us on the sensible left – the Blair atrocities) but also a very Johnson-friendly Tory-afeared media plus the current apparent popularity of both racism and misogyny in our civilised country.

In that context we need to extract and extrapolate the results in a more sophisticated manner and recognise the fake equivalence for what it is.

It does leave a problem for the Tories because the best time to rid themselves of the lying, corrupt, racist, useless blonde blob-man would be nearer the next scheduled election so they can claim all the crap was about him and look – here’s someone shiny and new. It’s worked before. He of course will never accept he is the problem or that he has done anything wrong and does have the power to call an earlier election. So, watch-this-space as they say.

And – should there be a snap election – even with Labour’s showing and the rise of the Greens and the resurgence of the protest-vote-pros the Lib Dems, do not underestimate the current public mood for self-harm. Just look at the Philippines where Marcos Junior – son of mass murderer and kleptocrat, Ferdinand Marcos and mad, idiotic shoe-wife Imelda is looking like the next big obvious political mistake.

Plus, in many areas of the UK that just couldn’t get enough of the racism of Brexit – so called – red-wall areas – no such mild progress was made.

So – the answer to my blog of a couple of posts ago asking would swathes of the electorate ignore their best interests and continue to respond to the racist dog-whistle – is – yes – it sort of looks like it a bit…

 

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Swerving smartly over to happy land – do check out my children’s books this week and remember there are videos on youtube to go with all the poems in Fun Poems for Children.

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434. Britain beats Greece AND Italy.

Something to celebrate at last?

In October 2020 – I posted –  Greece here we come!

All empires fail and fall. Most implode either through over-reach or the rot of complacency and corruption which sets in when the master of the universe types who ‘build’ empires with bloody brutality – often tactical and military genius – and just the raw desire to own what everyone else has, have gone. There often follows – in the longer-lived empires a period of exceptional display; of building, art, cultural development, philosophical and scientific development because of the mix of talent, wealth and free time of many of the elite and of course all the hard job of actually living being done by slaves. So far so good - as long as you’re not just one of the mob or a slave...

But then those who were in at the start and drove the expansion are superseded by those who grow up expecting life to fall into their laps. They have what we call today entitlement. They are blind to their short-comings and shored-up by position they have not earned and wealth they have not earned and the fawning adulation of those whose positions rely on the structure that has stagnated.

The point I was making in my blog referencing Greece is that the fall of Britain may be one of the fastest, most spectacular acts of conscious self-harm coupled with lack of self-awareness in history.

Greece may well have failed due to a 300 yr drought. Who is to say that was not the case? Rome arguable rotted from within with the usual mix of corruption, infighting, sexual degradation, greed, overreach and promotion of the privileged rather than the talented.

Britain somehow held onto the credibility of empire long after much of the empire was gone. A significant part of the modern world spoke English. The influential motion picture industry was predominantly English-speaking. And though the world was re-set after WWII – Britain managed to scrape a foothold in the new world with massive post-war social reform further stabilised when it secured membership of European Economic Community which began in January 1973.

However, there was to be only a very short gap – 6 years – between that event and the biggest disaster for working Britain of modern times – Margaret Thatcher.

From that time to the the Royal Mail give-away in 2014, everything that belonged to the British people was sold off. ALL the family silver. There was the punishment beating of the working class which began with the miners’ strike and led us to where we are today – a country of minimum wage economics, growing wealth inequality, falling life expectancy in the poorest areas. We now make little of use to the world and have committed the final act of self-harm in Brexit.

If anyone is in any doubt – despite the fact that much of the media – and especially the BBC are terrified of saying the word   – last week in Bloomberg – Adam Posen, former policy maker for The Bank of England stated unequivocally that 80% of the current cost of living rise is down to Brexit, something farmers and logistics firms and lorry drivers have been saying for much longer. And it’s worth remembering not all of the rules of Brexit trade have as yet been implemented. There is worse to come.

So – really – I'm just echoing a former blog and of course pointing out that for once – Britain won something. In this case – gold in the fall from grace race.

Although, we didn’t fall – we jumped.

The UK still had major standing in the world at the turn of the 21^st Century but is now an economic basket-case run by sexually incontinent, entitled morons, bullies and corrupt, avaricious non-entities. You can only conclude that when it comes to self-annihilation – we beat both Italy (Rome) and Greece.

Well done us.

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Small comedy gig in Dundee tonight (tues 3^rd May) Hunter S Thomson pub basement ICEBREAKER comedy. If I get any footage I’ll try post something on youtube. It’s been a LOOONG time.

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